Happy Thanksgiving

As the title of this post suggests, I'd like to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. Last night most of the volunteers from Northern Province and I had a good ol' fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. We had all of the fixins necessary for Thanksgiving and it was a very pleasant occasion.

My apologies to all of you for kind of falling off the radar for a few months. I got back to Zambia on August 17 and this has been the first I've really updated anything since then. I'll try to be better about doing that from now on.

Life's been good since my return. My village life has been nice, despite the fact that I've been absent a lot the last few months due to meetings, trainings, and a variety of other reasons. Since I returned I've done some upgrades on my house, had several classes, killed a pig, read many books, bought a cell phone, practiced my mandolin a fair amount, and then recently celebrated my first year of being a volunteer. It was a year ago on the 22nd that we swore it, so I'm over half way done now. Not that I'm counting down the days, but it will be nice to return home at some point in time.

I'm headed back to my village tomorrow, and I won't return to civilization until January, so I'd like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas as well. I wish I could be at home to celebrate with you all, but this is my place in life for the current time. Thanks again for all of your letters and I hope to hear from you soon.

Much love,
brett

Cell Phone What?

Well, after procrastinating for one year on getting a cell phone, I've finally gotten one. I feel quite connected with the world. I case you're interested, I can receive texts and calls. My number is 099-168-311. I don't think I have reception at my site, but about 5 km away, so I'll ride into Mporokoso from time to time to check my text messages I may have.

Hut Improvement

Shortly after returning to Zambia, I decided that my hut was in a very dilapidated state and thus needed repairs. First on my list of to dos, was to have my bathing shelter redone. For the previous several months, 2 walls of my bath house had been eaten by termites so I was essentially bathing for the world to see. Granted, I am quite isolated so I never had problems with peeping Mulengas or anything like that, but it is nicer to have it looking nice again.

As part of the community's agreement to get a PC volunteer, they are to upkeep the house, pit latrine, bathing shelter, etc. But I feel bad making the same few guys come over to my house to help me out, so as compensation, I bought a couple of chickens and had my 'mother' cook lunch for the 4 guys who came over. The same day they completed my bathing shelter, I also had them patch some areas of my roof. It didn't leak too badly last year, but there were visible holes in it now and I was sure I'd get soaked if I didn't have it patched. So, after biking ten 30 lbs. bundles of grass from the local grass salesman, they spent the afternoon fixing my roof. Very nice.

The last upgrade to my estate was to have a chicken house made. I've been out a bit too much to have bought chickens already, but I had them build a house on stilts for my future chickens. Tomorrow I leave for my village until early January, so my first goal is to get some chickens to provide me with eggs upon my return. That, in addition to my garden really starts to make me feel like a farmer or something.

Killing Babe

So after spending several years of my life being nice to animals and forcing my parents to use humane mouse traps, I've reached a new low. A month or so ago, I went to a going away party for a fellow volunteer from my intake group who has to go home to get some shoulder surgery. The party was at a white South African farmer's near Hunter's (the volunteer) site. Because Hunter was friends with this family they decided to donate a hog to feed the 25 or so of us who attended this 2 day gala event. With a donated hog comes the requirement for someone to kill said swine.

I've never killed anything other than mice and birds, but for some reason I decided to volunteer to do the deed. It could be due to a change in personality since coming here, or the fact that I was 8 beers deep by noon that day, I'm not sure which. Anyways, we brought the pig in a little 5x5 foot pen. I had backup from three other volunteers so there were four of us and a pig in this pen. Apparently, as directed by the farmer, the best way to go about killing a pig is to hit it between the eyes with a hammer, immediately followed by taking a knife and cutting both of its carotid arteries (throat). So I did just that. Following protocol to name your pig pre-killing, I donned him Billy Baldwin. After getting acquainted with him and apologizing to him, I straddled Billy facing his head, took a couple slow practice swings to line up the shot with the hammer, then came down with a stroke of thunder. That stunned poor Billy so then I took the knife and proceeded to saw through his neck to enable him to bleed out.

The whole event was pretty crazy. I have many pictures, but I won't be posting them on my website due to the graphic nature. But now I feel like a changed man, and more of a bush man if I may.

Village Fiestas

Upon returning from the states I had two parties at my house in a short period of time. The first was just an Mtv Spring Break party where Jeremy, Edmeé, Annie, and Marcus (my newest neighbor)came to enjoy a few days drinking and swimming. A great time. Everyone was there for 2 days and then Jeremy stayed for an extra day where we successfully transported some grass for my roof and then sat on my front stoop drinking village beer all day.
A couple of weeks after that, Annie and Marcus showed up to my house to help me celebrate my 25th birthday party. Annie cooked me a chocolate birthday cake and even topped it with a candle. Although it was perhaps the most tame birthday party I've had, it was great having some friends there to celebrate.