22 May 2008

Everything I Forgot and More

I’m at Peace Corps House in Serenje now. We came for several objectives, all of which failed, other than eating good food. We were hoping to find the goat farmer’s number in Carrie’s mailbox. Nope. We were also hoping that the Zambian postal service had run at a moderate speed and delivered us long promised goodies. Nope. We wanted to buy our train ticket to Tanzania… the train apparently crashed in Kapiri Mposhi, so they probably won’t be repairing the track nor letting any other trains through for a while. Sigh. But we did make and eat: french fries with cheese on top, french toast, grilled cheese, avocado and tomato sandwich, and a fresh-squeezed lemonade smoothie. Tonight we have a vegetarian quiche in the oven to be followed a coconut-custard pie. Tomorrow we’ll probably just have oats and Recoffee (a portmanteau of REally mediocre reconstituted COFFEE).

I forgot to mention some of our other chicken-related events and epiphanies. Not only did the first two chicks to hatch get names – Chipmunk and Arctic, because of their respective coloration and patterning) – but also the first two chickens to subsequently show any extreme differences in body size as well. Vulture is the largest chick, not so much by body mass so much as oversized wings and puffy feathers (with only baby feathers on its head and neck, giving it a vulturine appearance). Vulture is probably a boy. He started out like Chipmunk, but has subsequently become almost entirely black, save his head and neck. Wee Wee Wee is – as an astute blog reader may guess – the smallest chick. Though it’s probably a girl, it may just be small because it’s really stupid. She is sort of a boring splotchy wheat color, like 3 others. When you put out the remains of oats, porridge, peanuts, or any other tasty poultry treat, she stays far back while the other chicks dive at the food in a feathered frenzy. If you miraculously catch her and try to offer her food, she just peeps loudly and tries to run away. More miraculously yet, if she manages to get a piece of food before the others, she drops it and picks up it several times before actually swallowing one (typically resulting in the food she drops being eaten by others).

I ran out of good books to read at the hut, so started reading the dictionary. There are way too many entries for variants of simple words or prefixes e.g. “Air”; Air, Airplane, Air-conditioning Airily, Air-traffic-control, Airy, ad. infinitum. Anyway, one of the worthwhile words that I came across that I didn’t previously know was “Alectryomancy”. It is the divination of the future by way of watching how a rooster pecks at corn kernels. Obviously I had to try it – here is my prediction: in the future, large nearly flightless birds will peck randomly yet precisely at corn. Oh, and we’ll all drive hovercars.

Our Serenje culinary masterpieces have been preceded by some Mpelembe ones. Peanuts have been harvested, so we bought and were gifted a bunch. We also still had the macadamia nuts that the South African farmer Peter had given us. These facts, plus boredom, lead to one large batch of delicious homemade peanut butter and one small indulgent batch of macadamia nut butter! We baked bread and it was all delicious. Macadamia nut butter is very oily and very delicious. We also made bagels a week later. Bagels are tough to make in the bush, but they were good.

One day in Mpelembe, Mizz Mumba came up to us and told us there was a funeral. That means she expects us to go. Oh dear. The ones we had been to before involved just going in the house, sitting in there with the body and mourners for a while, and then leaving. Not so lucky this time. It was at the next next door neighbor’s. Someone’s baby had died. We went in and sat down amongst the mourners. One woman was wailing the same phrase about mothers, children, and difficulty over and over. When she was done Mizz Mumba chimed in with approximately the same formula. It was weird sitting on the floor 2 feet away from a dead baby. I felt a little sad for it, but more for the mother, since the baby didn’t even know what the world is about or have any hopes and dreams or anything. After a long time Carrie and I decided to leave and started to walk home. We were redirected. Carrie had to sit with the women, and I was led by some kids to help dig the grave.

6 or 7 men were standing/working around the hole. They were all chatting and carousing. Women are the official mourners of Zambia. The hole was already maybe 4 feet deep when I got there. People rotated digging in the hole and clearing back the dirt that had been dug out. I just helped clear dirt, as at the time I still had an infected wound on my foot. They decided the depth of the hole by the point at which they reached wet clay (which just happens to be about 6 feet). When we were done, we walked back to the house area and sat around. Maurice, the French/Bemba/English-speaking carpenter and Iron Mumba came back carrying a large roll of thick inner tree bark. Apparently they make baby coffins (maybe all?) out of muputu bark (which ironically probably killed the tree). They hammered, cut, and sewed the pliable bark into a box – pretty interesting process. In the meantime, everyone got some boiled sweet potato. When they were done, the coffin was brought into the house and the baby was put in. They brought out the coffin and had Iron Mumba, Maurice, and someone else say something. No crosses or anything. Then we all walked to the grace and the coffin was put in. Immediately, people took up implements and began filling the hole. Most of the procession filed back, the men stayed to finish it. After we filled and tamped the grave, they put a cup on top to mark it as a grave. That explained all the cups and bowls on top of what looked to be cassava mounds in the vicinity.

I had much that happened in Lusaka after my last blog entry. It was really terrible, then it became ok, then it became worth it. First let me stall by talking about Lusaka items I forgot to write about. I have hair down to my earlobes and a crazy beard right now. This has lead an overwhelming number of urban Zambians to conclude that they should address me as either “Jesus” or “Chuck Norris”. I am flattered in both cases of course (if we forget all of the books Chuck Norris wrote). I have even taken the time to bless people by waving my hand around like the pope (when addressed as Jesus – not Chuck Norris, although that would have been funny too).

There is this huge tree that was cut into sections (the base with severed roots, and three trunk pieces) and deposited near a bus stop (“Zesco”, near Makeshi Rd.) for no reason. I felt pretty bad for the tree. Then, when the rains came, the stump sprouted a couple of branches and put out leaves! I’m glad.

Ok so what happened after I blogged is that I went to buy our staple groceries at Shoprite (flour, rice, oats etc.). I had my hiking bag and I stuffed it to the brim. I think it weighed as much as me. Anyway, when I finished packing all of my groceries, I put my money belt with 120,000 Kwacha ($30, all the money I had except for the equivalent of a quarter in my wallet) in the top compartment with Carrie’s cell phone and locked it. To celebrate my packing success, I went back into Shoprite to buy myself a ‘Chelsea bun’. When I came back out, I wanted to check the time on the cell phone and noticed my money belt wasn’t in there. Shit! I searched where I was packing, the garbage cans, asked employees and security guards. Nothing. It must have fallen out when I thought I packed it. Everyone I talked to was very sympathetic and 3 different people offered to give me money for transport back to the guesthouse (luckily I had already paid for that night right?). The guard advised me to go to the police station in hopes that they could flag down motorists at checkpoints and help me hitch back home.

So I went in and filed a report with the officer in charge. He said they can’t make drivers take me. Then some traffic patrol cops came in and heard my sad tale. They said they might be able to get me a free ride aboard one of the intercity busses. I told them some of my stuff was still at the guesthouse, so they decided to drive me to the guesthouse and then to the bus station. By polite asking (by me) followed by uncalled for intimidation (by Detective so and so), I got a 30 pin refund for not staying that night. When we arrived at the bus station, the cops talked to one of the ticket booth guys and he said he could probably put me on the 4 am bus to Mansa (which goes right by Mpelembe). So the traffic cops handed me over to the bus station cops. The bus station cops also filed a report for some reason and wrote me an official (with 2 stamps) note with the subject “RE: STRANDED PERSON” and ending in “Please do whatever is necessary to aid the bearer of this letter”.

While in the bus police station I met a guy with a child’s-print handkerchief who responded to my greeting by saying “Peace and love”. Can’t argue with that. The officer in charge and I talked about some of the finer points of Bemba and he seemed to enjoy chatting. Suddenly three guys were shoved through the doorway, followed by a cop. The cop was yelling “Lock them up! Lock theme up!” and shoving hard. When two of the prisoners were in the cell, he shoved the third against a locker and yelled at him in Bemba (I think) and English. Then he started hitting him about the head and arms for no reason and told him to talk in English. The poor guy offered no resistance, but the cop kept hitting and swatting him. Finally he shoved the guy in the jail cell and left. Needless to say I was pretty stunned. I felt pretty angry and wished I had confronted the cop. My opportunity arose when he brought in a cab driver and repeatedly shoved him into the locker. After he locked him up I told him he didn’t need to be so rough. He said that I didn’t know these cab drivers and that next time he was going to use a baton. I said there’s no reason to be violent, the prisoners weren’t resisting, and that Zambia is a peaceful country. He just reiterated that I didn’t understand. Well, at least I spoke up. 10 minutes and many “Ba Officer”s later, one of the cops surreptitiously accepted a 10 pin ($3) bribe to let the cabbie out. I acted like I didn’t see. Bribes are pretty common when dealing with police to facilitate things (I haven’t done it, but I’ve seen it done frequently).

After all was taken care of in the station, one of the cops walked with me back to the ticket booth, where maybe 30 people were bundled against the cold to sleep or watch some movie. After some discussion he led me to a bus that wasn’t leaving for a long time and told me I could sleep on board. There were some other people on board also sleeping (although two were annoyingly talking nonstop). I ate and tried to sleep. After a while I had to use the bathroom (fee paying – 1 pin), so I showed the doorman my police note and he let me in for free the rest of the time I was there. This was the cleanest bathroom in Zambia! It even had showers! The bus got cold because some jerk wanted his window open – which also let in all the bus station clamor, so it was hard to sleep. I fell asleep for a while only to be awoken by some god-awful extra loud movie with a soundtrack consisting of the same track of a recorder over and over again. From what I gather it was a low budget and/or old movie about an African independence movement. It consisted solely of blowhard politicians giving loud speeches, sometimes interspersed with unenthusiastic masses cheering, followed by the recorder. It must have gone on for 3 hours.

Finally at 4 am I got up and went to my bus. Several different people rotated in to take people’s tickets, none knew if it was ok for me to get on. My note got passed around and finally someone approved it. By that time I was worried there would be no seats, but the bus was less than half full for some reason. By 5, the bus took off. So, by sleeping on a bus instead of in a bed (30 pin), and by getting a free ride to my proverbial doorstep (80 pin), I made up 110,000 of my 120,000 Kwacha lost. On the bus I got a free soda and some coconut cookies, so really with all that, the transport money the Shoprite lady gave me, and the experience, I didn’t lose anything. Ok, so the bus stopped about 2 km past the road to the hut, so I lost a little in sweat and suffering - lugging that pack back. Oh, also on the bus, I got to watch this video of this pot-bellied Nigerian guy with his face painted like Insane Clown Posse dancing and rapping ridiculously. Totally worth getting my money snatched.

The funny thing about those coconut biscuits was that they had a leprechaun with a four-leafed clover on the front. Ireland has no coconuts, and I doubt that 1 in 10,000 Zambians knows what that little guy in green is. There are also these savory corn snacks adorned with a sleeping Mexican wearing a sombrero pulled over his eyes. Post-modernists would have a field day in Zambia.

A few days ago the neighbors saved up enough money to buy a goat. So they borrowed Carrie’s bike and came back with a supposedly pregnant female (African goats are so small it’s hard to believe). I tried to feed it and it just bucked and ran to the end of its tether. I noticed it had been hanging out at the well, and rural Zambians never seem to give their animals any water, so I brought over a bucket that still had some water that I was just about to fill. The goat seemed interested, but ultimately backed away. I shrugged and started to fill my bucket at the well. Ingosa, the neighbor’s only daughter, came over with a concerned look on her face. After greeting me she said “Mbushi, ukusamfya, ukufwa”. I didn’t understand and said so. The sentence didn’t make any sense “The goat, to wash, to die”. After she repeated the third time I understood and broke into laughter. The neighbors have seen us bathing our cats, the dog we had, and even one of our chickens (she was totally crusty when we got her). So they thought I had approached the goat and was now drawing water in order to give it a bath, and they thought that if it got wet it would die (goats do hate water). I explained that I was just trying to give it water to drink, but Ingosa left seemingly unconvinced and moved the goats’ tether closer to their house.

To all the wonderful individuals who sent me/us books, I am returning soonish, so would like to know who wants me to bring back the books they sent. Emilie, you wanted them all brought back right? Anyone else?

Thanks for the Easter candy Diana and Ken!

I actually didn’t finish, but it’s getting late. Goodnight

p.s. the coconut-custard pie turned out delicious

16 May 2008

I forgot my list of what to write about

Greetings, as you can see from the title I will be ad libbing and forgetting most of what has happened lately. Typical.

Today I went to immigration (everyone's favorite inefficient government agency) to retrieve my final visiting permit extension. They couldn't find it in the log-book (side note: Tell USAID to take back the computers given to Zambia for the immigration dept. because they don't use them except to read BBC News) and so the table 10 lady asked that other lady and she said my application was rejected. So I went to ask her if she knew the grounds for rejection and she said she was kidding. Wow, thanks for the stomach ache that lasted 5 minutes. She proceeded to search for my file and found that, but my application and visitor's permit were not inside as they should have been. Whoops! We lost your permit, but hey, thanks for the one million kwacha. So I sat around for an hour while she tried to find it. I explained that I handed it to the guy at the next desk to hand to her, and she said maybe he misplaced it. But of course he isn't in and won't be for a while because his kid is sick. So I made the long, tedious, expensive trip to Lusaka for no reason. I am going to be searching for a good ticket price for returning to the States, but I could have done that in Serenje.

What's new in Mpelembe? We got another new chicken. The guy said it would start laying the next day (or that it layed the previous day? "mailo" is both) but I thought it's eyes were too green (I noticed baby and young chickens generally have green eyes and adults have orange eyes) and it's pubic bone spacing was unsuitable for squeezing out eggs. We bought it anyway. It battled the other chickens including Peeps (who is actually a rooster, but doesn't realize it yet) and got pecked in the eye. So now we had a brand new one-eyed non-laying chicken. Yay. We wanted to call it Corn Cob or Coco Puff, but then decided on Peg-Leg, on account of the missing eye. Well I put some drops in its eye and it healed up, so now it doesn't have a name really.

The baby chicks have hatched! Several hatched in Carrie and my very hands (we even cheated and helped them out, New Chicken also cheated by pecking the egg shells!) It was a very cool experience. We had brought New Chicken and the nest indoors and one night we heard peeping. I didn't recognize it as that at first; I thought Carrie or I had a weird booger and were breathing funny. Then we both realized it was coming from the eggs! Peep peep peep, peck.... peep peep. So we went to bed that night feeling like kids the night before St. Nick and Black Peter come to dole out presents. We woke up early to see the chicks hatch. In the wee hours of the day the first chick hatched. It looked like a wet bird/chipmunk. It's head was too heavy to lift so it just peeped and laid on my hand for a while. We put it back under the chicken to keep warm. Over the course of the day 5 chickens hatched I think, including New Chicken's only child (who was bigger than the others cause N.C.'s eggs are bigger than Fireballs. The next day the rest hatched. All were at least a day early for some reason.

So we have 8 healthy chicks (one is stupid and doesn't eat as much as the others so is smaller). The first two to hatch have names: Chipmunk and Arctic (which Carrie pronounces as Artic). They are really cute, but are now scared of us generally, as New Chicken has been telling them dirty lies about us. They will come over if you have peanuts in your hand. Sometimes New Chicken decides it's time for "Mother Ship" and she makes a certain cluck (she always clucks to the chicks and they always peep to her) and squats and all the chicks get under her. We don't know why she does that. Sometimes the chicks try to jump on her back for some reason. Just trying to be silly I guess or get a free ride.

Chicken hawks are continually trying to eat the chicks. New Chicken is good at spotting them though so goes "Braaaawwwk! Braawk!" and all the chicks scatter and hide. They hide so well and stay so still that you can't find them until New Chicken starts clucking again and they all come out. The neighbors help keep the hawks at bay with their cries of "Iwe!" etc.

I was cutting the top off of a tree I felled with the axe in the woods with Carrie one day. It was for the goat house platform. I guess some self-destructive part of me was dissatisfied at my failed attempt to saw off my finger a while ago, so I missed the trunk of the tree and chopped into where my big toe joins my left foot. Ouch! Blood! I sat down as blood gushed out of my foot. I still don't know if I managed to cut into the bone or not. Carrie became really stressed out which was kinda funny, since I was the one with the wound. I got her to get some gauze from the house and applied pressure. The bleeding more or less stopped so I hobbled back to the hut. There, I cleaned out the wound and put on some handmade butterfly bandages (I didn't want to go to the clinic and get stitches because of concerns about sanitation and lack of anesthetic, but probably I should have). I kept my foot elevated above my heart and generally sat around for several days until a scab started to form.

Then I started going outside (big mistake). I was trying to get a chick to take a picture of its development and accidentally kicked my right heel against my wound and broke it open again. Blood, pain etc. Well, this time it didn't heal up fast. I sat inside again reading for some number of days. In spite of the butterfly bandages the wound wasn't closing. One night I had a bad headache and got really cold. I barely slept because I kept getting alternately hot and cold. La Fiebre! My joints ached etc. Well, in this part of Africa, with those symptoms we generally like to assume it's malaria. Carrie found out that the clinic had the rapid diagnostic test, so got me one of them to try. It came out negative. Still I didn't know whether to start the treatment or not. I felt better the next day and cleaned and redressed my wound. I noticed a lot of fluid oozing out of the wound and then realized that the cause of my fever was of course that my toe was infected. I wrote down some antibiotics that would work (thanks to referencing Where There is no Doctor) and Carrie got them from our friend Mulenga at the clinic. After taking those for a while and applying hot compresses (which alone might have been sufficient to clear my infection) my wound stopped oozing and closed up. Now it's just a big scar, but the joint still hurts a bit. Yesterday I stubbed my other toe really hard (which happens every time I come to Lusaka - land of the thousand uneven/absent sidewalks), so I have two bum toes.

There's more I want to write about, but I forgot most of it. Maybe this will be yet another two part blog.

Oh, we could use more Tom's Spearmint Anticavity toothpaste. Also natural soap bars are badly needed. All the soaps here seem to have sodium tallowate, which I think is the ingredient that makes my interdigit area get hives. If anyone has a spare milk goat, they could send that. Because the lady who knows the farmer with the dairy goats still hasn't replied to us about the guys phone number. It's been months!

Take care all!