No Place to Pee

It was our first week in Zambia.  Our third day, actually.  Site visit; our first taste of “real Zed.”  We were divided into groups of three or four and sent out with the PCVLs (Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders who were each in charge of a province) to visit currently serving volunteers at their sites for a few days and see what it was like to live as a volunteer.

My group was going to Northwestern Province, an 11-hour drive(covering 372 miles) just to the province’s capital, Solwezi, and then another 9 hours out to the volunteer’s site the next day on mostly dirt roads and bush paths.

The first day was long and fun.  The second day was long and not as fun.  On the first day, we were on main highways; we stopped at small roadside restaurants and ended the day at the very nice PC house where we had electricity, plumbing and beds.  The 10 of us, packed in the Land Cruiser with camping gear and our luggage bags, rode along excitedly.  We sang along with the PCVL’s cassette tape of 80s hits and oohed and awwed at the gorgeous country-side.

The second day, we left the main highways and headed onto the very bumpy dirt roads.  We drove through thick grass and frightenly close to trees.  The countryside was even more gorgeous but also more intimidating.  Vegetation was thick.  The road disappeared behind and ahead of us.  Red dust swirled all around and coated the vehicle and everything in it, including us.  As we passed near villages, children ran alongside the Land Cruiser yelling “Byepi! Byepi!" (hello) and “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (white person).  Some of the other trainees yelled back out the open windows, “Byepi"!’  Waving as enthusiastically as the children.

My daddy raised us to always use the restroom before getting in the car – we took lots of road trips as kids – so I’d taken care of that before we left.  But on this day, there were no roadside restaurants to stop at.   We stopped a few times for “restroom breaks” that consisted of pulling over to the side of the road.  I was amazed at how easily the other female volunteers in my group could exit the Land Cruiser, wander off into the grass, and take care of the business.  I stayed close to the vehicle and waited.  The hours ticked by, 3, 4, 5.  It wouldn’t be long before we were at the first volunteer’s site to drop off half our group.  She’d have a muzungu-appropriate bathroom, I was sure;  I pictured a full ceramic throne in a small hut.

Hour 6… Whew. We clamored out of the Land Cruiser and began unloading the items that belonged to the group staying there.  The volunteer had made us lunch so we stayed a bit and also received a tour of her two-room hut.  I asked if I could use her restroom and she pointed me to a small brick and thatch structure around back from her hut.  I snuck away and found the entrance. 
On no!  The small square shelter had a dirt floor and a small hole in the corner.  That was it.  “This is the bathroom?!”  I stood there for awhile, too embarrassed to go right back outside where the volunteer would know I’d been too scared.

We got back in the van and headed to our site visit location where I hoped I’d have better luck.  Despite the drastic increase in personal space after dropping off half the group, my physical discomfort was growing exponentially. 7 hours, 8…  It was only a couple hours to our site, I could make it.

“Well, I suppose this is slightly better.”  Our host had a stone floor and a bigger hole but it wasn’t less-scary enough to matter to my body.  9 hours, 10 hours, 11, 12. 13… That night was very restless and attempts to sleep did not go well.  The next day proved better.  27 hours…  Fear of the cimbuzi, conquered! 



At my own site, my Bataata built me a very nice cimbuzi, with a cement floor, a cover and raised feet holders.  By the way, there’s a darn good reason for women to traditionally wear dresses and skirts.

My New Lamp

Last week, I wrote about the end of my Lego lamp.  Death is always connected to rebirth in some way.  So, after taking apart the Lego lamp, I made a new table lamp.

Introducing, my Lego Bucket Lamp!

I had started this lamp years ago, after building my Lego lamps.  I had gotten two lamp kits and two sets of steel nipples back then.  So I had this Lego bucket with a hole drilled in the lid and in the bucket’s center bar sitting around just waiting for finishing details.

To finish the lamp, I drilled a smaller hole in the bottom of the bucket.  The holes in the lid and support bar are sized for the lamp pipe.  The hole on the bottom of the bucket is smaller so the lamp pipe doesn’t fall out the bottom.  That hole is for the cord.  Lego buckets have a groove on two sides of the bottom of the bucket.  They’re the perfect size for the cord; the bucket sits completely stable on a flat surface.

  I strung the cord first through the bottom hole and into a 6” steel nipple inside the bucket.  Then I put a longer piece of lamp pipe through the hole in the support bracket and threaded a coupler onto the bottom of it.  I pulled the  cord through that pipe and threaded the 6” pipe into the coupler.  The pipe rests on the bottom of the bucket, held up straight by the snug hole in the support bracket.

Next, I put the lid on the bucket and attached the shade holder and socket pieces to the top of the lamp pipe, wired the socket to the cord and placed the socket cover over the wires.  Lampshade harp and bulb in, and the lamp was ready to try out.

It worked!

 

 

Mr. Weasel is demonstrating how the lid can be lifted and the bucket can still serve as a storage device. :)

 

Other neat things to do with Lego
buckets: Cute as a Bucket

The Road to being Stuck in Your Room is Paved with Good Intentions

It was June, the summer after 6th grade.  My sisters and I had some sort of fake slumber party on the hide-a-bed.  I don’t remember the details.  The middle of the day on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy had gone out for a walk.

My sisters and I wanted to make Daddy something for Father’s Day but we needed supplies.  There was a JoAnn’s not too far away; Alfred and I rode our bikes there frequently, just over a mile.  Munchkinhead was too          Us, a few months later
little to  ride that far; she was only about 3 years old.  We decided we’d walk.

We cleaned up our slumber party.  Sort of.  Figuring we’d want to play again later, instead of folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, we made the bed up and tucked all our stuffed animals into it. 

We cleaned anything else we’d been playing with.  We left a message for Mommy and Daddy in the living room, checked that all the doors were locked, took our house key and set off for the store, pulling Munchkinhead in the little red wagon.  We took an umbrella with us in case it rained while we were away.

We were pleased with ourselves, feeling we had remembered to do everything we were supposed to do.  We were having fun together and excited about making something nice for Daddy.  How were we supposed to know Mommy and Daddy hadn’t taken a house key with them?

They couldn’t get in.  They couldn’t get our message.  They didn’t know where we were.  And, it had started raining.  Apparently, these circumstances make parents freak out.

Mommy and Daddy found us with the little red wagon, next to the McDonald’s, heading out of the Plaza parking lot.

I don’t remember what Daddy got for Father’s Day that year.  It couldn’t have been good because I remember we spent a lot of time looking at puffy paint supplies.  I know what I got though.  Grounded.  For being irresponsible by not anticipating the facts I didn’t know.  And for making my sisters go with me.  They didn’t get in trouble at all.  “They’re too young to know better.”  Harumph.  And yes, 20 years later I am still bitter.

But I’ll tell you this much, as a grown-up, I’m pretty darn good at anticipating a whole lot of “what-if” scenarios and preparing for most of them.

SoPro Pride

You gotta have some hometown pride, even when it’s for your adopted hometown, or home state, or home province.

When I first arrived in Zambia, there were so few Peace Corps Volunteers in placed in Southern Province, we were grouped in with Central Province, under Central’s Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) and reporting to Serenje in Central Province for information from headquarters.  By my second year, the organization had expanded in Southern Province and we had enough Volunteers to truly be our own province.  So naturally, we needed something to show our province-pride.

Central Province had t-shirts with CP/PC and a lightening bolt on them for Central Province Peace Corps and their lightening bolt tattoos.  Northwestern province had their branding (an attempt to compete with the tattoos), which I can’t really say what it was supposed to represent because none of them turned out right.  I think Northern and Eastern province had some t-shirts, too.  But us down in Southern Province, we needed something better than a t-shirt.  After all, this was the era of Southern Hip Hop’s international prominence and we were in the dirty dirty.

So we got together and had our own special garments hand-painted.  Jumpsuits!

They had our province on the front: So Pro, our names – mine says “Nchimunya”, and “The Dirty South” on the back.  We loved them and our Zambian counterparts found them highly amusing.   They weren’t very cimbuzi-practical, but they were great fun when we were in town.

I still have mine, though I don’t really have anywhere to wear it.  It’s a jumpsuit, so it’s meant to be worn when you might get dirty.  But if I get it dirty, I’ll have to wash it, and the hand-painted lettering might come off.  I’ll have to host a janitor-themed costume party or something.

And the back:

So Long Lego Lamp

It was one of my favorite pieces of decor.  But, having no place to put it now that I rearranged my living room and the fact that I broke it moving it means that the Lego lamp’s time to shine is over.

Its coordinating partner is already long gone, having been broken years ago by an old roommate.

One lamp was black with a white stripe and the other was white with a black stripe.  Zebra colors to go with the African decor in my living room.  I had gotten some zebra home decor fabric to cover the lampshade but didn’t like the lampshade enough to cover it.

I made the lamps with Legos – obviously – a simple lamp kit and standard 1/8-IP Thread steel nipples, aka lamp pipe.  I built a little house with a door way and window openings.  The cord exited through the door so the lamp could sit flat on the table.  Then I built a tower with a hollow center.  Near the middle, a Lego stuck into the tube to catch the lamp pipe.  At the top of the hallow tube, I inserted the lamp pipe and cushioned around it with tissue so it would stand-up straight inside the Lego tower.  You can see some of the structure in the picture above.

The lamps had fun little details, such as a ledge, ladders and other places for Lego people to hang out.   This lamp, the one pictured above, served as a table lamp in my living room.  It was home to a little Luke Skywalker and Darth Maul, much to my sister’s chagrin since those two are from different generations.  No creativity, that one.

Taking the lamp apart was pretty easy.  Breaking Lego creations is always easier than putting them together.

  And the great thing about Legos is, if I ever decide I want another Lego lamp, I can just build a new one!

 

Here’s the lamp that replaced the Lego lamp.  I got it from church when we cleaned out the building.  It’s an old surveyor’s stand.  (There used to be a speaker there, serving as an end table for the Lego table lamp.)  The awesome ceramic bunny was also a church-cleaning find.