Back to Zambia

Tomorrow I begin the journey back to Zambia that will take me 10,000 miles between Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon (if all goes well... last time it took nearly a week).

I stuffed my bags with snacks, Christmas presents, and about a zillion DVDs (thanks, Janet!). I've eaten tofurkey and Girl Scout cookies and drank a frightening amount of fountain soda with ice. I got to visit with my ailing grandmother, most likely for the last time. I even met one of the folks who will join our crazy little band of do-gooders in Zambia in February! Now it's time to get back to my job, my boyfriend, my yoga classes, my little house and, good lord willing, some warm weather.

Trevor

Traveling with Trevor takes me to some pretty amazing places. (For example...Mt. Mulanje!)

Tea, again

Looking through my Mt. Mulanje pictures, I think it's really funny that while half of them are of beautiful scenery, the other half are of us making tea.

Well, the bottom picture is also Trevor taping up his blistery feet.

Five universal truths of the church carry-in Christmas dinner, and a question

1. The evening will begin with an announcement that there is a car in the parking lot with its lights on.
2. Our table will be picked last to get food.
3. There will be jello salad with whipped cream and buckets of fried chicken.
4. During the program, at least one kid will be doing something goony and inappropriate (nose picking and/or eating, skirt lifting, etc).
5. Despite this, the dads will be universally falling asleep or videotaping, no matter how painfully terrible it is.

Question: Does anybody watch all this footage? People were taping the mildly painful 6th grade band concert last week, too. Is this why people have become reality show addicts? Maybe they're only comfortable living in front of a camera, and they figure nobody ever watches.

Hut two three four

This is the first hut we stayed at on Mt. Mulanje, and the only one where we saw other white people.


So, so beautiful, made even more wonderful by the fact that the caretaker had carted up entire crates of Carlsberg beer. ("Warm?" my dad asked. Um, yes warm. You learn pretty quickly in Africa that warm beer is just ok.)

Snack break

About three seconds after I took this photo (during a snack break on Mt. Mulanje), Richard dropped the water bottle he's holding and it rolled quite a way down the mountain. Fortunately, Trevor was right there to grab it, and even more fortunately he did not go rolling down behind it, because people we were way the heck up in the air, like so far up that when I saw the trail stretching away from us on another hill I hyperventilated just a little worrying about how we were going to get there. (It turned out ok.)

Mt. Mulanje

OK so I lied about inserting photos into past posts. I'm not going to do that after all because I'm afraid nobody would go back and look at the pictures and they are awesome pictures, because it is an awesome place. And it is my blog and I can do what I want.

We drove to Mt. Mulanje in Richard's truck. It took a very long time. I passed lots of sandwiches from the back seat to the hungry men in the front.

Visual aid

Fast internet! Shareware! Free time!

All these things mean I'm going to start uploading photos from the past year of our experience. To make things orderly, I'm planning to wedge photos into previous entries, so check the archives for images if you'd like to see what it looks like in Zambia.

Well, this is what it looks like in Malawi-- a hut on Mt. Mulanje, to be exact. Tea time with Richard and Trevor! Sorry it's blurry, but I thought it captured the spirit of tea time.

A few of my favorite things

-- My fabulous brother, who extracted the photos off my infected disc to that I'll soon be able to share them with you!

-- Silk egg nog!

-- Coffee date (at a real coffee shop (not Starbucks)!) with a friend.

-- Janet at Ninth Street Video (on Hitt), who provided me with movies I've been wanting to see. What a concept--- choosing what movie I want to see, instead of whatever action flick a random Chinese bootlegger decides to put on a DVD.

Mercifully quick

Being home has meant getting sucked into the whirlwind that is my family. Today, that meant attending my niece's sixth grade band concert. Yes, these are children who have been playing their respective instruments for three whole months.

These are the moments that make me wish I was back in Africa. However, it is a credit to their band leader that the concert was a mere 15 minutes long. My mom and I stood around twice that long afterwards chatting up people we recognized, which seems about exactly how it should be.

Well, and if they had served complimentary tequila shots beforehand.

Lu

On this trip to Americaland, I'm staying with my parents. When I arrived Wednesday, it wasn't safe to bring my dog from her temporary home at my brother's until after the wedding shower my mom was hosting Saturday afternoon (she hyperventilated when we made tracks in the carpet), but as soon as the coast was clear I grabbed Lulu.

In Zambia, dogs are for protection. Even at the Peace Corps house, where the staff is well used to the crazy ways of foreigners, Ester clucks at the way we talk to Sophie like a person and let her nap on the chairs. What would she say if she'd seen me last night, sleeping with a dog's head nestled in my armpit?

The Trevor Report, Tanzania

He finally managed to find an internet cafe but complained it was so slow he didn't think the email was ever going to send, so here's all I know:

The train ride to Dar es Salaam was long and hot and (we were expecting 50 hours; I think it went longer because...) they hit an elephant and most likely killed it. When we took a train to New Orleans a few years ago, it hit a pickup truck. I'm thinking elephant might be worse, though it probably doesn't have a lawyer so maybe they just shove it to the side and carry on.

He promises more news when they get someplace with better internet. Stay tuned!

Light

I'm not sure if it's a sign of my niece's intelligence or my own lack of maturity that has the two of us fawning over Twilight at the same time.

Sheepishness on my part notwithstanding, I was extremely proud of her tonight in the car when I asked her who she prefers, Edward or Jacob (having read, in the many pop-culture magazines abandoned at the Peace Corps house, that the question is this generation's version of Paul vs. John, Simon vs. Nick, etc). Her response? Emmett! Also, she likes Carlisle because "he's nice."

I really hope that as this 11-year-old cutie ages into her teens she keeps thinking for herself and going for the good guys.

Mmmm

Besides visiting my grandma, I could easily spend the rest of my America time on food. I cruised through Sams chowing down on cheesecake and mini eclair samples, and had to take a deep breath in the coffee aisle at the grocery store. Oh, the choices!

Sadly, it seems as if prices have doubled since we left home last time. And packaging has changed-- trolling through my parents' pantry, I came dangerously close to accidentally snacking on a tantalizing-looking sack of dog treats.

Mind

It's mind boggling to me that I'm sitting in my parents' house in Missouri and yesterday I was in Africa.

Honestly, I am so tired right now that I am boggled by many things, like Holy Crap is it cold here, and the toilets flush themselves, and there are 20 choices of soda at the gas station. Also, my grandma is so zonked out on morphine she couldn't even focus her eyes on my face.

Still, I got to see her, even if technically she couldn't see (or recognize) me. That's why I'm here.

Change of plans

Trevor just got on a bus headed to catch the train to Zanzibar with our friends.

Me, I'm waiting for a ride to the airport to go home and see my very sick, very old grandma.

Sad to be missing a holiday with husband and friends; sad that grandma is fading away; so excited to see America friends and family that I could just about puke.

Lusaka=

Meetings, real internet, pad thai, air conditioning. Wow, the big city.

We're here until Tuesday, when we head up to Zanzibar. Whoo!

[ETA photo of Trevor enjoying his free breakfast: note anti-malaria pill in foreground!]