Protea Lodge and Kafue River cruise

I've been negligent in adding photos to my blog and I recently took quite a few. I went to Protea Lodge one Sat and it was incredible to be in the bush and away from the city for the day! I went with Sarah Abroms and Beth (a friend I've made here). We had an uninvited guest for lunch on the patio as you see in the following picture. The young female kudu was after our roles!! She's been raised at the lodge since she was a baby and quite spoiled I might add!!

We went on an hour game drive for $5 each, can't beat the prices!! It felt so good to be out in the bush!! We saw hartebeest, zebra, kudu, puku, and sable. Then we had tea out on the lawn by the lake.
It was perfect!!

Then this past week-end a big group of us went on a river boat cruise on the Kafue River for Sarah's farewell. We brought our own food and drinks saving us quite a bit of money!! It ended up costing $20 each and it was well worth it! 3 hrs with beautiful scenery and the weather was perfect! We had a little dance party on the deck with some of the other people on the cruise! Zambians are always ready to dance!! The captain even let me drive for a little bit!! And I didn't crash into anything, lucky thing it's such a wide river!!

And tomorrow I'm headed out to Itezhi tezhi for a camping trip at the New Kalala Lodge! It's Africa Freedom day on Friday, Zambia has so many public holidays and women are allowed by Zambian law one random day off a month called mother's day! Not a bad deal!! I think we should send a request to the government to get that implemented in the States!

Tips for desperate times

My time here has taught me some useful lessons, as I'm living alone with no transport I have often found myself racing the sunset home on my little bike at the end of the day without having gone to the grocery store for some necessities. Being a bit stingy I refuse to call a taxi and pay him a ridiculous amount of money to take me to a place I can walk to myself in 15mins tops if only it were safe outside at night! As it is I have a friend who's been mugged twice on the road outside where I live making walking alone at night as a young female stupid to say the least!! I figured I would document my findings in case anyone finds them useful for future reference. If you ever find yourself in a situation where your milk smells slightly sour, it will make your bran flakes taste a little funny but if you mix them with muesli you can attribute the "funny" taste to the new combination of muesli and bran flakes hence allowing you to finish over half of your breakfast before deciding it's actually the milk and you don't want to eat anymore! This will allow ample strength to bike to work and make it to lunch. It may be noted that your milk at this point is perfectly acceptable to drink in tea, you use so little and if you add a little extra sugar you won't even notice! Your sour milk the next day will now be unfit for cereal but it will not make your tea taste terribly horrible as long as you avoid the last 2 sips as they will contain some grainy substance that is a little suspicious and feels really odd in your mouth if you're not expecting it. The next day however, I would NOT attempt your sour milk in your tea. Even if you're an enthusiastic tea drinker like myself who requires tea for daily survival, you will spit out the first sip!! Trust me!! Unfortunately I was desperate as there was a tea and milk shortage at work and I could barely stand the deprivation!!

Moving on, if you run out of toothpaste and you've already removed the top and folded your tube up to a nearly unrecognizable contorted object there is still hope!! Even if you've used your left over airplane toothpaste, as long as you have scissors available you can cut up your toothpaste tube (starting at whichever end you choose) and avoid being self conscious all day around your coworkers!

Never accept a taxi ride before you've checked to make sure you haven't forgotten your wallet at home and always keep spare talk time available for your phone. That way when he asks you to send him talk time by text you don't have to borrow money from someone and find a person selling talk time because your talk time has run out without you knowing it! Trust me he will not accept your banana and granadilla as a peace offering! And it always pays to make friends with your local coworkers because they will take you to have Nshima (sadza) and village chicken when you have no lunch, no money, and no talk time! A tip on eating village chicken, make sure you have a tooth pick available and just go at it, fingers, teeth and all!! I looked like an idiot trying to pull it apart flinging chicken juice everywhere for 10mins before my friend just told me to use my mouth!

Well those are some of my tips for survival in Southern Africa and life in general!

Salty tea

Well it's been a week now of biking on bumpy shortcuts to work and I've determined that my backside is permanently bruised! To add insult to injury I started playing Ultimate Frisbee with a group of ex-pats (anyone here not Zambian basically) on Wed nights and I'm so sore! It felt so good to run and do something besides sit at a desk but I'm so out of shape! However I've recently been motivated by the loss of hot water to exercise before I shower! It's amazing how we take the small things for granted, like hot water! Such a luxury!
I've worn myself out this week, going out every night with people! The Hatfields (family friends from Zimbabwe) came into town and we got to hang out which was so fun!! It was so encouraging to hear what the Lord's doing through them here in Africa and around the world!
Last night I went to a play at the Alliance Francaise with a bunch of people from work! It was locally written and directed, called PHD syndrome (Pull him/her down)! Very interesting, dealt with some controversial issues and very well done! I was pleasantly surprised and laughed a lot during it, so African! And the music was so great too! It's basically about how many people Zambian society try to prevent others from rising above the rest and try to use the successful to benefit themselves, in the process pulling the other person down. I felt very cultured sitting there with my Zambian work colleagues drinking my Malawi Shanti (sooooo good!!)
Well I've got to go get warmed up to shower so I can head out to a safari lodge for the day with Sarah Abroms (my med school friend)! But before I go some advice on tea, salt in tea tastes as horrible as it sounds! I was deceived one morning by a little tupperware of white granulated substance that looked very much like sure! And boy was I surprised when I took a sip of that caramel colored creamy goodness only to find a horrendous salty flavor invading my senses! And it completely ruined my day, I was running late and had no time for another cup of tea and at work there was no milk to be found!! How did I survive the day without tea you ask?! It was difficult but I was able to endure until the end of work when I rushed home on my little bicycle to enjoy my evening cup of tea and dinner cup of tea and pre-bedtime cup of tea!;) And the deprivation only served to sweeten the experience!

Short cut

After a test run in my kitchen on my newly adjusted mountain bike seat I was ready for action! After a friendly greeting to Obambo (like Baba in Shona, English equivalent of Mr.) Osmund I set off down the road! I was so focused on not get myself knocked over by the cars to my right and all the potholes and ditch on my left I barely noticed anyone's reaction to me! I decided to take a "short cut" I had heard about through the Barclay fields so I could stay off the main road, Nthabo Mbeki, that takes me to the CIDRZ offices. So I turned on Club rd and it was kinda paved and there were a bunch of people walking down it so I thought that was a good sign! It wasn't long before I was weaving in and out of potholes the size of entire vehicles and bumping up and down gravel sections of a winding road when whatever resemblance of a road there had been disappeared entirely!! Now it was just the lovely red dirt and some tyre marks to follow, at least I could tell cars came through here so I knew there must be an opening to the main road somewhere!! All the sudden all the pedestrians are turning on this single file walking trail surrounded by grass taller than me on the bike and I'm headed for some big factory looking building that appears deserted! Hmmm...at this point I'm wondering what I've got myself into, but determined to find the way I kept going! And my determination was rewarded with the sight of a woman selling vegetables sitting on the side of a small paved road that led directly to Arcades mall, which is next to where I work!! Yay!! Longest shortcut I've ever taken (except when I got Andrew and myself lost in Oak Mtn state park for an hour or so...the signs are confusing!!)! Well it was a lucky thing I had a Mtn bike or I never would have made it through there, when I told my coworker I had taken the shortcut she'd told me about, on my bike her expression said it all!!:) Apparently it's shorter on foot! Oh well, I enjoyed my mini adventure maneuvering up down the hills created by giant potholes!! Probably will do it again sometime, it's an improvement from the petrol I have to breath in every morning!

My next mini-adventure was riding the minibuses for the first time after work! I was going to Sarah Abrom's flat for fajita night and we met up at Manda Hills shopping center to ride the minibus together (they're like the commuter omnibuses in Zim). These men sit at the bus stops all day and recruit passengers for the driver for a share of the profit, one guy in a sparkly skull and crossbones beanie approached us and recruited us for the first minibus, as we got closer a group of five other men crowded us and told us to come to their prospective minibuses instead. In such situations as these I find it best to put your head down, don't make eye contact and walk! On the bus we were crowded in like cream in a chocolate eclair (which are great for tea time by the way!). There was one guy hanging out the door until the next stop! Each time you stop you get crawled over by people behind you getting out, then you wait to be refilled and continue on again. Well at our stop we were almost at the back of the bus and got to awkwardly crawl over everyone too! Fun times! It's cool to see the Zambians interact though, they have such a sense of community! Even in the bus around strangers they help make change for one another, notify the front guy if someone needs to get off, make room for each other on already crowded chairs. People just don't get uptight here even though they're hot, squashed and it's the end of a long day!

Fajita night was a success, internet was so slow we couldn't look up a salsa recipe so we just winged it! Turned out pretty good and Sarah made some great fajitas! I got to meet Sarah's roommate and some of her friends, other young people working here temporarily. It's fun to be a part of this community of young adventurers experiencing a new world, conversation is always fascinating! We may be from France, Canada, Tx and Al but we all have this common ground that automatically unites us in community...we are alien to this land! Nothing has taught me more about letting go of this world than being a foreigner in a different country! It reminds me that my home is with my Father and my stay here in this world is temporary!  

White girl walking

Apparently there's nothing that draws attention more here in Lusaka, Zambia than a white girl walking to/from work!! I've never had so many honks, greetings, stares, stupefied expressions than when I walked home from work after my first day! I only live about a mile or two away! Thankfully this morning I was so blinded by the rising sun and exhaust fumes (felt like I was breathing petrol the whole way, I'm going to have smokers lungs and not get any of the enjoyment out of it!! So not fair!) all I could see was the next step in front of me or my hair which kept blowing in my face (stupid bangs!). I have a bike at my disposal but the seat was too high this morning and I couldn't lower it!! I tried riding it around my kitchen, being too embarrassed to try it for the first time in front of the gate guards, and it was an ultimate fail! I got stuck on the seat with my legs dangling inches above the ground and were it not for the obliging refrigerator I would have fallen smack on my head!

I spent today at the prison again attempting to figure out the system, with not much progress I might add! I met a couple of new guards, Zsazsa being my favorite, not to be confused with ZsuZsu my cute Asian friend!!;) I finished off the day with a trip to Spar for some borewors, broccoli, and peanut butter and jelly for lunch sandwiches! It's hard to shop for food when you have to carry it all in your backpack to get home! The Nshima (what we know as sadza/paleche/mealie pap), meat and veggies they sell for lunch on the corner by the office is sooooo good but kinda pricey to eat every day! I had borewors and broccoli for dinner whilst skyping Andrew (love you!!:) and it was amazing!! I just love the meat here in case you haven't noticed, almost as much as I love the tea...almost!;) Now I just need to have some biltong and Nando's piri piri chicken to make my life complete!! As I sit here listening to the guard's radio play African honky tonk beats in the background drinking my now...9th cup of tea since arriving here (but who's counting?) I'm excited to think of the rile I'll get out of those Zambians tomorrow when they see a white girl BIKING to work! Ready or not Lusaka, here I come!! Stay tuned...

Detective work

I had a glorious dinner at the Howard's house (a missionary family I've known since I was a kid) of chicken fried warthog and kudu, mashed potatoes and gravy, cantaloupe, completed with peanut butter cake and...wait for it.... five roses TEA (I believe this makes 2 cups within 6hrs of landing in Lusaka)!!! After that I conked out in the baptist guest house and the next morning my med school friend, Sarah Abroms (who's been here 2 months now doing research with the same grp) picked me up in a taxi on the way to the CIDRZ office. My preceptor, German (he's hispanic, pronounced Hermawn) discussed with me what I'll be doing then sent me with Marcellina (she helps collect data from TB screenings at the prisons) to Lusaka Central Prison. Everything happened so quickly I barely had time to find the tea source at work! You'll all be relieved to know it is right by my cubicle section and I had time for a cup whilst waiting for our transport to arrive!!:) Ofcourse we had to do things the proper way so we brought a letter of introduction so I could get in, then Marcellina proceeded to introduce me to every single person in the prison remotely involved in our project!! And I now feel very welcome, because they all said so when I was introduced!

The prison was built in the 1960's during the colonial times for 400 inmates, it now houses over 1400!! It's so crowded I've been told inmates sleep in shifts or sitting up, like sardines in a can! It's awful! You enter this HUGE green gate in massive white walls (looks like a medieval castle or fort) through a tiny door that even Marcellina has to duck to get through (she's 5'5")! Then you're standing on a cement paved entryway where they take your mobile phones and you sign in. You go through another gate that's more like a giant fence into an open courtyard with the clinic CIDRZ built on your right, all the walls are whitewashed and there are men in orange uniforms (convicts), normal clothes (remandees waiting for a court date to be convicted or discharged), and officer uniforms milling about. You can hear some men singing on the other side of the walls where I presume they're working deeper inside the prison. In Zambia you are guilty until proven otherwise so the prisons are crowded by men waiting to be sentenced and there's no limit to the time you can be left to wait. I met Jeff who helps with TB screening, he's a businessman from Tanzania who owns a shop in Lusaka. He was implicated in something and has been waiting now for 6yrs to go to trial, unfortunately he told me today the judge assigned to him was fired so who knows how much longer he'll end up waiting lost in the black hole that is the Zambian justice system!! The conditions are horrendous and there's been a lot of attention lately on the prisons because of all the human rights violations.

And it's no wonder so many remandees get lost in the system, I can safely say the prisons here run like the airports; organized chaos! I still haven't figured out their method of filing all the TB/HIV screening they've done. They have no way of tracking the inmates in the prison that I've discovered yet and the CIDRZ people give them an id number based on order of appearance starting with 1 on 01/01/11 and when they reach 01/01/12 they start all over again as 1/12. Then the TB treatment team gives them a different number based on order of appearance in their clinic and the HIV treatment team give them an ART number (don't know how in the world they come up with that one!!) if they're HIV+ and start treatment...data collection is going to be sooooo fun!! Oh well, I always enjoyed playing detective as a kid and now here's my chance!!

Being in the prison has given new light to what Christ did for me! He set the prisoners free, I always think about being free and not who a prisoner is!! No-one cares for these prisoners! Society here deems them as worthless, deserving of their punishment and not worthy of the basic human rights of proper nourishment, clean water, and health care awarded to the community at large. Why should we spend govt money to treat them for HIV and TB?! But Christ looked upon worthless prisoners like us and he gave up His very life so we could be free!! How can I not have compassion for these men regardless of who they are in light of the fact in God's eyes I am no different from they?!

First cup

I was filled with relief as we arrived in Addis Ababa, not only did it mark the end of the longest leg of the journey (14hrs), but also I've never heard so many screaming  kids on one plane before, the loudest of which was a cute 3yr old Ethiopian girl right behind me!! I swear at one point during the night/morning/afternoon/whatever it was they were having a competition to out do each other, what a racket!! I sat next to a young base guitar player headed to Harare with his band on tour, and he looked like a base player too complete with movie star sunglasses and some of the longest dread locks I've seen! Darn I meant to get his autograph in case they became famous!!

I love airports, especially ones as eclectic as the one in Addis Ababa!! It just smells like Africa and there are people there from all over the continent of Africa, and it runs like organized chaos! It's kinda hit or miss whether you end up going through security again or not to get to your next flight, I managed to avoid it but I saw a bunch of people from my previous flight waiting in line to get into the terminal. At this point I have no clue what time it is and the signs keep flipping to another language before I can read the English one, all I've been told is "8"! So I find gate 8 and realize after talking to the stewardess I have time to use the bathroom, which apparently there's only one available to those now beyond security check in and the line is out the door! By the time I make it to the front the toilet paper is finished, deciding I can hold it until we board I go out and start to brush my teeth when I'm motioned for by this older Indian woman who only speaks Hindi sitting on the toilet behind me. She had cut the line earlier because she really needed to go and now wouldn't leave until someone gave her some toilet paper, which nobody had! Everyone in line was complaining about her not leaving. She motioned for me to put some water in her hands (while she's still sitting on the toilet!!) and proceeds to wipe using that, after repeating this three times she let me leave at which point I proceeded to laugh at the hilarity of the situation!! Only in Africa!!

Well my flight was delayed an hour, no surprise there, and when they called for us to board everyone proceeded en mass to the gate! I thought there was no way we'd all fit in that plane, and apparently we wouldn't but half the people were going to Frankfurt and just didn't have any idea what they were doing because they all had to be turned away one at a time. The steward kept yelling out that this flight was not to Frankfurt which I'm sure only served to confuse these people even more seeing as the problem in the first place is that they probably don't speak English or Amharic (I originally put Ethiopian but not wanting to sound ignorant I googled the official language of Ethiopia)!!

I ended up sitting next to an Egyptian business man on his way from Dubai to his home of 24yrs in Harare, where he lives with his Russian wife who he excitedly showed me a picture of when I asked about her! So cute!! He very animatedly talked to me about the politics of Zimbabwe, Egypt, and the USA, then somewhere in there permitted me a 45min nap and we continued to talk about business in Dubai and the glass lamps he is carrying home for his wife! I love the random people you get to meet on planes, it's my favorite part of traveling!!

At long last I arrived in Lusaka, 3hrs late, and praise the Lord my luggage arrived with me!! I had this sense of familiarity watching the trees get closer as we landed! Uncle Dwayne and Aunt Betty Mitchell picked me up and showed me around a bit before heading to the guest house where I'm staying. There are two malls within walking distance of my house complete with a Spar grocery store, Silver Spur, Nandos...can't wait for my first piri piri chicken!! Once I arrived at the guest house my first priority was tea!! And boy did it taste good after such a long 30hrs! And somehow it just tastes better under the African sun!