Biking in the bush

I went on a sweet bike ride to deliver fingerlings (baby fish) to a farmer. The 20 liter jug of water strapped to the back of my bike weighed more than my bike at home. Moutain biking is a whole different ball game than I am used to. Biking with an extra 30 pounds of water and 80 fish is another story all together. The were rivers to cross, razor grass and the person in front of you would disappear into the bush if they were 10 feet ahead of you. Teton has nothing on Zambia when you are carrying 50 extra pounds uphill.

In other news, I got a cell phone. Email me if you want to get in touch. Or send letters! Otherwise I have been able to talk to my family and Ryan this week a lot more than I had been able to before. That makes life so much better. While the people in the corps are incredable it is nice to hear a voice from home. Training is tiring. I'm trying to post pictures of some of the beautiful people and places here, but internet in the bush is hard to come by and you have to bear with me.

Useful phrases here:
anytime from now- The answer to any question which starts as "when....?"
mjelelinkio- the all purpose excuse me/please polite word.
nshima- all that is good and holy on a zambia dinner table or impassa as the case may be.

did I mention I love getting mail?

Ok mom just so you don't hear it from anyone else and get scared: One guy got a slight case of Malaria already, but he is fine. He didn't even miss a class. The medicine we are on makes us very resistant to it and when we get it, it is a very managable case that is very easily treated with medicine we carry around with us. One boy got spit on by a cobra, but that is very very rare. He is perfectly fine, and it happened because he chased the cobra to see what kind of snake it was. Another boy became sick because he ate dirt. They are all going to write about this in their blogs, but honestly it's not a big deal, I am safe, they are all perfectly fine and we are in good hands. I will not eat dirt or follow snakes. The rest of the 60 of us are doing fine and so are the three boys.

I love you all! I'm put pictures up soon!