Psychic greetings

I'm sending birthday wishes through the atmosphere to my grandma, Wibbie, who celebrates 98 years on the planet earth today. I wish I could take her out for a hot ham and cheese sandwich (her favorite) or better yet, a big pile of candy (her real favorite).

With any luck, this time next year we'll celebrate 99 together.

Quote from the co-pilot

Trevor last night: "You smell like a garage sale. You know, the optimistic part when you first walk up to it."

Mailbag

The other day we got one of those rarest of Peace Corps treats: a completely unexpected package of awesomeness from an old friend (of Trevor's, since high school!).

The box was like a perfect mix tape, blending old favorites (Cracker Jacks! An entire St. Louis Post-Dispatch!) and snappy newness (hurricane mix! hippie necklaces! lime tea!). So far this week it's yielded two outstanding dinners, one featuring an entire bag of corn chips (alas, on the one day Chipata was out of avocados; we made do with salsa and refried beans). The foil-packed chickpeas came with a CD of Indian classical music, so it was almost like we were in a real restaurant.

Thanks Dave and Deborah! Trevor's writing you a real letter while I pick Oreos out of my teeth.

June socks

I couldn't resist posting June's installment. July is done, too, and half of August. With the blustery dead-of-winter weather, I even got to wear most of them at least once! (Note: It's really hard to take a good picture of your own feet. Who knew?)

Fashion

Trend-setting in Kasempa.

Easy! Barber shop

Trevor would have lots of options for hairstyles... if he had hair. (His preferred cut is featured in the middle: the potato.)

Lundazi guesthouse

There are worse places to spend an entire day too sick to move. My Lundazi guesthouse featured:
-- a lime green satin bedspread with matching dust ruffle (maybe the second dust ruffle I've seen in all of Zambia; my mom would feel right at home)
-- an oversized teddybear wearing a miniature Christmas sweatshirt and a stocking cap emblazoned "1988"
-- no bathrobe, but complimentary flip-flops (though they call them "tropicals" here), one red and one green
-- a toilet with the seat and lid not attached (that was tricky when the sick part was going on)
-- not enough water pressure for an actual shower, so I bathed out of a waist-high spigot (also tricky; thank god for yoga)
-- a dining room TV blaring Malawian music videos that featured bad drum-beat mixes and simulated sex acts. Somehow I find it less shocking to see American-style barely-dressed teenagers gyrating than solidly-built African matrons dressed like they're off to church.

I feel much better now, though I may be scarred for life by the music videos.

Kasempa shopping mall

An enticing display of consumer goods, artfully arranged to get you to part with your hard-earned kwacha.

Safari

Our safari pictures are uniformly mediocre. For one thing, we have crappy little point-and-shoot cameras. Also, wild animals (besides elephants and giraffes) are adept at blending into their surroundings. Therefore, when we uploaded our shots from the trip, we spent a lot of time squinting at the images and trying to figure out what animal, if any, was lurking in the grass and bushes.

House

Speaking of how lucky I am to be home, anybody out there looking for a lovely little purple house to rent in the mid-Missouri area until next May? Our tenant just got accepted to school in another state. Two bedrooms, excellent neighbors, lots of flowers.

Road trip

Another morning spent on the worst road in zambia, so riddled with
giant potholes that people drive on the gravel next to the road
instead of what little tarmac is left.

That plus an hour of the cheeziest songs dolly parton ever recorded
and i was set to throw out, as our driver puts it. Then i got to watch
him eat a steak the size of my purse, something that would have
grossed me out even if i hadn't been a vegetarian.

Is this what they mean by "toughest job you'll ever love"? Today i'm
finding zambia tough to love.

Veg

We may be thirsty, but at least we're eating well. This is my haul from a recent trip to the vegetable market. I spent around $3 for all of it. (The falafel mix, alas, came in the mail from my mom.)

Lucky

It's a treat that I'm home today, because I thought I'd be on the road all week. Any extra day I get to spend in my own bed is a bonus.

If the power holds, I'll celebrate by baking some cookies for my poor wounded husband, who crashed his bike yesterday while we were riding around town. I was riding behind him (as always...) so I watched in horror as he careened down a hill and somersaulted into the dirt. I knew he was OK even before I reached the site of the accident, because he was laying in the road with his arms and legs up in the air like a dead bug, laughing and greeting all the Zambians riding past clucking "Solly, solly."

Luckily he was wearing his helmet (as always), was going relatively slowly, didn't hit any rocks with his body (just with his bike tire), and didn't get run over by any of the brake-less Zambians careening down the hill just behind us. Nothing broken, just a couple of grit-encrusted road rashes and shirt smeared orange with dirt.

Vacation adventure

On our visit to Northwest Province in July, we crossed a river. Trevor gracefully, me not so much. It was nice being someplace with water.

Artsy

This is one of the kids at Marco's orphan school that I made art with. He's modeling the paper bead necklace we made together.

Treat

If I posted these pictures already, forgive me. I think I forgot to put them up last time I had decent internet access. This is the treat we were served on a recent site visit. Not enough hot sauce on the planet to get me to sample that one, thanks.

Today's soundtrack

This morning, our neighbors with the big speakers are sharing tunes that include samples from the old song "Do they know it's Christmas?"

Trevor says the real question should be: Do they know when it's Christmas?

Travel report

Sorry for the absence; I've been on the road for a few days visiting sites that will soon be inhabited by the newbies.

Travel highlights:
-- Nobody yaked in the cruiser on this leg of the trip, though the cruiser smelled like it all week. Yay!

-- I've finally learned how to eat well on the road by carrying my own little packages of soy pieces to hand out at restaurants that offer only shima+ chicken or shima+ beef (this would be everyplace. Well, some places only have shima+ beef). They cook up my soy pieces with some shima and vegetables, and the whole shebang costs less than a buck.

-- Last night's hotel room had TV with two channels, so I got to watch Oprah interviewing Kirstie Alley a few months ago (scary) and the news delivered in Afrikaans (oddly amusing).

-- Many hours of community meetings have allowed me to complete August sock 1 and half of sock 2. I'm celebrating by working on a rug while home for a few days. Back on the road Monday.

Waiting for Water

Our water challenges continue, but we're getting used to it.

Lately it comes on for a few hours after we've gone to bed, so we've been leaving the shower turned on when we go to sleep. One of us gets up when we hear the splashing (usually after a lot of poking and insisting that the other person should get up). Then we fill our buckets, jerry cans, pitchers, and everything else that looks like it will hold water.

Since it has become a rare convergence for the water to be running and the power to be on when we want to shower, we've been taking bucket baths by heating hoarded water in the kettle. We've managed to stay relatively presentable, but I have to say that the hot running water in my hotel room last week was a treat. I spent way too much time in there.

Tuesday roundup

-- The Cruiser Curse continues. I will be happy if I never get puked on (or near) for the rest of my life. That said, I am so happy I stashed a bunch of plastic bags in the rollbars.

-- I believe I have now experienced the worst road in all of Zambia (see above). Do I get a prize or something?

-- According the gardener, Ben, there was a genet in our yard looking for chickens to steal. Also, Trevor had been tracking a chameleon with no tail that's living in the house.

-- I had a funny insight while traveling on Zambia's worst road, but I think the potholes jarred it right out of my head. Dang!