Omelette mornings

This is Aswel, and he is perhaps the most important person in my life right now. He is the cook where I live, and six days a week, when I wake up, he is ready to make me breakfast. So far, it is always an egg dish, and my favorite is an omelette with onions, and I can honestly say that I've never had more flavorful onions that what he uses in the omelette. Keep in mind that when I woke up my first morning here, I had NO idea that I would be greeted by a fresh breakfast every morning. I felt like I'd won the lottery. But it doesn't stop at breakfast, as lunch is also packed for me and dinner is ready when I get home. AMAZING!

On top of all of this, he also washes and irons my clothes and will even make my bed. Shut the door. Turn out the lights. Call in the dogs, the hunt is over.

An education on juju

So, I've had a driver/driving instructor the past week. His name is Fanwel, and he's been patient in allowing me to acclimate to driving on the left side of the street. Traffic here can get a little hectic, but not as crazy as Vietnam. Most everyone drives a car, so you can't weave in and out of traffic as if you were on a scooter or moped. That said, traffic builds up pretty thick at rush hour b/c most of the roads are single lane going each way.

Now, in regards to the topic of this post. When Fanwel and I were driving, there were some vendors on the side of the road with stacks of what I call "flagstone" which is used to create walk ways with large, flat stones of a non-uniform shape. They were sizable stacks and would be significant work to move to and from the side of the road everyday, so I asked Fanwel what was done with the stones. He indicated that the stones were simply left on the side of the road each night. I followed by asking him about concerns for thieves. He indicated that Africans wouldn't be interested in stealing those stones and that if a white guy were to steal them, then he would have to contend with juju. Apparently juju is like a bad karma or spell that a witchdoctor will use to hinder a person in some manner. He said that only Africans can use juju and that it would be used against a white person that were to steal from an African - i.e. the flagstones.

Clearly, this dampened my plans for a heavy five-finger discount, but it was definitely an enjoyable educational story for me as I curb-checked down the left side of the road.

DT...Zed

I just had the rather unfortunate experience of having to use the word "zed" in reference to the letter "Z". In Zambia, as in other countries like Canada and Britain, this is the pronunciation of that fateful letter at the end of the alphabet and the fourth letter in my last name. I referenced this experience as "unfortunate" per two grueling years of listening to (and chastising) one of my Canadian classmates in business school for insisting on utilizing this pronunciation.

So, in honor of this post, I included a picture of the infamous Canadian, Jay Barry Jambor copping a feel on a girl in a Canadian shirt in Vietnam. Hide your wives, hide your kids, hide your husbands, he's still out there, with frisky hands and the letter "zed" on his lips.

Consistently culturally sensitive, Denzer, signing out.

First Post

So, I moved to Zambia a few days ago - standard. I will be keeping a blog about my experiences here. 

I had a minute this morning, while I was waiting for my ride to the office to take a shot of the backyard of the house in which I'm living. It has a nice little pool in the back, but the real treat right now is the weather. It's probably like 80 or 85 during the day, and about 65 or 70 in the evening and morning. It's absolutely glorious. There's a rooster that crows adamantly in the morning (really, when it's still dark...he's a little too enthusiastic), but I can sleep right through it, now that my sleep schedule is normal. The multitude of song birds in the morning are also pretty epic. I'd open my windows and let the cool air come in during the night and the birds wake me up in the morning, but I don't have any screens on my windows, and the fear of malaria carrying mosquitos always quells that urge. 

Also, the neighbor's also have a papaya tree hanging over our wall, and I hope to take from the spoils of that errant planting sometime soon.