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!
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