Settling in….

I wrote this post on Monday, but throught some marvel of modern technology it didn't make it up.... so here it is...


Well going from ChaChaCha's backpackers hostel, our transition point from Canada to Zambia, and heading Libala (an area of Lusaka) was a huge leap. Chachacha backpackers is a hostel which is both cheap (around $10 a night) and caters to Muzungu's (White people/Foreigners). So things there were pretty nice...I could have spent a long time there. We were in the city, so seeing what the city had to offer wasn't hard, but we were still in a protected little bubble behind the hostel's security gates and walls. But that sort of experience isn't what this is all about. On Saturday afternoon, the group of eight JF's from Canada, people I had grown quite close to, started to head out to their respective locales. And so from chachacha's I booked a taxi and took my trip across down to Libala. I am staying here with an elderly widow, affectionately called "Mommy" by all the past jf's and ltov's who have come through Lusaka. She is very nice and lives up to her moniker. Her eldest son, lives nearby with his two small children, who are always visiting Mommy's house.

Today was my first day of work, and it was really quite tedious. I spent the day running around town, getting the requisites for my work permit, as well as accompanying the Director of ASNAPP Zambia as he tried to source materials for a project. I felt like a typical development worker as I was driving around town in a white SUV with USAID decals (ASNAPP is a USAID funded NGO, I know, it's american, but they actually do some good). After work I came home, played some ball with the kids, and as I write this I am sitting in my room, with some giant spiders as roommates getting ready to hit the sack. I think I hear fraiser on the television... or it could be a South African Soap Opera....hmmm...

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Ricky Patel