So I read Harry Potter, then I bought a dog, then I named him Tom Riddle.

The rest will be a series of different events forming no narrative what so ever. Also, all events take place for 1 oct- 1 jan. Sorry.

As to my cat gentle, my faith in her maternal instincts are slowly eroding. The possible shift to flat out fear for the lives of thunder and lightning is Gentles new favorite game, hide and seek. She actually does the hiding of the kittens quite well, thou they are not quite willing and the seeking part she is not quite interested in. So now on several occasions I will wakeup and one of the kittens will be missing, so gentle and I will sit eyes locked and I search her vacant alien baby face for the location of the kitten. More often then not she falls asleep, so I am left to find them unassisted.

I am a snake killer. I was walking with riddle in my backyard, when suddenly a snake, probably a black mamba lunges at us. Riddle pivots on his front left foot performing a 360 spin move while launching a victorious stiff arm into the snakes face. I dive to the side performing a round off while grabbing my pot off my dish rack. Riddle is occupying the snakes attention (as it spits venom at his face, it was probably a spitting cobra) while performing moves that make Reggie bush look like a toddler with his shoes tied together. While this display of physical prowess is on display, I (now on the roof) do a back flip off the ledge of the roof so I am a mere mm away from the reptiles face. My eyes, its eyes (its raining now by the way, a real storm thunder and lighting all that noise) streaks of light split open the curtain of the sky unveiling the stage where our 'Thunder dome' will be held. In a moment this primal scene plays itself, life, death, friendship, faith, fate, all in a moment. Riddle knowing his place forsakes life, honoring friendship he steps in-between our eyes to save me. Only thunders obliviously provides fates intervention hitting the sky, throwing the snake strike off of riddles 12week old body. Trust is all I had in my physical skills, follow instincts path. The cooking pot slammed down repeatedly on the snakes dry venomous head. Death for the snake, life for Riddle and I. We are snake killers not by choice but by the path we walk on snakes also traverse. You feel different after taking life, not sure if I lost apart of myself or gained something I never had before. Maybe both maybe not, maybe exchanging parts of myself at each new situation not unlike your old used car with 4 different color doors.

So most of you might know what I look like, namely I have a slender backside. This is relevant to the story, I am not just stating this fact just cause its funny. Imagine a commissioning a chair to be made, your thoughts being at least let my bottom fit. My expectations for a back, arm rests, or a gentle fit around my frame is secondary. Upon receiving my chair, well a wooden chair, well its slightly imposing. The sheer visual bulk that such a stationary object can project is intimidating. As for design and aseptic if an electric chair can be fashioned out of wood then this chair might fit the bill. Aside from the appearance, can I at least sit in it? No. I have not met a chair I could not fit into, even the little guys at preschools. Seriously I manage, but this chair locks me out. Either way.


As work goes a big problem for community schools is funding. A most of the time communities are on their own as far as raising money for just about every aspect of their school. Part of our job is to help them think of ways to generate income. SO that is when I remembered the word conglomerate. Anyways so I wasn’t actually allowed near the school of business at und so I had to look up the word. My friend matt and I had an idea. Honey. Why not beekeeping we ask each other? (Regardless of the apparent risks i.e. thousands of bee stings.) O.k. we have an idea the people are into. Not a lot of inputs, we need minimal start-up capital (matt did business stuff at school, he said all these words so I just wrote them down) ok we are good. The name of our little operation, are you ready for a little word subtraction (matt-tt)+(dan-d)+’s=Maan’s. So Maan’s honey is born. I know why not Man’s well each of us should have an equal share in the conglomerate so 2 letters 2 letters. Thou we have a name and a distributor ‘the squeeze’ (otherwise known as a bike rack).  Ah, but here’s the rub, I know what a bee is and what honey is but how do I get from here to there. Jan. 9 is the training so I got to figure this out. Wish me luck.

 

 

So I was finally able to watch Lost. I was able to do it in about a day and four hours. I was very tired by the end. I felt empty after watching the season, you commit to something like that and you feel hollow when its over with.

 

Riddle got sick, he ate a poisonous bug. He stopped eating for tfour days. We had a little chat, I told him that it was unacceptable. I started force feeding him, he did not appreciate it but he is better now.

 

 

I saved thanksgiving. I cooked everything. Well not everything, but everything worth eating I made.

 

I am in charge of organizing the marathon next year. So it will actually happen now.

 

I have seen james bond three times so far. I enjoy.

 

Ok, I hope everyone is well. Happy new year. Bye Dan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trip started off with a bang with getting sick and a sun burnt.  Sweet.  Since it took me about 45 hours to actually get there we didn't try and make it to Serenje the first day.  The next morning though, we head down to the bus station at about 7 and Dan started yelling at the guy cause he tried to charge us $5 more because the luggage compartment was just a little bigger.  Niiice.  That bus ride took about two and a half hours to get to Kapire (sp?)  Basically as soon as you step off the bus about twenty people are surrounding the door selling shit.  Personal Space?  Never heard of it.  From there we hitched a ride to Serenje in the back of a pickup.  Probably shouldn't have fallen asleep in the back of the pickup because for the next three days I basically couldn't walk because of my sunburnt.   For the next couple days we basically played trivial pursuit with the other guys at the house because I for some reason got so sick I couldn't eat for about 6 days.  On the fourth day we tried biking out to site because Dan had a meeting.  That didn't work out so well.  Still sick.  It was an interesting five and a half hour bike ride to say the least and we ended up back at the peace corps house in Serenje later that day. Haha wow. 

 

We decided two days later we should probably get some medicince for me so we took a minibus to Mkushi? which is basically a contest to see how many people you can fit inside of one shat minivan.  We stayed the night in a hotel there and watched a killer one hour set of Justin vs Christina music videos.  The next day we transported back to Lusaka.  I had a nice ride in the coach bus between the two toddlers.  I love kids...especially when they figit the entire time.  Since I was such a sicko we got to check into the nicest hotel in Lusaka on BJ's dime for the 30, 31, and the 1st.:)  About ten of Dan's friends were there between two rooms for the couple of days.  For new years we went to Jonnie's bar but first the taxi driver tried to take us to some jazz club in some back dirt alleyway next to a Judo Dogo.  Ever wonder if you could practice Judo in Zambia? Now you know. 

 

All in all Zambia was good.  I now understand why Dan yells at all the little children when they yell "how are you?" about a billion times.

 

 

 

Steph