13 January 2008

The Bad Air

Carrie had malaria! Plasmodium Falciparum; Fortunately she is already cured. Well, she took her last dose of Coartem yesterday, so she’s malaria free today. We confirmed the malaria with an expired chromatography quick-test. It was a little scary in the beginning, lots of sweating, weakness, and a little delirium. Funny how it was cyclic too. Really bad in the afternoon, then she was mostly functional at night. After a day and a half on Coartem she was on the mend though. Funny how I, who haven’t been taking any prophylaxis, still haven’t come down with it yet.

I still have a second degree African “red badge of courage”. I got a tumbu/bot fly about 3 days ago! I had a really bad itch on my right thigh for a while. Then one night I woke up cause it itched so badly. I shined my headlamp on it and could discern a bit of grey within the swelling. They say if you suspect having one of these larva in your skin (which come from eggs laid on clothing that is left to dry outside) to smother it in Vaseline, then they are supposed to back out of the hole drilled in your skin for air, then you pull them out with tweezers. Well, it was taking too long, so I had to excavate with a safety pin. Pulled out a tiny little worm with tiny little hooks on it. Gross.

So we are in Serenje because of Peace Corps policy on malaria (you have to come into town then call, then you’re supposed to go to Lusaka to get a blood test to make sure you have no parasites left), but they just told her to take her Coartem and stay here. I’m leaving today to go back to Mpelembe.

The last time we were in Lusaka (not long ago), we bought two trees. One is a Lichi (delicious, grape-like, tropical fruit in a thin red peel), and the other is supposedly a pear. The thing is I can’t imagine it gets cold enough in Zambia to satisfy the “chilling requirement” of pears. Temperate fruit trees need a certain period of cold weather (i.e. Winter) to induce further growth and fruiting. We’ll see – or rather the 3rd PC volunteer at Carrie’s site will see (several more years until they bear fruit).

We finally got our roof repaired by Jameson Kunda and what Carrie termed “Team Zambia” (his kids and a nephew). They threw up bundles of thatch and just laid it on all the open spots. I guess we didn’t actually need any expertise, though we don’t have a Zam-ladder (some long sticks with short sticks tied/nailed on as rungs).

We’ve been doing a bit of mushroom hunting since rainy season started. In fact we were supposed to go with Justin and Brenda today. It’s a very popular past-time in rural Zambia. Kids and women usually go out in the morning or afternoon and comb the forest for tasty fungal treats. There are soooo many different mushrooms. Most you can’t eat naturally. We have brought along the neighbor-kids to help us discern which mushrooms are edible. The most abundant types are not very flavorful naturally. There are medium-sized grey ones with a flat cap that are tasteless. Then there are stringy little white ones (musafya?) that are ok. There are also some rounded red-capped ones witch all look exactly the same, but the kids only let us pick some (all inedible/unknown things are described as posing mortal peril to any foolish consumers. [picking up a mushroom and showing it to a kid] Question: “ici?”(this?) Answer “awe – ukufwa” (no – to die).) The best ones are incidentally the most interesting. They are these brown-fading-to-white very rounded puffy mushrooms with a smooth almost slimy coating called ‘Telya’. You find them encased in a white ‘cacoon’ emerging from the ground. You pull up the cacoon and peel it back to find the tasty little mushroom within. At this stage they look exactly like ‘amabuns’ (the buns they sell in Mpelembe and Serenje). Later they look more like normal mushrooms, but usually are found before that stage. Finally there are the gigantic white mushrooms that are 2 to 3 feet across. Haven’t eaten those. It’s almost impossible to get mushrooms without a bunch of dirt, so most mushroom dishes are crunchy.

I believe we’ve written about the terrible neighbor rooster with no feathers on its neck or head (which I was recently told is due to inbreeding). Well we decided to buy our own rooster (Abraham) so that it would mate with our hens so we could have cute little baby chicks instead of “headless” ones. Unfortunately neighbor rooster is the hugest rooster ever and beat the two roosters we tried to bring in. Because of pecking order the winner of the cockfight (neighbor rooster) still gets primary mating rights with our hens. Which of course means he keeps hanging out in our yard, crowing terribly and loudly at all hours of the day. We kept our loser rooster anyway because it’s really quite pretty. We hope that he’ll mate with the hens as much as possible behind the neighbor rooster’s back. The neighbors also brought back their white rooster (who has all his feathers), but he’s so old that the other neighbor rooster scares him off all the time. Our rooster beat the white rooster. I try to chase off the neighbor ‘headless’ rooster pretty frequently so our rooster has a chance to mate, but the enemy rooster comes back within 5 minutes or so.

One day I was so frustrated with the sight, sound, and sexual prowess of the enemy neighbor rooster that I devised a plan to trap him. I herded our three hens into the garden, then started chasing the enemy rooster around. Knowing that there were distressed hens in the garden, it was pretty easy to chase him in there as well. Using the garden fence to corner him, I managed to capture him after much sweat was shed. With the ugly bastard in my grasp, I bound his legs, put him in a cage, and stuck him in the icimbusu all day. At the end of the day he escaped with the tie still around one leg. I wonder what the neighbors made of that. Hmmm. We might resort to the plan of buying the rooster and giving it to Justin or someone to just eat. It’s that bad. You’d have to be here to understand.

In 2 months, Carrie and I will have each eaten more mangoes than most everyone in the States eats in a lifetime. Awesome.

Mom! Thank you for your extremely thoughtful package! We’ve devoured almost all of the chocolate. It’s a good thing that you sent 2 nutellas, because we were each able to have our own, avoiding civil warfare. The containers are perfect for our modest tea collection. I put up the little statue by the door. Believe it or not, I’ve even started reading one of the books you sent! ‘The Quantum and the Lotus’. Almost done. To date, the windchimes haven’t been stolen, so that’s good news. They sound nice. Oh, the magazines were excellent. I was very excited to read about homesteading et cetera. Thank Dave for me. I think I’ll just request Mother Earth News at the library when I get home.

John! Thank you for your contribution to our food supply. I hid the M&Ms from Carrie so we could ration them.

Bonnibelle and Bill! Thank you for the books! I definitely look forward to reading them, especially ‘Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintainance’.

People are watching a movie now, so I’m signing off. Love you all, Doug.

02 January 2008

An Inquiry into the Nutritional Value of Luffa Cylindrica

This post is a continuation of the previous post. Read that one below first!

So luffa leaves are edible. Good.

Remember the post before "Surprise Post"? Where I typed all night long? Well we got a free ride back from Serenje to Mpelembe from no one less than the President of Mukwa Beer; Frank Somebody. Mukwa beer is the competitor of Shake Shake in the ever so popular cheap carton chibuku market. Craziest and scariest hitch ever. He had a really expensive SUV and bought Carrie and I two Heinikens each. He also was drinking Heinikens while driving and insisted on opening them all himself by using opposing bottle caps. He drove fast. Really fast. I'm still alive, so don't freak out, but he tried to average 180 kph (111 mph). He fortunately managed to avoid destroying all the human and goat life we encountered on the road. Made it back to Mpelembe in record time! When we got out he gave us his business cards and invited us to go clubbing with him the next time we were in Lusaka. My least favorite thing about Frank was that he tossed the empty bottles out of the window saying "keep Zambia clean, right?" in reference to the Keep Zambia Clean program (like Redd Up Pittsburgh, but even more unsuccessful). Whew.

Here's how Christmas went: Got out of bed, had some Christmas Coffee and oats. Opened all the presents! Carrie had chitenge pants made for me from brown cloth with a funny rooster pattern on it. They are a little big cause the guy who made them was unable to adhere to the measurements given (this seems common in Zambia; the beehive and subsequently manufactured top bars were also not made to specifications. Not even close). Admired our mildly cone shaped tree we cut from the wood, adorned with paper snowflakes and the lights that Carrie's mom sent (thank you!). We baked bread for our neighbors, the (ex)head familiy, and our friend Justin. Then we went to the paved road, where apparently rural villages go to celebrate holidays. Everyone who lives in Mpelembe was there practically. A little dizzying seeing all that colorful clothing and teeming masses out in our middle of nowhere. There were many people who brought/were making food to sell, and of course all the bars were open. We got some fritters and people watched after talking to a few people we knew. After a couple hours we went back and baked a mango cobbler for ourselves. It was delicious. I also attempted to make eggnogg!! Yes, we drank our very own raw, unpasturized eggs! It was quite good and eggnoggesque. The only problem was that the cream that I brought back to fold into the drink opened up before I could get it back. So I just drank like a half liter of cream. Mmmm. So flavor was good, but texture should have been thicker and richer. Turned out the candles and watched the Christmas lights some more, then went to bed. Oh, Zambians greet people on Christmas by saying "Christmas!"; phonetically "Ka-rist-mass-y". At least I think it was a greeting. Hmm, in light of "peleniko new years", maybe they were asking for Christmas charity from the rich muzungus.

For New Years we went to Serenje, on the possibility that there would be some people to celebrate with. We were the only ones there. Everyone else was vacationing elsewhere. We made grilled cheese - a rare treat - and drank some [Tony, when you get back to lab, tell Daniel that I finally tried Tusker lager!]. We watched a scary movie '1408' which I highly recommend if you like that genre. It was on one of the funny cds they sell here for cheap that have between 9 and 15 movies on them, so it was kinda bad quality. Oh well. Then we watched some Family Guy episodes and tried to get Carrie to watch Aqua Teen Hunger force. She fell asleep and then we missed the advent of the New Year. Oh well. Next morning we had a cheese omlette and coffee (all rare treats).

Then we came down to Lusaka yesterday so that I could put in my application for a 3 month extension of my Visitor's Permit (sucessfully! I have the reciept, so I can at least stay 3 months more [to April 21st]). Also so [that](Nonna, is placing "that" there gramatically unnecissary? I've never figured this out) Carrie could get the free (to PC females) HPV vaccine and talk to some PC staff about a bike project. Sarah, do you know any organization that would send free bikes? Carrie is having some difficulty in dealing with the one she contacted (Pedals 4 Progress). We are heading back this evening.

Diana (Carrie's Mom, not my Aunt) thank you for the thermometer (which is hung in the livingroom on a nail in the mud [it would get stolen if outside, besides, there's probably not a big temperature difference between the mud hut and the outside] Hopefully high enough so The Professor won't knock it down). Can you smell me all the way from The States? Is it that bad? Well hopefully my odour will improve with the natural deoderant you sent. Carrie is jealous of my new headlamp cause it's brighter than hers! Thanks also for the razors, as my infrequent shaving tends to grow formidable, razor denting bristles. It's funny, Siddhartha was recommended by an aquantance of mine back in college, but I never got around to reading it. So thanks for everything!

Thanks ahead of time to all those whose packages are still in the works. Carrie got a package slip in Sereneje and we are probably stopping there on the way back home, so maybe we will have more Christmas presents to covet before long!

A batch of letters from me should be going out either tomorrow or on the 18th, depending if we get to the post office tomorrow or not. So some of you can expect letters soonish! Do all countries have reciprocal agreements with the US to deliver stuff that is sent? I mean Zambia charges us to pick up anything heavier than a letter, but they deliver letters for the US at least. How does that work?

Ok we are off to the bus station. Love and holiday cheers, Doug

On the Edibility of Luffa Leaves and Other Subjects, Horticultural and Otherwise

Happy New Year! If Zambians ask you to give them New Year "peleniko new year", they are asking for a gift of money in the spirit of the season. I tried to ask some Zambians for new year but they wouldn't give me any. They should instead resort to Wassailing the rich.

Anyone know if smooth luffa leaves are edible? I guess I just have to invent more challenging phrases for google to hunt on other than "edible leaves loofah". Don't worry I shall look it up. See, our garden is entirely grass (much to the envy of all suburban families in the US) and very tall (much to the frustration of the Neighbourhood Committees of the aforementioned suburbanites). However, there are 3 locations free of the insidious grass; 1. The plant nursery (one bed of 8) 2. The tree nursery (where we have baby tamarind, white sapote [delicious fruit similar to and surpassing the pawpaw], and an avocado growing) and 3. The luffa plant.

The luffa is so crazy. It seems to be attempting to reach Mt. Olympus the way it is climbing. Attractive plant too. I suggest you all grow them in your backyard as they need little attention (but lots of area to climb) and produce biodegradable dish/bath scrubbers. Funny how those plastic puffballs are named after the natural ones. Anyway, it seems to be the garden's foremost success story the way it is growing. Also completely pest free. Yet it has no flowers (which are edible along with the immature fruit, which are kinda like cucumbers or zucchini) and thus no fruit. What it does have is a lot of leaves. Zambia has shown us that most cucurbit leaves are a good substitute for the more insect-plagued and tenderer plants like spinach etc. So the luffa plant would make a great food source if its leaves are edible. We don't really want to eat the leaves our our pumpkins in the field, cause we prefer a good yield of pumpkins to the leaves.

Sorry to blab about that so much. Our field has a good bit of grass as well, but not so bad as the garden. Plus we weeded half of it recently. Most of the field plants have such big leaves that they are able to trump the grass for access to sunlight. The banana tree is supporting many leaves now, no doubt in preparation to provide us with a preponderance of bananas before rainy season ends. It also has produced a new sucker shoot which I hope to transplant. We already transplanted one bananas sucker and it's growing quite nicely among the wild amaranth (which has delicious leaves - relative of spinach and the larger-seeded "super-grain" quinoa).

In other agricultural news, the internet told us how to "break" broodiness in chickens so they will stop trying to sit on invisible eggs and start laying again. You put them in an airy cage so that their undersides are cool. This initiates a change in hormones that puts them back into laying mode. It worked well for New Chicken - just 3 or 4 days in the "prison" (we try and let them out during the day until they try and sit on the laying area, and of course they get food and water). Fireball and Pocahontas went broody shortly after New Chicken finished. With them both caged though I think they kept eachother's bellies too warm, so it's taken longer.

We got a cat! When Peter came for this Jatropha training we scheduled, he brought us a surprising and unsolicited cat. The training didn't happen because it absolutely poured rain. In Zambia rain is as good as 4 feet of snow in regards to meetings and school days. Peter drove us back from the school to our hut and put a box into my hands. I felt the box shifting and hissing at me. "Oh god" I thought, cause Carrie is allergic to cats. All was well though, we figured it could be mainly an outdoor cat. As soon as we let the cat out of the nearly literal bag, it ran into a dark corner and attempted to evade all contact. Peter said he had just been weaned from the mother (who is nearly wild) and is part Wild African Cat or Jennet or something. He had looked for the kitten to give us before he came but couldn't find it as the mother hides it every day. As he was driving for the meeting, he heard it meowing in the bed of his truck, so he boxed it up for us.

He became 'tame' almost immediately though. Going from sitting on top of a shelf all day to sitting in our laps. He started using the litter box from day one amazingly. Carrie named him "Professor McTiddlywinks" or just "Professor" for short. He looks like a striped black/grey/white tabby. Generally I'm not a big cat fan, but the kitten is pretty cute. His main drawback is that he only operates in two modes: Attack and Sleep. If you try to play with him or pet him for any length of time, he will resort to clawing and biting your fingers. He likes to climb up people too, which is a painful ordeal if one isn't wearing full body denim or kevlar.

Okay, back to the last post. I met the guy in Kabwe and he said he was powerless in regards to offering me a volunteer position. He claims I must apply in Serenje. So ridiculous. Serenje MOH told me I had to apply in Lusaka a long time ago, and that is when all the confusion and bureaucracy started. The guy who let me use his computer greatly admired my willingness to volunteer in 'such poor conditions' as a thatched roof house with no electricity or running water. He was also impressed with my face, as he complimented me at least 3 times on that; "Your face is just beautiful" etc. Since Zambians are a generous, frank, and kind people (and homosexuality is illegal), I imagine his compliment to be in the same vein as the American "I like your shoes".
Damn, I have to meet Carrie at the Black Night for pizza now. Dunno if I will be able to finish the post. Ok, love everyone!