Cold Season

I write because I am incredibly cold. I’m quite tired but can’t sleep due to the biting wind that’s blowing through my house. I’m currently making pathetic or seductive, I’m not sure, clicking sounds at my cat Z in hopes he’ll come share his warmth. He doesn’t seem to care. It’s the heart of what is simply referred to here as Cold Season. Hope arrived yesterday when the Peace Corps land cruiser paid me a visit as I thought they were brining my sleeping bag, alas.
What have I been doing, you ask? Well, directly before this I filled out my quarterly report, where I put into an electronic form how I’ve been saving trees and fighting poverty—It was a slowish quarter. Due to circumstances, I was not in my village as much as I usually am. Instead I spent a lot of time in my provincial capital some 200km to the northeast, Solwezi.
Solwezi is an interesting town and I never write about it because it seems a separate life from the one I lead here in the village, I never write about it because a lot of it’s stories involve other peace corps volunteers and peace corps volunteers read blogs. Plus who really cares what 30some young Americans do when they get together after a stint in the bush, it’s mostly light chit chat anyway. The town, on it’s own, even without my stories, is fascinating (look it up on Wikipedia, I’ll try and edit the post). 10 years ago it was bush, now there are copper mines open and opening all around the town. And on pay day, the line at the atm takes all afternoon. There is a modern grocery store called Shoprite (think Safeway with much longer and more aggressive lines), yet you can’t buy bread there because people have worked out a scheme were they team up to buy every last loaf of bread as it comes out the oven and then sell it outside for one and a half times the price. There are now four gas stations in the town, including a BP and I’ve been stuck there for most of a day because the town was out of gas. Solwezi is a town that changes from one month to the next. It’s growing faster than any place I’ve ever lived and it’s fun to watch. (this is where I fell asleep, so here the blog ends. Mom, Dad, Austin, Ben, bring a jacket and I’ll see you soon) .