Adventures Abroad

City lights

2008-04-23T07:39:00.000+02:00

Being the villager that I am, I still woke up at 5 this morning even without the dulcet crows of roosters. I’m in Lusaka once again and there isn’t much to do in the wee hours. Especially when you can’t find a blank quarterly report form. I won’t be home until mid-May. At that point, I’ll only have 6 weeks or so in my village- which is distressing. There is still so much to do. I have to get my roof fixed, find a good home for my dog, spend much more time hanging out with my zamily.

My farmers on the other hand seem to be handling this much better than I. Before I left, I scribbled measurements for 4 farmers and expect to go back to 4 RAP standard ponds ready and waiting for fish. They do keep telling me that they are going to miss my visits. I’m sure I’m very charming when I show up to there houses after a 2 hour bike ride guzzle water, tell them everything looks good and bike back. I do love seeing them ever week, hearing the local gossip and how much they love fish farming. I do have a feeling that if they didn’t expect me to show up regularly at least a few would be more lax with management, but then don’t need me too much anymore. I am working with new farmers too, but they’ve all done their research and talked to their neighbors and have a good idea of what they’re doing. How sustainable.

To encourage this, I am practicing a form of studied neglect, seeing old farmers less and less. New farmers, with first hand experience on neighbor’s ponds, are very quickly becoming old farmers so I seem to have less contact with each individual than I did in the beginning. Now I see most farmers every 2 weeks instead of once a week and some even less. Since I have much more farmers than I did when I first started this isn’t too much of a break. Blah blah blah goats, furrow issues, vigilante justice. So that’s the village.

I’m in town for meetings about training, my close of service conference (means I am in the home stretch) and to finish off my vacation days with a trip to Mozambique. Seafood, diving and laying around on the beach. I’m pretty stoked. I’ll try to put up pictures soon soon.

March Madness

2008-03-28T07:53:00.003+01:00

I should really be in my village getting ready for the three harvests, one DoF visit and first ever dirt sale in RAP history that I have to do in the next two days. But I'm in the boma trying to work up the energy to make the bike ride by home. I'm not that sick. I just have some bacterial infection that makes me tired and dizzy. Incapacitating, yes, but not altogether horrible. So I can't do all the things I need to get done and it isn't so bad that I don't feel guilty for not doing them. Hopefully I can spend the next few hours pushing enough antibiotics and ORS through my body that can bike home.

I was getting home from from Easter vacation yesterday, when I started feeling not fantastic. My bike ride home is 8k long, usually it takes me around 35 mins to get home. Yesterday it took 2 1/2 hours mostly because I would stop to lay in people's lawns on the way. I really wasn't thrilled about the trip back out should I need some medical attention. Then it got worse. I called a commercial farmer who came to pick me up as it was getting dark and stayed with me until I had a place to stay in the boma. I am a very lucky girl to have people around me I can count on. I'm a little wary of starting of home now. I feel not bad, but I haven't eaten anything in since breakfast yesterday and I only really start feeling it when I exert myself. So I'm going to hang out or a few hours, try to eat something and slowly slowly make my way back home. This can't possible go wrong. Mean the while, this gives me a chance to upload some pictures from Christmas.

Maybe during my next gastronomical episode I can put up pictures from Easter. Alexy, Kathy and I went to Siavonga which is on the sandy shores of Lake Kariba. It was much closer to Lusaka than I had thought. I was in an air conditioned room by noon after easy transport. It was pretty fantastic. We met hung out with some interesting guys and I was reminded of how weird white people who live in Africa are after spending some time with a Canadian. Then again, I have been reading Norman Rush. We also bombed royally at the English version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The 100 kwacha questions were about the minute geographical details of Essex County and British sitcoms of the 70s. Alexy, Kathy and I are all, apparently, sore losers. But we did end up winning at life by eating too much and all getting sweet tans. If that's not worth a million kwacha I don't know what is. All in all it was one of the best vacations I've been on. It was about time too, March had been a long month.

I had 8 harvests planned or March. Each harvest takes a few days of work before and after and then nearby ponds have to monitored to make sure they are ready to buy the fingerling (seed fish) that the harvested ponds produce. So it was a lot of bike riding and trying to get rural Zambians to appreciate deadlines. Thankfully all my farmers are wonderful hardworking people and things went pretty well. We've harvested 4 ponds and stocked a bunch. By April there should be 28 ponds with fish in them and a few under construction. And we are digging a 7k long furrow (man made stream) that is going to supply water to hundreds of people and increase the number of people who can have ponds. The next volunteer is going to have a ton of work.

February wasn't very eventful. I worked a lot and it was the beginning of my bike problems. Since my bike couldn't shift gears or have breaks I decided to take the bike of a volunteer who had left. Then the clutch arm fell off when I was 20k from home. Luckily 8k of that was downhill so I held the arm and coasted down. Later I would learn that I could put the arm back on if I found the right sized rock to screw it back with and it would last for about 5k. Eventually I got a new crank put on, but for some reason it would wind up and stop turning. After pushing my bike around for a few days I discovered that if I peddled backwards more than forwards the crank wouldn't seize up. I can't tell you how much fun that is uphill.

Tony moved to the Congo. That wasn't great. But he is off building hospitals for people who desperately need them and I'm proud of him.

I am going to be Lusaka for a bit of April so I should be able to put up a few more pics and send out some more emails. Love you all and I'll see everyone before Halloween.

A Backwards Glance

2008-01-17T12:43:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year kids it's been a while. So lets have a glance back at the memorable events of the past few months.

This month I have been on vacation. The entire thing so far and half of last month. I went to a sweet Christmas party in Serenje where I got Tupperware and whiskey packets in the gift exchange. I can't wait to use them! Then I went on a pretty fantastic trip to Cape Town and the surrounding areas of Johannesburg with my boyfriend Tony. We played with penguins, went to museums rode a scooter around the Cape and ate too much seafood. It was pretty wonderful . I'll try to get pictures up as soon as I can. Then I got to meet his gorgeous 2 1/2 year old daugther a picked up a few words in Afrikaans. It was lekka.

Then the second leg of my trip began. I picked up my brother and we jet-setted around Zambia in tiny planes. Some highlights include playing with lions, Victoria Falls, Malay meatballs, seeing too much wildlife (I love warthogs now) and a really sweet time in my village. I actually just dropped him at the airport today and after a zillion hours of flying he is due back to the cozy coasts of California where there are burritos on every corner and you don't change languages every few towns.

November was also eventful. I had a fish harvest that was by no means a success but what a HUGE improvement over what this group did the last time. last time they got 4kgs from 4 ponds (that is probably the worst harvest anyone has ever ever had) and this time they got 14kgs from 1 pond. So I'm proud of them.

That was also the month that I transported a turkey about 500km for thanksgiving. She was a scrawny well-behaved bird who I paid too much for. We bonded during our 4 trip and then Michelle cut her head off and we had it for dinner.

October was the copperbelt extravaganza. We went to the Kashiba the sunken lake of Mpongwe! It was a lot of swimming and getting burned. We went to a Chimp orphanage in Chingola (where Jenn got pooed on and I got a nasty buffalo bean burn.) Hung out with Tony for the first time since April and had a really fun Halloween party during which I rode on top of watermelons in the back of a huge canter truck.

Also I'm doing training for the RAP 2008 group.

I guess that brings us completely up to date.

Bwangu bwangu

2007-09-14T10:52:00.001+02:00

NEW pics.

Half way there, livin' on a prayer

2007-09-11T08:27:00.000+02:00

Well it's been a while since I've written. Here's a quick synopsis of the last few months. I'm more than half way through this whole Peace Corps wonderfulness. I am starting to get my village ready for me leaving. I am really going to miss this place.

-My house was expanded. It took a long time. I had to move out but it is huge and wonderful now. I have an indoor shower, a pantry and a proper sitting room. All my furniture was delivered via ox-cart. I painted my house ridiculous colors.

- I have been working a lot. Biking 14ok a week and staking up a storm. I have tons of ponds and my farmers are a source of joy in my life- generally.

- I went to a terrible Bob Marley tribute concert and ended up playing a supporting role which resulted in infamy.

- Jen's parents came to visit and it was lovely.

- I had disastrous fish transfers that were demoralizing and extremely expensive. I traveled a thousands of kilometers, spend weeks planning and counted thousands of fish to have them die over and over again. It worked out in the end because of all the amazing help I got from Peace Corps and awesome volunteers.

- I had 5 boys stay at my house for a week for site visits. I biked them all into exhaustion and cooked a lot. We bought pigs from the Congo (it's a four hour ride both ways- probably longing when you have a huge pig tied to your bike). My Zam-dad was 2 days late coming home from this transaction. It turned out that one of them got loose and he spent 2 days tracking a pig through the jungles of the Congo and then gave up and bought another pig. All this extra trouble cost me about $5.

-I went to Lusaka for Jen's birthday. Lusaka is the only place to get ice cream and cheese and sandwiches or to see a movie etc. I came down with giardia and spent my entire time sleeping off my sickness in a fancy hotel. But I did manage to make a miraculous recovery for a few hours to eat a lot of sushi (see picture) and watch the transformers movie. In hindsight- it was probably a poor choice of cuisine but it was glorious at the time.

- We had a Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) event where we took girls from the village to an outdoor activities camp and we had them do a rock climbing wall, canoe, make pottery, sew sanitary pads and we had a lot of girls empowerment, HIV education and whatnot. It was the first time a lot of these had ever used electricity or a fork. It was pretty great. Now I am forming a girl club at the local school with the two girls that went from my village.

- Kabwe

-I spent a week out of my village trying to fix my bike in Serenje (broken axle!) and it was horrible. I love my village too much.

-I finally made a lot of progress with my diary goat project. I'll go into that in more detail later.

- Now I'm back in Lusaka for Mid-term Meds. I've been here for more than a year so they are checking us out. They wait until we leave Zambia to check us for parasites because we are just going to get them again if they deworm us now anyway. While here I'm going to try and have some clothes made by a really great tailor in the big Lusaka market, upload tons of pictures and eat a lot of dairy products.

- So since there seems to be some confusion here is my address again:

Box 840038
Mkushi, Central Prov.

ZAMBIA

Packages are nice but I really do love getting letters. I am really out of the loop. Write me ten page letters and let me know what you are up to. I promise I'll do the same.

Goats and beer

2007-05-05T10:30:00.000+02:00

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!

On being a minority

2007-04-14T12:11:00.000+02:00

I have never been such an obvious minority in my life. It's pretty eye opening. I am under no illusion that 90% of the people I run into see me as "WHITE PERSON" and the rest while constantly aware of it actually see me as Laura. People here will say good morning mzungu (white person.) It's really not a slur, but coming from a society where it is unthinkable to run around screaming "Hi black people!!!" it's difficult to get a handle on.

Then there is the staring. People here have no qualms about blatant staring, they even break into uncontrollable laughter if you talk to them or turn your back. I can't tell you how many times I have gone out to brush my teeth and aimlessly stared at a tree to discover 5 children sitting in it staring back at me. Everyone wants to greet me and is extremely happy to see me all the time. That's nice but it's because I'm white. It's really wierd. It's the closest thing I will be to a celebrity. I've had random people take pictures of me and 7 year olds propose. It's sort of funny, easily frustrating and over in 16 months. Not the worst thing in the world but I can definately understand why someone might beat a photographer with their own camera.

Then there is the strange phenomenon of people thinking that being a minority only makes life easier. I have had conversations with people who tell me it must be so easy for me to get rides because I am white (and that's absolutely true) but refuse to believe that people try to charge me extra for everything because I am white. Even when it happens right in front of them. It's exactly the same as people who think affirmative action is grossly unfair but deny the exsistence of any other type of prejudice.

When animals attack

2007-03-29T12:52:00.000+02:00

I am in Lusaka a few days earlier than I thought I would be. I had a run in with a dog. Well actually my dog had a run in with a much smaller dog (because I feed mine) and I rushed in to rescue him. I got bit it's a scratch really, but had to come down for a rabies shot anyway... can't be too careful and rabies is particularly unpleasant. I'll have pictures up soon!

In other news I am on my way to the Kuomboka Festival in Western Province, the forgotten province of Zambia. It's quite a trek from everything else in Zambia/ the world and I am extremely excited to see this ancient ceremony on the banks of the Zambezi. Then after a few days I will be on my way to Isanga Bay on Lake Tanganyika.

I had a harvest and a fish transfer and I don't seem to get in front of a computer enough to record the of trials and tribulations of mundane life. I am usually on my way someplace but my real life is as follows:

6:00 -wake up to Winston licking my face.
till 9ish- eat breakfast(cereal and dried fruit) , sweep my house, clean clean clean, discover what my mice chewed through, listen to the BBC
9-12:00 visit farmers/ ride around the bush with my dog
12-2:00 Lunch
2:00 Women's meeting/ fish meeting/ etc meeting
4:00 done for the day read and cook
8:00 or 9:00 at the latest go to bed.

Life is pretty great. Some days I do nothing but read and then there are days when I have to bike 2 hours each way to get to a meeting or the Boma but I have it pretty good. Some people are a much much farther bike ride away to a rode.

Dan left today. He one of the best people I've ever met and will miss him a lot. He was one of the best volunteers we had. Wisconsin is definitely gaining from Zambia's loss.

New pics will be up soon and in a few days when I am back from Western I will have amazing pictures of Kuombocha. It's sure to be an experience.

NEW PICS!

On the road

2007-02-20T12:19:00.000+01:00

Well I'm in Kapiri all of the sudden. I wasn't planning it. I was just going to hitch a ride to Mkushi and suddenly a really sweet ride that I couldn't refuse came by. An old man driving a camery from Dar Es Salaam to Livingstong. Alright it wasn't that sweet. But I've been itching to get on the road and go on a trip lately. Reading Kerouac really doesn't help. By the way, On The Road is my life. Zambia is the beatest place this side of Denver in the 40s. So I decided on the spot to come to Kapiri to use sweet internet, eat the heck out of a shwarma and hitch back home with Jen who is coming up from Lusaka. Of course I texted Lusaka and let them know I'm out of district 'cause like a real beatnick I love following the rules. The old man who gave me a ride was wearing a shirt that said "To get into Heaven you have to have the HELL beaten out of you" in all earnestness. He reminds me a preacher in Georgia I spent a week with who had a penchant for humourous and slightly relgious baseball caps. They should hang out.

Since I can't jump in the car and drive up the coast for a weekend, I came to Kapiri. Cimo cine. I need to wait around till April which is the next time I can really put some miles between me and my village. Jen and I are heading up to Lake Tanganyika the second largest freshwater lake in the world where we are going to pretend we are tourists and do culturally inapproperiate things like wear bathing suits and complain about bad service. I can't wait.

But until then my schedule is a little tight. I rush around all day from one appointment to another getting sunburnt and dehydrated. I was looking at white people at a gas station in Kapriri today. It's what we villagers do, it's fun! And I couldn't believe they were in a gas station in Kapriri, first off. Then I couldn't believe how sunburned and sweaty they were and how tiny their man shorts were. And they were driving. I don't want to think how horrible I look when I pull up on a bike to some poor farmers house after biking 20k. Then again I'm sure that's what they think white people look like all the time, and in Zambia it's true.

My women's group is finally back on track and things are going swimmingly. We are going to start to keep bees and I have a local expert coming to teach the women how to do it. He's very local- he's actually married to one of my women. Pretty cool. He's already working on his speech for monday. I'm going to have my own hive too. It'll be fun. I'll have gallons of honey and bees around at all times. This happens at my house anyway. A few days ago I left some fruit out and it attracted a cloud of African bees. Yea the ones that come over and terrorize you Americans. I got bit- they are pretty aggressive. I'm excited.

A few things that happened and are difficult to fit into a narrative:
-I saw monkeys. Just swinging around in trees on the great north road.
-While I was biking a guy biking past me threw his fist in the air and screamed "IKEA!" Anyone know swedish?
-I biked 70km on bush roads, carrying a lot of groceries and no water visiting farmers. It was one long day. That's 45 miles folks. "But Laura you used to bike a century like it was nothing" Well everything in Africa is harder and I think that bike ride was one of my toughest. For one 90% of it was off roading and you can't stop for a snickers like you can in say Iowa.
- I found out that ukusuma means to be nice and it means to bite. The only difference in the words is the tones which are imperceptiable to me. So when people have been asking me if my dog bites for the past 6 months I've been saying "Yes he bites very much" with a huge smile on my face. Hilarious.
-Winston caught a chicken. He's been chasing them for months but he managed to come around the corner with a pretty good sized chicken entirely in his mouth. I almost had a heart attack- because of course it wasn't my chicken. The chicken was ok- just got a ride is all.
-I've also come around to the idea that going to the bathroom, sleeping and cooking in the same building is pretty gross. When I get home I am promptly putting on lots of weight and building an insaka.

Happy Birthday to me!

2007-01-29T13:11:00.000+01:00

Well I'm 24 now. I guess it's all down hill from here. Well at least in some distant future I'll get half off my Denny's breakfast. But actually things are going really well. Life is fantastic. I miss life in the US sometimes. Especially when I miss my sisters 12th birthday party or the amazing sushi dinner everyone had for me back home, but there is something amazing about teaching 5 year old african kids to oink along to Old McDonald. I am doing exactly what I want to be doing with my life. I'm pretty lucky that I get to do it and have all the support I get back from home.

I took a few birthday pictures with my sweet new camera and of course forgot to bring my camera cords to Mkushi. I suppose that good because they is an impatient line of eager will-be internet users filing up behind me. I think we'll continue this in a bit. Remind me to tell you about my last fish meeting though, it was a hoot.

A quickie

2007-01-08T11:23:00.000+01:00

Malawi was wonderful. I lost my camera. This is a few of Dan's pics. I'll post more pictures soon. I got scuba certified and should have a video of that up soon too. Everything was wonderful. It was beautiful, filled with vicious monkeys, and cheap. But the best part was the amazing people I went with and met. Kuche kuche!

'Tis the Season

2006-12-01T09:58:00.000+01:00

Happy Holidays everyone. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had a wonderful one with all the kids in Central Province. We had turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the works. That's pretty inpressive since we are about 100 k from the closest supermarket- and there was a turkey shortage in the whole country. Unfortunately Rocky our beautiful boxer passed away. He had heart problems and we think he had a heart attack. We buried him while and it was pouring. Poor Patton is the only dog left in our house. At least Rockey went with a lot of people who love him around. He was a beautiful dog.

In other news Jenn has been at my site- a lot. No it's good- I swear. She is going to help me put together a sweet fish club meeting on Monday and her dog, princess who is Winston's sister is over too and we are having to much fun. The puppies love each other. It is too cute. We have spent the last few days cooking, eating and eating some more. We have to much in common. All four of us.

We are harvesting 4 ponds in late January early Feb. and I am sure that 2 of the ponds have fish in them. One of them is even doing well. I hope I can coordinate the harvesting of 4 ponds and the stocking of six and a open market day at the same time. I think I am going to go insane. Things in the village are always more aggrivating then you can imagine. I had a ride from my house to Mkushi which should have taken 30 minutes at the very most take 4 hours and then we got a flat tire. Coordinating an even that is going to involve over a hundred people is going to be a challenge at the very least.

I'm excited.

I planted my guava tress and they are doing awesome next I'm going to plant bananna trees. As soon as I figure out how. Next week is going to be a little busier cause I have some meetings set up. I am meeting with the community headmen- all seven of them to discuss community wide programs like community cell phones which seem to be working in Bangladesh.

And then it is only 3 weeks till vacation.

Fish and the City

2006-11-18T17:27:00.000+01:00

So I've spent the last fews days and too much money in Lusaka. Lusaka is America. See picture.

I have had electricity. Hot water most of the time and sometimes hot and cold water at the same. The place where we were staying gave everyone bedbugs and our mosquito nets weren't treated so they became mosi traps.

Next time I'm in Lusaka I am staying at an ex-pat's house.
I saw the Borat movie. The big naked man in it is Armenian. I have been going out to restaurants, going to karaoke and speaking English. I can't wait to go home. It's been fun but I miss my dog and my own bed. City life is a little too much for me at the moment. And I have a lot of work to do in the village before I go out on vacation.

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I had a part time puppy for a while... until his owner took him away. His name is was Franklin.

I got my house cemented... it only took 3 months but hey it was free. I finally have my christmas vacation planned out and it's scuba in Malawi for sure.

I went to a interesting Independence Day festival at the elementary school nearby and there was a lot of sexual dancing which you can see here. There are also a few more pictures up here.

Vahan's 25th birthday was a few days ago. I can't believe how time flies.

Aside from fish farming my women's groups are doing good, teaching preschool is challenging and sometimes rewarding, and my HIV/AIDS sessions are always interesting. The sex questions you get from 60 year old grandmas are always a little off putting. And so was the time a small child stuck a condom I threw on the floor after a demonstration into his mouth. My tree nursery is awesome and I am getting my farmers to plant a lot of moringa which I am pushing for pretty hard.

Since the rainy season is here I am getting a little more serious about my garden. My farmers are going to be busy in the field. My roads are going to be less navigatable and I won't have to water as much. I want to get a lot of things planted and flowering before the bee swarming season starts in January so I can get my bees working. I am also getting a goat and milking it every morning. So between the moringa, my beans, my bees, my goats and my other veggies I think the only thing I will have to go into the market for is kapenta for winston and flour for baking.

Other than that I am making my house bigger, soon it will comfortably sleep 5 plus the hammock and I am taking up carpentry. It is amazing what you learn how to do yourself when you can't get it from anywhere else.

If you want chirstmas cards get your addresses to me fast fast while I have electricity and you'll get an awesome card drawn by a real life African child from my preschool class. Otherwise I am going to get more ice cream while I can. I love you all and I'll try to write soon.

videos for you

2006-10-15T16:44:00.000+02:00

look what I can do with a little access to first world resources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrXkt4WnWp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvEprxmX0sg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9KhaFrVcOo

Enjoy the videos. Helen show the grandmas how to watch them.

So next time I come here I need to bring my bathing suit so I can go for a swim in the pool! Have I mentioned that I love white farmers in Zambia? They treat me like a lost puppy.

"Oh dear you live in the village? You had to ride your bike here? Please stay for lunch!"

Extremely nice people who have pools and pudding and fruit seeds and give you names of Armenian printersin Lusaka. I know a printer who is getting a visit in November. I can't imagine him not being extremely excited to run into another Armenian- in Zambia!

Two down twenty two more to go

2006-10-15T11:58:00.000+02:00

Not that I'm counting. Life in the village is lovely and this time I have pictures to prove it. check it out

So many wierd and wonderful things happen everyday, it is strange that I draw a blank when I am in front of a computer. Of course for me to be in front of a computer it means that I have had a shift in my normal day. Right now I am sitting in the house of white farmer's who have been so nice as to invite me to spend the night. I've left winston at home and he is going to be spending the night outside for the first time ever since I adopted him. Usually he gets a nice dinner of whatever I'm having (see pics), a hot bath and he falls asleep in my bed while I read. Tonight he just gets kapenta, ubwali and sleeps in the insaka. A great life for any Zambian dog, but I am sure my pampered pooch won't think so.

I had my big community meeting on Friday. I showed up at 9:00, when the meeting was supposed to start and wasn't suprised at all to be the only one there. Everything starts late. I thought I would get home by 1:00 at the most. Two hours later when thte meeting was going to start I got my flipchart and was strapping it to a tree when the chief's advisor came over and very slowly told me that the was a big snake in the tree. And there was. Zambians are terrified of snakes. I guess I took a little long getting away from the snake- it was far from me and really didn't look poisonous, caused a bit of a panic. Men rushed over and tried to kill it and there was a lot of hub bub. After the snake escaped I moved my chart and the meeting began. Our speaker was a man who was upset about a beer brewing party that was happening at the smae time as our meeting. People were upset becuase 1) people were at the party instead of our meeting and 2) becuase they were at our meeting instead of drinking beer. This resulted in a 20 minute arguement. That is why our meeting was 6 hours long. I missed lunch. Not the best day ever.

Ok I have to go help with lunch I will be back later.

In the Lap of Luxury

2006-09-18T11:36:00.000+02:00

I am in the lap of luxury. I have half a kilo of gouda in my backpack, next to my dove soap. I am using satellite internet and looking at a pool from my window. It’s been month’s since I’ve looked out a window that has glass! I am sitting in a fancy fancy Bwana boarding school. They have tennis courts, a swimming pool and a rock climbing wall.

I love my life in the village. Everyday I wake up and am thrilled with my life. I play with my puppy (his name is Winston and we are in love), study my Bemba, cook amazing food, ride my bike and hang out with my family. Provincials was extremely fun, we had a toga theme. The new country director went to the Solwezi house where they had a Bloods and Crips theme and wore a Tupac shirt. I heart her.

My family is super nice. They feed me all the time. We exchange dishes maybe 5 times a week. Which is cool. I get to eat what I want and I get to eat with them too. It’s nice.

I wake up every morning and am very happy to be here. There are some things that are very frustrating in the village, but life is really good. It’s not lonely and it’s definitely not boring. I get to talk to my mom almost everyday and I am surrounded by people who are wonderful. Two weeks ago I went to the Cilamushi Festival where I sat next to the woman running for vice president and a few seats down from the First Lady Madame Mwanawasa and watched topless 15 year old girls dance a puberty ceremony.

I also have a phone and everyone shouyld text me all the time. My number is 099620578. I think the country code is 26. I am sorry that I cannot get back to individual emails. Even though I have the luxury of using amazingly fast internet right now I have other time constraints. The hot season is beginning and I don't want to be on my bicycle when it is scorching hot. Andrew I am so sorry you aren't doing well. My thoughts are with you and I hope for a quick recovery.

So my new address is
Laura Eloyan
US Peace Corps
PO Box 840038
Central Province
Mkushi, Zambia

Let know how you are doing and send me a letter. It's probably a more reliable means of getting to me than internet. I will post more pictures soon of my house, my fmaily, my puppy and of a bunch of kids in togas. I miss you all!

Pictures- finally

2006-08-05T15:06:00.000+02:00

Putting up pictures has been quite the struggle. See link below. Sorry for not posting but I've been in the internet cafe all day trying to get them up. Enjoy the pics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laura-in-zed/

Natemwa ukuluka.

2006-07-29T16:00:00.000+02:00

Today was very stressful. The service industry in Zambia has a lot of room to grow. Getting change, ordering breakfast, buying groceries, taking a bus is a long drawn out ordeal. You have to wait for everything.

Second sight visit was amazing. I had to do at least 2 hours of intense biking through the bush. The family Holly and I stayed with was incredible! Chabipa we had to leave! I saw my site and I either need to get used to having no privacy or get a new house built. I can get a sweet house for about $80 so that's probably what I am going to do. Zach's dog had puppies and I got to play with them for hours (2 days old when I got there). I am not sure if my house is a good place for the dog I wanted to take. There are lots of little kids around and I have no lawn. Maybe I should get a puppy so it will be used to kids. Maybe I will move my house to the woods so I'm not three feet from my neighbors, Zambians don't value personal space as much as we do. But central is beautiful, I'm sure with a little tweaking I will fall in love with my site. Two more weeks of training and I'm official.

I learned to eat and enjoy kapenta, hiked a mountain with a 24% grade (going down was the hard part), met wonderful people, played with puppies, got real comfortable with my bike (even though the handlebars, front tire and brakes fell off)and learned about some pretty sweet ways to escape the village. I have a sweet lodge and plenty of white farmers around in case I need to speak English, eat some dairy or take a hot shower. Life's little luxuries are more important than you think.

Everyday I feel stronger. Physically I'm stronger, nothing like biking up hill in the sand with a 30 pound pack to whip you back into shape. I am more patient thanks to dealing with stressful situations under duress almost on a daily basis. Everything in Zambia is done with backbreaking labor. Everything build, cooked or made is done the hardest way possbile. There is no takeout in the village. It's nice to feel challeneged all the time and the breaks are twice as nice.

There is going to be a walk for Anne that I can't contribute to in any way. Here is the info. I miss her so much. She would have loved it here.
http://www.outofthedarkness.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=communityWalks.team&teamID=1171

I miss everyone, but I am very happy.

All Kitwe-ed out

2006-07-08T14:52:00.000+02:00

I've fallen into a routine. It makes life comfortable and managable. I'm in Kitwe on the Saturdays, spend a few days with my pond. Check for mail 14 times a day and eat inkoko all day long. Every once in a while I get a call and am delighted with life. Otherwise it's training all day. Some highlights:

-I ate impala. Thank you Doc for killing, skinning and cooking it.
-I got covered in leeches twice.
-I've been told I'm verrry fat (uh that's supposedly a compliment.) a few times.
-I had caterpiller.
-A farmer told us that his farm always almost never drys out.
-Disco night was a blast.
-Bamayo dances for me to the chagrin of her children.

We are going to a chimp sanctuary next week! It's free to get in but I hear the beer is expensive. Yes the beer at the chimp sanctuary. They also have a full grown domesticated hippo running around the compound. Not to mention a rehab for drinking and smoking chimps. I love Zambia!

I can't wait to get to site and be the person who decides what I do all day. I am just going to miss my PCV's like crazy.

To follow up on the last post, my family loved the food I made! Junior, the 12 year old boy I live with, said he could eat all my food forever. Bamayo has even started cooking a little differently too. On a reciprecal note, I love my bankashi Mambwe, I am taking her to my village when I get posted.

I think I am going to teach aerobics at my village. Yoga is thought to be satanic to I am going to stick to good old jumping around. I'm begining to realize that fish farming is definately not going to be the only thing I am going to be doing. I have to be a nutritionalist, a HIV/AIDS educator/ counselor, a farmer, a agroculturist and a million other things. In fact, I am looking forward to IST because I know that we are going to learn beekeeping there.

Life is interesting. Larry, who was one of the nicest people here had to go home. He is going by to the states to finish law school. We know it's the best for him but we are really going to miss him.

I miss you all. You know my email adress is leloyan [at] gmail.com right? Just checking.

Bemba wonderland

2006-07-01T14:41:00.000+02:00

Well the last week has been filled with training and hanging out with the family. Bamayo (my mom in bemba) danced for me. I made amazing guacamole, and took my first test in Bemba. There has been a lot of biking and getting covered in clay mud. I am getting way more comfortable riding a mountain bike through the bush and life is nice. Tonight the training team is taking us all out the Disco Night at a disco in Kitwe and that should be great.

I really want to thank everyone for writing and being so supportive. Even though I do love it here I can't tell you how important it is to know that you all are thinking of me. Colin you are the best! It's lovely to be in the same hemisphere with you again! Stacie I miss you all and I promise I will send postcards as soon as I find a place that sells them. Zambia- not the touristiest place in the world- actually. Ryan thank you for being so supportive, I loved your lettter!

I am learning about the culinary differences between cultures based on substance living and those that can afford loftier culinary goals. Zambians never talk about what they like to eat, the most praise I've ever heard is about how much strenght a particular food gives you. They need it too. The physical labor the average Zambian does everyday would kill the average American. I went to dig a pond yesterday and couldn't help but feel like Levin in Anna Karinena when he works with the peasents for a day and thinks it's great. (I love the book Anton! Bamayo wants to read it when I am done.)

I'm thinking about learning Indonesian after I get a full hang of Bemba, btw. I probably should have done that when I was living with Indonesians, oh well.

I think I am going to get posted to a village in Central Province 100 k out of Lusaka. I am very excited about my site. It sounds really lovely. I love central province and it sounds like my site is a pretty big tomato growing village. They are already business minded and I can't imagine anything better than fish and tomatoes. Life is great. I want to hear more about what everyone is doing. Happy birthday Jenn and Erin!

Life is wonderful here and I can't wait for everyone to visit. Well I'm off to the market to get some ingredients for the Armenian dinner I am making Sunday night. I hope my family can go one meal without nshima.

Biking in the bush

2006-06-24T16:15:00.000+02:00

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!

Mwerka madness

2006-06-18T10:20:00.000+02:00

Trainfing in intesne but completely doable. I am more excited about my life here that I can tell you. Zambians are beautiful people who make you feel at home. I wish I could talk to my family a little more regularly but otheriwse life is wonderful. I take showers under the stars, eat wonderful food, live with generous kind people who have electricity and a Sega Genisis. And I know that in a few months I'll be bringing food security and a topic of conversation a small Bemba village.

I wish everyone could expriance rural life in Zambia, it is simple but full of joy. Candle lit bucket baths and nshima are my life for the next two years and it sounds fantastic. The sunsets alone are worth it! Zambian parties are wonderful. There is drumming, dancing with women with babies on their backs, and lots of tea wine! Life is good.

I cannot wait for everyone to visit. You have never seen such hospitality.

I love you all and thank you so much Anton!

Eureka!

2006-06-10T19:32:00.000+02:00

We arrived in Lusaka yesterday morning. I had spent the night before in a beautiful 4 star hotel in Jo-burg South Africa. We have been staying at a beautiful campsite full of zebras, giraffes, buffalo and monkeys. Our days have been filled with shots and brief introductions to acronyms that will surely become second hand. Everyday I feel more confident in my decision to join the Peace Corps. I always knew I would love it, but the level of training and the incredible professional benefits are somewhat unexpected. I decided to learn Bemba, a language spoken by most Zambians. I hope to live in the Copperbelt Region and have to run!

Out of touch

2006-06-07T00:18:00.000+02:00

I'm going to be out of touch for a while everyone! I'm sorry but I will get email eventually. So if you don't hear from me for a few weeks don't worry.

I love you all!

Leaving on a jet plane

2006-06-04T15:58:00.000+02:00

In a few hours I'm on my way to Philly for staging and then off to Zambia! I am very excited. I've been wanting this for a very long time.

Thank you everyone for being so supportive. I know how hard this is for everyone. I promise to be safe, to never take any undue risks, to write often and to take too many pictures.

Mom I love you and I'll see you very soon.

Change of Address

2006-05-09T22:22:00.000+02:00

I recieved my staging kit and am on my way to Philadelphia and then on to Zambia at the begining of June. I am going to be Zambian from June 8th 2006 to August 8th 2008. Back in time for election madness!

My address in Zambia for a few months will be:

Laura Eloyan/PCT
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 21527
Kitwe, Zambia

If you send something now I'll get it when I get there. Mail takes about 6 to 8 weeks. Anton pointed out that my book list doesn't have an address to send things to, so I've gone ahead and listed the above address with Amazon.

In other news I am going to be in Boston this Friday, (Thursday night if I help it.) and can't wait to see everybody!

I'd rather be nailing

2006-05-03T18:26:00.000+02:00

So I caught this puppy on VH1 today, who knew that I'd be posting a Bon Jovi video?

http://www.islandrecords.com/bonjovi/home.las

Click on watch "Who Says You Can't Go Home?" Now you can either sign up for the fan club or watch the short. My recommendation is the latter, then again who doesn't want emails about the boys playing in Poughkeepsie?

Plus here is the background.

Literary assistance

2006-04-28T00:16:00.000+02:00

Help Laura read!

I've started making a list of books I'd want to read while in the corps. You can see them here. While it is quite a list, I would love some input. English majors I looking at you.

For reference: I love food, adventure, Africa and the classics. I really like Sedaris, Flaubert, Marquez, De Beauvoir, Wilde, and ethnographies. I would also like books on automotive repair, history and travel. I would not like self help books, chick lit, fantasy or overtly political one. No Coulter or Moore, please.

So what else kiddies?

Catch up

2006-04-23T23:08:00.000+02:00

Hi kids, it's been a while since I've written.

The big news is that I told work I was leaving. Everyone was very nice about it and I have a letter of recommendation and a job when I come back. Sweet. It's nice to feel wanted.

Other than work, life has been pretty wonderful too. I bought my tickets to Boston. Ryan and I will be in town May 12 & 13th. I can't wait to see everyone! Big dinner at Vinny's T's for old time's sake?

I also got to explore the grandest building in Los Angeles. It was a theatre built during the depression era in downtown which has the most beautiful architecture I've ever seen. It is remarkable. We went in the guise of watching an opera and spent the whole time wandering the halls. I wish I took my camera. It has fallen into disrepair over the years and I felt like a explorer finding an ancient gold laden tomb. Look!

That's it for now. I promise I'll write more and take my camera everywhere I go, for those of you who are worried. :)

Love,
Laura

Blue collar comedy tour

2006-04-07T07:55:00.000+02:00

Today started off as a typical day, I dragged myself out of bed feeling like a fool for getting up an hour eariler than i had to. Once on the treadmill for about 20 minutes I wondered why I didn't do this everyday, heck twice a day.

That's when some comet type thing landed in my eye. As a student of first aid I rubbed it till my it didn't seem to work. By then I had been at work for a few hours. I think I may have scratched my cornea a bit, but that's only because my eye looks like the inside of a tabasco bottle. While it has prompted intrusive questions from cashiers and coworker "gasp- what happened to your eye?" I've only responsed with shrugs instead of incriminating myself by alluding to my previous speluncking mishap.

After work, I went to see Ron White. This is the man who was one the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, who is also known as Tator Salad. Oh the judging started in the parking lot. While Mr. White is a funny man, his audience is quite a niche. Albeit we were just outside of LA, I saw hunting hats, Harley t-shirts and more than one tube top- mind you it wasn't a particularly warm day. Seeing as how my eye looked like christmas I was in not place to judge, though.

Tomorrow is the weekend, Ryan convinced me not to take the foreign service exam just for fun this Saturday and I've caught a bit of the theatre bug- maybe even in my eye.

If this doesn't get better I'm posting pictures.

work

2006-04-07T02:24:00.000+02:00

"We are all capable of hurting the ones we love. Why? Because we are jerks"

- taken from a 9/24/2005 America's Funniest Videos script. Those aren't ad libs at all! So that's what i discovered at work today.

Kismet and other forms of self improvement

2006-04-04T04:22:00.000+02:00

The universe didn't let me go to Beverly Hills this weekend. I haven't every had trouble before.

I was very excited about his new French/Moroccan place called chameau. But it wasn't meant to be. I ran late, the boy ran late, his new headlight burned out, my check engine light came on, my camera malfunctioned and the canyon over the hills was shut down.

So we went to Killer Shrimp on in the valley. There is only one thing on the menu- a spicy shrimp concoction that you get to accessories with your favorite carb. It was lovely.

I miss my friends in Boston & the Brown kids. I just need to buy a ticket right away so that I am sure to go. Otherwise I stuck in a happy haze. Everything is great. Family is good, work is challenging and rewarding, the boy is wonderful, and everything is going well. I am getting lazy though. I've spent too many weekends sitting around the house. It's not that I need huge raucous parties to go to, but I should take better advantage of where I am. There are plays, museums, trails and restaurants I haven't been to in LA. It's more guilt than anything else.

I also need to slip in a trip to Wyoming.

I've also been stalking my fellow Peace Corps kids. I can't wait to meet them. I wish they would blog more so that I could better pretend to know what to expect.

It does look like I will have some time on my hands while I am in Zambia though. While the corps will certainly help me on my foreign service trajectory- I am going to try to pick up one of the more difficult languages on that state department looks for. I'm think of either Chinese ( Mandarin) or Farsi. I know Armenian and we use a lot fo the same words as Iranians but I did take a year of Mandarin and really liked it. Arabic is very difficult and Urdu might be interesting but seems to require sounds I am not sure I can emulate- kinda like French which I could definitely use. I might be overlooking another State Department preferred language, if anyone can find a list I would really appreciate it.

Other than that I can't wait to spend my days reading book. I have a mental list of books I have been wanting to read for a long time. I might actually get to it now. How exciting.

Gearing up

2006-03-29T18:47:00.000+02:00

It has become apparent to me that I now have an audience. Thanks for reading kids, I really appreciate it. I'll do my best to keep self righteous monologues to a minimum.

I got my tax return yesterday and am getting serious about getting all my gear. So far I have some sweet camping underwear that promises I can go weeks with only one pair and chocas. These are both in thanks to Ryan, who demands that I be a better kept woman.

My next big purchase is my solar battery charger and I think I am going with this baby.
Then here is what will be a growing list of other things I will need:

-headlamp
-sleeping bag
-sleep pad
-panniers
-gifts for my host family
-short wave radio
-rechargable batteries
-herb seeds
-tabasco, herbs & spices
-a journal
- a credit card with no fees and low interest that doesn't need to be paid off each month

other than that I think I have everything covered. I have a camelbak, a tent and a sense of humor. Any other suggestions?

Forcing the habit

2006-03-29T01:29:00.000+02:00

I'm going to make a real effort while state side to write in my blog. I am terrible at keeping journals. In fact a spent a summer on one of the greatest adventures of my life and only have 3 pages about Pennsylvania to show for it. So I figure if I give myself a running start I might have the momentum to squeak out posts in a fairly consistant manner.

So I had a wonderful weekend. I spent Friday night working at an event in Costa Mesa at the Turnip Rose . The drive was a drag but the location was beautiful and the food was great. It was an art show for an alzheimer's charity and it went pretty well. So work is going well. I really like all of the people I work with. The work itself is very detail orientated, which can be frustrating. Although I am learning alot about event planning. I've put together a few events in my day, and I wish I knew this stuff back then.

I also went the Descanso Botanical Gardens with Ryan and my sister. We had a very nice time picnicing and looking at all the flowers.

We have food and are ready to go

The anteater watches over our travels Cherry blossoms

Bamboo and camillas

Monkey love

River blossoms

ChunkerExhausted Monkey

But most importantly, I bought a pet. Calm down folks it's just a fish. My mother thinks its me longing for a more seditary lifestyle, but its just a fish. A black moor gold fish to be exact- so no problem with leaving home for a while. Hopefully I can get my sister to take care of him for a while and email me picutres while I'm gone.

Family

2006-03-25T23:33:00.000+01:00

While I am extremely excited about going to Zambia, I am leaving a lot of very important things back in the states. I can't even begin to think about how much I am going to miss my family. I have been away from home for huge stretches of time, but this is going to be a little harder. My 11 year old sister is the funniest person I have ever met, my mom is my hero, dad is very supportive in his own way and my brother can be nice when is isn't feeling well. And the boy is a constant source of strength. I'm so lucky I have these people in my life and I hope they know how much they mean too me. Below are a few pictures of the best people in the world.

This is the family, except this guy is missing:

My brother, Vahan was too busy in a soviet sub

I was showing my mother a wound

and then later my boyfriend freaked out with my little sister. It's what they do.

this is just a test

2006-03-22T00:41:00.000+01:00

hi and welcome to my blog. i hope this is a place where friends and family can congregate in the next few years to see what i am up to and get in touch with each other.

i am 75 days away from getting on a plane and heading out to join the peace corps on a 2 year mission to zambia. i will be working on the RAP program, which is Rural Aquaculture Promotion. Yes indeed, moving to a land locked country to be a fish farmer.

so stick around and see what develops - hopefully zambia will be on that list and not a lot of -itis suffixes.

love,
laura