December 24, 2007
Hello from Stone Town!


Merry Christmas everyone! I'm writing this from Zanzibar, which I've had QUITE a huge adventure in so far, and it's just getting better. It's Christmas Eve and I went swimming in the Indian Ocean this afternoon- which we found by hitchiking up the road saying "We'd like to go to the ocean" and getting dropped off at a random door, where a man walked us down an amazing shrubbery-shrouded set of switchbacks down to... the ocean. With no other white people in site, just a handful of Zanzibarian men. The ocean is WARM here, and wonderful.

And the highlight of my trip so far has been getting detained at customs getting off the train in Dar-es-Salaam, with part of our group outside a large metal gate and the rest of us trapped inside. While one person tried to negotiate and/or bribe our way out, one of those outside was speaking to me in Pig Latin through the grate giving suggestions. It was hilarious, and so oddly African. As was discovering that the touristy grocery store we found here in Stone Town is better stocked than ShopRite in either Mansa OR Lusaka.

This e-mail is going to be quick, since we need to find our hotel (Hotel Kibunda, 40 bucks a night with a view of the OCEAN from the room!!) before it gets dark and the maze of little alleyways in Stone Town becomes unnavigable. The point is that I am pretty sure my phone number for the next 10 days is 255783186529 so anyone who wants to wish me a Merry Christmas feel free- I'm 7 hours ahead of the east coast. I'll write a full, detailed update of my adventures on this amazing tropical island in a few days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

and God bless us, every one!

Nan

November 15, 2007
Flat tires and crowds of muzungus

Dear everyone,

"Muli shani" (How are you) from Lusaka! I'm almost done with a week-long In Service Training. All the volunteers from my program converged on an unsuspecting government hostel last Sunday, and we've become a group of about 94 Peace Corps volunteers bringing a steady stream of people in line for breakfast each morning (with 'real' coffee!) and taxi cabs shuttling us around the city every evening. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself- it's so exciting to see all the people that were in my training class, as well as meet new people from the previous year's intake. We've done some cool activities, such as an afternoon spent learning to "bud" orange trees (meaning, take the roots of a small lemon seedling, and cut all the leaves off, and cut the bud off an orange twig, and stick it onto the lemon stem and if you've done it right, the bud will grow into a branch that bears oranges). This was especially helpful to me because my tree nursery group has around 200 lemon seedlings they would like to turn into oranges, so I can hopefully share my new knowledge with them!

I also bought a grape plant, which I'm hoping 1)not to forget to take back with me and 2)not to kill until I can propagate it, and some carrots and celery seeds to plant in my soon-to-exist garden. I'm excited for the rains to come so I can replant the live-fence around my garden, and start growing vegetables and agroforestry trees and shrubs to show my villagers what you can do without chemical fertilizers from town. I'm also planning to buy rabbits in January and start trying my hand at keeping small "livestock" (aka small "cuddly fuzzy animals I will pretend to intend to eat")

The trip from Luapula down to Lusaka was a bit eventful. 8 of us somehow managed to finagle a ride from Luapula to Lusaka (9 hours) in a Peace Corps land cruiser. This is a much preferred mode of transportation than an unreliable Zambian bus company, but not when the Cruiser gets a flat tire 20 minutes into the trip. Fortunately this just left us waiting on the side of the road for a few hours while our driver had a friend bring him his tools. A nice chance to view the scenery, the start of the flat wetland plains that are the southern part of Luapula province.

Highlights of my previous few weeks at my site- It's caterpillar season! And I ate one! Caterpillars are a much welcomed delicacy to the people of Luapula, because it's a change in their diet, and women collect giant pots full of caterpillars and then take them to town to sell. I had a few days to work up the nerve to grasp the concept of eating a (dead, cooked) caterpillar, but I was still shocked when Ba Beatrice plunked a bowl of bugs in front of me and Ba Reuben, in a typical turn of phrase, turned to me and said "I think you can try one, Ba Nana". So, I ate a caterpillar.

It tasted like a bug. Kind of salty and squishy. I'm just glad I wasn't offered one of the ones with little thorn-like claws all over it. Now when people hold up caterpillars and ask "Mwalalya?" (Do you eat?) I can say "Nalilya cimoFYE!" (I ate JUST ONE) and leave it at that!

I also saw the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Realistically it looked the same as the side of the Luapula River I was standing on, but it was still very exciting to realize I was staring at THE CONGO. Far more exciting than standing in western New York and thinking "Oh look, there's Canada!"

I repeated my chickens-on-a-bicycle extravaganza, because I held a second meeting with all the headmen from my catchment area. I realized that despite their promises of arranging community meetings so I could talk to people and find out what they wanted to learn, only two had gotten back to me after my first meeting. So, I summoned them again, and while a delicious meal was concocted we talked about how I can't do anything without their support. I then scheduled introductory meetings in the villages I hadn't been in yet, and proceeded to spend the week and a half leading up to my departure for Lusaka with a meeting every afternoon. I'll return to Mwanasasa and continue my 'busy schedule' (because, of course, a busy day is one in which I do something. Like, one thing.) over the course of the next few weeks. My plan is to push myself pretty hard for the next month, so my villagers forgive me for running off to Zanzibar for Christmas!

Some rather important information about packages- thank you VERY much to people who have sent me boxes of wonderful Americanness. I am not bringing this up as a plea for more goodies; Rather I want to remind anyone that DOES send me anything NOT TO PUT IN THE CUSTOM DECLARATION ANYTHING ATTRACTIVE! I have had packages opened; Gretchen had something stolen from one of hers. So whatever you're putting in a box, make it sound really boring. And worth less than 10 dollars.

I hope you're all well, and that your Thanksgivings are fabulous.
Mwashale bwino (Stay well)
Nan