Running Water, Cross-Dressing Babies and a Choice of Nicknames

A few more random updates...

After a little more than a week of traveling to the nearby bore holes for water our water pump was fixed. At last we have running water again. I somehow managed to get on the team of around 8 men assigned to fix the problem. We had to pull up around 60 meters of vertical piping to get to the electric pump at the bottom, which was then repaired, and then connect and lower the pump and piping into the ground again. It was tough work and the piping was very heavy. However, since we were a group of large, burly men it wasn’t much a problem (afterwards we grunted, high-fived and bumped chests…then I made the proclamation, “I am a man! A man who invented the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn!”…sadly, nobody caught the reference).

I got to make another trip into Lusaka this week, which was nice because I’d been getting a little stir-crazy in Siavonga (most days I spend the entire day in the same 100 square foot area which includes my home, our gardens and the front office…like I said, stir-crazy). Harvest Helpers, an NGO that specializes in agricultural development in the area, was taking a group of local farmers to the city to see a few irrigation system demonstrated and I got to tag along. We’ll be looking into the possibility of purchasing a drip irrigation system for Namumu in the future. Eliot Coleman would be proud.

I’m worried about Innocent. Between his mother and aunts and sisters and female cousins he’s almost exclusively surrounded by women. The other morning I looked out of my window and saw him running around in a dress. When he gets a little older I think we’ll need to have some man time where I’ll teach him how to chop wood, spit and scratch himself.

The Namumu girls are always giving each other nicknames. A group of them decided I should have one too. They came up with a few options for me: Chuck Norris (I swear to you this happened and no, I didn’t even tell them about my Chuck Norris experience in Lusaka), Samson (my second favorite after Chuck Norris) and Robocop (I am as confused about this one as you probably are...I’ll have to investigate and get back to you).