A few traditions

Possibly the thing I've enjoyed most about my time in Zambia has been learning about the different traditions. I have not seen all of the different traditions since there are so many, but I have had the opportunity to experience a few of them.

There are many very simple traditions, from the women wearing a chitenge to the different way you greet someone depending on their age and status. I'm just starting to understand the nuances of many of these things and can only hope that I haven't offended anybody during the learning process. Keep in mind that the things I've seen have been traditions for the Bemba tribe. There are seventy something tribes in Zambia so most of these traditions will vary depending on the tribe and age of the people.

The wedding:
There are many different traditional ceremonies surrounding the wedding. The first is called a Matebeto which is kind of like an engagement party. Before the matebeto, the male is not supposed to have eaten any meals in the house of the female. Once the two announce their engagement, the matebeto occurs and is the first meal that the male and his family eat which has been prepared by the female's side. The matebeto is a way in which the woman shows her fiance the type of food she knows how to cook, the type of food that her tribe eats. If the man does not like the food or is disappointed in her cooking he can back out of the wedding.

The matebeto starts at the female's family's home with the chilanga mulilo (sp?). The women start cooking a giant feast very early in the morning. The idea is to cook all of the different types of food that the family knows to prepare. They will cook beans, all the different leaves, kapenta, chikanda, caterpillars, mushrooms, several chickens slaughtered specifically for the occasion, a HUGE pot of nshima. There are 25 or more women sitting around the yard for hours stirring pots over many brassieres, cutting vegetables, pounding ground nuts into peanut butter using a giant mortar and pestle, etc. Of course where there are several women there are even more babies so it is quite the scene. There is drumming and singing and dancing, and when a new woman arrives to help there is a big flurry of singing and shouting and the women will roll and clap on the ground to show their appreciation. There are lots of traditional dances, stirring of the nshima, crawling, rolling... so the whole thing is very entertaining to watch.

Once this giant feast is prepared, the women put it in pots and wrap the pots in a chitenge to transport on their heads to the male's family's home. They sing and dance as they walk to the location of the matebeto. When the women arrive at the house, they dance outside the gate (don't forget they still have pots on their head) and won't come in until the receiving family has thrown enough money at them. At that point, the women enter and go through a whole ritual of singing, dancing, cleaning the man's hands, and presenting the food. The whole time the women will stop at each step until they have received enough money. Once the food has been presented, the women leave the house and go back to clean up the chilanga mulilo house. They don't even get to eat the feast they prepared!! After this matebeto, the man is then allowed to eat any meals prepared by his fiance or her family.

Next is the Kitchen Party, equivalent to a bridal shower. This is a big party where many many women bring something for the kitchen as a gift for the bride. The women all have to wear their nice chitenge suits and expect to have a very good time throughout the afternoon. There is a big meal followed by, you guessed it, lots of singing and drumming and dancing. The bride sits at the front of the ceremony on display the entire time. Each person in attendance is called up to the front where they present the bride with their gift, explaining to her how to use it. So if you have given a set of glasses, you explain that you put drinks in these glasses when you have guests over. Of course the bride usually knows how to use the glasses, but its all a part of the tradition. Once you have presented the bride with your gift, you have to tie another chitenge around your hips and dance for her. I'm told that these parties usually get pretty rowdy. I have only been to one Kitchen Party and there was no alcohol so it was a tame party but I've heard lots of stories of the things that happen at the good ones.

Next is the wedding itself. For the most part the weddings are very similar to our weddings but with a few minor differences. The only one worth mentioning is you only get one little bite of cake, which is wrapped up in foil and put at your seat before you arrive. A bit disappointing. But if it's an open bar it's totally normal, almost expected, to sneak a few bottles of beer into your purse, and to empty out the box of wine on the table into an empty coke bottle for the road. HA!

That's it on the wedding front. There are a couple of other ceremonies that happen when a couple has been married for 15 and 35 years but I don't know enough about them to elaborate.

The funeral tradition is the most eye opening for me. The service irself similar to in the States but what is interesting is the funeral house. I had heard all sorts of stories about the funeral house but didn't expect to have to experience it myself. Unfortunately, a very close coworker and friend of mine passed away about a month ago so I had to experience this moving custom first hand.

When someone passes away, their house becomes the funeral house. All of the decorations, rugs, pictures, everything is stripped from the common rooms and locked up in the bedrooms. The chairs and sofas are moved outside for the men and a couple of bare mattresses are placed in the common room for the wife/mother to sit on until the burial.

It is the wife or mother's duty to mourn violently for the loss. All day everyday they will scream and cry and moan. The more they mourn, the more apparent it is that they had nothing to do with their loved one's death. It is said that if a wife does not mourn properly for her husband, she probably was the cause of his death so the family can take all of the possessions. It is not uncommon for the inlaws to take everything from the funeral house, including the contents of the bank account, and leave the widow with nothing other than a few cooking utensils and 8 kids. The in-laws believe that the man is the one that earned the money to buy these things so it should remain in the family. Ignoring the fact that the woman was too busy raising the 8 kids, tending the garden, and doing laundry by hand to get a job. So now this woman is stuck with nothing and is forced to send her kids off to live with their aunties because she can't afford to keep them. This is starting to happen less and less as women are getting more footing in society but it still makes me very upset to hear about. I digress, back to the funeral house.

More people attend a funeral than a wedding. So when a family member passes away, family from all over the country will make their way to the funeral house and stay until the burial. Keep in mind that these families are BIG. 8 or 10 kids per family is not uncommon. If you ask someone how many cousins they have, without blinking an eye they will say "50 on my mother's side". So in the funeral house at any time there are tons of people.

The women stay inside, and the men have to stay outside except to use the facilities. This means that during the rainy season, they sit all day and sleep outside in the rain. There will be 40 women inside and they sleep, packed like sardines on the bare floor. Only the wife/mother/close family get to sit and sleep on the mattress. There are lots of good stories about fighting over who has to sleep spooning with the crazy snoring auntie who has bad breathe. HA.

So imagine if someone dies on a Wednesday and will be buried on a Saturday, there are 100 people hanging around the house all day, several of them are screaming and crying hysterically. As with African custom the guests are expected to be fed, they do not feed themselves. So, not only does the wife or mother have to worry about mourning properly, they have to figure out a way to pay for and cook food for 100 people three times a day. Did I mention those staying at the funeral house are not allowed to bathe until after the burial? I guess I'd be crying too!

The logistics are a nightmare, yes, but what I didn't expect was how moving the whole thing is. It is expected that all friends, coworkers, and neighbors pass by the funeral house to pay their respects. When my friend died, a whole group of teachers went together to spend some time at the house. All of the women have to wear a traditional chitenge, I came straight from work so I didn't have one with me but they said that I could get away without one, stupid Americans. Other women would be looked down upon if they didn't wear one properly. So we showed up, wandered through the maze of men outside, and made our way barefoot into the funeral house. Of course this is Zambia so we are singing the whole way (after several practice hymns in the bus on the way). When the wife saw us entering the door she started violently crying which was apparently not only for her own sake but also to help us mourn freely as well. We sat on the floor, practically on top of the stranger behind us, and everyone joined in a few more hymns. Then there was a bible reading. Then a song. Then one of the math teachers gave a very powerful speech. I didn't understand a word of it but I cried anyway it was so powerful. There wasn't a dry eye in the place. Then a hymn. Of course any group from Mpelembe has several clergy members so one of the priests in training said a few words. Luckily he's Zimbabwean and had to sprinkle a lot of English in with his Bemba so I could follow what he was saying. Then we sang several more hymns.

For all of the songs there is a song leader, usually a woman. Amazingly, if that woman got too choked up another woman would seamlessly step in and continue in her place. I was very impressed. These people knew every word to every song, every intricate four part harmony, what key to start in... Wow. Even though everyone in the room was from a different church and denomination, they sang so well together that it sounded as if they had practiced for this day every week for a year. We exited the way we had entered, barefoot and singing, without having ever said a word directly to the widow. I tell you I was impressed.

The burial itself is much more vocal. Everyone screams, cries, and sometimes curses at God. When the coffin is dropped (by hand) into the ground there is usually someone who will jump in to cling one last time to the coffin. The men have to pull them off and hold them back while the burial continues. Much more emotionally violent than our very quiet burials.

I wish Americans would cope with death this way. Face it head on and out in the open. Be encouraged to grieve out loud with the whole community participating with bright colors and lots of singing!

Here are some photos from a chilanga mulilo I attended.

Ladies preparing food
















Maize brew fermenting in the calabash for the matebeto
















Mbuya (grandma) preparing everyone's favorite...chikanda or african bologna.















Some chickens about to go in the pot, a tray of caterpillars, and cassava soaking.

















She is pounding pumpkin leaves.




















Cooking the caterpillars.














More preparations.















Finally preparations and packing of the food. I am with the mother of the bride and owner of the house.

The mini bus experience

For Zambia and, from what I can tell, most of southern Africa, people's main mode of transportation is by mini bus. The mini bus is one of the first things I noticed when I arrived in Zambia. On my drive from the airport to my first lodgings, I noticed these blue and white vans driving around that were absolutely crammed with people and looked like they were being held together by twine. I thought to myself, please God let me never have to ride in one of those. Little did I know that I would eventually come to rely on the mini bus for my transportation around Kitwe.

The mini bus is Africa's version of a city bus system. Now, as I said in an earlier blog post all of the mini buses are privately owned and they do not run on a schedule nor are there established routes. All mini buses will pick people up along the road and eventually end up in town. From there, if your final destination was not town, you have to navigate the hectic streets and ask where the pickup spot is to your next location.

When I need to go into town, I head off on foot toward the nearest bus stop which is about half a mile away. The journey into town takes at least 40 minutes so some advanced planning is required. There are some "bus stops"=intersections at which the bus will stop but they are not marked so you just have to know where they are. I will walk to the first bus stop, and if there is not a bus there I will continue to walk toward the next bus stop which is another quarter mile away. Usually along this walk I will either be picked up on the side of the road by a friend, a mini bus or a taxi which will take me and three strangers to town for the price of the bus fair (2,500 Kwacha, about 50 cents).

Now once on the minibus, it is very important to find a seat next to the window. This is for both temperature and odor reasons. The seats are all falling apart, usually not upholstered, and sometimes you're sitting on a footstool. "Protected by the blood of Jesus" or some other spiritually distinguishing mark is plastered on the back window in brightly colored lettering. There are two men operating the bus, the driver and the conductor. The driver drives, and the conductor hangs out the window yelling and waving at people to see if they need a ride. The driver will slowly drive toward town and stop to wait at intersections (sometimes for a very long time) until the bus is full. Once all 20 people (not including babies and children) are crammed into a bus the size of a mini van, the conductor starts collecting money from people. Most people do not have a problem with this, but since my skin looks different they automatically assume I'm both rich and ignorant. If I give them a larger bill than is needed they will usually not give me my change until I ask for it. When they do give change, they will not give me enough. I have to keep asking until I get the proper amount of money back.

Usually one of three things happens while I'm on the bus. The most common scenario and my favorite is when everyone just leaves me alone. Scenario 2 is when people start talking with me, turn around to stare at me, kids touch my hair, etc. I'll get the usual questions, where are you from, why are you here, how long have you been here, are you married, why not, don't you want to get married, aren't you too old to be single, do you want to marry me and take me back to the USA with you? Ugh. Congratulations, you're the 200th man to ask me that, you've just won a trip to the USA!!!!!! Scenario 3 is when there is some type of incident. This makes for a horrible mini bus trip. Usually this scenario starts when the conductor starts talking about me in Bemba, and laughing at me. Most people are very nice and will not laugh with him but there are always a couple that think it's hilarious that a muzungu is riding on the bus and that I don't know what they're saying. Sometimes I'll make some smart remark about the conductor and anyone on the bus that speaks English will laugh at him. That usually shuts him up. If no one speaks English or no one laughs I just sit and look out the window and ignore them. Thankfully this is happening less and less since the conductors are getting used to having me on their bus, and for the most part I've become a normal passenger.

So, 20 minutes (sometimes excruciating minutes) later we arrive in town and the driver will pull into the "station" and let the passengers out. The "station" is the streets of a few city blocks lined with hundreds of these blue and white buses. Its absolute madness, I'm amazed that anyone ends up on the right bus.

So, when my shopping is done I'll head back to the station and find the bus to Mpelembe. There is a designated area that the buses are headed toward Mpelembe. Half of the buses at this station will go to Mpelembe, the other half go to the Chipata compound (high density, low imcone area). I made the mistake once of getting on this bus. From then on out I was very sure to ask the passengers (not the conductor since he will tell me yes either way) if the bus is going to Mpelembe to be sure to get a straight answer. So then you sit on the bus in the station until it has filled up. While waiting, sometimes the conductor will shout advertisements to those passing, "don't miss out, this is your chance to ride the mini bus with a muzungu". I've developed fairly thick skin but this type of thing really gets to me. Anyway, off we go, sometimes 2 minutes, sometimes 20 later. When someone needs to be let off, he knocks on the bus frame to signal it's their stop. Then either everyone between him and the door have to get out to let him pass or he steps awkwardly over their knees. It's really quite the experience.

Sometimes there are live chickens on the bus, sometimes the person next to you will hand you their child to sit on your lap so they don't have to pay the child's fare, sometimes a hub cap will fall off and the bus stops while the conductor runs down the road to collect it, sometimes the tire goes flat and all the passengers wait outside until it is fixed, sometimes the bus just plain breaks down and you have to find another way home.

Never a dull moment I tell you. I find it all very frustrating but the locals have a different view. My friend Mulenga told me that most people consider it entertaining. She's been to the UK and doesn't know if she would enjoy living there, in a world where everything works so flawlessly. She asks me, where's the entertainment in that? What would you have to talk and laugh about with the family once you got home? At first I was too American minded to appreciate this bit of wisdom. My goal is to get to the destination as efficiently and pleasantly as possible and any deviation to the plan is unacceptable. Then it hit me, what's the difference between pulling over to fetch a hub cap and sitting in traffic behind an accident on the 405? I guess everywhere has their own version of a traffic jam, the difference is that some end in road rage while others end in a good laugh over nshima.

I don't have many good pictures. Mini bus drivers scare me so I try not to upset them by taking their photo :)


A mini bus piled high with luggage on a long distance route














People loading into a bus at the markets.















Literally held together by twine

Cities and Markets

The Zambian cities, Kitwe in particular, are not quite what I expected. I don't know what I was expecting but this isn't it. You can tell that at one point the cities were much nicer than they are now. In Zambia, the development boomed in the middle of the 20th century, but when Zambia gained their independence and the price of copper dropped, development came to a halt. There has not been any new construction or re-modeling (that I can see) in Kitwe for 50 years. The buildings are falling apart, paint is faded and chipped, sidewalks in ruin, roads are almost impassable. Each year the government budgets for tax money to maintain the roads and clean up the cities but obviously that doesn't happen. Instead, the money ends up in someone's pockets and all of the people have to suffer. Due to this lack of support from the government, Kitwe is a crumbling city with over a million people, has a city centre of only 13 blocks, and is absolutely overflowing with people.

There are no street signs or numbered buildings ANYWHERE. Getting around by map is not an option. Even if you did have a map, most people don't know the name of any of the streets so it wouldn't help you. The best way to find your way somewhere is to ask the very friendly person walking by. They will point you in the general direction and you continue until you need to ask someone else. This is the way it's done. Even in residential areas, there are no posted house numbers. So, on electric bills and water bills, the address says "15 Chipungu Close, house with the green gate, past the orange pole". I find this highly hilarious but surprisingly effective.

Now in Zambia, the main grocery store is Shop Rite. There is one in each of the large towns. Only the very rich do their shopping at Shop Rite. The majority of people do all their shopping in the markets. I'm starting to do a combination of both. I get everything except fruits and vegetables at Shop Rite, and have finally found my way around the markets enough to get a fair price (as fair as a muzungu will get) for apples, cabbages, etc.

The black markets in Africa are totally hectic. In Kitwe, it is about the size of 6 city blocks with only a few entrances. It's a giant maze of shops made from any material the owner can get their hands on. The more permanent shops are metal boxes which look like small railroad cars. The other less permanent shops are made from pieces of wood that people have brought in from the bush, or torn potato sacks, or pieces of fiberglass constructed to make simple counters and roofs for shade. The marketeers will bring their goods from home every day and set up shop.

Things are organized, sort of. There is a general area for fruits and vegetables, fish, beans, caterpillars, used clothes, new clothes, hair salons, carpentry, etc. The shops are all situated around very narrow foot paths that are either dirt, rocks, or makeshift wooden bridges over drainage areas. Somehow the women manage to navigate these paths in 4 inch heels, I don't know how they do it. I can barely manage to make it out on two feet in flip flops.

Each area has its own noises and smells. Fruits and vegetables is at the entrance to the market and is very hectic and busy. Fish area is swarming with flies and smells horrible. Clothing area is a bit softer with women sitting amongst heaps and heaps of clothes, throwing things back and forth to each other whenever a customer requests a certain item or size. The salon area is full of women sitting around gossiping while they get their hair done for 6 hours.

The shop owners sit wherever they can find a seat and wait patiently for a customer. I'm sure that many of them will go days between customers but they still go and sit in the heat and the stench all day. You'll see them kill and pluck a chicken while they wait and even break out a brassiere (small bbq) to cook their lunch. Vendors are walking around selling socks, wallets, bites of sausages, meat pies, pirated movies... It can be really overwhelming.

I still don't really know my way around. I stick to the outskirts where the fruits and veggies are sold and don't go inside unless I'm with a friend. I have started to pay attention to who really knows their way around the market. Which of my friends should I go to if I need to find a nice chitenge for a fair-ish price. These friends can take me to exactly the right shop and negotiate the price without any hesitation. Now, if that friend is doing shopping for themselves I am not invited along. Even if I'm not the one buying, the shop owners see me and increase the price making it difficult if not impossible for my friend to get down to what they expect to pay.

I've realized that it's not easy being my friend in certain situations. Other than the increased prices, people say that it can be stressful to walk around with me. There is constant shouting, hassling, people following, trying to touch my skin or my hair. I'm lucky not to understand a lot of what they are saying but my friends say that they get insulted a lot. People asking if they are my body guard, how much is she paying you, etc. I'm just glad I've got good friends that still take me out and show me around.

Outside of the markets the shops are quite a bit different. They are usually very small and crowded and not very well labeled but if you ask enough people eventually you will find your way into a shop that has exactly what you're looking for. You have to check all of your bags at the door and someone will usually follow you around watching you like a hawk to avoid theft so shopping is not a very therapeutic activity.

Clothes or shoe shopping can be quite difficult. The shop owners will get their inventory from friends coming in and out of the country or will make a trip themselves. If anyone they know is going to South Africa or Thailand or wherever, they will ask to bring back some inventory. This means that what you see in the shop will likely only have one or two sizes, whatever they could shove into their suitcase. For the most part, even the very low quality items are very expensive because they have been imported from god knows where. Most people seem to get their clothes second hand or from whatever organization is handing out donated items. All of the clothes that are donated from people across the world really do make it into the hands of the needy here. I even saw a Cal Poly T-Shirt the other day!!

Restaurants are few and far between. There are some shops selling meat pies, sausages and chips, a place run by some Indians selling some curry and shawarmas, and a few restaurants hidden in the residential neighborhoods but if you are shopping in town and need to stop and sit down for lunch, you have very limited options. There are, however, hundreds of people walking around selling their homemade pies, samosas, chikanda (African bologna), fruit, sausages, none of which I trust to eat but most of the locals do.

Thank you Carola for a couple of these photos!

Clothing area at the market.








































This is in Kitwe. They got very upset with me for taking this picture. They think I will sell it to National Geographic and get rich off their photo. I wish...















Pirated movies galore. You can get a CD with 15 movies for about $1. Ya the quality is horrible but at least its entertainment!

My work

When I came to Zambia I really had no idea what type of work I would be doing. All I knew is that they needed someone with technical skills to help at one of the most "connected" schools in Zambia. As it turns out, it seems I have all the right skill sets to fit their needs so I think I was the perfect one for the job!

I'm doing a combination of quite a few things. One thing I've learned while being here is that any task in Africa takes 7 times longer than it would in the states. Once I realized this I decided to tackle many projects at once and juggle them rather than start on one, finish, then start another. I'm trying not to be the one to actually do the work, rather motivate people and teach/help them along the way. I'm worried that I'll help to accomplish all these things at the school, only to have them crash and burn when I leave. So I've really focused on having the staff here own a project, and push them hard to get it finished. I guess we'll see how successful that is once I leave.

The biggest project I'm working on is rolling out SchoolTool, which is a school administration software, on campus. This is an open source (free) web based tool that manages teacher's and student's calendars, gradebooks, attendance, announcements, report cards, etc. In February the SchoolTool developers announced that they were sponsoring a grant for custom development of the software. Basically this means that the school that wins the grant gets to write out a wish list of all the things they would like the software to do, how they want it to integrate into their existing systems, tie into the government systems, etc. I ended up writing the Grant Proposal (thank you CalPoly for the excellent technical writing skills) and, good news, we won the grant! So, now I'm working with developers to help them produce a piece of software that is totally customized for Mpelembe. The really cool thing is that since Mpelembe is on the leading edge of technology in Zambia, they will also be the ones helping the other schools and giving them advice as these schools build their IT infrastructure. This means that other schools will probably copy Mpelembe's setup, and this custom SchoolTool software will spread and be beneficial for most schools in Zambia! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. Currently everything at these schools is done by hand which means things like creating report cards is VERY tedious and error prone. Imagine manually typing out the names, addresses, grades, and comments for 650 students. Three times per year. A software like this will save the schools hundreds of hours of work and lots of sweat. Cool.

Next big project thus far has been to extend the network (Internet) to other buildings on campus. Right now, the network exists in three buildings; the administration building, computer lab, and ENEDCO (explanation later) building. They asked me to help extend it to the other administration buildings, library, and eventually other classrooms so that teachers can research, record grades, take attendance, etc online from the classrooms. I designed a point-to-multipoint wireless network (thanks you Cisco for extensive wireless training) that would cover most of the buildings on campus. I thought that this would be a very simple job, but I quickly learned that people here hate change and will make every task tedious. After three months of work we finally managed with the quotes for equipment, purchase orders, bought the equipment, found a man to do the earthing (for lightning), scheduled for some maintenance workers to help with the install, and actually installed the equipment. Of course every job is done half-ass (because they lack the resources to do it properly) so they ended up breaking a cable which means we had to start all over. Very frustrating, but we are nearly there. Now the next big hurdle is to assemble a computer committee to lay out the ground rules for how, when, and who can access this network. Maybe by November this will happen...

Another project which takes my time is "consulting" for other schools in the area. So far I've been working with Catholic schools but I imagine by the end of my time here I will start to touch other government schools as well. I've been working with one of the teachers here who leads the ENEDCO project, which is a project sponsored by a Dutch organization to provide computer aided teaching materials to schools. Together we go to the various schools and provide them with different software packages that can help the school. Things like SchoolTool, timetable generation software, antivirus packages, offline wikipedia (since they don't have internet access but still want to do research), imaging software, interactive teaching tools for math and science, powerpoint presentations for different topics, etc. The schools love this stuff. They have computers but don't really know what to do with them or how to effectively use them. We run workshops to teach the teachers how to use the different software and how to integrate the computers into their daily teaching practice. For the schools that have the money (which isn't many), I've been helping them build their network and get connected to the internet.

Recently more of my time has been given to teaching. One of the computer teachers at the school was in a terrible traffic accident while I was in the US and he will probably be in the hospital for several months. I have taken all of his Grade 10 classes until further notice (thank you Cisco for the presentation skills and "how to own the room"...very useful when standing in front of a room full of high schoolers). I have confirmed my notion that I was not born to be a High School teacher. I started teaching with the attitude of a college lecturer. I didn't care if they slept, showed up, took notes, as long as they learned the material somehow. After the first few homework assignments and quiz I realized that this wasn't an effective method so I'm now using the hand holding approach. Ugh, it sucks. Hopefully they will find a replacement soon.

Over the past six weeks I have realized what my personal version of hell is. Imagine teaching very basic computer skills to a room full of nearly retired, unmotivated teachers. "Now Mrs. Mwansa, here's how you hold the mouse. Ok now click, no click with this finger, no you have to hold it still while you click." AAAAHH. The school recently set a new policy that each teacher will type their own exams rather than handing them off to a secretary. Many teachers were very upset by this so I offered to help teach them computer skills. This has escalated into basic computer lessons for teachers, staff, guards, cooks, gardeners... 3 days per week. I am NOT a patient person so you can imagine how frustrating this is for me. They are very slowly making progress which is the only thing keeping me from catching the next flight out of hell.

There are a lot of other little odd jobs. Managing the existing computers, working out an organized cabling scheme, creating images for the machines (thank you Veritas for making me image hundreds of machines), setting up a new Linux Server, helping with the websites for various organizations (thank you Northrop Grumman for the web programming experience)... These are all very time consuming and tedious but good time fillers while I wait for someone to make the phone call that will move along another project...

Before I came out here I had ideas about what the challenges would be when trying to move a project or make progress in general. Some of those ideas were right but it turns out that the challenges are many more and much more difficult to overcome than I could have imagined. For example, the viruses, computer and otherwise, are rampant. Haha. Lots of people/schools/businesses have computers but a very small percentage of those have the money for legal anti-virus software or even have internet connectivity to download the updates. To add to this, everyone is very happy to transfer files using their flash drives not realizing that this is spreading the viruses like weeds. This is a huge problem. At Mpelembe and other schools I've been to it is very common for machines to come to a screeching halt and be unusable because of a virus. They just reformat it and start fresh. Within a couple hours it is back to its infected state again. How do you avoid that? You don't want to discourage the use of the computer but the more its used the worse it gets. We have a pirated (shh) version of anti-virus that we hand out but that doesn't help unless they can get on the internet occasionally to download the latest definitions. On many occasions my own flash has become unusable as I'm handing out software so I just have to wipe it and start over again. In my opinion, the best solution to this...Linux! We are moving as many of our machines over to Linux as possible and encouraging other schools to do the same.

Another challenge is training the people how to do something rather than me doing it for them. It would be very easy for me to fix all these computers and install a bunch of great software but that doesn't do any good for them the day I leave. So I've been very conscious to teach and document as I do things so that people are learning and can give it a try on their own next time. The only issue here is that the culture here is so non-confrontational and respectful of authority that when I ask if they understand they immediately say 'yes, Madame', so I move on. I'll come back three months later and realize that they didn't really understand but they were so scared to ask me to do it again or to call me later to ask for help. Thank you, Americans, for admitting when you don't understand and standing up to ask for help.

So I think we're making progress. It's very slow, and frustrating, and at the end of most days I want to rip my hair out, but things are really starting to take shape. It's the little victories that make me the most excited. Today one of the teachers, someone who had never used a computer before I arrived, came to find me to show me an exam that she had typed and printed entirely on her own. She was so proud. I guess that 5 months of eating leaves and doing laundry by hand has been worth it after all.

Sara Rose fundraising update

We are currently at $5,100. Thank you!

We are assembling the shopping list of items this week and will purchase within the next couple of weeks.

Livingstone, Victoria Falls, and Botswana

On a Tuesday evening I set off with one of my friends from Mpelembe, Mutuzana, and another Spanish friend working in a village not far from Kitwe, Carola. We took the night bus down to Livingstone where the beautiful Victoria Falls are located. Don't worry mom, the night bus was perfectly safe. 18 hour bus ride for $25, not bad!

Upon arrival we were told that this evening was the last night to view the lunar rainbow at the falls. Sounded exciting. As it was getting dark we packed a nice picnic dinner of fried chicken, chips (fries), and Heineken and headed to the falls with our new friends, Irene (Italian), Mikela (Italian), and Japhet(Zambian). Once at the park we found our way to the edge of the falls and found a stunning view. We were standing at the top of the falls on the Zambian side, and from there, plunging down hundreds of feet to the bottom was a vivid rainbow created by the full moon. I've never seen anything like it. Who knew you didn't need the sun to create a rainbow?!? Very hard to capture with a camera but Carola managed to get a couple of good shots. Eventually we found a nice little spot away from the tourists that still had an amazing view of the falls, rainbow, sounds of the river, and sat down to eat our picnic with smiles on our faces. Good for the soul :)

The following day we got up early to explore the falls. Luckily Mutuzana had been to the falls several times so he acted as tour guide the whole day. In case you're not aware, Victoria Falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. And rightly so. Victoria Falls is also known as Mosi-oa-tunya which means 'the smoke that thunders'. Very good description. From miles away you can see the cloud of mist that is created by the falls and as you get closer you can hear the thunder long before actually seeing the water. April is the most thunderous time to see the falls as the Zambezi is at its highest from the rainy season in Zambia and Namibia. From any of the vantage points I couldn't actually see the bottom of the falls because there is so much mist.

In the morning we crossed over the knife bridge which crosses directly in front of one section of the falls. During the low season, you can sit on the bridge and look at the view, but in April, we had to run across the bridge and get pelted by sideways rain created by the falls. I was absolutely drenched by the end of it. Note to self, bring a raincoat next time. It took a long hike down to the bottom of the gorge and several hours basking in the sun to finally dry out.

Here's a cool difference between the US and Zambia. Up at the top of the falls, near the place we had eaten dinner the night before, you can get right up to the waters edge and see where the water starts to fall no more than 20 feet away. No rails, no fences, no ropes keeping you out of the water. There is, however, a sign saying to be cautious of surges of water when walking through the river. So basically there is nothing more than common sense stopping you from walking out into the river and being swept in an instant over the edge. It was fantastic, you could enjoy the sites without having to look through a fence. Sure people have been hurt (killed) but I guess it's nature's way of wiping out the stupid people. Another cool difference, one of the park rangers let me test drive his segway along the trails in the park. That would never have happened in the States for so many reasons. I digress...

Now here's the fun part. Carola and I decided to go bungee jumping to the base of the falls. It took a beer for me and a coffee for her (very Spanish of her) to get up our courage but we did it. We actually did a combo package. Zip line across the gorge, bungee, and gorge swing. Bungee jumping was absolutely terrifying but satisfying. It was a 111 meter jump, 4.5 second free fall. Looking down into the water with your toes curled over the edge of the bridge is the worst feeling in the world. I had no choice in the matter, I was actually given a shove on 5,4,3,2,1,BUNGEE! The cool part was that when I finally controlled the urge to pee my pants, stopped screaming, and opened my eyes, I was surprised to see that I was plunging into the center of a completely circular rainbow! Then when you bounced up and could see sideways there was another rainbow, and another, and another! So cool.

That evening Carola and I said goodbye to Mutuzana who was headed down to Zimbabwe to visit family, and went out on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. Nice views, open bar, good convo (Carola is in International Relations so I picked her mind about everything), quite perfect. We needed the laid back evening after our adrenaline pumping afternoon.

The next morning we got up early to go on a safari in Botswana, Chobe Park, with the Italian girls. After a quick bus ride and ferry across the Zambezi we were in Botswana! The safari started with tea and sandwiches on the boat(how British of them) for a 2.5 hour river safari. April was the perfect time to do a river safari, the water was so high that you couldn't really see the other side of the river. Gorgeous. Next we jumped in the truck and headed out into the bush. We saw and heard so much wildlife. I was so happy, had this huge grin on my face the entire time. At one point we were close enough to reach out and touch an elephant. Cool.

That night we arrived at our camping spot. Totally fancy, I'm ruined for minimalist camping forever. They had already set up all of our tents, we had down comforters instead of sleeping bags, basins outside each tent for warm water in the morning... As we were sitting around the camp fire drinking wine that evening the girls started to get worried about the animals coming into camp. Our guide, Jensen told us it wasn't a problem. He said that if you had to get up and pee at night, stop for a couple of minutes and listen to what is outside. He said he had been telling us to listen to the sounds all day so that we could recognize what animals were around the camp that night. HA! We then spent quite a bit of time listening to the bush and classifying what we heard. We could recognize a rutting impala-safe to go out of the tent, breathing elephant-not safe, leopard-not safe, panting lion-not safe, roaring lion-definitely not safe. So we all went pee right before bed and prayed we would not have to get up again. So there I was, couldn't sleep, and heard the sawing of a leopard maybe 100 meters away, and a male lion walking back and forth along the road 50 meters from camp. It was really fun.

Since we hadn't seen a lion the evening before, we got up at 5am to go on a lion hunt. We had been listening to him the night before so we knew that the lion was close and just started driving the roads near our camp. Eventually someone spotted him and the guide told us to be quiet so we could track him...he would lead us to the rest of the pride. Cool. So we followed him for a few minutes and sure enough, eventually he led us straight to two lionesses and 3 cubs. We had some really good views of the lion which apparently is rather rare. The male got within 20 feet of us and the cubs came out onto the road right in front of us and were rolling on the ground playing. Of course by this time there was only 1 camera in the group with battery left so I don't have any really good pics. If only the camp had outlets to recharge the cameras....

The really fun part is that in the middle of our lion hunt we got a flat on the truck. Jensen decided we couldn't go any further and that he had to change the flat. He tried to change it with us all in the truck but the jack kept slipping. We had to get out of the truck. There we were, standing outside the truck with a pride of lions just around the corner. Through nervous laughter we all kept watch in every direction in case they decided to come back for us. It was really fun.

Next comes the part I had been anticipating all weekend. Getting back across the border into Zambia. I had been operating on a semi-legal visa for the past two weeks. I was nervous that the immigration officers would realize that my visa wasn't legit and not let me back in. Of course I knew that if all else failed, 1 million kwacha ($200) slipped into his pocket would easily solve that problem but I didn't want to pay. I was the first of the group to go through the line, only had to pay $80 for a brand new (also semi-legal) visa and I was home. Amazing how unorganized and corrupt this place is.

Another 20 hours of travel and I was back in my own bed. Overall, pretty nice little weekend.

Lunar Rainbow















At the top of the falls with the end of the rainbow in the background.
















The bridge from which I jumped...















5...4...3...2...1..bungee!!!!

















African fishing eagle














Hitching a ride














This guy was 10 feet away from us...I really thought he was going to spray us


















African Darter














Apparently this bird is very rare and people come from all over the world trying to spot it. We saw a few!













































































Botswana didn't suck :)

Quick trip to the US

First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone that reads my blog! While I was home I had so many people, including people I don't even know say they really enjoy reading it. I had no idea I had such a following...how cool! I'll start putting a bit more effort into it :)

Anyway, about my trip back to the States.

I left my house in Kitwe at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning and arrived in Pinedale, WY late Thursday evening. Considering the 8 hour time difference that's quite a journey. It was a 6 hour bus ride (plus the hour I sat in the bus waiting for it to fill up and take off) and 45 hours in airplanes and airports. I arrived at the airport in WY in flip flops, a skirt, and T-shirt only to find that they still have snow on the ground. Welcome back!

It was really nice to be back home in Pinedale for a while. I got to see lots of friends and family and eat all of the foods on my "must eat" list plus some that I forgot to put on the list. My first week was spent in Pinedale where I spent time catching up on movies, chilling with my kitties, running (when it wasn't snowing of course). Its amazing the little things that I missed most- movies, Billie & Holiday, and running. Strange. I think I did my laundry three times just to be good and sure that I wouldn't have to do it again for a while! I repacked my bags with a different selection of clothes, signed a bunch of paperwork waiting for me, played technical assistance for the entire town, and finally I was ready to go.

Next I flew off to Sacramento to see the girls and get ready for the Castro wedding! It was fantastic to see the girls. There was so much catching up to do, unfortunately Facebook just can't keep you updated on everything. We may have opened one or fifteen bottles of wine in the days leading up to the wedding. The wedding was fabulous, everyone looked fabulous, no logistical problems, really quite perfect.

Those couple weeks were exactly what I needed to recharge the batteries and feel ready to head back. Of course over the span of my time back I spent quite a bit of time telling my story and showing photos to family, friends of the family, friends of friends, people at church, people at the grocery store. Honestly I'm glad to be back in Zambia so I don't have to talk about Zambia anymore! Just kidding, but not really :)

One thing that struck me while I was back in the US was the information overload. I had gotten so used to either ignoring or not seeing advertisements/announcements/anything in neon (from being both in non-English speaking countries and Zambia) that being back in the states was kind of a shocker. All of a sudden the announcements in the airport were in English so I had to pay attention, I was reading the signs, I noticed the flashing lights that I hadn't paid attention to in years. It was very strange to realize what I had learned to tune out and all of a sudden now I'm aware of again. It was a bit overwhelming.

The next thing that was shocking to me was the state of my stomach for the first 10 days back. Now, if any of you know me you know that I have a stomach of steel. I can eat anything, anywhere, anytime and not have any problems. Well, turns out that there is something that can take me down, eating the junk American food again after so long. Zambians essentially don't eat anything that you don't pull from the ground or can't kill. All natural, no preservatives, no chemicals, no processing, just all goodness. Bland but very cleansing as it turns out. So, here I am, back in the States and for the first time in my life have to consider whether I should really eat that delicious looking battered shrimp. Don't anyone worry, 10 days later I was back at it, eating In-N-Out with the best of them.

I think what hit me most while I was back was my realization of our disposable income. While in California I was more aware of how everyone spends money, myself included. Going to Starbucks, gossip magazines, pedicures, hotels. I guess that before, I had never considered that these truly are luxuries. Of course I knew that I didn't need them, but since I've been financially independent I haven't been in a position that I couldn't buy one of these if I really wanted to. Don't get me wrong I love all these things and I'm just as much of a Starbucks junkie as anyone else, but I guess I never considered what a huge amount of extra, disposable income I really have. In Zambia I've tried to embrace their ways and save whenever possible. Now that doesn't mean that I walk 4 miles to town rather than take the bus, but I do shop at the black markets rather than the convenience of the supermarket, turn off the hot water heater after every use, reuse empty yogurt containers as a toothbrush holder, etc. Most of the Zambians are even more thrifty and ingenuitive than me, and yet most wouldn't have enough at the end of the month to stay in a hotel for their brother's wedding. I suppose you have to consider the difference that most of these luxuries aren't available. A woman couldn't go out for a massage and pedicure even if she wanted to. Instead, a luxury here is to take a $5, 15 minute taxi rather than the 50 cent, 2 hour bus ride home from visiting a friend.

With this new realization I'm really reconsidering my thoughts about Americans and our wealth. Previously, when I was in a conversation with a Zambian and they made a statement about how wealthy Americans are I used to say that most Americans aren't really THAT wealthy, you just think they are because of what you see on TV. Now when I think about it, we really are that wealthy. Even the lower class. Things like renting a movie, owning a different outfit for every day of the week, having enough gas to get home are a given, we don't know what life would be like without these things. Here, about half the time you get into a cab they will ask for the fare up front so they can put enough gas into the car to get you to your destination, that's how close they cut it every single day. The wonderful thing is that they're truly happy, joyful people. They sing and sit around and laugh and are less stressed than any Americans I know. Its really amazing. I think we could learn a thing or two from them.

On the way back to Zambia I stopped in Amsterdam for a night. Its amazing what a different experience Amsterdam is when you're there for fun rather than a work trip. Awesome city. Since it is Springtime in Amsterdam naturally I went to the Keukenhof to see all the tulips. Absolutely stunning. I barely made it out of Amsterdam. My flight was one of the last ones out of Europe before the airspace was closed down due to the volcano. If my flight would have been 3 hours later I would have been stuck there for days. Not that Amsterdam is a horrible place to be stranded but I was excited to get home!


Our first night in Chico. Scotty's 21st birthday!
















Gus looking dapper in his tux.


















The girls at the Bradley's house before the wedding.








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I love this photo and the people in it :)



















I think this captures Amsterdam pretty well.














Tulips as far as you can see.


















Amongst the tulips at the Keukenhof

Sara Rose Children's Center

Status since my first mass email: $4000 dollars raised. Only $1000 to go!

I have been working quite a bit with the children of Sara Rose Children's Center. This is an orphanage just down the street from my school and it is incredibly overcrowded. There are 45 kids and 10 babies all living in a 3 bedroom house with 1 bathroom. It's hard to imagine that many people using one toilet and one bath but they somehow make it work. The kids sleep 3 or 4 or 5 to a bed and the "mothers" of the house don't have any room of their own where they can store their things or take a rest if needed.

Over the past year a South African organization and private donations from Spain have provided the funds to build a second, adjacent house for Sara Rose which will more than double their space. It has several bedrooms, 5 toilets, five showers, mother's area, and nursery. It is a blessing for the kids. The problem is that the funds have run out and they do not have any money to furnish the house. I have spearheaded a fundraising campaign to raise money for the children of Sara Rose so they can furnish and spread out into their new house!

My goal for this project is $5,000 which will purchase bunk-beds, cribs, mattresses, bedding, mosquito nets, rugs, paint, etc for the house. Any leftover money will go to the addition of a second bathroom to the existing house. If you would like to help out, the kids and I sincerely appreciate it. You can make a donation one of two ways:

1. Paypal - send money to jovergaag@gmail.com Click Here
   
2. Check - Send a check to my father who will deposit it into the Sara Rose bank account.
   

John Overgaag
PO Box 1105
Pinedale, WY 82941

Either way, please be sure to include a note with your email address and mailing address so I can send photos and keep you up to date on our progress. I am personally handling all of the money and purchases so you can be assured that every dime will be accounted for and spent wisely. Unfortunately I don't have any sort of a Non-profit tax ID, so unless you have a very clever accountant I can't help you with any tax deductions.

Please let me know if you have any questions, have trouble with paypal, etc.



































This is the boys room in the old house. 20+ boys sleep in this room.















The hallway into the new house.



















The common room in the new house.














A few of the toilet stalls














The front of the new house. And no, the outside of the house won't change. This is it :)














Side of the new house with clothes line and pot they use to cook the big nshima

Land, animals, and weather

Before I arrived the Archbishop told me that the land in Zambia looks a lot like Wyoming. I have no idea where he got that idea because it's totally different. Wyoming is all mountains and desert, Zambia is, at the moment, lush green rolling hills. It will remain this green until about May when the rains stop and the rivers dry up. Then everything will turn brown again until January. I'm glad that I arrived in the middle of the rainy season as this is the most beautiful time of year and most impressive to me.

As I've said in a post before there is a ton of wide open space. Unused "empty" space. Some of this is owned by the government but most of it is owned and controlled by the tribal chiefs. It is hard to grasp why there are so many hungry people when there is so much land available for farming. I'm slowly starting to understand the challenges of working the land and cultural nuances that keep people from starting farms and growing food. That's another story for another time...

With my work I have been able to see quite a bit of the Copperbelt and its wide variety of plants and animals. Driving down the road you will see everything from lodge pole pine, to banana trees, to elephant grass (this grass is very very tall, I've seen it 10-15 ft tall but apparently it gets much taller than that). Unless you are passing through a town all you can see is trees and brush in any direction as far as the eye can see. I haven't had a chance to explore outside the Copperbelt but apparently the northern province is really nice with an abundance of waterfalls and game reserves. Hopefully this April when the school is in the term break I will have a chance to go exploring.

Now, I haven't yet seen any big game yet but there are enough creatures around the school to keep me on my toes. On my first week in Zambia the gossip was all about a python that they caught down by the boys hostels. I'm thinking to myself, hmm, pythons are GIANT snakes aren't they? Turns out that yes, they are very large snakes. The one they caught was 3.5 meters long, 5 inches diameter and it was only just a baby. The only way they were able to catch it is that it had just swallowed a puppy, whole. Once a python has eaten something they are very slow moving because of the giant bulge so they usually seek cover and wait out the digestion process. This is when the men at the school were able to kill it, they had to shoot it in the head. Knives and blades don't work on the python because they have such thick muscles the blade will basically bounce off with very little damage to the snake. All this information in my first week was pretty overwhelming, welcome to Africa. A few weeks ago there was another python incident. One day after school I was coaching the swim team and one of the swimmers arrived late. I asked him why he was late and he said that he had seen a python IN the boy's hostel and he had to tell someone about it. OK, of all the excuses I had heard this is the only legitimate one. The following day there were all sorts of stories about how they had killed it in the drainage outside of the hostel. Again it had a big bulge in its stomach, probably from a chicken or cat. They were storing it in the biology lab to possibly dissect it but finally decided just to bury it. Never a dull moment.

With all of the snake incidents, the gossip down at the dingo is all about people's favorite snake stories. One story of interest was of Ms Chilando's good friend and neighbor. Apparently she woke up one morning and as she was getting dressed kicked one of the shoe boxes in the bottom of her closet. She heard a few thumps but didn't think anything of it. A couple days later she heard the same noises so decided to investigate. She opened the lid, saw a cobra in the shoebox and quickly put the lid back on to shield the spit. She called in the authorities and they removed the cobra. She was horrified to imagine how long the cobra had been living there without her knowing. Even worse, to think about what the cobra did and where it went at night while she was sleeping. Don't worry mom, no cobras in my closet. I don't have enough clothes to hide them :)

In order to avoid these creepy creatures I have been instructed exactly what to do and where not to go. For instance, just below the school is a big pond which was made from overflow from the nearby Kafue River. This pond is the breeding ground for the pythons as well as baby crocodiles. Apparently the workmen have seen many babies of both species. Needless to say I don't go anywhere near the ponds. Also, slithering creatures tend to like tall grass and brush. So the workmen at the school have to slash, literally slash with a long machete type blade, the grass of the school grounds regularly. This is a very slow and laborious process so by the time they finish slashing they have to start over at the other end of the school again. Kind of like painting the Golden Gate bridge. Other tips, when you are walking along the road always stay to the inside of the road to avoid the bushes at the side. They say that snakes can tell when someone is alone so if you have to enter long grass, don't do so alone. When I first moved into my flat the grass was quite tall, almost as tall as I am which struck fear into the hearts of all those that passed. Fortunately the school loaned me a workboy to come up and slash the grass. He said even he was afraid to cut the grass because it had gotten so out of control. It took him a whole week to slash a small yard but thankfully I can now go out to hang clothes on the line without taking all the neighbors with me.

Lucky all of the scary animals stay outside the house (for the most part), however I always find other "nonscary" creepy crawlies inside. There is always a lizard, giant spider, etc crawling around the walls. At night I used to hear this loud rattle sound which kind of scared me so I immediately asked the neighbor about it. Oh no dont' worry, she said, it's just a gecko. OK good. Who knew that geckos made a rattling noise?

Of course there are swarms of insects. Mosquitoes, flying ants, red ants, giant spiders. A year ago I would freak out when I saw a spider on the wall and kill it immediately. Now I don't even get up. I would never be able to kill them all so you just clean the cobwebs occasionally and learn to live in harmony. Dealing with the other insects is a bit more difficult. As soon as the sun goes down you have to close all the windows to keep both insects and small animals out. One of the windows in my bathroom doesn't close entirely so the window sill and bathtub are always sprinkled with gnats and mosquitoes. Of course mosquitoes are the most annoying of all the insects, not because of the bites but because of sleeping under a net. Let me tell you how much I dislike this. It's really hot, stuffy, smells of chemicals, clausterphobic. I really look forward to winter so I can sleep peacefully once again.

The weather is almost exactly what I expected. Hot and humid. It reminds me of summer in North Carolina but 10 times more miserable. Why more miserable? Because there are no air conditioned buildings. In North Carolina you survived by jumping from an air conditioned house, to an air conditioned car, to an air conditioned office, you get the picture. Here there is no AC so no way to escape the heat. I am always covered in sweat. My hair is a big frizzball. They must think that I'm a complete mess. I would buy some hair product to calm the 'do, but guess what, there is no hair product available for muzungu hair. HA Definitely stocking up next time I am home.

Right now it is the rainy season so it rains nearly every day. Other than the inconvenience of walking through mud, this is great because the rain cools the earth and makes things considerably more comfortable. Yes getting from point to point is wet and messy but at least I'm more comfortable. The best is when it starts to rain at about 5am on the weekends so it is cool enough that you can actually sleep in. Otherwise it's so hot by 7am that you might as well get up because you won't sleep anyway.

Now, the amount of rain that falls is astounding. The clouds accumulate a ton of water and if it decides to just drizzle it will drizzle for 12 hours. If it decides to dump, we can easily get several inches in just a few minutes. It is amazing, I've never seen so much water fall from the sky. I've tried to take a few videos of the dumping rain but the video doesn't do it justice. Luckily I've only been caught outside without cover for one of these storms. I wouldn't have been more wet had I jumped in the pool. On these "cold" rainy days I'm finally comfortable temperature wise and make it through the day without breaking a sweat in a T-Shirt. I find the Zambians on these same days with thermals and coats on. They wouldn't survive a Wyoming winter I'm afraid.

The storms also come with some amazing lightning and thunder. I don' know what it is about the land or the air, but there is much more lightning than I'm accustomed to. I have always loved sitting outside listening to thunder, especially in Wyoming where it rolls through the mountains. Here, its on a whole other level so when a storm starts I usually make a cup of tea and sit outside to watch the show. The neighbors think I'm nuts. One evening about 11pm, it was a Sunday, we had all just gone to bed and a thunderstorm started. It kept getting louder and louder and by midnight no one was asleep yet. At one point there was lightning so close that lit up the room even through the curtains. You could hear the electricity very clearly followed immediately by an incredibly loud thunder crack. Car alarms were going off everywhere and you could hear people moaning in the next room. I had so much adrenaline pumping that I couldn't sleep for a few hours. The next day we woke to find that the tree two houses down had been hit and was laying across the road. This was 6 weeks ago and the tree is still laying across the road if that gives you any idea of the priorities and laid back work ethic of the people. Never a dull moment.

Starting in about April it will start to cool down for winter. I'm told that it gets quite cold but I'm not sure what that means exactly. Will have to report back on that one. It will stay cool and dry through August then in September will start to get hot. October and November are extremely hot, 40C+ or 105F+ every day with no rains to cool. I may try to make an exit before then. Wyojeno loves an adventure but that might just be too much.