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) .
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
hungry hungry hippo
Every time I turn on my computer to write this blog I have to wait for it to go through its startup sequence—it takes several minutes, as I think this machine has picked up a few tropical viruses of its own since coming to Zambia— and the final part of the sequence and the part that always takes the longest, is the quixotic quest (yes I’ve studied a bit lately for the gre’s) for the wireless network.
Now I’m sitting here in my mud hut. It’s dark except for my last candle, quiet except for the crickets and I’m thinking to myself “good god, my computer would save a lot of time and precious battery power if it would just give up its search for the wireless internet”. The nearest router is some 40km bike ride through the African bush. Its feed comes through a rickety satellite dish, it rarely works and I’m sure they turn it off at night anyhow to save on power.
Well, there was a window into exactly what was going on in my mind as I opened up Microsoft word. Now, in more newsworthy news… There is a hippo on the loose in the village! And he has eaten some of my beans. The past few days, people have been running around trying to catch and kill a 4 ton mammal with armor skin. I was asking my nearest neighbor, mr k, whose fields I had seen were heavily damaged by the hippo, how one went about killing a hippo. No one around here is in possession of a high caliber rifle. I’ve seen the guns they go hunting with. They’re made of a lead plumbing pipe and are powered by fertilizer turned gunpowder. I thought it highly unlikely they could take down a hippo. My neighbor explained that what they do is find a place where the hippo has been coming out of the water, dig a big hole and then hope the hippo comes out of the water there again. Once in the hole, the hippo is then stabbed to death with spears.
Now at the point I’m told this I’m unsure whether this is awesome and I want to go help dig a hole, or this was awful and I should try and lead the hippo 200km back across the rivers to the national park. At the moment the course of action I’ve chosen is to do nothing—the least life threatening choice. Anyway, the hippo is still on the loose. Mr k was telling me that back in 94’ they caught and killed a hippo this way and he was put in charge of making sure every member of the village got their fair share of the hippo meat. During the dolling out process, word got round that ZAWA was on its way to look into reports of a dead hippo. Momentary chaos ensued and the meat was gone in seconds, thus mr k said he ended up with only a foot and doesn’t know how the rest of a hippo tastes. It’s too bad.
Last weekend I got K10,000,000 deposited in my account for a grant I wrote to fund a beekeeping workshop. I went to collect and spend the money in town and felt much like a winner of the toys r us prize they used to (still do?) give where you got to run around the store for like a minute and throw as many toys as you could into your cart. Only in my situation, the toys were dried fish and flour instead of lego’s and mega wheels and my toy shop a bustling open air market. Sometimes I do feel like I’ve won something just by being here.
As a result of this shopping spree I ended up with a lot of stuff including an 8ft pit saw. Getting it all back to my village, some 200km away, on a bus was a bit of a trick. My flour still hasn’t made it as it got dropped at the turnoff due to a baggage swap but everything else did. And as soon as the bus dropped me outside my village with my pile of stuff and nothing but arms to carry, the sky opens up. It was possibly the heaviest rain of the year, I mean the bus driver had me come back on the bus and wait several awkward minutes before finally realizing it wasn’t going to stop all night and telling me I could get off now. There I was, yesterday, standing at the side of the road with my pile of new things. Luckily some brave souls from the market saw me and my predicament and rushed over to help carry my things to their shelter.
Things are good this side and I hope the same is true where ever you are.
Now I’m sitting here in my mud hut. It’s dark except for my last candle, quiet except for the crickets and I’m thinking to myself “good god, my computer would save a lot of time and precious battery power if it would just give up its search for the wireless internet”. The nearest router is some 40km bike ride through the African bush. Its feed comes through a rickety satellite dish, it rarely works and I’m sure they turn it off at night anyhow to save on power.
Well, there was a window into exactly what was going on in my mind as I opened up Microsoft word. Now, in more newsworthy news… There is a hippo on the loose in the village! And he has eaten some of my beans. The past few days, people have been running around trying to catch and kill a 4 ton mammal with armor skin. I was asking my nearest neighbor, mr k, whose fields I had seen were heavily damaged by the hippo, how one went about killing a hippo. No one around here is in possession of a high caliber rifle. I’ve seen the guns they go hunting with. They’re made of a lead plumbing pipe and are powered by fertilizer turned gunpowder. I thought it highly unlikely they could take down a hippo. My neighbor explained that what they do is find a place where the hippo has been coming out of the water, dig a big hole and then hope the hippo comes out of the water there again. Once in the hole, the hippo is then stabbed to death with spears.
Now at the point I’m told this I’m unsure whether this is awesome and I want to go help dig a hole, or this was awful and I should try and lead the hippo 200km back across the rivers to the national park. At the moment the course of action I’ve chosen is to do nothing—the least life threatening choice. Anyway, the hippo is still on the loose. Mr k was telling me that back in 94’ they caught and killed a hippo this way and he was put in charge of making sure every member of the village got their fair share of the hippo meat. During the dolling out process, word got round that ZAWA was on its way to look into reports of a dead hippo. Momentary chaos ensued and the meat was gone in seconds, thus mr k said he ended up with only a foot and doesn’t know how the rest of a hippo tastes. It’s too bad.
Last weekend I got K10,000,000 deposited in my account for a grant I wrote to fund a beekeeping workshop. I went to collect and spend the money in town and felt much like a winner of the toys r us prize they used to (still do?) give where you got to run around the store for like a minute and throw as many toys as you could into your cart. Only in my situation, the toys were dried fish and flour instead of lego’s and mega wheels and my toy shop a bustling open air market. Sometimes I do feel like I’ve won something just by being here.
As a result of this shopping spree I ended up with a lot of stuff including an 8ft pit saw. Getting it all back to my village, some 200km away, on a bus was a bit of a trick. My flour still hasn’t made it as it got dropped at the turnoff due to a baggage swap but everything else did. And as soon as the bus dropped me outside my village with my pile of stuff and nothing but arms to carry, the sky opens up. It was possibly the heaviest rain of the year, I mean the bus driver had me come back on the bus and wait several awkward minutes before finally realizing it wasn’t going to stop all night and telling me I could get off now. There I was, yesterday, standing at the side of the road with my pile of new things. Luckily some brave souls from the market saw me and my predicament and rushed over to help carry my things to their shelter.
Things are good this side and I hope the same is true where ever you are.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Pat Came
I’ve been in Zambia over a year. My existence here has become normalized in my mind. I guess you could say I’ve found my niche in this country and constructed a comfort zone which tends to make one less in awe of the goings on around them or at least of their absurdity. Riding my bike through rural Africa, arguing in kikaonde over a $0.05 price difference for tomatoes with a women along a wooded dirt path, or trying to avoid a zebra that’s grazing on the fairway of the 9th hole of the mine golf club don’t seem quite so novel these days and thus harder to get myself amped up enough in order to write about them. However, as my mom pointed out the other day, she is still immensely interested in my life here. So am I, and if for no other reason than to please my mom and to personally reflect on my current life situation, here is the 12th installment of the blog. I’m averaging almost a post a month…. Not bad in my opinion.
I had a visitor. His name is Pat, ch ch—A good friend and former house mate from college. Pat is currently teaching English in Korea at a robot high school. His visit happened to correlate with a music festival happening on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania. I hitched down to Lusaka, to pick Pat up, on the back of a truck carrying an estimated 5,000 avocados. You might be thinking to yourself that riding on top of avocados for 13 hours sounds tasty, it was. You also might be thinking it would be a bad idea for the avocados to have people on top of them, it is. There were bags of ripe avocados and bags of green ones. People were being instructed as to which bags were suitable for sitting. However about 4 hours outside Lusaka, the skies opened up and an old, stinky, oily tarp was pulled out and stretched across us passengers in the back. Through the ordeal, my friend Katherine, whom I was traveling with ended up on a comfortable soft bed of ripe avocados and had effectively made a lot of guacamole by the time we reached Lusaka. We managed to get to a guest house without having to purchase 200 avocados, but it was slightly awkward and guilt inducing, however putting people on top of avocados in order to make extra cash comes with its hazards I guess.
Pat reached Lusaka the next day and following a couple days in Lusaka where I was trying to finish and submit a grant proposal, we were off to Tanzania. We hitched a couple free rides up to Kapiri where there is another peace corps office/bunkhouse and then caught the train from there to Dar es Salem the next day. The train took a bit over two days to reach, but was a pretty luxurious way to travel. For about $25 we got first class tickets which got us our own compartment and bed. The train went through a large game reserve after crossing the border into Tanzania. Pat got to see giraffes, elephants, wildebeests and a hyena, which helped to alleviate my guilt for not taking him on a safari. The music festival on Zanzibar was held in an old fort in Stone Town and was a lot of fun. Unfortunately my camera is broken, otherwise I’d post some pictures of white sandy beaches and fort packed full of concert goers to make you all jealous.
Due to my poor reading and planning skills, Pat only was able to spend one night in my village. I wish it could have been longer as I was planning of putting him in charge of the literacy club for a bit, but travel is often measured in days and weeks here as oppose to hours and minutes and thus I think we spent about half of Pat’s time in Africa on some sort of transport—an experience in it’s self.
I’m back in the village now, trying to get my gumption up to bike into town. I told the forestry department I’d come meet them today. I wanted to finish this blog before I left so I could post it. I guess it’s done when I say it is. Done.
I had a visitor. His name is Pat, ch ch—A good friend and former house mate from college. Pat is currently teaching English in Korea at a robot high school. His visit happened to correlate with a music festival happening on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania. I hitched down to Lusaka, to pick Pat up, on the back of a truck carrying an estimated 5,000 avocados. You might be thinking to yourself that riding on top of avocados for 13 hours sounds tasty, it was. You also might be thinking it would be a bad idea for the avocados to have people on top of them, it is. There were bags of ripe avocados and bags of green ones. People were being instructed as to which bags were suitable for sitting. However about 4 hours outside Lusaka, the skies opened up and an old, stinky, oily tarp was pulled out and stretched across us passengers in the back. Through the ordeal, my friend Katherine, whom I was traveling with ended up on a comfortable soft bed of ripe avocados and had effectively made a lot of guacamole by the time we reached Lusaka. We managed to get to a guest house without having to purchase 200 avocados, but it was slightly awkward and guilt inducing, however putting people on top of avocados in order to make extra cash comes with its hazards I guess.
Pat reached Lusaka the next day and following a couple days in Lusaka where I was trying to finish and submit a grant proposal, we were off to Tanzania. We hitched a couple free rides up to Kapiri where there is another peace corps office/bunkhouse and then caught the train from there to Dar es Salem the next day. The train took a bit over two days to reach, but was a pretty luxurious way to travel. For about $25 we got first class tickets which got us our own compartment and bed. The train went through a large game reserve after crossing the border into Tanzania. Pat got to see giraffes, elephants, wildebeests and a hyena, which helped to alleviate my guilt for not taking him on a safari. The music festival on Zanzibar was held in an old fort in Stone Town and was a lot of fun. Unfortunately my camera is broken, otherwise I’d post some pictures of white sandy beaches and fort packed full of concert goers to make you all jealous.
Due to my poor reading and planning skills, Pat only was able to spend one night in my village. I wish it could have been longer as I was planning of putting him in charge of the literacy club for a bit, but travel is often measured in days and weeks here as oppose to hours and minutes and thus I think we spent about half of Pat’s time in Africa on some sort of transport—an experience in it’s self.
I’m back in the village now, trying to get my gumption up to bike into town. I told the forestry department I’d come meet them today. I wanted to finish this blog before I left so I could post it. I guess it’s done when I say it is. Done.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Off The Road
As many of you know, I haven’t been in Zambia for the past month, but rather off seeing the world. It just so happens that much of the world, for me, exists in Pleasant Hill, Oregon. I was home for Christmas and came to realize through conversation with family and friends that a lot more people read this blog than I originally thought. So, I’m feeling a bit guilty about leaving my readership hanging. There are several blog posts I’ve began over the past few months that I never finished or published so perhaps I’ll post a “lost posts post” (make sense?). Either way, let’s play catch up.
After a great Christmas/new years at home, which needn’t be explained because many of you were a part of it, I hopped on a flight back to Africa. I flew into joburg, got in around 5pm and rushed to the central bus station in hopes of catching the last bus to Lesotho where I was meeting up with a couple of friends—one a peace corps volunteer and another just visiting. Upon arriving at the station I was confronted with the reality that there was no bus leaving for Lesotho that evening and that I’d have to find a place to sleep. I’m usually a bit short on cash these days, but joburg is not a place to spend the night on the street, so I splurged on what I think amounted to, what they call in asia, a love hotel. The first room I was assigned had bedding strewn about and somebody’s abandoned nshima dinner sitting in the corner. I was tired and thought about just crawling into the used bed and perhaps picking at the forgotten food but the idea of the absent minded restless sleeper coming back at 2 in the morning prompted me to exchange rooms.
Anyway, I considered my night spent in joburg as a tactical retreat from my travel plans and the next morning I was up early in hopes of making it to Lesotho and finding Kali and Brittany. The small issue was that I had no phone and the number Kali had sent me for her phone was not working, thus I figured I’d just show up in the capital city, where they said they would be, and attempt to track them down. I mean, you’ve seen Lesotho on a map, it’s small, so how hard could it be to find two white girls who also happen to be looking for me? Well… I took a mini bus to the border and then crossed, took a taxi to the hotel I knew they had been staying the day before, only to find they had checked out earlier that morning and hadn’t left tell of where they would be headed. At this point I thought I might just be having a solo Lesotho vacation. However, I made it to an internet café, where I found kali had left a note for me indicating I should meet them outside a grocery store that afternoon. I found them.
Lesotho is a beautiful mountain country where most of the villages are built at the base or part way up the side of the mountains, I think in order to protect them from the wind. I spent much of my time traveling around, and a mean around as the country is a circle, Lesotho visiting various peace corps volunteers with Kali and Brittany. I found most of the volunteers in Lesotho have gas stoves, which is a huge quality of life improvement over sticks and charcoal, in my opinion. I also found volunteer moral there to be a bit low. There was recently a volunteer murdered in the capital city. From what I can tell he was well loved and his death has had a huge impact on the volunteer community as a whole, especially those that came to Lesotho at the same time, such as Kali and many of her friends I visited. It’s not really my place to comment on the current situation as I’m an outsider and saying too much will probably get me in trouble, but the support volunteers seem to be receiving from peace corps has been coming from the shape up or ship out mentality and as a result their numbers have dropped by about a third due to volunteers quitting or being administratively separated. This aside, my trip was a lot of fun and I even ended up saving a girls life by giving her the Heimlich maneuver after she choked on a large mint. Who knew that people really pulled that move in real life?
Following Lesotho, I hopped back on a bus to joburg where I had to, once again, try to track down a girl in an unfamiliar city, sans phone. Only this time I had never met her—I figured I couldn’t fail. Again I had the address of where she was staying so I figured I’d just saunter up to the front desk and they’d direct me to her. However, upon inquiring, I was told there was no record of such a guest at the hotel and that perhaps I had the name wrong. I wanted to meet up with this lady because she would be flying to Zambia with me the next day, where she was going to work at a clinic in my province as she’s a registered nurse back in the states. Also she had said I could stay in her hotel room and bum the ride she had arranged from the airport. Given the incentives, I decided not to give up on finding her too easily. I managed to finagle free internet from the hotel and proceeded to facebook stalk the girl. I found I had the name right and that the message she had sent me in fact did indicate she would be staying at this hotel. I went back to the front desk and asked them if they were sure that she wasn’t here. And the lady I asked this time said “oh yes of course, she just left”.
I was hungry so I decided I’d pull a stake out from the nando’s across the way from the hotel. How hard could it be to spot a 20 something white girl I’d never met? As I sat there intently (creeply?) watching every young Caucasian lady pass by as I dined on a chicken burger and beer, I came to realized I hadn’t done a sufficient job facebook stalking this girl. I couldn’t even remember whether her hair was blonde or black. I had also chosen a seat in the back of the restaurant so as not to appear too creepy when scoping out those passing by. I had several hunches that I wanted to act on and approach but my location meant I would have to abandon my dinner and chase them down the corridor. So I resigned myself to finishing dinner and then walking back to the hotel. As luck would have it, there was a young lady in the lobby who made eye contact with me, we pointed, laughed and proceed to go out to second dinner. The rest of my trip was pretty uneventful except for me missing my flight the next day.
I’m back in my village now, waiting out a rain storm before I can go get my sweet potatoes planted. Yesterday I spent in the boma where I met with the business association who got a large grant to start up a commercial honey project. I’m excited to be working with them as they have the resources and the initial drive that could help take the honey business here to the next level. Also I got the chance to taste the beer I brewed (thanks Rox) before I left and it’s highly drinkable. I brewed it in a container that used to carry gasoline so there is a slight petrol aroma to it, but I think that adds to the complexity and unique experience… plus it’s the only beer in town. I also found a pretty sweet mountain yesterday about an hour from my front door. I got some good photos of the surrounding landscape in which I live but as you may or may not have noticed, my photos have become a bit messed up both on the internet and here on my computer. So next time I have electricity and internet I’ll try to fix that and get some new ones up. Happy 2011!
After a great Christmas/new years at home, which needn’t be explained because many of you were a part of it, I hopped on a flight back to Africa. I flew into joburg, got in around 5pm and rushed to the central bus station in hopes of catching the last bus to Lesotho where I was meeting up with a couple of friends—one a peace corps volunteer and another just visiting. Upon arriving at the station I was confronted with the reality that there was no bus leaving for Lesotho that evening and that I’d have to find a place to sleep. I’m usually a bit short on cash these days, but joburg is not a place to spend the night on the street, so I splurged on what I think amounted to, what they call in asia, a love hotel. The first room I was assigned had bedding strewn about and somebody’s abandoned nshima dinner sitting in the corner. I was tired and thought about just crawling into the used bed and perhaps picking at the forgotten food but the idea of the absent minded restless sleeper coming back at 2 in the morning prompted me to exchange rooms.
Anyway, I considered my night spent in joburg as a tactical retreat from my travel plans and the next morning I was up early in hopes of making it to Lesotho and finding Kali and Brittany. The small issue was that I had no phone and the number Kali had sent me for her phone was not working, thus I figured I’d just show up in the capital city, where they said they would be, and attempt to track them down. I mean, you’ve seen Lesotho on a map, it’s small, so how hard could it be to find two white girls who also happen to be looking for me? Well… I took a mini bus to the border and then crossed, took a taxi to the hotel I knew they had been staying the day before, only to find they had checked out earlier that morning and hadn’t left tell of where they would be headed. At this point I thought I might just be having a solo Lesotho vacation. However, I made it to an internet café, where I found kali had left a note for me indicating I should meet them outside a grocery store that afternoon. I found them.
Lesotho is a beautiful mountain country where most of the villages are built at the base or part way up the side of the mountains, I think in order to protect them from the wind. I spent much of my time traveling around, and a mean around as the country is a circle, Lesotho visiting various peace corps volunteers with Kali and Brittany. I found most of the volunteers in Lesotho have gas stoves, which is a huge quality of life improvement over sticks and charcoal, in my opinion. I also found volunteer moral there to be a bit low. There was recently a volunteer murdered in the capital city. From what I can tell he was well loved and his death has had a huge impact on the volunteer community as a whole, especially those that came to Lesotho at the same time, such as Kali and many of her friends I visited. It’s not really my place to comment on the current situation as I’m an outsider and saying too much will probably get me in trouble, but the support volunteers seem to be receiving from peace corps has been coming from the shape up or ship out mentality and as a result their numbers have dropped by about a third due to volunteers quitting or being administratively separated. This aside, my trip was a lot of fun and I even ended up saving a girls life by giving her the Heimlich maneuver after she choked on a large mint. Who knew that people really pulled that move in real life?
Following Lesotho, I hopped back on a bus to joburg where I had to, once again, try to track down a girl in an unfamiliar city, sans phone. Only this time I had never met her—I figured I couldn’t fail. Again I had the address of where she was staying so I figured I’d just saunter up to the front desk and they’d direct me to her. However, upon inquiring, I was told there was no record of such a guest at the hotel and that perhaps I had the name wrong. I wanted to meet up with this lady because she would be flying to Zambia with me the next day, where she was going to work at a clinic in my province as she’s a registered nurse back in the states. Also she had said I could stay in her hotel room and bum the ride she had arranged from the airport. Given the incentives, I decided not to give up on finding her too easily. I managed to finagle free internet from the hotel and proceeded to facebook stalk the girl. I found I had the name right and that the message she had sent me in fact did indicate she would be staying at this hotel. I went back to the front desk and asked them if they were sure that she wasn’t here. And the lady I asked this time said “oh yes of course, she just left”.
I was hungry so I decided I’d pull a stake out from the nando’s across the way from the hotel. How hard could it be to spot a 20 something white girl I’d never met? As I sat there intently (creeply?) watching every young Caucasian lady pass by as I dined on a chicken burger and beer, I came to realized I hadn’t done a sufficient job facebook stalking this girl. I couldn’t even remember whether her hair was blonde or black. I had also chosen a seat in the back of the restaurant so as not to appear too creepy when scoping out those passing by. I had several hunches that I wanted to act on and approach but my location meant I would have to abandon my dinner and chase them down the corridor. So I resigned myself to finishing dinner and then walking back to the hotel. As luck would have it, there was a young lady in the lobby who made eye contact with me, we pointed, laughed and proceed to go out to second dinner. The rest of my trip was pretty uneventful except for me missing my flight the next day.
I’m back in my village now, waiting out a rain storm before I can go get my sweet potatoes planted. Yesterday I spent in the boma where I met with the business association who got a large grant to start up a commercial honey project. I’m excited to be working with them as they have the resources and the initial drive that could help take the honey business here to the next level. Also I got the chance to taste the beer I brewed (thanks Rox) before I left and it’s highly drinkable. I brewed it in a container that used to carry gasoline so there is a slight petrol aroma to it, but I think that adds to the complexity and unique experience… plus it’s the only beer in town. I also found a pretty sweet mountain yesterday about an hour from my front door. I got some good photos of the surrounding landscape in which I live but as you may or may not have noticed, my photos have become a bit messed up both on the internet and here on my computer. So next time I have electricity and internet I’ll try to fix that and get some new ones up. Happy 2011!
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Back in the saddle again: A bad place to be with horrible diarrhea
Well September has come to a close. By the time I post this it will probably be well into October, but one thing’s for sure, it’s hot now and it will be hotter then. September has been an interesting month. I turned 24 at which point my friend told me I was entering a very unlucky year according to the Shinto calendar. He wasn’t quite done with his unlucky years, but decided he would pass on his charm anyhow, as I probably needed it more than he did. His dog promptly died a week later (R.I.P. Muchima) and he contracted malaria soon thereafter. I fashion myself a man of rationality, but I’ve been keeping the charm with me nonetheless.
I guess charms can’t protect against everything— my dog, Lukatasio, died last week as well. There are quite a few theories going around the village as to the cause of death, but my theory is that it’s somehow connected to the rabies shot I gave him a few days before he died. Anyhow, he’s passed on and I was/am sad, but it’s funny how quickly you get over something like the death of a dog when no one around you cares about dogs the same way we do in the states.
Ha, ok well I was trying to make this blog post the positive follow up to my last one but I guess it’s off to a bad start. Work is going well here. I’m working with a local bee keeping group to try and boost their productivity and gain access to markets. Our bigger plan is to organize the groups within the district so that they can process, package and sell in such a way that they get their honey out of Kasempa where it currently sells for about $1.50 a liter. This project suffered some setbacks as I had to go to Solwezi last week due to “medical issues” which caused some missed meetings. But I’m back now and pacheche pacheche (bit by bit) we’re making progress.
As it turns out, I left Solwezi for my village just in time. The Peace Corps bunk house/office was robbed at gunpoint the day after I left. No one was hurt, but the house was full of new volunteers waiting to get posted to their sights, so it was a bit of a rude welcome to the province. It’s something that I guess could happen anywhere and I have felt safer in Solwezi than I feel in places like Chicago, New York or even Tacoma. But again Solwezi is much smaller and a dynamic area with all the mines and close proximity to the DRC so I guess the small town feel can be deceptive.
I guess charms can’t protect against everything— my dog, Lukatasio, died last week as well. There are quite a few theories going around the village as to the cause of death, but my theory is that it’s somehow connected to the rabies shot I gave him a few days before he died. Anyhow, he’s passed on and I was/am sad, but it’s funny how quickly you get over something like the death of a dog when no one around you cares about dogs the same way we do in the states.
Ha, ok well I was trying to make this blog post the positive follow up to my last one but I guess it’s off to a bad start. Work is going well here. I’m working with a local bee keeping group to try and boost their productivity and gain access to markets. Our bigger plan is to organize the groups within the district so that they can process, package and sell in such a way that they get their honey out of Kasempa where it currently sells for about $1.50 a liter. This project suffered some setbacks as I had to go to Solwezi last week due to “medical issues” which caused some missed meetings. But I’m back now and pacheche pacheche (bit by bit) we’re making progress.
As it turns out, I left Solwezi for my village just in time. The Peace Corps bunk house/office was robbed at gunpoint the day after I left. No one was hurt, but the house was full of new volunteers waiting to get posted to their sights, so it was a bit of a rude welcome to the province. It’s something that I guess could happen anywhere and I have felt safer in Solwezi than I feel in places like Chicago, New York or even Tacoma. But again Solwezi is much smaller and a dynamic area with all the mines and close proximity to the DRC so I guess the small town feel can be deceptive.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Seedless Gripes
I have a great job. I get to work with fascinating people, in a fascinating place, doing work, that if successful, will leave a lasting positive impact on a community as well as myself. I make my own hours, decide what projects I’ll work on and learn something new every day—not to mention I make hundreds and hundreds of Kwacha an hour. It’s hard to complain, yet I’ve found myself this past week reflecting on some of the challenges that come along with this gig.
The vast majority of the challenges stem from the fact that I’m living thousands of miles away from everyone I’ve ever cared about. I’ve missed the death of my Granddad, something I had come to terms with as a probable reality before I left, but nonetheless hard to be the only grandkid not there to say goodbye to a man I loved and respected. Both my two brothers are growing and changing in ways that will shape their lives and it’s a bit hard to swallow that I’m missing out on my chance to help nudge them in what I see as appropriate directions. I know they are doing great on their own, yet as an older brother I like to at least pretend my “wise” advice is given some credence. Friends are forging lives for themselves in which I currently play a minor to nonexistent role and a girl I love is attempting the same. I guess the hard part is the realization that life is dynamic and back home will never be the way I remember it. This isn’t a horrible thing, but enough to cause some melancholy musing once in a while.
The job itself also comes with its own set of hurdles. I don’t speak the language. Sometimes I think I’m getting better but almost as often I feel I’ve taken a step backwards—especially having just come back to the village after a month’s hiatus. I have a lot of ideas I want to get people here excited about, but it’s difficult to get them jazzed to follow somebody who stands up in a meeting and says “I like trees. We can like trees together by having bees.” People are friendly about it, but I can tell a lot of the time we just miss each other.
While like I said, it’s nice to set my own hours, the fact is that I’m supposedly on duty 24/7 while in the village. Sometimes I’m busy, and sometimes I’m not. I know the nature of work here requires quite a bit of waiting around and that it’s important to give myself time to do nothing, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that I could/should be doing something instead of sitting on the porch finishing my third book of the week. There is so much to do here that sometimes I get frustrated working at the village level. The system in which my farmers operate limits their set of options. Part of me wants to go straight to the top and address these issues rather than teaching one at a time to make compost and burn their fields… less often. At the same time, especially when I’m feeling tired; I think it would be nice to have a place where I go to work. A place where someone has decided what it is that I need to do that day and when I finish, I’ve finished.
Anyway I hope this hasn’t come off too gloomy. I just thought it would be good to write about some of the issues that keep life here interesting and challenging so that y’all don’t think I’m spending my days frolicking with monkeys and zebras through some lion kingesque safari advendutre. Zambia is a beautiful and mysterious (to me) place. It challenges me every day and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The vast majority of the challenges stem from the fact that I’m living thousands of miles away from everyone I’ve ever cared about. I’ve missed the death of my Granddad, something I had come to terms with as a probable reality before I left, but nonetheless hard to be the only grandkid not there to say goodbye to a man I loved and respected. Both my two brothers are growing and changing in ways that will shape their lives and it’s a bit hard to swallow that I’m missing out on my chance to help nudge them in what I see as appropriate directions. I know they are doing great on their own, yet as an older brother I like to at least pretend my “wise” advice is given some credence. Friends are forging lives for themselves in which I currently play a minor to nonexistent role and a girl I love is attempting the same. I guess the hard part is the realization that life is dynamic and back home will never be the way I remember it. This isn’t a horrible thing, but enough to cause some melancholy musing once in a while.
The job itself also comes with its own set of hurdles. I don’t speak the language. Sometimes I think I’m getting better but almost as often I feel I’ve taken a step backwards—especially having just come back to the village after a month’s hiatus. I have a lot of ideas I want to get people here excited about, but it’s difficult to get them jazzed to follow somebody who stands up in a meeting and says “I like trees. We can like trees together by having bees.” People are friendly about it, but I can tell a lot of the time we just miss each other.
While like I said, it’s nice to set my own hours, the fact is that I’m supposedly on duty 24/7 while in the village. Sometimes I’m busy, and sometimes I’m not. I know the nature of work here requires quite a bit of waiting around and that it’s important to give myself time to do nothing, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that I could/should be doing something instead of sitting on the porch finishing my third book of the week. There is so much to do here that sometimes I get frustrated working at the village level. The system in which my farmers operate limits their set of options. Part of me wants to go straight to the top and address these issues rather than teaching one at a time to make compost and burn their fields… less often. At the same time, especially when I’m feeling tired; I think it would be nice to have a place where I go to work. A place where someone has decided what it is that I need to do that day and when I finish, I’ve finished.
Anyway I hope this hasn’t come off too gloomy. I just thought it would be good to write about some of the issues that keep life here interesting and challenging so that y’all don’t think I’m spending my days frolicking with monkeys and zebras through some lion kingesque safari advendutre. Zambia is a beautiful and mysterious (to me) place. It challenges me every day and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Out and About
I haven’t felt like writing a blog post for a while which is why I haven’t. Who wants to read something forced? Anyway I have been bouncing around the continent for the past month and am preparing to bike back to my village tomorrow.
The beginning of august found me in Lusaka where I was attending a two week peace corps training session. From there I took my first vacation with friends to Malawi.
Malawi was a lot of fun. We hitched there and had some of the best rides I’ve gotten yet in Peace Corps. The first ride we caught was with the American ambassadors personal driver. He had been to defensive driving school in the states and he had working seatbelts. From there we caught a ride with a very quiet rasta man with a nice pickup and then got in the sleeping bed of a semi truck who took us almost all the way to lake Malawi.
The lake was beautiful and the fish was the best I’ve had in a long time. We stayed there for a few days and then went down to Blantyre where we stayed at the nicest hotel in southern Africa for four days . My friend adam knew the CEO of the company who owned the hotel so we got to stay for free. The breakfast buffet and shower were some of the most sublime experiences I’ve had in a long time.
I’m ready to get back to my village and settle into a more productive existence that doesn’t revolve around finding transportation and dinner. I’ll write more when I have something to say about that.
The beginning of august found me in Lusaka where I was attending a two week peace corps training session. From there I took my first vacation with friends to Malawi.
Malawi was a lot of fun. We hitched there and had some of the best rides I’ve gotten yet in Peace Corps. The first ride we caught was with the American ambassadors personal driver. He had been to defensive driving school in the states and he had working seatbelts. From there we caught a ride with a very quiet rasta man with a nice pickup and then got in the sleeping bed of a semi truck who took us almost all the way to lake Malawi.
The lake was beautiful and the fish was the best I’ve had in a long time. We stayed there for a few days and then went down to Blantyre where we stayed at the nicest hotel in southern Africa for four days . My friend adam knew the CEO of the company who owned the hotel so we got to stay for free. The breakfast buffet and shower were some of the most sublime experiences I’ve had in a long time.
I’m ready to get back to my village and settle into a more productive existence that doesn’t revolve around finding transportation and dinner. I’ll write more when I have something to say about that.
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