Back 2 The Bush

After nearly a month out of my village for Christmas, New Year's, and meetings in Kasama and Lusaka, tomorrow I'm headed back home. I really start to miss my village and hut when I'm gone for an extended period like this. Whilst I'm in the village you can all entertain yourselves by checking out my pictures. I've added a dozen more or so. Take care of yourselves and I'll be emerging from the bush in a month or two. Until then, adios amigos.
Thanks to those of you who helped Brett out by voting for him and his video over the last week or so.

CDs Please

This will be the last update I'll have for at least a month or two, so I figure since I requested you all to send me some music, I should give you a want list of sorts. This is a fairly lengthy list and I'll be happy with any of it, or you can surprise me with anything you think I may like that isn't included on the list. This list is in no particular order. If you're sending me something, you should post a comment so I don't get 4 copies of the same album.

Sufjan Stevens - "Illinois" (or any of his others for that matter)
Beck - "The Information"
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Flaming Lips - (newest album)
Thom Yorke
The Rapture - Pieces of People We Love
Stephen Malkmus - Kindling for the Master
Scissor Sisters - (newest album)
Decemberists - Crane Wife
Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
The Streets - Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
The Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
My Morning Jacket - Okonokos
The Dears - Gang of Losers
Editors - The Back Room
Sparklehorse - Dreamt for Light
Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
OK Go - OK Go, or, Oh No
Manu Chao - Proximo Estacion

I haven't heard all of these, but read reviews of some in various magazines and was interested. Of course I don't encourage pirating music either. Anyways, I'd be forever grateful to you if any of you send a few albums. Thanks so much.

My friend Brett's Dorito's Contest!!!

Hello everybody,

My good friend Brett Snider entered a commercial contest for Dorito's. He is one of five finalists and if he wins his commercial will play during the super bowl! Now it's up to votes to determine the winner so please go vote!!! Here is the email that he has been sending out to explain the contest. Please read it and then vote religiously. Thank you!


......................................................
Hello friends, family, and acquaintances,

As most of you know I am trying to become a director. My friend Billy
and I are a directing team and we've done a music video and a couple
of commercials, one of which won a national contest for converse. We
recently shot two commercials for a Dorito's contest. The prize is
some cash, a trip to Miami and our commercial being shown during the
Super Bowl!

As of today, one of our commercials is a FINALIST! Meaning, we are
flying to Miami for the Super Bowl.

Obviously we're extremely excited. So now here's where you come in.
The competition has been narrowed down from 1100 entrants to 5
finalists. Now that it's down to 5 commercials the judging has been
turned over to the public and we need your votes.
You can vote from any computer once a day starting now and going until
January 19.

We're emailing everybody we know and asking them to email everyone
that they know. We need to take advantage of myspace, facebook,
whatever kind of blog you know and love. Give the link to everyone in
your office. Ask your friends to do the same. Give the link to your
tender, loving parents, it'll give them something exciting to do.

I understand that this is a lot to ask and I'm aware that it's
potentially annoying. We're only asking this of people because we take
the voting very seriously.

Winning this contest and having a commercial in the Super Bowl will be
the start of our career as directors. Having this under our belts will
most likely get us a job and change our lives dramatically.

We're excited for you to watch the commercial. We're very proud of it
and think that ours is the best looking and funniest of the 5.

Here is the link:
http://promotions.yahoo.com/doritos/

After going to the link click on "cast your vote" You'll then have to
sign in to yahoo if you're not already a member. I know I know. That
sounds annoying and at this point you'll want to go to the kitchen and
eat something smothered in ranch, but don't. It's actually painless
and takes about 30 seconds. And you'll only have to do that part once,
signing in after that will take 2 seconds.

So after you've signed in you will be directed to the 5 videos. Our's
is titled "Mousetrap" click the little box underneath the thumbnail
once a day for the next two weeks and you'll feel good for helping a
couple of young Americans live out their young American dream.

Thank you for reading this and helping us spread the word.

Transfer/Extension

I'll admit, it is strange to think that as early as August, or as late as November I'll be able to return home. This excites me greatly and I look forward to the time that I can come home again and see all of you whom I miss. But the last several months I've also done a lot of thinking while here about whether I'm ready to be done with seeing the world and trying to do my part to assist people who have a real need for education and skills to improve their standard of living. The Peace Corps is a great opportunity to complete both of these desires and I have been considering to perhaps extend my contract, but transfer to another country.
The ball has barely started rolling in this, but I've put a lot of thought into where I'd like to possibly transfer. The chances of it working out are very slim because so many factors need to align to make it possible for me to get this transfer I'm hoping for. Right now, the leading places I'd like to go are, Fiji, Kiribati, Bolivia, Vanuatu, Belize, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Venezuela, and Paraguay. If this works out, PC is required to send me home for a month if I want, which I will. I'm just now starting to put together my resumé and request and hope to complete those within a month and be able to send them off to the requested countries.
I'll be sure to keep you updated on any progresses/failures with this.

Music Please

Calling on all friends and people who have any idea what kind of music I listen to. Up until now I've had an iPod which I've relied soley on for music. It still functions alright, but I recently acquired a CD player, but don't have much in the way for CDs. Unfortunately it doesn't play MP3 discs, but I was hoping that if there are any incredible albums that have come out in the last year, that some of you could burn them for me and send them to my address. It only costs $3 to send a padded envelope with cds, so if you look at it like that you could make my month for less than $5 with postage and cds. I was reading a SPIN magazine lately which was talking about new albums put out recently and feeling quite out of the loop.

Of course I don't expect any of you to do this and won't be upset if you don't, but if you catch yourself being bored and looking for something to do someday, feel free to send me some music. Thanks guys and gals.

Village Christmas

To celebrate the birth of Christ this year, Marcus and I biked to Jeremy's site about 70 miles away. A total of 6 of us showed for this joyous occasion. Marcus and I got very lucky because despite the incessant rains that come with the rainy season, we managed to bike for 7 hours and remain dry for the entire thing.

Jeremy was quite the host for the holiday season. He bough 4 chickens for us to feast on, bought 40 liters of village beer (katata) and 20 liters of katubi (see below). Jeremy, Devin, and I spent a majority of our time socializing with some neighbors and drinking to celebrate. We had a secret santa gift giving thing. I made a salt shaker and then had some of my village coffee to give for a present, and someone (Jeremy) made me a wooden toilet paper holder and broom to put in my squatty potty. The greatest gift I got though could have been the stocking stuffer that santa gave me which was a nail clipper/bottle opener which was adorned with a picture from the "I'm flying Jack" scene in everyone's favorite, Titanic.

Everybody took off on the 27th, but I remained around for that day. I brought my mandolin down with me and Jeremy and I played for awhile and he wrote a couple songs with such titles as "Three Bottles for Ari" and "Dirty Sheets" (the refrain of which is 'Now all I have are these dirty sheets on my bed, why must I love you?') A really moving tune of a forelorn lover. It would have been fun to travel, but I must say that a village Christmas is a fantastic time if you ever get the chance.

Let's Make A Deal

This place is great for getting some cheap work done. I'm able to get quality assistance for a variety of jobs and give away things that are worthless to me but a great find for some of my friends.

For example a few weeks ago I was in Mporokoso picking up my mail, but due to some confusion, they did not allow me to bring a package home with me that day. But I was busy the next and really did not feel like biking for 2 hours either. So I talked to my homestay dad to find out what an appropriate price would be to pay someone to bike in a nd pick it up for me. The price I was quoted was 2000 kwacha. That is just under 50 cents. So apparently it is ok to hire someone to ride a bike for 25 miles, 3 hours for less than a buck.

Example 2: One of my farmers owes me 45,000 ($10ish) for some small fish I gave him awhile back. I recently went to collect from him and he told me that money was a bit tight right now. I'm not a real tough loan shark and have a soft spot for my farmers' predicaments, but he has some excess chickens so we decided he'd give me 3 chickens in exchange for forgiveness of his debt to me. That will bring my grand total to 4 chickens I keep at my house.

Example 3: One of my friends, Edward, came over to help me fix my roof some time ago. As we negotiated to appropriate price, we finally decided on the following for about 3-4 hours of manual labor; 4 candles, a dozen nails, an empty vodka bottle (to put his own homemade booze in), an empty tin can, and a Newsweek magazine. I thought I was ripping him off, but shortly after that business transaction, I had a whole host of people offering to work for me because they heard I paid well.

On Tap

It was inevitable that I would eventually be compelled to write a detailed description of the village beers. I imagine some of you are curious what we drink in the village for a bit of relaxation. Surprisingly enough, we have a choice of 3 different adult beverages to drink when getting together in a social setting. The available drink just depends on which one the host or home owner wanted to have that particular Sunday.

The most popular is called katata. It has the consistency and color of a gritty type of egg nog. It took a bit of getting used to, but now I enjoy it thoroughly. This is made by taking corn flour with ground millet, yeast, and sugar. It takes 7 days to brew and is dispersed in 2.5 or 5 liter containers, some having once housed motor oil. Delicious!

The second most widely found beverage is called katubi. This takes a week as well to brew and is made from millet. The finished product is a kind of mash or wort like the remains from beer brewing in the states. To this thick, grainy product you add near boiling water. I don't understand how it works exactly, but upon the addition of the water, the alcohol gathers around the wet grain remnants in little pockets of liquid goodness. To enjoy katubi properly, you use a straw to probe around until you get lucky enough to find a delightful pocket of the alcohol. It is like a drunkards scavenger hunt. The liquid itself tastes a lot like hot saki.

The third alcohol around my area is has about 50 names, but goes mostly by lituku and kanchina. This is actually a proper booze. They brew it and distill it in the village to the point that it is actually a clear liquid. It is basically like African moonshine. This particular beverage is made from cassava and only takes 3 days to prepare.

In addition to these three, there are some others that I've heard of, but never tried. Some Zambians also brew wine, a kind of tea wine, and a honey beer that is rumored to be quite delicious. Most of these drinks are consumed on Sundays, and I have developed a small group of friends in the village that I enjoy getting together with when I'm in the village to share a few drinks with. It's helping my language skills and integration into the community by joining them in these activities.

Happy Hour Hero

Now that you know WHAT we drink in the village, the next step is to know how to appropriately drink with Zambians. When arriving at a friend's house who has made beer or liquor for the day, usually there is a circle formed with 3 to 8 or so people drinking. In the center of the circle is a plate with a cup in the middle. When first joining, you must be invited into the circle to begin drinking. Once invited, you can fill the cup (about the size of a tea cup) and then chug the cup. A polite thing to do is to buy a container jug (2.5 liters) of beer and then add that to the center of the circle. Usually you finish a cup, then wait a few minutes before the the cup continues around the circle. Or, you can drink a couple times before passing. It's kind of a chug, chug, give rotational system. Messing up the rotation is taboo.

When drinking the distilled booze, it is the same idea, but you just pass the cup around taking shots. There isn't anything like noon here where it is taboo to drink before. I've shown up to some farmers' houses to work at 8 or 9 am and they're sitting there with a friend or two drinking moonshine. And these aren't tiny shots either. I've been intoxicated more frequently before 10 am here than at home (not including tailgating days).

One of my favorite things about Zambian drinking is this wise proverb they have which states, "The cockroach does not get the beer." That is effectively stating that if you have a bug in your beer, just remove the bug instead of pouring out the glass.