Too Dang Hot!

Friday, October 8, 2010
There are a few good things happening around here, one of which is that lines are being painted on the road! This is really a big deal because chaos ensues when drivers don’t know where their lane ends and begins. The lines were painted after our first year here but they only lasted a few months. There is so much time and work involved as it is all done by hand. Too bad the quality of paint is so poor that it doesn’t last long. Many of the roads have been repaired, including the one that takes us from the MEF gate to the Chingola Road. It is still quite narrow in some places but at least the pot holes are filled. Although I saw a bit of dirt showing on the edge of one repair job and that is bad news. As soon as the rains come, water will target that one weak spot and soon there will be another pothole.

The flamboyant tree in our front yard it starting to bloom and its fiery blossoms bring a burst of color to our dusty brown world. It is hot, hot, hot here with temperatures in the high 90s every day. But we are surviving. . .

Monday, October 11, 2010
When I was working on the “Respect Yourself” Curriculum that is being used at Lechwe this term, I was hesitant to include the section on “Good Touch/Bad Touch.” This topic addresses the issue of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is rampant here (as it is the world over) but it is not discussed. I felt it was important to educate the children, hoping it will help with prevention. But I was worried because, inevitably, cases of sexual abuse would emerge after the lessons and there was nothing in place to help these children. On the advice of the headteacher, I included it anyway. The school has been through a lot of changes lately as the new principal tries to turn the place around and one of the changes was that small primary classes were “rationalized” or consolidated. That left several teachers with no classes. One of those teachers, it turns out, has had training in school counseling and so a new position was created for her. I am thrilled that there is an official school counselor and that the timing was so perfect that she was in place by the time the teachers started the lessons on good touch. Providential, you might say. I will continue with what I am doing for the remainder of the year then hand it off to her. In the meantime, she is seeing many students and is sometimes perplexed by the issues she hears about. So now I am meeting weekly with her in an informal supervisory role. I am enjoying that and I think she is also benefiting from it.

Saturday, October 16, 2010
We spent much of the day at the Nkana Cricket Club, watching Jason in his first ever Cricket Tournament. He has been practicing bowling and catching all week with a tennis ball and we have been roped into these practice sessions. Of course, he was up at 5:45 this morning, excited for the tournament. We watched the first match of the Lechwe Cockroaches (Jason’s team) against the Nkana Crickets. You can probably guess that Jason was ecstatic when their team won 61-31. Peter and I don’t know much about cricket, despite the informal playing that was done last year at the Polo Club. We don’t know the terminology and all the rules, etc. They were playing 20 overs (for those of you who know cricket). The coach (also the Principal) teased us that as Americans, we can’t catcall the “pitcher” (actually the bowler but he was trying to speak our language). We were instructed with a half-smile, that we must be civilized and clap nicely when there is a good play. I felt the urge to order tea and drink it with my pinky raised but it was so dreadfully hot that we stuck with water. For much of that game, Jason played behind the wicket keeper (like the catcher) and since there were many missed balls, he got to go after the ball a lot and throw it to the bowler. It was actually quite boring but we did our parental duty. It seemed like many of the players, most of the time, were just standing around. I guess that is what some people say about baseball too, I guess.

We went home during the second match, between the Nkana Crickets and the Lechwe Fleas. But we were back again a few hours later to watch Jason play in the final match between the two Lechwe teams. Jason was first to bat (because he had batted last in the previous game) and he never got out so he kept just running back and forth in the hilarious pads they have to wear. The coach finally brought on another runner and we all daintily clapped for Jason as he came back to the verandah where we were sitting and watching. All the way home, we listened to Jason recount every moment of the games. We indulged him for awhile until he started to repeat himself in his excitement, then we delicately changed the subject. Thankfully we reached home before he started in on it again.

In the evening, Peter said he heard thunder. I thought he was joking because I didn’t hear it myself at first, plus it is a little early for our first rain. Usually we get one big thunderstorm at the end of October and we all rejoice in the freshness and the dust being washed away. Then it gets stinkin’ hot for another three weeks until the rains come in earnest. Peter was right (yes, I can admit that) and it really was thunder. And then huge raindrops began to fall. It was about 9:00 p.m. and I was in my pajamas (coverage from mosquitos that carry malaria) so we didn’t go out to celebrate. There was thunder and lightning and, just to remind us that rainy season is not always better than hot season, our power was affected. It didn’t go out completely but the lights were dimmed and our refrigerator was struggling. We ended up turning off or unplugging our appliances because we heard that this kind of situation can ruin motors. (The “brownout” actually lasted through til mid-morning on Sunday.)

Monday, October 18, 2010
I was chatting with a new teacher at Lechwe and she asked if I was Canadian. She has a daughter who lives in Toronto so she was accustomed to the Canadian accent. She was surprised to hear I was actually American. Here is my theory as to why we sound Canadian: we are around Zambian English which is quite British and we can’t fully adopt a British accent because we are embarrassed that we will sound like we are out of a Monty Python movie. So we compromise and enunciate our words clearly but don’t change the shape of our vowels, for the most part. Halfway between American English and British English appears to be Canadian English so it seems that is where we have ended up. To be honest though, we probably don’t sound like we belong anywhere except to the group of crazy muzungus living in Africa trying to be understood so speaking like morons.

Sunday, October 24, 2010
I was invited to play tennis by my Dutch friend, Catelejn. So after dropping the kids off at school Wednesday morning, we proceeded to the Squash Club to play a bit of tennis. I knew it had been a long time since I had touched a tennis racket but when I stopped to do the math, I realized that it was fifteen years! Yikes! The tennis racket I borrowed made it feel like it was even longer, it being an old wooden racket with a much smaller head than I was accustomed to. The handle had a sticky residue that rubbed off on my hand while playing but for the most part, it worked fine. The court was a maze of cracks but there was a net and well-marked lines so it worked. I was pleasantly surprised that a few of the basic skills came back pretty quickly, making it possible to play well enough to have fun, and yet provide us all with a few laughs. We were joined by a Zambian, Charles, who plays tennis for the national team. He obviously went easy on us. We played cutthroat for awhile until we were joined by another Zambian, Nancy, who was just beginning to learn the game. We put her with the expert and Cat and I were a team. We managed to beat them 6-2. Nancy thought we were intentionally hitting it to her instead of Charles but that is based on the assumption that we could actually aim the ball and have it go where we intended! I woke up the next morning with sore muscles on one side of my neck. I had forgotten about “tennis neck” but Peter was quick to remind me that we used to always get that after playing tennis because of looking up to serve. A nice souvenir!

Jason woke up with a slight fever on Thursday morning. When he reported that he had suffered from diarrhea in the middle of the night, we suspected malaria. I took him for a test later in the morning and we were amazed that the test actually came back positive and confirmed what we already knew. We got him started on the medication promptly and despite throwing up in the afternoon and having no appetite, it doesn’t seem to be too bad. It isn’t fun getting Jason to take the medicine but after knowing that people do die from malaria, he is a bit more motivated.

It seems our boys have a knack for getting malaria right before a big assembly that they are supposed to be part of. Friday morning was Lechwe’s big Independence Day Assembly and all week they have been rehearsing for it. I kept Jason home from school on Thursday but he insisted on going Friday. Pumped full of drugs, he made it through the performance and managed to wiggle his hips during the Tonga dance his class was performing. Brendan’s class drama was cancelled at the last minute but they sang two very nice songs at the end. It was dreadfully hot sitting in the patio for two hours, under a metal roof. At least I got a front row seat because I am part of the PTA!

The Moellers arrived Thursday afternoon to spend a few days with us. We encouraged them to visit Chimfunshi Chimpanzee Refuge on Friday since that is really one of the only interesting things to do around here and it would be a shame if they missed that opportunity. But the rest of the weekend they spent hanging out with us. For some reason, I was no longer able to look at my emails on my phone so Jonathan and Peter spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot that. (Zain, our network provider, proved to be the problem and after a few days, they managed to fix it.) The five boys spent their time catching tadpoles, playing legos, reading, and playing computer games. Since it was so dreadfully hot, they didn’t spend much time outside. They did go swimming at Georgi’s one afternoon and we got out the Slip’n’Slide another afternoon. We adults played many games of “Ticket to Ride” and enjoyed that. Unfortunately, Cynthia was suffering from some sort of stomach bug which had her feeling miserable quite a lot of the time. But not so miserable that she couldn’t beat us several times at “Ticket to Ride!”

Friday, October 29, 2010
The boys have been off from school all week for their mid-term holidays. It has been abominably hot every day and we are suffering. Football practice was scheduled from 8-10 in the morning so at least it was not in the blazing hot sun but the boys are always spent afterwards. We all sit around on the couches, reading books, drinking lots, and praying that the fan that is blowing around the hot air will give us a bit of respite. I dread cooking and we all don’t feel too much like eating. Blah. It is too dang hot.

We’ve been trying to drink lots of fluids because it is so insanely dry here, having had no rain since April, except that brief shower the other night. However, MEF is not making this easy for us. For the last two weeks, the MEF water has been full of sediment. We “sun” our water (to kill whatever might make us sick), then filter the water to get out all the rust from the pipes and other floaties. It was taking forever to filter the water which meant it was time to replace the “candle filters” inside it. These usually last several months but after only a week of new candles, they are already clogged. There is that much junk in the water. Even after filtering, the water looks yellow. Peter discovered today that one of the three filters in the MEF system has a hole in it so that lots of dirt and sand are pouring into the “clean” water. Workers are now trying to dig out the sand to get to the pipe which will take awhile. And they are guessing which of the three pools has the problem so if they guess wrong, it could remain a problem for even longer!

Pineapple season is now finished but I managed to cut and freeze several Ziplocs so that we can make pineapple syrup for our pancakes in the coming months. Strawberries are also ending but my freezer is full of jam and I managed to make four large jars of strawberry/rhubarb/raspberry jam once again. Watermelon season is just starting so we will be having rollkuchen and watermelon for dinner on a regular basis. The avocados on the tree in our backyard are ripening and soon there will be mangos as well. These are all good things that I am trying hard to appreciate but really all I can think about is how HOT it is!

Saturday, October 30, 2010
Well, I was going to post this blog yesterday but the internet wasn’t working. It should be up and running today, thanks to Peter, the phantom IT guy at MEF. But this gives me the chance to give the family health update . . . would you believe that Brendan has malaria again? At first it was hard to tell because his low fever and lethargy could be attributed to the heat but then last night he started throwing up and he says he feels like “all the energy has been sucked right out of me.” Speaking from personal experience, it is hard to return to eating your dinner after cleaning up vomit that sprayed out of the toilet and all over the patient’s legs. The vital lesson has been learned: lean in very close to the toilet when spewing. Peter is also coming down with something, though not malaria. He’s got a sore throat and achiness in his back, so we think it is the flu. The participants are doing a workshop at a church this afternoon as part of the class Peter is teaching on “Community Mobilization and Peacebuilding.” He has to be there to supervise and process the experience with them but then I have a hunch he will come home and crash.