Sun Damage and Shopping

My trip to Solwezi has been relaxing, but much busier than I expected! We are preparing for the next group of volunteers to arrive and have spent the last few days cleaning out the house and organizing. It's amazing just how messy a house can get with 40 individuals using the facilities on a constantly rotating basis. I won't get into the things we found under the beds, but you can well imagine... I've been quite impressed with how everyone pitches in to take care of chores and I really wanted to take photos of the boys doing housework to take back and show my village:)

I also went on a market shopping trip for new clothes since mine are already in a state of abysmal disrepair. I have nary a tshirt without little holes from washing them by hand and everything denim has becomes stretched out and dirt-stained. A friend from this province went with me and we found a couple of decent second-hand tshirts in a store called DAP, a charity store that contributes clothing primarily from Europe and the USA. I was amused to think all you who donate to Goodwill may actually clothe Peace Corps volunteers! I also found a chitenge dress that sort of looks like a 70s mumu and a couple of ridiculous hats to add to the costume pile at the house. I've never worn anything so comfortable as a mumu in my life. It was also very reasonable on the pocket: 25,000 kw or the equivalent of about $6.00 USD.

It's kind of fun to "graduate" from the newest group of intake volunteers to more seasoned volunteers. We get the chance now to brag with the new folks at fly-in a bit about our stories: the snakes, starting fires, cultural mishaps, etc. And now I realize that we do get in the habit of bragging about how hard-core we are when it's amazing just how quickly we can get over a lack of shower or the loss of McDonalds. I certainly complain about it, and I will be absolutely thrilled to come back to comfort, but I don't think about it all the time like I used to in the first few months. I do find, though, that if I'm watching a movie at the house, I get most distracted by seeing American beds. If I see anyone sleeping on a nice bed, I feel absurd jealousy and obsess about it for hours.

We had a mini birthday party for me and my nearest PC neighbor yesterday. He will be turning 26 on Sunday and I will be turning 28 next Monday. I will be back in the village monitoring schools and he will be training new volunteers, so my friends here baked us a cake from scratch and made us giant birthday hats made from poster and toilet paper. I'll upload the photos when I get to Lusaka. Unfortunately, the power has been going on and off all week so they really had to scramble to make the cake one step at a time. We reveled in the cake, even eating the middle portion that had been burned by accidently sitting the pan on a hot burner that was turned on and forgotten during a time of no power.

Zambians do not really celebrate birthdays the way Americans do, so I anticipate kind of a quiet day. My other two PC neighbors are cycling to my house and we are having soya tacos that night. It's been fun telling my counterparts that I'll be 28 this year since they absolutely won't believe it. One fellow observed last week that I look "not older than 12." Ha! This was particularly amusing to me since I've been very concerned about aging lines on my face. I have wrinkles popping out all over the place because I always forget to put on sun screen and now I'm tan and have skin damage. I made a vow for this birthday to daily apply sun screen and take care of my aging face, but completely forgot during the chaos of the morning cleaning binge.

I must leave to pick up my chitenge coulots (never actually spelled that word) and skirt for the village. I've decided biking in a skirt is a complete joke, particularly when it is extremely taboo to even show a shadow of knee and we ride large male mountain bikes. So now I'm going to try wearing chitenge coulots and then tying a chitenge around my waist when I go to meetings.

I will write again either next weekend or the 1st of July. All my love to everyone!

Stacey Jean