Oh yeah i remember this. Been a while, i'll try to update as comprehensively as i can without droning on for too long. I did in fact come back from zanzibar, reluctantly, and returned to life in the village. Since then, things have been going really well. In mid-march i went to chipata in eastern province for a week of hiv/aids training done by peace corps. We all brought community workers from our villages and spent the week doing hiv education and learning ways to teach the people where we live about prevention and positive living. It was a great experience for myself and my counterpart, and since then he has been keeping me busy. We've been working with the hiv positive group in the area, meeting about twice a month and teaching them what we learned. The group is also working to start a chicken coop to raise money for themselves. I'm basically the cheerleader, encouraging them and helping out however i can. They're a great group of people and i'm excited by their enthusiasm. In mid april, having an entire weekend of vacation days over the easter holidays, my friend koh and i headed back to malawi for a short vacation. Our destination this time around was cape maclear, on the south end of the lake (nkhata bay, where i went last time, was on the north west side). There was a little more adventure to it than we had expected, including a bout with malaria (not me this time) two 12 hour trips to get there and back, and a lost reservation that ended with 5 people sharing an empty house with two mattresses and nothing else, but the cape is absolutely beautiful and we still had a pretty great time. The next week i went into lusaka for a night to say goodbye to half of the volunteers in my province, lusaka province consists of 3 education volunteers and 3 health volunteers, the education ones having started a year before us, so last month was the end of their service. It was hard to say goodbye, especially to eric, my closest neighbor. While in peace corps your neighbor becomes a pretty important part of your life. You hang out together a lot, you learn a lot from them, and a lot of times they keep you sane, especially when you're first posted. Their group leaving makes my intake the upperclassmen of peace corps zambia, which is pretty crazy. At the beginning of this month we went into lusaka for our midterm conference, for some training, medical check ups, and a workshop on perma culture gardening. It was good to see everyone again and good to reflect on the last year and prepare for the next 12 months. Since then. Its been village life as usual, minus a quick trip to lusaka this week to get my work permit (only took 15 months). I'll be here another week and a half, then i go to chipata for provincials, then i fly home for brendan's wedding. Well, that's about it for now. Hope you all are well. Miss you all a lot and can't wait to see some of you in a couple weeks.

And now we come to the end. I'm in an internet cafe in Stone town, about 5 hours away from our ferry departing the island for Dar Es Salaam. It's been quite a week. The music fest was a lot of fun. I must admit I was afraid that it was going to be like three days of bad reggae music or something like that, and while there was a little of that the music was actually really good. They brought in traditional African world music type acts from all over the continent. The festival was held in a fort, and it was one of the coolest venues I've ever heard live music in. We usually would eat dinner and then get to the festival around 8 or 9 just as things were picking up steam. There were about 40 volunteers from Zambia at the festival so every night turned basically turned into our own little dance party. While world music isn't really my thing it was hard not to have a good time and I'm definitely glad I came. It's time to get out of here though. I've had a blast but this vacation has run it's course (I mean that in a good way) and it's time to get back to the village and sleep for like a week.

So at like 8 o'clock yesterday morning my companions and I got on a shuttle bus and rode down to the south west coast to spend the day swimming with dolphins and snorkeling. This was not my first time embarking on such an adventure, in 2006 I went on a dolphin swim trip, with very little success. This time around was, um, different, to say the least. We arrived at the beach at around 0930 hours, picked out neon colored masks, snorkels and flippers and walked out to a wooden motorized boat and set out dolphin hunting. the next hour was equal parts hilariously absurd and awesome. The first thing we notice as we set out is that we are not alone. There are like 5 other boats full of pasty white european tourists in speedos, just like our boat, hunting down dolphins. Each boat has about 12 people in it, all sitting on the side of the boat, facing out, flippered feet dangling in the water. We're all heading in the same general direction, looking for dorsal fins. When a dolphin was spotted, all boats would make a bee line for the animal, circle around it, the guy driving our boat would yell jump, and 50 people would fall into the water and swim towards the one dolphin who is trying to get away from all these people as fast as it can. It's a sight to behold, and the whole time watching these people and myself I couldn't help but wonder if this was really stupid.
But then once you jumped in the water, you looked down and realized you were swimming with a dolphin in the Indian Ocean. The last dolphin we found actually stayed around and swam with everybody for a while, and it was pretty amazing. At a couple of points I thought it was going to touch someone's feet. So in spite of all the absurdity of the experience it was definitely worth it. Afterward we went snorkeling by a reef for a while. I've been snorkeling a few times in a couple different place but I've never seen anything like this. Thousands of fish and coral and plants in as many different colors. Afterwards we had a local meal of fish and rice (a bit more of a novelty for the other people in the group than for us, we're used to village food), then headed back to Stone Town. I'll write about the music fest at some other time.

So let's try and recap.
On Friday morning my friends Josh, Tim, Christa and myself left Lusaka and hitched about two hours north to a town called Kapiri Mposhi, to the Tazara Railway station to catch a train leaving at 1400 hours for Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. We rode first class, which means we were in a compartment that held 4 people, as opposed to 2nd which holds 6, or 3rd, which I don't even want to think about. The train was sparse, to say the least. Our compartment consisted of 4 benches with blankets which were our beds, and a small table. every car had a toilet and a sink. and there was a bar car that served drinks and dinner. We reached Dar 51 hours later. While the ride through Tanzania was beautiful, and it's nice to have transportation that you can walk around on, 51 hours is too long to do just about anything. We arrived in Dar on Sunday afternoon. Since it was too late to get to Zanzibar that day we got a hotel in Dar for the night. The Econo Lodge (no relation to the American chain) was pretty bare bones, but we were just happy to shower for the first time in 3 days. The next morning we got up early and went to catch the 0700 hours ferry to the island. At approximately 0900 hours, after three solid days of traveling we had reached our destination. Was it worth it? Absolutely. This island is unlike any other place I've ever seen. We arrived at Stone Town, the main port town on the island. It's an odd place. There's a mixture of African, Indian, Middle Eastern, and white tourist influences, an odd combination that gives the city a very unique feel. It sucks you in pretty quick. We spent the daygetting lost in the many alleys and walkways that comprise the city (think those scenes from like Indiana Jones movies where he's chasing some villain around Cairo or somewhere like that) and eating at Mercury's, the restaurant named for Zanzibar's most famous native son, Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer of Queen. Tuesday we decided that before the music festival started on Thursday we should head to the beach for some serious down time in the sun. We got a shuttle bus to take us to Kendwa, a popular destination on the West coast, about an hour out of Stone Town. We ended up staying at Kendwa Rocks, a nice lodge right on the beach. The beach is amazing. It looks like all those pictures of beaches you've seen on postcards or calendars or on your computer screen saver that look too perfect to be real and you can't believe those pictures were taken at a real place. They were probably taken here. The sand is incredibly fine, like flour almost. The water is almost a neon blue and is just warm enough to make it enjoyable (watch out for sea urchins, though. i watched two people get stung). We've spent the last two days here, laying around, eating good food, getting sun and swimming. Tomorrow we head back to Stone Town for the festival. More updates sometime soon.

I'm currently sitting in my cooking shelter, watching the rain. It's rainy season right now. From about november to march in zambia you can expect rain just about every day, though it varies depending on where you live. I kind of enjoy it, though the rain makes it a pain to start a fire for cooking or do laundry. Life slows down here during the rains, though it wasn't moving very fast to begin with. People are out in their fields or staying inside keeping dry. So what does a volunteer do? Not much. You stock up on books, get comfortable, and settle in for a few months of inactivity. However, since one can only stay still for so long, rainy season is also prime time for getting out of the village. Most volunteers went somewhere over the holidays, be it a big international vacation or just somewhere out of the village. But just around the corner is the biggest vacation time in peace corps zambia. In february i and about half the volunteers in country will get on a train to dar es salaam, tanzania, then take a boat out to the islands of zanzibar for the annual zanzibar music festival. Zanzibar rose to prominence in the heyday of colonialism as a key point in the spice trade. While it's still renowned for it's spices it's now mainly a major tourist destination. Fascinating culture, pristine beaches, excellent food... I can't wait.

A week ago, having just recently returned from my time off for Christmas and New year's, I woke up in my village, bid a visiting friend farewell, and abruptly realized something: I was sick. Achy, sweaty, probably a fever, fatigued, and a dull but ever present headache. I rested all day and told myself I'd wait till tomorrow to start worrying seriously about my condition, specifically I'd wait until I used the m-word.
Tuesday morning I woke up feeling much the same, maybe a little worse. I had no proof, but at this point I was fairly sure I had malaria. This is common. Malaria is very much prevalent in the southern hemisphere, and it is a big problem in Zambia. We use malaria prophylaxis and sleep under mosquito nets, but even so the reality is a peace corps volunteer in Zambia will most likely contract malaria at some point during their service. The good thing is that, while a specific strain of malaria is fatal if untreated, malaria is very treatable, and peace corps makes sure we have the necessary resources to treat ourselves. Treatment is coartem, a three day, 24 pill treatment. On tuesday I started taking my coartem and planned to go to Lusaka the next day to test for malaria and get better.
I woke up Wednesday and walked to the road to hitch a ride into town. It was about 7:30 am, the market was quiet, it was cloudy, a rainstorm had just finished and it looked like another was coming. I stood on the road for about 15 minutes waiting for a car to come. Suddenly my stomach started to ache. My head felt light and I started feeling dizzy and seeing white spots. Then...
WHAM!!!!!!
Out cold. Faceplant in the asphalt. Not being of very sound mind, I stood up again, which brought about similar results. A villager saw what happened, came over to me and walked me to a nearby shop to sit down. I was brought some mangoes and a soft drink to give me some energy. I was a little freaked out, but not quite as much as the villagers who had just seen me pass out. Not wanting to travel to the two nearest Peace Corps offices in Lusaka (200 km away) or Chipata (500 km away), the nurse from my clinic called the nearby mission hospital (25 km away). They sent an ambulance to pick me up and I got to the hospital at about 11:00. The hospital is part of a catholic mission in Mpanshya, a town about 20 k away from Lukwipa. It's run by a mish mash of ex-pats, Zambians and a rotating cast of medical and otherwise volunteers, mostly from Europe. There I met Maggie, who I'm pretty sure is an angel from heaven disguised as a very devout Catholic from Poland who came to the hospital as a volunteer 5 years ago and decided to stay for the rest of her life. After getting some food in me and testing my blood she took me to her house where she was kind enough to let me stay until I could leave. She fed me, let me take a hot bath (!), and let me rest and relax. That night we had dinner with Tobias and Dominic, two german med students doing a 2 month stint at the hospital, and Sean, an Irish VSO volunteer doing some accounting work for the hospital. The next day there happened to be a vehicle leaving from the mission to go to Lusaka, so on Thurs. afternoon I left and came to the Peace Corps office to test for malaria again and rest and recover.
It's been quite a week. Forgetting how different America's perception of malaria is from our's in Zambia, I managed to scare the crap out a few people, namely my parents. Sorry about that. I appreciate everyone's concern and messages. Hopefully this is the last malaria I have.

I'm going to do my best to tread lightly in this particular blog entry. Tis a dangerous subject, but I don't think I can let it go by without saying something.
On Tuesday I got up early and left Lusaka to hitch my way up to Mkushi, a town in Central Province where i was going to ATB Lodge to meet up with about 35 other volunteers to witness history, for better or worse. Peace Corps Volunteers tend to be current events/politics junkies, and if they're not when they leave the states they usually become one while they're here. As most of you already know Peace Corps tends to have a reputation of being a group of liberals, and while I can confirm that there are in fact conservative Republicans in Peace Corps Zambia, every one at the lodge was an Obama supporter. So as you can imagine, it was a fantastic night. Sleep was of course not an option, seeing as how the first polls closed at about 1 am here. Things first got interesting around 3, when Pennsylvania was called for Obama. As the next three hours rolled by and state after state turned blue it became clear that Obama was going to win, and not only win, but win easily. At 6 am, when thousands of Chicagoans in Grant Park erupted, a group of smelly, dirty, and above all tired 20-somethings in the middle of nowhere in Zambia had our own celebration, maybe lacking in quantity but certainly not in quality. Two things came to my mind at that point that I thought I would touch on. I know that everyone who reads this has widely varying political views, and many do not share the same views as me. And to you guys, I'm sorry. I think the American people invested themselves more in this election than any in a long time, certainly in my lifetime, and when you do that, only to feel you came up short, it's pretty devastating. I know I'd be pretty down this week if things had gone the other way. But, regardless of your views, I think there are two things all americans can get excited about.

1. We just elected an African-American head of state. And yes I know we all know how important this is and historic this is, but seriously folks, no other major world power has done something like this. It's a pretty amazing testament to how far our country has come concerning racial reconciliation. The highest job in the land is no longer out of reach for people who aren't white males. This was one of those events that everyone kind of figured would happen eventually, but it also seemed like it would never come (it's like a 16 seed beating a 1 seed in march madness). This is something that all Americans should be proud of, the fact that we live in a country where Obama's story is even possible.

2. Tomorrow I'm going to go back to my village and everyone, EVERYONE, is going to want to talk about Obama. I'm sure you all saw the clips of the celebrations in Kenya. All of Africa is excited. Obama hasn't just given hope to African-Americans but this entire continent. And I really think that this election will, for the first time in a while, remind the rest of the world of why they used to be on friendly terms with America. The last 8 years turned global politics into "us v. them", we became unilateral renegades who did whatever we wanted for the most part, regardless of what the rest of the world thought, a dangerous attitude if ever there was one. But now that we have a president elect who seems intent on fixing broken relationships instead of pushing our former allies farther away from us, maybe we can take our place again as the watermark for democracy and good governance and freedom and justice, not because we tell the world incessantly that we're a great country, but because we actually do great things. Imagine if the rest of the world decided by themselves that America was an ok place by themselves, without us having to constantly remind them. We can't afford to push the global community away anymore, and Tuesday night was a good start.