Goats and beer
The Heifer International website makes it really hard to apply for a goat but really easy to donate money. I guess people who need goats don't really have internet access. Except for me.
As I was biking out of my village I saw about 5 different people brewing giant barrels of beer along the road, my family included. It looks like tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day in the village. Some of my farmers are brewing beer to get boys to dig a furrow for them. The president of my fish association said that they will brew the beer and the drunkards will come and dig all day. And they will do it again. Sounds good to me.
Incidentally you can make beer out of anything corn, tea, fruit, ketchup. Local brewing is a lost art in America. It was a huge part of our national pastime. In fact, Johnny Appleseed wasn't planting apples for the kiddies. Apples were almost exclusively used for hard cider just a hundred years ago. Which again makes me realize that Zambia is the wild west, without the guns. All it takes is a few hours in Serenje to realize that. The guidebooks call Serenje unremarkable and explicitly advice people to stay away from Volunteer hotspots in Lusaka. It's nice not to be a tourist.
But here are a few things I am very happy about
- Tanzanian truck drivers
- the swahili language barrier between me and the Tanzanian truck drivers
- Seba's golden soya pieces
- the willingness of Zambian youth to do everything I tell them to
- living in the tomato capitial of africa
- the amount of random volunteers floating around central province
- commercial famers
- the BBC
- powdered milk
- riding in trucks
- riding my bike
- hunting in the bush for things to put in my salads
Things at aren't so great
- All the cell phone numbers in Zambia being changed by national decree. My new number is +0260966106872. It is a little expensive to call but texts are pretty cheap. Let me know what you are up to. And Happy Birthday Patrick!
As I was biking out of my village I saw about 5 different people brewing giant barrels of beer along the road, my family included. It looks like tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day in the village. Some of my farmers are brewing beer to get boys to dig a furrow for them. The president of my fish association said that they will brew the beer and the drunkards will come and dig all day. And they will do it again. Sounds good to me.
Incidentally you can make beer out of anything corn, tea, fruit, ketchup. Local brewing is a lost art in America. It was a huge part of our national pastime. In fact, Johnny Appleseed wasn't planting apples for the kiddies. Apples were almost exclusively used for hard cider just a hundred years ago. Which again makes me realize that Zambia is the wild west, without the guns. All it takes is a few hours in Serenje to realize that. The guidebooks call Serenje unremarkable and explicitly advice people to stay away from Volunteer hotspots in Lusaka. It's nice not to be a tourist.
But here are a few things I am very happy about
- Tanzanian truck drivers
- the swahili language barrier between me and the Tanzanian truck drivers
- Seba's golden soya pieces
- the willingness of Zambian youth to do everything I tell them to
- living in the tomato capitial of africa
- the amount of random volunteers floating around central province
- commercial famers
- the BBC
- powdered milk
- riding in trucks
- riding my bike
- hunting in the bush for things to put in my salads
Things at aren't so great
- All the cell phone numbers in Zambia being changed by national decree. My new number is +0260966106872. It is a little expensive to call but texts are pretty cheap. Let me know what you are up to. And Happy Birthday Patrick!
posted by Laura in Zed @ 10:30 AM
1 Comments:
At 5:58 AM,
Unknown said…
Laura!! It's been too long since I've said hi nor even acknowledged your existence, but rest assured I've thought about you and mentioned you in plenty of conversations since you've been gone. Small consolation, I know, but hopefully me saying hi will make up for some of my gross abandonment. Reading through your stories is fun reading, let me tell you. I can without a glimmer of a doubt tell you I am enormously jealous of all the things you've done/seen. I'd even settle for a possible case of the rabies. It's funny how you mention it so nonchalantly, but that would have been THE story at my last family reunion. I suppose it's all relative. I'd like to update you on all my going's ons through letter, if that's possible. Is there an address I can send you stuff? If it's written somewhere in this blog, a simple "read on stupid" reply will suffice. I hope all is well, and I promise to reply more often. Cheers!
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