Bats, Ninja Turtles, and Model Competition

Provs:

Happy Thanksgiving! Its so odd to be in another country for thanksgiving but we are making good times of it. We have provincial meetings this week so everyone in the provice is staying at the house, which means provs parties (we did a 90’s tv show theme this time) and TONS of great food cooking. We even have football streaming online. Amazing what a bunch of determined Americans can do.

Kasanka:

Before provs I took my second day trip to Kasanka to go see the great bat migration take place. Each year in Oct/Nov over 8 million fruit bats fly from the Congo to Kasanka national park in Zambia. I went earlier in Oct when the bats were less but I managed to anger a whole herd of elephants. This time the bats were in full bloom, it was amazing.

AOB:

Completely unrelated business. My friend from home is in a competition for a professional photo shoot. This is the last week that voting is open so if you could PLEASE get your friends/cousins/boyfriend/girlfriend/mom/dad/ anyone!
Click 'like' on her pic here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=310491565643255&set=a.310491528976592.94383.193168430708903&type=3
And do the same here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=245159232209575&set=a.244543435604488.63126.178785632180269&type=3
And thank you :)

Vogons, toilets, and condoms.

Fun Things Going On In My Life:

Call my Arthur Dent:

On one particular Thursday I woke up at 5am to the sound of tree’s being chopped down. Wishing nothing further then to ignore it, I tried to fall back to sleep. However it was insistent, I finally realized the tree’s being cut… were mine. I woke up in a fit; half dressed I stumbled outside and tried to yell in fractured Bemba. I unfortunately didn’t know how to say “What the hell are you doing?!” After more frantic yelling a Bamayo came over and translated for me, apparently they are building a road through part of my house, and they were clearing the area. The bulldozer would be coming in a few days. I of course very politely told the road builders to shove it up their you-know-what. This didn’t seem to have the desired effect…

So we had to relocate my toilet and my fence, the building is almost finished. All that’s left is to cement the floor. Ironically the bulldozer came… the road doesn’t even touch my property.

Don't Panic.

Condoms, Condoms, Condoms:

So recently I have been working heavily with an HIV support group. We have meetings consistently (a feat in itself). Have started and maize field and vegetable garden. Our newest initiative is to distribute condoms. As a registered group we get hundreds of free condoms, and are supposed to “educate” the community. Now I have tried to talk about condom use before in the community and have normally been met with resistance. But now that I just walked around with a box, people were practically mugging me for them. I gave a man 10 and he went “Madam are you serious? This won’t last us the night!”. Today I took a bike ride to work at the under 5 clinic, armed with a 300 hundred condoms, a wooden penis and the eye of the tiger. At first the clinic officer was hesitant, but a woman saw the wooden penis and started yelling for me to do a demo. So in front of about 200 hundred women I did a demo for female and male condoms. I was suddenly struck with an extreme sense of awareness. That yes I did leave my home country, travel across the world, to live in a small village, and put a condom on a giant wooden penis for 200 African women… I get paid to do this? My life is great.