grapevine fires

I don’t know how many people are friendly with the song by Death Cab for Cutie “Grapevine Fire’s” (you will be transfered to the YouTube video if you click on the title of today's blog, which is really a link, so look up and click), but I find myself singing it to myself while biking at least once a day. My bike ride to my classes, although only a little over 4km, is what I like to call extreme mountain biking. It’s through two streams, a 2 foot down/up hill gap (mini valley) in the earth and down and then up a big hill or small mountain. See this time of year in Zambia is very windy, dry, all while it is getting warmer each day. It is the time of year that farmers begin to get their fields ready before the rainy season. With these points in mind, along with the fact that no one is really quite sure why, it’s also the time of the year that every house hold in the country loves to burn the grasses around their houses, fields, or anywhere really. Some people say that they do it so in case there really was a fire their houses would be safe. Mud walls + Grass roof + fire = no house (bad news). Others say that the grasses are burned as a kind of fertilizer for the earth, and lastly to find, kill, catch to eat the mice that are in the fields. But alas, as I bike to and from the training center over looking the beautiful countryside that was just burnt or is still smoking; I cannot help but put the images I see to the music that I can most relate to this time.

Little Elishaba was really sick with the flu last week. Just today (Tuesday 8/25) after a full week of not being able to hold anything down (or in (Oh and no diapers are used here, not even the cloth kind, that’s a luxury that can not be afforded. If you are thinking messy, you are right)). As most of you know who are reading this, it’s really scary when a baby’s sick. They can’t tell you what’s wrong, it’s hard to relive them from any pain that they are in, and its hard not to feel helpless when they cannot keep anything down!

But even scarier for me, was the fact that we have been covering Under-5 care the past week, and have been preached to by Peace Corps, how the greatest cause of mortality in U-5 is diarrhea leading to dehydration. Needless to say watching her become weaker and weaker was hard for me. My host parents kept asking me questions about what they should do, or what I thought might be the issue since I am a health volunteer. But I had no idea what to do seeing that I have never had a child before and Bamaayo and Batata have had four. I couldn’t help thinking that I have only babysat for families of four, so it was a bit different, and they knew a bit more about what to do than me. It was also kind of hard not to say or tell them to just give her some children’s Tylenol, which does not exist here. Woops.

I was able to offer dehydration salts, but they had their own, and were in the process of using them. I hate feeling helpless and always try to be as proactive as I can be, so you can assume that this was a hard experience for me, however I couldn’t help looking at it as a valuable learning experience since I am going to be coming across situations like this more times than not in the next few years. There are going to be many times that I am not going to be able to act in the helpful manor I may think best because of a lack of education, clauses in my Peace Corps contract, and the fact that helping one family in a special way in the village would be equivalent to opening Pandora’s box. So since this story has a happy ending, and I am still in training, I am taking this baby sickness as a good thing; because it is one thing to be told that I must be hands off as a volunteer, or feeling helpless at times, but a totally different thing to experience it.

Did you know that I am a hair dresser? Me either, but I am now the July 2009 RAP/CHIP intake official go to hair cutter. Today marked my fourth successful hair cut (I am getting better with each one)! I have given one girl with hair the length to her mid-back a smashing fo-hawk (mini Mohawk), another girl with shoulder length hair a peter-pan-ish hair cut, a boring dude hair cut to a dude, and a cute angled bobb to another girl with shoulder length hair. Please don’t worry, each person asked for the style they received, there have been no tears, and I have gotten many requests to other people’s hair once we get back from out second site visit. Oh and I found out that I am going to Central Prov! Bordering the Northern Prov, and the DRC. See you all in a week!

The Joy of Cooking (I hope you are thinking of the huge Ugly orange Betty Croker book too!)

Never has making a little kid throw up made me so happy.

Not the first line you were expecting, was it? And for the record, I don’t think I have ever made any little kids throw up before. Tonight I made dinner for my host family. I wanted to make something that was true blood American through and through. I also wanted to do something that a PVT had never made before, that meant that pizza was out or “Peter” as my host mom and dad so endearingly call it. However, it had to be easy enough so that I could make it over a wood fire, so no oven, used no more than one pot/pan. Lastly it had to be something we could eat with our hands since my family owns two forks, two spoons, one butter knife, and one sharp cutting knife. The answer to what to make may be obvious to some; sadly it took me almost two weeks to think it up.

The answer . . . Cheeseburgers! Only my Bamaayo (host mother) had ever heard of them before, and that was after I had explained to her what they were. So I made the exciting 45km trip to Lusaka in order to pick up all that was needed. While at the grocery store I ran into many moral issues such as: do I buy the tide and true condiments that give hamburgers and cheeseburgers there flair and messy awesomeness? While knowing all along that they need to be refrigerated after opening, meaning that they will go bad very fast since we have no such thing to keep them cold, making them a waste of money? Also new foods are scary enough as it is. Why make it harder burdening these poor people with the choice or adding ketchup or mustered? I mean come on, do you remember the first time you had sushi? Frightening. It took me so long to eat my first roll. The issue of if the food would be too rich came across my mind as well; I didn’t want to make anyone sick, thus giving me a bad name as a cook and ruining burgers for them forever! See, we eat the same bland thing every night umbwali (corn meal and water made so thick you can (and do) roll it into a little ball, imprinting your thumb into it, then using it to scoop whatever “relish” you are eating that night (cut up greens or cabbage, with either soya pieces, a kind of salty potato like bush root, or maybe beans) up with it and your thumb). Our two seasonings used are salt and cups of oil. So you can see my concern. Last but not least, they asked for “peter” and I told them no, that I would make it some other weekend, that I wanted them to try something new first. So I was going against what they wanted, making something greasy out of two things the hardly ever eat, red meat and dairy, and to top it off not even giving them the full experience (no condiments and no lettuce or pickles).

As they watched me start to make the burgers I could tell that they were all pretty nervous, and I was too. I was cooking three patties at a time for the nine of us, on a frying pan. I was sitting on a small three legged stool, and each time I flipped a burger I would burn my legs since I was A) using a fork to flip the patties B) the grease was building up in the pan bouncing onto me, and C) I had to startle the frying pan/ fire. Job (10) doesn’t eat meat, so I made him a grilled cheese. Finally, after toasting the buns, adding tomato and onion, they were ready, and I was forced to let my burgers speak for themselves and soon everyone was eating in a content silence. What I consider a sign of a good meal. Sadly I forgot to put out the chips I bought with the burger, but they were a welcomed surprise when they were done eating. Bertha, my 18-year-old cousin, was so excited when she saw them she ran out of the kitchen. Two medium sized bags were gone before I put set them down on the ground.

Next and last stop was dessert, S’mores! I mean come on, who doesn’t love s’mores? Well Mulolo (3) found out that he does not like marshmallows, it was everyone’s first time trying those too. But he loved the chocolate the Tennis Biscuits, which are so amazing! They were my substitute for gram crackers. They are delicious biscuit/ cracker that is honey and coconut flavored, but not over powering. I wish they had them in the states! Well in my mitts of the s’more excitement, and Mulolo probably on his first sugar high, was jumping up and down and giggling. It was the cutest thing . . . until he threw up some of his chocolate. Woops. This made everyone laugh, it was quickly cleaned up; and God love him, Mulolo rallied right back, and continued jumping up and down. All in all I must say that cheeseburger and s’more night was a great success and if it was not so much money, I would make a special dinner every week. But alas, I am living on a volunteer’s salary, so I will only be able to do one other dinner. I’m thinking, “peter”.

1st picture is of my Bamaayo, and my baby sister (10 mo yesterday) out in our yard, Elishaba obviously was getting a bath! She is so cute, and no longer scared of me, which is awesome! 2nd is after dinner the other night. THis is our kitchen. we eat around the wood burning fire. I am always so impressed with the fact that they can cook over it! I think i would just burn everything! 3rd. This is part of the Compound I live at, to the left is the families hut, and behind is part of a field that the farm. To the right is my 'cousin's' hut. I am standing outside of my hut but they all pretty much look the same, some are just smaller than others.

I am going to make my family dinner to night . . . Cheeseburger's and chips and S'Mores for dessert. They have never even heard of hamburgers before, so i am excited and will let you know how it goes!

Why hello there!

Muli Shani!

That is “How are you doing?” in Bemba; the language that I am learning here in Zambia. I suppose saying that I am learning is an understatement, its more accurately being shoved down my throat. I have 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours of language training a day, not to mention I am living with a family who’s first language is Bemba. They are such wonderful people, but more about that in a few minutes!

Well, I have made it to Zambia all right. After being thrown into a group of 42, a few ice breakers, hours of paper work, some flip chart presentations, and of course a few more shots (vaccines, not alcohol); Peace Corps head quarters in DC felt we were finally able to leave and become part of PCZ (Peace Corps Zambia (and I thought that TFA (Teach For America) had a thing for acronyms, they have nothing on Peace Corps or so it feels!)). On my 18.5 hour flight to Jo-burg my new best friend and I really became close, Ambein. I am never going to travel long distances without it ever again!

To be perfectly honest the first few days were all a blur, I was assigned a roommate to stay with the first few nights. She was nice, she is in the other group (there are two groups with in the one big group, myself in CHIP (Community Heath Interactive Partnership) and RAP. I’m not really sure what it stands for but I know that they are working on building fish ponds within their assigned communities (which we don’t know yet) and teaching the people of the community how to keep them up and sell their profits. It’s all about Sustainable Development. This is the first time I am typing these words for this blog, but here is a little warning: It’s not going to be the last. That is our over all, end all job; to create Sustainable Development everywhere we go.

After Being in country for about 2 days, we were split up into groups of 5 or 6 within our trainee programs and left for our first site visit. We were told that the province that we went to for our first site visit was not going to be where we ended up. I went to Eastern. It was beautiful and wonderful, and gave me a great opportunity to get to know 5 people very well. To be honest, I really didn’t need to know one man so well, but was forced too, since his snoring at night left me no choice but to stare at top of the tent and think about how great I would be, not to mention how much better I would be sleeping, if there was not someone one sleeping bag down from me snoring at a disable level above and beyond a screaming police car. I really wish I was exaggerating right now. I’m not. However, the site visit give me a look into what the next two years are going to hold for me. The kind of house I will be living in, where I will be cooking my meals, how I will be getting my water (a bore hole), where I will bathe (behind a reed fence with a plastic bucket full of water I have warmed up over the fire), where I will be going to the bathroom (a hole about 4.5 inches in dynamiter in a cement hut), and the kind of work I will be doing. And to tell ya’ll the truth. I came back from that site visit more excited and ready to start the next two years then I was building up to my departure.

I am so excited and happy to be here. I feel so at home and free. After returning from our first site visit we were introduced to the language we would be learning. Which was actually a big deal because it splits the groups up further. It begins to give you an idea of A. where you will be going within the country (if not where you are going, depending on the language) and B. who your neighbor’s (in a the relative sense of the word) can/ will be. However, since I am a Bemba, there are three different provinces that I could be going too, so us Bemba’s don’t know where we will be going yet, but should with in the next 2 weeks or so.

Now you have a very brief over view of the beginning of my life as a PCT (peace corp trainee, since I will not be a PCV until swear in on Sept 25), and now that I have re started this blog, it is only going to be easier and faster for me to update. My goal is once a week, for a while at least. I have been listening to the mix my sister Julie made me while writing tonight. It’s real nice.

Oh and Remember if anyone would like to send me mix CD’s or Favorite Albums of any kind of music I would love it!

Shalinipo!

(Stay Well)