New Rule

Sara* is a medical student and so we often discuss the many and varied infectious diseases and types of worms available in Zambia. Last night this conversation inspired the idea of a HAZMAT suit as another item to consider for the suitcase (Alan could I get one of those faulty SanFran suits? I can put duct tape over the parts that have lost their integrity). Now imagine Keli in a yellow HAZMAT suit in Africa, peering out through her square plastic face mask, waving a plastic suited hand and saying, "Hello villagers! I am your new neighbor, I want to integrate myself into you community!" Rubbing the condensation away with her nose. Hugging her new friends with a cheek pressed against the plastic. Quickly hurrying back to her hut to rinse off with iodine. Ah it was good for a laugh at least.

But now the new rule is no imaging myself in Zambia. Not unless it is something outrageous or impossible. Like going over Victoria Falls in a barrel. Or bringing up a baby elephant as my own. That will of course continue. But no pre-conceived ideas about what life will be like. No half-baked plans about how to save the village from poverty, or Zambia from AIDS, or the world from evil. I will figure out those things when I get there. For now I will meditate on the idea that I need to keep my goals manageable, my theories inductive, and my methods ever reevaluated.

And no more reading other PCV blogs. Though in doing so I realized that Zambia is not on the moon and this is not an unblazed trail of unseen wonders. This might not have occurred to you either, but I am NOT the first volunteer to adventure into the heart of Africa. Truly! It's been done before! So I will probably tell you all about the exact same things they told their friends - the texture of roasted bugs, the details of getting violently ill, dealing with boredom, exactly how long I have been sweating, and the progress I have made on my little home improvements to keep the rain/mud/bugs/snakes out of my bed. Please act surprised when I do tell you these things cause it will probably feel like the first time it has ever happened - even if it's not.

*Sara also suggested a vile of battery acid carried around the neck and a long bladed diving knife strapped to the calf as further safety precautions. She has been really helpful.

Ol' Cottonmouth

I have had two dreams involving venomous snakes. Two dreams involving me having to kill venomous snakes (snakes a la the horror of Snakes On a Plane if you've seen it). Both times I awoke thinking "this is what Zambia is going to be like." Of course it isn't. You can avoid snakes. And moreover- I am really not that scared of snakes. I mean beyond a healthy startle and hesitancy that is only natural. I think perhaps these snakes should be read - in a more general context - as unnamed fears of Zambia. So I will list out my snakes one by one, draining them of the venom that makes them impossible to live with.
In no particular order:

1) Living in Misery
2) Living in Boredom
3) Living in Fear
4) Living with Loneliness
5) Confirmation of all my greatest shortcomings
6) Wasting two years of my life with nothing better off
7) Unwittingly contributing to a system of evil
8) Life continuing elsewhere without me
9) Dying or worse.

There we go - nothing but little garden snakes in the grass.
And of course if I DO get bit by a real snake – not a dream snake – at least I HAVE seen Snakes on a Plane and thus know how to suck the venom out of a bite. Olive oil is the secret –coats the mouth. And if no knife is available to open the wound – use your trendy dangly earrings that happen to have a razor sharp point.

I also have two questions for the general public:
1) How do you encourage economic development without encouraging rampant and careless consumerism? Can everyone be employed doing useful things or are the people who design, market, make, deliver, and sell Bling Bling Barbie Head inevitable in a successful, booming economy such as ours?

I have over 100 troll dolls - from my mall shopping days in middle school. Yes - over.100.troll.dolls. The astronaut was my favorite. It had the most elaborate costume. No- wait: the alien. Elaborate silver costume AND it had green skin.

So second question:
2) How do you change your ways? For instance - How do you penetrate my psyche deeply enough to change my daily decisions? Cause knowledge is not the same as application. And I still love useless cheap crap – though I buy it less often.
Another example from a NYTIMES magazine article - How do you convince people to use condoms when they know all the facts and still don't? One answer is apparently marketing it as a fad rather than a health concern. A lifestyle choice. Eat it up kids - condoms are coool. Not dying of AIDS is cool.

My kids are getting mud and sticks to play with. Maybe a wood block if they prove to be especially creative with the mud and sticks. And condoms. Of course condoms. I wouldn't want them to be uncool.

Oh I am glib - in the lots to say with nothing to say kind of way.

I feel a little weird.

Yesterday morning I might have said I hate surfing. Actually I did in fact say "I don't like surfing very much." But that was before my intermediate lesson, which had ideal surfing conditions. It was grand and left me with feelings about surfing that are luke warm enough to induce me to it again sometime. Once you learn a few tricks you can control what the waves do to you a little better. Not that they are fun tricks, just limited expected discomfort rather than varying unexpected discomfort.

The fun of most things come when you have developed some skill and the effort is more fluid and not so much a struggle. I dislike struggle - which may mean I will never truly accomplish anything. But for now I will not dwell on it.

I leave Australia tomorrow. Going back homes means starting to the think of Zambia as a quickly approaching reality. eck.

The Ocean is Ferocious Beast

I had my first day of surfing today. Harder than it looks. and I didn't love it. Though I am holding final judgement until I have as much success as failure. I cannot say that I discovered I disliked surfing but rather that I discovered I dislike being pommeled by waves. The ocean is so powerful - each time I started out towards the breaking water I kept thinking how futile it is to fight a wave. How foolish I am to do anything other than what the ocean wants. And it seems the ocean wants to kill me. Roll me around it its salt-water mouth, slap my board into my face, instil a sense of panic and disorientation, and then spit me out waterlogged and cursing onto the beach. With any luck on a collection of beached blue bottle jellies to boot. I felt like a duck out of water, or perhaps more appropriately, like a Kansan in the ocean. What an impediment it turns out to have grown up in a land locked state. The only other time I can remember swimming with serious ocean waves, I was 6, in Florida, and once one went over my head and I spent the rest of the day looking for hidden treasure in the sand.

But as I think about surfing, and inevitably about how my reaction to it reflects my deep-set flaws and shortcomings, I have decided to push on. Pony up.

As I said to Jacob's dad - I need to figure out how to not fight the waves. Learn instead to intermingle my fate with the waves' so as to share in a common destiny.

I don't know what that means really - but it sounds very Zen.

Plus I need to paddle harder.
It only sucks because I am doing it wrong.