As some of you know, I will be heading home in the near future. (No, I’m still not telling when.) For my own personal pleasure, I would like to go ahead and anticipate some of your questions and answer them. I think this is significantly easier than answering the same questions over and over.

Am I sad?

That’s a huge understatement. I am extremely sad. I am devastated. Not only did I have to say goodbye to Chipo but I had to say goodbye to many, many other friends on the farm. I’m leaving my neighborhood, the TB ward. I’m leaving a lifestyle that I grew to love. I’m leaving a totally different world than America. A world that, to be honest, I don’t think very many of you could relate to or understand very well.  I’m leaving people that I absolutely love. I’m leaving big brothers that I would trust my life with. I’m leaving women that don’t laugh at me when I try to carry grass on my head and wash my socks for me because they know I suck at it. I’m saying goodbye to 324 children (and fortunately their nasty parents).

Are you excited to be home?

Of course I’m excited to be home! The only American friend I’ve seen for the past year is Sarah and that was five months ago. I am so excited to see my family and Tiff*ny! I’m so excited to make all of them sit through a six-hour slide show complete with crappy videos. But, please, see above, it’s a bit bittersweet.

I am NOT excited that it will be cold. I lived in a perpetual summer for the last year. It was only cold for approximately two months. Let’s be honest, cold is really a relative term. It was probably never colder than 50°F EVER. I’ve gone swimming almost every day for the past week!

Would you do it again?

In a heartbeat. I can confidently tell you now; it was not the best worst year of my life. It was the best year of my life but not the worst. It was a crazy experience at times. Sometimes it was filled with a lot more drama than I wanted. At times, I was totally ready to quit and head home early. There were multiple times that I didn’t think I would make it through the school year. Then, there were times that I felt like I was living in heaven and I wanted to be able to soak in every moment. I wanted mental pictures of the children I worked with – their smiling faces when they felt accomplished over reading a new word or getting their multiplication table memorized. And, the kids I Iived with…playing hide and go seek with Ju-Ju who would not stop farting, having dance parties, playing cards with Chipo and staying up until 1:30AM talking about absolutely nothing. How could I not do it again if even for a few days, I got to live in heaven.

What now?

My mother threatened to get me job applications for Christmas. So…potential employers? Anybody? I have no idea what’s next. Please know that going to Zambia wasn’t about seeking out some big adventure and having something to tell grandkids about someday. It was about doing what God wanted me to do with my life and it was rewarding; it was more than worth it. So, I am asking the same question to God – what now? I plan on doing whatever God tells me to do with little fear or reservation in my heart because He is faithful. He provided for me the entire year and is still continuing to provide for me on going back to Zambia someday.

When are you going back?

I wish I knew for sure. And how long am I staying when I go back? I don’t know the answers to these questions but I’ll share when I know. I can confidently say that I will be a miserable person if I never get to step foot in Zambia again.

Am I different?

I feel rather nervous about trying to acclimate to American culture.  I anticipate that people will say, just give it time and you will be back to being an American. I’m not so sure that I want to go back to being the American I was before. I’m embarrassed about how I used to spend money and how wasteful I was. I’m not saying that I am going to save every penny I see on the ground and send it off to some random foreign aid organization. But, I don’t want to be a person who just spends money because I can or go shopping just because there is a sale. So, yes, in some ways, I think I am very different and I think I will go through a bit of a culture shock. I think it will take a while to rid myself of all my little Zambian tendencies. I’m not going to tell you what they are. If you around me long enough, you will find them for yourself.  (And no, my tendency is not to pee outside when a toilet is available.) In general, my life priorities will be a little different. I don’t want to be dramatic and say that Zambia and Zambians totally changed my life but I would be lying if I said anything else. I had an amazing year and I learned a lot about myself and what I want in life and equally what I don’t want in life.

What’s the first thing you are going to do in America?

Good question! (Glad I thought it up.) I am going to get a haircut! I can’t wait for an even haircut. After that, I am going to eat Chinese food. I have being craving Chinese food for weeks.  I would almost let a Zambian cut my hair again in exchange for some frog legs. Don’t you dare judge me. Finally, I could totally go for some chai tea from Panera. Lucky for me, there is a Chinese restaurant close to Panera in Parkersburg.

Another random thing is that I think it’s going to be a bit different to live with people that only speak English. I know that might seem like an odd thought but it’s incredibly easy to block out children when you have no idea what they are saying. Even Chipo, at times would miss her mother tongue and would refuse to speak to me in anything but Tonga. How can I talk about people in front of them if everyone speaks English? What a buzzkill.

My closing rant on this blog:

I used to think that I was “giving up” my life and my job to go to Zambia. I was “giving up” ideas of what my good American life should be like. In retrospect, I didn’t give up anything. I didn’t have to sacrifice a single thing. I was given a new life and a new job. I was given a good Zambian life. I didn’t love Zambia because it was easy and came with few responsibilities. It was just the opposite. I had to make hard decisions at times. What would Jesus do? isn’t always an easy  question to answer. It sucks to go to bed at night and wonder if you made the right decisions. You want to get the right answer to what would Jesus do when it is shaping a child’s future. The things that made me want to quit, the things that broke my heart and made me cry, you never read on the blog. I had no idea how to write those things. There is another life I had in Zambia that you don’t know about because it doesn’t fit neatly in a blog. You got the happy moments or just the general frustrating things but not the real things that can drive a person to gain a new life and really listen to God when He tells you to stay put.  It’s the things you don’t know that will make me answer yes when someone asks me if I’ve changed.

Those are the general questions that I could come up with but if you get a wild hair and want to ask me some questions, feel free to post them as comments.  I’ll do the best I can.

Before Chipo had to say goodbye to me, there was one last big event we got to do together. The farm threw me a going away surprise party. And, since Chipo was also leaving, she was able to join in on the fun too.

It was surprisingly fairly similar to the one that my friends threw me at my home church before I left.  However, the surprise party in Zambia was not so much of a surprise.  Zambians are not so good at lying on the spot.

The major hints to me were going to my neighbor’s house and seeing tied up chickens ready for slaughter. The other big give-away was going to Abson’s house and seeing a goat being slaughtered. I asked Abson why he was slaughtering a goat. He replied, “To feed you.” See what I mean about lying on the spot?

Regardless of the fact that the party wasn’t really a surprise, it was as equally as memorable as the one in America. It was incredibly touching to have people slaughter their animals because they love me. I really don’t say that to be funny, I’m serious. I recognize that as love that they would kill their animals on my behalf.

The party was a great time and it was so nice to know how much they love me. It was just another magical moment in Zambia.

It happened. Chipo had to leave and go back with her parents. Ugh.

Life with Royce for those few days was actually quite entertaining. She followed my no noise-making rules pretty well but I did find Royce both mornings on the catwalk at 6:00AM washing clothes. I really enjoyed seeing Chipo interact with her mom. I loved seeing her so happy.

I never thought that living with a 12 year-old would be in my agenda for my year in Zambia. And, when I did find out that Chipo would be living with me, I would have never guessed what a blessing it would have turned into.  I have a lot to thank Chipo for. She taught me how to cook Zambian style – nshima and soup. She taught me how to wash my clothes by hand, carry a bucket of water on my head, and even to say excuse me after I burp. I suppose my parents should personally thank her. I’m not sure what will happen in the future or when I will get to see Chipo again but I know I made a bond with her that will last.

I want to leave you with a few of her recent antics:

-          Chipo doing her very own version of Risky Business in her underwear.

-          While we were swimming, Chipo decided she wanted to sit on my shoulders. She was going to use my butt/back as her step ladder. Instead of stepping on my butt, she kneed me right in the butt. I started complaining because it hurt. She called me a baby.

-          She insists on calling popcorn, cornpoop. Whenever we eat popcorn, everyone gets their own bag. Chipo loves to throw the popcorn in her mouth so she routinely drops it on the floor. She will always pick it up, throw it in Innocent’s bag of cornpoop and shake it up so he can’t find the dirty piece.

(Written on December 4^th – the internet is totally buggard.)

I heard that some of you are big fans of Chipo. Me too! As I mentioned in this last blog, I spend most of my time at school but after school, it’s all Chipo. We pretty much do everything together except bathe. I only mention that because Zambian children do bathe together regularly.

Side story: When the 7^th graders were here, I was sitting on our balcony with Chipo talking. As we were talking, I noticed that these hands kept coming up out of the grass bath house that belongs to our neighbor. There were far more than two hands coming out of the bath house. We counted three different girls bathing and then there were two girls watching. I asked Chipo what the girls who were watching were doing. I thought maybe there was a purpose in them watching their naked friends bathe. I thought maybe they were the water fetchers or something. Nope. They were just there for the show. I thought that was pretty comical. I couldn’t imagine being 13 or 14 years old and watching my friends bathe. I asked Chipo why girls do that. Her quote: “I don’t know. I was just born and I found it here this way. It’s just what we do.” I always love her explanations of things.

Chipo’s mother, Royce, will be coming to stay with us for a few days starting on Monday (the 6^th) and then they will both leave to go to their new home in Jembo on Wednesday (the 8^th). I love Royce – she’s a funny lady, maybe where Chipo gets it from. She’s 40-something and a very tough Zambian lady – she can carry a 25 kg (55 pounds) bag of mealie meal on her head! I am really kind of nervous for her to be here for two days. It will be a new experience for sure. For one, I won’t say that I’ve converted Chipo to anything specific but I might have made her lazy in the eyes of a Zambian. On our days off, we will usually sleep until 7:30 – 8:00. We don’t sweep the entire house every day but we do mop at least once a week. Sometimes we get really crazy and do it twice but never more than that. Royce (some of these things I’m speculating but some I know as fact because of Chipo) will wake up at least by 5:00 every day. She will sweep outside the house, fetch water for her husband and herself to bathe, wash the dishes, prepare some breakfast, cook relish for lunch, and maybe even wash some clothes before she goes to class. By my early morning standards, I pretty much turned Chipo into a lazy slob. I’m sure that Chipo will have zero difficulties converting back to her old routine but I’m not really prepared for someone banging pots and pans in our kitchen at 5:30. I think I’ll need to have a serious chat with Royce that there is to be no noise-making in this house until at least 7:00. Even the owls obey this rule.

Since Chipo will be leaving soon, she wanted to have an overnight party to hang out with her friends before her mom gets here. Since I was confused and thought an overnight party really was the American equivalent of a sleepover, let me inform you, a Zambian overnight party involves no sleep. I really agreed to this shindig before I knew all the details – not one of my best parenting moves. Chipo invited five of her friends for the night and I borrowed Abson’s stereo and bought three loaves of bread. Don’t laugh. I know that pizza would be the staple food of an American sleepover but bread was the best I could do. I at least gussied it up with peanut butter and jelly.

The party was supposed to start at 19:00. By 20:00, there were 12 kids in the apartment! I know 12 kids don’t sound like a lot but I had planned for five and our apartment isn’t exactly accommodating for large parties. I was surprised and excited to see older kids here – the ages were seven year-olds to 17 year-olds. The little kids left about 22:00, they weren’t going to make it the whole night. The party involved watching movies, playing cards, lots of dancing, a few mock weddings, and a short swim in the dam at 5:00AM. Every time they put in a movie, I made sure to slip off to my bedroom for an hour of sleep. Unfortunately, Disney movies don’t have a deep story line that takes a few hours to develop. I really had a great time at the party. It was nice to see Chipo so happy and let her have time with her friends before she has to leave the farm.

It’s so hard to believe that on Wednesday, I have to say goodbye to a child that totally changed my experience in Zambia. I needed Chipo more than she ever needed someone to take care of her.  We developed an amazing relationship in those three months and I will never forget all the hilarious times I had with her. (There were tons that didn’t make the blog.) If that is a glimpse of what parenthood is like, then someone should warn you that it is dangerous business. I never thought I could love a child as I do Chipo and it will literally be heartbreaking to see her go.

You can just not make a remix to the song School’s Out for the Summer with the words School’s Out for the Rainy Season. You can try if you want but I promise you won’t make it very far.

We closed the school for break on Thursday. It definitely does not feel like I’ve been a headmistress for an entire year. Ladies, I hope you all get the opportunity to have a job title that has the word mistress in it. Every time we close the school for break, we have a closing ceremony. Here is the basic agenda:

Assembly with the National Anthem and the Lord’s Prayer
Opening Remarks by Carrie
Devotional by Carrie
Reading of the Results
Announcements by Carrie
Closing Prayer by Carrie

Do you see a trend? It doesn’t always pay to be the headmistress. The reading of the results is really the only entertaining part of this entire ceremony. We read every student’s name and their ranking in their class based on their end of year exams. From Grade 1 – Grade 6, 264 names get read. You would think that maybe they would just read the top few from each class and allow all the failures to be mysteries but they don’t. You never know what will happen when they read the names – some kids cry, some kids do back flips, a kid actually took off running today screaming about how he didn’t want to hear his result (after he was ranked 11th in a class of 40). I am not saying that I take pleasure in their pain but truly, you can not speculate about what will happen during the reading of the results. It’s like going to the West Virginia Interstate Fair – there is no way you could guess what you would see there. I know that I don’t talk a lot about the school in the blog, even though it is how I spend the majority of my time. But, I am very happy with how the school is progressing. Work is far from finished there but the school has made great progress in a year. Our passing rates in each grade have increased, most by at least 50%! Students are attending regularly. And, the school actually looks like a school. I’m really proud of the teachers and all they have accomplished this year. I love that the community lets them know about it too. Parents will routinely come up to teachers and thank them that their child can read and speak English. That’s a big deal to a parent who can’t even do that themselves.

I’ll leave you with the quote that I heard Monday-Friday without fail at the school from the first and second graders:

“…give us this day, our daily breast and forgive us….”

I’ve been really struggling with what to write in the blog this week. I know it seems odd but there just haven’t been too many blog-worthy events. I did go swimming in the dirty dam again and became the human slide for children under 5. Innocent killed a puff adder at his house. I wasn’t even involved in the killing process. I was just there to yell, “Kill it! It brought sin into the world!” Even Thanksgiving came and went with no excitement. It never feels like a holiday without family, friends, food, football, and fighting. I tried to provoke Chipo into fighting with me like my brother would to get that homey feel but she wouldn’t do it. We had chocolate pudding for breakfast (as in the chocolate puddin’ and biscuits) and macaroni and cheese for dinner. It was a great Zambian Thanksgiving.

Friday morning around 4:00AM, it started raining. Our rains had disappeared for awhile so it was so nice to hear a wonderfully loud thunderstorm outside. It rained and rained and rained until around 10:30. This meant no going to school for me. I played outside. I watched Gilmore Girls. I took a nap. It was a wonderful day.
I know I don’t discuss the night life of Senkobo a lot. Mostly because there is no night life aside from an occasional game of hide and go seek when there is no electricity. But, and this is a big but, Black Friday was an exciting night in our little village of the world. The ants came! The rains in the morning had made all the edible ants come out of the ground. It was like Alfred Hitchcock made a comedy. Here’s what happened:
Whenever it rains, the bug population in this house grows insanely large. I won’t give details because it would appall my mother how many bugs I live with. We (seven of us) were sitting in the kitchen/living/dining room floor playing UNO and killing every bug we saw. Out of nowhere comes this dragonfly-ant hybrid genetic mutant bug. Sarah flips out and tries capturing it. The others see the mutant bug, catch the same fever, and start shouting,”INSWA!” They open the door and instantly the apartment is filled with flying edible mutant bugs. It was like the Birds when the house fills with flesh-eating crows. It was a mad scramble then to collect buckets full of water to drown the ants. We got our buckets and headed to the closest light source to see a modern day plague. It was ridic! I couldn’t believe how many ants were flying around. We headed to Pastor George’s house because he has a low security light on his porch. As I was walking to the house, you could see the ants in swarms all flying to the light. You couldn’t even open up your eyes under the light because the ants were so thick. They would fly behind my glasses and inside my ears. The kids were ecstatic. They really acted like filet mignon was falling from the sky. For the next hour, we roamed around the farm under every light we could find and collected as many ants as we could. We easily collected 10 pounds of ants. Do you know how many ants it takes to make 10 pounds?

After we got back into the house, we had a nice midnight snack of fried ants and even a few live ants. Again, I struggled with putting a live insect in my mouth but I did it. I started laughing hysterically as I was eating my fried ants. I tried to explain to Chipo what my friends would say if they saw me greedily covering ants in salt and pepper and devouring them. What would they say if they saw the huge bucket of ants outside my door that we would eat over the next few days? They would get the big J – jealousy. I’m sure of it.

(A big thanks to Tiff*ny for the reminder of the word thirtween.)

I typically enjoy my life in Zambia; it has its ups and downs and definitely dramatic moments but always at the end of the day, I feel thankful to be here. Life recently has been especially amazing. I’m sure that is mostly compliments to my 13 year-old roommate and the crazy things she seems to do almost unintentionally.

Since nothing especially exciting has happened this week, I would like to dedicate this entire blog to Aurry Chipo Kabayame and her everyday antics. I hope you guys are growing to love Chipo and her stories as much as I do. If not, sorry about your luck, you should just skip the rest of this blog. And, if you really dislike them, you should say something or I’ll just keep talking about her.

The end of last week was the last thunderstorm we’ve had. I was at school at the time and had my laptop with me. Since we rode home in an open game viewer Land Rover, I was really nervous about getting my laptop home safely. I double bagged it in plastic grocery bags and hoped for the best. I wasn’t feeling too excited about the risk since it was hailing and pouring the rain down. (Did you know that it hails in Zambia? The kids were so excited to pick ice chunks up off the dirt and eat them. I suppose if 7-11 coke slushies fell from the sky, I would also get a straw and attempt to drink it but dirty, frozen balls of water don’t excite me.) Anyway, the computer made it back to the TB ward safe and sound. As I was working on my computer later that night, Chipo decided to have a conversation with me while holding water in her mouth like a chipmunk. As usual, she made herself laugh. She spit water all over my computer. I’m glad that I can save my computer from a hail storm but I can’t manage to keep it safe from a thirtween year old.

Sunday night was her birthday party. She was so excited for her party. One of her friends got her some nail polish for her birthday but it was pretty old polish and it didn’t really go on nice. I offered to let her have my nail polish. She came back in after five minutes with her nails looking like stucco walls. I realized then that it may have never been the nail polish but the little lady holding the brush. I offered to paint her fingernails for her. She went crazy too and had me paint both hands. (If Zambian women paint their nails, it is usually only one hand – the one they don’t eat nshima with.) Now, please, imagine with me, would you ever guess that I would be painting a 13 year-olds fingernails with bright pink nail polish? I suppose if anyone ever asks me, did living in Africa change you? I will have to answer yes. I am not so sure that you could have paid me to paint little girls fingernails a year ago. But, I did it for Chipo with abundant joy in my heart. After I finished, she hid herself away with a new confidence for painting her toenails.
Her birthday party started off kind of slow because Zesco was out. Chipo and all her girl friends then took it upon themselves to entertain us with a fashion show until Zesco could return. It was at least really entertaining for her friends. When Chipo walked out in some kind of crazy platform shoes, I noticed her toes for the first time. I kid you not; she had smeared nail polish from her toes to half way up her foot. I couldn’t control myself, I was dying laughing. She told me that she forgot to let her toes dry before she put on her shoes. It actually looked like she had just poured out the polish on her skin.

Zesco finally returned and we could get back to having an appropriate party. First, we opened the rest of her presents. Innocent signed his homemade card as Innocent Fitzwater. (It’s a running joke in the TB ward that I have four children and not one of them is white. Innocent started calling me mom after our trip to Victoria Falls and some people kept asking him if I was his mom. They wouldn’t leave him alone so he just told them yes. He also likes to tell me that he looks just like me.) The rest of the party was mostly dancing and then some cake and Mazoe (I would call that Zambia’s version of Sunny D.). I should mention that the majority of people at this party were under the age of 10. There was cake and vanilla pudding (icing) EVERYWHERE. It was worth it to see Chipo so happy on her birthday though. I was concerned that she might be kind of bummed because she would be missing her parents. She didn’t seem to notice that anything or anybody was missing.

On Monday, like a fool, I left out the nail polish in the bathroom. While I was at school, she practiced some more. I came home to find a Hanzel and Gretel trail of iridescent nail polish around the apartment. She claims to have no idea how random spots of bright pink nail polish got on the salt shaker. A modern day mystery. I blame all of this on her weekly dose of The Bold and the Beautiful. Nothing good can come from watching that show.

And, as always, the direct quotes from Chipo herself:
At her birthday party, for the first time ever, Chipo accidently called me mom. She was really embarrassed when she did it. She then decided that she wanted to give me a nickname. First, she decided my nickname had to be aunty. I protested because that makes it sound like Chipo is an orphan. Based on how often her mom calls me, I know she is far from an orphan. As we were headed to bed that night, I said, “goodnight mwana (child),” to Chipo. She replied with, “goodnight mupati.” And there you have it, my new nickname – big one.

A few of her favorite songs to sing:
All That She Wants by Ace of Base
How Straight Thou Art, her very own version of How Great Thou Art
Bust the Windows Out Chicago, another remix from Bust Your Windows (out cha car)

Me: Chipo, do you love me?
Chipo: I’ll tell you later.

(The reason I found this so funny is because Chipo is not an American child. She is Zambian through and through. She bows when she hands me something. She will get on her knees if she serves our older neighbors any food when they are at our home. She would wait an hour on me to serve her meat before she ever picked it for herself. She wouldn’t ever dream of going outside the house without a skirt or dress on that doesn’t go below her knees. The day she did wear jeans, she wore a chitange over top until she was off the farm. I literally laughed out loud when she said this because her answer was 100% American.)

(Innocent, Sam, Chipo, and Queerie)

I realize that most of you don’t have Facebook so I am going to post public links to some of the more recent pictures I put on Facebook.  Sorry if the links don’t work, wordpress wasn’t being very cooperative. If they don’t work, just copy and paste. If you don’t have Facebook AND don’t know how to copy and paste, shame on you. It’s 2010.

In the Cold November Rain:    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2542145&id=12303815&l=711ee7a0f4

October Hades:     http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2540334&id=12303815&l=0aad6e3f4a

September School Days:    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2525096&id=12303815&l=91ede27f6c

Spring in August:    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2473414&id=12303815&l=34acc9dd46

Burns like Wildfire:    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2473196&id=12303815&l=92da40ba4b

Winter in June:    http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2454082&id=12303815&l=609dc69f4f

I know it seems weird that I am actually writing a blog a few days early instead of a few days late but so many good things have already happened this week, I didn’t want to overload you at the end of the week.

This past weekend, one of my projects was to paint the new shower wall. Remember Anna destroyed my bathroom? I really assumed this was going to be a 12-15 hour endeavor and then we could go back to using our shower like normal. All I had to do was paint a piece of particle board. I had only purchased 1 liter of paint but I figured as long as I could paint the parts that could possibly get wet in the shower, I would be fine. The first problem was that the paint I purchased was actually water with white food coloring in it. I am not convinced that was paint at all. It was literally like trying to paint with water. And yes, I stirred it. The second problem was that I totally underestimated the sponge-like nature of particle board. My water paint disappeared into the depths of the particle board like I hadn’t even touched it.  After two coats of white colored water, I sent Chipo for another bucket of paint. There just happened to be another bucket of paint in the guest house. Lucky us. When Chipo returned with the bucket, I opened it to find paint that had grown skin. It took me a few jabs to even get the stir stick (that would be a branch off a tree) through the plastic skin.  Awesome. My choices are white water or paint that has skin. I had to opt for the skin paint because I was making zero progress with white water.  Five coats of paint and two days later, we could use our shower again.

Before I tell you the next story, I need to teach you a Tonga word – bbunkwayi (boon-kwhy – ee – that’s the best phonetic spelling I can offer you). Bbunkwayi is a word that comes from the sound a dog makes when you beat him, at least a Zambian dog.  To call someone a bbunkwayi would be like saying you are as poor as a dog – you have absolutely nothing in life or that nothing good ever comes out of you, you’re worthless.  If you have a little more than a dog, you can be upgraded to a kwayi.

Sunday night brought us a wonderful thunderstorm complete with heavy rains.  Since neither Chipo nor I had showered for over a day, I thought it would be a great idea to take a shower outside. Part of our catwalk/balcony (I have no idea what to call the landing outside our apartment) isn’t covered with iron sheets so the water runs right off onto the balcony.  I was sweaty from painting the shower, I needed to wash my hair because school was the next day and Chipo also needed a good scrubbing. We packed up our soap, washcloths, and headed outside in the rain for our bbunkwayi shower. I was washing the paint off my legs and Chipo had her face covered in soap when God caught off the water supply during the middle of our shower.  Chipo stumbled around like a blind lady until I helped her with the washcloth. It was a good time but I think I will save bbunkwayi showers as a last resort.

Tuesday was also quite the enjoyable day. Monday night brought more heavy rains in the night and some light showers in the morning. I decided to wait until the afternoon to go up to school because I knew there would be very little students show up for the morning session. It was a great time to hang out with Chipo since I feel like I hardly spend time with her during the week anymore since she is not attending school.  Chipo and I decided to bond over washing our clothes together. I told Chipo I wanted to wash clothes and I think that was as good to her as watching a movie. Apparently I’m fairly entertaining when I pretend to be Zambian. I had Chipo give me yet another lesson on washing. She didn’t like how I washed and I am incapable of washing how they wash. We had a competition. We each had to wash one my dirty white socks. Win or lose, Chipo had to wash one of my socks to participate so I immediately felt like a winner. I scrubbed and scrubbed. I always play to win. The outcome looked like a commercial for bleach. You know how they always hold up two articles of clothing where one looks blinding white and the other not so much? My sock was the not so much one. Chipo obviously cheated and used bleach while I wasn’t looking.

The afternoon brought even more excitement. I did two things that I didn’t think I would ever do. One, I ate ants.  The rain that morning that had brought the edible flying ants to the school. All of the kids know that Misheck loves the ants so they brought him all they could collect. I told him of my jealousy and desire to try one. I got my wish. I was delivered fried ants sprinkled with salt. Once they were in front of me, I was pretty hesitant. First, they don’t really look like normal ants. Not that normal ants look edible. They are rather large for an ant with a normal looking head. The thorax looks like a bright yellow sac. I’m sure you can imagine a slight hesitation to stick an ant with what appears to be an infected butt into your mouth.  After eating one, I really couldn’t get enough of them. I couldn’t stop eating them. They were delicious. I was pretty bummed I didn’t have my camera to take a picture of that delicacy. Hopefully the ants will make their way to the farm soon enough so I can have them for dinner.

The second accomplishment of the afternoon was walking completely through a pair of Teva sandals. I can stick my finger clear through the heel of the sandal. I will be bringing those home as a trophy. I have never owned a pair of flip-flops long enough to ever walk through them.

The night time brought us a ridiculous amount of flying ants (not the edible kind, the annoying biting kind) and some kind of crazy millipede that likes to sting you. Zesco went out when we were in the middle of cooking lesson by Winefredah on how to make fritas (fried dough). We had at least finished cooking dinner.  We decided to go to Winefredah’s house, cook on the open fire, and eat our dinner. It was nearly impossible to keep the ants of our dinner and out of the fritas. After we were finished cooking and battling all the ants for our food, Winefredah wanted to roast a cob of maize in the fire. Chipo in her very dramatic fashion starts exclaiming, “Oh my God in heaven!” She apparently had missed eating maize off the cob. We had been eating sweet corn recently but I guess nothing is better to her than roasted field corn.

Onto Chipo’s corner:

She has been extra funny for these few days but I’m not so sure these stories will be funny if you weren’t there but I’ll give it a try anyway.

Chipo wanted to play tic-tac-toe with me. She doesn’t like to use Xs and Os because they are too boring. She prefers to write her entire name in the box or make up some intricate symbol that takes 4 minutes to draw. I don’t kill her dream. She interrupted our intense game to ask me if I had a favorite finger because she definitely had a favorite finger. Her favorite finger was her ring finger on her left hand. She told me it was the most beautiful of all her fingers.  I asked her if it was her favorite because she wanted to get married. Maybe.  Our next game of tic-tac-toe, Chipo used I do to mark her boxes. I asked her if she used I do because we just talked about marriage. She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “No, I do believe in fairies. Peter Pan?”  What was I thinking?

 

Chipo was complaining when she was washing her clothes about how the armpits of her shirts didn’t smell very nice. I asked her if she had ever worn deodorant. I had heard them talk about deodorant in the 7^th grade class and how it was a luxury item in the world of hygiene. You wore it if you could afford it. Chipo said she had never worn deodorant and she didn’t remember ever learning about it.  I told her that I would introduce her.  I got out an extra deodorant from the vacuum sealed package from my dad. I explained rather thoroughly when you should put on deodorant, where you put it, etc.  Later that night when I came back from school, she says to me, “Do you put the deodorant on your skin or on your shirt?” On your skin Chipo, definitely not on your shirt and definitely not on your lips (you’re welcome Tiff*ny). She then very enthusiastically smells her armpit, and says, “I want to introduce my whole family.”

The next blog should be up on Monday or Tuesday. Chipo’s 13^th birthday is on Monday and her party is on Sunday.  I’m sure something blog-able will happen there. Have a great rest of the week!

I am having a rare, quiet moment this Sunday. I am going to try to take advantage so I can actually get the weekend blog up. Innocent and Chipo headed to Chiyumbeyumbe (good luck with that) for a funeral. Do they know who died? No. Do I know who died? No. Why did they go? I have no idea but again, I am just going to take advantage of the quiet time. What I did get left with was my four year old neighbor Elijah who is now sound asleep in the extra bunk bed in our living room/kitchen/dance studio. (If you have FB, he would be the one who was dancing in his underwear.)

Rainy season has arrived. It is a bit early for all the rain we have been having but I’m not going to complain.  I never knew that I could miss rain but I also don’t ever remember going five months of my life without seeing rain. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday gave us some afternoon thunderstorms. I love thunderstorms and Zambia can produce some great ones. I was not disappointed at all. The rain brings it with what seems like a crazy amount of bugs though. My apartment has been inundated with all kinds of insects. There has been a plague of some crazy flying ant inside the apartment this week. There is also some kind of rhino looking insect that loves to get under your clothes and bite you. Chipo took it upon herself to make sure every bug was really dead. She beat one giant bug about seven times with the flyswatter. I told her she could stop, that I was sure it was dead. She informed me it wasn’t dead, she wasn’t going to kill it, but she just wanted to punish it. Sure Chipo. I have been told by multiple people (including my South African friend Patrick) that there is a specific type of ant that people love to eat. Sam is anxiously awaiting their arrival so he can indulge. I suppose when they arrive, I will also be trying them. My stomach already hates me, why stop now.

This week at school didn’t bring too much excitement. Cheebo had to take a week off to retest a subject for her Grade 12 certificate.  That meant I got to substitute teach her 6^th grade class. I enjoyed most parts of it. I didn’t kill them. I did make one cry, but really, I don’t think my week would have been complete if I didn’t make at least one kid cry. I don’t set out with the intentions of ever making a kid cry; it has just really become an inevitable thing. I would like to permanently change my name to Carrie The Dreamkiller Fitzwater. Catchy, eh?

The big news for me this week was that I watched a lady give birth in the clinic. I don’t really know what to share about that experience. It was the lady’s second baby and the baby only weighed 5 pounds so the process went quick. Someone asked me if it was incredible; I’m not really sure if that is the word I would use to describe it. Could I use the word stoving? You know how you can stove your finger when you play basketball?  I think watching that temporarily stoved my entire brain. I think I might be one and done with watching children be born.

Now, I would like to take a moment to share something that I am quite proud that I accomplished. I can read Tonga!  I started learning about a month ago but I never really stuck with it. Chipo has been trying to push me to learn. I am far from perfect but I can read paragraphs and Chipo can translate what I read back to me in English. I will check that off as good enough. You will not kill my dreams by saying, “Carrie, you’ve been there a year. It’s about time.” It’s a really hard language to read. Let me give you a taste:  Sena ulakonzya kubala Chitonga?  (Can you read Chitonga?) All the vowel sounds and some of the consonant sounds are completely different from English. Anyway, I’m done boasting. Ndaleka.

On Friday night, Chipo made a comment to me about wearing glasses all the time. She didn’t understand that I wore glasses to help me see; she thought it was just for fashion. On Saturday night, I had in contacts and my eyes were really dry. I thought I would teach Chipo, Sam, and Innocent about contacts since I wanted to take them out. I took one of them out and Chipo just about fainted. I had assumed that they knew what contacts were but had just never seen one. I was wrong. Chipo really thought a piece of my eye had fallen out. She was not at all interested in seeing me take them out or put them in. She was amazed that they helped me see. It was another moment that I realized how far removed from America I am. I would have never guessed at how in awe they were over that little piece of plastic in my eye.

I have had a great weekend with Chipo. We have stayed up until 1:30AM every night this weekend watching movies and talking. Last night, Innocent and Sam came over and stayed until midnight. If we had more people, I would have said it was like a church youth group lock-in. We played spoons, ate junk food, and I introduced them to mattress diving. To the Crossroads folk, I would just like to say, I am officially retired from ever mattress diving again. Unfortunately, I have become too old to do that; it definitely left me in pain last night. It’s the end of an era.

This week for Chipo’s portion of the blog, I would like to talk about just a few things that Chipo is capable of that I can’t even begin to do:

• She can carry a 20 gallon bucket of water on her head.
• She can open a glass bottle of Coke with her teeth.
• She can do one armed pull-ups.
• She can wash all of her clothes by hand ever week.
• She can understand/speak four different languages.

I hope you had a great week. I sure did. I am sure if Elijah was awake, he would also tell you that he had a great week.