Brett Back In School

I have now finished my time overseas and have been home for almost two years now. I've decided to go to Palmer Chiropractic College as a means to create a career for myself. I miss the traveling, but the hope is that I'll be able to afford to travel all I want in my nearish future.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

My New Address

Hey there-
This is a short email but a very important one. Below is my new address that I will be at after Thanksgiving. If you're sending letters, I'd make this the last week to do so. If you have plans to send a package of sorts, you can send it to my new address. We already have our box set up so it doesn't matter if it gets there before me.
Also, I just got back from my trip and have several good stories but don't have the time to give them the justice they deserve today. Check back next weekend to be entertained.

Brett Pearson PCV
P.O. Box 470161
Mporokoso, Zambia

I hope you're all doing well back home. Check back next weekend for my new update. I'm also planning on staying here as long as possible to get pictures on so hopefully it will work.

Pearson, out.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Yet another volunteer's site...with Pictures


To the right is a link to Ned's website. He's got a pictures link on it so you can check it out if you'd like. Just click on Ned Baker.

Another Volunteer's Site

Hey all-
So I told you to go to his site once, but he's changed it and it is hilarious. He covers everything from the money situation to the pooping situation. So click on Wyatt Ammon on the right and I assume most of you will laugh out loud.

Hola Once Again

Today I actually have a small list of things to write about to update you on my life here in Zambia instead of just typing as my mind wanders aimlessly. To the reader it will still seem to be written in an aimless manner, but I have my little sheet of paper in front of me which makes it much easier.
Let's start this post off on the right foot here. When I first got into country we were talking to current volunteers. Of course sickness (the squirts) was high on our list of concerns. Most of the volunteers we talked to plainly said, 'Yes, a vast majority of you will end up crapping in your pants before you leave this country.' Of course all of us trainees found this to be quite humerous as well as unbelievable. We decided to all throw in 5000 kwacha (about $1) and the first person to soil themselves would collect the winnings. Despite a couple of close calls, I did not collect the money. However, another traineed named Andrew did become the first trainee in our group to join the Oops I Crapped My Pants Club. I imagine it was a bittersweet inauguration, but he's a richer man because of it. I'll be sure to let you all know if I become a member.
Next, during training all of us trainees have our own fish ponds that we maintain. My pond partner is Big Sky (she's from Montana). At the beginning of training, our trainers made a contest for whoever could make the best anti theif/predator precautions. There are water monitors (look like Komodo Dragons) and otters that can wreak havoc on a man's fish. Big Sky and I placed bamboo sticks in strategic locations all over our pond forming 'walls' that the fish could swim through but the larger predators are unable to. We won so we're getting treated to a great meal here in a couple of hours. I think we're going to get some Indian food.
Here's a story to let you all know how the police force in Zambia works. A few weeks ago I saw this story on the news. So a man climbed an antenna that was about 75 feet tall because he wanted to jump off and commit suicide. Very sad. Police were dispatched and were trying to talk him down. After 4 hours of this...here is the best plan they could come up with. They got 3 bed mattresses, each one manned by 2 men holding it and trying to place it correctly. The rest of the police force tied a rope to the antenna and proceeded to pull the antenna down. Of course the man fell off from 50 plus feet, and of course they didn't catch him on the mattresses. The news showed this whole thing take place. The weird part is, they had shows on for days later talking about whether the police had done the right thing or not. Ridiculous.
Oh, I picked up playing backgammon with a couple of other volunteers. So if any of you are backgammon fans, I'll play you when I get home.
My homestay is going well. The one problem is that there are a lot of awkward silences because I can't really talk with my dad and say 'Is this the bus going to Kasama?' or 'To dig a fish pond, your site needs a water source and gradual slope.' All of that would be in bemba of course. We're learning how to speak, but most of it is job related at this time. I'm cool with the silences, but we'll sit there and my dad will say, 'Brett, you're not talking.' I don't know if he expects me to entertain him or what the deal is, but I think I might start saying that to him. 'Bataata, tamulanda.' I bought a chitenge for my mother today. That is basically 2 yards of fabric that all of the women wrap around their waists like a skirt. She works hard so I'll give her a nice surprise.
Speaking of my mom, yesterday we had a 'cultural day' where all of the bamayos came together and cooked a huge variety of foods and taught us how to fend for ourselves and cook for ourselved. One of the things we got to learn was how to kill a chicken and then section it. It is definately crazy to see a chicken's head off and see its body writhing and moving all about for a good minute or 2 afterwords. In case some of you are wondering about 'strange' foods. They eat caterpillars and termites here. People love them. We were supposed to have caterpillars yesterday but they went bad I think. I don't know how that happens, but it did. I saw them though, they're yellow and about the size of my index finger. I'll let you know how they taste when I eat one.
Today's cultural tip...ba, ba da!
There is no such thing as an orderly queue. These people cut in front of you in line like you're not even standing there. It's not even due to the fact that I'm a musungu (white person). They cut in front of everyone. So when in line, it isn't rude to protect your spot in line by all but elbowing someone out of your way.
As I've said before, I'm going out to the bush for a couple of weeks. I think I'll be able to update in the meantime because I'll be in Kasama on Monday night, but worst case scenario is that I won't be able to post anything until November 6th. I'm excited to get out to the bush and see my future site. On the way back from Chalabesa, my village outside Mporokoso, I'm going to a wedding outside of Mpika. A volunteer is getting married to a Zambian so several of us are going to get the 'cultural experience.' It should be a great time.
I should be updating my new address soon so keep an eye out for that. If you send something to this current address, it will get forwarded to my new one by the peace corps so fear not.
Oh yeah, all of the hooplah in Kasama has been taken care of. They've lifted their ban on us and it is all good. We have some PR work to do and have to be on our best behavior at all times, but we should be ok.
Thanks again for the emails and updates. Take care.

Pearson, out.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

3 Posts in 3 Days...Lucky You

Hello again-

Last night I met a guy named Peacock. He's one of the two guys that is currently in Mporokoso. Actually he's one of the culprits from the watertower fiasco so he's technically been terminated from the Peace Corps. Anywho, in talking with him about my site, it just gets better. I guess I'll be inheriting a pretty sweet dog from the volunteer who's leaving my site next month. That'll be nice having a companion. This girl Annie who is also a trainee will be the other person in Mporokoso and she'll basically be the only Peace Corps person within 150 kilometers of me. We're about 35 km away from each other. She's a very cool chick. She's from Portland, Maine and is extremely funny. So I guess we're going to become bff (best friends forever).

So 12 of us trainees and several current volunteers came into town last night and went out to a nightclub and danced the night away. It was an event that was enjoyed by almost all. Even I, who usually hates dancing, had enough Castles to get out on the dance floor. All of the cab drivers that we tried to get to go back home were drunk though (which is very typical) so we decided just to get a few rooms at the Edinburgh Hotel here in Kitwe rather than risk it.

I've recently gotten a new idea of what I'd like to do when I get back to the states. One girl here was telling me about a program that you can sign up for where you get people to sponsor you for a bike ride so you can earn money for AIDS education, or cancer research, or whatever cause you want to donate money to. Of course we've got 2 years left here so things change, but several of us are talking about trying to bike a few thousand kilometers in southeast Asia for a few months. I think it sounds like a swell idea, but I'll see if it actually happens.

Here is today's cultural tip...
When dancing at a nightclub, there is a heirarchy of priorities of what you dance with in Zambian young culture. First, find a spot along the wall of mirrors and dance looking at yourself the whole time. If there are no mirror spots left, find yourself a girl to dance with. If all of the girls are taken, find a white man to dance with...don't worry it's cool. So now I can cross holding hands with Zambian dudes, and dancing with Zambian dudes off my list. I've almost completed everything off my To Do list so I can probably wrap this up and head home soon.

Well, that's all for this week's installment. Enjoy yourselves and I'll update next weekend.

Pearson, out.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Continuing from yesterday...

Hello again,
It's not everyday that I get to update this site twice in a week. Now there is another catch in going on site visit next week. Aside from the stuff that went down in Kasama a couple of weeks ago, there is a huge fuel crisis taking place at the moment. In Lusaka, police have been dispatched because there are near riots, people are sleeping in lines at the gas stations, and there are just random cars left all over the place due to lack of gas. So hopefully some stuff can get resolved in the next week so that I can visit my site in Mporokoso.
Right now I'm in Mwekera hanging out with some current PCVs. I actually met one of the guys currently up in Mporokoso and he makes that place sound great. I'm just getting more excited. He told me about the compound I'll be living in. So a pretty well off farmer owns a bunch of land (owning land here in Zambia is rare) and my house will be on his land. Apparently it is very secluded and a great place to be. The family is very nice and helps Mark (the guy I'm replacing) with whatever he needs. Life is still good here in Zambia.
Now to address some questions I've gotten in postings and emails...

For bathing, my family has a little structure built about 4 feet x 4 feet. The ceiling is a few inches taller than I am. They have some water outside that sits over a fire all day so I take a few ladles of that and then dilute it with cold water to touch. So I just use a cup to wet myself and then lather up and rinse. Fairly straight forward. I apologize for those of you who have gotten mental images. But I suppose to others of you, you're welcome. I'm probably considered dirty to my host family because they all bathe twice a day. Somehow I don't smell as bad though. I think they just use nasty smelling soap.

For my slingshot, I plan on using it to shoot animals that trespass into my garden when I'm at site. Small rocks will be my ammunition of choice. I want to get a good garden established allowing me to grow some of my own food. (Speaking of which, if you want to send me any jalapeno, watermelon, cantelope, or any other good food seeds feel free.) All animals are free range here though so they just wander wherever they want to. I would like to make a fence to keep them out but we'll see. I'm also planning on getting a few of my own chickens so that I can get eggs for breakfast on occassion.

If any of you have any interest in calling me sometime, you can email my mom at sharonpearson@mchsi.com. They know of cheap calling cards for $5 or $10. I have a cell phone that all of the trainees pass around. I have it for about 3-5 hours each week. So in case any of you are bored...

I am all but finished with my first 2 books. I hope to read 200+ books in my time here. I finished Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and am almost finished with The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. If any of you have some great books you think I should read feel free to send them to me because I know I'll have plenty of extra time.

The weather here has still been great. We actually got rain a week or 2 ago which is the first time it's rained in September since 1978 apparently. The rainy season is supposed to start on October 24th, Independence Day. It's funny because when you ask a Zambian when the rainy season starts, it's never 'the end of October' or anything like that. It is always, October 24th.

I just realized that it has been 1 month to the day that I left the U.S. I've been thinking about a lot of you and just kind of laughing at some of your reactions that I can picture to some of the stories I'm telling on here. If you have any questions or comments please post them to one of my postings or email me and I'll try to respond to them.

Now for today's update on Zambian Cultural Tips. Today's topic is eating...
When eating, it is important to not use any utensils. If we're having baked beans, who cares, use your fingers. It's funny because I spent 5 years in college eating over a coffee table in front of the TV and I still do now. My father and I eat hunched over the coffee table in the living room and my mother and brothers either eat in the kitchen or outside on the ground. It seems really strange, but it's the norm here. They just don't all eat as a family. The first night I ate with my family, they had killed a chicken for dinner in my honor. It is the Zambian custom to give the guest the gizzard. I knew this going into it so I mentally prepared myself. When I was passed the bowl with the chicken in it I grabbed a drumstick and quickly passed the bowl back to my bamayo (dad was working that night). She then passed the bowl back to me explaining that the gizzard was for me. So I thanked her and ate my dinner. As I was eating it I kept staring down this mysterious dark organ just cringing at the thought of putting it in my mouth. Eventually the time had come where I had to eat it because I didn't want that to be the only food I had left to eat. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad. I haven't had a gizzard since which is pretty nice.

Well that's all for this week I guess. Thanks again for all of your emails supporting me. I enjoy them all.

Go Hawks!

Pearson, out.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Some Badish News

Don't worry, it's not too bad. Unfortunately some current Zambia Volunteers screwed up and have compromised some things for the rest of us. So Kasama is the provincial capitol of Northern Province. A couple of weeks ago, several volunteers got drunk and climbed a water tower there because the view is so great. Some police came across them and they got in trouble because they graffitied on the tower some obscene material basically saying "Luapula (anotherprovince)/Kasama...Heck yeah!" (But it wasn't heck) Unfortunately the story has spun out of control. The radio and a newspaper (front page) have reported that they were yelling racial remarks towards Zambians and urinating in the water tower. Neither of these are true. 3 volunteers have already been sent home because of this but the Kasama officials have banned Peace Corps from their district in Northern province. The P.C. country director and my program director are headed to Kasama for a meeting to try to smooth this all over. If it isn't fixed then those of us who are headed to Northern province might not be posted. We're not really sure what's goingto happen until after the meeting. It's too bad but oh well. As they say in Bemba, 'Cilifye.' No problem.

On a lighter note. If any of you were thinking about visiting at all, you'll be happy to know that Peace Corps has no rules about duration of stay. Some people's family and friends are coming to stay for 3 or 4 months. If you were to do this, realize that this is the kindof vacation that would mostly be relaxing. Bring some books. I think I can score a bike from the provincial house (if we have one in Kasama) so that we could bike around to the waterfalls and things to see. I found out that I will be posted in Mporokoso so I'm surrounded by 3 national parks and have several waterfalls within 100 kilometers from me. Another traveling option, when my time is up here I want to do this...
STA travel has a deal that for $1800 you can get an 'Around the World' ticket. That consists of 7 one way tickets to anywhere in the world with the last one ending in your home city. The tickets are good for 1 year and it works fine as long as you keep going east or west. For example, you could fly to Zambia and stay here for a couple of months, then we could fly from Johannesburg to Cairo, to Amsterdam, then to Bangkok, then to New Zealand, then to Peru, and back home. That's just an idea to plant in some of your heads.

I decided after last posting where I talked about the odd greeting, I'm going to start a new section called the Zany Zambian Cultural Tips. This weeks topic is about nose picking. The moral of the story is feel free to pick your nose wherever/whenever you want to. I can't tell you how many conversations/meals I've been a part of when the other person will just thrust their finger up their nose mid sentence. It's really quite funny.

I'm going to come in tomorrow and update some more, but this is all for now. For those of you who have been emailing me and haven't heard back yet, I'm sorry. I'll try to email you tomorrow. Thanks for all of your kind words.

Oh yea, if you'd like to check out another Zambia volunteer's website, click on the Wyatt Ammon link on the right. He's another trainee like myself. He's a sarcastic, egotistical bastard, but he's pretty hilarious. Feel free to check it out.

Pearson, out.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Ahoy!

Just another afternoon in the internet cafe in Kitwe, Zambia. The last week has been just same ol, same ol. I celebrated my 24th a few days ago which was pretty good. It was weird not being with friends and family back home but my fellow volunteers were a good time. Some of the girls made me a giant birthday card which was pretty cool. We're still having language and technical training daily which is going well. We just had a oral language test yesterday and I got a 48 out of 50. I'm pretty happy with that.
Oh, before I forget, can someone out there email me and tell me how the Hawkeyes have been playing. I don't need a lot of detail just outcomes and any exciting details. The last I knew we got beat by Iowa State so I think I'm a few weeks behind.
After this coming week, we'll go out for our second site visit. We'll spend 5 days with 4 other volunteers and our language trainers in a village out in the bush. We'll have language session every morning. Then we split up and go to the site that we're going to be living at for the next 2 years. That should be good so I can meet the guy who I'm replacing. It's not set in stone yet, but the place I want to go to is way up in Northern province outside of a town called Emporokoso. The site I'd like to go to apparently the guy built a pool with a rope swing, and right next to the pool he has an insaka (gazebo) with a bar for entertaining. Granted I'd only have 1 peace corps volunteer within 100 kilometers of me, but I think my spot would be a good layover for voluteers vacationing. I'm pretty close to Lake Tanganeka which is shared by Tanzania and Zambia. Again, this isn't for sure yet, but I'm pretty tight with the people deciding my fate so it should work out.
In a few minutes I'm going to go to the market to go clothes shopping. That place is crazy. I went there last week after posting on my blog, and it was like something out of a movie. It's just a bunch of crappy stands with roofs of cardboard and plastic. There are just these tiny aisles going between them and they strech for a long distance. There must be a couple thousand little stands selling everything from fish, veggies, shoes, stereos, dvds, clothes, slingshots, and more. The whole time you're walking people come out of their stands and follow you for awhile saying 'buana' (boss). It's funny because the people who make art and things, you walk up to their stand just to look and they just start picking up random things and showing you. Within 30 seconds they've shown you a wooden hippo, and ashtray, a pen holder, a slingshot, and some bracelets. I have no interest in any of it but I guess they're hoping to strike my fancy with something. I think today I'll buy a slingshot though. 3500 kwacha.
A funny cultural thing that some of you might find humerous....in Northwest province where they speak Kaonde and Lunda they greet each other in a strange way. You shake hands while putting your left hand on your right elbow. Then you bend slightly at the knees (but don't make eye contact) while saying good morning or whatever. Then they clap 3 or 4 times, then back to the handshake, clap, handshake, and clap once again. The number and frequency of shakes and claps my vary slightly, but it's a greeting that I really enjoy.
I want to figure out how to put pictures on here, but while I'm paying for internet I really don't want to screw around. When I get to the provincial capitol I'll spend some time trying to figure that out.
Thanks for all of your emails and comments.

Pearson, out.