Took These pictures over easter. They are essentially just updates to where I am now. The last few days have been amazing weather, the low 70s and just perfect for getting outside. By going outside I got to meet a lot of the local kids and shoot around on the horrid rim basketball hoop that is as bad as it always is and never fails to make me get angry about how much I miss on it. It’s the kind of basketball hoop that you just either have to do a hard bank or swish it. Anything touching the rim is just a waste of your time.

The other nice hazard to get used to is that if you miss and it goes off to the left within fifteen feet and down hill is gross swamp like water that smells like some kind of experiment with eggs and sulfur gone wrong. The next few minutes are just getting to the water without falling in yourself and then getting that smelly water off the ball in any way you can.  Not to mention I caught one of the local kids pissing in the very same water.  Stupid Stupid Stupid.
The last weeks of school are coming up and the amount of work to be done isn’t huge but regardless it is going to be a rough last few weeks. I have to push my way through it though, I want to be done. I am so tired of the academic grind.

Well, I’ve reupped through my service provider (ipowerweb.com) for another three years because of the ‘deal’ I would get for three years instead of just one and how close I was (last warning) of an expired domain.  So I have three more years of this domain through ipowerweb.  I really am questioning my decision as I could get better service and a better price at bluehost or other web hosts but I really am just kind of a loyal person.  With ipowerweb I’m getting less space then I would at another provider for how much I’m paying as well as I’m paying 70 bucks a year.

Anyway, I can afford it, and it saves me having to back up everything and move over to a new host and it also prevented a domain camper from getting my domain name and then trying to hold the name ransom from me.  I’m not exactly sure how ipowerweb holds it over you that they re-up your domain name for you.  I imagine it’s as bad as it sounds and that if I find a better service and want to switch over after a year or two they will try and hold the domain name ransom as well.

I’ll probably be just as happy using them, as I’ve never had any down time at all with them and never seen any shady business thus far for the three+ years I’ve used them already.  So, the real conclusion here is that I have another three years of service ahead of me, which is good news because I don’t have to think about it until 2010 when Bush will be out of the presidency … I hope.

Carl.

Well, the end of the journey was today. There was some excitement when I read my e-ticket wrong and showed up two minutes after my plane had left and that lead me to the wonderful experience of getting onto the next flight in the back row with a man other either side of me. The seven hours were torture but I survived sour and a little grumpy and drove home with my parents.

The trip overall was a wonderful success however I’m exausted so I’ll just go to sleep now.

The drive down was similar to the life of a sardine, five people and a lot of luggage caused our carry-on’s to be lap-ons during the drive. However, the time at the game lodge that is the only building inside of a game park was very relaxing and the food was good. We then headed the last two hours down to Lusaka on paved roads and arrived around noon. (on the 7th.)

On the game drive, we saw three elephants, two across the river on an island feeding on the tall reeds and one alone the river feeding as well. They have to keep their shape somehow, so finding them feeding wasn’t too surprising. We didn’t see any hippos out of the water, but we saw over twenty in the water, and a full family near the end of where we went and then turned around back toward the lodge. As for crocs, we probably saw around five or six.

It was good to spend time with the Whit’s on a vacation setting and just furthored my thankfulness for having been able to come with them. My roomate was Jake in a tent surrounded by a grass hut, and many animals around with the location litterally 10 yards from the river. A couple around us had set up their own tent, but during the night a hippo had wandered up and slept next to the tent, so when they arrived around ten o’clock they tried revving their engine and honking but the hippo was quite content where he was laying… needless to say, the couple slept in the car. There is just something about 1000+ pound animals with large teeth and defensive attitudes that makes it useless to argue with them.

Life in lusaka has also been relaxing. We’ve been staying at the CMML flight house and went out on Saturday to see the mall and the market. The market was everything I figured it would be and was a process of just looking for cheap things that were a little better quality than the thing before it. The majority of the ‘ebony’ was shoe polish, and the ‘ivory’ was magically light!… But we didn’t go expecting to find cheap ebony and ivory, we went to experience the haggling and fun time of finding fun little inexpensive memory pieces.

They sell these ‘big five’ africa carvings and I wanted a cheap on. Unfortunately I bought it last minute, and didn’t really haggle all that much and when I got to the car I realized it only had 3 of the big five and instead it had a hippo and missed the leopard and the rhino. i wasn’t disappointed, I got it for less then five dollars, and I like the carving of the hippo with its mouth open regardless.

Now, on sunday we rest, and read books and watch the satelite TV and I leave on tuesday early morning. My flight leaves at 8:45 AM and gets into London at around six PM, I believe. I then have a night in a hotel and a flight the next day at noon, and arrive in America… at noon. It’s one of those weird flights that just rides along the time changes to make the flight take ‘no time’.

These last few days have been enjoyable and the 24 hour power, internet and satelite all of a sudden seems like a great luxury. Still, I’m still almost more content to read ’scramble for africa’ which is something like 700 pages long in small text, but written well and exciting and holds a lot more importance to me now that I”ve spent three months here and only found my heart for africa has grown larger then it was before.

So, as the day creeps on, it remains relaxing and much cooler then it was in Chit, which is certinaly a blessing since there is no pool to hide in during the worst part of the day here in Lusaka.

PS: McAdam boys rock. The end.

So, there are only six days left before I’m on an airplane on my way to London for the night I have layover there. Just saying this brings a strong bump of emotions to me, but the words to describe them seem far away and distant.

Like any trip, this one has had ups and downs and I don’t only, in this case, mean the weather. Just yesterday we had our first of the 40 Celsius days. For those who are lost in the conversions to Fahrenheit that is 106 degrees. A lot like Arizona, however, it is a dry heat so while you sweat it evaporates off your arms.

I’ve started to give away my extra things. I traded a pair of shoes that cost me 100+ dollars in America for 10,000 kwacha worth of gifts. That’s two American dollars. Its little things like this that has made a fond memory of the place. The price of things here is completely out of whack; some things we pay just as much as it costs in America to get and other things we give to them at a lot lower then their cost.

It is definitely not that I wanted more for the shoes, for the sole purpose that I brought them was for them to stay in Africa, but the barterer inside me wanted more then two dollars. The way I justify it is that the man could have charged a lot more for the gifts he was giving me then he had chosen to and I was just giving him a good deal.

One of the funny things I’ll take away from this place is how small of a community it is. Even though, with the hospital, I see so many Zambian’s that it feels like this is a large city the news of what I do gets around quickly. Take for instance, my choosing to agree to give basic chess lessons to one of the nurses who asked me for them.

Every time we met it was in a public place with people around for the obvious reasons, what this did however, was get me eleven or twelve kids asking at all times if I could also teach them chess, as well as an anonymous message that when I teach chess it needs not to be in my house, which it never was.

Small town antics caught me by surprise, I guess, but it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise just something I hadn’t thought of.

Things I will miss from Chit are the simplicity of life, the hours available to reading that just don’t feel available in America, and the re-watching of certain DVDs over and over because there isn’t a theatre around and sometimes you just need to escape to cinema.

I think that may be one of the first few things that I do when I get home, go see a movie. It seems such a luxury to be able to go see a movie at any time after living in the bush of Zambia for only three months.

That’s the other thing that amazes me. I’ve only been here three months. It really does feel I’ve been here for a year or more and that I’m accustomed and knowing of the ways out here and could handle anything. I’ve only been out here three months, I haven’t seen a lot of the surrounding country and I definitely could not navigate my way home if I wanted.

This little bubble of experiences has been a fond one, and it has allowed me to meet people I will always remember and hopefully always have an opportunity to keep in touch with. If only the McAdam boys I will keep in touch with, that was still a friendship I would have otherwise never had.

So I’m thankful for my time here, and I’m thankful for the opportunity my parents made available for me to just uproot and be gone for three months without having to worry about everything at home while I’m away. I’ve lived care-free for the most part out here and for that I am blessed.

I’m also very thankful to the Whitfields, who have been my host and friends during this experience. If it weren’t for them this really WOULDN’T have been available to me and I would have never known anything about Zambia. Before them all my knowledge and heart had been for Kenya where the missionaries that my father supports are. They opened up another world to me and possibilities of helping out in the future and for that I am a better person for.

Not only did they do that, but they provided me meals and took me in as a fake son and I’ll never forget that hospitality. I’m not sure how I can make it up to them, but I’ll definitely work on thinking of ways that will show that their sacrifices to include me were taken very thankfully. I’m glad they had me out here for the time that was allowed.

Carl

Tonight a goodbye feast was prepared and had in the middle of the Zambezi. If you think you read incorrectly you didn’t. The gang at Chit went out into the middle of the Zambezi River on the pontoon and parked it there open game for all the crocs swimming beneath but thankfully they seemed to already have eaten and didn’t stop by.

At six fifteenish everyone was down to the pontoon and we pushed out and by everyone Chit is actually bustling with people even with some gone (baileys, Hannas) A table and chairs were spread around the metal apparatus and sorrowfully I didn’t bring a camera. There were pictures flashing all around me however, so many I can leech some before I leave Chit on thursday. The week will be busy so this was the best time for it and it worked well.

In the dimmed light you could look up and look at the cloudy milky way and other stars. A few people started trying to show different constalations, but when trying to show them it’s really just the other person nodding and having absolutely no idea what the person is talking about. All went well.

The chairs were flimsy plastic chairs, so half way through I was shifting back and forth trying to find comfort that was never designed to be there and checking my watch but by 8:30 we were packing up and were on our way. All in all the night was a huge success and probably not the last one to happen this year at Chit, however, it will be the last one I attend for a long time to come.

I packed everything up today. Going around the flat and gathering up the mess I’d managed to make over the last three months was at times a memory piece for me. Seeing the different drawings I’d done in different places reminded me of which roomate I’d had when I’d made them and why I was bored at that moment and began doodling.

In the first room I slept in is stored my suitcases with a LOT less then I came with and almost feeling like all the stuff could fit into one, but I want to have the option of getting gifts in Lusaka so I spread it between two and both look only half full now. However, the clothes that are left out will consolodate that. On Tuesday I have the oppertunity to go out into the bush with Dorothy, and I’m excited about that.

Monday I go in to get a two day extension on my visa so I won’t be arrested before my flight out.

Things are wrapping down, and I think I’m now ready to go home. I’ve had a wonderful three months that have definetly changed my mindset if not changed me. I’m just ready to go home and see my family and friends and more people… my age…

Carl.

Today marks the last week that I’m here in Chit. The kind of emotions I have are better than they were and happiness has come to me that has been much needed. I wake up and am at the garage on time and work with Keith on varying tasks of the garage that I can find and don’t feel a nuisance. At first, I think, it was hard to figure out small jobs for me because Keith didn’t know me very well. As he has gotten to know me he gives me a larger variety of jobs to do during the day.

This week also, however, marks the coming of another ‘team’ of experts. Often here at Chit people from the rest of the world come for a week or two to share their experience. For the three months that I have been here that has entailed an electrician named Tyler and a computer expert named Courtney. Courtney and Tyler originally came out to set up the wireless network out here but ended up having a lot of electrician jobs to do.

There also are always different specialty doctors dropping in and going from month to month. The most recent of which had plane problems and didn’t make it. This meant that all the patients that had come in from far away for specialty doctors needed to get home and the hospital provided those provisions.

This week at chit, and next week as well, an electrician and a mechanic and a friend are here to work on the problems of Chit. Keith made up a big list of things that were of this man’s expertise and now he has two weeks to finish them. If this means there are less jobs for me then perhaps this last week will be a lot less fun, but as for packing it is a lot easier for me leaving then it was coming.

As for gifts of Africa that people always come home with like baskets and drums and other things I haven’t felt the real pull to grab them. There is a lot in Zambia that you really can’t get elsewhere and perhaps in our two days in Lusaka before we head home I’ll crack as we visit the markets and get some, but as for now I’m not as motivated to get them. This trip wasn’t a ‘vacation’ for me and I never really saw it as a sight seeing type thing.

At the same time I am rather sad I won’t see the falls. I have a feeling this isn’t my last time to Zambia, or even to Chit, so perhaps on another occasion I’ll see the falls, but for now I wish I could see them, if not do all the things around them like the white-water rafting, the bungee jumping, and the repelling and other fun activities they have set up, but to see what so many writers have called the kind of beauty that affirms God’s existence on their own.

So I take this last week with a cautious and open approach to watch and learn all that I can in the week before I return to the materialism and split politics of America. I try to take all the peace and quiet and beauty into my head before I return to soaring gas prices and a concrete jungle and most of all I will try to enjoy the wonderful people here as much as I can and place them in my heart and memories as the kind of people who have shaped my thinking in a lot of ways because of the sacrifices they make to live out here so that they can help a people who don’t seem to want to help themselves.

It is tiring to help someone who just takes the help and doesn’t use it in a way that enables them to get better on their own but they continue to do it out here without tire. They try to educate these people into self-reliance and always have. Those that want to be able to stand on their own have in many cases and do and the mission instead of giving them the same kind of aid instead gave them independence and the occasional aid to continue to allow them to stand.

That is what I love about chit. It doesn’t act like a lordship over the people of Africa but instead like a friend. They embrace the people as brothers and sisters and provide for them jobs they wouldn’t have been able to have otherwise. They give them trust and responsibility to run things on their own. Instead of treating the people of Africa like goodwill they treat them like neighbors and that is what they do right out here.

That is what I’ve learned about service out here. You are not doing something for people less fortunate but instead you are doing things for your neighbor because you love them. The work you do is not to make you a better person, or improve your well being by helping others but doing exactly what you’d like your neighbors to do for you if you were in trouble. Most importantly you do the things you do not for rewards down here, because if you pay attention to the success rate down here you’d get very depressed very quickly, but instead for the rewards after it’s all over and that is hopefully giving those you work with the opportunity to serve with you in eternity.

And THAT is a wonderful thought.
Carl.

Today it rained here in Zambia. I’ve almost been here three months and on none of those days was there a drop of rain, nor was there many clouds as well. As the wet season approaches there will be a few more scattered showers but Octobor for the most part will be devoid of water and winds and heavy with unbelievable heat. The climate here is so much different from anything I’ve been around. It’s odd, because in chicago and michigan it could rain any day and the weather jumps here and there and everywhere.

In Zambia the weather is predictable. During the dry season when you say a project will start there is no clause left in for if the weather is willing, the weather will be constant and the project will start.

As for now, the humidity that follows the rain has come and the heat is worse then it was before. During the rain it was actually rather nice, the cooling winds swept across the chit mission to give us for the first time in a while a chill. We spent the afternoon going in and out of the pool (as we had a 7 year old and needed to be responsible to the thunder rule) and didn’t get as much time to ‘play’ as usual. Still, Nate brought out his portable chess board and we played a game. He will be quite good when he gets older and has smart little strategies already, but he watches only one part of the board and it isn’t hard to snag his queen when he gets the offensive in his head.

There is a lot I can learn from him, because I’m not so great myself. I don’t even remember who taught me how to play chess, however, I do know and have known for a long time. I think it’s a question I should probably ask my father, who was probably the man who taught me how to play. It’s odd that I can’t remember him teaching me. I litterally have no idea how I know the rules and such.

The day was rather long, as there wasn’t a lot of work to be done and I got off early on both shifts because of it. That has happened more and more often as some jobs can’t be done anymore because of the heat and other jobs just aren’t there anymore. The first hard day of labor was a single time oppertunity to try and level the pontoon and there aren’t jobs like that available everyday.

On the sports side, I sit and watch my sox struggle through text only. I was hoping this was the year, but if they continue to play the way they are then the season will end without them. Guillen needs to take it a little more seriously, I think, the way he acts with the press gets tiresome. He knows best but despite that his team is losing, hopefully he’ll find some words to get a fire underneathe the rears of his team. As the fire isn’t going anywhere for the indians.

This morning I headed over to the hospital again but this time it wasn’t to watch surgery, as there isn’t surgery done on wednesdays unless they are emergencies, but instead I set up four solar lights along the hallway leading to the theatre. During night emergencies the hospitals private generator is turned on and the lights for the theatre are the only ones turned on to conserve fuel, and because that is the only place that needs power. Lorraine described leaving the theatre as walking in complete darkness and so, instead of putting the lights that my father gave me in a garden or by the pool where they really aren’t needed I climbed up a latter and installed them on the roof shining down on that hallway.

The heat was incredible on a metal roof and one of the lamps cords too a beating in a lesson of not thinking something all the way through. All four lights are up now, but I’m not sure if they’re all working. After that I went home and worked a little on the database, even though I won’t be able to finish it, it was just nice to look at it again and see what had needed finishing.

When five came arund I went to the pool and there I played a big game of volleyball with Jenna, Mareshah, Tanis, Jake and Jim and our team won every since set. We dominated. There was no mercy in our strokes and no chance given for them to catch up. In the end we won two sets worth of volleyball, two in the shallow end and two in the deep end and then the other team admitted defeat and retreated.

Tomorrow marks two more weeks left until we leave Chit. This saddens me, but also firms my resolve to make sure I get everything done I want to do here. There is very little time left and I don’t have time to waste it. I want to interview the missionaries so I have a hard copies of their lives and who they are and what they aspire to. I think it’d be a nice conclusion to the trip and I’ve already begun thinking of the different questions to ask.

Carl.

The night was a restless one for me, but that is nothing new. Since I was a child there is an innocent unrest in me for the birthday to come. Much like a child wakes often for Christmas and peeks for Santa I woke to wait and see when my mother would decorate the hallway outside my door with tides of happy birthday and streamers and of course, the all important presents.

This has caused a serious reality check for me in these later years that I’ve learned to deal with as you get older and your birthdays has less significance if YOU do not do something about it and make it into a special day.

Here, you could also blame it on the heat that rises every day. Into the objects you sit on, into the air, and into your skin the heat seeps like molasses that refuses to end being poured. Over everything it covers and over everything it has domain. The stickiness and uncomforting of all that are affected by it makes sitting still for very long nearly impossible and the prospect of the pool not a luxury but instead a necessity.

Even the locals make comments of the heat and of it already beginning to be hot, and all of them give a clever wink when you say ‘if this is bad, what is coming?’

When the morning did come I rolled out of bed at seven fifteen to catch the morning devotional of the hospital staff. I sat next to David Katota and another man I should know the name of but draw a blank trying to think of.

David gave a devotional on the psalm that talk about our days being short and realizing that the life we have IS short and we should do our best to enjoy what we have while we have it. Good thing to hear on your birthday.

(For those who are weak of stomach, this won’t be bad but you might just want to skip this entry, it is a detail of the surgery I had the opportunity to watch)

After the devotional he walked up to me and winked as he always does and told me happy birthday and we headed into the idle room for the doctor and nurses that aren’t from Zambia. He had Tanis check on two patients that worried him with their progress over night and waited for her. When she came it became apparent he’d need to work on the woman in the ER or Critical Care room before the Thyroid surgery that I had come to see.

The Theatre was set and the woman was prepped and I watched an hour and a half surgery of a search of the bowel for the obstruction. To see the large intestine as a huge thing in a woman that weighed only 33 kg was absolutely amazing. David patiently looked around it and when he found the obstruction he let Mareshah take a picture of it and then he fixed it and still continued to look for anything else wrong.

He then helped the woman’s bowel that hadn’t been emptied in more than a week because of the obstruction or knot that had formed (I never did understand which it was) and unfortunately her body couldn’t hold all of it and let some come out involuntarily to our noses content.

David closed her up carefully, while teasing Mareshah all the way along (he always needs a victim, you see) and then it was time for tea. The surgery had gone a little long, come to think of it the surgery itself was longer then I said, it went from 8:20-10:00.

We had Tea, as the doctor is Irish so tea is vital (was helpful, as I hadn’t had breakfast) and then we headed back to the theatre at about eleven but the surgery didn’t start until eleven fifty.

The woman had a large mount on her throat from thyroid problems and I watched as David prepped a tiny hold around that mount for him to work and we got on stools to watch.

It was a process of cutting around it very, very carefully which makes it a three hour surgery at the minimum. He has to, for Africans that do not have the option of a medicine for the condition, leave part of the thyroid there when he does it and take out the part that is inflamed. This leaves it functioning but not functioning correctly but it is still needed.

At 12:50 I had to leave, to go to lunch with the Whitfield’s where we had Tiger Fish casserole type thing that was absolutely delicious but before I left I saw the thyroid that looked like an inflamed prostate.

It also, to my unskilled eyes, looked a lot like the tumor that had grown in the girl that I watched as well. It is amazing to me how similar things look in our body but are completely different and serve completely different purposes and functions.

After that I took a long nap for the time lost over night of laying awake the majority of the night despite covering my arms and head in cold water during the night which usually works to put me back to sleep despite the heat.

I have just woken up and plan to head to the pool for a refreshing swim and then the Tuesday night meeting. As I wrote this a Zambian and the nephew of Justin came (his name is David) and presented me with a birthday gift that he had bought me. It warmed my heart of his kindness for I know he has it hard but it was important to him to present me with a gift that I would like and of course, it was Coke.

David is a good kid, if in a little trouble. He is the kid I worked with by the ferry the day that Jim went to get the suitcases from Myuqua-Uqua. He has three children and a wife and is only seventeen. He never got past seventh grade and he works peace work much like his uncle did when the work is available from Mr. Bailey. His life is hard and in the back of his mind I think he thinks that I can somehow take him to America with me where he can live a better life.

Despite all this I got him what he wanted most when he was at the pontoon area with me and that was a waterproof watch. My father shipped some over in the parcel and I let him have his pick even before he picked mine and God blessed my generosity. I wanted a black one, and I thought about not presenting it because he might choose it, but I presented it anyway, he chose a different one, the one I actually wanted him to pick and still shows me how much he loves it today.

So David presented me back with a gift that would have been very expensive for him and I am quite touched and now head to the pool where I will be quite refreshed and then I will head to the meeting room to be quite socialized.

In the end I had a wonderful birthday starting back from the night before with a BBQ just for me and later tonight, at six o’clock when the power comes on with the emails I’m bound to get from those I love.

My spirits are definitely lifted and it has been a great birthday.
Carl.

There were complications directly after I left, three veins opened up and covered the doctors in blood. They got it under control but the lady has not spoken since. Pray for her recovery.