"make sure your face clears up before you come home"

...that was the last thing Mindela said to me after I walked him to the gate of the Ndeke hotel in Lusaka. He means well; he meant to stop stressing out - but really sometimes men are so good at inserting their feet in their mouths. Gotta love 'em anyway...

Just wanted to put a quick note since things have been so busy - I've barely had any time to write or any money for stamps.

I leave my village for good in less than 2 months! Crazy! Can't believe I'll be back so soon. Have to figure out where I'll be headed next. Mindela told me there's a lot of mail waiting for me at his place - read some of the return addresses. The school I wanted most is a small envelop - I was super sad; small envelopes are never good news. I explained that to him and his response to cheer me up was, "but there's still Harvard"! He was being serious but at least he made me laugh.

I miss everyone!

(Original Post)

Happy Holidays!

Still in a giving mood?
HELP!!! http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.projdetail&projdesc=611-012
If the link doesn't work go to www.peacecorps.gov then click donors and follow the links to Zambia

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas :) I spent mine with Mindela's family in Lusaka - it was nice but no snow, no tree, no train, no sheepshead, no white zinfandel, no new Christmas dresses, no Clue :( - just lots of friendly, happy people, extended family and Christmas cheer :)

The week before was spent conducting our CSC training workshop, it was a huge pain and very stressful but I think it went well and all the participants were super excited to take their new knowledge back to their communities! The first 3 days the comments were all about asking for money - by the end the comments had changed to "God bless you" - that made us all (Me, Timmy and Mindela) feel much better about all our hard work.

In case your wondering why the link above asks you to give money to a project that's done - there were problems here in getting the information through all the right people and we couldn't reschedule because of the school schedule so we (same we as above) fronted all the money from our pay. Means we're broke (temporarily I hope!), but it was well worth it. Originally the budget was $600 - it didn't change, the exchange rate went from K4,800 to k3,300! Practically overnight - crazy, heh?!

Miss you all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
see you in 3 months!

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Chipper

Mansa

In Lusaka after a trip to Mansa (met Lawrence's Mom and Grandma, etc.) - Luapula province is so GREEN and there's WATER!!!! It was really neat. And I found out I like cassava. On the way back yesterday, just between Mansa and Kapri-Mposhi, we passed 3 accidents. I was one of very few people that did not get up to look at them - but the 2 tipped over trucks and the 1st accident were on my side of the bus. The last one was a mini bus accident and Mindela told me about some guy who they were moving into a new mini bus whose head was crushed and bleeding. "Was he alive?" "I think maybe not" nice convo! And today's paper showed another accident from yesterday, just outside Lusaka. Caption read: firefighters removing the body of a baby... and it showed another body lying next to the wreckage.

All this just a week or so after I saw an upside-down mini bus in Lusaka. People were pounding on the windows trying to get out - one of the scariest things I've EVER seen. Someone managed to break one and they managed to pull the people out the back window. I tried to calm people down but no one seemed to speak English or Tonga and then this old lady came up to me holding her head with blood dripping down her arm - she moved her hand, her scalp was peeled back. I gave her my handkerchief and tried to tell her to just hold it down to try to stop the bleeding. And all I could think about was "no plastic, there's no plastic!" (cuz of all the blood everywhere). I called an ambulance and left, nothing more I could do.
...And now Mindela wonders why I don't want to get on mini buses even if they are 1/10th the cost of a taxi!


(We did a safety survey at IST and only 30% of the volunteers there feel safe on transport - #1 concern)

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Scared