buckfever

i went hunting this past saturday! or, i went along for a hunting trip....i didn't actually do the hunting. but i went with tommy and zales, two americans i work with, and a guy named jason who works for the us embassy and is a big hunter. we went to a farm about an hour and a half outside of lusaka that jason knows from past hunting; it was great to get out of the city, since i hadn't really been out of the city since i got here (7 weeks ago, which is crazy).

we got up at 5:30am (again, another early saturday), and headed out at 6am. we took jason's car, which is i think my new dream car - a land rover defender, but decked out looking all safari like. (kara, if you would like to keep an eye out for one of these cars on autotrader.com for me, that would be super duper :) )

we arrived at the farm and met the family who owns it and their 5 gigantic lab dogs. all super nice and friendly. then the 4 of us hopped into the bed of their pickup truck while xander, their 17 year old son, and zulu, our scout, rode up front.

we drove for a bit to get more into the bush. it was beautiful seeing all the untouched bush and all sorts of animals - kudu (bigger than deer), impala (about deer size), zebra, warthogs, ostrich, reedbuck, and more.

tommy and zales decided they were gonna hunt impala - not too large, but good meat. tommy went first. we found some impala and he set up on top of a hill with zulu and jason to line up his shot. unfortunately, he missed his first shot, which made the animals scatter. at first we thought he had maybe nicked one of the impala, so we all started sprinting closer to where the animals were scattering to see if one would eventually stop running from the wound. after about a half mile of sprinting towards them, we realized it was a lost cause and it must have been a clean miss.

then it was zales' turn. we drove for a bit more and found a few new impala. again, he took a shot, missed, and the animals scattered. this time though, zales, jason, and zulu went and stalked the impala. me and tommy chilled back at the truck with xander asking him about a billion questions about their farm, hunting, zambia, etc. about an hour later they emerged from the forest. but alas, no impala.

tommy's turn again with the rifle. this time he proved victorious! we were all crawled up in some bushes/trees and tommy was able to get a clean shot of a female impala on his first shot. the shot about scared the shit out of me cause i didn't realize it was coming and it's super loud. luckily the shot was so loud i don't think any of them heard me scream.

we drove the truck over to the impala, about 150m away, and loaded it into the bed of the truck. its insides started bubbling out of the gun shot wound which was pretty gross. and then it started to smell really bad cause the insides had all been blown apart so the animal started bloating. an interesting tid bit though, impala only have bottom teeth, no top teeth. they don't need the top teeth cause they just rip the grass up to eat it rather than chew it.

so, zales was up again and determined to hit something. we drove around a bit more, found some impala, zales set up, and killed one on his first shot as well. his shot tore through on the other side making a huge hole where the bullet came out. when we had it loaded on the truck on the way home the hole filled all the way up with blood. kinda cool/gross.

when we were driving back we were all standing up in the bed of the truck and kept having to dodge tree branches as we were driving. a couple times i almost got fully taken out cause i got distracted and wasn't paying attention. once i almost lost my balance when i was dodging a branch and almost fell over on the dead impala...that would not have been very pleasant at all.

we got back to the farm house and i went inside to get some water and talk to the owner for a bit. by the time i got back outside, they had already gutted the impala and there was a huge pile of the insides and the blood sitting on the cleaning platform. it was really gross looking. the female impala had been pregnant which was kinda sad. you couldn't see the baby, but you could see the sack that it was in.

so, that was the end of the hunting trip. we loaded the impala into containers and headed back to lusaka. tommy and zales are getting the impala butchered today, so hopefully tomorrow were going to have a nice braii and grill the impala to see how it tastes.

were going to try to go again sometime in the spring for a kudu. they're more expensive, though, since they're larger, so probably just go for one. the impala was 400,000 zmk, which is only like $80 us, to kill. but the kudu can be upwards of 1,200,000 zmk, which is a bit more expensive.

the whole trip was very cool. maybe next time we go i'll shoot myself an impala. this time it was just fun to go along for the ride, though, and see how it all worked.

10k run

this past saturday i participated in a fun run. i did the 10k and one of my friends did the half marathon (i've done one of those before, and that was plenty haha). it was a very cool event because it was on the outskirts of lusaka in the bush.

registration was super early at 6:30am saturday morning, which i was not a fan of. but as we were driving out of town into the bush, we were the only people on the road and the sun was blazing hot pink just above the horizon; it was a very serine, peaceful moment. which is not the normal feeling i have when i know im about to go for a run haha.

20 minutes later we pulled into a polo field which is where the event was being held. as we got out of the car, i saw more white people than ive seen the entire time ive been in zambia haha. it was a good family event though, so lots of parents and kids all around (there was a kids run, 5k, 10k, and half marathon so a large range).

zales, my friend, started his half marathon at 7am. my race didnt start until 8am, so i decided to go take a nap in the car. since im not a morning person, i obviously fell right back asleep. i was passed out hard. luckily i woke up like 7 minutes before my race was supposed to start. i could only imagine waking up and realizing my race had already started haha.

so i made it to the starting line just in time to start my race. i was feeling good, had my techno/rap music blaring (i had to borrow my friends headphones because my cat chewed my headphones apart....i swear this cat has something against me), the whistle blew, and we headed out into the bush. there were only about 50 people in the 10k race, so a pretty small group.

the race was going well and i was feeling good when 40 minutes in i realized i was already at the finish line. and knowing myself, there is no way i finished a 10k race in 40 minutes... i wish i was in that good of shape haha. apparently, one of the volunteers instructed us wrong and a whole group of us took a wrong turn cutting out a couple km of our run haha. whoops! in the part we missed out on, though, which took you further into the bush, some runners saw animals like zebra and kudu (which are like big deer), which is cool. pretty standard for your saturday morning run, right!?

all in all, even with the early wake up call and cheating out a couple km of my run, it was a fun event. we, grassroot soccer, are thinking about putting together another fun run at some point in the spring. there's a fairly high interest for these type of events in lusaka, but not many available. so that's something were going to try to get in the works.

maybe ill do a little more training by then and suck it up and do the half marathon. or who knows, maybe even a full....

peter tosh

this past saturday was a fun night. we had some friends over for a braii (grilling) and bonfire, then we went to a peter tosh memorial concert (peter tosh is a reggae artist who wrote a lot of bob marley's songs). the concert was held outside at the botanical gardens on the outskirts of town in a fairly small venue wheres tons of local reggae bands played their own original songs and covers.

when we arrived and walked through the gate, all you could see was an overwhelming amount of red, green, yellow, and black, flags and banners flying everywhere, more dreads than you've ever seen in one place, and people bouncing up and down all over the dance floor as the bands played. i was unsure of what to expect with this concert, but this was no where close to what i had pictured in my head....and it was awesome!

we were some of the few white people there and definitely didn't fit the stereotypical "rasta" look, but it didn't matter. everyone was super friendly and in good spirits. we all attempted to join in with the rasta ska dancing, which is essentially doing extreme high knees the entire time. needless to say, by the end of the night we were all exhausted and very sore the next day haha.

i'll need to try to get some pictures posted soon which will give you a better picture of the concert (it takes a long time to upload pictures here with the internet). but hopefully i'll get them up at some point this week

ps-krista, i wore my gypsy pants you got me from india....they were great for dancing :)

living the life

it's funny how expectations of standards of living change depending on where you are. there are many everyday aspects of living in africa that i would have thought crazy in the us, but are fairly normal here. for instance...

- normally we have to flip a switch an hour before we want to shower to get hot water. but, that switch broke a few weeks ago. so since then, its been straight up cold showers. it's getting better though since the weather is warming up. the cold showers were a bit brutal when it was cold outside

- since we got here, we haven't had a light in our closet (which is its own seperate room). so we've been having to get dressed with headlamps on. we've decided the headlamp is a good accessory to an outfit. and then within the last couple weeks our bathroom light stopped working as well. so now we shower with headlamps too. doing makeup is also a tricky one with headlamps cause you get all sorts of crazy shadows ha

- the power likes to go out randomly for a few hours a couple times a week. luckily it's only been out for a couple hours each time, cause apparently it can be out for days. keep my fingers crossed that doesn't happen

- i've gotten used to the bugs in the house....they don't really phase me anymore

- we have no tv. this hasn't been so bad though. i actually haven't even noticed or missed it (which was surprising for me ha). we do watch movies though. we have a projector we use from work and project movies on one of the walls in our house. it's like our own personal cinema

- washing dishes by hand and no garbage disposal. again, i thought this was going to be super annoying, but it hasn't been bad. and were starting a compost to help with the trash and lack of garbage disposal. that is a project in the works as we speak

couch dude

i went for a run the other day and passed a man carrying on entire couch on his head!! and we weren't really near a shopping area, so i have no idea how long he'd been carrying it or where he was headed. craziness i tell you.

typical tuesday

after work yesterday i went to a market they have once a week with 2 of the other interns. it's an open air market under a roof with rows upon rows of men and women sitting on the ground selling fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, spices, dried fish, etc. ive been to a couple markets already, but this one is by far the best. the produce is super fresh and much cheaper than the grocery stores. for instance, i got 10 tomatoes for 2,000 kwacha, which is like 50 cents us. also, it's fun to interact with the sellers and do a little bargaining. although, it isn't really necessary at this market because most of the prices are pretty similar and set.

when we pulled up to the market we had about 15 little boys swarm around our car all offering to watch our car while we were at the market. this is very typical in zambia. you basically have to choose one boy out of the group and designate them as the "guardian of the car," and they will stand right by your car the entire time you're gone to make sure nothing happens to it. then you tip them a little bit when you get back. we also had little boys constantly come up to us while we were at the market asking to carry our bags for us. again, trying to make money any way they can.

after the market, we went to yoga. ive gone a couple times since ive been here (trying to work on my lack of flexibility for anyone who knows me). the yoga class is outside, and last night was perfect weather for it. it starts at 6, which is when the sun is starting to set, so you get the entire sky turning into a bright rainbow (which i love). then, by the time the class is over and you are laying on the mat cooling down, the sky is dark with the stars above. it's pretty cool and very relaxing.

tonight were celebrating rosh hashana because 2 of my roommates are jewish. cooking up a nice "family meal" with all the interns which should be fun.

dirty dirt

they hire people to sweep the dirt off roads here. they sweep the dirt off the roads, but then as soon as a car drives by, the dirt is right back on the road.

and in people's yards, they sweep the dirt. to make it look prettier?!? not really sure.

it's bizarre.

dancing mzungus

so we had our first big event this past saturday since i've gotten here. it was a graduation of roughly 300 kids from our grassroot soccer skillz curriculum. the event consisted of 300 kids, their parents, a graduation ceremony where they received certificates of completion, and voluntary hiv testing.

the event went off smoothly. it was one of our biggest events recently, so it was exciting to see how it all worked and went down.

i got hiv tested for the first time. even though i knew going into it that i didn't have to worry too much, it was still a scary experience and the "what if" factor kept popping into my head as i was waiting the 5 minutes for my results. im glad i went through the testing though to experience it myself since its a big part of grs. i can understand why so many people here are nervous to get tested

also, all the interns also got dragged up front and had to dance in front of the 300+ people. it was rather embarrassing haha. but then a bunch of the kids saved us and joined in and it turned into a dance party. i still have 7 year olds trying to teach me to dance and then laughing at me when i try to imitate them. its a real confidence booster haha.

*mzungu=white person

nshima

the traditional meal in zambia is nshima. its cornmeal (or meali meal as they call it) and water mixed until it gets to a playdough like consistency. then you pair it with cooked spinach, beans, tomatoes, meat, etc.

the best part about nshima, though, is that you get to eat with your hands!! its great. you grab a bit of the cornmeal aka playdough and roll/knead it into a ball using only your right hand (cause you only eat with your right hand....left hand is for shaking hands if needed during the meal). then once its in a ball you make an indent in it with your thumb and use it as the utensil to pick up the spinach, beans, or tomatoes and then pop it in your mouth. its a bit messy but lots of fun to eat.

i've become big fan of the nshima. the only problem is, it puts you into an immediate nshima food coma. its so heavy in your stomach you feel like you need to nap right after eating. makes it a little tough to come back to the office and work after lunch sometimes haha

planning on learning how to make it soon....shouldn't be too difficult

dericious!

zambians have a hard time differentiating between r's and l's. they can say both of the sounds, but for some reason they almost always interchange the two. i now respond to both marissa and melissa.....lucky for them i don't yell at people anymore when they call me melissa like i used to when i was younger. it's gotten to the point where the other american interns find themselves calling me melissa on accident cause they hear it so often

the zambians have a good sense of humor about it though. some of my favorite mix up...

french fries = flench flies
surprise = supplies (yes kara, like the joke!)
fresh = flesh
curriculum = culliculum (this one gets used a lot with grs' skillz curriculum)
delicious = dericious