Saturday, August 27, 2011

50th and 4th






Happy Birthday to my sisters!!! Yall are now two years older again ;)

Seeing that it has been a very long time since I wrote in this, this blog will hit a few past events and will be long. Sorry!

I will start with a Peace Corps 50th anniversary event in May. The Central Province was the host of a luncheon that consisted of a little over 20 volunteers, about Lusaka staff members (including our Country Director), and another 30+ locals. During the event the volunteers had displays for the four projects that are in Zambia (Fish farming, education, agriculture, and health). Around 2pm we started eating the extensive amount of food that took two days to complete. Our prize of the meal was a pig that we roasted in the ground for 18 hours the day before the event and the number of BBQ sauces that were homemade for it. We also had some awesome egg roles, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, chili, rolls, rice, lots of veggies and BBQ chicken! It was soooo delicious. I will tell you this, it felt really good to make a pulled-pork sandwich and top it with a spicy mustard BBQ sauce. My two favorite parts of the event besides the food was learning about SmileTrain and learning to make protein balls for children.

July 4th celebration/vacation. Starting July 1st I took off from the NW province and headed to Brooks’ site where we got to hang out and eat with his nearest family and catch up on everything since IST in January. It was a lot of fun staying at another volunteer’s house in another province. The next morning we hit the road on our way to Lake Samfya in Luapula Province. The road after where the Peace Corps house is located is one of the hardest roads to hitch on. We got to the road at 9:30AM and were getting car-blocked by a few Zambians that wouldn’t leave us alone. Eventually we decided to just start walking until we were no longer near anyone. The lake is 350km away still. We ended up getting two hitches that took us just a little way both times, but they were still greatly appreciated. Then we got dropped in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It was miles of just bare road both ways you looked and small trees that provided absolutely no shade. Eventually a canter (a truck like the ones that carry oranges and suck in FL) picked us up and we made the mistake of getting in it. The truck was going so slow, stopping every half a mile and packing it in beyond full, we decided after a little while to get up because we felt unsafe. Not 30 minutes later did 4 huge safari vehicles come by and the last one picked us up!!! It ended up being a family from South Africa that was traveling to the same lake as us and then continuing on the next day even further north then where we were headed. They were so awesome. One of the moms gave us ice cold drinks; they had A/C and a TomTom in Zambia. That never happens. When we got to the beach where they were staying, it was not the same place as all of our friends we were meeting up with, we decided to pitch our tents there and find our friends in the morning because it was getting late. They invited us to join them for dinner which was awesome. We had ribs, rice, veggies and a South African spicy chicken stew. It was phenomenal. The family offered to take us to the location of where our friends were but they ended up coming and picking us up in a miners truck that was staying in a hotel next to where we would be camping. Before we all said goodbye the grandfather said a prayer and they sang Amazing Grace on the beach and took some pictures. When we got to our beach camping spot the hotel next to us had a volleyball court and, of course, I went and played for a few hours! The next day more people showed up and our numbers were near 15 on the beach. One of the volunteers is friends with a miner and they came out with a boat and we did some water skiing throughout the day. It felt so good to be on the water again even if it was not the ocean, which I still miss greatly. The next day we all just hung out and took in the sun and relaxed. On July 4th a few more volunteers showed up and our numbers we over 20. We went to the market down the street and grabbed a few chickens to kill and eat for dinner. I will say that some of those who killed the chickens were having a little more fun then they should have been having. Lol. Most of the others left on the 5th but there were about 10 of us that stayed for another day/night of fun in the sun. The hitching on the way was fun, but not nearly as good as the trip up. I actually got in to Kapiri pretty late and had to hitch out at 9pm from there to try and make it to Kitwe. The truck ride I got stopped 20 miles from there at a really sketchy truck stop so I hitched from there to Kitwe for the remainder of the night. So far one of the most fun things to do in Zambia is traveling around, hitching style, and seeing how far you can go and meeting the random people who pick you up.

2 comments:

  1. Please help me by reading my appeal on my profile.

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  2. Hi Kenny ray,
    we have a friend in Santiago, Chile teaching People to teach English as a second language. Is that where you are or are going? If so, we can get you in touch with her.
    steve makowski (Will's Dad)

    ReplyDelete