Well a nice guy at Kabwe Ministry of Health has let me use his computer so I will now blog. Yesterday I got to Lusaka and was planning on going straight to Mpelembe today, but I changed my mind to check on the progress of my application here in Kabwe.
I went to Lusaka to check on the status of my Visitor's permit. Good news is that I got it finally, bad news is it expires in about one month. They decided the expiration based on when I submitted my application at immigration, so my first 3 months are almost up. The next 3 months will cost me 1 million Kwacha or about 280 dollars. Cabipa sana. So I decided to come to Kabwe hoping to jab the MOH into further action with the desire to get a free work permit through them before I have to renew my Visitor's permit.
I got a ride to Lusaka from our farmer friend Peter. We left at 2 am and arrived at 8 or so. Oops the guy has come so I gotta go.
All is well!
18 December 2007
11 December 2007
Ho ho ho… No Snow
If all goes according to plans I’ll be blogging twice this month! Don’t withhold your excitement. At the moment I am in Serenje at the Peace Corps house, where they have recently invented the internets. Carrie and I came in because we could get a free ride, and so we could use the internet and send some mail. If you’re lucky, you might get a letter from me before Christmas, but I don’t know if any of you are that lucky. Especially cause I only wrote less than half the letters I was intending to so far. The other portion will go out when I get to Lusaka around the 18th. I’m getting a free ride with the white farmer who lives near us, Peter, and like 200 sheep. I get to ride in the front though, unlike the sheep.
Ok to flesh out my last post. New Chicken has more character than the other chickens generally. She often came inside the hut and I trained her to fly straight up in the air to grab peanuts out of my hand. She also makes very different sounds from the other two. Unfortunately she came very ragged and with little chicken-flea-tick things. We plucked and bathed her and she was better than a shiny new penny. She began laying eggs almost immediately. Good sized too. Fireball was still broody this whole time. A week or so after getting New Chicken, she and Pocahontas also decided to get broody. Oh boy. Three lazy hens. Occasionally I would drag them out of the chicken house so the would get some food and exercise. Incidentally, we decided to let them sit on the 3 remaining eggs we had left in the hope of baby chickies. Put their broodyness to good use, you know? Well, they quickly knocked one egg out of the house. Crack. Then they sat on the other two just fine for a while. Carrie and I ‘candled’ them and could see mini chicks and blood vessels and such. About halfway through chick development they decided to oust these two eggs as well. Poultry infanticide, who knew? In their defense, they probably did it by accident as they like to fight over who gets to sit on the eggs by using their beaks to cuddle the eggs over to themselves. Probably lost control and fell out a gap.
Eventually Fireball and Pocahontas decided to stop being broody like good chickens. They started fending for food more and spending most of the time in the great outdoors. Shortly after this phase the chicken house stand collapsed due to wood borer infestation. It happened at night so the three poor chickens just stayed inside, clinging to the stick floor like nothing was wrong. We moved the platform and house to the ground. After a week of just eating (with many supplementary peanuts and millet to encourage egg production) the two chickens began to lay. They couldn’t lay in the chicken house because New Chicken was lording over the empty nest basket. So one day while Carrie was preparing to go for a run in the ungodly hours of the morning, when the sun can barely even drag itself out of bed, Pocahontas saunters in and starts fiddling around in the dark corners of the house. Carrie informed me of this and went for a run. After hearing many strange shifting and scratching I got up to inspect the situation. Lo and behold, there were Pocahontas and Fireball both sitting on top of the huge bag of charcoal. I left them in peace and was rewarded with the danger clucking signaling egg deposit. So every morning since we have had to open the door really early to let the chickens in to lay their eggs on the charcoal bag, which gets lower and lower to the ground every day. Some days I have to catch or trap the chickens and put them on the “nest” because they don’t get a-laying before the enemy neighbor rooster begins to herd them over to the neighbors house. New Chicken has been brooder forever, and she hardly ever gets up to eat – only if she hears sounds of the other two chickens being fed. She’s funny though out of the nest. If you approach her she puffs herself up as big as she can muster - looking exactly like a miniature turkey - and then slowly tries to evade you while clucking away. Whew, that’s the chicken situation report. From its length, you might surmise it’s my entire life here. I shall now seek to prove you wrong!
Freedom Day; Zambia! Zambia! Home of the brave! Or something like that. All national anthems sound the same except for France’s - which is all about driving out the invaders and watering the French fields with their blood. We biked over to our friend Justin’s new house, where he had brewed us up 2,000 liters of “wine” and Zambian beer. Wine here (outside of the expensive imported stuff in cities [Mom, John – they have Coteaux du Layon in the Capital!]) means water + sugar + yeast, and if you’re really going deluxe, also some tea bags. There are at least 2 or 3 types of home brew beer though. Chibuku, even commercially popular as the brand Shake Shake (advertising campaign equates drinking of Shake Shake with obtaining respect. Especially ironic since Shake Shake is the cheapest, worst, and most common beer) is made from cooked corn flour (mealie meal) sugar, yeast, and water. Katata, which is what we were treated to, is made from broken millet grains, sugar, yeast, water. When we got there we were urged to sample the wine (teabagless) and katata. From the first vile taste, I knew we were in for a good time. Justin luckily had suggested we bring sugar for adding to improve the taste, and boy did it ever. I liked the Katata the best, especially with all the millet rolling around to add texture. Whenever I finished my cup (which was too frequently) I just waltzed on over to the giant plastic drum and got me some more wine or katata. There was enough to drown in. But Justin had insisted we make 20 liters of each “at-y least-y”. In addition, Freedom Day marked the day when Justin began to run his own bar, so there were many more liters of katata.
After tasting the Dionysian goods, Justin said his family just happened to be over and would it be alright if they joined us (this was after many weeks of him reiterating “just four, you, me, Ba Carrie, and Brenda”[his wife]). We acquiesced. In come Justin’s cross-eyed and wild mother, Brenda’s mother, two other random ladies who I guess were “aunties”, and Justins sick [step?]son. They all arrayed themselves on the floor while us muzungus and Justin got chairs. Carrie would’ve been sitting on the ground too if she weren’t as white as the sun is bright. I felt kind of guilty, but I guess us three were the ones who financed the whole affair. We sat around communicating in our sad Bemba and drinking for a while, me having to pee every 10 minutes (which gave me the unfortunate view of all those maggots squirming in their icimbusu – we drop flaming grass and hot coals down ours to keep them at bay) and Justin attending to his new customers every 10 minutes. His wife naturally was slaving over a hot bunch of logs. Suddenly Justin’s mother declared it was time for she and Carrie to dance. At first I thought she meant me too, which I dreaded, not being nearly drunk enough for 80’s Night dance moves. No just she and Carrie. They were given extra chitenges to don, rolled up and tied about the waist. In Zambia one must never dance unless adorned with the rolled up dancing chitenge. I don’t know what consequences would befall a dancing scofflaw, but they would no doubt be dreadful. An empty water jug and high African voices provided the music as all the “cells” were in the tape player at Justin’s bar-insaka. To Carrie’s credit she danced just fine while she and I both tried not to laugh. After some dancing they sat down again and we talk and drank some more. BAM round two of dancing, this time all the women joined in singing and carrying on. Looks like I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Carrie and I hadn’t eaten lunch, lured so early by the promises of the tasty and mysterious “African Cake”. So we just kept sitting around, long past lunch time. Finally out comes a bowl with the “African Cake”. It appeared to be some mashed bunch of eggs and tomatoes. Justin explained it was oil, flour, salt, eggs, onion, and tomato. Not very fluffy or cake-like, as one might imagine. Well we were famished, so were extremely dismayed when Justin gave us a “side plate” (Zambians sometimes use a “side plate” when eating with guests so that the guests can scoop out some relish into a plate of their own instead of everyone dipping into the communal one. I don’t think it improves hygiene all that much, especially when preceded by the communal water-only handwashing bowl) we scooped what we thought was our fair share and wolfed it down. It was actually pretty good. [Sidenote. There are two categories of Zambian food: 1. Bland and reasonably ok for you. This is the vast majority of meals, mostly encompassing the staple corn meal mush – nshima – and the relishes which you dip your ball of nshima in. 2. Tasty and terrible for you. These are snacks like the long fried donuts with sugar-margarine cream down the center, or the fried cassava-wheat-corn flour sweet patties, or fritters, French fries (“chips”) etc. Everything good involves a lot of oil. ] “African Cake” fell into the second category. We enviously eyed the rest of the cake until Justin put it away saying that he and his wife already ate some in the insaka. Damn.
We sat, talked, and drank for a long stretch until I finally asked Justin if that was all we were having to eat, then finally he brought out some nshima with vegetable relish. Whew. Not tasty, but it fills you up. After eating, Justin’s mother declared another dancing session, this time with Justin and I thrown into the mix. I tied my chitenge dance roll about myself firmly, with the knot making a nice bunny tail for me. The singing began and I stuck out both my arms as I’d seen our neighbor’s drunk son do so many times and moved my ass a little. I was awesome. I think. Well, after dancing I was showered with much laughter and natotelas (thank you in Bemba). After Carrie and I were kinda drunk we said we were going home. But what’s this! A man selling the “golden syrup”! Honey! Justin brought him over and bought us a cup full to take home. As we were bidding farewell, Justin decided to inform us randomly of the privileges of his marital status. “Any time I want to kiss [gestures] – no mistake” “I want to go to the bedroom – no problem – no mistake”. Well I certainly hope Brenda feels the same way.
I mounted my untrusty steed, cup of honey and dead bees in one hand, and Carrie and I biked home. We immediately conked out upon arrival and slept. Carrie ended up getting really sick (too much alcohol? Food or drink contamination? We’ll never know) all night so that was a bummer. She would hardly even touch my homemade Suku-mufungo wine when I made it a week later after that.
Carrie and I built a solar dryer using plastic scraps, tape, medical tape, innertubes, pipe cleaners, and sticks. Quite the effort, but takes in rain so we can’t use it until we invent the solar dryer shelter. I nearly cut off my damn pinkie getting the sticks. I was sure the mangled saw cut was going to get infected, but I followed ‘Where there is no Doctor’s advice and dug out all the wood fragments with tweezers and kept it clean and dry. Now I just have a thick and tender scar. We successfully dried tomatoes before the rains came.
Sun sun go away come again another day. Every day we hope for rain. Mainly so we won’t have to water the garden, but also because it means a period where one can move around with minimal sweat. Well it finally has started to come. First it would rain in the evening or night for two days then 5 days of no rain. Increasingly though the rain means business. Yay! The best part is really seeing the chickens all wet. They look so sad.
After Freedom Day, I went over to Justin’s to learn how to make a Zambian tool handle. We had just bought a hoe-head from him. So he taught us[me] how to make a hoe handle. Baalisambilisha ine shani ukupanga umupini ulukaso. And, no, I didn’t study beforehand how to say that in Bemba. I just rolled it off the top of my head. I was quite interested as I love knowing all sorts of DIY stuff. This also had the appeal of craftsmanship, quality, and utility. Just like a good bike repair. We went into the woods looking for one of the 5 “proper” trees. Justin was looking for a Mulombwa (beautiful wood, tan with brown heartwood) the 3rd strongest, but soon gave up and found a suitable Mutondo (Brachystagia something, the most common tree type in Zambia). He dug down to expose part of the root and chopped it down there. We brought it back to his insaka and started chipping it down using the imbaso (mini hand adze thing). After getting the basic shape, he took the head out of the imbaso and we used it to plane the handle fairly smooth. The next day he built a big fire and we stuck the hoe head in, trapped in a log. After the head is red hot, we stab it into the handle where the root of the tree used to be. Repeat over and over. Then Justin melted some plastic around the hole to hold it in place. Chapwa! I was pretty proud overall and asked Justin about getting an axe head so I could make my axe handle.
Shortly thereafter, Carrie and I set about making a field in back of our hut. We went to learn from the headman how he grows his maize and pumpkins. The next day we dug 45 holes for a cucurbit-legume combo and 18 holes for a sweet corn-runner bean-squash combo. We did “conservation farming” where you don’t hoe and plant the whole field, but add compost to spaced holes or “stations” in which you plant. Hot hard work. The blisters still haven’t faded away completely. The next day we planted and hoped for rain. It didn’t rain for a bit, though it had been the day before we tilled the soil. Some dastardly animal dug up some of the squash seeds and ate them. Also dug up the corn, but left it laying there. So we had to replant a bit. Now the field is flourishing, except for a few holes where nothing came up for some reason. Gotta replant them again. Unfortunately the grass is also flourishing along with these iridescent green and orange beetles who love watermelon leaves. So lots of weeding and squishing. We planted sweet corn, 6 types of beans, 5 types of pumpkin, 3 types of cantaloupe, 2 types of watermelon, and peanuts. I tried to intercrop so no species would be right by its kin, but the math didn’t work out perfectly. I’m sure it’ll work out though. I also want to plant some non-sweet corn that he headman gave us and some other stuff. We also started a new nursery in the garden with tomatoes, eggplant, soybeans, okra, swiss chard, lettuce, cabbage, and beets. Most beds are empty and in need of serious hoeing in of weeds and compost before being ready for transplants. Always work to be done around here.
The mangoes are starting to ripen! We now eat like 3 mangoes a day and it’s just the beginning. They are smaller than the cultivated variety you can get in The States, but really good! Some trees even have ones that taste faintly of coconut (why are there no coconut trees in Zambia!?!?). There is a huge old mango tree in the left hand neighbor’s house (in which there are no neighbors) and the damn right hand neighbor’s kids keep shimmying up it and taking all the barely ripe mangoes every day. They have their own mango trees, but I guess they ravish those pretty quick. Especially since they don’t mind eating unripe mangoes. It’s quite frustrating though, as Carrie and I had been assuming that since we were the ones adjacent to this mango tree (which even overhangs our garden) it would be ours. Selfish, sure, especially since we have many mango trees we saved from the old slash and burn season. But we want to eat 5 mangoes a day each and have enough to make mango jam and dried mangoes! Sometimes kids will also try and steal from our mango trees when they think we aren’t looking. I came upon this one holding this long stick trying to knock some large green mangoes out of our tree. I just said “iwe!” meaning “kid” “hey” or “you”, and she was halfway to the Congo before the stick even hit the ground. I have no doubt that there will be many fewer mangoes when we get back to Mplembe tomorrow.
Many weeks ago we went to our neighborhood white farmer’s house. We hitched with our bikes there and biked 14 k into the bush. Hard and unpleasant riding. It was hot and my bike is a piece of crap made in China. The seat also broke so was jabbing into my rear. Peter was having a training day on Jatropha growing (this oily-seeded plant from which bio-diesel can be made) for some villages in the area. He’s working with this company “Oval Biofuels” to get rural farmers to plant these things and then sell the company their seeds for 10 years. We read the contract and it’s actually a really good deal once you convert into Kwacha, since the going price is based off of the price of diesel fuel. We now are distributing seed to people in Mpelembe and are facilitating a meeting about it next Saturday at the school. I think it’s a good opportunity for our subsistence farmers to make some badly needed cash and to make an alternative to non-renewable fossil fuels. Of course I would rather all the cars just get off the road in the first place. If they must run it might as well be on organic biodiesel though.
Anyway, after the Jatropha training was over (we were way late) we ate nshima (no relish because there was only goat relish) and talked to Rayd Kabango (his name no doubt was supposed to be Loyd, but Zambians are constantly naming their children english names they can’t pronounce) about doing an agriculture training in his village of Chalilo (not chililo, which means “funeral” and caused a lot of confusion for the headman who thought we were going to mourn). After lunch, all the Zambians went home on bikes and we privileged whities went back to Peter’s house. We set up out tent in his yard amongst the white turkeys, guinea fowl (talk about an odd bird), and chickens. His house is this tall, beautifully thatched building. He lives right near a small waterfall with a clean cold river peopled by yellow baboons on the other bank. We even got to swim in it! It was amazing. To disprove Christian fundamentalists and put flowers on Darwin’s grave, all you have to do is watch those funny baboons for about two minutes. They are so human-like, just furrier and they bark like dogs sort of. After swimming, we went into the orchard to get oranges, marvel at all the fruit trees, and stuff ourselves with strawberries. After eating anything mildly ripe we drank some whisky-screwdrivers and snacked on spiced peanuts. When the bugs got too bad we moved inside and drank fresh milk from Peter’s cows, fresh coffee from Peter’s trees, and had fresh butter from Peter’s fresh milk!!! Delicious! Less delicious was the ramen noodles we got in lieu of more nshima and goat (which the South Africans apparently eat every meal like Zambians [not the goat necessarily] but call mealie pap or something silly like that. It would seem that no one in sub-saharan Africa has taste-buds) For dessert I had an avocado with sugar and rusks (these things South Africans eat for every breakfast with their coffee, basically squares of stale sweet dense bread. Almost like biscotti, but not as tasty). The talk between Peter, his father, his friend (all from SA), their Oval Biofuels friend (from Zimbabwe), Carrie, and myself, mostly was interesting stuff about development in Africa. Unfortunately there was an unhealthy dose of racism thrown in from all those Boers. I tried my best to argue, but a lifetime of living in a racist culture was too much for them. They believe there is something fundamentally different about black people from white people. I tried to explain it’s entirely cultural to no avail.
The next morning we got up early had lots of coffee and rusks and buttered bread and set off on the long ride home. Before leaving Peter gave us two huge bags of macadamia nuts!!! We are still working on husking, shelling, and roasting them to this day. The ride back was awful since my seat post is too short so my legs cant exert their full magnificent power to propel me with appropriate ease up the road. It was also 12 k of awful bush path and then 50 k of hot roads with hills.
The neighbor kids chopped down this big old tree in the woods near our house just so they could get a liter’s worth of caterpillars to eat. Can you believe it? I tried to tell them it’s bad to cut down a tree for caterpillars and that they could just climb up to get them. Wouldn’t listen or my Bemba was too bad. Hope that one small meal was worth it. I won’t even mention the tiny little birds and shrews. Yes, I know they don’t have access to a lot of protein and meat cause they’re poor. But their lack of access to protein isn’t a foregone conclusion as we in the Western world may imagine. They could eat the eggs of their 4 or 5 hens instead of the more infrequent slaughtered chicken. Their parents could have planned better and still have peanuts stored up from the last rainy season. As for vegetables, they could have a garden if they wanted to. They’re just as, if not more, capable of farming and hauling well water as ourselves. The headman has a garden that grows just fine by the sweat of his brow in all seasons, there’s no reason they couldn’t also. We would have given them seeds gladly. Carrie gave them some tomato seedlings once and they did nothing with them. They could have planted citrus, guava, and papaya trees. I can’t say I have any idea why they don’t do all these things. Instead they beg. I’d like to assume the most reasonable, that they had a bad harvest last year, but that only explains half of it. All I can say is I sure am glad that they are making a huge field this year and planting all around their house for vegetables. I just hope they continue the garden past rainy season.
Some things more humorous involving the neighbors: Falling-down-pants-boy, who’s name we finally ascertained to be Patrick or “Patti” and who is frequently hovering about our porch asking for sugar(to make beer)/salt/sweeties/bub(bubble gum)/peanuts/etc, has acquired a new pair of shorts. These don’t fall down ever, oh no, they just don’t have a back to them at all. So whenever he runs around, there are his two little baby ass-cheeks. The best part though is he sometimes puts them on backwards and then you can’t help but think that there isn’t really any point to him wearing pants at all. Naturally he doesn’t think anything of our stifled laughter or that breeze that blows so easily through his shorts. Kalunga, a 16 or so old son of the neighbors, came back from wherever he goes (I think it was fishing with his younger brother Joshua who we like). He never understands anything we say in Bemba though pretends to while smiling his gigantic smile like the sun. He also frequently wants to borrow our bicycles “bwangu” (quick), then takes many hours to return. He also apparently was hired by Justin to wash dishes and help brew beer? Justin orders him around all the time “Iiiiiwe, endesha endesha” (kiiiid, hurry hurry). But the best thing about him is that he started wearing around this wire with this metal clip at the end that Carrie threw in our trash pit. He thinks it makes a right smart necklace. The neighbors hoard all the broken electronics though they don’t even have batteries. Truly one persons’ junk is another’s treasure. Even if there is no reason behind it.
Whenever there is a chickenhawk (or any bird for that matter large or small) the neighbors automatically perceive it as a threat to their whole flock (even when there are no chicks that could possibly be carried by such a bird). They have this particular call they make to scare it off, though it doesn’t seem to notice one way or the other. The kids go like this “Gruyere gruyere gruyere! Wooooooo! Ayayayayayaya! Ahhhhh! Woooo!” or if only the father Iron Mumba is home, he says “Ahhhhhhh! Iwe! Iwe! Ahhhh!”
I bet you all were thinking “boy, sometimes it seems like a tough life over there, but at least they don’t have those damn Jahovas Witnesses coming to their door”. Well you’re wrong. Twice! First it was some nicely-dressed old men on bicycles. I was perfectly nice, but didn’t accept their copies of Awake! since I had read all the ones they had before. Next it was our very own dear old French-speaking village carpenter Maurice dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a friend! Well he had a new issue of Awake! in English, so I took it. If I was gonna be a Christian I have to say I’d be liable to pick the Jahovas Witnesses. Even though they say some crazy stuff, their little magazines are so informative and generally benevolent and accepting. Here’s a gem: “Imagine the joy at seeing loved ones resurrected from the grave!” I picture all these zombies lumbering around trying to hug eachother. Beautiful! What other religion is so dedicated and cares enough to have 2 monthly publications printed in Bemba and 20 other languages? There was also this article about this surfer who “found [his] hippie lifestyle unfulfilling” and ended up “finding something better than a ‘perfect wave’” in being a Jehovas Witness. Also, Carrie and I were over at the Headman’s place and they complimented us on our complexions (not the color, as they’ve readily noticed that we show dirt easy) and asked if we used any lotions or petroleum jelly or whatnot. We said no. Then out of nowhere the Headman declared that we “have the skin of Jehova”! We had no idea what he meant but nodded dutifully. Maybe because most depictions of Jesus make him white? Maybe some obscure passage in the bible talks about how soft Jesus’s cheeks were? I don’t know. We tried to explain that white people generally get a lot of pimples in adolescence and generally aren’t regarded as having good skin, and that it was especially unsuitable for sunny Africa. Shrug.
We finally made it to Kasanka National Park, which is only 40 k from us. We biked around a lot and camped at this nice campsite on the edge of a floodplain. It was generally very pretty and we got to see a vervet monkey and some more baboons all by ourselves. We also saw these unexciting antelope things called “Puku” that look exactly like deer, and maybe Situnga or Hartebeest or something. There are these stork-looking white birds that follow the Puku around everywhere – pretty funny. In the morning we woke up to the snorting of a Hippo, but were unable to find it in the tall grass by the river. Probably good cause otherwise we might be dead. In the evening, one of the friendly park managers who has one leg longer than the other and is always wearing a green jumpsuit brought us over to ‘Fibwe Hide’ which is this platform built way up in this huge tree with a good view of wildlife. There was no wildlife to be seen. Afterwards, as the night crept up we went into this field and literally millions of bats flew from the woods by the setting sun, over our heads, and into the other forest. It’s the annual fruit bat migration. They all come down to eat sukus. Sukus are pretty tasty so I don’t blame them. Yet like most Zambian fruit, it’s a lot of trouble to get any flesh off of them. At least they generally don’t have little worms- unlike the much more delicious mufungo.
We had a spectacular Thanksgiving feast! I bought cranberry sauce, potatoes, and squash in Lusaka. So we had: Soya piece turkey, glazed butternut squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, STUFFING!!!, and sweet potato pie. All was delicious save the soya piece turkey and sweet potato pie (sweet potatoes here aren’t like sweet potatoes in The States).
I finally finished the axe handle I was working on for many weeks on and off! Whew. I spent nearly an entire day and stayed up until 1 am shoving the hot axe head into the handle! It’s 1 am now. Dammit. This time I insisted on finding the best tree for the handle. No Brachystagia Julbernaria for me no siree! I first tried to set off into the woods with the knowledge gleaned from Justin and our ‘Know Your Trees!’ book on Zambia. I was after the Mulombwa aka Mukwa aka “African Mahogany” tree. I knew what to look for. Pinnate alternate leaves, hairy winged pods, furrowed bark. I even had some leaves in my pocket for reference an some drawings I did. All useless. I searched for literally hours in the woods behind the house, then all the way to the school until I finally recognized some. I gratefully cut one down after confirming the red sap that oozes when you cut it. But alas - the most important part, where the root meets the trunk, where the axe head would go, was partially rotted! I cut down another, same thing! I brought them back hoping to be able to fix them. The Headlady saw them and made fun of them saying they weren’t fit for anything. A day wasted. The next day I went to the Headman and asked for his assistance in finding a tree. He ranked Ndale the “Snake Bean Tree” as stronger than Mulombwa and Mutondo. But above even Ndale is the elusive Chewya! Chewya handles can last 5 or 6 years of hard use. He led me in the back of his house and chopped me an Ndale tree. Ha! He doesn’t know me well enough to know I’ve gotta do everything from scratch for it to be worthwhile for me. Also I wanted to find the Chewya. (Sidenote: I’m not cutting down magnificent trees, we’re talking about saplings from 4 to 10 cm in diameter) So I gave the Ndale he cut to Justin, since he needs a new axe handle. I went with the Headman’s son Wizzy to find a Chewya tree. Unfortunately he hardly knew what they looked like, so I settled for an Ndale and cut her down, much to my hands dismay. I even got blood on their axe handle. It was a lot thicker than it needed to be and being such a hard wood, dulled the imbaso a lot. Had to borrow our neighbor’s ibwe (sharpening stone from the river) wooowee, I can put an edge on that imbaso. I had the headman sharpen it once for me and he made it as dull as the sky is blue compared to me. Wizzy said I make it “too sharp”. No such thing when you’re working on Ndale I say. Anyway, got it down to the dark brown heartwood in places. Now it’s finished. It’s a good axe. Now that we have an axe and hoe, Justin’s wife declared in English “you’re a farmer now!”.
Oh this is interesting. Carrie just handed me the 2006 Report on the Global Aids Epidemic from the UN. It says 87.4% of Zambians live on less than $2 a day. From my old perspective I would have thought “those poor people! They must be starving!” Nowadays I think how much I wish I was in a situation where I could live on less than $2 a day like them. The book also says they make $890 a year. The stat is skewed too, because businessmen and government workers really rake in the cash, while most villagers make nothing or a little more. What do they even need that for? Once you’ve paid your $20 for a hoe head and axe head, what more do you need? Land is ancestrally inherited and free. If I was a Zambian, I could go up to the Headman and ask what land is not being used and cut down all the trees and setup a field for free. It’s great. As far as I can see, in terms of economics, the only thing that’s wrong is that the government isn’t spending enough on healthcare and education. I mean, there is mostly no economy to speak of, and that works fine! Unlike us in the U.S., people here are self-sufficient. They grow their food and build whatever they need. Ok they wear clothes we made now, but they were making clothes too before we came along. I know I’ve touched on this before, but the contrast is striking. The U.S. is sposed to be the land of individualism, yet there are few other places on the planet where one must so heavily rely on so many others flung across the globe for their daily bread. And ok, one might view it as a constructive web of interrelations and mutual reliance with our fellows, but that’s not how it is, we all know that. We’re completely alienated from our growers and manufacturers. I’ve never even been to the country my boxers were made. As you go about your daily routine, you rely on coal miners, engineers, technicians, truckers, and maintenance crews for the electricity that lights that bulb which was produced by miners, factory workers, truckers, and salespeople. You might brew some coffee with water thanks to sewage workers and coffee picked from a plantation in Vietnam or if you paid a bit more from a cooperative in Brazil by poor villagers trying to survive under newly imposed capitalism, then moved by truckers, air or sea captains, resold to processors, and resold to retailers, and bought by you. On and on through the day. As the Zambians go about their daily routine they rely on themselves, their family, and maybe a handful of other villagers (whom they know on a first name basis) at most. I guess it’s the alienation and inequality of Western civilization that really bugs me. We aren’t neighbors with the coffee growers, and they certainly don’t enjoy all of our luxuries. We live by being carried on their backs in sedan chairs.
Anyway, as I mentioned the chicken house in kaput. So Carrie and I asked Justin for some know-how and bought another length of bamboo. After studying other chicken houses we built a Zamchickenhouse of our own. It’s made of bamboo woven like a basket between stakes in a circle. We were having trouble with the roof until Wizzy showed us how to tie the sticks together better. Then Peg and Kalunga helped us thatch the roof (they hardly let us do anything which was disappointing). Finally Carrie and I chopped some bigger trees for the legs, and I got some more saplings for the crosspieces of the platform. Voila! It’s quite cute and rustic looking. Still no pictures of anything obviously as we are having issues transferring photos from cameras to computers.
We saw two chameleons this week! One at Justin’s which bit Carrie with its lack of teeth, and one just today trying to cross the path in Serenje. We kept the one today for a while and were nearly set to bring it back to Mpelembe as a pet. It didn’t even get mad and bite us when being handled. Cute little buggers. Not very good at changing colors other than various shades of green with a couple red/black/white spots. Very good at walking up things and moving their eyes all crazy. We felt bad for he creatures freedom though, so we let it go. Zambians think chameleons are poisonous and will club them to death, which explains the general lack of chameleons. That and their slowness and inability to really change color well.
Carrie already talked about the “hunting tigers” thing so I guess go read that story over there. Not fair that she got to it first. 2 am now. What dedication I am showing in bringing you tales of wonder and majesty!
Thank yous!
Dad! – Thanks for the truckload of books! No doubt the 2 lbs of chocolate will be reduced to negative lbs of chocolate in no time. So much chocolate! Yum. Also thanks for the toothpaste with which to counteract said chocolate’s effects on our teeth. Too bad I didn’t have all that iodine before, maybe my scar wouldn’t be so bad. I’m sure it’ll all come in handy. Thanks also for the Spotty updates. Really glad he is doing so well. We just ran out of tea too!
Tony and Carrie! – What an unexpected and pleasant surprise your package was! I searched it twice over for the Cell bio textbook, but couldn’t find it. Postal service must have taken it. Or Jeff Bennet. As mentioned in that section about “Jahova Skin” I’m really filthy so thank you for the legacy of our dearly departed Dr. Bronner. I’ll definitely update you and Carrie about the organic vs. non organic garlic powder, as we use garlic powder a lot. The only whole garlic you can buy in a 200 km radius is this teeny tiny midget garlic that isn’t even worth peeling. Chipotle actually is a particularly perspicacious gift, as we have just discovered the miracle of refried beans! I never knew they were so easy to make! You just keep cooking the damn beans until you can mash them. Then we make sad, terrible corn tortillas to eat it with. One time I made tortilla chips; a lot of work, but tasty. Is this your favorite toothpaste? They need to get more black face langur monkies on the monkey police force ASAP down there in India. If I was Monkey-Sheriff, I’d monkey-deputize a posse to go round up those monkeys that killed that guy. I'm loving the Poisonwood Bible already! Thank you both!You two have a letter coming to you soon, so that’s where I shall reply to your inquiries. How exciting that you have a wedding date! Did you pick the bone china serving platters or the solid gold? Maybe you'll get an hoe handle for a wedding gift.
John - Scuba diving! I want to do that. Glad things are going so well between you and your girlfriend! Hey read 'The Power Elite' - C. Wright Mills!
Mom - Send me 100,000 Kwacha and I'll send you some Coteuax du Layon for Xmas! Kidding. Glad you are reading this! T'embrace
Sarah! - How did you not know! Funny. I just sent you a letter assuming you weren't reading my blog. Funnier. So what is next after quitting grad school? I always knew you'd quit. I don't think you're cut out for boring research and an academic career. Fight the power.
Love you all. Keep everything on hold until I get back. Especially you Tony and Carrie! Tony, you wrote 2007 in your letter and Carrie wrote 2008, so I'm hoping you both miswrote and you're actually getting married in 2009.
Ok it's almost 4 o' clock, long post. Sorry for the typos. Night! Happy Thanksgiving!
Ok to flesh out my last post. New Chicken has more character than the other chickens generally. She often came inside the hut and I trained her to fly straight up in the air to grab peanuts out of my hand. She also makes very different sounds from the other two. Unfortunately she came very ragged and with little chicken-flea-tick things. We plucked and bathed her and she was better than a shiny new penny. She began laying eggs almost immediately. Good sized too. Fireball was still broody this whole time. A week or so after getting New Chicken, she and Pocahontas also decided to get broody. Oh boy. Three lazy hens. Occasionally I would drag them out of the chicken house so the would get some food and exercise. Incidentally, we decided to let them sit on the 3 remaining eggs we had left in the hope of baby chickies. Put their broodyness to good use, you know? Well, they quickly knocked one egg out of the house. Crack. Then they sat on the other two just fine for a while. Carrie and I ‘candled’ them and could see mini chicks and blood vessels and such. About halfway through chick development they decided to oust these two eggs as well. Poultry infanticide, who knew? In their defense, they probably did it by accident as they like to fight over who gets to sit on the eggs by using their beaks to cuddle the eggs over to themselves. Probably lost control and fell out a gap.
Eventually Fireball and Pocahontas decided to stop being broody like good chickens. They started fending for food more and spending most of the time in the great outdoors. Shortly after this phase the chicken house stand collapsed due to wood borer infestation. It happened at night so the three poor chickens just stayed inside, clinging to the stick floor like nothing was wrong. We moved the platform and house to the ground. After a week of just eating (with many supplementary peanuts and millet to encourage egg production) the two chickens began to lay. They couldn’t lay in the chicken house because New Chicken was lording over the empty nest basket. So one day while Carrie was preparing to go for a run in the ungodly hours of the morning, when the sun can barely even drag itself out of bed, Pocahontas saunters in and starts fiddling around in the dark corners of the house. Carrie informed me of this and went for a run. After hearing many strange shifting and scratching I got up to inspect the situation. Lo and behold, there were Pocahontas and Fireball both sitting on top of the huge bag of charcoal. I left them in peace and was rewarded with the danger clucking signaling egg deposit. So every morning since we have had to open the door really early to let the chickens in to lay their eggs on the charcoal bag, which gets lower and lower to the ground every day. Some days I have to catch or trap the chickens and put them on the “nest” because they don’t get a-laying before the enemy neighbor rooster begins to herd them over to the neighbors house. New Chicken has been brooder forever, and she hardly ever gets up to eat – only if she hears sounds of the other two chickens being fed. She’s funny though out of the nest. If you approach her she puffs herself up as big as she can muster - looking exactly like a miniature turkey - and then slowly tries to evade you while clucking away. Whew, that’s the chicken situation report. From its length, you might surmise it’s my entire life here. I shall now seek to prove you wrong!
Freedom Day; Zambia! Zambia! Home of the brave! Or something like that. All national anthems sound the same except for France’s - which is all about driving out the invaders and watering the French fields with their blood. We biked over to our friend Justin’s new house, where he had brewed us up 2,000 liters of “wine” and Zambian beer. Wine here (outside of the expensive imported stuff in cities [Mom, John – they have Coteaux du Layon in the Capital!]) means water + sugar + yeast, and if you’re really going deluxe, also some tea bags. There are at least 2 or 3 types of home brew beer though. Chibuku, even commercially popular as the brand Shake Shake (advertising campaign equates drinking of Shake Shake with obtaining respect. Especially ironic since Shake Shake is the cheapest, worst, and most common beer) is made from cooked corn flour (mealie meal) sugar, yeast, and water. Katata, which is what we were treated to, is made from broken millet grains, sugar, yeast, water. When we got there we were urged to sample the wine (teabagless) and katata. From the first vile taste, I knew we were in for a good time. Justin luckily had suggested we bring sugar for adding to improve the taste, and boy did it ever. I liked the Katata the best, especially with all the millet rolling around to add texture. Whenever I finished my cup (which was too frequently) I just waltzed on over to the giant plastic drum and got me some more wine or katata. There was enough to drown in. But Justin had insisted we make 20 liters of each “at-y least-y”. In addition, Freedom Day marked the day when Justin began to run his own bar, so there were many more liters of katata.
After tasting the Dionysian goods, Justin said his family just happened to be over and would it be alright if they joined us (this was after many weeks of him reiterating “just four, you, me, Ba Carrie, and Brenda”[his wife]). We acquiesced. In come Justin’s cross-eyed and wild mother, Brenda’s mother, two other random ladies who I guess were “aunties”, and Justins sick [step?]son. They all arrayed themselves on the floor while us muzungus and Justin got chairs. Carrie would’ve been sitting on the ground too if she weren’t as white as the sun is bright. I felt kind of guilty, but I guess us three were the ones who financed the whole affair. We sat around communicating in our sad Bemba and drinking for a while, me having to pee every 10 minutes (which gave me the unfortunate view of all those maggots squirming in their icimbusu – we drop flaming grass and hot coals down ours to keep them at bay) and Justin attending to his new customers every 10 minutes. His wife naturally was slaving over a hot bunch of logs. Suddenly Justin’s mother declared it was time for she and Carrie to dance. At first I thought she meant me too, which I dreaded, not being nearly drunk enough for 80’s Night dance moves. No just she and Carrie. They were given extra chitenges to don, rolled up and tied about the waist. In Zambia one must never dance unless adorned with the rolled up dancing chitenge. I don’t know what consequences would befall a dancing scofflaw, but they would no doubt be dreadful. An empty water jug and high African voices provided the music as all the “cells” were in the tape player at Justin’s bar-insaka. To Carrie’s credit she danced just fine while she and I both tried not to laugh. After some dancing they sat down again and we talk and drank some more. BAM round two of dancing, this time all the women joined in singing and carrying on. Looks like I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Carrie and I hadn’t eaten lunch, lured so early by the promises of the tasty and mysterious “African Cake”. So we just kept sitting around, long past lunch time. Finally out comes a bowl with the “African Cake”. It appeared to be some mashed bunch of eggs and tomatoes. Justin explained it was oil, flour, salt, eggs, onion, and tomato. Not very fluffy or cake-like, as one might imagine. Well we were famished, so were extremely dismayed when Justin gave us a “side plate” (Zambians sometimes use a “side plate” when eating with guests so that the guests can scoop out some relish into a plate of their own instead of everyone dipping into the communal one. I don’t think it improves hygiene all that much, especially when preceded by the communal water-only handwashing bowl) we scooped what we thought was our fair share and wolfed it down. It was actually pretty good. [Sidenote. There are two categories of Zambian food: 1. Bland and reasonably ok for you. This is the vast majority of meals, mostly encompassing the staple corn meal mush – nshima – and the relishes which you dip your ball of nshima in. 2. Tasty and terrible for you. These are snacks like the long fried donuts with sugar-margarine cream down the center, or the fried cassava-wheat-corn flour sweet patties, or fritters, French fries (“chips”) etc. Everything good involves a lot of oil. ] “African Cake” fell into the second category. We enviously eyed the rest of the cake until Justin put it away saying that he and his wife already ate some in the insaka. Damn.
We sat, talked, and drank for a long stretch until I finally asked Justin if that was all we were having to eat, then finally he brought out some nshima with vegetable relish. Whew. Not tasty, but it fills you up. After eating, Justin’s mother declared another dancing session, this time with Justin and I thrown into the mix. I tied my chitenge dance roll about myself firmly, with the knot making a nice bunny tail for me. The singing began and I stuck out both my arms as I’d seen our neighbor’s drunk son do so many times and moved my ass a little. I was awesome. I think. Well, after dancing I was showered with much laughter and natotelas (thank you in Bemba). After Carrie and I were kinda drunk we said we were going home. But what’s this! A man selling the “golden syrup”! Honey! Justin brought him over and bought us a cup full to take home. As we were bidding farewell, Justin decided to inform us randomly of the privileges of his marital status. “Any time I want to kiss [gestures] – no mistake” “I want to go to the bedroom – no problem – no mistake”. Well I certainly hope Brenda feels the same way.
I mounted my untrusty steed, cup of honey and dead bees in one hand, and Carrie and I biked home. We immediately conked out upon arrival and slept. Carrie ended up getting really sick (too much alcohol? Food or drink contamination? We’ll never know) all night so that was a bummer. She would hardly even touch my homemade Suku-mufungo wine when I made it a week later after that.
Carrie and I built a solar dryer using plastic scraps, tape, medical tape, innertubes, pipe cleaners, and sticks. Quite the effort, but takes in rain so we can’t use it until we invent the solar dryer shelter. I nearly cut off my damn pinkie getting the sticks. I was sure the mangled saw cut was going to get infected, but I followed ‘Where there is no Doctor’s advice and dug out all the wood fragments with tweezers and kept it clean and dry. Now I just have a thick and tender scar. We successfully dried tomatoes before the rains came.
Sun sun go away come again another day. Every day we hope for rain. Mainly so we won’t have to water the garden, but also because it means a period where one can move around with minimal sweat. Well it finally has started to come. First it would rain in the evening or night for two days then 5 days of no rain. Increasingly though the rain means business. Yay! The best part is really seeing the chickens all wet. They look so sad.
After Freedom Day, I went over to Justin’s to learn how to make a Zambian tool handle. We had just bought a hoe-head from him. So he taught us[me] how to make a hoe handle. Baalisambilisha ine shani ukupanga umupini ulukaso. And, no, I didn’t study beforehand how to say that in Bemba. I just rolled it off the top of my head. I was quite interested as I love knowing all sorts of DIY stuff. This also had the appeal of craftsmanship, quality, and utility. Just like a good bike repair. We went into the woods looking for one of the 5 “proper” trees. Justin was looking for a Mulombwa (beautiful wood, tan with brown heartwood) the 3rd strongest, but soon gave up and found a suitable Mutondo (Brachystagia something, the most common tree type in Zambia). He dug down to expose part of the root and chopped it down there. We brought it back to his insaka and started chipping it down using the imbaso (mini hand adze thing). After getting the basic shape, he took the head out of the imbaso and we used it to plane the handle fairly smooth. The next day he built a big fire and we stuck the hoe head in, trapped in a log. After the head is red hot, we stab it into the handle where the root of the tree used to be. Repeat over and over. Then Justin melted some plastic around the hole to hold it in place. Chapwa! I was pretty proud overall and asked Justin about getting an axe head so I could make my axe handle.
Shortly thereafter, Carrie and I set about making a field in back of our hut. We went to learn from the headman how he grows his maize and pumpkins. The next day we dug 45 holes for a cucurbit-legume combo and 18 holes for a sweet corn-runner bean-squash combo. We did “conservation farming” where you don’t hoe and plant the whole field, but add compost to spaced holes or “stations” in which you plant. Hot hard work. The blisters still haven’t faded away completely. The next day we planted and hoped for rain. It didn’t rain for a bit, though it had been the day before we tilled the soil. Some dastardly animal dug up some of the squash seeds and ate them. Also dug up the corn, but left it laying there. So we had to replant a bit. Now the field is flourishing, except for a few holes where nothing came up for some reason. Gotta replant them again. Unfortunately the grass is also flourishing along with these iridescent green and orange beetles who love watermelon leaves. So lots of weeding and squishing. We planted sweet corn, 6 types of beans, 5 types of pumpkin, 3 types of cantaloupe, 2 types of watermelon, and peanuts. I tried to intercrop so no species would be right by its kin, but the math didn’t work out perfectly. I’m sure it’ll work out though. I also want to plant some non-sweet corn that he headman gave us and some other stuff. We also started a new nursery in the garden with tomatoes, eggplant, soybeans, okra, swiss chard, lettuce, cabbage, and beets. Most beds are empty and in need of serious hoeing in of weeds and compost before being ready for transplants. Always work to be done around here.
The mangoes are starting to ripen! We now eat like 3 mangoes a day and it’s just the beginning. They are smaller than the cultivated variety you can get in The States, but really good! Some trees even have ones that taste faintly of coconut (why are there no coconut trees in Zambia!?!?). There is a huge old mango tree in the left hand neighbor’s house (in which there are no neighbors) and the damn right hand neighbor’s kids keep shimmying up it and taking all the barely ripe mangoes every day. They have their own mango trees, but I guess they ravish those pretty quick. Especially since they don’t mind eating unripe mangoes. It’s quite frustrating though, as Carrie and I had been assuming that since we were the ones adjacent to this mango tree (which even overhangs our garden) it would be ours. Selfish, sure, especially since we have many mango trees we saved from the old slash and burn season. But we want to eat 5 mangoes a day each and have enough to make mango jam and dried mangoes! Sometimes kids will also try and steal from our mango trees when they think we aren’t looking. I came upon this one holding this long stick trying to knock some large green mangoes out of our tree. I just said “iwe!” meaning “kid” “hey” or “you”, and she was halfway to the Congo before the stick even hit the ground. I have no doubt that there will be many fewer mangoes when we get back to Mplembe tomorrow.
Many weeks ago we went to our neighborhood white farmer’s house. We hitched with our bikes there and biked 14 k into the bush. Hard and unpleasant riding. It was hot and my bike is a piece of crap made in China. The seat also broke so was jabbing into my rear. Peter was having a training day on Jatropha growing (this oily-seeded plant from which bio-diesel can be made) for some villages in the area. He’s working with this company “Oval Biofuels” to get rural farmers to plant these things and then sell the company their seeds for 10 years. We read the contract and it’s actually a really good deal once you convert into Kwacha, since the going price is based off of the price of diesel fuel. We now are distributing seed to people in Mpelembe and are facilitating a meeting about it next Saturday at the school. I think it’s a good opportunity for our subsistence farmers to make some badly needed cash and to make an alternative to non-renewable fossil fuels. Of course I would rather all the cars just get off the road in the first place. If they must run it might as well be on organic biodiesel though.
Anyway, after the Jatropha training was over (we were way late) we ate nshima (no relish because there was only goat relish) and talked to Rayd Kabango (his name no doubt was supposed to be Loyd, but Zambians are constantly naming their children english names they can’t pronounce) about doing an agriculture training in his village of Chalilo (not chililo, which means “funeral” and caused a lot of confusion for the headman who thought we were going to mourn). After lunch, all the Zambians went home on bikes and we privileged whities went back to Peter’s house. We set up out tent in his yard amongst the white turkeys, guinea fowl (talk about an odd bird), and chickens. His house is this tall, beautifully thatched building. He lives right near a small waterfall with a clean cold river peopled by yellow baboons on the other bank. We even got to swim in it! It was amazing. To disprove Christian fundamentalists and put flowers on Darwin’s grave, all you have to do is watch those funny baboons for about two minutes. They are so human-like, just furrier and they bark like dogs sort of. After swimming, we went into the orchard to get oranges, marvel at all the fruit trees, and stuff ourselves with strawberries. After eating anything mildly ripe we drank some whisky-screwdrivers and snacked on spiced peanuts. When the bugs got too bad we moved inside and drank fresh milk from Peter’s cows, fresh coffee from Peter’s trees, and had fresh butter from Peter’s fresh milk!!! Delicious! Less delicious was the ramen noodles we got in lieu of more nshima and goat (which the South Africans apparently eat every meal like Zambians [not the goat necessarily] but call mealie pap or something silly like that. It would seem that no one in sub-saharan Africa has taste-buds) For dessert I had an avocado with sugar and rusks (these things South Africans eat for every breakfast with their coffee, basically squares of stale sweet dense bread. Almost like biscotti, but not as tasty). The talk between Peter, his father, his friend (all from SA), their Oval Biofuels friend (from Zimbabwe), Carrie, and myself, mostly was interesting stuff about development in Africa. Unfortunately there was an unhealthy dose of racism thrown in from all those Boers. I tried my best to argue, but a lifetime of living in a racist culture was too much for them. They believe there is something fundamentally different about black people from white people. I tried to explain it’s entirely cultural to no avail.
The next morning we got up early had lots of coffee and rusks and buttered bread and set off on the long ride home. Before leaving Peter gave us two huge bags of macadamia nuts!!! We are still working on husking, shelling, and roasting them to this day. The ride back was awful since my seat post is too short so my legs cant exert their full magnificent power to propel me with appropriate ease up the road. It was also 12 k of awful bush path and then 50 k of hot roads with hills.
The neighbor kids chopped down this big old tree in the woods near our house just so they could get a liter’s worth of caterpillars to eat. Can you believe it? I tried to tell them it’s bad to cut down a tree for caterpillars and that they could just climb up to get them. Wouldn’t listen or my Bemba was too bad. Hope that one small meal was worth it. I won’t even mention the tiny little birds and shrews. Yes, I know they don’t have access to a lot of protein and meat cause they’re poor. But their lack of access to protein isn’t a foregone conclusion as we in the Western world may imagine. They could eat the eggs of their 4 or 5 hens instead of the more infrequent slaughtered chicken. Their parents could have planned better and still have peanuts stored up from the last rainy season. As for vegetables, they could have a garden if they wanted to. They’re just as, if not more, capable of farming and hauling well water as ourselves. The headman has a garden that grows just fine by the sweat of his brow in all seasons, there’s no reason they couldn’t also. We would have given them seeds gladly. Carrie gave them some tomato seedlings once and they did nothing with them. They could have planted citrus, guava, and papaya trees. I can’t say I have any idea why they don’t do all these things. Instead they beg. I’d like to assume the most reasonable, that they had a bad harvest last year, but that only explains half of it. All I can say is I sure am glad that they are making a huge field this year and planting all around their house for vegetables. I just hope they continue the garden past rainy season.
Some things more humorous involving the neighbors: Falling-down-pants-boy, who’s name we finally ascertained to be Patrick or “Patti” and who is frequently hovering about our porch asking for sugar(to make beer)/salt/sweeties/bub(bubble gum)/peanuts/etc, has acquired a new pair of shorts. These don’t fall down ever, oh no, they just don’t have a back to them at all. So whenever he runs around, there are his two little baby ass-cheeks. The best part though is he sometimes puts them on backwards and then you can’t help but think that there isn’t really any point to him wearing pants at all. Naturally he doesn’t think anything of our stifled laughter or that breeze that blows so easily through his shorts. Kalunga, a 16 or so old son of the neighbors, came back from wherever he goes (I think it was fishing with his younger brother Joshua who we like). He never understands anything we say in Bemba though pretends to while smiling his gigantic smile like the sun. He also frequently wants to borrow our bicycles “bwangu” (quick), then takes many hours to return. He also apparently was hired by Justin to wash dishes and help brew beer? Justin orders him around all the time “Iiiiiwe, endesha endesha” (kiiiid, hurry hurry). But the best thing about him is that he started wearing around this wire with this metal clip at the end that Carrie threw in our trash pit. He thinks it makes a right smart necklace. The neighbors hoard all the broken electronics though they don’t even have batteries. Truly one persons’ junk is another’s treasure. Even if there is no reason behind it.
Whenever there is a chickenhawk (or any bird for that matter large or small) the neighbors automatically perceive it as a threat to their whole flock (even when there are no chicks that could possibly be carried by such a bird). They have this particular call they make to scare it off, though it doesn’t seem to notice one way or the other. The kids go like this “Gruyere gruyere gruyere! Wooooooo! Ayayayayayaya! Ahhhhh! Woooo!” or if only the father Iron Mumba is home, he says “Ahhhhhhh! Iwe! Iwe! Ahhhh!”
I bet you all were thinking “boy, sometimes it seems like a tough life over there, but at least they don’t have those damn Jahovas Witnesses coming to their door”. Well you’re wrong. Twice! First it was some nicely-dressed old men on bicycles. I was perfectly nice, but didn’t accept their copies of Awake! since I had read all the ones they had before. Next it was our very own dear old French-speaking village carpenter Maurice dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a friend! Well he had a new issue of Awake! in English, so I took it. If I was gonna be a Christian I have to say I’d be liable to pick the Jahovas Witnesses. Even though they say some crazy stuff, their little magazines are so informative and generally benevolent and accepting. Here’s a gem: “Imagine the joy at seeing loved ones resurrected from the grave!” I picture all these zombies lumbering around trying to hug eachother. Beautiful! What other religion is so dedicated and cares enough to have 2 monthly publications printed in Bemba and 20 other languages? There was also this article about this surfer who “found [his] hippie lifestyle unfulfilling” and ended up “finding something better than a ‘perfect wave’” in being a Jehovas Witness. Also, Carrie and I were over at the Headman’s place and they complimented us on our complexions (not the color, as they’ve readily noticed that we show dirt easy) and asked if we used any lotions or petroleum jelly or whatnot. We said no. Then out of nowhere the Headman declared that we “have the skin of Jehova”! We had no idea what he meant but nodded dutifully. Maybe because most depictions of Jesus make him white? Maybe some obscure passage in the bible talks about how soft Jesus’s cheeks were? I don’t know. We tried to explain that white people generally get a lot of pimples in adolescence and generally aren’t regarded as having good skin, and that it was especially unsuitable for sunny Africa. Shrug.
We finally made it to Kasanka National Park, which is only 40 k from us. We biked around a lot and camped at this nice campsite on the edge of a floodplain. It was generally very pretty and we got to see a vervet monkey and some more baboons all by ourselves. We also saw these unexciting antelope things called “Puku” that look exactly like deer, and maybe Situnga or Hartebeest or something. There are these stork-looking white birds that follow the Puku around everywhere – pretty funny. In the morning we woke up to the snorting of a Hippo, but were unable to find it in the tall grass by the river. Probably good cause otherwise we might be dead. In the evening, one of the friendly park managers who has one leg longer than the other and is always wearing a green jumpsuit brought us over to ‘Fibwe Hide’ which is this platform built way up in this huge tree with a good view of wildlife. There was no wildlife to be seen. Afterwards, as the night crept up we went into this field and literally millions of bats flew from the woods by the setting sun, over our heads, and into the other forest. It’s the annual fruit bat migration. They all come down to eat sukus. Sukus are pretty tasty so I don’t blame them. Yet like most Zambian fruit, it’s a lot of trouble to get any flesh off of them. At least they generally don’t have little worms- unlike the much more delicious mufungo.
We had a spectacular Thanksgiving feast! I bought cranberry sauce, potatoes, and squash in Lusaka. So we had: Soya piece turkey, glazed butternut squash, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, STUFFING!!!, and sweet potato pie. All was delicious save the soya piece turkey and sweet potato pie (sweet potatoes here aren’t like sweet potatoes in The States).
I finally finished the axe handle I was working on for many weeks on and off! Whew. I spent nearly an entire day and stayed up until 1 am shoving the hot axe head into the handle! It’s 1 am now. Dammit. This time I insisted on finding the best tree for the handle. No Brachystagia Julbernaria for me no siree! I first tried to set off into the woods with the knowledge gleaned from Justin and our ‘Know Your Trees!’ book on Zambia. I was after the Mulombwa aka Mukwa aka “African Mahogany” tree. I knew what to look for. Pinnate alternate leaves, hairy winged pods, furrowed bark. I even had some leaves in my pocket for reference an some drawings I did. All useless. I searched for literally hours in the woods behind the house, then all the way to the school until I finally recognized some. I gratefully cut one down after confirming the red sap that oozes when you cut it. But alas - the most important part, where the root meets the trunk, where the axe head would go, was partially rotted! I cut down another, same thing! I brought them back hoping to be able to fix them. The Headlady saw them and made fun of them saying they weren’t fit for anything. A day wasted. The next day I went to the Headman and asked for his assistance in finding a tree. He ranked Ndale the “Snake Bean Tree” as stronger than Mulombwa and Mutondo. But above even Ndale is the elusive Chewya! Chewya handles can last 5 or 6 years of hard use. He led me in the back of his house and chopped me an Ndale tree. Ha! He doesn’t know me well enough to know I’ve gotta do everything from scratch for it to be worthwhile for me. Also I wanted to find the Chewya. (Sidenote: I’m not cutting down magnificent trees, we’re talking about saplings from 4 to 10 cm in diameter) So I gave the Ndale he cut to Justin, since he needs a new axe handle. I went with the Headman’s son Wizzy to find a Chewya tree. Unfortunately he hardly knew what they looked like, so I settled for an Ndale and cut her down, much to my hands dismay. I even got blood on their axe handle. It was a lot thicker than it needed to be and being such a hard wood, dulled the imbaso a lot. Had to borrow our neighbor’s ibwe (sharpening stone from the river) wooowee, I can put an edge on that imbaso. I had the headman sharpen it once for me and he made it as dull as the sky is blue compared to me. Wizzy said I make it “too sharp”. No such thing when you’re working on Ndale I say. Anyway, got it down to the dark brown heartwood in places. Now it’s finished. It’s a good axe. Now that we have an axe and hoe, Justin’s wife declared in English “you’re a farmer now!”.
Oh this is interesting. Carrie just handed me the 2006 Report on the Global Aids Epidemic from the UN. It says 87.4% of Zambians live on less than $2 a day. From my old perspective I would have thought “those poor people! They must be starving!” Nowadays I think how much I wish I was in a situation where I could live on less than $2 a day like them. The book also says they make $890 a year. The stat is skewed too, because businessmen and government workers really rake in the cash, while most villagers make nothing or a little more. What do they even need that for? Once you’ve paid your $20 for a hoe head and axe head, what more do you need? Land is ancestrally inherited and free. If I was a Zambian, I could go up to the Headman and ask what land is not being used and cut down all the trees and setup a field for free. It’s great. As far as I can see, in terms of economics, the only thing that’s wrong is that the government isn’t spending enough on healthcare and education. I mean, there is mostly no economy to speak of, and that works fine! Unlike us in the U.S., people here are self-sufficient. They grow their food and build whatever they need. Ok they wear clothes we made now, but they were making clothes too before we came along. I know I’ve touched on this before, but the contrast is striking. The U.S. is sposed to be the land of individualism, yet there are few other places on the planet where one must so heavily rely on so many others flung across the globe for their daily bread. And ok, one might view it as a constructive web of interrelations and mutual reliance with our fellows, but that’s not how it is, we all know that. We’re completely alienated from our growers and manufacturers. I’ve never even been to the country my boxers were made. As you go about your daily routine, you rely on coal miners, engineers, technicians, truckers, and maintenance crews for the electricity that lights that bulb which was produced by miners, factory workers, truckers, and salespeople. You might brew some coffee with water thanks to sewage workers and coffee picked from a plantation in Vietnam or if you paid a bit more from a cooperative in Brazil by poor villagers trying to survive under newly imposed capitalism, then moved by truckers, air or sea captains, resold to processors, and resold to retailers, and bought by you. On and on through the day. As the Zambians go about their daily routine they rely on themselves, their family, and maybe a handful of other villagers (whom they know on a first name basis) at most. I guess it’s the alienation and inequality of Western civilization that really bugs me. We aren’t neighbors with the coffee growers, and they certainly don’t enjoy all of our luxuries. We live by being carried on their backs in sedan chairs.
Anyway, as I mentioned the chicken house in kaput. So Carrie and I asked Justin for some know-how and bought another length of bamboo. After studying other chicken houses we built a Zamchickenhouse of our own. It’s made of bamboo woven like a basket between stakes in a circle. We were having trouble with the roof until Wizzy showed us how to tie the sticks together better. Then Peg and Kalunga helped us thatch the roof (they hardly let us do anything which was disappointing). Finally Carrie and I chopped some bigger trees for the legs, and I got some more saplings for the crosspieces of the platform. Voila! It’s quite cute and rustic looking. Still no pictures of anything obviously as we are having issues transferring photos from cameras to computers.
We saw two chameleons this week! One at Justin’s which bit Carrie with its lack of teeth, and one just today trying to cross the path in Serenje. We kept the one today for a while and were nearly set to bring it back to Mpelembe as a pet. It didn’t even get mad and bite us when being handled. Cute little buggers. Not very good at changing colors other than various shades of green with a couple red/black/white spots. Very good at walking up things and moving their eyes all crazy. We felt bad for he creatures freedom though, so we let it go. Zambians think chameleons are poisonous and will club them to death, which explains the general lack of chameleons. That and their slowness and inability to really change color well.
Carrie already talked about the “hunting tigers” thing so I guess go read that story over there. Not fair that she got to it first. 2 am now. What dedication I am showing in bringing you tales of wonder and majesty!
Thank yous!
Dad! – Thanks for the truckload of books! No doubt the 2 lbs of chocolate will be reduced to negative lbs of chocolate in no time. So much chocolate! Yum. Also thanks for the toothpaste with which to counteract said chocolate’s effects on our teeth. Too bad I didn’t have all that iodine before, maybe my scar wouldn’t be so bad. I’m sure it’ll all come in handy. Thanks also for the Spotty updates. Really glad he is doing so well. We just ran out of tea too!
Tony and Carrie! – What an unexpected and pleasant surprise your package was! I searched it twice over for the Cell bio textbook, but couldn’t find it. Postal service must have taken it. Or Jeff Bennet. As mentioned in that section about “Jahova Skin” I’m really filthy so thank you for the legacy of our dearly departed Dr. Bronner. I’ll definitely update you and Carrie about the organic vs. non organic garlic powder, as we use garlic powder a lot. The only whole garlic you can buy in a 200 km radius is this teeny tiny midget garlic that isn’t even worth peeling. Chipotle actually is a particularly perspicacious gift, as we have just discovered the miracle of refried beans! I never knew they were so easy to make! You just keep cooking the damn beans until you can mash them. Then we make sad, terrible corn tortillas to eat it with. One time I made tortilla chips; a lot of work, but tasty. Is this your favorite toothpaste? They need to get more black face langur monkies on the monkey police force ASAP down there in India. If I was Monkey-Sheriff, I’d monkey-deputize a posse to go round up those monkeys that killed that guy. I'm loving the Poisonwood Bible already! Thank you both!You two have a letter coming to you soon, so that’s where I shall reply to your inquiries. How exciting that you have a wedding date! Did you pick the bone china serving platters or the solid gold? Maybe you'll get an hoe handle for a wedding gift.
John - Scuba diving! I want to do that. Glad things are going so well between you and your girlfriend! Hey read 'The Power Elite' - C. Wright Mills!
Mom - Send me 100,000 Kwacha and I'll send you some Coteuax du Layon for Xmas! Kidding. Glad you are reading this! T'embrace
Sarah! - How did you not know! Funny. I just sent you a letter assuming you weren't reading my blog. Funnier. So what is next after quitting grad school? I always knew you'd quit. I don't think you're cut out for boring research and an academic career. Fight the power.
Love you all. Keep everything on hold until I get back. Especially you Tony and Carrie! Tony, you wrote 2007 in your letter and Carrie wrote 2008, so I'm hoping you both miswrote and you're actually getting married in 2009.
Ok it's almost 4 o' clock, long post. Sorry for the typos. Night! Happy Thanksgiving!
14 November 2007
The 9 minute blog
Ok I only have 9 minutes until the net place closes. Excuse any typos.
I found Carrie in Kabwe finally - Sorry to leave everyone back home on the edge of your collective seats.
We got a new chicken who is aptly named "New Chicken", for lack of a fitting name. All the chickens have followed Fireball's lead for some god-forsaken reason. They all vie for a position on the nest to incubate the 2 eggs we left them to hatch. Sometimes 2 chickens will sit on the small nest. Must take a picture (side note: no pics because Carrie's card reader is broken, her mom is mailing her a new one).
We celebrated Freedom Day here in Zambia, which basically consists of drinking, dancing, and some exiting (for Zambian cuisine) food. You could probably read about it in Carrie's blog, but my description (which will have to wait) will no doubt be much funnier.
We are entering rainy season. Yay!!!! Heavy rains. Makes the solar dryer perform less than optimally; I don't know how we are going to be able to dry all these mangos we have growing.
I've made (with help from our friend Justin) a hoe, and am in the drawn out process of personally producing an axe (isembe). It will be the creation I am most proud of in life.
We visited "Bwana" Peter and got lots of goodies, coffee, milk, butter that he grew, and Rusks (biscutty thing from S.A.).
We made a field!!! Maybe 1 lima or 3/4 lima (that's a measure of area). 5 different types of pumpkins, 3 cantaloupes, 2 watermelons, corn, 4 different types of beans.
Oh god! Time!
I need to thank people, but putting my self-interests first will list stuff I would love to have: Emilie - Bulk Nutritional Yeast Flakes! Anyone - Spearmint total care Tom's Of Maine toothpaste. Books on chickens?
Dad, how is the new doggie? Everyone, how is life?? Mom, are you reading this? Everyone reading please put a comment to let me know how you are. I think of everyone in the States often and fondly! Love, Doug
I found Carrie in Kabwe finally - Sorry to leave everyone back home on the edge of your collective seats.
We got a new chicken who is aptly named "New Chicken", for lack of a fitting name. All the chickens have followed Fireball's lead for some god-forsaken reason. They all vie for a position on the nest to incubate the 2 eggs we left them to hatch. Sometimes 2 chickens will sit on the small nest. Must take a picture (side note: no pics because Carrie's card reader is broken, her mom is mailing her a new one).
We celebrated Freedom Day here in Zambia, which basically consists of drinking, dancing, and some exiting (for Zambian cuisine) food. You could probably read about it in Carrie's blog, but my description (which will have to wait) will no doubt be much funnier.
We are entering rainy season. Yay!!!! Heavy rains. Makes the solar dryer perform less than optimally; I don't know how we are going to be able to dry all these mangos we have growing.
I've made (with help from our friend Justin) a hoe, and am in the drawn out process of personally producing an axe (isembe). It will be the creation I am most proud of in life.
We visited "Bwana" Peter and got lots of goodies, coffee, milk, butter that he grew, and Rusks (biscutty thing from S.A.).
We made a field!!! Maybe 1 lima or 3/4 lima (that's a measure of area). 5 different types of pumpkins, 3 cantaloupes, 2 watermelons, corn, 4 different types of beans.
Oh god! Time!
I need to thank people, but putting my self-interests first will list stuff I would love to have: Emilie - Bulk Nutritional Yeast Flakes! Anyone - Spearmint total care Tom's Of Maine toothpaste. Books on chickens?
Dad, how is the new doggie? Everyone, how is life?? Mom, are you reading this? Everyone reading please put a comment to let me know how you are. I think of everyone in the States often and fondly! Love, Doug
16 October 2007
Infernal Immigration
It's hot in Zambia. Really hot (kaba sana). Fortunately hot season will be coming to an end in a month or so with the coming of the rains. Or at least it will be hot with rain, I'm not sure how that works. It actually rained in Mpelembe a week or two ago. Quite the downpour. The roof leaked in 3 places, which is pretty good for an old thatched roof I think. Thunder and lightening, accompanied the rain, so it was very majestic. Best of all, I didn't have to water the garden for 2 days.
So, I'm unexpectedly in Kabwe today. I went to Lusaka on Sunday (sans Carrie, to save money and because she was going to Kabwe for a library training on Tuesday) hoping to go to immigration to get my visitor's permit and to ministry of health to drop off a copy of my degree (thanks Dad) and check on the status of the purported volleys of letters, on Monday. Unfortunately I was mad to think that Zambian bureaucracy (slower than US bureaucracy for lack of internet in many places) would be able to get a letter sent through the 3 levels of hell all the way to Lusaka MOH headquarters. Today I will check on the status of Kabwe's letter which should have been forwarded to Serenje already - though that isn't the purpose of my visit. Serenje refuses to send a letter to Kabwe until they receive a letter from Kabwe. Laughable if my ass remaining in Zambia weren't on the line. They are also concerned with security issues. Am I a nice guy? Will I jab people with needles for no reason? Am I a criminal? No one here has the capability to do a background check so I don't know what all the fuss is about. Probably some guy who wants to freely donate his time to helping out a clinic isn't a spy or murderer.
Anyway, back to my Lusaka travail. I stayed in a cheap - but nice - guesthouse Sunday night, after doing half of our grocery shopping. A South Korean travel writer named Sun asked if I wanted some soup, so he, I, and Sato - a Japanese student - all shared his Nigerian spicy vegetable soup he made. Very nice. It was neat to talk to two other travelers from totally different parts of the globe than myself. I talked to Sato more in the dorm, and he was shocked to learn that there are many Sushi restauraunts in the US and that I like it and tempura very much. He also didn't know people knew of the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa outside of Japan. I in turn was shocked - actually just dissapointed - to hear that many people in Japan are McDonalds junkies. Apparently Japan has an eclectic assortment of food nationality options just like the States. Sun had met some North Koreans on the Chinese side of the border and says that they claimed North Korea isn't in as bad shape as the world believes. Although they did mention the lack of communication and news from the outside world. One might also ask why they escaped to China, but whatever. Monday morning I woke up and ate breakfast with my 2 fellow travelers and we were joined by an Indian man. Upon finding out that I was from the US, the Indian man went on and on about how bad they US is, primarily placing blame on GW Bush. Obviously I didn't leap to my country's defense and tried to get him to understand that he was preaching to the chior (with some difficulty, since I don't think India has that phrase). Anyway, I said people in the US aren't terrible, though not as friendly as Zambians, and that many of us are unhappy with our government. One thing he said, which I didn't agree with, is that our worst crime was killing Saddam. Maybe India venerates presidenthood too much, but I think the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqi children due to our sanctions and extensive bombing over the years was our worst crime. Oh well. He and Sun said that the US's former status and reputation has been extensively tarnished now in the eyes of the rest of the world. I don't know if we ever deserved such a reputation (remember the Phillipines, Panama, Iran-Contra, Slavery, Native Americans?).
Anyway, after that I went to Lusaka immigration to get my visitor's permit. There I found out that I need a certified bank check to pay the 500,000 kwacha fee. Well I just strolled on down to the nearest bank and asked for one. No no no, you can't get a certified bank check (or cheque) without an account. Next bank, same response. Walked all across Lusaka to 7 different banks and all required that you open an account. Well, I thought to myself, it's a pain, but best to get this all over with. What might be required to open a bank account then? 2 passport sized photos blah blah blah and a work permit. Wait, what. I need a work permit to open a bank account to get a certified check, but I would need a certified check to get a work permit to open a bank account. A Catch-22 par excellence. I guess most employers pay for their employees work permits. I went back to immigration to ask if a certified check from Carrie would be ok and they said sure.
So, Monday evening I walk, rediculously heavy pack and all, to the lay by on Great North Road and catch a minibus to Kabwe (which was cramped and took too long, why do I ever take minibusses between cities???). Got here when the sun was setting and asked a guesthouse we had stayed at before if they had a white woman staying there. Nope. Tried the next closest one, who was kind enough to call all the other guesthouses around town. All said no muzungu women named Carrie or failed to answer the phone. I figured the only thing left to do was to go to the guesthouses that didn't answer their phones. I got a cab to give me an ok price to check out the first one on the list of 8. No Carrie there. Checked probably 5 others before the cabbie got tired of driving me around and said he was going to have to drop me off. I asked for the cheapest guesthouse in town. He also wanted more money now for driving me for so long. I tried to play on sympathy and my purported lack of funds. Got him down to 50 pin (50,000 kwacha, 12 dollars) for driving me around for 1.5 hours. Ha! I still owe him 10 pin, cause I was trying to claim I had no more. Went into my room (35 pin), which really wasn't bad. Dingy and boring, but clean. With dissapointment, sorrow, frustration, and loneliness in my heart I set about writing in my journal. Suddenly a miserable epiphany: Remember when I said I got to Kabwe on Monday night? Also remember when I said Carrie was going to Kabwe on Tuesday? Wow, I felt like a complete idiot as I never before had in my life. Carrie was nowhere near Kabwe and here I was frantically scrambling to find out which guesthouse she was staying at here. Wasted 50 pin, 2 hours or more, and the time of the guesthouse people, the cabbie, and myself. Hahaha.
Whew. Now I am going to wait at the bus station (where busses and most drivers would drop people off) at noon to try and run into Carrie. Hopefully I won't have to repeat the experience of last night.
Anyway, what else has happened since my last post? Chicken house stand almost collapsed (termites? surely not because the branches I used weren't strong enough). Chickens started laying an egg a day each. I think it's because I started catching grasshoppers and locusts from the garden and feeding them in great quantity (sometimes 12 a day) to the chickens. There is much art in catching a grasshopper. You must move slowly, with yoga-like grace until smacking your hand down on the only mildly suspicious grasshopper. Kids next door continually raiding our trash pit for plastic bags with which to construct their football (soccer ball). It actually bounces just like a real one. It's impressive. Carrie has made an intercropped garden bed of her own. I hope it does well. We have some tiny cantaloupes and a different type of pumpkin forming. The other pumpkins, among 9 plants produced one medium pumpkin.
Last week "my" chicken, Fireball went insane. She decided to get broody and sit on the one egg that we leave in the nest. Usually chickens only sit on a nest when they accumulate 10 or more eggs. I've tried lifting her off (with much squaking) and barring the coop, but she then just sits as close as possible to the nest outside the coop and spreads herself out as though she is nesting. She also lost many of the feathers on her chest and belly, which maybe is part of the brooding process. Carrie cut my hair and I cut Carrie's hair. Her hair is almost as short as mine used to be. It's sort of in a bob, to which she added (subtracted?) bangs. I think it looks pretty good, but she is not as enthusiastic about it. She wanted a short cut!
Emilie - Thank you for the spices and books you sent!!! I have already finished the book on bees (very interesting), Hardboiled Wonderland and End of the World (awesome book), stumbled over some Foucault, and am halfway through Desert Solitaire. We are now cumining things like crazy. How are your spices so cheap at that coop?? Glad to hear things are very good in NYC with you
Nonna - Thank you for the clippings, which are infinately more precious here in Zambia. I haven't recieved your package yet, though I imagine it is waiting for Carrie to pick it up at the Post Office in Serenje. Will probably get it when Carrie comes back to Mpelembe on Saturday. I think all my troubles this trip can be attributed to the fact that I forgot my St. Christopher's medal in the hut this time. Glad to hear you are reading one of my very favorite authors! Tell me what you think!
Jamie - Thanks for posting! Get Sarah to read the blog. You'd be surprised, most of Carrie and my days are a far cry from exciting. It's different, true, but not wildly so.
Ok I've used up a lot of internet time here at the BP station. Gotta go look up some recipes, raising stingless bees (who live in a post in our garden), how to dynamite moles, etc. Take care everyone.
So, I'm unexpectedly in Kabwe today. I went to Lusaka on Sunday (sans Carrie, to save money and because she was going to Kabwe for a library training on Tuesday) hoping to go to immigration to get my visitor's permit and to ministry of health to drop off a copy of my degree (thanks Dad) and check on the status of the purported volleys of letters, on Monday. Unfortunately I was mad to think that Zambian bureaucracy (slower than US bureaucracy for lack of internet in many places) would be able to get a letter sent through the 3 levels of hell all the way to Lusaka MOH headquarters. Today I will check on the status of Kabwe's letter which should have been forwarded to Serenje already - though that isn't the purpose of my visit. Serenje refuses to send a letter to Kabwe until they receive a letter from Kabwe. Laughable if my ass remaining in Zambia weren't on the line. They are also concerned with security issues. Am I a nice guy? Will I jab people with needles for no reason? Am I a criminal? No one here has the capability to do a background check so I don't know what all the fuss is about. Probably some guy who wants to freely donate his time to helping out a clinic isn't a spy or murderer.
Anyway, back to my Lusaka travail. I stayed in a cheap - but nice - guesthouse Sunday night, after doing half of our grocery shopping. A South Korean travel writer named Sun asked if I wanted some soup, so he, I, and Sato - a Japanese student - all shared his Nigerian spicy vegetable soup he made. Very nice. It was neat to talk to two other travelers from totally different parts of the globe than myself. I talked to Sato more in the dorm, and he was shocked to learn that there are many Sushi restauraunts in the US and that I like it and tempura very much. He also didn't know people knew of the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa outside of Japan. I in turn was shocked - actually just dissapointed - to hear that many people in Japan are McDonalds junkies. Apparently Japan has an eclectic assortment of food nationality options just like the States. Sun had met some North Koreans on the Chinese side of the border and says that they claimed North Korea isn't in as bad shape as the world believes. Although they did mention the lack of communication and news from the outside world. One might also ask why they escaped to China, but whatever. Monday morning I woke up and ate breakfast with my 2 fellow travelers and we were joined by an Indian man. Upon finding out that I was from the US, the Indian man went on and on about how bad they US is, primarily placing blame on GW Bush. Obviously I didn't leap to my country's defense and tried to get him to understand that he was preaching to the chior (with some difficulty, since I don't think India has that phrase). Anyway, I said people in the US aren't terrible, though not as friendly as Zambians, and that many of us are unhappy with our government. One thing he said, which I didn't agree with, is that our worst crime was killing Saddam. Maybe India venerates presidenthood too much, but I think the deaths of millions of innocent Iraqi children due to our sanctions and extensive bombing over the years was our worst crime. Oh well. He and Sun said that the US's former status and reputation has been extensively tarnished now in the eyes of the rest of the world. I don't know if we ever deserved such a reputation (remember the Phillipines, Panama, Iran-Contra, Slavery, Native Americans?).
Anyway, after that I went to Lusaka immigration to get my visitor's permit. There I found out that I need a certified bank check to pay the 500,000 kwacha fee. Well I just strolled on down to the nearest bank and asked for one. No no no, you can't get a certified bank check (or cheque) without an account. Next bank, same response. Walked all across Lusaka to 7 different banks and all required that you open an account. Well, I thought to myself, it's a pain, but best to get this all over with. What might be required to open a bank account then? 2 passport sized photos blah blah blah and a work permit. Wait, what. I need a work permit to open a bank account to get a certified check, but I would need a certified check to get a work permit to open a bank account. A Catch-22 par excellence. I guess most employers pay for their employees work permits. I went back to immigration to ask if a certified check from Carrie would be ok and they said sure.
So, Monday evening I walk, rediculously heavy pack and all, to the lay by on Great North Road and catch a minibus to Kabwe (which was cramped and took too long, why do I ever take minibusses between cities???). Got here when the sun was setting and asked a guesthouse we had stayed at before if they had a white woman staying there. Nope. Tried the next closest one, who was kind enough to call all the other guesthouses around town. All said no muzungu women named Carrie or failed to answer the phone. I figured the only thing left to do was to go to the guesthouses that didn't answer their phones. I got a cab to give me an ok price to check out the first one on the list of 8. No Carrie there. Checked probably 5 others before the cabbie got tired of driving me around and said he was going to have to drop me off. I asked for the cheapest guesthouse in town. He also wanted more money now for driving me for so long. I tried to play on sympathy and my purported lack of funds. Got him down to 50 pin (50,000 kwacha, 12 dollars) for driving me around for 1.5 hours. Ha! I still owe him 10 pin, cause I was trying to claim I had no more. Went into my room (35 pin), which really wasn't bad. Dingy and boring, but clean. With dissapointment, sorrow, frustration, and loneliness in my heart I set about writing in my journal. Suddenly a miserable epiphany: Remember when I said I got to Kabwe on Monday night? Also remember when I said Carrie was going to Kabwe on Tuesday? Wow, I felt like a complete idiot as I never before had in my life. Carrie was nowhere near Kabwe and here I was frantically scrambling to find out which guesthouse she was staying at here. Wasted 50 pin, 2 hours or more, and the time of the guesthouse people, the cabbie, and myself. Hahaha.
Whew. Now I am going to wait at the bus station (where busses and most drivers would drop people off) at noon to try and run into Carrie. Hopefully I won't have to repeat the experience of last night.
Anyway, what else has happened since my last post? Chicken house stand almost collapsed (termites? surely not because the branches I used weren't strong enough). Chickens started laying an egg a day each. I think it's because I started catching grasshoppers and locusts from the garden and feeding them in great quantity (sometimes 12 a day) to the chickens. There is much art in catching a grasshopper. You must move slowly, with yoga-like grace until smacking your hand down on the only mildly suspicious grasshopper. Kids next door continually raiding our trash pit for plastic bags with which to construct their football (soccer ball). It actually bounces just like a real one. It's impressive. Carrie has made an intercropped garden bed of her own. I hope it does well. We have some tiny cantaloupes and a different type of pumpkin forming. The other pumpkins, among 9 plants produced one medium pumpkin.
Last week "my" chicken, Fireball went insane. She decided to get broody and sit on the one egg that we leave in the nest. Usually chickens only sit on a nest when they accumulate 10 or more eggs. I've tried lifting her off (with much squaking) and barring the coop, but she then just sits as close as possible to the nest outside the coop and spreads herself out as though she is nesting. She also lost many of the feathers on her chest and belly, which maybe is part of the brooding process. Carrie cut my hair and I cut Carrie's hair. Her hair is almost as short as mine used to be. It's sort of in a bob, to which she added (subtracted?) bangs. I think it looks pretty good, but she is not as enthusiastic about it. She wanted a short cut!
Emilie - Thank you for the spices and books you sent!!! I have already finished the book on bees (very interesting), Hardboiled Wonderland and End of the World (awesome book), stumbled over some Foucault, and am halfway through Desert Solitaire. We are now cumining things like crazy. How are your spices so cheap at that coop?? Glad to hear things are very good in NYC with you
Nonna - Thank you for the clippings, which are infinately more precious here in Zambia. I haven't recieved your package yet, though I imagine it is waiting for Carrie to pick it up at the Post Office in Serenje. Will probably get it when Carrie comes back to Mpelembe on Saturday. I think all my troubles this trip can be attributed to the fact that I forgot my St. Christopher's medal in the hut this time. Glad to hear you are reading one of my very favorite authors! Tell me what you think!
Jamie - Thanks for posting! Get Sarah to read the blog. You'd be surprised, most of Carrie and my days are a far cry from exciting. It's different, true, but not wildly so.
Ok I've used up a lot of internet time here at the BP station. Gotta go look up some recipes, raising stingless bees (who live in a post in our garden), how to dynamite moles, etc. Take care everyone.
24 September 2007
The beat goes on
In Lusaka again, much to my chagrin. We went to Serenje immigration again and were told that I can extend for a long period of time by applying for a visitors' permit in Lusaka. Carrie was going through Lusaka anyway to go to a training in Chipata, so I tagged along. Got here yesterday evening, fell asleep at the guesthouse then went out for some spectacular Indian food. Today we went to Ministry of Health again for the letter only to find that the guy hadn't even gotten to it in the intervening weeks. After waiting around for several hours I finally got to meet him, only to have him explain that I would have to tackle the issue from the bottom up (the exact opposite of what the people at the bottom of the hierarchy pyramid have been telling me). So first I need the Clinical Officer of Mpelembe clinic to write an offer of employment to the Serenje district head. Then the district head has to write to the medical head of Central province. Then the provincial head has to write to the man I have just spoken to. Then he can approve it. Completely illogical, especially when heard from the mouth of the man who makes the final decision. So I decided to not try and extend my visa expiration, in the hopes that I can get this work permit ironed out by October 21st, thus saving myself 500,000 Kwacha.
Been traveling so much lately it's hard to keep track of what's going on. On the way back to Mpelembe from Serenje one day I nearly got stranded in Chalilo (30 km from Mpelembe). There I had my ear nearly talked off by a well meaning drunk guy. He wants Carrie and I to come to Chalilo to talk to people about how to improve their farming methods (saving seed, compost, etc.) and, he hoped, bring irrigation machinery?? Ha. Anyway, after stating all the points he wished us to discuss, he went on about how he must save his family name, all of the high status position he holds, and how he uses latex gloves to pick his tomotoes. The chief arrived at some point and was giving villagers some wood to burn. I couldn't meet him though, because all I had were some small oranges to offer and meeting him outside of his palace would have been a big social faux pas.
On the way back to Serenje from Mpelembe I was explaining to some people that paying for sex is a bad practice as one could easily catch HIV from prostitutes, when one 12th grader asked in a doubtful tone "is HIV real?". When informed that yes, in fact it was real, and no, you probably won't catch it from silverware, he said he heard that they put HIV on all of the condoms at the condom factory. I was pretty depressed and horrified at the idea of a rumor like that going around in a country where 1 in 5 people have HIV/AIDS. I tried to tell him that the rumor is untrue, and that if he is going to be having sex that he should be using a condom.
In the village all is well except for the Headman's daughter's insane screechings that went on for half an hour one night. When the Headman and his son came over to return a bike, they explained that she was "just washing her eyes - it's normal". The next day when we inquired again, the brother, Charles, provided an even more dubious explanation. She has a demon in her. Unfortunately they very much believe that this is the case. He went on to explain some angels' fall from grace according to the bible, and their present role in disturbing people. He cited how Peg sometimes "talks too much, like she's a little odd" and of course her late night eruption. Ultimately, I think it was a parent's disapproval of her biking alone to Chalilo (perhaps to visit a boy) that sparked the incident. Especially since she took off the next day to Chalilo. Charles also told us about witches and their lack of humanity; thus justifying actions like beating them or burning down their houses. It's a weird world.
We also had a guest from Austria stay over one night. Incidentally, also the same night as the shrieking. His name was Christian (which led to much confusion among the Zambians "so he's a christian?" and "so he's travling to Mansa to go to church?") and he was traveling through Southern Africa to see the sights after having gotten his Master's degree. Pretty cool guy. It was nice to play host to a weary traveler, no doubt chocking up some credits to our Karma account. We even made pancakes with our own chicken's eggs (they were delicious and fluffy, but reduced vanilla-cinnamon-sugar-water is no substitute for real maple syrup [add that to my package wish list!]).
As alluded to, our chickens are both laying eggs. More specifically at a rate of 1.02 eggs per day between the two of them. Usually small, creamy colored and sometimes speckled. We put (as neighbor lady insisted) a basket containing sand in the corner of the hen-house. They seem to like that. For a while they were laying at set times, now they lay randomly. Both chickens caught a cold, but have survived. A chicken with a cold is a pretty pathetic/hilarious thing. They sneeze and have a runny beak. Go on and try to imagine a chicken sneezing, you probably are right on the money. After seeing the neighbor's hen surrounded by a batallion of precious little chicks, we've decided to get yet another chicken, so that we can have enough eggs to eat and raise up some fluffballs of our own.
There was another huge fire started in the "forest" this time. I watched it with that glazed fascination humans have always regarded fire until it started getting too close to the neighbor's property. I quickly jumped into the flammable fray with my fire suppression tree branch in hand, but was unable to save the roof of their pit latrine. At this point the Headman came by, not to help, but to point out that he had told the Mumba family that the firebreak must be 10 meters from the house. The neighbors and I managed to stave off the flame's wrath from encroaching upon the cooking shelter, house, and mango tree fortunately. The chickens got a feast though, as grasshoppers and all other manner of insect were driven from the forest and into their gullets by the fire.
The new bed, or as Carrie calls it "[my] bed", in the garden is flourishing in its fully intercropped glory. Portuguese cabbage leaves as big as your head! Tomato plants growing as though they lived next to a nuclear reactor! Carrie attributes all of this permicultural plenitude to my frequent waterings. We'll see, since Peg is watering the garden at the moment instead of me (hope there are no incidents of demonic possession in the vicinity of the garden). The grasshoppers (as mentioned, newly driven by the blaze) are nibbling the cabbage leaves as fast as their little mandibles can move, but their efforts are overshadowed by the rate of leaf growth. I really have to get around to mulching things though, so that our persistent weeds are suppressed along with the rate of water loss from the soil.
It's hot season now. It gets really hot, even early in the morning, and doesn't cool off much until late into the night. (Sarah, Jamie, are you even reading this!?) Unfortunately this is only the beginning. Fortunately, hot season seems to bring a lot of wind and some cloud cover to Mpelembe. It also brought a brief sprinkle of rain - to which Carrie exclaimed "oh no, the Zambians are going to think it's the apocalypse".
I think I'll go to Chipata with Carrie. It'd be nice to see a new province and new town. Anyway that's all for now. Take care.
Been traveling so much lately it's hard to keep track of what's going on. On the way back to Mpelembe from Serenje one day I nearly got stranded in Chalilo (30 km from Mpelembe). There I had my ear nearly talked off by a well meaning drunk guy. He wants Carrie and I to come to Chalilo to talk to people about how to improve their farming methods (saving seed, compost, etc.) and, he hoped, bring irrigation machinery?? Ha. Anyway, after stating all the points he wished us to discuss, he went on about how he must save his family name, all of the high status position he holds, and how he uses latex gloves to pick his tomotoes. The chief arrived at some point and was giving villagers some wood to burn. I couldn't meet him though, because all I had were some small oranges to offer and meeting him outside of his palace would have been a big social faux pas.
On the way back to Serenje from Mpelembe I was explaining to some people that paying for sex is a bad practice as one could easily catch HIV from prostitutes, when one 12th grader asked in a doubtful tone "is HIV real?". When informed that yes, in fact it was real, and no, you probably won't catch it from silverware, he said he heard that they put HIV on all of the condoms at the condom factory. I was pretty depressed and horrified at the idea of a rumor like that going around in a country where 1 in 5 people have HIV/AIDS. I tried to tell him that the rumor is untrue, and that if he is going to be having sex that he should be using a condom.
In the village all is well except for the Headman's daughter's insane screechings that went on for half an hour one night. When the Headman and his son came over to return a bike, they explained that she was "just washing her eyes - it's normal". The next day when we inquired again, the brother, Charles, provided an even more dubious explanation. She has a demon in her. Unfortunately they very much believe that this is the case. He went on to explain some angels' fall from grace according to the bible, and their present role in disturbing people. He cited how Peg sometimes "talks too much, like she's a little odd" and of course her late night eruption. Ultimately, I think it was a parent's disapproval of her biking alone to Chalilo (perhaps to visit a boy) that sparked the incident. Especially since she took off the next day to Chalilo. Charles also told us about witches and their lack of humanity; thus justifying actions like beating them or burning down their houses. It's a weird world.
We also had a guest from Austria stay over one night. Incidentally, also the same night as the shrieking. His name was Christian (which led to much confusion among the Zambians "so he's a christian?" and "so he's travling to Mansa to go to church?") and he was traveling through Southern Africa to see the sights after having gotten his Master's degree. Pretty cool guy. It was nice to play host to a weary traveler, no doubt chocking up some credits to our Karma account. We even made pancakes with our own chicken's eggs (they were delicious and fluffy, but reduced vanilla-cinnamon-sugar-water is no substitute for real maple syrup [add that to my package wish list!]).
As alluded to, our chickens are both laying eggs. More specifically at a rate of 1.02 eggs per day between the two of them. Usually small, creamy colored and sometimes speckled. We put (as neighbor lady insisted) a basket containing sand in the corner of the hen-house. They seem to like that. For a while they were laying at set times, now they lay randomly. Both chickens caught a cold, but have survived. A chicken with a cold is a pretty pathetic/hilarious thing. They sneeze and have a runny beak. Go on and try to imagine a chicken sneezing, you probably are right on the money. After seeing the neighbor's hen surrounded by a batallion of precious little chicks, we've decided to get yet another chicken, so that we can have enough eggs to eat and raise up some fluffballs of our own.
There was another huge fire started in the "forest" this time. I watched it with that glazed fascination humans have always regarded fire until it started getting too close to the neighbor's property. I quickly jumped into the flammable fray with my fire suppression tree branch in hand, but was unable to save the roof of their pit latrine. At this point the Headman came by, not to help, but to point out that he had told the Mumba family that the firebreak must be 10 meters from the house. The neighbors and I managed to stave off the flame's wrath from encroaching upon the cooking shelter, house, and mango tree fortunately. The chickens got a feast though, as grasshoppers and all other manner of insect were driven from the forest and into their gullets by the fire.
The new bed, or as Carrie calls it "[my] bed", in the garden is flourishing in its fully intercropped glory. Portuguese cabbage leaves as big as your head! Tomato plants growing as though they lived next to a nuclear reactor! Carrie attributes all of this permicultural plenitude to my frequent waterings. We'll see, since Peg is watering the garden at the moment instead of me (hope there are no incidents of demonic possession in the vicinity of the garden). The grasshoppers (as mentioned, newly driven by the blaze) are nibbling the cabbage leaves as fast as their little mandibles can move, but their efforts are overshadowed by the rate of leaf growth. I really have to get around to mulching things though, so that our persistent weeds are suppressed along with the rate of water loss from the soil.
It's hot season now. It gets really hot, even early in the morning, and doesn't cool off much until late into the night. (Sarah, Jamie, are you even reading this!?) Unfortunately this is only the beginning. Fortunately, hot season seems to bring a lot of wind and some cloud cover to Mpelembe. It also brought a brief sprinkle of rain - to which Carrie exclaimed "oh no, the Zambians are going to think it's the apocalypse".
I think I'll go to Chipata with Carrie. It'd be nice to see a new province and new town. Anyway that's all for now. Take care.
03 September 2007
Ubwafia Sana (Very Problem)
So unfortunately Carrie and I are back in Lusaka, where everything is 10x as expensive as the village and people aren't as nice. Although being able to eat Indian food and Pizza is nice I suppose.
The 'very problem' is that apparently a letter from the clinic at which I want to work along with my resume are no sufficient to apply for a work permit according the the hardass immigration officer of Serenje. And of course you can't volunteer without a work permit. His approach varies between detective "everything you say is being recorded so I will catch any contradictions you are making", helpful and dutiful Zambian official "you see these two flags on my desk; America and Zambia, we are one" (to which I replied "well if we are one then I don't even need a work permit, right?"), and highly educated bastard who likes to hear himself talk "you see this paper, this certifies that I have taken all of these courses, in your country. Now all you have is this paper, which anyone could type on a computer, it does not certify you" (his was no more official than a resume and could also have been typed on a computer by anyone). Basically we talked for maybe 4 hours, him nitpicking everything I had and every defense I used. He even accused me of trying to contravene Zambian law with a penalty of 1 million Kwacha (like $250) because I had gotten a visitors' visa though I wanted to volunteer. Finally, after making Carrie cry because he needed to expound upon something ridiculous and yelled at her for interrupting him in the middle of his monologue, he felt guilty enough to extend my visitors visa without penalty for another month. Just so I could gather the necessary documentation including a letter from the Ministry of Health in Lusaka offering me a position of employment. He says that everything is centralized in Zambia, so the offer must come from the very top of the Ministry, as opposed to from the people with whom I am actually going to be working with. Ugh, frustrating. I would understand if I was getting paid, but it's silly to go through all this rigmarole just to volunteer.
Carrie and I got to Lusaka yesterday, partially in a totally bwana fast and free ride with an accountant. This morning I went to the headquarters of the MOH and was told I need to type up a letter of my intentions. Luckily the nice people on the ground floor let me use one of their computers to do so. Tomorrow I will go back to find out if they agreed to write the letter or not. If not, I may have to leave and re-enter the country every 3 months and not be able to volunteer with the clinic legally. Or I might try and volunteer with the Neighborhood Health Committees in Mplembe, who don't have an astonishing hierarchy and bureaucracy to get a letter from.
On a lighter note, we got 2 chickens; Fireball and Pocahontas - who are fun to watch and feed but lay no eggs because they are too young (the villagers lied!). We might also get another one that will actually lay eggs now as opposed to 2 or 3 months from now. We build a really askew and unstable chicken house of of bamboo, natural fiber (for which I had to rip the bark off of the musamba tree), thatch, and sticks. It's on a really stable platform though. Sometimes the chickens (or kitchens as my headman likes to call them) follow me around because they want peanuts, and sometimes they run away from me when I try to capture them (they usually try to sleep over at the neighbors' house because they deem themselves subservient to the rooster next door [feminism hasn't caught on among humans nor chickens in Zambia, much to my dismay]). The best is disabling a giant locust and then watching the chickens try to choke it down. Anyway, needless to say they provide hours of entertainment.
The garden is surviving multiple attack from the mole or whatever it is. Sweet potatoes are nice because you can replant the half-eaten stems and they will try to grow the tubers all over again. Swiss chard and green bean are not so lucky. At least it's less water to carry I suppose. That's what we would call the proverbial silver lining of the insidious storm cloud of rodent destruction. Clinical Officer Kasolo claims he has a solution to all of our mole woes which he will reveal upon our return. We recently made a new bed permaculture style - with all of the vegetables and fruits all mixed up with eachother and little space between anything. Carrie doesn't think it's viable. I think it's going to be awesome. The mice will be so confused by the great variety of vegetation that they won't be able to even find the tomatoes to take bites out of! I think we need more compost though, because the soil is pretty poor. The chickens aren't pooping enough. The passionfruit plant is growing spectacularly. And most of the mango flowers on one of the trees has set fruit. Apparently all the fruits will be ripe in November or December. I have a feeling the banana tree will beat that because I have been sneaking it water.
I repaired my crappy bike so it's tolerably rideable. Carrie was away all week and it was rather lonely, though the neighbor kids tried to provide company by sitting on our back porch staring at me while I built the chicken house. Periodically the headman would come over to tell me how the chicken house is wrong and not strong. Zambians have a very set way of doing absolutely everything and put no stock in the idea that there is more than one solution for a given problem. Our neighbor, Iron Mumba, wanted to do the roof of the chicken house and the headman wanted to help build the stand, because they felt I was doing it wrong. I showed them that posts don't have to be as big around as one's leg when you used cross-bracing, and that even Muzungus can thatch a roof. I felt kinda bad about helping deforest Zambia with the saplings I harvested to build everything. But then I though about all of the waste and pollution that would be generated were I to build a chicken house in the U.S. and I felt better. I'd probably use lumber which was harvested far away and took a lot of energy to saw and ship around. Then I'd use nails and screws whose metal had been strip-mined from the earth, maybe coated in plastic which was derived from oil too. It's neat being in direct interaction with the earth. I think that's what I'm liking best about Zambia. In the villages, almost everything is done by hand, and all materials are directly from the environment around them. I wish our garden was good enough that we could grow all our own food, but maybe in time.
We got a beehive built (badly) in Serenje and set it up in the mango grove out back. No bees so far. I think either the entrance is too small or the top bars are too irregular and leave gaps that the bees find unacceptable. I think we'll get the carpenter in Mplembe to make new ones. Maybe the bees will be in there by the time we get back. Who knows.
The neighbors are always asking for food, which I usually grudgingly give them because we have so much more and their kids bellies stick out a bit too far. Fortunately (and unfortunately) they are setting up some fields behind their house for finger millet and sorghum. The unfortunately is because they chopped down a huge swath of trees which they are going to burn. The headman and I were especially upset about this huge mupundu tree they cut down. They are handsome trees and they produce tasty little fruits. Oh well, I guess it's good that they are moving towards self-sustenance. Anyway, I'm thinking we could help them set up a garden too, to grow some vegetables to go with all of their carbohydrate-providing staples. Give a person a fish feed them for a day...
My Bemba vocab hasn't increased much as things have been too busy for bemba lessons. I'm getting more comfortable with the language overall though. Oh! Maurice, the carpenter (who is a really stellar craftsman, Dad - you should see his doors, the wood here is so beautiful) speaks French alongside Bemba and some English. It was neat conversing in French, except I would always use awe and ee instead of non and oui by accident. You'd be proud of me Mom, I didn't screw up my French too much.
Nonna, thank you for your letter! I'm glad you liked Sicko and are so politically radical. I always knew I had the coolest grandmother.
Emilie, Foucault isn't too dry. Also, did you ever get my happy birthday text message? Big congratulations on getting a real job! I hope you like it and your new compartment.
Tony, I wait on tenterhooks for the 14 pounds of glory that is Molecular Biology of the Cell.
John, did you manage to get my account straightened out?
I hope everyone is in good health and trucking along just fine. Much love, Doug
The 'very problem' is that apparently a letter from the clinic at which I want to work along with my resume are no sufficient to apply for a work permit according the the hardass immigration officer of Serenje. And of course you can't volunteer without a work permit. His approach varies between detective "everything you say is being recorded so I will catch any contradictions you are making", helpful and dutiful Zambian official "you see these two flags on my desk; America and Zambia, we are one" (to which I replied "well if we are one then I don't even need a work permit, right?"), and highly educated bastard who likes to hear himself talk "you see this paper, this certifies that I have taken all of these courses, in your country. Now all you have is this paper, which anyone could type on a computer, it does not certify you" (his was no more official than a resume and could also have been typed on a computer by anyone). Basically we talked for maybe 4 hours, him nitpicking everything I had and every defense I used. He even accused me of trying to contravene Zambian law with a penalty of 1 million Kwacha (like $250) because I had gotten a visitors' visa though I wanted to volunteer. Finally, after making Carrie cry because he needed to expound upon something ridiculous and yelled at her for interrupting him in the middle of his monologue, he felt guilty enough to extend my visitors visa without penalty for another month. Just so I could gather the necessary documentation including a letter from the Ministry of Health in Lusaka offering me a position of employment. He says that everything is centralized in Zambia, so the offer must come from the very top of the Ministry, as opposed to from the people with whom I am actually going to be working with. Ugh, frustrating. I would understand if I was getting paid, but it's silly to go through all this rigmarole just to volunteer.
Carrie and I got to Lusaka yesterday, partially in a totally bwana fast and free ride with an accountant. This morning I went to the headquarters of the MOH and was told I need to type up a letter of my intentions. Luckily the nice people on the ground floor let me use one of their computers to do so. Tomorrow I will go back to find out if they agreed to write the letter or not. If not, I may have to leave and re-enter the country every 3 months and not be able to volunteer with the clinic legally. Or I might try and volunteer with the Neighborhood Health Committees in Mplembe, who don't have an astonishing hierarchy and bureaucracy to get a letter from.
On a lighter note, we got 2 chickens; Fireball and Pocahontas - who are fun to watch and feed but lay no eggs because they are too young (the villagers lied!). We might also get another one that will actually lay eggs now as opposed to 2 or 3 months from now. We build a really askew and unstable chicken house of of bamboo, natural fiber (for which I had to rip the bark off of the musamba tree), thatch, and sticks. It's on a really stable platform though. Sometimes the chickens (or kitchens as my headman likes to call them) follow me around because they want peanuts, and sometimes they run away from me when I try to capture them (they usually try to sleep over at the neighbors' house because they deem themselves subservient to the rooster next door [feminism hasn't caught on among humans nor chickens in Zambia, much to my dismay]). The best is disabling a giant locust and then watching the chickens try to choke it down. Anyway, needless to say they provide hours of entertainment.
The garden is surviving multiple attack from the mole or whatever it is. Sweet potatoes are nice because you can replant the half-eaten stems and they will try to grow the tubers all over again. Swiss chard and green bean are not so lucky. At least it's less water to carry I suppose. That's what we would call the proverbial silver lining of the insidious storm cloud of rodent destruction. Clinical Officer Kasolo claims he has a solution to all of our mole woes which he will reveal upon our return. We recently made a new bed permaculture style - with all of the vegetables and fruits all mixed up with eachother and little space between anything. Carrie doesn't think it's viable. I think it's going to be awesome. The mice will be so confused by the great variety of vegetation that they won't be able to even find the tomatoes to take bites out of! I think we need more compost though, because the soil is pretty poor. The chickens aren't pooping enough. The passionfruit plant is growing spectacularly. And most of the mango flowers on one of the trees has set fruit. Apparently all the fruits will be ripe in November or December. I have a feeling the banana tree will beat that because I have been sneaking it water.
I repaired my crappy bike so it's tolerably rideable. Carrie was away all week and it was rather lonely, though the neighbor kids tried to provide company by sitting on our back porch staring at me while I built the chicken house. Periodically the headman would come over to tell me how the chicken house is wrong and not strong. Zambians have a very set way of doing absolutely everything and put no stock in the idea that there is more than one solution for a given problem. Our neighbor, Iron Mumba, wanted to do the roof of the chicken house and the headman wanted to help build the stand, because they felt I was doing it wrong. I showed them that posts don't have to be as big around as one's leg when you used cross-bracing, and that even Muzungus can thatch a roof. I felt kinda bad about helping deforest Zambia with the saplings I harvested to build everything. But then I though about all of the waste and pollution that would be generated were I to build a chicken house in the U.S. and I felt better. I'd probably use lumber which was harvested far away and took a lot of energy to saw and ship around. Then I'd use nails and screws whose metal had been strip-mined from the earth, maybe coated in plastic which was derived from oil too. It's neat being in direct interaction with the earth. I think that's what I'm liking best about Zambia. In the villages, almost everything is done by hand, and all materials are directly from the environment around them. I wish our garden was good enough that we could grow all our own food, but maybe in time.
We got a beehive built (badly) in Serenje and set it up in the mango grove out back. No bees so far. I think either the entrance is too small or the top bars are too irregular and leave gaps that the bees find unacceptable. I think we'll get the carpenter in Mplembe to make new ones. Maybe the bees will be in there by the time we get back. Who knows.
The neighbors are always asking for food, which I usually grudgingly give them because we have so much more and their kids bellies stick out a bit too far. Fortunately (and unfortunately) they are setting up some fields behind their house for finger millet and sorghum. The unfortunately is because they chopped down a huge swath of trees which they are going to burn. The headman and I were especially upset about this huge mupundu tree they cut down. They are handsome trees and they produce tasty little fruits. Oh well, I guess it's good that they are moving towards self-sustenance. Anyway, I'm thinking we could help them set up a garden too, to grow some vegetables to go with all of their carbohydrate-providing staples. Give a person a fish feed them for a day...
My Bemba vocab hasn't increased much as things have been too busy for bemba lessons. I'm getting more comfortable with the language overall though. Oh! Maurice, the carpenter (who is a really stellar craftsman, Dad - you should see his doors, the wood here is so beautiful) speaks French alongside Bemba and some English. It was neat conversing in French, except I would always use awe and ee instead of non and oui by accident. You'd be proud of me Mom, I didn't screw up my French too much.
Nonna, thank you for your letter! I'm glad you liked Sicko and are so politically radical. I always knew I had the coolest grandmother.
Emilie, Foucault isn't too dry. Also, did you ever get my happy birthday text message? Big congratulations on getting a real job! I hope you like it and your new compartment.
Tony, I wait on tenterhooks for the 14 pounds of glory that is Molecular Biology of the Cell.
John, did you manage to get my account straightened out?
I hope everyone is in good health and trucking along just fine. Much love, Doug
15 August 2007
Oh yeah
Well, it seems we are getting free transport later today with some ministry of education person, but we have some time to kill so I will post again.
I ate some stuff from a baobab pod from the market, but have yet to see an actual baobab tree. Speaking of eating, if anyone wants to send anything, I could really use some cumin, but talk amongst yourselves to make sure I don't get 5 containers of cumin. Also spinach, marigold, basil, mint, and some nice heirloom cherry tomato seeds would be nice. If anyone wants to send me a copy of Emma Goldman's autobiography (preferably from a used bookstore or at least a non-corporate one) I'd like to finish that. Any good literature that isn't too dry. Maybe Michel Foucault on power or some Vonnegut books I haven't read. Again don't everyone send me things. You can use the comment section to communicate "dibs" on stuff. I'd say cumin and seeds are most high on the list. And remember to send everything addressed to Carrie. I haven't gotten my mail yet because we haven't been to the Serenje post office yet.
My bemba is coming along pretty dandily I would say. I can say things that involve personal pronouns and verbs in past, present, and future tense ok. Like Nshalitemwa ukutapa amenshi (I don't like to draw water). It is hard to understand what people say though and my vocab is limited.
Nshima isn't bad at all. Since you always eat it with a "relish" it can be tasty. There are also 4 different types: Corn (everyone's favorite, available as fluffy nutritionless 'breakfast meal' or whole kernel 'roller meal'), Sorghum, Finger Millet, and Cassava. My villagers are pretty poor so cannot afford fertilizer to grow corn most of the time. So they eat cassava nshima in the dry season (now) and some of the other kinds more during and after the rainy season. Carrie and I helped harvest some cassava with a handmade hoe which was kinda cool. Some kinds you can eat raw and it tastes a little like mild coconut and parsnips. Most they soak and pound into flour for nshima. Cassava nshima is very hard to make because it becomes really thick and mucilaginous rapidly upon cooking. For relish I make my world famous "Doug's World Famous Tomato Relish" which, incidentally, is not world famous. But it is delicious. Tomatoes, soya pieces (textured vegetable protein to Americans), onions, and vinegar. If you eat too much cassava nshima you get kinda sick feeling from all the residual cyanide. Hopefully we can buy some roller meal in Serenje on the way back.
They also have these funny smaller bananas that taste in between a banana and a green apple. Some other weird things I have eaten: icikanda (made from the root of an orchid and peanuts, tastes and looks just like some sort of weird sausage-balogna), weird little fibrous nut things, unsweetened tamarind, fermented milk (which tastes like runny yoghurt), chibuku (fermented fried corn meal - awful).
Ok everyone is leaving the internet. I will too. Much love, Doug
I ate some stuff from a baobab pod from the market, but have yet to see an actual baobab tree. Speaking of eating, if anyone wants to send anything, I could really use some cumin, but talk amongst yourselves to make sure I don't get 5 containers of cumin. Also spinach, marigold, basil, mint, and some nice heirloom cherry tomato seeds would be nice. If anyone wants to send me a copy of Emma Goldman's autobiography (preferably from a used bookstore or at least a non-corporate one) I'd like to finish that. Any good literature that isn't too dry. Maybe Michel Foucault on power or some Vonnegut books I haven't read. Again don't everyone send me things. You can use the comment section to communicate "dibs" on stuff. I'd say cumin and seeds are most high on the list. And remember to send everything addressed to Carrie. I haven't gotten my mail yet because we haven't been to the Serenje post office yet.
My bemba is coming along pretty dandily I would say. I can say things that involve personal pronouns and verbs in past, present, and future tense ok. Like Nshalitemwa ukutapa amenshi (I don't like to draw water). It is hard to understand what people say though and my vocab is limited.
Nshima isn't bad at all. Since you always eat it with a "relish" it can be tasty. There are also 4 different types: Corn (everyone's favorite, available as fluffy nutritionless 'breakfast meal' or whole kernel 'roller meal'), Sorghum, Finger Millet, and Cassava. My villagers are pretty poor so cannot afford fertilizer to grow corn most of the time. So they eat cassava nshima in the dry season (now) and some of the other kinds more during and after the rainy season. Carrie and I helped harvest some cassava with a handmade hoe which was kinda cool. Some kinds you can eat raw and it tastes a little like mild coconut and parsnips. Most they soak and pound into flour for nshima. Cassava nshima is very hard to make because it becomes really thick and mucilaginous rapidly upon cooking. For relish I make my world famous "Doug's World Famous Tomato Relish" which, incidentally, is not world famous. But it is delicious. Tomatoes, soya pieces (textured vegetable protein to Americans), onions, and vinegar. If you eat too much cassava nshima you get kinda sick feeling from all the residual cyanide. Hopefully we can buy some roller meal in Serenje on the way back.
They also have these funny smaller bananas that taste in between a banana and a green apple. Some other weird things I have eaten: icikanda (made from the root of an orchid and peanuts, tastes and looks just like some sort of weird sausage-balogna), weird little fibrous nut things, unsweetened tamarind, fermented milk (which tastes like runny yoghurt), chibuku (fermented fried corn meal - awful).
Ok everyone is leaving the internet. I will too. Much love, Doug
14 August 2007
One of the 10 most polluted cities in the world
Ahhh Kabwe. Don't worry it's only because of lead and other heavy metal contamination of the soil and water - Carrie and I brought water. I tagged along with Carrie and 2 other PCVs to Kabwe where they had a meeting with some education higher-ups. Kabwe is pretty neat, very different from Lusaka, but still very big. More open and nicer I think. They also have this mukuyu tree - the "meeting tree" - whose branches spread wider than any tree I have ever seen. It is very beautiful. The market is really big and Kabwe has a Shoprite (Western-style grocery store) where you can get things like oats and brown rice instead of corn meal and vegatables. So yeah, I sold out and we stocked up there. It's so funny to go through the market, because white people never go in there, so all eyes focus on you and you get lots of "hey my friend"s and "boy!". But people are delighted when you speak a little Bemba and warm quickly.
After spending forever getting up to Serenje (which is the closest real town to our village) we stayed at the Peace Corps house. I bought a defective bicycle (the seller touted "it's made in China" as though it were a mark of quality) and had some hassle returning it. Then we went to Mkushi (a bigger town, farther away) to buy a mountain bike which is ok, except its innertubes are awful. Eventually we got up to Mpelembe (the village where I am living) and to the hut.
The hut is very nice and spacious (for a mud brick hut). We have a kitchen, livingroom, bedroom and storage area. Outside we have a decent sized garden with all sorts of stuff (mostly stolen by mice and moles), a cooking shelter and an icimbusu (squat-over pit latrine; which really isn't very bad or difficult). Our yard is dirt and then weeds, which apparently we are supposed to sweep in a wavy pattern frequently. A usual day consists of eating leftovers for breakfast, watering the garden (takes forever as we have to draw our water from a well), doing dishes, Carrie teaching me to speak Bemba, biking to the borehole at the school for drinking water, hanging out, cooking over a brazier (now I can set fire to a brazier, just like a hippie), and going to bed at 8 or 9 pm. I can't work at the clinic until I apply for my work permit apparently, but they were very excited about the medical supplies "hydrogen peroxide! some of these things I have never seen before!", and very enthusiastic about me working with them.
Life in the village is nice. Kinda how I think life should be. Everyone is very poor by our standards, yet everything is just fine. People grow their own food for the most part. There are no police anywhere nearby. Everyone is very nice to one another and there is a good sense of community. Rural Zambians are very quick to try and help you whenever they can. I mean obviously there are a lot of health problems and most people are getting a less than stellar education, but things are ok for everyone it seems.
Some funny/interesting things in Zambia:
A goat riding standing on the roof of a cab on a huge flatbed truck
Most Zambian trucks and busses have names that are usually hilarious. The best - "Nazi Power".
All the fresh milk is Zambia is actually just reconstituted powdered milk.
The hotel clerk trying to write our names on the reciept "Bouglas Placia" and "Callio Paku"
People wearing ludicrous clothing, ranging from Tupak with studded bling and World Wrestling Federation shirts to chitenges (like a dress-wrap thing) with an oscillating fan design, dress shirts covered in depictions of Saddam Hussein standing proud, and a little boy wearing a shirt that says "I <3 making boys cry" (which is especially rich because I think homosexuality is illegal here).
The great umulilo (fire)! The headman just started setting fire to all the grass and scrub brush around his hut and ours without us realizing beforehand. We just saw a big fire up the road and ran over to check it out. One of the headmans sons declared "Douglas, you have come. Help me save my home". It wasn't really serious as they do this every year to help fertilize the soil (poorly). So Carrie, the headman and his children, the neighbors, and myself spent the night maintaining the fire in a smallish zone around our homes. It was exciting beating the burning grass with branches and running around shirtless. We even managed to save all of our mango trees. I guess ultimately we just cleared a fire barrier for when they start the really big fires.
I guess that's about it for now. Tomorrow we head back to Serenje to pick up wood for a beehive and then back to Mpelembe. On our next trip on the 21st to renew my stay in Zambia, we will be buying a couple of bush chickens for eggs! Hope everyone is doing very well!
Love, Doug
After spending forever getting up to Serenje (which is the closest real town to our village) we stayed at the Peace Corps house. I bought a defective bicycle (the seller touted "it's made in China" as though it were a mark of quality) and had some hassle returning it. Then we went to Mkushi (a bigger town, farther away) to buy a mountain bike which is ok, except its innertubes are awful. Eventually we got up to Mpelembe (the village where I am living) and to the hut.
The hut is very nice and spacious (for a mud brick hut). We have a kitchen, livingroom, bedroom and storage area. Outside we have a decent sized garden with all sorts of stuff (mostly stolen by mice and moles), a cooking shelter and an icimbusu (squat-over pit latrine; which really isn't very bad or difficult). Our yard is dirt and then weeds, which apparently we are supposed to sweep in a wavy pattern frequently. A usual day consists of eating leftovers for breakfast, watering the garden (takes forever as we have to draw our water from a well), doing dishes, Carrie teaching me to speak Bemba, biking to the borehole at the school for drinking water, hanging out, cooking over a brazier (now I can set fire to a brazier, just like a hippie), and going to bed at 8 or 9 pm. I can't work at the clinic until I apply for my work permit apparently, but they were very excited about the medical supplies "hydrogen peroxide! some of these things I have never seen before!", and very enthusiastic about me working with them.
Life in the village is nice. Kinda how I think life should be. Everyone is very poor by our standards, yet everything is just fine. People grow their own food for the most part. There are no police anywhere nearby. Everyone is very nice to one another and there is a good sense of community. Rural Zambians are very quick to try and help you whenever they can. I mean obviously there are a lot of health problems and most people are getting a less than stellar education, but things are ok for everyone it seems.
Some funny/interesting things in Zambia:
A goat riding standing on the roof of a cab on a huge flatbed truck
Most Zambian trucks and busses have names that are usually hilarious. The best - "Nazi Power".
All the fresh milk is Zambia is actually just reconstituted powdered milk.
The hotel clerk trying to write our names on the reciept "Bouglas Placia" and "Callio Paku"
People wearing ludicrous clothing, ranging from Tupak with studded bling and World Wrestling Federation shirts to chitenges (like a dress-wrap thing) with an oscillating fan design, dress shirts covered in depictions of Saddam Hussein standing proud, and a little boy wearing a shirt that says "I <3 making boys cry" (which is especially rich because I think homosexuality is illegal here).
The great umulilo (fire)! The headman just started setting fire to all the grass and scrub brush around his hut and ours without us realizing beforehand. We just saw a big fire up the road and ran over to check it out. One of the headmans sons declared "Douglas, you have come. Help me save my home". It wasn't really serious as they do this every year to help fertilize the soil (poorly). So Carrie, the headman and his children, the neighbors, and myself spent the night maintaining the fire in a smallish zone around our homes. It was exciting beating the burning grass with branches and running around shirtless. We even managed to save all of our mango trees. I guess ultimately we just cleared a fire barrier for when they start the really big fires.
I guess that's about it for now. Tomorrow we head back to Serenje to pick up wood for a beehive and then back to Mpelembe. On our next trip on the 21st to renew my stay in Zambia, we will be buying a couple of bush chickens for eggs! Hope everyone is doing very well!
Love, Doug
22 July 2007
Made it
Hello everyone!
I made it to Zambia alive. I'm in Lusaka now - it's pretty rad. Today we rode the minibusses all around because they kept misdirecting us as to where they were headed. Now we are at an American style mall to exchange money and use the internet. We might try to visit Carrie's homestay family later.
The flight was so long! But luckily I had some people to talk to most of the way. The guesthouse we are staying at is hilarious. They only have water at completely random intervals. They only serve chinese food, but the noodles they usually import haven't been coming in so their choice of dishes is limited. They have a neat courtyard with dogs and a banana, orange, and papaya tree. Zambian plants are very beautiful and Lusaka is poor yet vibrant.
That's all for now!
I made it to Zambia alive. I'm in Lusaka now - it's pretty rad. Today we rode the minibusses all around because they kept misdirecting us as to where they were headed. Now we are at an American style mall to exchange money and use the internet. We might try to visit Carrie's homestay family later.
The flight was so long! But luckily I had some people to talk to most of the way. The guesthouse we are staying at is hilarious. They only have water at completely random intervals. They only serve chinese food, but the noodles they usually import haven't been coming in so their choice of dishes is limited. They have a neat courtyard with dogs and a banana, orange, and papaya tree. Zambian plants are very beautiful and Lusaka is poor yet vibrant.
That's all for now!
16 July 2007
Thoughts on going to Zambia
I have 4 days left until I fly across the ocean to Zambia! I thought for my first post I would write down what I am looking forward to in Zambia and what I anticipate missing from the U.S.
Looking forward to
Looking forward to
- No internets to waste time on
- Tropical fruits
- Few cars
- A simple life
- Working at something meaningful
- Living in an entirely different culture
- Gardening
- Keeping bees?
- Being with my love
- Not being a wage slave
- All of my dearest friends
- My family
- Running water
- Knowing the language
- Diverse foods
- Hot showers
- The library
- Lack of parasites
- Low numbers of bugs and other pests
- Ability for affection in public
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