April 26, 2008
My wells project

Dear friends and family,

I've mentioned in e-mails a few times that I was learning about wells. The result of my investigations in town, and a series of meetings with village leaders and residents of my catchment area, was an application to the Peace Corps Partnership Program. This program links people in the SU with members of the communities in which Peace Corps volunteers live. We submitted a proposal to dig and protect 5 wells, one in each of 5 villages in my catchment area. We hope to have the wells completed by this November!

Clean water sources are perhaps the single largest problem in my area- people (myself included!) get water from scoopholes in marshy areas, and they're anything but clean. As a result many people, especially children, suffer from water-borne diseases that haven't been an issue in the US since the days of the Oregon Trail, such as dysentery. People are really excited to think they could have protected water sources, which could drastically improve their quality of life.

We need your help. I'd like to ask all of you to consider joining us in this Partnership Program. Village residents are providing much of the labor, includingcarrying sand, carrying and crushing stones, molding and firing mud bricks. What we lack is the money to purchase materials and to hire experienced well-diggers (men with shovels and a lot of guts!). Each well needs, for example, 6 packets of cement, costing $20 each. I can think of a lot of ways I spent $20 without even thinking about it, and without any lasting benefit to myself or anyone else.
Your $20 would make an immense and lasting improvement to the lives of many people for years to come.

The total amount we're looking for is $2384. This will cover cement and other materials, transport of those materials, and digging. There's no overhead or administrative costs because that's my job, as the Peace Corps volunteer! Donations can be made online at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=611-035

Please contact me if you have any questions. My parents also have a copy of the proposal and can answer questions, probably faster than I can!

Thanks,
Nan



March 13, 2008
Four words

Snake in my house.

Yes, that's right. Snake, in my house. SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!

Sorry, I'm still a little surprised by the fact that this happened. I was sitting in my house yesterday morning, reading, and heard a rustling noise. I looked up and saw, climbing up one of the poles of my roof, a large snake.

So I raced outside (realizing later that I basically ran under the snake to get out the door) and was very very thankful that there were about 5 guys outside my house visiting Ba Titus. Usually mid-morning there's no one around, and I really don't know what I would have done had that been the case!

I announced "There's a snake in my house!" (in English) and Ba Titus said "Where?" and we went to the door and I pointed up. His immediate response was "Go back! Go back!" which I was happy to do. The men gathered around the doorway and then two boys were dispatched to go somewhere very quickly. I missed the Bemba word explaining where they were going, and I'm thinking "Are they getting a ladder? Does that make any sense at all?" and I asked and they were off to get a slingshot. Because in a Zambian village, grown men use slingshots to solve problems :-D I love it.

While we were waiting around for the slingshot I heard Ba Titus say "Yatampa ukuya!" (It's starting to go!) and immediately people sprang into action getting very very large sticks. Ba Titus disappeared into the house and there were a few minutes of crashing noises, shouting, and then silence. I half-expected the snake to come slithering out with a grin on its face, but fortunately Ba Titus came out instead, dragging a snake with him.

The thing was six feet long! Which is taller than me. It was a uniform beige color, with a white belly. The Bemba name translates into "Common cobra", and sources tell me it's very poisonous. I expected I would be sad and opposed to the killing of a large snake, but it turns out that when said large snake is in my house, I was content to see it disposed of. I took several pictures and then they got rid of it. They got rid of it by putting it down my toilet…. Which is a little unnerving because I can see it at night with my headlamp!

The craziest part of the experience is that I don't know when the snake entered my house. I like to think it hadn't been there all night, or for hours and hours, but I really don't know how, where, or when it entered.

So to further organize this update, we'll go with 4 words. Word 1 is Snake.

Word 2 is Rabbits! I have 3 rabbits, two females and a male. Their names are Jane Eyre, Dagny Taggart, and John Galt. Can you tell I spend a lot of my time reading?!?! I realized after I got them home to my house (after a very harrowing hour and a half on a bicycle, riding down dirt roads while trying to avoid bumps) that I don't know for sure how old they are, so I don't know if they're old enough to breed. I plan to determine this by seeing if they appear pregnant in another week or two. The first few days I had them at home, both Dagny and John managed to get out of their hutches. Dagny climbed up onto the roof, and John went for a meander outside of the garden. Fortunately both times people noticed them before Brows did, and they were safely re-installed into their hutches.
I'm really excited to have taken the first step on my rabbit multiplication project. Now the rabbits just need to start multiplying, and I will begin teaching the numerous people who have expressed interest in keeping rabbits. While I'm in town Ba Reuben's 14-year-old son is taking care of them for me, so I suppose Richard is my first rabbit-keeping-protégé.

Word 3 is Bread. I spent a day teaching a women's group how to bake bread village-style (baking is done in a pot with coals in a brazier and placed on the lid). We made 3 loaves, two with wheat and cassava flour mixed, and one with just wheat and cinnamon sugar added (because I love that!). All three loaves came out well and it was a very successful day. The women seemed really engaged in the whole process and when some of them came late, the ones who'd been there the whole time explained to them all the steps they'd missed.

Word 4 is Changwa. This is one of my favorite aspects of Zambian culture, and I've been meaning to write about it for a while now and keep forgetting. When your in-law drops something, if you touch the ground before he or she does and say Changwa, then that object is yours. The in-law can redeem it back from you at a price you set. Most of the time I see this being done in a joking manner; it's rarely serious but always entertaining, and everyone laughs a lot as the bartering takes place. For example, a man dropped a scrap of paper in front of Ba Titus one day and he said "Changwa". I couldn't figure out why he wanted a small scrap of paper, but then when Titus had the paper in his hand he said "Okay, now give me your watch to get the paper back" and they all burst out laughing. I'm planning to institute this practice once I have in-laws, a nice random bit of Zambian village life to bring back.

Hope you're all well. Happy Easter, everyone.

Nan