23 December 2007: Charge, Sam!

Last night i found myself chatting with the beautiful Zambian lady that works at the reception desk at Jollyboy's. She was drinking a Mosi at the bar after her shift. I was drinking a Castle and trying to impress her with the three or four words that I know in Bemba.
Bemba is similar to the Kaonde that I have been learning in the Northwest province, so I have a few Bemba words in my "idiom" pocket that I can take out and throw at people who I feel would appreciate it. I felt that the beautiful Zambian lady that works at the reception desk at Jollyboy's would appreciate it. I think that she was impressed, but it could have been the Castle more than my local language skills.
She was smiling and I was looking into her deep brown eyes and explaining what I am doing to save babies in Zambia when Felix laid a hand on my shoulder and said that the ping pong table was open. My love a of ping pong and my love of beautiful Zambian ladies conflicted for a moment.
Ping pong won. I don't know what that says about me.

They call it ping pong, but really the ball makes more of a pick pock sound as it is batted back and forth.
Pick... pock,pick... pock,pick... pock, pick...
That sound could be heard for hours last night in the Jollyboy's bar area. While Sam sat in the lounge area reading about how a man named Robert Langdon fashionably exposes the seedy underbelly of the papacy, Felix and I played ping pong nearly to exhaustion. I was covered in sweat. I know that ping pong doesn't seem like a sweating sport. But I am the guy who sweats playing cribbage, so ping pong really gets me worked up.
In Felix I have found the perfect ping pong partner. He is about on the same notch as me on the skill scale- not obliterating me or having to be taught- and he seems to find as much joy as I do in simply volleying the ball back and forth.
Like I said, we played for hours. We were playing pretty well, too. A group of people playing pool nearby even commented on our ping pong prowess. They were a combined group of Australians and Americans. The Americans were trying their best to impress the Australian girls with their stories of heroism in Africa.
Felix and I scoffed.
Scoff... pick... pock, pick... pock, pick...
We scoffed heartily until they said that we are good at ping pong. Then we took a brief break from scoffing in order to bathe in the warm glow of recognition.
I was bringing my A game until the beautiful Zambian lady left the bar and walked by on her way out.
Pick... pock, pick... click, click, click... sigh...

Sam is an incredible person. We decided a couple of months ago that each one of us would be in charge of a certain aspect of the vacation. Sam is in charge of logistics, Felix will drive the car that we are going to rent in Namibia and I was supposed to design the official trip T-shirt. Felix hasn't had to drive anything yet and I failed miserably at delivering any sort of shirt, but Sam had done a wonderful job at logistics. She has made the reservations in Windhoek and Swakopmund and she has bought the tickets that are taking us to Windhoek from Livingstone as we speak. (I will owe her my first born by the end of this trip). These are wonderful things because, if left to our own devices, Felix and I probably wouldn't have even gotten started on this vacation. If we had, we would surely be cold and hungry right now.

So the bus left at 1200 hrs today. This is also a wonderful thing, as the room that we slept in last night had an odd way of making all time outside of the room inconsequential. So we got up at around 830 hrs today. I had a nasty ping pong hangover and limped to the bathroom where I washed and brushed my teeth. Sam and Felix weren't up yet so went to the shop in Jollyboy's and used the computer for a while. After I finished, I decided that I needed to go remind them that time was still moving ahead full steam here on the outside.

Once we were all roused we had breakfast at the bar and started out with our bags toward the bus station.

Felix and I sat at the bus station while Sam went to get snacks for the road at Shoprite. As we sat, the first of the men selling copper bracelets came to see if we would like to buy some authentic Zambian souvenirs. Felix declined, but I wasn't so quick to dismiss the gentleman. "They will be wonderful souvenirs to bring home," I said to myself. "They will be light and the people will love them and praise me for my thoughtfulness." I bought two of the gentleman's copper bracelets for a very reasonable price. Then a second man selling copper bracelets came along and said that he would sell them for any even better price than the first man. I quickly counted on my fingers. "There are many at home who will want these bracelets." I bought four more. That's when the first man came back.

So when the bus pulled into the station for us to board, I had fourteen copper bracelets secured in my back pack. I also had the words of Sam and Felix that I wouldn't be allowed any where near another man selling copper bracelets.

The bus that we are on is a double-decker. The tickets that we have for this bus are business class (or the bus equivalent) and we are sitting in the top part of the bus. We had discussed where we should sit while we were waiting for the bus to arrive and decided (because of what other volunteers had told us about the view) that we would sit in the very front. So we had prepared ourselves so that we would be good and ready when the bus came and we would get the front seats. Obviously all three of us would be unable- as a group- to rush the bus in order to secure the seats. We needed a better plan.

"Charge, Sam!"

There was very little need for our plan. The bus is nearly empty. We all have our own row of seats and we decided that we didn't really need to sit in the front at all because the sun would probably be terrible up there while travelling west.

We stopped at the Zambian side of the border to show our passports. Sam, Felix and I were proud of our level of cultural integration as displayed by our complete refusal to stand in line. We passed the cue and went straight to the counter, where our passports were promptly stamped and we were among the first back on the bus.

The road improved immediately when we crossed the border into Namibia. You can see people improving the road from the Zambian side of the border.

Right now we are travelling on the thin stick of land called Kaprivi that reaches over from the northeast corner of Namibia to touch Zambia at the Zambezi river. The sun is getting closer and closer to the flat and increasingly more arid land that is rolling past the bus. Sam is sleeping with her headphones on and Felix and I are having a discussion about development. I will take a Benadryl at some point so that I can fall asleep on this bus (I have trouble sleeping on buses). But I think I will wait a while. We just past a large white, triangular sign that featured an exclamation point in the center above the word ELEPHANTS.

While I wait for the Elephants, I am feeling very contented. I am happy to be on vacation, and even happier to be here with my friends. When I look outside at the things that can be seen from this bus window, everything is so bright and beautiful that I wonder how I could ever have doubts. I am a very lucky person.

22 December 2007: Zen and the Art of Pay Toilets

Last night I slept at a fellow volunteer’s house in Lusaka. I arrived late because of a trip to the police post on Kabulonga road to report the money that I was missing. I had met my friend Samantha at our volunteer headquarters just down the street from the police post and she walked with me to file the report. She’s had money stolen since coming to Zambia and we talked about what I had to do in order to make it right again- or as right as it is going to be.
We filed the report with an officer named Steve who was just cinching his belt as we walked in. I wondered why his belt had been un-cinched in the first place, but I didn’t ask. Some things you just don’t want to know. He wrote the details of my experience down in a book that was lying open on the desk. I said that a staff member from our office would be along to pick it up in a day or two and then left without a great deal of confidence that the wheels of Zambian justice would turn very quickly to solve my case.
Samantha said that she will be able to lend me money- she’s one of my travel companions on this holiday- and we started back to the office. I set my mind to holiday mode. I’m determined to make this a good vacation hell or high water. I need the vacation. Things have been stressful at site. I found out a couple of weeks ago that my cat was killed. I guess she was killing chickens at a neighbor’s house and he “offed” her (trust me, you don’t want the details) and the two kittens she had with her. I never was a cat person in the states. I can’t say that my cat in Zambia completely changed that- she was left at my house by a previous volunteer- but it was nice to have the company. She was a friend. A friend that made me sneeze, ate big ragged chunks out of any bread product left unguarded for more than five minutes, and was almost constantly pregnant, but a friend none the less.
That’s all I have to say about that.
This is going to be a good holiday simply because it is a holiday.
When we got back to the office from the police station, we met the third of our party. His name is Felix and he was in the volunteer lounge working on the computer. I opened the door and embraced him in a half-hug, half-tackle. He said something about how we were off to a great start. I laughed- I think it was mostly from sleep deprivation- and then flopped down on a couch in the lounge. We joked and caught up while Felix finished the document that he was typing: a recommendation letter for another volunteer. There was some question about Felix’s qualifications concerning the writing of recommendation letters. But we were agreed that the volunteer for whom he was writing the letter has the qualities of a leader, excellent local language skills and impeccably well-kept facial hair. I think those were the details.
After Felix had finished (or gotten darn close) the three of us walked down the street to a petrol station/convenience store/pizza joint where we could order chicken. Figure that one out. The western love of one-stop shopping has made it even to Sub Saharan Africa.
We ate greasy chicken at a small table and I tried to figure out if the feeling I had at that point was contentedness or simply exhaustion. I think it was a pleasant middle-ground. I was happy to be where I was. I was on vacation- and even a convenience store is fascinating after several months of reading books by candle light and eating boiled leaves and corn mush.
From the petrol station/convenience store/pizza joint, we wanted to take a taxi. Upon setting foot in the parking lot of the petrol station we were rushed by somewhere in the neighborhood of ten taxi cab drivers. They all quoted the same price, so we took the one with the nicest hat. We got into his little white car and guided him to the house where we would be sleeping. We used directions from a text message that Sam had managed to save. I had deleted the same text because my inbox was full and because I’m an idiot. Texts are only so descriptive and we got close enough to not be totally lost, but far enough away to disturb our friends neighbors- who directed us to the right place.
We chatted a while with our friend and I took a cold shower (there is almost constantly something wrong with the plumbing in Zambia) in order to wash away the funk of the road. Cold or not, it felt good. That night Felix slept on his foam camping pad on top of an empty bed frame. Sam slept- like an arctic explorer- in a huge sleeping bag on the floor in a corner. I had brought an air mattress that my parents had left when they came to visit and I inflated it with no small amount of pride. I set my alarm clock and we fell asleep after a small conversation about something that escapes me right now.
We woke early this morning and took the same cab (we had told him to come back when he left us last night) to the outskirts of town where we could flag a ride south to Livingstone. The cab driver had no hat on in the morning. I tried to hide my disappointment. While we drove, Sam complained that my air mattress had made a lot of noise on the tile floor- I roll around in my sleep- and that I had kept her up. I was far too refreshed to pay any attention to her complaints.
The hatless driver dropped us off on the side of the road in a place where he said we would easily be able to secure a lift. It seemed to be a good place to hitch, but a poor place to get breakfast.
My kingdom for a meat pie.
After forty-five minutes or so of waving at traffic, we were picked up by a man (in an even nicer hat than the cab driver’s) with a Land Cruiser. We sat in the bed of the truck with the man's kids, a bicycle, and a pile of unidentified- but soft for the most part- objects. We listened to The Black Eyed Peas on my mp3 player with Sam’s speakers as the rolling southern province landscape spread out behind us.
What am I going to do with all that junk inside my trunk?
We stopped in Mazabuka at a Shoprite and ate chicken and chips in the parking lot. It was at this point that Felix and I decided that we had to use the bathroom. The rest of the party had already gone at a guest house down the street. After eliciting promises that we would not be left behind, we walked down the street to the guest house.
The lady said that the bathroom was for guests only and that we would have to pay 5,000 kwacha if we wanted to use it. That’s a lot for a piss. I was upset, but Felix took it in stride. He has a way of doing that. At our first in-service training we had been presented with a session on coping with life in the village. When asked how he copes, Felix is rather known for saying- in his rumbling, Barry White-like voice- that he “just figures out what’s wrong and fixes it.”

I smoke.
While I was fuming (not smoking), Felix talked to one of the maintenance guys behind the hotel and we were allowed to piss in a field in back for free.
The driver of the Land Cruiser took us as far as Choma. He dropped us off in the center of town. We walked to the outskirts- Sam is morally opposed to paying for transport- and sat eating gigantic mangoes on the side of the road.
After an hour or so of debate over our position, we looked at the black rain clouds looming over the north of the city and decided to take a cab to a new spot. But as we were about to get in a cab, a white man in a rather nice truck stopped and said he could drive us to Livingstone. He was going there to meet his family that was coming up from Pretoria for the Christmas holiday. He is doing some sort of independent contracting having to do with mining in Zambia and he hasn’t seen his family for months. The three of us sympathized.
We were dropped off in the court yard of Jollyboy’s backpackers in Livingstone where we removed our bags from the bed of the rather nice truck and thanked our South African driver profusely. We made it from Lusaka to Livingstone without paying a kwacha.
We checked into a dorm room and then went to the bar so that we could get beer and sandwiches. That’s when I noticed that Jollyboy’s has a ping pong table.
Things are looking up.