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.