Antelopeish
Impala
Sable
Puku
Kudu
Red Leche

Kitty

Lion

Leopard

Dog

Hyena

Jackel

Reptile

Crocodile
Monitor Lizard

Varmint

Stiped Mongoose
Monkey
Bush Kitty

Random

Hippo
Giraffe
Elephant
Cape Buffalo
Warthog

We saw birds, but I don’t really think they count so much. Eagles and hawks are cool, but not the little squirts. Not when you can see a lion or something big like that.

I would never say that Riddle is worthless, he just hasn’t contributed to our life plan ever. His responsibilities during the day consist of eating dinner at my house, then walking over to my Zambian family’s house and begging for food from them. I except that he burns a lot of calories from nervous energy. It is just remarkable to see what he will put away. Anyways he needed employment, so Riddle has taken a position as the head goat herder for the Chibuye family farm. His level of responsibility is the equivalent of a boy on a paper route, but he enjoys being mildly independent. His hours vary day to day but he is always on ‘call’. Notice he is not on ‘duty’ 24/7 only on ‘call’ 24/7. Baby steps, baby steps. In Riddle’s defense he does have one more job then my sister. His roles and responsibilities include running after the goats with my little brothers Nkondu, age 6, and Doug 7, trying to get them into the corral. He must do this in the morning and evening time. The total head count comes to about 15 goats that are under his direct supervision. I would never say that he abuses his power, but when he is bored he will antagonize the goats. He will run after them nipping at their butts, bouncing around in front of them, and generally just jacking around.  You could say that his payment has no monetary value but it is pride in your work that really gets you by isn’t it.  So in this sense he is a very rich dog.

I have a Mom in America, and I have a Bamayo in Zambia. Why do they choose to critique me? Why are the criticisms the same? I believe the issues that they take with me, are the individual quarks that make Dan, Dan. I don’t wash my dishes, my cloths look like they have been laying in the dirt, and my general approach towards life are some items that constantly come up. The list is long, I won’t elaborate further. It is just that I am sensitive to the tortures that they put me through. Constantly harassing self confidence, using my ego as ping pong ball for their own personal paddle game. One is difficult enough, but when they teamed up my malaria, which was in remission, flared up again due to the strain that they put me under. Fortunately some people understand, our differences make us who we are.  Riddle has fleas he is cool with that, my cloths are dirty I am cool with that. We both understand each others short comings and we except, we hang, we are cool with it. We don’t judge each other at face value, we look deeper than that. True beauty is on the inside, isn’t that what they say. Let me live my life, quit this overbearing attitude. That is my statement, this is all I can say.

1x3 Classroom Block Update
The Construction project is progressing nicely. We have finished collecting all the stones, building sand, and river sand that is necessary for the project. We have also cleared the area where we will be making bricks, and yes we are making 60,000 bricks. Yes, this will take a bit of time, but we project that once started we will be able to complete our task in one month. After we finish making the bricks the next step will be to lay the foundation of the building, so we are on our way.

Thank you to everyone who has helped so far. I am being kept up to date on our fund raising project, and I feel that we are making serious progress towards reaching our goal.

Girls Empowerment Camp
Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is coming up soon.  The dates of the camp our 27 August to 1 September.  As of now, we have all the facilitators. They are ex-SPW ( student partnership worldwide) volunteers. SPW volunteers are mainly students from Zambia, England, and the US ages 18-24. The Volunteers are stationed at Government schools for six months teaching HIV/AIDS related topics. For our camp we choose female Zambian ex-Volunteers, due to the material we would be presenting. We also choose these facilitators because they are role models for our campers as sucessful, empowered women in Zambia.  On 28 July we are having a one day training to review all the materials that we will be presenting at the camp. (On a side note the next day I will be traveling to Mozambique to lay on the beach, and play tag with whale sharks.)  We are also in the process of finding all the campers who will be attending the camp. The camp will host thirty girls who come from a rural village and are ages 13-18.  PCV’s in Central Province along with the teachers from their nearest Government school will be selecting two girls from the their village to attend the camp.  Once we have all the girls selected we will be pretty much on our way.

School Visits
During the months of May and June I am participating in school visits with the Zonal Co-ordinater Mr. Mambwe Goodwins. Mr. Mambwe is also the point person for Muchinda Zone for the 1x3 classroom block construction.  During this time we will visit a total of 10 schools, monitoring a grade one and grade two lesson. Afterwards we critique their lesson, giving them positive and negative feedback.

Twice a year we have what we call Provincial Meetings. Which is essentially a time where Lusaka PC office can relay information to us, we can talk about issues in our province, and deal with project related issues. After each meeting we also have a big meal, and have a little theme party. This year we decided on a Murder Mystery Theme. The general layout is as follows. Each person draws a slip of paper out of a hat the evening prior to the party. On this slip of paper is written the characteristics of your character and there back story and relation to other characters. For example you could be a football player, secretary, nun, yoga instructor. You had till the next day to arrange your costume and attitude for the party. On the night of the party you were given another slip of paper, you received this piece of paper from our guard Lawrence. Lawrence put a black X through one person’s name, he alone knew the identity of the killer. To win you had to tell Lawrence who the killer was. To die the killer double tapped you on the small of your back. Once you die you write your name on a piece of paper stuck to a wall in a back room. Active players can check this board to see who has died.  There was suppose to be a prize. Obviously I won the game. The killer was the yoga instructor, I was able to deduce that she was the killer long before she was able to strike. Through out the game I kept a high profile staying in public areas always watching my back. I choose not to reveal the killer’s identity because I didn’t want to ruin the game for everyone else. Plus, I wanted to catch her red handed when she attempted to murder me. Through constant vigilance I was able to deter my would-be attacker from a subtle strike. She was forced to chase me around the compound. I was obviously screaming to Lawrence that this one is the killer. All he did though was laugh, apparently he thought what we were doing wasn’t serious. Well it was, deadly serious. Due to his lax attitude towards the whole game, I was tackled by the cheating millionaire husband, the butler, and the cross dresser. Their was some jealousy involved in the attack. Subsequently, I was killed. I maintain that I won the game, and have slowly turned the minds of all other contestants. I still have not received my prize, and I am still waiting.

The rules as established by Zach Fonner-Peace Corps Volunteer Leader- Central Provence. Michael Wilborn- Health Volunteer- CopperBelt Provence.

Required Items: Bacon, Yams, and Cabbage.

Dishes to be served:

1.        Appetizer

2.        Main- meat dish

3.        Main- vegetarian

4.        Dessert

*In the event of a tie a walk/dance off will be employed to determine the victorious team.

Time allotment: 150 Minutes

Heating Elements: Two range tops, and 1 oven

Team: Eight people per team.

Constitution of Event: There will be no fighting, harassing, heckling, stealing, spying, sneaking, or sabotaging.

Though this does not cover everything, so after repeated Q’s from the contestants about all the specific ‘questionable’ covert activities their team could employ the judges finally threw down the blanket rule. The Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. We cheated anyway. I was just figuring Mkushi was going to cheat so, they are already doing unto me what I don’t want unto me, so what does it matter what I what unto me or they unto them. I just figured we should cheat anyway it’s the safest bet, no waiting to see what everyone else thinks should be unto you. Preemptive cheating, there is logic smeared all over all this.

Menu: Serenje

1.        Veg/Pork Egg rolls

2.        Bacon Spinach Quiche

3.        Eggplant Parmesan

4.        Sweet potato Pie

5.        Extra banana Crème Pie

So Serenje won, I’ll save you all the stress of having to wait to the end of the paragraph.  I guess we just cheated better. Plus the food was better.   I was assisting with the egg rolls and I played music and putzed around. The presentation of the food was a factor in the judge’s decision. Our layout of our food contained a certain amount of class that Mkushi’s  lacked. There was continuity to how we presented our dishes, you could tell that we had thought through our meal and had a plan to how we would like our dishes to be viewed. The other team well the word that popped into my head was hokey. I felt like I was at a baseball little League Park waiting for my crappy nachos and stale popcorn.

The prize dish was the Eggplant Parmesan. 

I had no part in cooking it. The team tried to have me fry the eggplant but I got distracted and walked away.

These are unfortunate events that happened to occur in succession in retaliation for the fortunate events that occurred in succession. Thou none of the unfortunate will satisfy the makings of a good or bad day(s) or month(s) standing on their own, yet by hanging out together they signify a remarkably bad stretch.  The aforementioned fortunate events will not be accounted in full. There just isn’t enough room.

This type of streak has happened before. Once while in college I almost died three times in one day. Once by car, once by almost falling off a roof, and once by getting yelled at by a girl. The only thing that saved me was my innate good luck that accompanied me that day.  On the reverse side, I once had a summer where I had a tree fall on me, also me falling out of a tree, a tire falling off my bike while I was on the bike, a trailer hitch being in my way while I was running, etc etc. You get the point. Below I have listed the events that happened this past April.  Please do not dismiss any of these things as trivial because while all this stuff was happening I was suppose to be on a beach. So fell incredibly bad for me.

1.        While leaving my village on 26^th May at 4am, I was delayed 4 hours due to bike malfunctions. The repercussions of this being that I threw my bike and helmet some ways into the bush. This in turn caused my bike helmet to crack in half, my handle bar to bend in half, and I had to cycle the last 10k with a flat tire.

2.        Upon arriving in Serenje all phones ( landlines and cell) were down so I was unable to contact people I needed to for work and vacation.

3.        Malaria

4.        Broke my glasses. They are now mended by duct tape.

5.        Broke my cell phone. The back is now held on by duct tape.

6.        While at hospital, it took four tries to get the IV in my arm. This caused me to pass out. The nurse, although nice, insisted on popping through my vein or whatever each time she stuck me.

7.        At the hospital I managed to talk the doctors into letting me leave the hospital and rent movies. Only because I am incredibly charming did they allow this.  Upon returning successful, I found out the dvd player in my room was malfunctioning.  So I was able to stare at a wall for two days instead.

8.        Peace Corps and the Hospital both needed their own blood samples. So this means whatever blood I had to give has doubled. Meaning the pint I had to give for the malaria test, actually turned into a two pint deduction from the blood supply that my body carries.

9.        Gentle my cat went wild, I haven’t seen her in along time. Thunder and Lighting are both dead.

10.     By the way no vacation, Medical for Malaria then we had Peace Corps mid-service Medical checkups. Back to Back that was supper fun. Two weeks of Medical.

11.     Once during the PC medical I was jabbed four different times in four different veins trying to get  one blood sample before we figured out the plunger thing was defective.

12.     Thought I lost my camera, I accused every PCV around me of being a thief. I was no pleasure to be around,  I tended to over react to certain things during my time in Lusaka. By the way it is not my fault. I did find my camera thou. It was in my bag, in this really secret spot.