After being here now (yikes) 10 months, I'm starting to transition from freshly scrubbed, rookie-expat to old-timer. Not sure when this happened but a shifting scene of random acquaintances turned quickly into contacts in my mobile phone (a la the first 2 weeks of university of fast bonding with total strangers) and then finally into a motley group of friends comprised of peace corps folks, co-workers, NGO sundries, and the random locals (not enough of these last ones). It's nice; but now am starting to experience the flip side of having to be the one to watch others depart. It's goodbye party season.
Summer (which I keep saying even though it's winter here. And cold - like, 40 degrees cold, which is actually cold!) is leading to a mass exodus of some clutch players, and tomorrow a really good friends is leaving. Couldn't be worse timing in terms of this being the busiest week of work ever and cramming in 15 hour days to finish work before starting holidays on Friday (Paris! 2 weeks! Oui!), and I think I've definitely also not grasped how sad it's going to be when he's gone with 1 less person to turn to when bored, depressed, or psyched about life. Building a good support network of people to depend on has been key, even if I'm not in the bush, and with 4 close friends leaving Lusaka in the next 3 months, the upcoming year is starting to look really different - and quite a bit scarier - than 2007.
Who will give me good advice on how to drive my manual car and listen to me bitch about co-workers? Who'll go camping with me and cook baked potatoes in campfires? To be philosophical before going to bed: it seems like it's the stupid little things - like agreeing to a time and place to meet up at Alpha Bar because everyone is going to leave their phones at home to not get pickpocketed - that are keeping me sane while it sometimes seems like work, while awesome, and the world, while uber-important, is going to shit.
Can't even believe I'm going to be in Paris on Saturday and going to leave Zambia for 2 weeks.
And the Easter story of 3 tire changes to mix it up:
Fraser and I took an Easter road trip to his old Peace Corps village. 1.5 days and 10 hours of driving in, we caromed off a pothole and got what at the time was the flattest tire I had ever seen. Fraser, resourceful peace corps dude that he is, fixed it in a jiff... while about 30 neighboring villagers gathered around to observe and shout advice. We then drove extremely slowly until we reached Mwinilunga and got the tire mended.
Fraser let me change the newly mended tire, since we decided this was a skill everyone should know. He kinda still had to help me place the jack, but - contrary to general expectations - changing the tire only took me about 15 minutes. Very exciting for me.
Day 4 and 26 hours later, we got another flat. THIS was actually the flattest tire I'd ever seen. More like a blowout. We were ok. It more unfolded as a "THUNK-athunk-athunk-athunk..." followed by, Fraser: "PULL OVER THE CAR PULL IT OVER NOW! PULL OVER! NOW! (etc.)" and me: "I'm PULLING OVER BUT I JUST LEARNED TO DRIVE MANUAL SO IT TAKES ME A SECOND! (plus unintelligible yelling)" The novelty wore off tire changing and we were exhausted from the panicked yelling, so I let Fraser do it for Round 3.Conclusion: Easter = 4 days = 34 hours of driving to reach Chibikwa. Driving is bonding, villages are great, and cassava nshima can make me thirstier than I've ever been before.
CHAI lesson 3 to follow soon.
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