How to hate a goat....

Andrew G. Fritz
Ok, so I'm sure most of you have heard news by now of my crash. Since the codeine is wearing off I figured I would get around to sending out an email. To begin with, the circumstances are ridiculous. Riding my bike back from what will be a new volunteer site in our district next year I was clipped in the rear tire by a fast moving sedan. Here's the best part, though - it was so they could avoid hitting a goat. Consequently, I have decided to organize an anti-goat campaign in Kasempa (which is undoubtedly doomed to failure due to the fact that goats are the village equivalent to a bank account) for the remainder of my service. After clipping my bike, I lost control and veered down an embankment beyond the shoulder. The driver continued to speed away as I stated cursing them in both English and Kaonde, a testament to the fact that in times of stress I can count on my language skills in this country.
Gaining speed as I went, my body decided that it would be a thrilling ride if I continued this path without my bike as I shot over the handlebars. I managed to tuck myself into as much of a ball as I could, which helped significantly with lessening the bodily impact, and began a comfortable roll over fairly grassy terrain. Unfortunately, the large tree in my path thwarted my efforts to walk away without injury. I took the brunt of the impact with my right arm, shoulder, face, and head. After a few minutes of unconscious relaxation, I awoke to find blood starting to come out of my mouth with several pieces of teeth. I put my teeth in my bike bag, dusted off the broken helmet, bent my rear derailleur back into place, and began the roughly 20 kilometer ride back home.
Later that day, a doctor Ashlee and I know at the local mission hospital gave me an initial checkup to ensure no neurological damage. We spent the night at his family's home and went to Solwezi in the morning with help from our forestry office. After putting my arm in a sling and munching some ibuprofen, our Peace Corps liason for Nortwestern Province took me fill out a police report and get donuts. The donuts were great on the painfully long bus ride to Lusaka the next day. After arriving in Lusaka, I have had numerous doctors and dentists poking, prodding, and taking x-rays with some fortunate results. Apparently, I am quite a blessed young man.
The roots of my teeth are intact, and healthy - so I only have to be fitted for a crown and fill two small chips. There are no broken bones, only a slight separation in my shoulder which will heal itself with the aid of a sling for a few weeks. The majority of the damage is to soft tissue, which is keeping me in Lusaka for a week of ultrasound therapy followed by exercises I can do in the village. In a few days, all my bruises should be gone, and I will soon be on my way home to wage war on the goats of Kasempa district.

Thank you for all your concern and love. The support system at home makes it much easier to be here. We (Ashlee and I) will let you know if anything changes, or if there are any updates to my condition. In the meantime, if you see a goat - kick it hard for me.

Much love,
andy

4 October 2008

Well it has been a crazy week in the Fritz hut-hold. As Bev reported earlier this week, Andy was in an accident on his bike on Tuesday. He was cruising along on his bike when a woman in a car swerved to avoid hitting a goat and got his back tire. He went off the road and was able to tuck and roll, fast thinker! The bad part is that he rolled right into a tree. Fortunately he had his helmet on. He hit his head and shoulder on the tree. He chipped two teeth, sheared off a molar and hurt his shoulder. Two lessons we all can learn: There are women drivers everywhere and you are always second place to somebody else's goat.

Andy was able to ride a good distance home where I am sure he scared Ashlee half to death. They called the forestry department and three hours later someone arrived in a vehicle and took them into Kasempa. When I heard from Ashlee she said not to worry because she has his teeth in her purse....alrighty then. They went to the hospital where their American doctor friend came out of surgery to examine Andy. He thought that he was fine but needed to x-ray his shoulder and get his teeth repaired which required traveling to Lusaka. Their friend insisted that they stay with them that night.

Ashlee said their PC contact was awesome and she was in touch with them every 30 minutes to an hour that day to check on Andy. She kept asking Ashlee if Andy was acting strange. Ashlee said, "Actually, yes, but I assure you that is quite normal." The same lady made all their arrangements for doctor's appointments and a hotel for them in Lusaka. They stayed a night in Solwezi at the provencial house on the way to Lusaka and that is when we first heard from Ashlee. The next day they took the bus to Lusaka.

They had three doctor's visit on Friday. Ashlee had a funny side note. She said that the doctor's offices had a lot of American magazines and so she grabbed one to catch up on some gossip. She looked at the magazines and they were all from 2001 and 2002. She said that reading material is like currency there and American writings are highly coveted. They had Andy's shoulder x-rayed and found out that he needs physical therapy for two weeks. They saw a dentist that said that Andy's molar was sheared off but is still alive so they will be able to crown it. So Andy will need to stay in Lusaka for the next two weeks and get treatment on his shoulder and the new crown on his tooth. They didn't say, but I would guess also getting his other damaged teeth repaired. Ashlee will travel back on Monday or Tuesday as she has a meeting to prepare for and present this week and they are expecting a PC friend, Kersey, the end of the week. So for the second time Ashlee will have male company while Andy is away. She was sure the village would be talking about that.

They are currently staying in a Chinese hotel in Lusaka. There is another PC couple there for medical treatment. The husband has a bulging disk in his back. Unfortunately they do not have the treatment he needs in Lusaka, so he will have to travel to South Africa for treatment. Andy was fortunate with his tooth as they thought he may also have to go to South Africa.

It was Ashlee's birthday 26th on Saturday. Kinda of a stressful way to spend your birthday, but they did have a nice day. They went out for a good breakfast and had cappuccino which they were psyched about. Then they went to a movie with some other volunteers: House Bunny. Didn't sound like they would recommend it, but did say there were some funny lines about PC volunteers that made them all laugh. When we talked to them yesterday they had just returned to the hotel from the movie because Andy was not feeling well. He was sick to his stomach and had a fever. Ashlee thought that he was just exhausted. He was going to lay down for a while and if he wasn't feeling well later Ashlee was going to order some Chinese food from the hotel and stay in. Hopefully some rest has him feeling better.

We talked about the weather and their plans for their garden. Ashlee said she may get started on that when she gets back to the village as the rain will soon start. The have built up the grave like beds of soil for planting their wide variety of plants. They have waited until now as hauling water would be very difficult to keep the plants watered but they are considering hiring a village boy to carry water to the plants when the dry season comes around again so they can have more fresh veggies all year. When they left home Ashlee said there were hundreds of thumb sized mangoes on the trees in their yard. That will be fabulous when they start to ripen! I am sure they will eat themselves sick.

Ashlee said they received two packages last week: The birthday box that Bev sent and a box from her coworkers from Portland. She was very excited to get everything and said to tell everyone thanks! They had to leave them with a friend as they have not been home since they picked them up. All the clothes fit and the games and food were great. They said that they enjoy doing the puzzles. Ashlee would like some easy puzzles of all types and Andy would like medium difficulty crosswords or sudoku. They also love to get reading material! Andy likes mystery/action novels and Ashlee likes historical fiction. They both like sports and political magazines and Ashlee said she can always ready some gossip magazines, so feel free to throw your old magazines in your next box. I think Andy should have pretty regular access to the Internet while he is in Lusaka so be sure to email him in the next couple of weeks as he should be able to respond and Ashlee will have the Internet phone and will also be able to receive your messages and calls.

Let's all send out a prayer that Andy has a speedy and complete recovery from his injuries and Ashlee is safe and at ease as she travels back to Kasempa and while Andy is away.

21 September 2008

Andy and Ashlee celebrated their two year wedding anniversary on 17 September. They had to go to Solwezi to write their quarterly report so they decided to stay at a hotel for the night. Ashlee said they had plans to some things, but after they got in their room they found out their AC has a remote control so they jumped in bed, cranked up the AC and watched ESPN all night. She said they watched PTI, Around the Horn and several other shows as well as a bunch of stuff about baseball that they didn’t really care about but watched anyway. Andy found some nori when he was in Lusaka getting a tooth fixed the week before so they had some sushi for their anniversary. That has been their tradition. I had sent two sets of the chopsticks from their wedding that they also used. That was a special reminder for them. The next day they stayed at the provincial house. They ran into a man selling strawberries so they bought a bunch and ended up making all kinds of strawberry dishes. Andy also fried some chicken which was delicious.

They had just had a meeting with their village that was very well attended so they were thrilled with that when we talked to them. Sometimes they don’t get very good turn outs and that is frustrating. They had 13 women, 4 men and several children. They were teaching about conservation farming. They gave them seeds as a part of a project where they give them seeds one time and then they have to learn how to glean them from their crop for the next year.

They are already planning for our family for visit next April and Ashlee has been talking with the village women about preparing us a Zambian meal when we are there. I think we are all getting excited about it!

7 September 2008

As a follow up to Ashlee’s letter about the language she said that another one she is having trouble with is tomorrow = yesterday. How do you figure out when you are doing something when there is no difference between yesterday and tomorrow? Curious. Ashlee asked that we send gum in their care packages because what they have tastes terrible! They now have an internet phone and can receive emails, but still can only respond when they are at the provincial house.

Andy and I are going to work on a Western house design for the village. They are going to start raising and processing pine trees in the region and he would like to show them how to build a wood framed house. This would help to reduce the amount of wood needed for construction as currently it takes a lot of wood to burn to fire the bricks that they use to build. There will be challenges as they do not have the other traditional building materials that we have including treated lumber for sill plates, house wrap and exterior sheathing that we use to protect the wood from rotting. A girl from my office, Charmalee, who is from Sri Lanka, has some experience in this type of work and she and I are teaming up to design and detail a house for them. Andy said that getting a set of metric blueprints would mean the world to the village. He has been working with a local contractor on the bridge projects and with Andy’s extensive construction experience he feels that he could guide them through the construction process. I have already been thinking up ways to make that process smoother by maybe laminating the plans as they do not have a way to reproduce them. We are starting this week to research construction techniques that may be applicable. Maybe by the time we go the Zambia next spring they will be underway.

31 August 2008

When we spoke to Andy and Ashlee they were stuck in Solwezi because the recently deceased president, Levy Mwanawasa, body was making the rounds to the cities and villages for viewing and so all the traffic was coming into Solwezi but not out. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7570285.stm So they stayed a few extra days at the provincial house on their way back from a week of training in Lusaka. They were curious to see how the country would react as this is the first elected official to pass away. So far everything has been peaceful. They are very interested to see how the election process works in Zambia. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7607444.stm Ashlee was telling my how the mourning period is 7 days and there is hour upon hour of wailing.

They enjoyed their training where they learned about grafting trees so provide a variety of fruit types. They were grafting oranges on to lemon trees. They also had training in growing bananas and business planning. They will hold weekly classes on business planning with the village.

Ashlee said that she had 7 chickens hatch from her chicken Ethel, but 4 had already been killed by hawks. Hopefully they will be able to keep a couple of them alive. An epidemic has been going around that is killing the chickens so they were going to find out how to get vaccinations for the birds.

Ashlee has started a knitting club and met with the town council to get it approved. That will be a valuable skill to teach the ladies. Ashlee said she has started to work out a lot of different patterns including socks to teach them. Mom’s knitting club has been sending Ashlee needles and yarn to get started, as well as yarn to do the rag rugs. Mom found a pattern online for making a loom out of a cardboard box so they should be able to figure out a way to make that work.

They have befriended a boy from the village whose father lived in Lusaka recently died of TB which is a result of HIV. His family would not let him leave the village to attend the funeral and now he has been left to fend for himself with his education which is nearly complete. Andy and Ashlee are going to sponsor him (10,000 quatra which is only a few dollars) in return for work around their house for this year, but are trying to find a sponsor for him for the next year. He is the cousin of the boy that does quite a bit of work for them now at their house.

Ashlee said that she had received a letter from Christi, her high school friend, who has recently traveled to Russia with her acting group to teach the children about playwriting. They think that it may be possible for her group to visit Africa in the future for a similar program. Ashlee was very excited about this prospect and hopes they can get the details worked out.

Mujy Byepi Mwane

3 August 2008

Well after 2 weeks of diarrhea Ashlee is finally starting to recover. They had to stay at the provincial house for 5 days as she was not able to hitchhike back to their house due to her illness. They planned to stay only for a few days, but it got stretched out. Not a good reason to extend your vacation, but at least they had lots of movies to pass the time. They had been at a going away party for another volunteer and drank some local beverages which maybe the culprit but Andy managed to only be ill for a couple of days. They were tested for malaria but they were clean.

Andy’s bike is now out of commission and since they are American bikes they cannot find parts anywhere nearby so they have to wait until they go to the city this week to get them. Hopefully by now they have what they need. Andy has been riding Ashlee’s bike into town for what they need as he is the better rider. Plus I don’t really like the idea of Ashlee riding around by herself.

Ashlee finally got her chicken. It has laid 12 eggs, but refuses to stay at their house. She came from the neighbor and so she goes back over there to lay her eggs. They decided to let her have a few chicks and plan to take them back to their house after they are born, so hopefully that will keep her close to home. Her name is Ethel (for those of you who don’t know that is our grandmother’s name). Ashlee is also planning to add a duck sometime soon. She said that chickens there are like a bank account you save up what you can so you can trade them when you are in need. They are very valuable. The pigs all got wiped out by an epidemic a while ago and the locals really want to get them back. Ashlee said she is encouraging ducks and that is why she wants to get one. The pigs have parasites called jiggers in their droppings that get into your feet. So she said she does not care to have that to worry about. There are however a lot of predators for the fowl including wild cats, snakes and hawks. They were telling us about watching a hawk catch and kill a chicken the other day. They get a lot of entertainment from watch the local wildlife.

They said things have been a bit strange around the village the last week because the man who used to live in their house died and the village has been in mourning. Approximately every two hours around the clock they start wailing and carry on for a while and then take a break. They are not really sure what they should be doing, but they think they people understand that it is not their culture. They said that the man’s son is an educated man with a degree in science who has travel the world but has now returned to the village to live. What a strange thing that must be. Travel the modern world only to return to a village with no electricity and no running water. But I guess for him it is home. They said it is a common thing. The local school principal actually went to school in Minot, ND and spent 5 years in Germany and is now back in the village.

They are going to buy an internet phone this week when they are in the city, so they should be able to receive email all the time. They won’t be able to reply as it will be very expensive but they will be able to get messages every day. They said they would let us know when that is up and running.

Ashlee is planning to help the ladies build a loom so that they can make rag rugs to sell. They have a lot of brightly colored fabric that will make for beautiful rugs, plus it will give them another source of income. She said they can buy a bag of scraps for 1000 quatra and turn around and sell the rung for 10,000 quatra, so it could be a pretty lucrative project. They have been a bit discourage lately as they haven’t been getting many people to turn out for their meetings, but they said that is common and so they are trying not to get frustrated. Andy has been working with the Kasempa Town Council to design a bridge that will be built. He has been doing blueprints of options and seems to be enjoying that.