I made my second trip out to the Namumu kapenta fishing camp at Chirundundike Island this weekend. The fishing month was coming to a close and I wanted to check up on our guys one last time. My days there were slow and simple and very, very enjoyable. I’d even go so far as to say it was one of the best weekends of my life.
I’ve commented before on how the general opinion around these parts is that most fishermen are lying, stealing, drunken buffoons. Sadly, these thoughts have permeated the minds of many on Namumu’s staff and management team. Our guys are mistrusted and have been put down from time to time. I know that in some cases it’s true, there are quite a few buffoons out there on the lake. I’ve met them. And I know that stealing is occurring for many of these camps and may be occurring in ours to some degree. Still, the attitude really bothers me.
I arrived at the camp around 11:30 am on a slow moving banana boat (hot sun + slow moving banana boat + pasty white sam = red sam). I wanted my arrival to be a surprise to our guys because, even though I trust them, it’s good to keep them on their toes and aware that they might be under supervision at any time.
When I showed up, I found four of our team sitting on the shore. They came up and gave me a warm greeting. Four were just off the shore on the hill where our camp is set, sleeping in the shade. Two were around a fire, cooking nsima and kapenta, and two were sitting on a rock reading a book together about the gospel of John. Again, not exactly the raging party that those adhering to the “general opinion” might expect.
Spirits were high. Very high. Despite my jinxing of the operation with the blog post you see below, it has been a record breaking month for the Namumu team in terms of catches and sales. The program has existed since 2006 and never has a crew brought in this much kapenta. The guys were happy because they get paid according to their catches and will receive a nice little paycheck this month. But, more than that, I think they just take pride in being good at their jobs.
The sense of camaraderie with our team is unbelievable, and it’s not hard to see why. During the fishing month, when camped out at Chirundundike, our guys spend almost every minute of the day and night together, fishing at night, eating and relaxing during the day. It’s really like a family (which I think makes me the bearded white uncle).
It was a nice scene to walk in on.
To kick things up another notch, Mubita, our rig foreman, and I threw down a challenge right off the bat, saying that whichever boat caught more fish that night would receive a goat to kill and eat, paid for by Mubita and myself. As goat meat is the bomb dot com I was pretty excited about the bet myself and hoping that the boat I was on was the winner.
My first night was wonderful. Just before setting off I once again, with the hot sun bearing down on me, bathed in the cool waters of Lake Kariba and strolled around on the rocks as naked as the day I was born (obviously a great way to kick off any night…if you have the means I highly recommend it). Like the last time, I hopped on one boat (after re-clothing myself) and Mubita hopped on the other. We drove out super duper far (it’s a big lake) and, since we’d left pretty early in the afternoon, there was time to sit around and relax before the fishing started. We cooked nsima, kapenta and cabbage over a small fire and ate with the setting sun in the background. Although the weather in Siavonga has been brutally hot, out on the lake it was cool and breezy. The sun was setting over the hills on the Zambian side and I just about died it was so pretty. We sat around and talked for a while until it was time to fish. It was calm and quiet and very, very nice.
Soon it was time to get to work. We flipped on the lights, dropped the net and prepared the boat for the night (for kapenta fishing procedures see “Uncle Chuck Norris Goes to Sea” below).
Catches were good the first night and my boat won the contest and the goat. Boo ya! Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get the goat before leaving Chirundundike so it will have to wait until next month, but Boo ya! anyways, right? I spent the night working with the guys a bit, sleeping every now and then, and staring at the stars and thinking about life. Not bad. Not bad at all.
For a short time the next day I got organized with Mubita and made plans for the following month. After that I did absolutely nothing all day but sit on the rocks and read, jumping in the lake every now and then to cool off (I wore pants this time…thinking back I’m not really sure why). My goodness it was wonderful.
I hopped on the other boat to fish the second night. As one of the crew members had gone home to Siavonga early to receive some medical attention (Pierson, the aforementioned jolly-ol’ captain of the Lucy boat, had gotten burned by the engine on his backside, an incident that allowed me to show off the fact that I know how to say, “He/She has a big butt” in Tonga, a phrase I’ve been using way more than I should be and that will probably get me into trouble in the future) I basically had to be a crew member this night and do the fishing work. As I stood there helping to bring up the net, turning the crank handle with the three others on board at 2 in the morning, I thought to myself, “I’ll bet there aren’t too many white guys that are getting to do what I’m doing right now (ie. working an African fishing boat in the middle of the night on Lake Kariba, not turning a crank handle…I’ll bet a lot of white guys get to do that). This is awesome.”
The next morning we packed up our camp and struck out early for Siavonga with the wind blowing through our hair and the sun shining on our faces, filled with the knowlege that our group had just pulled in almost 9,000 kgs of kapenta for the month.
I was right proud of our boys.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Next Executive Director
For some time now, Namumu has been searching for someone to replace The Man, The Myth, The Legend, Munjongo Namuyamba, our fearless leader and one of Namumu’s founders, as the Namumu Executive Director. At long last that search has come to an end. Namumu has officially named its next Executive Director.
His name is Mr. Phanuel Simamba. While I am not yet well acquainted with Mr. Simamba I can say that he appears to be a very nice, well spoken, intelligent man. I know that he has lived in the Siavonga area for his entire life, and that everyone who knows him believes him to be bright and hard working.
Beginning next week Mr. Simamba will begin dropping by Namumu to work with Munjongo. This will continue until the beginning of January, when Mr. Simamba will officially take over the Executive Director role.
Again, I haven’t spent much time with Mr. Simamba yet, but I was fortunate enough to be invited to a get-to-know-you type dinner with Mr. Simamba, his wife, and some of the Namumu management and staff. While there I was able to make an observation that I would argue bodes quite well for Mr. Simamba’s tenure…
The dinner took place at Eagle’s Rest Lodge, a beautiful lodge set on the shore of Lake Kariba. Ten were present and we were all seated at one long table. There were a few mini-speeches (although I’ve found mini-speeches in Africa are basically equivalent to full-length speeches anywhere else in the world) addressing the future of Namumu before we were able to enjoy dinner.
Fortunately, drinks were served and refilled throughout the series of speeches. As is usually the case here, the three soft drink choices were Fanta, Sprite, and of course the best drink in the history of mankind, Coca Cola. Out of the ten people present, eight went with Fanta. The two Coca Cola drinkers? Myself (obviously), and Namumu’s future Executive Director himself, Mr. Phanuel Simamba.
So, I’ve found out that Namumu’s future leader is a Coca Cola fan. So far the man checks out with me…
His name is Mr. Phanuel Simamba. While I am not yet well acquainted with Mr. Simamba I can say that he appears to be a very nice, well spoken, intelligent man. I know that he has lived in the Siavonga area for his entire life, and that everyone who knows him believes him to be bright and hard working.
Beginning next week Mr. Simamba will begin dropping by Namumu to work with Munjongo. This will continue until the beginning of January, when Mr. Simamba will officially take over the Executive Director role.
Again, I haven’t spent much time with Mr. Simamba yet, but I was fortunate enough to be invited to a get-to-know-you type dinner with Mr. Simamba, his wife, and some of the Namumu management and staff. While there I was able to make an observation that I would argue bodes quite well for Mr. Simamba’s tenure…
The dinner took place at Eagle’s Rest Lodge, a beautiful lodge set on the shore of Lake Kariba. Ten were present and we were all seated at one long table. There were a few mini-speeches (although I’ve found mini-speeches in Africa are basically equivalent to full-length speeches anywhere else in the world) addressing the future of Namumu before we were able to enjoy dinner.
Fortunately, drinks were served and refilled throughout the series of speeches. As is usually the case here, the three soft drink choices were Fanta, Sprite, and of course the best drink in the history of mankind, Coca Cola. Out of the ten people present, eight went with Fanta. The two Coca Cola drinkers? Myself (obviously), and Namumu’s future Executive Director himself, Mr. Phanuel Simamba.
So, I’ve found out that Namumu’s future leader is a Coca Cola fan. So far the man checks out with me…
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Thanks for the Support
It's been a while since I've thrown out a big ol' thank you to all of you that have helped support my stay here...
So thank you, thank you, thank you, for both the financial and prayer support.
Obviously the frustrations and setbacks are many, but good, good things are happening at this place and I'm grateful that you've helped me to be a part of it.
So thank you, thank you, thank you, for both the financial and prayer support.
Obviously the frustrations and setbacks are many, but good, good things are happening at this place and I'm grateful that you've helped me to be a part of it.
Mr. Kabwe
Tragedy struck Siavonga last Friday in the late afternoon. There was a big, big accident at the Kariba North Bank Power Station located just outside of Siavonga. Even now I’m having trouble separating fact from rumor, but I believe there was some sort of explosion and a number of fires broke out. Many workers were injured and some were killed.
One of the workers that was killed was a former Namumu employee, Mr. Briston Kabwe. Mr. Kabwe was Namumu’s head welder up until only some months ago when he took a job at Kariba North Bank. He had been at Namumu for a few years.
Even though we had not worked together I knew Mr. Kabwe pretty well. He lived close by to Namumu and from time to time he would drop in to check on Vincent, Namumu’s current head welder, his former student. He just wanted to make sure his protege was faring well. He was a nice man.
Coincidentally, I was one of the last people around here to get to see Mr. Kabwe. On Saturday morning, the day after the power station incident, I made a trip to the Siavonga District Hospital with Alfred, Namumu’s driver. The hospital was packed with dozens of men injured in the accident. Family and friends were pouring in to make sure that their loved ones were alright.
Most of the men were in a large general holding area, but Mr. Kabwe was in a separate room. He had bandages all over his body, having been badly burned. He was clearly in pain. Still, he was conscious and talking and appeared to be fine. Two days later we received word that he had been transferred to a large hospital in Lusaka. The next day we received word that he had passed away.
I attended part of Mr. Kabwe’s funeral yesterday. It was just a small gathering of family and friends as his burial won’t be until later this week. It was my second African funeral and it was mostly the same. The men split off from the women and both groups sat around and talked quietly. Or just sat. Or cried. It was terrible.
The worst part was watching Mr. Kabwe’s small children. I believe he had three in total, although I only saw his two small girls, probably only two or three years old. Both were walking around and smiling, clearly oblivious to the whole situation. I don’t think they had any idea what had happened.
It made me wonder when they would know, how long it would take for them to realize the gravity of the situation and how different their lives are going to be from now on. In a relatively impoverished area they were some of the fortunate ones, having had a man with a good job to provide for them. Now that’s all gone. I don’t know, maybe the power company will provide some type of benefits for them. Maybe not. It’s tough to think about.
Siavonga is not a big place, so almost everyone had a friend or family member working at that place. At some point today, please take a moment to pray for those in Siavonga affected by this accident.
One of the workers that was killed was a former Namumu employee, Mr. Briston Kabwe. Mr. Kabwe was Namumu’s head welder up until only some months ago when he took a job at Kariba North Bank. He had been at Namumu for a few years.
Even though we had not worked together I knew Mr. Kabwe pretty well. He lived close by to Namumu and from time to time he would drop in to check on Vincent, Namumu’s current head welder, his former student. He just wanted to make sure his protege was faring well. He was a nice man.
Coincidentally, I was one of the last people around here to get to see Mr. Kabwe. On Saturday morning, the day after the power station incident, I made a trip to the Siavonga District Hospital with Alfred, Namumu’s driver. The hospital was packed with dozens of men injured in the accident. Family and friends were pouring in to make sure that their loved ones were alright.
Most of the men were in a large general holding area, but Mr. Kabwe was in a separate room. He had bandages all over his body, having been badly burned. He was clearly in pain. Still, he was conscious and talking and appeared to be fine. Two days later we received word that he had been transferred to a large hospital in Lusaka. The next day we received word that he had passed away.
I attended part of Mr. Kabwe’s funeral yesterday. It was just a small gathering of family and friends as his burial won’t be until later this week. It was my second African funeral and it was mostly the same. The men split off from the women and both groups sat around and talked quietly. Or just sat. Or cried. It was terrible.
The worst part was watching Mr. Kabwe’s small children. I believe he had three in total, although I only saw his two small girls, probably only two or three years old. Both were walking around and smiling, clearly oblivious to the whole situation. I don’t think they had any idea what had happened.
It made me wonder when they would know, how long it would take for them to realize the gravity of the situation and how different their lives are going to be from now on. In a relatively impoverished area they were some of the fortunate ones, having had a man with a good job to provide for them. Now that’s all gone. I don’t know, maybe the power company will provide some type of benefits for them. Maybe not. It’s tough to think about.
Siavonga is not a big place, so almost everyone had a friend or family member working at that place. At some point today, please take a moment to pray for those in Siavonga affected by this accident.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Jinx
So I totally jinxed the Namumu kapenta fishing program with that last blog post. The very next day we had a breakdown. Whoops.
We jumped on things quickly, though. Mubita, our rig foreman, or supervisor, got the boat towed to a nearby camp and got it fixed up quickly. Now it’s back on the water and performing well again. What in years past may have kept the boat out for days or weeks Mubita managed to take care of in two days.
Still, from now on I think I’ll refrain from posting any such messages until the end of the month.
Stupid jinxes.
We jumped on things quickly, though. Mubita, our rig foreman, or supervisor, got the boat towed to a nearby camp and got it fixed up quickly. Now it’s back on the water and performing well again. What in years past may have kept the boat out for days or weeks Mubita managed to take care of in two days.
Still, from now on I think I’ll refrain from posting any such messages until the end of the month.
Stupid jinxes.
Reading Frenzy
The reading frenzy hasn’t quite caught on as much as I would have liked, but I do have a few loyal readers nonetheless. Kebby, the boys’ caretaker, is still getting on some of the boys to keep reading at night, and I’m doing the same for the girls.
Wendy aka Mrs. MVP (did you google image search that one?) is still rocking and rolling. She finished the Ben Carson autobiography, as well as some other super crappy young adult novel about a boy in the Depression-era Southeast. Booooring. Luckily, she has now moved on to a very decent young adult novel called “Mercy’s Birds” about an outcast teenager who wears all black and dyes her hair black and mopes around all the time, etc. etc. As you might imagine, it’s a little difficult for a young girl that has never been out of her small village in southern Africa to relate to some of the things we’re reading, but I’m trying to explain things as best I can and I think she’s learning a lot.
Vivian is another one of my loyal readers these days. She’s 13 and in grade seven at the Namumu Community School. Vivian has a big stuttering problem. It shows up from time to time when she’s speaking but is most prevalent when she’s reading. Since Noah in “The Notebook” fixed his stammering problem by reading Walt Whitman out loud I’m hoping we can take care of Vivian’s problem in the same way (that’s right, I’ve seen the Notebook, wanna fight about it?).
Right now, Vivian is reading a young adult book about three bratty teenage girls who go on some camping trip and talk incessantly about boys and other such things. Not really my cup of tea, but Vivian seems to like it. Again, relating to the material is a bit of a problem for Vivian, but she’s still enjoying things.
People have asked me in the past if there’s anything that is needed at Namumu that they could send through the mail. Some have suggested books. I’ve always said that I thought the cost of sending heavy books might be a bit too high, but I’m going to go ahead and take that back. I think Namumu could use a few more children’s books and young adult books. We have some of both here, but the selection is pretty limited.
I think we’d all agree that it’s important to keep these kids reading. Many of them are motivated and want to read, but there just aren’t enough books to go around.
If you’d like to talk about ways to help out, shoot me an email at ssc2x@virginia.edu.
Wendy aka Mrs. MVP (did you google image search that one?) is still rocking and rolling. She finished the Ben Carson autobiography, as well as some other super crappy young adult novel about a boy in the Depression-era Southeast. Booooring. Luckily, she has now moved on to a very decent young adult novel called “Mercy’s Birds” about an outcast teenager who wears all black and dyes her hair black and mopes around all the time, etc. etc. As you might imagine, it’s a little difficult for a young girl that has never been out of her small village in southern Africa to relate to some of the things we’re reading, but I’m trying to explain things as best I can and I think she’s learning a lot.
Vivian is another one of my loyal readers these days. She’s 13 and in grade seven at the Namumu Community School. Vivian has a big stuttering problem. It shows up from time to time when she’s speaking but is most prevalent when she’s reading. Since Noah in “The Notebook” fixed his stammering problem by reading Walt Whitman out loud I’m hoping we can take care of Vivian’s problem in the same way (that’s right, I’ve seen the Notebook, wanna fight about it?).
Right now, Vivian is reading a young adult book about three bratty teenage girls who go on some camping trip and talk incessantly about boys and other such things. Not really my cup of tea, but Vivian seems to like it. Again, relating to the material is a bit of a problem for Vivian, but she’s still enjoying things.
People have asked me in the past if there’s anything that is needed at Namumu that they could send through the mail. Some have suggested books. I’ve always said that I thought the cost of sending heavy books might be a bit too high, but I’m going to go ahead and take that back. I think Namumu could use a few more children’s books and young adult books. We have some of both here, but the selection is pretty limited.
I think we’d all agree that it’s important to keep these kids reading. Many of them are motivated and want to read, but there just aren’t enough books to go around.
If you’d like to talk about ways to help out, shoot me an email at ssc2x@virginia.edu.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Fishing up a Storm
The past two months demonstrate quite well the up-and-down nature of the kapenta fishing business.
Things were bad last month. Real bad. The generator on one boat fell into the water and needed to be replaced, and generators ain’t cheap. The pontoons on the same boat were badly, badly damaged. The boat only fished a few days out of the month, a month where typically, because of the warm weather, catches are very high.
We experienced a number of other problems, too. One day the other boat’s net got stuck under water. The next day that same boat’s engine broke down. One of our fisherman resigned. Things were so bad that we had to make our guys leave the camp at the far away Chirundundike Island, the place where the fishing is the best, to come operate around Siavonga, since the traveling back and forth to make repairs was becoming too expensive.
The catches of the one boat in operation, the Lucy boat, were pretty good and saved the month from being a total disaster. Still, it was a bad month.
These days Namumu fishing is back in a big way. We repaired everything that needed repairing and got our crew back out to Chirundundike Island. Holy crap, our guys are cleaning up.
In their first three days of fishing in September, our guys pulled in 2,148 kgs of kapenta.
Let me try to put that in perspective for you. In April, the total catches for the ENTIRE MONTH were 1,936 kgs. Our guys topped that in three days.
Our guys caught so much fish that we couldn’t even hire out our usual transport boat. It couldn’t carry all the kapenta we’d caught. We had to bring all of the kapenta back with one of our rigs. After four days of fishing we transported back 43 bags (a bag is 20 kgs of dry kapenta). For two boats, that’s decent work for an entire month.
Why the success? Part of it is the weather. Conditions are good. It’s heating up and there’s not much wind. Part of it is the location. We’ve set up our guys in a good area. Part of it is that we have a good crew. They’re experienced and hard-working.
Mostly, I think God knew we just needed a break.
Let’s hope this run continues.
Things were bad last month. Real bad. The generator on one boat fell into the water and needed to be replaced, and generators ain’t cheap. The pontoons on the same boat were badly, badly damaged. The boat only fished a few days out of the month, a month where typically, because of the warm weather, catches are very high.
We experienced a number of other problems, too. One day the other boat’s net got stuck under water. The next day that same boat’s engine broke down. One of our fisherman resigned. Things were so bad that we had to make our guys leave the camp at the far away Chirundundike Island, the place where the fishing is the best, to come operate around Siavonga, since the traveling back and forth to make repairs was becoming too expensive.
The catches of the one boat in operation, the Lucy boat, were pretty good and saved the month from being a total disaster. Still, it was a bad month.
These days Namumu fishing is back in a big way. We repaired everything that needed repairing and got our crew back out to Chirundundike Island. Holy crap, our guys are cleaning up.
In their first three days of fishing in September, our guys pulled in 2,148 kgs of kapenta.
Let me try to put that in perspective for you. In April, the total catches for the ENTIRE MONTH were 1,936 kgs. Our guys topped that in three days.
Our guys caught so much fish that we couldn’t even hire out our usual transport boat. It couldn’t carry all the kapenta we’d caught. We had to bring all of the kapenta back with one of our rigs. After four days of fishing we transported back 43 bags (a bag is 20 kgs of dry kapenta). For two boats, that’s decent work for an entire month.
Why the success? Part of it is the weather. Conditions are good. It’s heating up and there’s not much wind. Part of it is the location. We’ve set up our guys in a good area. Part of it is that we have a good crew. They’re experienced and hard-working.
Mostly, I think God knew we just needed a break.
Let’s hope this run continues.
A Change of Scenery
Wow. What a ridiculous weekend. Despite beginning with a potential disaster it quickly turned out to be one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. It went a little something like this…
My phone rang at 4:30 am on Friday morning. It was Edwin Luneta, Namumu’s Finance Manager, telling me to come over to the office because there was an emergency. Awesome, I thought. Another emergency. What a great way to start the day.
Actually, you know what? Even though that sounds bad it really didn’t bother me too much. For one, I had been planning to wake up around 4:45 am to hop on our hired truck that would be leaving at 5:00 and heading to Lusaka to pick up supplies for the welding workshop. So, other than being slightly annoyed at being woken up a few minutes before my alarm (don’t you hate that?) I was fine.
Plus, given the way things go here at Namumu and in southern Africa in general I pretty much go to sleep every night expecting to be woken up by such a call alerting me to some emergency, so whatever.
It turns out it was another water emergency. Some dummy out in the bush started a fire that spread over the hill and burned up a portion of the piping that carries water from our bore hole to the Namumu complex. These fires are actually pretty common. People burn out wide areas so that the small game must come out of hiding, then they go a-hunting. Still, this hunter wasn’t thinking, and his or her carelessness totally screwed Namumu. Again.
However, as we are pretty savvy at handling water emergencies these days (thanks to lots of practice) we made a quick plan. We grabbed a local plumber who hopped on the hired truck with our group to go buy the necessary piping and pipe connections from Lusaka. He knew exactly what he needed and it wouldn’t be too expensive. Thus, the “emergency” turned out to be not that much of an emergency at all.
Things only got better from there.
For the most part it was ho-hum just another supply trip. Vincent and I now know exactly where to go in the city to get the lowest prices, so after bing-bang-booming around Lusaka for a few hours in our hired truck we had everything we needed. Usually such trips to Lusaka are pretty stressful, as you have to move quickly through a dirty, crowded city to pick a number of different things and finish in time to make the three hour drive back to Siavonga. But this one was smooth sailing.
Oh yea, and even though I’m sure you all think I’m making this up, some random guy on a street corner called me Chuck Norris again, so I’m three for three in Lusaka on that one. Boo ya!
Since we’d finished everything we needed to do, I figured I’d call a couple of my friends in Lusaka to see if they wanted to meet up.
I ended up chatting with Ndandula, Munjongo and Esther’s youngest daughter, and as she was just getting off work and didn’t have much going on she invited me to stick around Lusaka for the weekend and crash at her place. My work for the week was finished, and I hadn’t had a chance to get away from Siavonga and relax in a while, so I jumped right on the opportunity.
So, I was back in civilization for a few days. Mostly I was just relaxing and enjoying the change of scenery, but there were a few particularly memorable highlights.
There’s a really nice movie theater in Lusaka and I got to go see a movie, eat popcorn and drink Coca Cola. My head almost exploded from sheer excitement, which obviously speaks more to the lack of stimulation I have experienced in Siavonga lately than to the actual excitement of the experience.
I went with Ndandula and her cousin, Sonny, to see “The Hangover”. In classic African style they were looking forward to seeing some super crappy action movie, “GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra”. However, using all the wit and charm I could muster as well referencing a strong endorsement from Chris Noack (which, given the fact that “Underworld II: The Rise of the Lycans” is one of Chris’s favorite movies was a pretty risky move) we went with “The Hangover”.
Wow, what a great choice. Very crude and very hilarious. And “The Champ” made one of the best cameos I’ve ever seen (trying to keep this blog spoiler-free).
It was an all-time great movie going experience for me, and the best part may have even been after the movie was over. I had a great urinal conversation with some 40-ish year old Zambian guy who started out the conversation chuckling and saying “Hah…boys will be boys, huh?” (you’ll understand if you see the movie…and yes, he began the conversation, not me…I think the rules of urinal etiquette are different here in Zambia).
Later on we went to an ice cream parlor, again nearly causing my head to explode. I know I shouldn’t have put down as much as I did, especially since I’ve been told I’m getting fat no fewer than ten times in the past week, but there ain’t much ice cream in Siavonga, so I had to get my fill.
I spent a number of hours over the weekend sprawled out on Ndandula’s rug watching tv. I still don’t have a tv here in Siavonga so, while my head didn’t almost explode it was still nice.
Actually, I did watch Beyonce’s “Ego” music video a few times and my head almost did explode.
And last but not least I got to make it out to a Lusaka night club where I tore up the dance floor for hours upon hours. It was fun, but the best part of the experience didn’t come until later in the night when some random guy came up to me and said, “Hey, nice beard, man, you look like John Lennon”. Can’t top that.
What a great weekend.
My phone rang at 4:30 am on Friday morning. It was Edwin Luneta, Namumu’s Finance Manager, telling me to come over to the office because there was an emergency. Awesome, I thought. Another emergency. What a great way to start the day.
Actually, you know what? Even though that sounds bad it really didn’t bother me too much. For one, I had been planning to wake up around 4:45 am to hop on our hired truck that would be leaving at 5:00 and heading to Lusaka to pick up supplies for the welding workshop. So, other than being slightly annoyed at being woken up a few minutes before my alarm (don’t you hate that?) I was fine.
Plus, given the way things go here at Namumu and in southern Africa in general I pretty much go to sleep every night expecting to be woken up by such a call alerting me to some emergency, so whatever.
It turns out it was another water emergency. Some dummy out in the bush started a fire that spread over the hill and burned up a portion of the piping that carries water from our bore hole to the Namumu complex. These fires are actually pretty common. People burn out wide areas so that the small game must come out of hiding, then they go a-hunting. Still, this hunter wasn’t thinking, and his or her carelessness totally screwed Namumu. Again.
However, as we are pretty savvy at handling water emergencies these days (thanks to lots of practice) we made a quick plan. We grabbed a local plumber who hopped on the hired truck with our group to go buy the necessary piping and pipe connections from Lusaka. He knew exactly what he needed and it wouldn’t be too expensive. Thus, the “emergency” turned out to be not that much of an emergency at all.
Things only got better from there.
For the most part it was ho-hum just another supply trip. Vincent and I now know exactly where to go in the city to get the lowest prices, so after bing-bang-booming around Lusaka for a few hours in our hired truck we had everything we needed. Usually such trips to Lusaka are pretty stressful, as you have to move quickly through a dirty, crowded city to pick a number of different things and finish in time to make the three hour drive back to Siavonga. But this one was smooth sailing.
Oh yea, and even though I’m sure you all think I’m making this up, some random guy on a street corner called me Chuck Norris again, so I’m three for three in Lusaka on that one. Boo ya!
Since we’d finished everything we needed to do, I figured I’d call a couple of my friends in Lusaka to see if they wanted to meet up.
I ended up chatting with Ndandula, Munjongo and Esther’s youngest daughter, and as she was just getting off work and didn’t have much going on she invited me to stick around Lusaka for the weekend and crash at her place. My work for the week was finished, and I hadn’t had a chance to get away from Siavonga and relax in a while, so I jumped right on the opportunity.
So, I was back in civilization for a few days. Mostly I was just relaxing and enjoying the change of scenery, but there were a few particularly memorable highlights.
There’s a really nice movie theater in Lusaka and I got to go see a movie, eat popcorn and drink Coca Cola. My head almost exploded from sheer excitement, which obviously speaks more to the lack of stimulation I have experienced in Siavonga lately than to the actual excitement of the experience.
I went with Ndandula and her cousin, Sonny, to see “The Hangover”. In classic African style they were looking forward to seeing some super crappy action movie, “GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra”. However, using all the wit and charm I could muster as well referencing a strong endorsement from Chris Noack (which, given the fact that “Underworld II: The Rise of the Lycans” is one of Chris’s favorite movies was a pretty risky move) we went with “The Hangover”.
Wow, what a great choice. Very crude and very hilarious. And “The Champ” made one of the best cameos I’ve ever seen (trying to keep this blog spoiler-free).
It was an all-time great movie going experience for me, and the best part may have even been after the movie was over. I had a great urinal conversation with some 40-ish year old Zambian guy who started out the conversation chuckling and saying “Hah…boys will be boys, huh?” (you’ll understand if you see the movie…and yes, he began the conversation, not me…I think the rules of urinal etiquette are different here in Zambia).
Later on we went to an ice cream parlor, again nearly causing my head to explode. I know I shouldn’t have put down as much as I did, especially since I’ve been told I’m getting fat no fewer than ten times in the past week, but there ain’t much ice cream in Siavonga, so I had to get my fill.
I spent a number of hours over the weekend sprawled out on Ndandula’s rug watching tv. I still don’t have a tv here in Siavonga so, while my head didn’t almost explode it was still nice.
Actually, I did watch Beyonce’s “Ego” music video a few times and my head almost did explode.
And last but not least I got to make it out to a Lusaka night club where I tore up the dance floor for hours upon hours. It was fun, but the best part of the experience didn’t come until later in the night when some random guy came up to me and said, “Hey, nice beard, man, you look like John Lennon”. Can’t top that.
What a great weekend.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Another Run-in with the Enemy
The cows have struck another devastating blow to the Namumu gardens. A number of devastating blows, actually. It’s very dry and very hot here. There ain’t much green around anymore. As a result, the cows are going after and eating everything, and I mean everything, that they can find. They’ve wiped out a number of our beds containing Chinese cabbage, rape, tomatoes and hot peppers. I’m pretty sure if I were in the garden when they came by and standing real still they’d try to eat me, too.
What’s that you say? We should build fences? Well, as a matter of fact we have. We’ve built a number of fences and even hired a guy from around here to build a big strong one around the main gardens in the center of Namumu.
However, much like the raptors of Jurassic Park these cows have probed the fences for weaknesses and managed to get through. They’ve managed to outwit us in nearly every one of our beds. I’ve personally seen them go under, over and around our fences.
Please pray for me, that I won’t slaughter one of these hungry animals and get in trouble with somebody from the community and get kicked out of here.
Because I’m really on the line.
What’s that you say? We should build fences? Well, as a matter of fact we have. We’ve built a number of fences and even hired a guy from around here to build a big strong one around the main gardens in the center of Namumu.
However, much like the raptors of Jurassic Park these cows have probed the fences for weaknesses and managed to get through. They’ve managed to outwit us in nearly every one of our beds. I’ve personally seen them go under, over and around our fences.
Please pray for me, that I won’t slaughter one of these hungry animals and get in trouble with somebody from the community and get kicked out of here.
Because I’m really on the line.
Welsh Accents Rule
Namumu said goodbye to two more visitors this week, probably the last two we’ll be seeing for a little while.
Debbie Price and her mother, Cynthia, came to visit us from Wales and stayed in Siavonga for a few weeks. Both put in time working in the surrounding communities as well as at Namumu. At Namumu they organized a number of sporting events for the kids and even stuck things out in the hot afternoon sun to play along with them.
It was nice to have somebody to relate to with the whole sunburn thing. These Zambians just don’t understand.
I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked to with Debbie and Cynthia, but I was around them long enough to know that they are both very kind and very willing to serve, not to mention that they have some of the best accents I’ve ever heard. And they brought me hot sauce, so now we’re friends for life.
I’ve asked them to shoot me an email whenever they get a chance with something that I can post on the blog. So, be on the lookout for another guest posting. It seemed like everyone enjoyed Tom’s a while back, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Price’s as well. Especially if you imagine it being said with a Welsh accent…
It’s been fun, Debbie and Cynthia. Have a safe trip back.
Debbie Price and her mother, Cynthia, came to visit us from Wales and stayed in Siavonga for a few weeks. Both put in time working in the surrounding communities as well as at Namumu. At Namumu they organized a number of sporting events for the kids and even stuck things out in the hot afternoon sun to play along with them.
It was nice to have somebody to relate to with the whole sunburn thing. These Zambians just don’t understand.
I didn’t get to spend as much time as I would have liked to with Debbie and Cynthia, but I was around them long enough to know that they are both very kind and very willing to serve, not to mention that they have some of the best accents I’ve ever heard. And they brought me hot sauce, so now we’re friends for life.
I’ve asked them to shoot me an email whenever they get a chance with something that I can post on the blog. So, be on the lookout for another guest posting. It seemed like everyone enjoyed Tom’s a while back, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Price’s as well. Especially if you imagine it being said with a Welsh accent…
It’s been fun, Debbie and Cynthia. Have a safe trip back.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Tonga Bride Price
I have an important issue I need to discuss.
I'm not quite sure how it started, but I was talking the other day with some of my co-workers and the issue of marriage came up.
Actually, I do know how it came up. Esther (Munjongo's wife) was giving me a hard time about how dirty my pants always are and Zenzo, one of Namumu's accountants, offered to help find me a wife that will cook and clean for me.
He started out the conversation saying, "You know, Sam, there are some very cheap Tonga women around these parts...I can make that happen."
Apparently I can have my pick. Awesome.
However, there is one catch. Getting a wife ain't cheap. 'Round these parts, traditionally the husband is supposed to pay a hefty sum to the bride's family in order to marry her.
Zenzo told me the going rate out here is around 10 heads of cattle. Since 1 head of cattle is costing around K1,500,000 (about US $300), I'm going to need around US $3,000 to make this happen.
The life of a bachelor is taking its toll on me. I don't know how much more cooking and cleaning I can take.
Anybody with $3,000 back home want to help me out?
I'm not quite sure how it started, but I was talking the other day with some of my co-workers and the issue of marriage came up.
Actually, I do know how it came up. Esther (Munjongo's wife) was giving me a hard time about how dirty my pants always are and Zenzo, one of Namumu's accountants, offered to help find me a wife that will cook and clean for me.
He started out the conversation saying, "You know, Sam, there are some very cheap Tonga women around these parts...I can make that happen."
Apparently I can have my pick. Awesome.
However, there is one catch. Getting a wife ain't cheap. 'Round these parts, traditionally the husband is supposed to pay a hefty sum to the bride's family in order to marry her.
Zenzo told me the going rate out here is around 10 heads of cattle. Since 1 head of cattle is costing around K1,500,000 (about US $300), I'm going to need around US $3,000 to make this happen.
The life of a bachelor is taking its toll on me. I don't know how much more cooking and cleaning I can take.
Anybody with $3,000 back home want to help me out?
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