post-livingstone, pre-malawi

A coupla updates:

• New boss! Again. This now makes for 4th new manager in about as many months. Sort of full circle, as Charmaine, the new boss, was a volunteer in her last week when I started in my first week. She worked at Genentech for the last year, but is now moved into the CHAI house, meaning I've gained a roomie AND a boss. Yay. Just kidding, this is AWFUL. Not relaxing at all and counting down the infinite number of days until she moves out. She's super nice, but in uber-manager mode: This means saying things like "Let's do a deep dive on this issue so I can get a sense of the real, rich color of what's going on."
  

• Went white water rafting in Livingstone. Starts at the bottom of Vic Falls (Rapid 1: "The boiling point") and 25 rapids later, emerged without any injuries other than a fat lip from getting clobbered by a paddle and only 1 tip. Managed to stay zen when stuck under the raft when dumped out on Rapid 4 ("Morning Glory") and was soon saved by kayak. Was willing to overlook creepos sexual advances from kayaker ("Hey, grab onto this.") in exchange for life. Conclusion: rafting = awesome. Photos of self cowering/huddling in raft during class 5 rapids to follow. Also did microlighting - basically hang gliding while sitting in a lawn chair with a propeller powered by a lawn mower engine. Also great.

• Presidential election tomorrow! This def needs its own update, but basically am not leaving the house at all tomorrow and rallies have been going on all week (read: drunk ama-guys shoot firecrackers into the road where cars are driving). Predictions say: if Banda wins, Sata supporters will riot. We'll see - an update tomorrow. Some friends are going to be neutral election observers, and it was really interesting hearing what they had to say - which was that they felt pretty useless, even when in the past they have seen corruption there's nothing you can do about it.

• Going to Malawi on Saturday for a week. To get scuba certified! And visit Mikey in the bush! Thank godddddd, need the holiday.
  

Will update tomorrow on election extravaganza (having Korean bbq to entertain self in confines of my housing complex).