body viewing

Also, went yesterday to try and see Mwanawasa's body, but after waiting for 1.5 hours behind literally 2 thousand people in a slow-moving line in the midday sun, gave up and instead walked to see how long the line had gotten (at least 3 thousand - also, these all Colman's estimates as am terrible at game such as guessing number of jelly beans in jar) and took some photos for posterity:

Colman and I at out spot at the end of the line (for about a second) in the middle of Olympia somewhere.

Thank god Colman (taking pic also - very meta right?) made us change into nicer clothes before going to try and see the body. Now imagine this portion of line multiplied by 100 and you might get the length of the line by the time we gave up about an hour and a half later.

Mwanawasa's body goes on tour to the 9 provinces this week and will be back to be buried on his farm on Sept. 3, his birthday. National mourning extended to 21 days, which means 2 more weeks of no dancing (only gospel music at clubs), ultimate frisbee (outdoor recreation on haitus), nor official state trips.

More viewing opportunities from Friday to Sunday. Although Colman and I were almost on TV as we were nearly the only white people who even considered waiting to see the body - which would clearly take at least 4 hours and any other normal person would immediately avoid - we managed to hide from the ZNBC truck and make our escape. Colman's sunburn and our general sun-exhaustion won out against desire to see the dead body of former president.

And Colman's leaving tomorrow - sad. Luckily, as legacy of visit have tons of food stocked in freezer because he has even more of a problem in cooking normal amounts of food (it's out of control, actually) than me.