Just to clarify...

There's seems to be some confusion about the new blog. Confusion meaning that some of you apparently weren't aware that there was a new blog. I know I can go MIA from time to time, but honestly, did you think I'd just drop off the face of the planet like that!?

So, just to clarify: there is a new blog, called The Dhaka Diaries. And if you haven't noticed the five links to my new blog in this posting yet, direct your browser to:

http://bangladashley.blogspot.com.

Thanks. Enjoy!

Bangladesh bound

Tomorrow is the big day. At this time tomorrow I'll be in a plane headed to, well Vancouver, but I'll be on a journey that will take me via London and Dubai to Dhaka, the city of almost 15 million I will be calling home for the next 8 months.

While I ponder what an overwhelming thought that is, I will let you get started reading my new blog, The Dhaka Diaries.

Thanks for reading all my WGA tales, and for all the encouragement you have offered me in both my travels and my writing.

Photos (the old fashioned way)

It seems that not all of the pages on my .Mac site loaded properly. So, I have managed to get them up to my webshots account, which can be accessed through the 'My Photos' link on the right hand column of this page.

Photos (finally!)

Someone came up with the expression 'Better late than never!' for a reason, and I somehow feel obliged to make good use of it. This is a perfect occasion.

Better late than never, I have finally posted some more photos of my year in Zambia on the internet. In my defense, the dial up connection at my disposal in Lusaka just wasn't up to the challenge. But now I am back in North America where broadband abounds, so the excuses have run out…

I decided to use my fabulous brand new Macbook to put some pages together and uploaded them to a free trial .Mac website. Unfortunately 'free' and 'trial' is Macanese for 'limited' so there wasn't enough space available to upload my photos from the whole year. But, I was able to pick up where I left off with the photos I uploaded to Webshots (accessible through the menu on the right hand side of my blog under 'My photos').

Unfortunately, however, in all the excitement I hastily did a test upload before I had finished formatting the pages with my own text. And, of course, now that I have finished formatting and tried to upload the changes it’s telling me there is not enough space available. How does that phrase go again... "The wonders of modern technology"...?

Anyway, the end result is that a few of the pages have a blurb in some foreign language I don't recognize and some of the photos don't feature my incredibly witty captions. Others feature incredibly dorky captions that I included in my test upload and fully intended to rewrite. Some of the photos didn't get rotated properly, and of course there is probably a liberal smattering of spelling errors and the like. But the photos are there, and that's what's important. Okay, we all know it’s the incredibly witty captions that are important, but you’ll just have to make due with boring ol’ photos.

To access the site, click on the link below:

Ashley's Photos of Zambia

From the Welcome page use the links at the top of the page to view pages of differents months/trips. There seem to be a few glitches and some of the photos on the PC I am using at the moment don't appear. I don't know how many of the glitches are PC-related and how many are problems with the site itself, but if you click on a page and the menu at the top changes (shows fewer pages than before), just go back to the Welcome page and all of the options should reappear.

Enjoy! And if you have any questions or comments just let me know.

A is for... Asia?

In my typically late fashion I am writing to share what is fast becoming old news: true to my where's-waldo nature, I am once again on the move. That’s right, I know you all thought I might actually stay put somewhere for more than 365 days but, alas, it seems that is an impossibility.

So where am I off to now, you ask? Well, I’ll give you a hint – it’s a small, densely populated, flood-prone country close to India that starts with a B. Don’t worry, I’ll wait while you go check the atlas.

(This is me waiting….)

Have you found it yet? Yes, that’s right - I’m moving to Bangladesh! I’m sure this comes as a surprise to many of you, but don’t worry, it was a bit of a surprise for me too! It seemed that one day I was briefly glancing through a job posting sent to me by a friend, and the next day I was trying to decipher a contract for what I like to think of as my very first ‘real’ job.

I have been hired as a Field Program Officer for a project with the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada. The project is a ‘learning project’ for a larger, poverty-reduction program being carried out by BRAC, a local Bangladeshi NGO (also the largest indigenous NGO in the world). I could take up more space to bore with the details of exactly what I will be doing but a) I’m not exactly sure yet, and b) even if I was sure, I have no doubt my job description would not even begin to describe the realities of what my job will become once I am on the ground. So I will save those exciting details for a later blog.

It was a difficult decision to leave Zambia after such an incredible year there. This exciting opportunity came at a time when I was just getting used to the quirks of my life in Zambia. Quirks like...

Minibus drivers boasting how drunk they are...
Being the only woman using my arms to carry things...
The two-sidedness of the world: 'this side' and 'that side'...
Meeting twelve year old children whose mothers are my age...
Driving on the left hand side of the road...
The endless uses of the phrase 'what what'...
The single state of being: ‘just okay’…
Diplomatically answering the question ‘where do you play?’ (Zambian for ‘what church do you go to?’)…
The smoke of endless fires burning to get rid of garbage, hunt mice, chase away snakes, or clear fields for new crops…
Realizing that, statistically speaking, one out of every five people I pass everyday is HIV positive…
Watching the seasons change – just recently I greeted the vibrant purple blossoms of the jacarandas who dressed both their elegant branches and the ground below in carpets of incredible colour…
Having nieces and nephews…
Cockroaches…
Mel’s insane cat, Shadow…
Sympathising with people who have come down with 'maralia'...
Nshima…
The previously undecipherable English of Sebastian, one of our guards…
Shaking hands with people for minutes on end…
Praying before and after every meeting…
Things taking a loooooong time (for example, you might go to the insurance company to insure your camera and it might take so long that the person waiting for you has time to read the paper, have a cat nap, go for a walk and watch half a World Cup football game)…
Space being used to its fullest – whether it’s minibuses overflowing with sweaty passengers, bicycles sagging under the weight of 6 enormous bags of charcoal, closet-sized rooms sleeping whole families, or wheelbarrows of produce ready to topple over, space is never wasted…
'Ju-ju' (witchcraft) coming up in everyday conversation…
Not having a television…
Wanting to laugh, cry and scream all in the span of an hour…
Expecting the unexpected…
Nothing happening when it is supposed (or, often, even happening at all)…
The whitest, brightest smiles in the world…
Calling 1pm '13 hours' (and other quirks of the 24 hour clock in Zambia)…
Greeting taxi drivers with ‘How is it, boss?’…
Sebastian and Christopher (our guards) asking me to lend them money, make them tea, and generally entertain them with my mzunguness…
Mosi, the ‘Truly Zambian’ beer (undeniably so, seeing as one of its main ingredients is maize)…
Having almost everyone I know dedicate part of their day to praying for me…
Being welcomed, by everyone, everywhere I go…
Having mangos grow on a tree about 12 metres from my window…
The astonished looks I get when I tell people I don't have children, and I'm not married!! (heaven forbid)...
The fact that there is a 'season' for petrol shortages…
Being approached to buy fruit, newspapers, baseball hats, board games and rabbits – all at the same intersection!...
Going to buy sweet potatoes (or any other earthly good), of which there were so many the previous day you could hardly avoid tripping over them, only to find that they are 'kulibe (finished) madame'...
Calling 'muli bwanji!' to children passing by...
Having discussions about the merits of polygamy...
Meeting people named Perpetual, Jelly and Abstract...
Etc... (Yes, I could go on forever)

Needless to say, I will miss Zambia. A lot. There are things I won’t miss, however. Just before I left, a funeral took place at one of the neighbour’s flats downstairs. Funerals here are an ordeal: for 2 full days the whole family (and I don’t mean just Mom, Dad and the kids) eats, sleeps and mourns together. And mourning is not a quiet, individual act. It is a loud, communal act. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to hear people wailing en masse, but I can say it is a sound that sends chills down my spine just thinking about it.

Funerals take place all the time in Zambia. Hearing a colleague say ‘I have to go to a funeral’ is like hearing them say ‘I have to go to the bank’ – nonchalant, normal, everyday. I won’t miss that at all. But I will miss most of the rest of it. Even the annoying bits.

I am asked often what I will miss most about Zambia, and I have come to the conclusion that what I will miss most is laughing. I laughed every single day I was in Zambia. Despite the immense adversity they face, Zambians are incredibly joyous and would never miss out on an occasion to share a good hearty laugh with a stranger. They have a great sense of humour that is not hard to bring out, if you know how. Fortunately, I learned how. And it made every one of my days bright to know that before I climbed into bed I was going to share a good laugh with someone. That is what I will miss most.

I will also miss the incredible goodwill of Zambians. Even when someone was trying to get something out of me – and really, why shouldn’t they try? – if they didn’t get what they wanted they never got upset or took it personally. I remember on my most recent roadtrip being asked (seemingly aggressively) for money by the children who helped us push our car – unfortunately, we weren’t even sure we had enough cash to get us home, so we decided we couldn’t spare anything for our heroes. But, after a brief flash of disappointment, the grins returned to their faces and they waved us on our way wishing us a safe journey. That just doesn’t happen everywhere. There is a special kind of…innocence that I both admire and appreciate in the people of Zambia.

And of course there are countless other things, people, places and quirks that I will miss, but for the benefit of my loyal readers I will refrain from listing them all.

So, Zambia is behind me now, but another incredible adventure awaits the White Girl (soon to be) in Asia! And, rest assured, you'll hear ALL about it (I've already received a number of harsh threats relating to the possible disappearance of my blog, so in the interest of my well-being I have decided to continue blogging...)

Until then, goodnight.

Zen and the Art of Pajero Maintenance

Last Saturday morning I left for Kawambwa, a town in Northern Zambia, 1200km from Lusaka. Eighteen hours, 150km in the wrong direction, 1 dead pig and 4 breakdowns later, I finally arrived.

The first mishap was erroneously passing a key turnoff by a mere 150km. To make matters more interesting, by the time we realized we had been going the wrong way for over an hour, we were also running out of gas. Fortunately for us, there were a friendly group of truckers in the town of Chilonga who were able to point us back in the right direction, sell us some diesel to get us there, and share their nshima with us!

We arrived in the town of Mansa as the sun was setting, and our battery decided that the onset of darkness would be the perfect time to stop working. We pushed the car into a petrol station, where a man offered to remove the battery from his car and put it in ours to get us going. It worked, and we headed off on the three hour journey to Kawambwa in the dark. Paul, who works for Right to Play and who I studied with in the UK, was on the first night shift, which ended shortly after he managed to collide with a suicidal pig. I was asleep and only felt the thump. I was too tired to get out, so I watched from the back as Paul and Fred, who works for Right to Play in Kawambwa, inspected the vehicle and a large crowd of Zambians who had gathered inspected them. The pig was the only party to suffer any injuries, fortunately.

I was on the next shift, which was when the headlights started to dim. Or at least I thought they did, but Paul and Fred seemed to disagree. I kept driving and wondering if I was crazy until, at a turn, I went to use the indicator only to find it wasn’t working, a moment which Paul later defined as “the moment when I knew we were really in trouble.” I soon gave up trying to drive in the dark with virtually no headlights, and passed the wheel to Fred. He got about 20 minutes down the road before the battery died again.

I’ll admit, I was a bit freaked. Breaking down on the side of a highway in Zambia in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. Fortunately, my male counterparts were much more calm. Fred promptly announced he was going to smoke a cigarette and think, and Paul had the reflective warning triangle out on the road in a flash. Meanwhile, I sat and let my mind race through our options, which were frighteningly few.

Before Fred could even finish his cigarette, headlights came shining over the bend. On a road where a car passes approximately once and hour, this was a miracle. We flagged them down to help us, but ‘help’ doesn’t even begin to describe what rolled along in that Ministry of Education truck with one headlight. Two men hopped out, inspected the engine and after using a piece of wire to repair the battery contacts, gave us a jump to get us going. Then they insisted on driving with us the rest of the way to make sure we made it safely. They must have known… We got about 10 minutes down the road before the battery konked out for a third time. This time they got serious, brought out their tools, and spent half an hour tightening various belts and doing god knows what else. I watched tensely, along with the group of Zambian men that appeared out of the bush to see what was going on, and tried to let the sounds drumming and singing in the distance soothe my nerves. This time our two friends, Paul and all the onlookers pushed the car down the road for Fred to get the engine running. I felt a bit left out, having been left standing in the road to watch, but in the end I actually quite enjoyed the site of seeing our car being pushed down a dark highway in Zambia by a bunch of friendly strangers.

Their miraculous mechanics worked like magic and we made it all the way to the Kawambwa junction with no trouble. So, after thanking them profusely we confidently headed off on the last 30km stretch of our journey. Half way there, however, the battery died yet again. Fortunately, one of our Ministry of Education friends had hopped onto a truck that was headed for Kawambwa and they were already behind us when we climbed out with even more dejected looks on our exhausted faces. We had managed to break down on a hill, so they decided it was just easier to tow us the rest of the way. So, when we finally reached Fred’s house at 11:30pm, it was being towed behind a large truck full of Zambian men drinking chibuku.

It didn’t actually feel like such a long trip, but Paul rightly pointed out that the fact that we played the celebrity name game for three straight hours before turning to ‘count the Kingdom Halls’ was a good indication of how long a journey it had been.

It was well worth it though. Not only because it was an opportunity to see the true colours of Zambians shine like never before, but because the three days we spent in Kawambwa were absolutely fabulous. On Sunday we splashed around in some of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen, on Monday morning we toured the Congolese refugee camp where Fred works and played with all sorts of young Congolese children screaming ‘maaaaazuuuuunguuuuu!’ like I’ve never heard it screamed before, on Monday afternoon we swam at another beautiful waterfall, on Tuesday morning we were back at the camp visiting schools, the hospital, and the fish ponds and crop fields, and on Tuesday afternoon we went to Kashi Kishi, on the edge of Lake Mweru, and played cricket on the beach. We finished off our stay with a night of karaoke and dancing.

Paul and I left on Wednesday morning, thanks to a mechanic named Smart who had managed to get us operational again. We took two days to get back to Lusaka. It was nice to cover the whole distance in the daylight and see all the incredible landscapes, that changed constantly. We passed fields of never ending termite mounds, forests of trees whose leaves are now all bright red, orange, yellow and green, beaches of the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, floodplains with men in canoes navigating through tall green grass…. We camped overnight at a small lake called Waka Waka, about 40km from the highway. Despite being in the middle of nowhere and being the only people at the camp, the camp attendants made sure that when we came back from our walk there was a gorgeous campfire and a bucket of deliciously warm water in the washing hut awaiting us. It was a beautifully peaceful night, complete with roasted marshmallows and stargazing.

We awoke and got on the road, because we wanted to stop at another waterfall on the way and get back to Lusaka fairly early. We made it to the Kundalila Falls after a couple of hours of driving through stunning scenery. After an hour or so at the falls taking in the incredible views and having breakfast, we headed back to the car. I climbed into the passenger seat and started munching on a biscuit as I waited for Paul to start the car. Except that Paul couldn’t start the car. The battery, which had worked perfectly the previous day and all morning, had died again. So there we sat, alone, 15km from the highway, at the bottom of a hill, in a car that wouldn’t start. I laughed, but was conscious that very shortly the situation was going to cease to be amusing. We tried to push the car uphill far enough that we could roll it down to get the engine going, but despite our goliath strength, we couldn’t manage. I decided to head up the road and see if I could find any big strong men to help us. Unfortunately, there were none, so I returned with the next best thing – a gaggle of small children, who followed me back to the car as though I were the Pied Piper. I hopped in to steer, and through the windshield watched as a shirtless Paul surrounded by about a dozen children, one of whom had fit himself right in between Paul’s long white arms, pushed us uphill. I was so nervous about the car starting when they began to push back down that I failed to notice that it had actually worked! We quickly thanked our new friends and sped off towards civilization as quickly as possible.

When we reached the next sizeable town and had to stop for gas, we were well aware that we may not get the car started again. We weren’t aware however, that it would take us 2 hours to manage to do so. I shouldn’t complain, though – it took a while, but our roadside mechanic, Shek, loaded our batteries on the back of a bicycle and came back an hour later with tools and charged batteries in hand and managed to fix our loose belt permanently enough that the battery hasn’t died since.

I learned a lot on my trip to Kawambwa. I learned how to start a car when your battery dies. I learned that good company on a road trip is priceless. I learned that karaoke can be fun. I learned that there are more Jehovah’s Witnesses per capita in Zambia than anywhere else in the world. I learned how to play Backgammon. I learned that I am terrible at cricket. I learned that Zambia has as many incredible landscapes as it does warm hearts and friendly smiles. I learned that an empty dirt road is enough to bring about that evasive feeling of really seeing the world. And I learned that the best adventures in life happen when you least expect them.

A town called Nyimba

About five minutes from my place, just a few lefts, a few rights and one roundabout away, lies Zambia’s Great East Road. If you hang a right and drive east for about 4 hours, you will come to a non-descript stretch of highway which doubles as a town called Nyimba. This is where I spent three days last week, facilitating a fundraising workshop for a group of rural farmers. This is also where I fell in love with Zambia all over again.

Nyimba is a quintessential rural Zambian town: a stretch of highway that you would miss if you blinked, lined with a few buildings on each side, most of which are painted in the red and yellow of Celtel, the leading mobile network. At one end there is a small maze of a market, where people gather to shop, or just hang out among the overflowing baskets of kapenta and caterpillars, the old vodka bottles full of fuel, the neatly stacked piles of tomatoes, bananas or fritters and the strings of colourful chitenges hanging in front of many of the sagging stalls. Halfway down the stretch of town is a row of grass enclosures serving as‘barber shops’, followed by a wall-less Prison Farm where prisoners can be seen out playing football on Wednesday afternoons. Beyond that is an open area where farmers bring their cotton for sale and where it sits in a fluffy white pile waiting to be shoved into burlap sacks until cotton balls burst through their seams. Across the road where the buses stop are a few large trees providing shade to the women who sell bananas to those passing through. Further down there is a ‘Public Pub’ playing music that can be heard from one end of the town to the other from 6am til midnight. And attached to the pub is Nyimba’s one sleeping place, a ‘hotel’ where I stayed for three nights and where our workshop was held; it was about the most run-down place I have ever seen, but it served it’s purpose.

Scattered amongst these landmarks are Nyimba’s people: its women, steadily balancing buckets of water or baskets of food on their heads, cushioned only by a plethora of mesmerizing hairstyles; its babies, snuggled tightly in bright chitenges and blankets on the backs of their mothers; its boys, kicking up piles of dust playing soccer, hollering ‘maaazuuuunguuu!’ in sweet, high pitched voices at the white stranger passing by, rolling old bicycle tires down the road as they make their way home, or riding bikes so big their feet never pass within a mile of the ground; its girls, who – like their mothers – are often seen carrying buckets of water atop their unwavering heads or toting younger siblings on their own young backs, and whose voices may be heard amongst the drumming of an initiation ceremony taking place in the distance; and its men, some of whom spend the day sitting by the side of the highway watching the world of Nyimba pass by, some of whom get inconceivably drunk on Shake Shake, some of whom go to sell things at the market, some of whom do other work, and none of whom carry baskets on their heads or babies on their backs.

There is little electricity and no running water in Nyimba, which made the prospect of a three-day stay seem a bit bleak at first, but I quickly adjusted to using the cockroach-infested outhouse and having a steaming bucket of charcoal-heated water delivered to my door atop the head of one of the friendly female staff when I wanted to bathe. And what Nyimba lacked in basic facilities, it made up for in it’s many other endearing qualities: it’s golden light, it’s peaceful nature, it’s friendly smiles and laughs, and the window it offers into rural Zambian life.

The workshop itself was quite successful. The group of farmers made up for their academic shortcomings with their cheerful dispositions (including the poligamist who wanted me to become his third wife so that I could take him back to Canada), and they did extremely well in the workshop, despite being led by a mzungu who talks too fast, even for her own mother. Outside of workshop hours we also had all of our meals together: nzhima, rape and chicken for lunch and dinner three days in a row, and a hard boiled egg, stale bread, rice or chips, and insipid, milky tea for breakfast three days in a row. In the evenings we returned to the room we were having the workshop in to sit in front of one of the town’s only TVs, watching one of Zambia’s only channels: ZNBC. The public channel shows news and South African soap operas scattered with smattering of outrageously tacky advertisements and various public announcements: “ZESCO electricity meters being installed in the following areas…”, “Water stoppage this Saturday in the following areas…”, “TV license inspection in the coming weeks in the following areas…” On my last night in town I tore myself away from the exciting programming to meet with Albert, the man who had organized the workshop, at the small, mouse-inhabited office of the Nyimba District Farmers Association. Later we climbed on his motorbike and we wove our way through small, dirt paths in the fields north of the ‘tarmac’ (highway) until we reached his house, where he introduced me to his family, who promptly ushered me into the living room to watch ZNBC!

By the time Saturday morning rolled around I was sad to leave Nyimba, the little roadside town that had captured my heart. I soaked in as much as I could as I sat waiting for the bus to Lusaka. Fortunately, I had a lot of time with which to do my soaking, as catching a bus en route to Lusaka is a waiting game like no other. A few times I got my hopes up when I asked “When is the bus coming?” and was told “Don’t worry madam, it is coming very soon”, but by the third round of “it is coming” I finally realized that was actually Zambian for “I don’t want to say ‘I don’t know’.” So I sat, and waited, and soaked it all in. I also got to shake hands with one of the presidential candidates who rolled through town at 7:30am in a convoy of 4x4s with megaphones blaring his campaign messages for the upcoming tripartite elections on Sept 28th. By the time the bus finally came along, it was more disappointment than relief.

The journey back was along the same road I traveled when returning from Malawi in February. The landscape, however, was barely recognizable. Zambia’s subequatorial winter had brought out its palette of browns and transformed the land into a mosaic of barren branches, dry grass and parched leaves. The only splashes of colour were the rare trees that managed to defy the laws of nature to sprout new leaves or blossom after five months without a drop of rain.

I reached Lusaka in a state of euphoria at having managed to arrive in one piece after a 4-hour journey traveling at speeds that made the bus feel very much like an airplane. Except when we had to slam on the breaks and swerve to miss the odd cow, that wasn’t so airplane like. I wasn’t in perfect condition, however: I had managed to make myself slightly deaf in my attempt to drown out the symphony of gospel music, the bus driver’s sing along, and the horrendous Nigerian movie that were all playing simultaneously at top volume throughout the whole trip. So, ears ringing, I made my way home, sad to have left Nyimba behind, but undeniably excited at the prospect of such modern conveniences as a toilet and sink!

Star Struck

As we sat waiting for him to arrive, the excitement in the room was palpable. Well at least the excitement in my immediate vicinity… Okay, it was just me. I was like a teenager at a concert waiting for a musical heartthrob to appear, expect with less sweat, fewer hormones and far more men in suits and ties. Finally, he emerged. The man that had made my palms sweat with anticipation – a man shorter than me, some 40 years my senior, badly in need of a haircut, and wearing glasses that definitely snuck their way into this millennium without checking in with the fashion police. This man was Stephen Lewis, and while he’s not exactly a pop star, he’s the HIV/AIDS equivalent: the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa.

Admittedly, I wasn’t quite as excited as a teenager at a rock concert waiting to hear him speak, but I was definitely excited. I read Lewis’ book, Race Against Time, just recently and was very taken with his straightforward, direct way of discussing the daunting issues facing Africa today. And to hear him speak about it, and specifically to speak about Zambia, my home for the last 9 months, was an event of rock concert status as far as my life here is concerned!

Unlike those live concerts that just don’t sound quite as good as the CD, I was not disappointed with Lewis Unplugged. His address was clear, captivating, emotional and spattered with one of the most amazing vocabularies I have ever come across. I can’t say I agree with everything he said (or didn’t say) but I was impressed and pleased with his direct manner of tackling what he sees as the important issues. The man doesn’t waffle: he ‘slandered the World Bank at will’, radiated with praise for rural women running a fish farm whose profits sustain over 100 orphans, relentlessly reiterated the need for the government to tackle the crippling human resource crisis, openly attacked those who expressed narrow concerns that ‘drove him to distraction’, and made a heartfelt plea for a ‘Herculean’ intervention to address the vulnerability of women. He is a diplomat that cares deeply about his work and isn’t afraid to speak his mind, which he attributes to the fact that he is near the end of his tenure and no longer afraid of losing his job!

Despite the long list of concerns, Lewis was positive about his visit to Zambia. A colleague and activist whom I greatly admire voiced some concern with this apparent ‘milk and honey’ view of Zambia’s fight against the pandemic, but Lewis was quick to reassure him that he has never has and never will have a ‘milk and honey’ view of the fight against AIDS in Africa; there is still a long way and a lot of work to go, but he refused to be so foolhardy as to deny the progress that Zambia has made in recent years. I have to say, some days I wonder whether what I am doing here makes even the slightest difference to this world, but to hear one of the world’s foremost voices HIV say that Zambia is definitely getting somewhere definitely put a bounce in my step out of bed this morning.

Let her eat cake!

In fact, let her eat 4 cakes!

This birthday past, my 26th, was definitely the cakiest of them all. I had my first cake on Saturday afternoon – a coconut sponge, which I baked with the nieces and nephews who devoured it in about 3 seconds flat! Apparently cake is a welcome respite from nshima... Later that night I went to another volunteer’s place for dinner, after which the lights went out and while I puzzled over the impromptu power-outage, she waltzed in with a candle-clad brownie-cake, singing Happy Birthday! Cake No. 3 came later that evening, when I went out for drinks with a couple of friends at Rhapsody’s, one of Lusaka’s more posh restaurant-bars (located in a strip mall, but that’s the definition of posh here). As we sat sipping a very expensive beer, Happy Birthday started to play and the waiter came out of the kitchen with a huge cake covered in sparklers! I held my breath as he walked right up to our table, and... continued walking right by to deliver the cake to a gentleman on the far side of the restaurant! But the let-down inspired my drinking companions who made sure that the next time Happy Birthday played and a cake was brought out it didn’t get further than our table: my cherry cheesecake arrived right at midnight – a perfectly sweet way to begin my decline into Latetwentiesville.

The next day I had friends over for dinner and deliberately bought only ice cream for dessert. But the Cake Gods were determined to have their way with me, and it wasn’t long before Sam and his little brothers showed up at the door singing Happy Birthday and clutching a heart-shaped cake from their family with ‘Happy Birthday Ashley’ written in pink icing on the top! So I finished off my cake-filled birthday happily dusting the crumbs of my 4th birthday cake off my lap. I think it’s safe to say Marie Antoinette would have approved.

I didn’t receive quite as many presents as I did cakes, but I was given a lovely chipyanga (broom) in honour of the Nyanja name given to me by the nieces and nephews: Auntie Chipyanga. Apparently is has something to do with my hair... Go figure.

Thanks to all those of you who sent me fond wishes for my birthday, and to those of you who are patiently waiting for me to crank something out about my recent travels. I'll get there one day, I think...

Oh, and for those of you who are still curious, I did go back to the real estate agency, and they did waste 3 more of my apparently waste-worthy hours traipsing me around town, but I did not ever get to see an apartment. I did, however, get my money back (eventually) and then I did decide never to step foot in the place again!