My computer officially died Friday March 23 at approximately 7:30 Pm. Efforts to resuscitate it have thus far failed. But I'm hoping I'll be able to retrieve all the files I've lost (I backed up pretty much everything expect for the pictures I've taken while in Zambia). So that sucks. Then I went back to the refugee camp for all of last week. I have some cool shots but I'm having trouble uploading them. Bear with me. This trip was really cool actually. I created this Festival Day where 1000 came to participate. Our GRS trainers graduated 650 children from the program and there was a series of all-star games for the league we run there. This whole celebration was in part a showcase for our donors. So some head honchos from SIDA and IOM (if you don't know the acronyms look em up) were present and really loved it. The program was praised and I momentarily beamed. But seriously the amount of work I put into it and the amount of stress it caused me were substantial(in the best possible way).

Right now I'm running around trying to leave things in their proper order cause Saturday I'm head to South Africa! I'm meeting up with fellow Wesleyanite Pat Garrity in Port Elizabeth and we're road tripping it to Cape Town. Hopefully hiking, wine-touring, and sushi will ensue. I was supposed to go for a week but that turned into 12 days because I'm going to be helping out with the GRS program down there for a three day training session at the end of my stay. Cross-pollination. April for GRS Zambia is packed so my head will be spinning when I get back but fortunately I was never given a job description so anything goes and that's just how we roll here.

What a week. Last Sunday I went to go see a crazy boxing match. Esther Phiri, the female middleweight world champion(who happens to be Zambian) took on Monika Valentinova Petrova, an 18 year old Bulgarian challenger. I've never seen boxing live so I didn't know that I was in for a sweaty five hours of people smacking and hugging each other. Before the main event there were a few fights including the Zambian Heavyweight championship bout. The place was packed to the gills with people lined up out the door trying to bribe the guards to get in. I had bought ringside seats (for about 15 bucks) and somehow we ended up in the VIP section on an elevated platform with cush seats right behind the Zambian Minister of Information. We were pretty much the only white people in there and I still don't know whether we were led to VIP merely because we were white or not. Anyway, the Heavyweight fight was hilarious; the champion didn't come out when he was called and then finaly showed up with a shit-eating grin on his face like he was untouchable. The contender easily beat him after much hugging and the crowd went nuts.

I didn't realize how long I would have to wait to see the girl's fight and I thought about leaving because I sweat through my shirt about four times, but I'm glad I didn't. The only thing that sucked was the ladies only fought 8 rounds, two minutes each. So it was short, but well worth it. Esther Phiri was immense and destroyed the Bulgarian. Monika just couldn't handle her. The minister's wife in front of us kept yelling "Genda, Genda," the cheer for the interesting brew of feminism here. She leaned back to us and shouted "Esther: she fights just like a man!" and my friend Jenny retorted, "Better than a man" but the comment was lost amidst the celebration.


On Wednesday I saw an incredible concert performed by the Guinean group Ba Cissoko. The cora is a traditional West African instrument in the guitar family. It's made out of a gourd though and sounds more like a banjo. Ba Cissoko has roots in tradition cora music but they have a very modern sound. There were cora two players, one electric bassist and an unbelievable percussionist. While certain reviews of the band have called the lead singer/cora player the "Jimi Hedrix of cora" actually the other cora player (pictured on the left) is the true virtuoso. Sometimes I thought he sounded like Bela fleck, other times like the Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez with all of his foot petals and effects. But always there was an afrobeat backbone to the rhythms that made dancing irresistible. Bottomline: this was the best music I've heard in six months! The Zambian live music scene is pitiful and disappointing. But to hear a quality concert again was truly a blessing. If you can get your hands on some Ba Cissoko please do so.

Finally my housemates were both away for the weekend and it made me realize how little time I spend alone: refreshing as all hell! Reminds me of the Loudon Wainwright song, "One Man Guy":

I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune

One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
a one man guy
And that man... is me

Gesh, on the left, has an unfinished, mostly unfurnished house that his father gave him. There is no running water, no electricity, just put in a few glass windows. It's a work in progress whenever he saves enough money for improvements. Actually right out of this shot of us in the makeshift living room is a pile of rubble that takes up a quarter of the space. But it's his own house, which is amazing.

Unfortunately, Gesh's father passed away of stomach complications last Tuesday. I went to the funeral on Friday although I never had the fortune of meeting the man, my first in Zambia. Gesh was suprisingly strong and resilient about the whole thing. While my thoughts are not settled on the subject of death in Zambia, sometimes I think Zambians aren't afforded the luxury of mourning like Americans. They can't sit shiva for weeks. At the same time, the ritual of burying the dead happens with much more frequency here (Gesh lost a brother to AIDS not more than two months ago). Does this serve as an anesthesia to numb the pain of loss? It seems difficult to imagine that one can get used to the idea of death. Yet the trauma of many deaths might distance an individual from further occurances of such loss. I'm not sure. I do know that Gesh's inner strength is inspiring.

What he never told me is that his father was the personal driver for Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia. KK (as he is affectionately called) was at the funeral and gave a eulogy. Nothing could be more of an honor in Zambia.

I look forward to seeing Gesh's house take form and become a beautiful home were he and his family can one day live and from which he can inspire those around him like his father did before him. RIP Mr. Banda.

More Monkey Business

I have a lot of chimp pics and I don't want to be selfish about them.

Elizabeth takes some time to clean Alice's teeth.

I don't know what happened with the exposure on this one, let's just call it art.

This monkey's name is Shithead because he is a little shithead. As you can see, he's trying to drive away the rental car. He's also a misogynist and bites women.

In my darker moments, I feel like the refugee camp is just one giant out-stretched arm, hand palm-up, begging. This is the feeling I get when I'm there, on the ground, dealing with league we support and the GRS program that we support. The bottom line is that our efforts in Mayukwayukwa may not be sustainable once our contract to go there runs out for the simple reason that if we aren't visiting them and bringing with us gifts and incentives ie Nike shirts or soccer balls, they will cease running the programs. Nevermind that the benefits of the program (knowledge and understanding about HIV and AIDS) is what really matters. It's the forest through the trees syndrome; it's the live from moment to moment mentality.


Yet I must also remember that these are displaced peoples that did not choose their situation. At forty years old, Mayukwayukwa is the oldest refugee camp in Africa. Most of the people there who I work with were born in the camp and now have children of their own. If all your life you have been given food by the World Food Program you are going to be inclined to receiving food. Now the UN might pass a cessation clause for Angola meaning that all those refugees that escaped the dire situation there forty years ago or resurgent problems in the late nineties will lose their status as refugees. Essentially they will become illegal immigrants. Those that have already been repatriated voluntarily are not accepted by their Angolan brethren, the refugees are called "Zambianos", a strange xenophobia prevails.

Who Said Detachable Hoodies Ain't Cool: Part Deux

A new interactive dimension to this blog was recently created when one Nicholas Nogrady of Brooklyn, New York sent me a glorious photo that matches the one I posted a few months back. I feel like he's one of those street artists on Las Ramblas standing really still, imitating Rodin's Thinker or something, but better. If anyone else feels inspired feel free to help me help you get on this here site.

I haven't had internet for the past two weeks and before that Elizabeth was here so I apologize for the absence. I also just got back from my fourth trip to the Mayukwayukwa Refugee Camp. I feel like I haven't been home in awhile so let me fill you in on what's been going down.

Elizabeth arrived Feb. 20th and left March 3rd. We did Zambia properly, hitting up Livingston, going to a Chimpanzee Orphanage and chilling in Lusaka, grassrooting and whatnot.

This was my third time going to Victoria Falls, and honestly each time I've been I've seen something completely different. Depending on the season the magnitude of the falls differs, and right now it is at its most glorious. Here's me in December and then the exact same spot two weeks ago:



How crazy is that. Now it's breathtakingly powerful; there's no sense in wearing a raincoat because the mile high spray comes down like a torential rain in Florida only it never lets up. Actually the whole time we were there we couldn't stop laughing; the spray making us giddy. Apparently, Vic falls is suppose to be energizing, something to do with all the negative ions produced by the water tumbling. I buy it.


We hit up the requisite Sunset Cruise aka booze cruise on the Zambezi River. When you are boating down the river with complete strangers and an open bar, anything can happen, especially when an Aussie decides it's time to invent new types on shots. But the gem of the cruise was my man Yak of whom I somehow didn't get a picture. This guy was 40 Year Old Virgin meets Around the World in 80 Days. He was a Missourian covered in American flags who'd been around the world 7 times and been to all 7 continents, but I wondered if in fact he had ever stopped breast-feeding. Now that's cruel but Yak was truly classic, an oblivious albeit weathered world traveler.


After that it was elephant riding. Pretty cool to be on an elephant going through the savannah for an hour. Everyone goes with a guide and I learned that my elephant was a naughty girl who disappeared into the jungle for eight months and came back pregnant. I think my favorite part about the whole thing was just seeing Elizabeth riding an elephant, like she was the queen round these parts. Her elephant was the biggest one in the pack. However, better than riding was feeding them afterwards. I've basically got this elephant trunk in my face and I give it some nuts and she sucks the food out of my hand and puts it in her mouth. Bizarre.


Finally, we made a visit to the Royal Livingston Hotel for drinks on our last night. This place is uber 5 star and really brings it back to colonial times. It's like a recreation of Rudyard Kipling's day. We had this queezy feeling of being completely out of place in the British empire swank, but also like the kids allowed to sit at the grownups table at Thanksgiving. Anyway, we went there with my friend Bernerd and there just happens to be a grand piano at the bar and he happens to be a really good musician. It was hilarious, he tapped out the piano man, sat down and played and sang a two hour set. Mostly oldies, Beatles and U2(this is the same man doing a head-stand during a u2 song at my party), but me and Elizabeth were blown away. That and the husband making his wife take back glass after glass of whiskey before midnight because she was giving up alcohol for Lent(they were Irish) made for a most enjoyable evening.

Back in Lusaka, I showed Elizabeth off to all my friends, had her experience the Kidsafe Soccer league I run and we sampled the meager selection of good restaurants the city offers. We were only in Lusaka for the weekend (notice how I scheduled all our trips during the week making my February holiday all the more conspicuous).


Monday we were off to Chimfunshi, the Chimpanzee Orphanage, in the Copperbelt. It was an easy six-hour drive in the rented car. This place was a no-frills joint but perfect nonetheless. We stayed in a tin hut on the side of the Kafue River. Picturesque, there was a picnic bench that served as our dining room outside. They would bring us coals for the grill but it was self-catering, so we had to make all our meals, camping-style. Everything were delicious needless to say, from grilled pork medallions and saffron rice to soy marinated sirloin with green pepper, corn, and lentil salad with fresh basil. You know how I do!


The chimp experience was wild. They basically didn't prepare us at all and simply opened this cage door and out came five baby chimpanzees who immediately jumped on us. It was pretty surreal, one minute just hanging out and the next carrying a chimp through the woods. What?! We got to play with them for about an hour an half, wrestling, tickling. These animals are incredible, each with its own personality and temperment. It was fascinating being so close and observing how they interact with each other and with us. My favorite was one of them, Ed, would climb part way up a try and then jump down onto our guide and smack her on the ass, mischievious little fellow.


So the chimps at Chimfunshi are from all over the world. From Chile to Russia to Saudi Arabia, most of them have been rescued from defunct circuses or Arabian bars where they've been made to smoke cigarettes and drink. Now they're in the middle of Zambia. The people at the refuge don't ever set them back into the wild, which is good and bad I guess. They provide all the food and we got to watch a couple of feedings as you can see above. It was totally amazing. The refuge also has a hippo named Billy hanging about who was rescued as a baby and it still fed from a bottle though she's fifteen. I have never seen a hippo out of the water in broad daylight before so this was particularly cool. They are massive massive creatures and realy quite unbelievable.


Elizabeth almost missed her flight because my alarm didn't go off which actually would have been better. Her ghost is everywhere now and I'm still getting back into the rhythm of life without her. But the trip was incredible and I'm just thankful she got to come here. So that was a short summation of the our time together. It's a week later now and I'll fill you in soon on my trip to Mayukwayukwa but I wouldn't want to burden you with too much information at once. Take a break, grab a Snickers, and maybe when you come back I'll have updated something. Not that my internet is back up I'll be sure to post more often.

And this, my friends, is the beautiful girl who will be in my arms tomorrow morning.

We threw a kickass post Valentine's party at my house Saturday night. About 60 people showed up and my living room/balcony still wasn't completely full. Of course the power for the whole neighborhood was out until about an hour before the party so we were scrounging for candles and had settled on possibility of this (romantic) setback. Luckily the power came back, but the candles stayed and eventually lit one of our friends on fire later in the night. She survived. Also a rather flamboyant Zambian guy somehow managed to dance his way through our television and break it. Party foul. Despite all this, the most disturbing part of the night was that we called the party for 8:00 and a bunch of people actually showed up on time. Who does that?

Here are my beautiful ladies Ali, Leah, Nancy and May. Leah and May (my housemates) made heart-shaped cookies, made everyone wear red to the party and even made the kissing booth pictured above because that's what girls do. I grilled chicken wings pre-party and got the beer. Way too stuck in our gender roles.


Everyone was supposed to wear red and I picked up this shirt in the back alleys of this covered market in town. The place was scarily like a maze, but when I emerged, I was victorious. I was on a mission to find bootleg 50 cent t-shirts and thoroughly amused myself by going up to vendors saying "I'm looking for 50 cent. Can you show me where he is?" In process I realized that my long lost brother is Michael Ballack:


This is my boy Bernard having a zen moment at 3am when someone turned on U2. Pele supports him just in case.



Now it's 4:30. Things died down around 2:30 actually, but about ten remained for a two hour long dance party finale. By this time Luka, Sarah and I have formed a band. I'm on air drums, Sarah is playing air tamborine and Luka is playing the fan guitar (really well) on the floor while we all sing Hey Jude. Priceless.

Friday I made a really interesting trip into Chawama, one of the poorer compounds in Lusaka. I've been there many times before, but this time I went to visit a sports ground that has been designated solely for the use of girls in the community. This is a unique and positive venture because it really gives girls a space of their own, one in which they are able to develop both as athletes and as confident young women. In places like Chawama you see kids on the street all the time with nothing to do. This ground is a place where girls can go to be active and interact with other girls through physical activity. Grassroot Soccer is donating a bunch of soccer balls for the girls. My hope for the future is that we can somehow turn these young women into role models in the community who actively educate other girls about HIV but also positive self esteem and the confidence to make healthy decisions.

I've joined a bowling league. Not only is there a bowling alley in Lusaka, but there's actually a league and I'm living out my Big Lebowski fantasy. Our team name is the Bowling Stones, which is a take-off of rolling stones, not anything else that may have come to mind, honest. The thing about the league is that it's pretty much all white because to join you need a bundle of money and it's my belief that Zambians aren't going to spend money like that on the leisure sport of bowling, golf maybe, but not ten pin. This is certainly not ideal, but neither is my average. Right now I'm around 125, but I'm trying to up the ante. I'll keep you posted.

So finally, after a three month absence, we made a trip back to the Mayukwayukwa refugee camp. Of course everything was in shambles. Our whole program had fallen apart. Everyone there was expecting us to come for World Aids Day on December 1st. However, due to lack of funds we had to cancel our trip. The problem was that our funder, the Internation Organization of Migration (IOM), and specifically their Zambian Project Coordinator was back in the US for two months. We needed her signature and finally got it last week. So our program at the camp was dormant from November-February, way too long for things to continue without support. Our educators there had pretty much given up hope that we were ever coming back. So my job was to jump-start things and get the ball rolling. I think we accomplished this. I mean, I hope we did. We are scheduled to go back two more times, a pair of trips that serve as bookends for the month of March. Our contract is up then and we are planning a big celebration day for everyone we've worked with. This means tons of organizing because even our funder's funder, CIDA (please bare with me and all the acronyms) is making a trip and our program is going to be the centerpiece of their visit. You know your boy has everything under control.

I should mention that this particular (mostly Angolan) refugee camp has been in existance for the past forty years and is finally being dismantled. What does this mean? It means that all these people who were born in the camp and know no other life, let alone Angola, are about to lose their status as refugees and be left to the whim of the Zambian government.

It's unclear what steps they will take, but it's possible that they will pack up the refugees and drop them off at the Angolan border. I really haven't got a handle on everything that's going down, but I'll update you when I find out more. It's odd to know that just as GRS pulls out at the end of March, that's just the beginning of UNHCP, World Food Progam and even IOM all slowly saying PEACE!

Victor organized a soccer game this past Sunday: American Girls vs. Japanese Girls. Nuff said. #10 on Estrella Japan was actually nasty . She was cutting people up. I felt pretty cool taking this team shot because, let's be honest, aren't the Japanese usually behind the camera, not in front of it.


The American Girls aka the Expat Honeys were led by my homegirls Leah (the laughing head underneath the Total sign) and May (the one shoe wonder). Victor coached the Americans to a chilling 13-2 victory as Luka(in red) refereed under suspicions of being paid off by the Japanese. They didn't pay him well enough.

Astute readers might pick up on my b/w kick. Here are three shots of downtown Lusaka. First at the central bus station Kulima Tower. Amidst the street hustle and shouts of vendors, peddlers, and thieves, these men sit, waiting. Maybe they're on the look out for a heavy load they can wheel to make a few bucks, or maybe they're just meditating on life in the city. Either way, I didn't stay long enough to find out.


You'd never notice it sandwiched between two shoe stores; you could pass it by without a second glance, but if you want to find it, New Start is right there. New Start is a volunteer counseling and testing center in the heart of Lusaka. Last week I came here with two of my best friends, Peter and Izek, so we could all get tested for HIV. To get tested is free but you have to come on your own accord so a lot of people neglect it. I don't know for sure, but I think people there were surprised to see a white person coming to get tested. That doesn't happen too often. The actually test was a pinprick, a trickle of blood, and then not more than a five minute wait for the results. My counselor handed me a folder with my identification number on it. My heart was beating hard. I opened it to find the results I expected. I was HIV negative. So were Peter and Izek. I asked the counselor if she thought the number of people coming to get tested was increasing. She was positive it was. I hope so.


My own private Guggenheim, down a back alley in Lusaka. I love the spiral walkway which is almost anachronistic in it's placement. You would never know it was there, but right on the main street in town, Cairo Road, a dim passage opens up to this courtyard. There's a man bending over cleaning the defunct fountain. You can see a sign in the right hand corner for a fast food joint me and my friend Pete ate at.

I realize, in trying to give you a balanced view of my life here, I've forgotten to enlighten you more about Grassroot Soccer. So, back to the basics. This past week at the Kidsafe Soccer League, GRS was holding it down with a game called My Supporters. This is an exercise that illustrates the stigmitization of people living with HIV and how, instead of abandoning them, we need to help them and give them our support. Essentially, it's a lesson in breaking down stigma.

One kid is chosen to come to the middle. Then a group forms a tight circle around the participant. As illustrated below the kid in the middle folds her arms across her chest, shuts her eyes and then lets herself fall. The circle bolsters her making sure she doesn't fall down. Essentially its like a revised trust fall.



Next the kids are told a scenario. The person in the middle represents someone with HIV. The circle represents the community that this person lives in. One person from the circle is designated as a parent, another a doctor or teacher, a few more friends. Now, what happens when people stigmatize an HIV positive person and abandon them? Circle members are asked to step back from their support position. Maybe a friend thinks that coming in contact with such a person will infect them. Maybe a parent can't accept that their child is positive. Once people have abandoned their posts, the person in the middle is asked if they want to go through with the activity if their supporters continue to reject them. There are few left to catch them if they fall. Finally, the supporters are brought back into the circle to show that with their support, the HIV positive person won't fall.

I think this game illustrates well the ill effects of stigma. At a time when a person needs the most support, the stigma surrounding HIV can leave them alone and abandoned. However, with support there is hope and the possibility of living a postive positive life.

These are a few of my trainers politiking when their not teaching GRS:


Bonus: This cat just had it going on

I'm going to step back from the whole Zambian thing for a minute and tell you a guilty pleasure of mine made possible by the highspeed internet connect at my house here: Audioblogs. 2007 has brought a surge of surfing for me. I don't know if it's my desire to keep up with American culture from a far or just a natural step I was bound to take, but I've been bookmarking mad sites of late. I think Nick Nogrady introduced my to Soulsides about five years ago. For me, and I don't think I'm alone in this, soulsides is one of the Godfathers of music blogs. Oliver Wang always comes correct and the site is a veritable library of American soul. Plus it's here I recently got educated on google's new blog searching tool, which basically allows you to find songs you might want if they're on the net.

Back in the summer of 2005, I couldn't get enough Southwest-Connection which was basically only dirty south rap like Bun B and Purple Ribbon Allstars, and a lot of semi obscure hip hop from the South.

Right now my favorite site is Discobelle. I pretty much only listen to music from this Swedish blog right now. God bless the Scandinavians. They get Djs from around the world to send them mixes and shit. The Djs do a lot of mashups where they're taking hip hop, electronica, indie, everything and doing big things with it. I think I'm addicted. Discobelle also posted my favorite song for January, "Mr. Jones" by Mike Jones, the song is awesome.

The cyber thing about all these blogs is their interconnectedness. Each blog has links to 50 other audioblogs with all sorts of music and of course opinions. Like when I found My Gay Husband's badass remixes. So any site you go to is just a gateway, and once you step through it...

A few other notables for me: Analog Giant, and the music review, Coke Machine Glow.

If you don't know, now you know.

I've been replaced! So while I'm over here, working on this side of the world, my parents went and got a dog. Here's my brother Jesse and Jack, a one year old Maltese. Jesse brought him all the way from Cali where he was rescued from an old lady who had too many dogs to handle. So get this, he came fully trained and free. I can't wait to meet him. He supposed to be super chilled out and smart. Apparently his first words were, "Free DJ Drama."

Today officially marks the halfway point of my stay in Lusaka. I have four months left in Lusaka. Having my folks visit made me long for home and yet at the same time I can't imagine leaving. It's wild.

Before my parents left, we had the chance to go down to Livingstone. We rented a car a drove the six hours down. While the trip itself was semi-disasterous (I got stuck in a rut and subsequently my dad threw out his back) our stay was not all bad. Exhibit A:



In the morning, we woke up and took a fifteen minute helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. First of all, I'd never been in a helicopter before and it was a rush. Really smooth though. Secondly, the view was like nothing I'd ever seen. It was a completely different experience than seeing the falls from the ground obviously. We circled around this natural wonder. I held my breath.

Afterwards, we went to see it from a different angle on the ground and we got drenched. The spray that the falls produce goes about a mile up in the air (you can see mist clouds in the photo) and rains down on surrounding areas. From any angle Vic Falls in breathtaking. And right now it's at about half its strength!

So Blood Diamond was just released in Lusaka on Friday. I don't know if everyone has seen it already but the movie was incredible; and not just because Di Caprio's South African accent was immaculate. When the film was over I got up and noticed I'd been sweating. The whole thing was so intense, from the bloodshed to the horror of child soldiers I was really impressed by director Edward Zwick's ability to make a blockbuster movie that was so strikingly vivid and entertaining, yet whose lessons in realism might be powerful enough to affect change in the consciousness of America. Maybe I'm being too idealistic, after all, I am volunteer in Zambia, but I found the intesity of the film to be strangely inspiring. The conflict wasn't glorified, and the only triumph was Djimon Hounsou's reconciliation with his family and his subsequent speech to shed light on the truths of Sierra Leone. While I really can't say I'm able to identity with anything that happened in the movie, there were some moments in the dialogue between Di Caprio and Jennifer Connelly which struck a chord. There is fatalistic pessimism that creeps into my own thoughts, whispering that nothing volunteers do here is actually helping the situation, whether it's public health, human rights or child protection. It makes me sick to think that in four months I can drop everything and go back to plush America and there will still be 200,000 child soldiers in Africa and one in six Zambians infected with HIV. A white person in Africa is more often than not there for one of two reasons, either to make a buck or volunteer; and either way, if things get bad, they can always leave. I guess I'm proud to fall in the second category. Yet as my time here wanes I have some serious thinking to do about how to recalibrate so that this year does not go swiftly in the night to become a fond memory rather than a call to action.

My parents just came to Zambia for ten days. I dropped them off at the airport this morning much to my dismay. We had a great time. It felt really good to have them here and now they have an idea of what my life is like, not just living through phone calls and this virtual glimpse. They now know the ins and outs of Lusaka, the long road to Livingstone, the wildlife of South Luangwa and all my people on this side of the globe.


It's no joke getting to Zambia: Boston to London; London to Lusaka. When they got here, they were plum tuckered out. We took it easy to start off. I made them Nshima for dinner. I showed them my local hangouts. On Wednesday I went off to soccer practice. The P-Unit said they might stop by. No one showed up to play though so I went home only to find that I had lost my parents. I ran back to the pitch but they werent there. I had a moment of panic only possible in the cellular age. Then I remembered that people had been meeting up for centuries without phones in there pocket and I found them back at home.

After mom and dad got their bearings, we took a flight to Eastern Province. South Luangwa National Park is one of the premier game parks on the continent. This was my first time on safari, but I might retire from the game early, because our time there was truly remarkable. We stayed at Mfuwe Lodge, which is actually inside the park(during mango season the elephants walk through reception to get to their favorite tree). When we got there, we learned we were the only guests. This would never happen during the dry season, but because we are in the beginning of the wet season, things slow down. I didn't mind at all however because they decided to give me my own chalet. We had booked a family chalet but I couldnt say no to my own little house with a porcelain tub overlooking a hippo-filled lagoon.

We were waited on hand and foot as we ate our first meal. The food was amazing, artichoke quiche, homemade bread, pork tenderloin and pesto covered tomatoes was just our first lunch. Little did I know that they would be feeding us like this five times a day. We got there on Thursday morning and left Sunday afternoon and our schedule went something like this: wakeup at 5:45 for muffins and coffee; go out in an open land rover from 7:00-10:30; have a huge brunch at 11:00, relax by the pool or nap until 4:00; teatime with sandwiches and cakes; go out again into the park from 4:30-8;30 stopping at sundown for gin and tonics then carrying on in the dark searching for predators; eat a larger supper at 9:00 and go to bed. By the second day we were all about a relaxed as I've been ever. While the lodge and the staff were incredible the actual safari was the real show.

Our guide Funnuel knew pretty much everything. Just driving past the gate of the park to the lodge we saw zebra, baboons, impala and elephants. From then on we observed all sorts of crazy behavior from giraffes, hippos, antelope, hyenas, warthogs, water buffalo, eagles, cuckoos and so forth. Here's a little snapshot of what we saw:

I love this picture because I actually put my camera up to my binoculars and double my zoom power which I didn't really know was possible. We saw a lot of different groups of elephants including the cutest one year old little guy. I must say, seeing animals in their natural habitat is so beautiful. A zoo does no justice to nature. Even though most are aclimated to jeeps roaming by, all of the animals are pretty much chilling, eating grass, yelling, "can I live?"


Did you know a group of zebras is called a dazzle. Thats pretty much the coolest thing I've ever heard (besides the name of the central part of a termite mound which is called a brood chamber). This shot is so dope. The zebras take dust bathes to clean off and I caught this guy mid roll. This was actually one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The zebras line up and one by one take a roll in the dirt, get up and then the next zebra goes down. It was mad organized. Plus, to get flies off them, zebras shiver, which makes their stripes do this optical illusion dance. Beautiful. My question to you: is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes. Chew on that.

So you see all the normal creatures from baboon to elephant but the real McCoy are the cats. It's everyone's desire to see big cats when they go on safari and after our first day we came away empty handed. But our luck changed on the second night. We were riding around in the dark with spotter who has a bigass flashlight who flicks it around looking for the green reflection of cat eye's. I was getting bored. In fact I started to fall asleep. We had to head back to camp soon, but suddenly there was a whisper: "leopard". And there, crouching low to the ground was a big female, eyeing a pair of impala 40 yards away. The impala suddenly leaped away and the cat turned its attention to our Land Rover. It slinked passed it, about five yards away. My heart was pounding even though Funnuel said that it sees the vehicle as one big animal.


The leopard was devastatingly beautiful. I was sated. I'd seen a cat. However, the next morning we spotted a leopard chilling out in a tree. When it noticed us, it got down, pulling with it a dead baby zebra! No joke. Shit was crazy. Then, as we drove along a dirt path nearby, Funnuel stopped the vehicle. There lying in the grass were two bigass lions.


He pulled off the road closer to them, I mean really close. We were about five feet from these guys. Mom was grabbing on to dad. We were all hushed. This pair was resting in the morning sun. Now I'm convinced that these lions were gay. To start with, their nickname around the park was Mfuwe Pride. Secondly, while I didn't get a shot of it, these boys were totally spooning each other. On a seperate note, they were also exhibitionists because they were like this, exposed and loving it:


Other notable events included gang warfare between rival baboons clans, and the black cuckoo, whose call, according to Funnuel, translates to "beat my mom, beat my mom" in English. Overall, I say they whole safari trip was one of the coolest things I've done.

Check out the Lusaka Sunrise documentary shot by Silas Hagerty. It's an awesome look at how HIV/AIDS affects Zambia and features Grassroot Soccer. The two main guys interviewed are both good friends of mine. Enjoy!

Mozambique is the shit. I just got back from a ten day adventure and I must admit, from the capital, Maputo, to the beaches that rival Tortola, I fell in love with the country. I flew from Lusaka to Joburg then to Maputo and somewhere along the line the bag I checked was rifled through. My iPod portable speakers and my Leatherman were stolen, but I quickly cursed and moved on. Maputo is a city. By that I mean that Lusaka feels like a bush town compared with it. There's tall apartment buildings, interesting architecture and avenues with names like Mao Tze Tung Boulevard. There is a whole Portugese, Brazilian, African vibe that reminded me of a dirty Miami, but with better cafe con leche.

My crew (we were nine deep) crashed at a friend's apartment who happened to be from Newton. That made three of us because one of my friends from Lusaka who came is also from the hometown. Weird? Word. It was comforting staying in a home rather than a backpackers or hotel. We rented a 12 person van to travel up the coast to our destination. But first we tooled around in the capital for a day. Highlights included haggling at the Saturday market downtown, eating gelato, going to a bar where a cat with his shirt off had a 2pac tatoo on his chest and looked like an east LA esse (after I had joined him in his pursuit of shirtlessness he looked at me and said, "Westsiiide" no joke) and then there was this:


Our host Peter took us to this fish market (mind you I haven't had fresh fish in land-locked Zambia) where you got to pick out the fish you wanted and then they would cook it up for you any way you like. This is the remains of my hand-picked fried red snapper. We also shared some barracuda and prawns. No forks, all business. That's my idea of a meal the likes of which I've only had once before in PR!

By the way, here's the story of that first picture. Prefaced by this fact: I rolled deep. There were eight of us from Lusaka: me and my housemate May; Jenny (the Newtonite); Nancy, who heads the BU public health program for Zambia; Sarah, who works for CIDRZ here; Ian, a Brit working for the UN; Nasser, a Jordanian who owns a candy factory in Lusaka; and Luka, my boy who I run the Kidsafe league with. However, the ninth member of our party made all the difference for me. That was Pat Garrity who I went to Wesleyan with and who now works for GRS in South Africa. We had a ball together and it wasn't just because the Black Label at the Duty free in Joburg was only $25. I'm not going to lie, the one thing about Lusaka is that I don't have any American male friends my age (that's a hint for all you mf's who need to come visit me). Chilling with Pat was a like a breath of fresh air.

Anyway, we were walking down the boardwalk in Maputo and we come across all of these strange writings on the wall. They must have gone on for 200 meters. It was all in Portugese but my meager Spanish skills made it clear that this was some weird metaphysical philosophy type ish talking about futurism, jazz, hell etc. While we were admiring the treatise someone walked by and told us this was all the work of this crazy guy sprawled out on the sidewalk we hadn't even noticed. Point being, "Eu Suo Um Futurista" is one of this guys works.

So at five in the morning on Sunday we set out on a 12 hour road trip up the coast in the van we rented to get to Vilanculos, a beautiful town on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It was a good 40 degrees Celcius everyday so we would sweat through our sheets every night at Smugglers Backpackers where we stayed, so the object was to get drunk enough to pass out and not care. Heavy drinking ensued, but don't worry mom, I'm not sick of alcohol.

The first night we were there I had my first encounter with Afrikaner racism. Mozambique is a vacation hotspot for South Africa. While all my friends left the table as Leon, an Afrikaner with scars on his face, told me about why monkeys were better than black people, I stayed. I've never encountered anything like it before. These kids were convinced that the only way South Africa would be ok was if whites took over the government again. It was scary. But you must study the enemy. After that though I steered away from white South Africans.




The next morning we took a Dhow (tradition sailboat) to the Bazaruto Archipelago. Here's my crew on board. This place was no joke. We snorkeled along the reef there and I marvelled at the flourescent colors that the ocean provides. We spent the rest of the day in a natural pool lazing like hippos in the sun and walking along a stretch of breathtaking beach. The only place that rivals Bazaruto in beauty is Tortola. It's a toss up for Paradise.


We stayed in Vilenculos for five days, relaxing, trying to stay in the shade, and partying. Our motto was "So Far, So Good" which really summed things up. Christmas eve I spent downing Black Label with Pat and Luka then convincing a local drummer to play while we sang. I ended up at the Dred Bar, packed with locals and dancing to Nirvana. We got carried away and started tossing this 15 year kid in the air but somehow managed not to throw him through the roof.

We then headed down to Tofo for New Year's. It almost felt like spring break. The place we stayed at, Fatima's Nest, was so disorganized I ended up staying the three nights there for free; granted one of those nights I slept on a hammock on the beach and New Year's Eve I didn't really sleep at all. That's cause New Year's was like this:


Everyone had pitched tents everywhere and pretty much mayhem ensued. On Saturday night we walked down the beach and randomly found a jazz band playing in front of a bonfire right there on the ocean. It was magical. Until the power went out and then it just turned into an incredible drum circle with portugese singing. Crazy. We ordered Chicken from a shack and each got a whole Chicken. Love the language barrier.

Luka and I pledged that we would try to change the world in 2007. I think we are on our way. Our first step is to have an iPod Party in Lusaka in a couple weeks. You are all invited. If you RSVP in the next week, I'll put you on the guestlist.


New Year's Eve itself was interesting because we were caught in a cyclone. So it was wet. We were at this club that looked like a hut but kept us dry. At Fatima's I met these two cats from Joburg and these two girls from Portugal. At 12 there was a huge firework show and then a techno version of "Crazy" came on and everybody went nuts. That has got to be the song of 2006. And I still love it. I somehow managed not to catch pneumonia. It was like a late Hanukah present. Here's to 2006.


These guys from Joburg, Max and Leroy, have a blog about life there, Fluffy Dice. Check it out. Anyway, I'm back in Lusaka. I got about four hours of sleep the past five nights but that's the life I lead. Gotta be one of the best vacations ever except now I need another one to recover. I also need to learn Portugese so I can start GRS in Mozambique. Here's to 2007.