Fargo in Mansa

Andy and Ashlee were watching Fargo when we spoke to them on Sunday. They were placed at their new site in Mansa, Zambia last week. They will be living in the Provincial House from now on. They are thrilled to be living in a house with running water, electricity and a working kitchen. There will be people coming and going so that will take some adjustment, but their room is at the end of the hall and they can close off a door to their area and have some privacy if they need it.

Their room is a good size and they have two closets and storage above the closets where they have put away all of their camping gear. They also have their own bathroom with sink, toilet and shower. They will share the kitchen but do have their own pantry and small refrigerator. They also have a maid and gardener that cares for the house and grounds so they mostly just have to keep the office in order. Ashlee said she will probably still do her own laundry except for the bedding which is still a daunting task. My how things change!

They have to house dogs, Stupid and Dammit, and a house cat, Chuck Berry. Ashlee said she was going to have to rename the dogs, but she said after being there for a week she now see how they got their names.

They already stocked up on groceries at the local ShopRite with green peppers, green beans, snap peas and baby corn. Ashlee was thrilled to have some color on their plates. They are very excited to have a well stocked grocery store at their disposal. They can't get bread at the market so Ashlee plans to make their bread. Flour is a provided house supply so she will be able to make the bread for next to nothing. They also get to have all of the excess food that the volunteers leave behind after their visits, so far Ashlee had made a carrot cake and some brownies with leftovers.

They don't speak any of the local language so they have been trying to pick up a few words of the local tongue. Ashlee has found several places that she may be able to volunteer including an Adventist school and a couple of orphanages. The maid and gardener also run an orphanage that she may help out with from time to time. Andy has been working on getting a bank account set up and getting the office organized. He will now have a vehicle, a Rover like the one we had while there, but it is currently in Lusaka, but it will be returned this week. One of the volunteers has been helping a women's group that makes and sells pottery. He was happy to learn of Andy's skills and admitted to faking it with the ladies and is happy to turn the reigns over. Andy is excited to help them with their techniques. They currently fire their pots by filling them with sticks and putting sticks around them and starting a fire. The fire doesn't get hot enough to make the pots very strong, so Andy is going to help them build a kiln.

Ashlee commented that the houses have much more creativity put into them in this area. The have decorative brick work in different colors and they have nice front porches with columns. They also make an effort to plant flowers and plants in the yard. There is actually variety in the design of the homes. Downtown Mansa has several three story buildings and paved streets which is also a change.

The drive up from Lusaka along the Luapua River Valley was incredibly beautiful. There were people in dugout canoes fishing and rowing around the marshy areas similar to the Chobe River. It is a totally different landscape than the Kasempa area.

Jeff update: Jeff is now back in the States getting physical therapy. As stated in the last entry he was run over by truck in Solwezi, we now know that the truck had absolutely no breaks and the driver has been arrested and will serve time in jail. Jeff's injuries include a broken cheekbone, nose, sternum and damage muscles where the vehicle ran over his legs, which is why he needs the therapy. It will be his decision if he wants to come back to Zambia. At least it looks like he will have a full recovery. Not sure I could make myself go back after that kind of trauma. Amazingly the truck did have insurance so it will cover all of the medical costs and he will get a cash settlement.

On the road again...

Andy and Ashlee were pulled from their site on Friday and they are now in Solwezi. They had to leave the site while the truck was in the area to get their stuff from the village. Now they will be at the provincial house for a week or so until someone comes to move them their new home across country. Dorris was going to cook a big meal and kill a chicken but Andy couldn't come home because he was helping with Jeff (see paragraph below). Everyone from the village had come by and asked what they were going to leave for them. Ashlee told them that they were not leaving anything to them because they will need it at their new home. They were not happy about that. She left a few things for Dorris but that was it. The villagers didn't seem to understand that they are moving to another house and will need their things. She said the men were running to scavenge the but they only left a few broken chairs in the kazanza. It was kind of a downer to see that they couldn't even wait for them to get out of sight.
Jeff, one of the volunteers we met while visiting, was hit by a truck outside the market the other day. The truck hit him and then ran over him outside the market. There were several volunteers in Solwezi at the time so they got him right to the hospital. His nose and jaw may be broken.They drove him to Chingola in an ambulance with an American doctor and then they flew him to South Africa as soon as the sun came up the next day. They won't know more about his condition until he gets access to a phone because the PC cannot tell them anything more because of confidentiality. They are confident that he will be fine but do not now if he will be returning to Zambia or not. Jeff was just placed a few months ago, so he was new to the area. It will ultimately be up to him if he wants to return.
Dad called and gave Ashlee his own state of the union address this morning. He filled her in on the Obama's low approval rating, California's mounting debt, the death of Michael Jackson, the murder of Steve McNair, the decrease in the wine industry and other issues in the news these days. She was aware of most of it on her Internet phone, but enjoyed the commentary.

"I am so excited about our new job. A shower, yeah!" Ashlee Fritz 12 July 2009

A new door opens

Ashlee was sitting on the couch sewing when we called this morning. The connect wasn't the best but it was dark and too creepy to sit outside on the phone. Andy was reading his book in bed. They we just wrapping up the day.
Ashlee was excited about some news they got this week. One of the directors in the Northeastern Province has fallen ill and needs to return to the States for treatment. She will not be fulfilling her commitment and there is a good chance that they will ask Andy to take the position. This the same job that Andy wanted to apply for their third year.If they take the job they may or may not stay for an additional year.It would depend on how things go. They would be relocated to Lulapula. If they stayed for a third year they would probably have to go to another province for the third year.
If they do make a move it would mean a more modern house with running water, electricity and computer access. Andy would also have a vehicle, likely one like the one we used on our trip there. Ashlee would likely have a full time job in the town. They have a foundation that makes bags and ships them around the country to markets in Lusaka and Livingston for sale. They currently only make one pattern of bag, but Ashlee could help them come up with another bag design or wallets as she has made several different types of bags in her time there. Another organization called Lulapula foundation educates on agriculture, nutrition, etc. similar to what they have been teaching in the village so she could also work with them.
Andy has worked a lot since they have been back but Ashlee hasn't had a lot to do. He has spent a lot of time on his bicycle. The PC is trying to get a new site 20k away from their location, Andy has been meeting with people there trying to work out the details. Lots of bike time back and forth.
If they get the new position would provide her more opportunities to contribute. She has been over to the hospital a couple of times, but that is all that is stirring right now. Ashlee would like to feel like she is doing something more. They are keeping their fingers crossed that it will happen, but don't want to get their hopes up. One more bonus would be that the Lulapula house where they would be living has a pedal sewing machine so that is an added bonus.
Hopefully the door to this new possibility will swing wide open and they can try something new for a while. That is if it is meant to be.

Happy Birthday Andy!

Andy and Ashlee had a houseful of guests when we spoke to them on Sunday. It was Andy's 32nd birthday and Ashlee had been spoiling him all day. She started with French toast for breakfast, baked beans and corn bread for lunch and gumbo for dinner. After seeing how much work goes into preparing food at their house I can appreciate what a gift that truly is. Kersey and a two others were visiting and it sounded like they were enjoying each other's company.
They actually had just return a few days earlier from Lusaka where the were taking some exams. They were delayed a few days on their return as Ashlee was sick and had a fever. She decided that a day on the bus with a fever and not able to drink any water as there is no toilet was not a fun time. So they stayed on a few days for recovery. They will now be at home for the next several months in the hut, but are looking forward to being in one place for a while.
Hope Andy enjoyed his day.

Getting acquainted

We survived our first night in the hut with a few aches and pains. The roosters started early but we manages to stay in bed for a while. After a breakfast of leftover rice with cinnamon and sugar and some coffee we loaded into the Rover to check out the area. We headed into town where we picked up Jeff, a new volunteer from Boston. From there we took a dirt road 20 or so miles out to Jeff's site. He was recently placed and is getting adjusted. He does not speak the language yet and no one in his village speaks English so it is a bit of a challenge. He eats dinner with his host family so he is picking things up slowly.
The village had just built Jeff a new rack for his dishes. The wood was so clean and bright. The construction was quite beautiful. When we arrived we were greeted by several of the village children. They came running with the stools from their homes as a gesture of kindness to provide seats for us. I had fun taking pictures of the kids and then showing them the screen on my camera. It was cool to see their faces as they recognized their friends in the photo and then the light would go off as they recognized themselves, maybe for the first time in a photo.From there we piled back in the truck and drove back to Kasempa and back down the road that we traveled on the way in from Solwezi to the tree farm, Andy has been working on the project with Joseph, an educated man from the village and the owner of their hut. They are worried that the villagers may someday try to destroy the tree farm because they are jealous of Joseph and have previously taken it out on him by beating his father and burning his house down. So far they have not had any trouble, but it is a ways out of town which may give it some protection. They are planning to tell the people that it is bad juju to harm the trees which will probably keep them away. Fingers crossed. There was a large open structure with a thatch roof and a long log that was burning at one end in the center of the space. Andy described how the caretaker for the tree farm often stays there at night and it is a shelter for the crew and a place to cook a meal. There are several acres of land that have been cleared of trees and brush only the termite hills remain. There are many more acres yet to be cleared and that work is ongoing although no new saplings can be planted until the dry season passes. There are rows and and rows of saplings ranging from 10-24" high. Around each sapling are a several large sticks to mark the planting. It will be 20 years or more before the trees can be harvested, but the chief of the village is also starting a tree farm so there will be many jobs created for the next several years which will help to boost the local economy.

We dropped Jeff off in town on our way back to BA Fritz. We had to get back pretty early as the sun goes down early and it takes a couple of hours to prepare food. Ashlee got right to work on a traditional Zambian meal consisting of nshima, a corn meal mush the consistency of Playdough, with relishes of rape, soya pieces and beans all sauteed with tomatoes and onions. Can't say it was the tastiest thing I have tried, but it was good to try something truly local. It is shocking to me that the people live on nshima three meals a day every day. No fresh fruit or vegetables. No seasonings other than a pinch of salt. No meat. No variety. I know I am a food lover but wouldn't life be that much less enjoyable without the variety of foods we have available to us in the States?

Tosh barked up a storm all night, but at least she was keeping whatever was out there at bay. The roosters were having their own musical battle all night long. Funny how I can fall asleep to the TV any time but the sound of a few dogs and chickens kept me up for hours. We have to be on the road at dawn for the 9+ hour drive back to Lusaka on our two day journey to Livingston.

Welcome to BA Fritz

The Royal Solwezi offered a good English breakfast. We filled our tummies and then loaded the truck to hit the road for Kasempa. We traveled the narrow paved road past clusters of mud brick huts most of the 2 hour trip. We arrived at the Kasempa Seventh Day Adventist Church near the end of Sabbath School and the ladies joined a class while the guys went to check the air pressure in one of the tires that was running low. We strained to comprehend the English being spoken by the teacher. At some point I noticed that Mom had given up on trying. The accent was thick but thanks to my Andrews multicultural education I was able to get most of it.

The church was built similarly to the mud brick homes only the roof was built of a ad hock wood trusses. The connections between the crooked members were scary but somehow it seemed to be holding together. There were cotton curtains on the windows and fake flowers on the podium not unlike many Adventist churches in the States.

After several beautiful a Capella songs with complex harmony that it is hard to believe just comes naturally the elders filed in and a long session of announcements began. We were asked to stand and were welcomed one by one. The pastor gave the sermon in English and one of the elders translated into the local language. The church was full of children and women and we later learned that the men were evangelizing to outlying villages that day. After the service was over they made a couple of short announcements they asked Mom to say a few words about the Columbia Seventh Day Adventist Church that has become a sister church to them. They told us that the pews we were sitting and the recent repairs to the church were made possible by their donation. They were very thankful and hoped that they would be remembered in the future.

We made a quick escape as Ashlee feared we would be asked to stay for lunch which would mean strange food and several hours of difficult conversation. Because of our delay the day before due to rain we were behind schedule for all that they had planned for us. So we headed over to the market for a couple of ingredients Ashlee needed and to take a look at the local market. This was much more of a manageable speed for me. It was a similar set up to the market in Solwezi but about a fifth the size and not bustling or crowded. There was still trash everywhere on the ground. We looked at kitenge and other interesting offerings in the various shops and met Andy and Aundre who were hanging out with Andy's friend, Alvin, and a new volunteer to the area, Jeff. From the market we drove out to the hospital campus to visit Andy and Ashlee's friends, the doctor, his wife and their three kids. The campus had fairly modern buildings with running water and electricity. We had a cold glass of water, the first in a few days, and sat and chatted for a while. The baby girl was bubbly and smiling the whole time and the boys popped in and out sneaking peaks of the strangers. From there we headed back to the main road and the down a dirt path. More than once Andy had to stop and move a log or check a culvert. We bumped along for 2o-30 minutes with glimpses of houses and gardens between the tall grasses. Andy jumped out and grabbed his machete and slashed a wider path so we could back the Rover up near the house. The kids came running as soon as they heard the truck and by the time we exited the vehicle there were a dozen or so kids all around. Ashlee made a quick sweep the house to check for intruder of all types, but found it clean. We unpacked the baggage and groceries and Ashlee and Andy took turns giving us tours of the grounds. The kazanza, or cooking hut, the outhouse, the shower the garden, the compost heap, etc. Ashlee, Mom and Andrea headed up to the mill to get the corn pounded for dinner the next day at the mill up the path. I played with Tosh for quite a while. Such a happy dog, but clueless to the concept of fetch. Mostly she just wanted to jump on me or sit on my feet. She seemed to understand that we were family right away and took to taking orders and begging for affection.

Ashlee got started on dinner right away. She made a stir fry with all local ingredients. She wanted to give us a taste of what one of their typical African meals are like. The stir fry consisted of tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, soya and greens that she served over rice. Soya is a dried soy bean product that is in chunks that can be rehydrated and are tofu-like. Many of the volunteers use is to help keep some protein in their diet. The dark sneaked up on us as we ate, and with no light other than that of the moon we sat in a circle of the kazanza and sipped on an after dinner cocoa or tea.

We headed for bed early. Andrea and Ashlee shared a two man tent set up next to the kitchen, Andy found a private spot out back for his tent, Mom snuggled up on the couch behind the mosquito net and Aundre and I tucked ourselves in A&A's fortress-like bed only after stuffing the three brooms under the door to keep the snakes out. We must have laid there for a couple of hours whispering about the day and jumping at every little sound. It wasn't long until we could hear Mom gently snoring. More than once I made Aundre shine the light around the room just to double check, but ultimately there were not any visitors in the night. Tosh was hard at work scaring everything away with her barks which was a disturbance, but we were still thankful she was there keeping whatever was out in the African night away from the house.

On the Great North Road

6:30 am came quickly. We groggily dragged our bags out to the Cruiser and loaded up. There was a minute for a slice of toast and a cup of a tropical juice and yogurt drink, popular in Zambia, before we loaded in. Our trip will be a long one and we are hoping to make it all the way Kasempa in the daylight. The city turned from a series of walled properties with fairly modern buildings into clusters of mud block houses with a range of roofs types from plastic to metal to thatch. Our view for a good portion of the trip was the back of a packed minibus, one of the main modes of transportation for Zambians on the go.
Ashlee filled us on the joys of riding these buses. First, the have do a scheduled departure time, but typically the bus driver will hang around for the bus to fill up so that he can maximize his profit. She said that this has been up to five hours in her experience. She also said that many women traveling with small children have no problem plopping a toddler on your lap which is bad enough, but they do not use diapers. Gross! She has gotten wise to the gig and now refuses. It is just one of the reasons they often end up hitch hiking. There were many interesting sites along the road side: bicycles loaded win ways that defy the laws of physics, a woman wrapped in kitenge (brightly printed fabric) with a baby slung around her in another kitenge covered with a fleece blanket and a 3' basket on her head full of her latest crop and groups of kids from age 3 or so on up lounging along side the highway nearly the entire stretch.
And some more disturbing sites: the raping of the landscape by the huge copper mines, piles upon piles of trash due to a total lack of trash service and the newly paved roads that are already full of huge potholes because they are so poorly built, 1-2" of asphalt over dirt, by the Chinese because they know the roads will be repaved by them when they fail if they know the right palms to grease.
It made for a headache for Andy along the way as he zigged and zagged his way around the pits in the road.
A storm was on the horizon as we got closer to Solwezi, a very strange thing for this time of year in Zambia, when typically they will go months with absolutely no rain. It was getting dark because of the storm and with sunset just a few hours away Andy decided it was best to spend the night and go the rest of the way in the morning. So we booked a couple of rooms at the Royal Solwezi, a very modern lodge built on the hillside by a British couple. Then we loaded back into the Cruiser to visit the provincial house where Andy and Ashlee spend a lot of their off time. Below is a mural Andy painted in the hallway during one of their stays. Then we went for our first taste of the Zambian market. That proved to be a test for a few of us. The odor was overwhelming when we first entered through the dried fish portion of the market. There were rows and rows of ladies behind large piles of various types of dried tiny fish. I think I may have threw up a little in my mouth... but I sucked it up as we made our way through trash filled aisles of shops with people shouting out for us to visit their stands. We moved into the vegetable portion of the market and Ashlee purchased some rape, a favorite African green, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and some bologna-like substance made from nuts for our meal the following evening.
We ate dinner at the restaurant in the Royal Solwezi, where there was a broad offering of options. The power went in and out several times throughout the evening which was giving Ashlee fits and did limit the menu that was available. The lights and televisions kept going out, but there were several of the main lights on the generator which would kick in when the power would go out. I thought it set a relaxing mood for dinner and I rather enjoyed it myself. There were again mosquito nets on the beds, but in a more elegant fashion and we cranked up the air and slept soundly through the night.