We are at our provinicial house for Thnksgiving and meetings. We will be coming to this house maybe once a month. The trip here is about a 3.5 hour drive by car to reach it. It is nice to have a real bathroom to use and this is where we stock up on canned foods. We can't buy much where we are except tomatoes, onions, eggs, some staples like sugar and salt. Mangos are just coming in season so soon we should have plenty of those. I miss the fruit. Food security is a big concern. We are now in the Rainy season. It rains almost every day but at least it is still warm but with the rain now have come the mice and rats. We had some visitors in our house so we will be getting a cat soon. One of the other volunteers had a litter of kittens so our cat will be ready mid Dec. I have not seen any snakes yet but some of our Peace Corps neighbors have had adventures with them. One recently had one under her bed in her home. She knew it because her cat went crazy. It turned out to be a black cobra. The locals came in, found it and killed it. The main ones we need to be careful about are the spitting cobras and the black mambas. Also during this time all the locals are working in their fields either finishing preparing them or planting. I befriended a local woman from church and told her I would go and work in her field one morning. She asked what day so I went. I met her at 5am, it took an hour to walk to her field. I brought my hoe with me of course, this is the tool of choice here, not much else. Most don't even have a shovel and yet they work many hectars of fields. the main crops here are maize, cassava, and ground nuts. Working the hoe was much fun, we also planted maize. Word got around fast about my field adventure. I think they had the impression we don't work much in America.So we don't find many people at home until after 1pm but some young children are left behind. It is common to find young 7 or 9 year olds with a baby on their back. The children definitely work hard here and all the girls and women carry everything on their heads. I haven't tried that much, it does take practice, they carry over 40lbs on their head plus the baby on their back and often also a hoe. Amazing. There are about 5,000 to 6,000 locals in the area I serve.We feel very safe where we are no problems with locals trying to take our things but they sure appreciate some of our treats. Most of them only eat twice a day and the diet is very bland many children suffer from malnutrion and many drink bad water sometimes right out of the river where the animals go. This is where my work comes in, trying to teach better hygiene behaviours and adding better nutritious meals. The children are fun to play with, we brought two racquetballs with us so they will come asking to play with the ball. They play soccer with it most of the time. Soccer is big here, they call it football. The other day we saw 4 children playing oxcart. 2 were crawling on the ground like oxen and the other two had small branches and were lightly hitting them to make them go. It was very cute. We have 2 chickens now so we are learing about chicken keeping. We named them Maggie and Pia. The locals laughed since they don't name their animals usually. WE have experienced hitching here in Zambia and have been pretty successful. On our last trip from town we hitched a ride in the back of a police pickup truck, unfortunately it stormed on our way home so we got pelted with rain for about 25 minutes but we survived and warmed at home. Maybe you may want to visit us in Africa and join us for a safari, the area we live in is neat, lots of farm animals especially goats. I never thought it would be so loud though at night we hear crickets, frogs, other insects, roosters, goats, etc. It takes a bit to get used to. We found out they really do eat rats and mice along with flying ants, termites and caterpillars. We have kindly said we don't eat those things. Goat is also eaten a lot. WE may try to introduce dairy goats to them if we can.
Love and blessingsMarie