While I had hoped to make a detailed post of my past couple weeks using my hand-written journal as a guide, I doubt I’ll have access to a computer and my journal simultaneously for some time to come. I’m also exceedingly bored so maybe I can use my surplus of time as a memory aid.

Peace Corps pre-event staging was in Philadelphia and I stay there from Sunday August 1st until early Tuesday. Phili was somewhat awful due to the weather. It was like being in Belize all of a sudden! Humidity like that is worse than anything I'm used to in LA, regardless of actual heat. But staging went by without incident, if only because I actually know how to hold my liquor and not make a fool of myself in public (at least when I make the attempt anyway). JFK Airport is possibly the only airport I am willing to say is as bad as LAX, both in general design and helpfulness of the people there. But enough about the US for now.

How does one start with a place like Zambia? Most of it is dusty and flat, with some provenances having hilly areas (but no true mountains in my opinion) to even it all out. There are the following provenances in Zambia: Northern, North-Western, Copper-Belt, Western, Southern, Central, Lusaka, and Luapula. Peace Corps does not operate in Western, and is only now operating in Southern and Copper-Belt. I will be living in North-Western when I get to my permanent site, where I will be speaking Lunda and living with the tribal people of the same name.

The Zambian people are some of the nicest, most genuine people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. They will go out of their way to help you and always have the time to answer your questions. Zam-Time, the "Island Time" of Zambia, means you always have the time to help others and relax (but means everyone is late for everything). Zambians are also very passive as a whole, which probably has not helped them when it comes to protecting themselves from neo-colonialism, and the influx of Chinese NGOs and Western missionary groups who continue to move Zambia away from its natural resources and traditional ways.

But I digress. Since landing in Lusaka, I have been doing Site Visits and training non-stop. My next Site Visit will be this next week, assuming the doctors follow their word and let me leave South Africa in time. Training consists of biking 10k to language and technical classes in the morning, with another 10k back to my village for some football (read: getting destroyed by the locals at football) and supper.

The family I am staying with is very nice. The father is Apeter Mukuma who is married to Abetty, with a son named Apaul and a daughter named Aliness. The "A" before the first name is a honorific, like "sir" or "madame" but without specific gender qualifiers. Only Apeter speaks Lunda and English, so right now I can only speak to him. We talk of the differences (and similarities) between Zambia and the US, as well as local customs and whatever stories we can awkwardly throw into the mix when we want to take a break from nervously staring and smiling at each other. They are just as nervous as I am when it comes to living with a complete stranger, but they go out of their way to make us (myself and the other PC trainee) at home.

I live in the proto-typical hut. It is circular (roughly 4 meters in diameter) with brick walls and a thatched roof. It is very comfortable but when you hit the roof tons and tons of dust hits you back, so that is annoying (but easy to fix with trash bags). The sun rises at about 6-7hrs and sets at about 18-19hrs, which makes telling time easy in the morning and the evening, but nearly pointless in the afternoon because the sun is almost always directly overhead during the day. Still, I am slowly working out how to tell the hour by sun-position alone. I am also working on finding a star-chart with the southern hemisphere's constellations, since it has been very hard to find things I recognize. The early setting of the sun also makes us all sleep early as hell in the village. We all sleep at 20hrs or so, which is insane considering that I slept at 23hrs at the earliest in the States. The night sky is incredible in the hour gap before the moon rises. You can see the milky way and all of its compatriots in the clearest manner; a far cry from the sky in LA.

Speaking of sleep. The sleep here is very interesting. Most of us take anti-malaria pills, called Mefelquin (spelled phonetically), that produces all sorts of fascinatating side-effects upon the mind. These include nightmares, night-terrors, hallucinations, vivid dreaming, depression, and other pleasantries. Thankfully I've only had vivid dreams and nothing worse, so sleeping for at least ten hours straight can be most enjoyable.

Lastly, I figure I should explain the injury I received in more detail for the sake of clarity. I was biking to school and hit a rock (presumably), which caused me to greet the ground with my face and helmet. This caused me to have a compound fracture in my zygomatic bones (the bones of the cheek), which were mostly minor but required some surgery to mend properly. A steel plate was put in my left cheek to hold it all together and it took less than 20 stitches to close it all up. I feel little pain and the only annoyance is that I have to eat soft foods, while being stuck in South Africa (with its amazing foods) of all places.

Until next time.

A Quick Update from SA

Figured I could squeeze in a fast update while resting up in Pretoria, South Africa. I've been in the hospital for the past four days and only managed to get out today. I will discuss pre-hospital adventures soon enough but for right now I'll stick to the past few days.

Basically I was on my bike and I headbutted a water buffalo right in the face, killing it instantly and giving me its powers. Okay so that didn't really happen but it would be pretty awesome if it did.

So I was on my bike going to language training and I believe I hit a rock or something in the road, and woke up a minute later on the side of the road with some other PCTs. Spent two days in Lusaka doing X-rays and minor doctor check-ups, until I took a plane to South Africa to get hospitalized for a compound zygomatic fracture. The hospital in Pretoria was just as good as any you'd find in the US and I had nothing but the best treatment there. Surgery went smoothly and I was released this morning to recover. Right now I'm still in Pretoria and will probably continue to stay there for a couple days.

That's all I can get in for now. Hope to update again soon.