Saturday, April 26, 2008

time to announce the winner (it ISN'T you)

April 26, 2008~
It's been a while since my last email. I don't even know when that was. Sometime in February I'd imagine. I think the last one was just me saying nothing interesting has happened in the past month since returning from Zanzibar…in case I didn't send this supposed email, I'll recap. Nothing happened. Not until March. Most of the month of February was spent working diligently with my farmers aside from a week long trip to Mike's site in the Copperbelt. It was a beautiful place, a couple km from Lake Kashiba, a sunken lake with a bottom more than 300 meters deep- on the sides (or so I've heard). After returning from Mike's, I started my preparations for Amanda's visit which were mostly cleaning, weeding, and slashing the yard which is essentially cutting the grass with a slightly sharpened 9 iron. On the morning of March 6, I picked up my sister, Amanda, at the airport in Lusaka and we went to Eureka Campground where we took a bushwalk through the brambles and weeds as tall as we are. Amanda saw her first wildlife there (besides drunken amaguys)- giraffes. We saw many others later, but isn't that a great introduction to Africa? Then we searched for monkeys for about an hour before giving up. As we returned to the chalet, we saw about 900 monkeys hanging out at the carpark. Mostly smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and listening to Skynyrd blasting from a lifted pickup. Wait…nope, that was last time. This time they were jumping around from branch to branch. The next day was a nice easy day at the zoo. Amanda got to enjoy her first mini bus experience then her first hitch hike with a nice grandmother who was late for church, but still wanted to show us around her neighborhood. We spent the night at my friend's house and departed the next morning to go North to Chimfunshi where there's a sanctuary for chimps who were captured and smuggled to enter the pet trade. There's one who was rescued from a life of alcoholism and cigarette smoking (no Skynrd, hence the need to be rescued) as a form of entertainment. We got to play with the chimps for a couple hours. They ranged in age from a year and a half to more than a year and a half and in size from small to freakin' huge. I got peed on. They're amazing climbers and are ridiculously strong. Each one had its own personality. Dominic, the youngest, was hyperactive and is in training to be the next Chuck Norris continuously practicing his roundhouse kicks. Gus was too cool for school. Alice was the mature one with a grandmotherish side to her and would play with Dominic until she got tired then retire to a branch too high for him to climb to. After leaving the sanctuary, which is also home to Congo African Grey parrots also rescued from the pet trade, we headed to Kapisha to find the "hot springs." It was an adventure. We didn't know where they were, and apparently neither did the locals. "It's close, just there." We'd go just there, and no hot springs. The next local would point to where we came from and say "It's just there" and well…no it's not. We ended up at an open pit mine that reminded me of the American southwest. So we gave up and ate some porkchops. All in all, I'd call it a success. We headed back to Lusaka where my boss picked us (Amanda, the district Dep of Fisheries officer, and me) and drove us out to my site so that he could do his site visit. We met with some of my top farmers, checked out a pond, talked about what I'm doing here and they departed leaving Amanda and me at my house. We hung out there for a couple of days. I took her to my hill, to the school where the children were playing soccer and netball in honor of World Youth Day. While the boys played, the girls sang and danced their way around the field. It was good fun and I think a good portrayal of children's life in the village. Our time in the village ended too early. Amanda didn't want to leave and was just getting the hang of how we do things. I don't know if she didn't want to leave because she liked it or because she knew that leaving would entail biking 18 km. We took the easy long path instead of the hard short path, which I actually enjoyed and decided I might change my route. We got a ride from a few crazy birders from Holland, caught a bus, caught another bus, and arrived in Southern Province in the town of Choma where we stayed at the PC house. The next morning we checked out the Choma museum and hitched a ride to Livingstone in a big rig carrying 35 tons of copper to South Africa. Then we caught our first glimpse of the massive Victoria Falls. You can see the mist of the falls kilometers away from the actual falls. It's impressive. I'm sure you're bored by now…even me. We went to Chobe in Botswana where we did a river cruise followed by a game drive, saw millions of impala, some giraffes, some lions, antelope of many varieties, hippos and the only elephant we saw in the park was dead in the water and being devoured by crocs. We took a microlite flight over the falls. A microlite is essentially a motorcycle with wings. It's an open seat with a rear mounted motor and prop and now I know what I'm doing with my readjustment allowance. They can be bought for $6,000 or less (so I've heard). The flight was amazing, giving viewpoints only seen from the sky, including a few elephants. We saw the falls from every angle on the Zim and Zam side and even at night, which on a full moon you can see a rainbow. We also went on a walk with lion cubs. Cubs which weigh twice as much as me but they were just like huge housecats which they advise you not to think as you're petting them. I think my favorite part of the trip was the adrenaline activities. I got a package deal which included a flying fox (essentially a zipline where you're attached from the back and you run down a runway into nothingness and zip ¾ of the way across the gorge at a relatively slow speed), a zipline (hooked from the front and zipping downwards at 120-140km/h) and my favorite the gorge swing (a 70m free fall attached to some cables which transitions you into a smooth swing back and forth 40m above the rolling river). We also spent a lot of time in the markets. I made as many friends as I could and by the time we left, all the shopkeepers knew my name. It was fun. We definitely had our favorites and they got most of our business. I even directed others to their stalls. After Vic Falls, we went to Chongwe to visit my host family for Easter. We stayed at Erin's Lodge in essentially a storage closet with 2 beds, but it was close to the Mwansa family. On Sunday morning we met them for church which was held outside in the hot sun and was long long and in Nyanja. I understood maybe 5 words but it was still interesting. After church we went to the market, got a chicken, then mom cooked it up and it was delicious. We spent that night in Lusaka near the PC office so that I could do email stuff, but never got around to it. Instead, we hit up another 2 markets for last minute souvenirs. The second morning in Lusaka was Amanda's last morning in Zambia. We headed to the airport, she flew out to London then home, I guess…haven't heard yet. (Update: she's home). I spent the next 2 days in Lusaka seeing movies, bowling and eating. Now I'm at the Serenje house waiting until I can eat lunch and head back to my site. My new project is a library that I'm starting at Serenje Basic School and with the help of Mr. Calloway's Sudlersville Middle School class and a fundraising project of selling copper bracelets, should be able to fund the construction of bookshelves, tables and chairs. If you have books, send 'em! (Especially ones you think I'd like to read before I put them on the shelves) **Now the part you've all been waiting for:** The package contest has come to a close. I've decided to split the prizes. Dr. Connaughton's awesome package of junkfood, books, spices, baseball cards, games, etc won him the grandprize. Theresa's package of roughly the same, but not quite as good got her first runner up, and Becky's weekly letters warranted a prize too. I sent it all home with Amanda so she can ship them out for me. Much cheaper from Philly than from Serenje. So expect something sometime in the next however-long-it-takes-her-to-get-around-to-it. Thank you to all who participated. It was greatly appreciated by me (and my vulturesque volunteer friends). I'm trying to write each of you a letter, but sometimes, as with Angie and Ike, I've lost your address. It's not that I'm unappreciative or, well, even that busy…just lazy, forgetful, distracted…hey, what's that….
Also if you want to see some pictures or go back and re-read any thing to point out hypocrisies, go to http://patrickhorley.blogspot.com/
pat

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Pictures from March

This is Pat's sister updating his blog for him. Enjoy the pictures of Chimfunshi Chimp Sanctuary in Zambia, Pat's village, and our trip to Victoria Falls and the surrounding areas in Zimbabwe and Botswana.


Chimfunshi



Bathing Shelter, Insaka (gazebo), Waking with George (a farmer and friend), Family, Cheering section at the school soccer game





Impala, Hippo, Giraffe, Chobe National Park, Botswana




Watching the Falls with the locals

Zipline, Flying Fox, Gorge Swing with Danielle