Last weekend Mark, Tyler, and I (the SALTers) visited the Smith family in Kitwe on an “official business trip” to witness what our fellow MCCers are actually doing. When the three of us, all 22, first walked into the house, Cheryl said, “Umm . . . so I don’t have anything really planned for this weekend…” And we really didn’t mind. Cheryl and I played some piano/guitar duets, we all watched The Best of the Colbert Report (THANK YOU Mark’s brother who sent it from Canada!), we ate succulent non-Zambian food, and we laughed at the two little Smith boys (4-year-old Jason: “Wanna watch me spin around until I fall down?”). We also got a campus tour of the peace institute Peter works at, which was awfully quiet—recent strikes there led to the firing of 50 of their 80 staff members . . . ouch.

It’s funny to me how I used to need so much stimuli in the States: every weekend I’d have to amuse myself with some party or some outing to some exciting place. But I think the African pace of life has infected me and sitting around hanging out with friends is just about the best weekend I can think of.

But the great weekend ended and back to my job, which this last month has been composed of every color and shape of meeting possible. You should know that all these meetings are not really like meetings in the States. For one, I usually ride my bike to them, so I’m sweaty upon arrival. Then, those attending the meeting show up anywhere from one to three hours late (which, funnily enough, no longer bothers me). When they do arrive, we sit on stools outside under the shade of mango trees near grass huts with cows’ bells tingling behind us. We always commence with a prayer and there’s usually an argument and an ululation or two in the course of the one to three hours that the meeting takes.

Here are the types of meetings I’ve been attending or arranging:

Home Based Care meetings with 30 or so people who care for sick patients in the community. Possible topics of discussion include: Why discharging that old blind man and taking on a sick HIV patient is not actually a heartless activity; Here are some cabbage seeds for your planting pleasure!; Why Chinese herbal medicine sold by a sketchy company is not recommended for you or your patients—ever.

School committee meetings with 10 committee members at any of the three community schools. Possible topics include: YAY your community school’s roof is fixed!; When we’re distributing lots of textbooks to your school; Why the teacher who’s a drunkard cannot be the head teacher even though he’s from your tribe and the other teacher isn’t (Unfortunately, Kenya’s not the only place where tribalism is an issue).

Teacher meetings with the six teachers employed by CHD. Possible topics include: How to write lesson plans; How to tell the office you’re sick; Why to write lesson plans; Why to tell the office when you’re sick; The definition of the word “sick.”

CHD Mumbwa office meetings when the five of us employees get together to chat. Possible topics include: Here’s what happened at all the meetings I’ve been attending—what happened at yours?; How can our office make Mumbwa a great place for everyone to live in?

Meetings with outside organizations (World Wildlife Fund, Ministry of Education, Mumbwa Home Based Care, etc.): Possible topic is: How do we work together to make Mumbwa a great place for everyone to live in?

Lusaka meetings between Amy and the director of CHD: Possible topics include: Ah! Director, all the problems of Mumbwa are overwhelming!; It’s okay Amy, you don’t have to fix everything wrong with Mumbwa; Whew, thanks.

There you go. At least you get a better feel for some of the issues CHD deals with, even if it’s hard to keep track of all the groups involved (but there will be a test, so maybe you should go back and read all that again).

And then in other news, MY FAMILY IS COMING in T minus 18 DAYS!!! That’s Mom, Dad, Brother Eric and super good friend Stacey Pistritto all coming to let me subject them to Zambian food! And to let me love them in person!!! And to see Vic Falls. I’M SO EXCITED!!! Don’t know if you picked up on that.

TEST: Name all the groups Amy has meetings with and give a description of each.
Ha. I wasn’t kidding about the test.

E-mail your answer to Amy and you get a prize (and by “prize” I mean “smile.” But I guess you won’t see the smile from way over there. Maybe you should come with my family when they visit and then you can see it.)

As has been the case most of my time here, the Good and Bad are often intertwined, the Serious and Hilarious cuddle, sometimes so close it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. So I'll attempt to untangle them for you here in the form of a Good News/Bad News list, hopefully not disrespecting the serious as I relate the not-so-serious aspects of the last month.

The Bad News: I’ve gained ten pounds from the Zambian diet high in white carbs and oil, so people call me fat to my face (nine people to be exact, not that I’m counting). This is a compliment in Zambia.

Here is one place I’ve noticed that our cultures differ.

The Good News: I’m now having a Biggest Loser competition with fellow MCC volunteer Karen and I’m totally gonna win! So, if you’re reading this, you best be watchin yo backside, Karen—which shouldn't be too hard for you.

The Bad News: Two of the teachers at the community school are in the process of losing their jobs and I have to add statements on alcoholism and prostitution to our teachers' contract.

The Good News: I'm interviewing two new teachers this week AND the roof got patched at Hope School (refer to previous blog). So there's hope for the future!

The Bad News: An abused boy knocked on my window a lot a couple weeks ago. He needed a safe place to sleep.

The Good News: With police intervention, the boy is moving to Lusaka to live with a relative, who I'm praying will take better care of him than his abusive aunt.

The Bad News: The rain rain should go away and come again another rainy season. There’s been so much rain this year all of Mumbwa is praying for it to stop. I’ve never lived in a subsistence farming community before—weather patterns really matter when you don’t eat if your fertilizer gets washed away.

The Good News: All the rains have uprooted the foundation of the pit latrine I use next to work, so the brick building is tilting on its side and squatting over the hole is basically impossible/dangerous. This gives me an excuse (apart from my white-girl-too-good-for-your-pit-latrine excuse) to use a porcelain throne farther down the road. Hey, it’s the little things that matter here.

The Bad News: I just took a personality test that told me I’m excitable. I took that as an insult.

The Good News: Excitable? Sounds like an obnoxious little kid. No, there’s no good news to that. I’m still offended, even more than by the fat comments.

The Bad News: Poaching and deforestation happens.

The Good News: I’ve started working with World Wildlife Foundation to implement a Children and the Environment program at our community schools. It will teach kids to use natural resources responsibly and give them skills in weaving, pottery, carpentry, agriculture, etc. while preaching against poaching and the like. As long as the communities get on board, it seems like a worthy undertaking, and my goal is to see the program sustainably up and running in one school before my July departure.

The Bad News: The first half of my time here has drawn from my lips more complaining than you could throw a fairly-well-trained psychologist at.

The Good News: Call me hyperactive/excitable/uber-joyful like the personality test did, but here at the halfway point, I’m actually looking forward to the rest of my time here in Zambia.

When I was a kid, the first half of most of my diary entries would consist of earnest/gushy apologies for not writing every day (“I still love you, Beloved Diary. Please forgive me for my busyness that should never get in the way of my love for you,” etc.). Those parts are now boring to read, so I’ll avoid repeating the same literary folly in this only-sometimes-updated blog. I’ll just stick with the all-encompassing: My Bad.

December was overall a relaxing month. For my own mental clarification, I’ve split it into three parts: Regional Retreat, The Week Between, and Christmas, which I will now relate highlights of to you, Beloved and Not-Forgotten Blog Peruse-r.

Regional Retreat (lasted approx. 6.5 days):
Ran a 5K and totally won (except for the two people in front of me, but they both have testosterone, so they don’t count)

Sang loudly/goofily just about every Christmas song written since that first holy night

Flew down slides at a water park (Christmases are not white here FYI)

Bonded to greater and lesser extents with MCC volunteers from Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and here of course. Our week’s speaker was a Zimbabwean who has been arrested twice for activism against his government’s unjust practices. Interesting and sobering.

The Week Between:
I helped facilitate a week-long workshop for women entrepreneurs. Of the 40 women, about half were HIV positive and most already have businesses so we were sharing some business ideas and hooking them up with microenterprise loans. They enjoyed it, and sang a lot too, because that’s what Zambian women do.

I’ve also been learning a good deal about what development work looks like (it’s sloooow by the way). I called a meeting at the community that’s supposed to support Hope Community School—the Difficult community. I went into the meeting thinking I would give a lecture on how ridiculous it is that all of you can’t seem to find the energy to patch your school’s roof. Instead, I ended up giving a little speech on the importance of education (that is NOT a given here) and asking the community members what THEY want to see for the future of their community school. They ended up writing up a work plan to not only fix the roof but also to build toilets, because those are also lacking at the school. We’ll see if it actually happens, but at this point, I’m glad we had the meeting. If it’s going to be sustainable, it seems like a lot of development work is just asking the right questions.

I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, which is coming at you recommended, and pages 108-110 (sardonic analysis of why Christians find it so easy to be cruel) are coming at you VERY highly recommended.

Christmas:
Christmas goes largely uncelebrated by Zambians outside of large cities. However, my Christmas just so happened to be carol-filled and good food-filled and Speed Scrabble-filled and Christ-filled. Come to think of it, it was just what I needed to close up this year.

And now we’re coming into 2008, Beloved Blog Reader. 2007 has been a crazy year of transitions for me—graduating from college in Mass., back to Colorado for a few months, and then over to this faraway land. I started this year declaring that I was a pacifist and have finished the year working hard to find some peace in myself and in God, since my surroundings seem to change as fast as a Lusaka driver.

Maybe 2008 will be steadier? Doubtful. But as Vonnegut would say, “So it goes.”

I think I’ll start the New Year with a resolution to not leave my blog unattended for long periods of time. And to lose weight, because I’m an American woman between 18 and 68 years old, so that’s obligatory.

I hope the New Year finds you surrounded by friends and family. And even if it’s not steady, I have a feeling 2008 is gonna be good.

(Here's part 2 of that one blog)

Violet speed walks towards me from the borehole with a yellow plastic jug balanced on her 10-year-old head.

“Amy! Amy! Trotting!” She yells. By the time she gets to me, there is water soaking her front.

“Let’s go Vi!” I yell back, helping her remove her load (which weighs about 25 pounds), and set it down next to her grandmother, who waves at us as we leave.

Violet and I snake our way down the red dirt paths to pick up the rest of the gang. Rebecca, who never stops smiling . Little Vi. Gift and Green, identical twins who I call Greengift because I still can’t tell them apart. Junior. Always-dancing Lubutuwe.

And what do we do together? We run. Simple as that.

Of course, in the process we usually make a spectacle of ourselves. To begin with, the sight of one tall white woman surrounded by a blob of anywhere from five to 40 African children is not something that’s always graced these red paths. But on top of that, sometimes we’ll act like lions or sing songs about mangoes or raise our left hands, so I’m pretty sure the community thinks their children are running with a white woman who’s slightly nuts.

Yes, the whole process is not usual, but I guess I’ve never been someone to let a little thing like “embarrassment” get in my way, so I keep going back.

This running club of sorts (called “trotting” by the kids) started in September when I went out on my thirty minute afternoon runs and would notice new giggly shadows behind me every time. Now that I’ve moved away from the village and am closer to town, the club has become a once-per-week event since I have to ride my bike to get to the kids in Chitambala Village. Most of the children attend Kine Community School, so I see our runs as fulfilling the P.E. requirement their school doesn’t have to begin with.

There have been a few things threatening to trip up our little trotting club: a child once punched another, and there have been spills especially now that the paths are muddier with the rainy season. Rebecca also brought her baby brother strapped on her back one week, which was more than a little awkward and prompted me to establish a “No Babies on Back While Running” policy.

But we keep running, and the kids and I both love the team aspect of it. We yell “Speed” down every hill and have to act like airplanes. Violet always tries to sneak her hand into mine and sometimes the kids hold hands with each other. And after the run, when we stretch with lots of deep cleansing breaths and a smattering of yoga, the kids group around me so close I can feel their coughs and have to ask them to back up.

Maybe it’s the endorphins clouding my mind, but when we run together, I almost forget the sad part of these children’s life stories. Many of them are orphans; some are HIV positive. I don’t have shoes to give them, so almost all of them run with me barefoot.

Violet, for instance: very intelligent, natural leader Violet. She is cared for by a grandmother with AIDS and Tuberculosis. A grandmother who gives everything for her grandchildren, all while emitting loud, joyful laughs from her emaciated frame, laughs that rival those of Violet.

But despite the sad part of their realities, the kids keep laughing, they keep making me laugh, and life goes on. And as long as I’m in Zambia and the children keep showing up every week, our trotting club will also go on.

(This is not part 2. I’ll get to that. This is a break for the holiday.)

It’s Thanksgiving and I’m hurtling down the road in a minibus to Lusaka, sweating and squished and generally depressed. The closest thing I’ll see to a turkey today, I realize, is the cardboard box on the lap of a woman two seats over that squawks every time we hit a bump on the road. The director of CHD called me in the morning asking me to ride two hours to the capital to pick up checks so I can get a sustainable agriculture project underway—-the Home Based Care volunteers need to start planting maize now that the rains have begun. Necessary and good work, but there will be no holiday for me.

Still generally depressed about the lack of Thanksgiving, I start writing in my journal about the guy sitting directly behind me, Sunglassed-Charles, one of my most regular stalkers (always stops me on the road asking if he can have my number this time. No. Still No. Always No, Charles.) He just so happens to be staring at my neck. As he gets off the minibus, I get an idea.

A list of things I’m thankful for. That’s what I need to coax myself to do, even though I’m too hot to really get into it.

So I begin writing. Things I’m thankful for:
1) Sunglassed-Charles has disembarked and is no longer staring at my neck.
Okay, no more complaints in disguise. Real things you’re really thankful for, Amy.
2) The ability to read and lots of good books around.
3) A family that loves me so much—my parents and grandparents are calling tonight!
4) The knowledge that, however difficult it’s been getting used to this place, I’m without a doubt exactly where I need to be.
5) Nature and green and good running paths always available.
6) A generally healthy body.
7) Mutinta, Cholobesa, the host fam, Peggy, Mrs. Phiri, Wunde, Lois and Siggi, Karen, Jocelyn, Mark, Tyler, Charlene and John, Cheryl and Peter, Katrina, Lucas, Senda, Mrs. Banda, Mrs. Chisumpa, and all the other beautiful, flawed people who have reached out to me in the last three months and I now realize I’ve been taking for granted.
8) Knowing God is here with me in Zambia.
9) A job that’s frustrating and fulfilling and giving me great experience.
10) Not knowing where I’ll be in a year. Scary, but exhilarating.
11) All the people in the States I love and will keep around even if I’m not physically with them.
12) My education.
13) An extremely unboring life.

Hmm . . . unlucky 13 . . . but that’s all I got. A good exercise for me though. I feel more like it’s Thanksgiving already.

So I get the work done in Lusaka and am riding back on a slightly larger bus, much cooler as night closes in on us. I eat an apple, orange, and a pack of Baby Biscuits (like Teddy Grahams only sans vitamin fortification) because that’s all the food in my backpack. So much for Thanksgiving dinner.

BUT there’s an unopened care package on my lap from a friend in the States that I picked up while in Lusaka. I have to wait until I get home to open it.

My friend Stacey calls me while I’m on the bus to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and later in the evening my parents and grandparents call. We talk about our problems. We also laugh.

And then, alone in my room, I open the care package. All the usual: CDs, books, magazines, wonderful wonderful candy. But at the bottom there’s an envelope marked “Letters.” It’s filled with encouraging notes collected from a group of my friends in Massachusetts. I read them and realize I’m crying.

So I add one more number to my list:
14) The fact that I don’t need a turkey to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

And there it is. 14 real things I’m really thankful for. The number of completion x 2.

And then I open my door and give a precious piece of candy to my host sister Eunice. It’s a big stretch for me, but what would Thanksgiving be if I kept it all to myself and my phone lines?