My Funny Valentine

It was a good weekend for Andy and Ashlee. They went to the doctor's family and watched the two boys for a couple of days so the doctor and his wife could get away for the weekend. They did take the baby with them as she is still breast feeding. The family had just received a box from the States with new movies, so they spent the weekend watching movies and baking cookies. It sounded like they enjoyed the break.
Ashlee visited town to get scraps from the tailor to make bags. She has been making some cool bags and now she is making some by request. I can imagine the fabrics are interesting and I am sure she can come up with some fun designs.
There are now hippos only 20K from their village. They have not seen any in the flesh yet. They are very dangerous and a man from the village was just injured by one so they are steering clear of them. There was one recently nearby the garden where Ashlee works.
They are leaving next week for a much needed vacation. They will travel to the Eastern Province to visit Trevor and Lisa, the couple the befriended from Columbia, Missouri. They are the only other couple in the region. It will take three days travel to get to their village. They live approximately 70K form Chipata, the BOMA for that province. It will take approximately three days of travel to get there. Trevor and Lisa will meet them in Chipata and take them back to their house via hitchhiking.
The country is in the process of regrading many of the roads, as it is nearing the end of the rainy season, so they are unsure what to expect for travel. Some of the roads may even be paved, but they do not know yet. All of this work is done by companies that come in from South Africa. They do not train any of the local people how to do this work so they can maintain a monopoly on the work. This is true for most kinds of modernization. It is all outsourced, so rather than building an economy on the work of the citizens they send all of the money to other countries to come in and do the work. It is a backwards way of growing. As an example, ,most people have a full time maid and the average salary for this service is $100/ month. The poor make such little money it is amazing they are able to survive.
Just a note on Andy's tooth: They have plans to be in Lusaka in March and they will finish the work to his tooth, but he is nearly 100% again and is feeling fine.

Invasion of the red ants

Ashlee reported that they were experiencing some interesting encounters with nature lately. They had thousands of red ants that had pincers invade there house. Ashlee said that while she was running around trying to figure out what to do she looked down and her toes were bleeding. They were told to throw dirt on them to deter them. Several of the village boys ran over to show them how to dig a shallow channel around the house. This prevented the ants from coming into the yard and house as they would not cross disturbed dirt. So they now have a channel running around the house that is two inches deep. Amazingly it worked. If you are a reader I would recommend reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. There is a section of the book that refers to this same type of red ant invasion. The story takes place in the late 50-60's and is the story of a family that moves to the Congo (Now Zaire) to bring Jesus to the Congo.
Ashlee has been working on a new project with the hospital nurses educating the women who come in to give birth about nutrition and keeping their babies healthy. They have been traveling from village to village spreading the same message on nutrition.
Unfortunately none of there seeds are producing anything for them despite their diligent efforts. The climate and geography make it difficult to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables. I know it must be frustrating to them as they have put in so much hard work. I guess there is a reason the people live off of sweet potatoes, cabbage and tomatoes most of the year.