Well, the day after the forth reports a beautiful and calm blue water of lake michigan. This day marks five days until I get on an airplane and head for Zambia with Jim, Jenna, Nate and Jake. I’m getting more and more nervous about my inability to want to pack, or buy extra things. I seriously just freeze up over everything until a day before just like I did with finals and large assignments.

It’s not like I hide in a room or anything. I just freeze up and then it’s time to go to bed, and then I go to bed. Today I will get some things done, and certainly tomorrow.

I’d like to send a HUGE thank you to two people. The images you see at the top were done for me by Brianna and the site was based off her work and made possible by Adam. Adam set me up with wordpress, the site, and the photo album plug in at a words notice and he did it all for free. What’s better is this isn’t the first time he’s come through clutch for me. I want to continue to wish him the best and let him know through this shoutout that he IS a valued friend of mine and will be receiving gifts from Zambia.

What’s wonderful is that over the weekend I attended UVA Lan. A LAN is a party where the people who go bring their computers and LAN into eachother and play games. While I was there I took second as team 1 on tribes 1, a game from 1998 we all played together and had in common. On Battlefield 2 our team was 4-0 and were headed to being the champions but the tourney would have taken too long (till ~6am nonstop playing from 3pm) so we were the ‘unofficial’ winners.

I invested 50 dollars in the raffle, which helps the lan happen again the next year and didn’t win a single prize. Once again, as I guess it happens every year, one or two people continually got picked over and over. I guess it’s not ranadom, their tickets got bulked into the right spot by chance. The whole thing made me feel angry for not winning anything. A better choice would have been instead of a picking from a bowl, a randomization of numbers in the range of the tickets would have been a lot more fair in my opinion.

The best thing I got from the lan was more ROMs then you can ever believe… 60gigs fo them. I have to figure out which ones I want to take with me to africa, as my laptop doesn’t have that much memory, but I’m thinking of buying a 60gig external hardrive because of it. Every arcade using (MAME) which is legal. The roms are shady but they’re pretty much impossible to get through the manufactorer. I have every game, in every laguage from Dreamcast down. yup… t hat’s crazy. What’s a turn around, is that I own all the games I like to play, the games I lpayed while growing up.

So there you have it. I’ll have something to do in Africa when there is down time. However, I want this to be a severe boredom thing, I don’t want to be inside all the time playing computer, in truth, I refuse to be.

Carl.

As good as gone I say. The party was held tonight where I was very sociable if I do say so myself in the visitors to wish me my farewells. It was a good carl mcqueen party in that it was two people who have decided they want to pray for me in my journey across the deep pond with sea monsters.

Speaking of sea monsters, I’ve been thinking about them a lot. The definition of a monster is vague at best, and I’d say giant ocean crocs, giant squids and tons and tons of mean sharks is enough to classify as monsters that guard the continents from eachother. How can we even THINK of world peace when there are giant mean creatures that mean us harm in the oceans all around us. If I had a case of continental clausterphobia this would be the sole reason.

Anyway, back to real issues. Jenna, Jim, Nate and Jake came over today with the addition of a Mrs. Peterson, and Ben and we had a nice dinner of things and I swam in the lake (where less sea monsters are, enough so that I can swim safely along the edges). we then had steaks and chicken and brats (I just had a steak thanks to the uric acid levels).

I had some good talks with Jenna, had a good play time with nate, and had half a conversation of baseball with Jake before Jenna began to go in on him, which was sad. Not too say, however, because in truth I have six months to get to know them, and I could have spent some more time with Ben.

Ben, how do I describe Ben? The man is a musical genious and as I found out tonight on the same exact page as I am about the churches in this country and not afraid to talk about it. The man has always had a special spot in my heart, I’ve just always thought he was awsome. I guess the best way to describe him is that he is just fully genuine. These kind of people are hard to find, who look you in the eye and care. He’s awsome, to say the least and the most.

Four days. Four four four. Four days. Man. I cannot believe that there are four days until I leave. Six months of my life will be decided by this decision and FOUR days dictate that amount of time until it happens.

I have a lot on my mind about it, and a lot to do ( need to go to the store for soem GBA games, a 60gig hard drive for the MAME games and such) and a lot to pray about in all reality.

AND I NEED TO FIND MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST DANGNABBIT.

Today is the day of making sure everything I always forget is packed. You see, I’m notorious for forgeting everyday things to small trips and just suffer through it. You know, like socks, or toothbrushes, or many other assorted things I’m just so good at misplacing when it’s time to pack them.

https://radiatio.ipower.com:8087/panel/index

That is a link for me, that I will edit out once I am sure my laptop has the link bookmarked. It’s nothing you need to worry about, just for me to be able to log in and edit my own site.

The general mood today is nervous, my stomach is dancing in circles, I had trouble sleeping and I have to start taking malarium. Which doesn’t GIVE maleria but instead PREVENTS it. So,.. there you have it. I’m nervous, and don’t have much to say, so I guess the next time you’ll be hearing from me is either tomorrow or… when I’m in zambia. So… wow.

So, the trip is successful and here I sit in zambia africa on a broadband connection in lusaka. Some may ask, ‘you’re really roughin’ it huh’ but I’ve already had a few alarm go off in my head for the quality of life down here. The truck is going to be packed all the twelve hours we drive. We have twelve some hours ahead of us and most of it isn’t paved. We’re going up the back route in a truck that has a broken windshield, broken back seat, one of the buckles not working and a dirty back where our suitcases can go, and whats funny is that I’d not rather be anywhere else.

Here I sit in zambia completely happy for the adventures ahead. On this laptop I’ve been doing journal entries as a writer instead of from a personal experience. The day lost in travel was excruciating, spending eight some hours in heathrow just moving from seating area to seating area to keep the boys up and going.

One thing I have really been enjoying, however is the chance to read to nate. Nate is LOVING narnia so far, and so have I. The amount of detail and clever lines that are used make the experience good for adults and children and makes it especially fun to read out loud to a wide eyed seven year old. The ability to use the tone of voice to manipulate the mood work and mold it into an experience.

Right now we’re at a guest house about ten minutes from the airport and we’re sleeping in comfortable beds. It was a really good place to start, a nice home base that made me feel safe and at home enough to just relax. We all took naps and we leave tomorrow at 4am (mid afternoon at home) for Chitociloci or however you spell it. I wonder how many times I’ll be able to write when we’re up there. I hope to have a connection every night so I can document the journey but if not I’ll just put it back in my memory. Other people are waiting to use the computer so I’ll be polite and end quickly after I look through my email.

One last thing, today Jake and I with the watching of Nate taught David a four year old native zambian, the child of the cook and watcher of the house, how to play baseball. He is SO cute and I have pictures I’ll post when I have a more steady and regular schedule. This would be a nice place to do it, with broadband but I haven’t set up my computer for the camera just yet.

Prayer Request of the day: Pray for the truck, for it’s twelve hours of driving tomorrow with one of the tires a little lower on air than ther other. Pray that we can all get along and have a good time together while traveling in very close spaces.

First, this edition of the update of a nerds misadventures will be a lot better when I upload the pictures of the different roads. Until then I ask that you imagine what I type by temporarily closing your eyes. If you find that your ability to continue is troubled, open your eyes again and continue to read, rinse and repeat this process.

The day for me started at one AM when I could no longer sleep because I’d gone to bed so early. I sat and chatted up friends on instant messanger since it was yet early in the night for them instead of deep into the morning for me. At that time I took a few hours to write up some emails and write more into my journal of weird proportions. This journal if I haven’t said already is somewhat like a book and written from a third party that happens to be myself. I use no names and no first person and try to make everything a lot more artsy than it is in real life. But this is a tangent to the travel that happened all in this one day. So, I will quit, for perhaps in a previous entry I spoke of it already.

The travel itself started at 4:46 am. We crowded ourselves into the truck with our leg room cramped with the bags that didn’t fit in the back. All five seats, well four, because a suitcase had one of them, were taken and smooooshed together in such a way that if anyone said they were comfortable they were lying. Except perhaps the driver, but he had all the hard driving to do. The first pavement was… paved. The average speed was sixty, even up to seventy miles per hour and all seemed over exagerated. Even into the game park, the conditions seemed well enough, at one point we had to go onto a dirt road, but that was because the main road was being repaved. This took almost four hours off the trip, and Jim and Jenna kept commenting on how much time it was killing from how the old roads used to be.

Then we turned off the paved road, and the journey really began.

Seriously.

No joke.

Okay, I’ll tell you about it. This road was two lane if the road wasn’t restricted to only allow you to drive on one area of it. As you drove you dropped into rivets, off the side, over the side, along the side and all over the place. The passangers, packed in with our extra suitcases and everything we owned felt our legs go from awake to numb in very little time as we continued to bounce around. Poor nate was in all sweat suits from the chilly morning and was a sweat bomb when I invited him to crush my already numb legs with his light body sitting a top it. We continued to drive, and turn onto narrower and narrower stretches that had people walking along the sides.

There is so much to explain, so I guess the explanation of the roads will have to wait for the pictures. All along the road of our journey were people walking, from where? I have no idea. Their huts were made of mud and reeds and they lived in little villages in the bush and walked to their employers even if the last place of work was ten or more miles. Even when we drove in the darkness of the morning there were people walking all along the roads moving toward their work in Lusaka. Some easily thirty miles away.

Everyone waves. As we waved whole groups of people would brighten up and return the wave, it was heartening admist the ghastlyness of the living conditions all along the roads. So I’ve been jumping all over the place, but you have to understand, it is now 9 o’clock here and in thirty minutes power is shut off, and the internet might be to, but I wouldn’t know as this is my first night here. If I can keep the internet connection I’ll be editing my photos from today and putting small versions of them on my site. I’m not sure about big uploads yet, and I’ll have them on my computer no matter what so we’ll see what happens.

Two things I cannot forget: Jake lost his backpack and Jenna ALL her clothes on this trip. It’s a mystery but somehow the back opened up, through up jenna and jakes suitcases and then re-locked itself before the next stop. What we’ve been told is that they are gone. People have so little here that they salvage everything and move around the rest to their friends and family. They make do with everything and in many cases the books from Jake’s backpack won’t be used to enhance reading but instead to give warmth on these cold winter nights in zambia.

So this was the day in a nutshell: eleven hours of driving, more than half of them on back roads that through us up down left right b a b a start. Lots of small arguements in the car, which is bound to happen with jenna and jake and 30 eggs jake was supposed to keep flat the entire time, and nate being sick, and the suit cases sliding out the back and despite Jim and I’s back tracking were not found.

Prayer request for tomorrow: Good rest for us all, we get to sleep in finally. Introductions to more and more people to go well for the worlds number one sociophobe, and three: for me to get proactive immediatly as I have been, making sure to get outside and enjoy the day … and such. Pictures will be in the picture gallery under zambia, head on over there.

So, it’s hard to think of things to write about being that the first two days here have been working through boxes of things that have either been moved over two years ago by Claudia and Jim or donated. (It was odd, however, to see all the stuff my mother sent that had been mine for the boys.) However, as an update type post, I’ll say that it has been as tiring as the hard work in the heat will be. Sitting in the same room for hours making molasas progress with the boys over their clothes is tiring and hard when boys just want to be outside. We’re all trying to be positive and we’ve been invited to meals twice.

Last night we had african pizza which was crust, cheese and a mirad of vegetables from the home garden and it was very good.

In terms of myself, I haven’t had a lot of time or the case may be energy to write in my personal writing thing. I had planned on making an entry for every single day but I just don’t get to it. When I come in at 9:30 and it’s completely dark I’m just suddenly TIRED. Which is a shame, it was coming out really good. However, what else is different is that the last two days have been the exact same thing and haven’t inspired any creativity in me. There is just something that needs to reverberate in my head that gets my creative juices flowing and the car and the airport both did that. Days spent in house, meeting no one new, doing nothing new from morning to night… doesn’t cut it. What’s worse is that we have to go through an ENTIRE crate before we can do anything to start building the preschool of claudia’s vision.

Another interesting thing is that the article about Zambian’s super high way was written by the main guy here and it was simply written as a letter of update to his people. He never called it the super highway and he believed the title took away from what was important. There were no broken bones, and the trip was needed as it went down to the refugee camp that the road on is HORRIBLE. He is having the same kind of troubles today as he has had TWO trucks ruined. One to smuggling, the driver was smuggling, and the second to disrepair. He now has to go down on his own and take the truck himself, much to the dislike of his wife.

He is a canadien and an awsome guy from what I can tell already. In fact, everyone I’ve met so far as been the kind of person I’d hoped there would be out here. All very Godly and very kind. Their eyes are tired because their work load is large but in their faces isn’t the makings of someone burnt out, but instead up to the task. I saw a lot of it in the special ed schools but instead of up to the task, despite being in a western country where EVERYTHING they need is met, 24 hour power, grocery stores in different locations, high ways, cars, they look warn out and finished. Where is the drive if not with something bigger than yourself? It’s an important question.

That’s all for today. I think Jenna wants to be able to read her email too…

PROTD: (Prayer request of the day) : Speed. Just need speed right now.

I was just told that the horrible things I write in here about Jenna make her sad. However, she hasn’t read it, and I do so believe that she was just kidding. Today is my first saturday here and to mark it as a SUPER SPECIAL SATURDAY I got to see a plane take off as the moving surgeons (one is trauma, the other was plastic surgeon) took off and left us.

And to jenna, who reads over my shoulder, there is nothing bad about you in here, I promise. Well, at least I don’t remember anything bad and if there is something bad, I insist this is a public computer and it was written by gnomes who hate me. I have two fun roomates, I’ve decided that. Adam and Sam are fun, and though adam leaves very soon and Sam in a week and some change, they have both given me enough laughs, well more laughs, than I’ve had since I left.

I don’t have much at all to write today, which is rather depressing, which probably has to do with very little happening the day before. The only thing that I really want to know is how you raise the spirits. I have failed, everyone is cranky, and I know why, and I can’t even imagine how they feel, but I need prayers that I can be a breathe of fresh air and someone who brings happiness and a feeling of safety. If that was the only thing I did good while I was here I’d be totally happy.

So, again, to reiterate and repeat: pray request of the day: That I, Carl McQueen, perhaps being some cheer into the whitfields who are having a dreadfull time unpacking and fretting the working through the crate. On top of that, pray that we continue to move at a fast pace so we can be over and done with this and get onto a more normal schedule. (shedule as they say it here.)

Carl.

Sam’s speech at my first church service today was on the weirdness of Jesus. Now, don’t get me wrong, Jesus is one cool dude, but he used Luke Seven to illistrate the meekness and awkwardness that would have been jesus. There was also a mini chess tourney on this day of sabbath and also a party held by the nurse for all the missionaries That will consist of going over there and congregating and talking and being social.

Tomorrow is the last day of adam. Adam came the day after I arrived from Kabompo with a need of the drs here. He stayed in the guest house with sam and I and we were instantly friends. Adam, when he left seventeen months ago weighed the same weight as I do, and after six months (or seven actually) of being here he now weighs a lot less. This is very encouraging for me, and I’m excited to see if I lose anywhere near as much weight as him. On top of this, over his time here Adam went from a very sensible and logical person who saw no need for being a Christian to being a Christian, if a very sensicle and logical one. This is another kind of story that warms my heart and interests me and is one of the reasons I snagged his email address and intend to do my best to keep up with him.

He’s from Midland England is a Chelsey fan from Birmingham. It’s odd, but he is allowed, he said he was a fan before they won the premiership. He was excited for them to win, however, as one is. This entry has to be short, as there are a lot of people waiting to use the internet. So I’m just going to say that today was interesting to hear the music in their language and listen to the people harmonize immediately.

The prayer request I can think of is that: It will be the beginning of my first full week tomorrow and still I’ve no idea as to yet what I’m doing down here. I’m told everything down here takes longer and I’ve learned it over and over again. I also ask for continued progress with the serenity of the family, it IS getting better.

Last note: Nate and I are already done with the magicians nephew and are on to the lion the witch and the wardrobe.

The internet has been, pretty easy to say, inconsistant lately. The power in the afternoon often allows for power, but the night time until tonight has been rather shady.

In the two days we’ve finished our crate which was a lot of dusty work. The process was rather simple really. First, you look in the crate, then we set up a table and all the clothes coming out of all the boxes that people donated were shifted into boxes that corresponded with what they were. Every piece of clothing had an assigned price. We then got bags, big and small, to be filled. These bags of clothes were what workers prefer over cash. With these clothes they can go to the market and among themselves and barter they’re own price. A lot of the stuff was rather new, hardly warn, so in reality they are worth in truth, a lot more than the cash they’d get for the day.

It took two days to go through the crate and hundreds of bags later jake and I did all the deliveries of the misc items of the box. That was a lot more fun than bagging. What we did was scoot around on the ATV with a wagon attached to the back. We went to the hospital to drop off suplies for them (they were excited about the latex gloves and steril needles) and we went to the reading room (bibles) and we went to the warehouse a LOT with lots of tools and other sorts of things to be dropped off. In truth, it was just fun to have the wind in the face and the bugs in the eyes.

The sand trails around the camp are terribly fun on the ATV’s especially when you’re on your way back to work, and although you’re in no hurry to BE working again, the speed is a nice change from the dusty work of moving from box to box filling it with clothes while calculating the numbers in one’s head.

Sam has been doing some interesting surgery the last few days. He’s done gangrene, a spleen surgery where they almost lost the woman, and a man with six toes on each foot. Whether it be evolution in the movement toward more toes or just a man with twelve toes one may never know, but anyway, they faught the evolution bug by taking him back down to ten so he could fit in our unevolved shoes. What a shame.

I’ve continued to read to Nate every day, two or three chapters. We’re already a seventh into the entire series and it’s getting better and better. The characters are believable and the little jokes silly enough to get nate giggling in my laugh. He’s such a little blessing. Eight year olds should stay that age forever and skip the teen years to then become adults. That’s at least what I vote for.

There is still a little unrest, especially since the crate reminded the family of Claudia and I’m still praying the peace is found. I hate arguing more than I hate brussel sprouts.

What the next few day brings is a mystery to me, which is odd. I’ve never been so unorganized as we are in our first week, and it’s sometimes stressful and sometimes relaxing. I find myself feeling bad about not having all the chores the boys have as they move into their house but at the same time feel I shouldn’t get involved because it isn’t my house or my arguements to be apart of. It’s hard sometimes, being a fake family member. You apply to some rules and you don’t apply to others.

That’s the hardest, and I ask your prayers for it.

I’ve gotten a LOT of bites. I’ve always been sweet blooded for the mosquitos and repellent is doing nothing. It’s a rather stressful situation, I haven’t missed a single malaria pill but being outside all day has caused my legs to have wopping bites and I watch them just wondering if there is malaria moving around in my blood ready to get me sick. I know this is stressful for my parents to read, but I assure them it is twice as stressful for the one getting all these bites. If you hadn’t given me such good blood to drink this wouldn’t have been a problem, now would it have been?!?!?!?

Anyway, that is all for now, must see if the water is done boiling so we can have drinking water and the such. I think Sam is blaming me for all the water being gone because he is already forgetting that Adam ate a lot too ! ! !. … eh, I drink a lot, I admit.

Carl.

nine of my right leg, three of them on my feet.
Eight on my left leg, three of them three inches in diameter.

Had to break into my own apartment today because roomate brought the keys in and put them on his desk in his room. Was interesting and luckily no passerbys stopped to watch or even went by. Scary how easy it was however, to break into my own place. Also scary for me to realize how easy it is for bugs to get in. I’ve never been so itchy in my life.

Pray for safety of items. There is a lot of theft here in africa even among a community we’re doing our best to provide for and love. It’s one of the things that challenges me, why would you bite the hand that is doing it’s best to nurture and love you?

I guess it’s just sad for me. We’ve been told to keep our valuables away from windows, for even with burglarbars they reach in and take everything within reach. There have even been robberies with people in home and the night watchman a few feet away. They run in, do a mad grab, and run out into the innocent darkness and washes away all guilt with it’s shadows.

I’d also like some prayers, if you have the time for some happiness. I’ve been struggling lately with the situation, and the amount of things. I’m unhappy in a lot of things and working TO be happy. So, there you have it.