Where There is No TakeAway (aka Takeout)

As one of my projects for Peace Corps, I have just finished editing the cookbook which is presented to new recruits at the completion of their training.  The recipes were compiled years ago from volunteers and friends  in Zambia and other African countries.  My own copy is pretty beat up from use in the village. I plan to take it home with me and place it on the shelf right next to my WIC cookbook.

"Where There is no Takeaway" is unique in bringing American dishes to Zambia utilizing locally-available foods.    There are no convenience foods used in the recipes.  Everything is made from scratch:  tortillas, chipatis, cakes, cookies, and many more favs.   It also "translates" the local English cooking methods (grams, kg) to more familiar American methods (tsp, cup).  I used the recipes for bread, cakes, brownies, cookies.  In the process of using them, I found errors (like peanut butter cookies with no peanut butter listed in the ingredient list) and oatmeal pancakes that stick terribly to the frying pan.  There were also improvements to be made, like adding a Table of Contents and more method details for beginner cooks (of which there are many motivated to learn).  Finally, there were my few additions:  homemade wine, my favorite bread, pancake, banana bread, and carrot cake recipes.  My roommate contributed a new section entitled, "When you don't feel like lighting your brazier"

Last Friday I got to proof the printer's formatting and it looks wonderful.  It is a handy half-page size with a glossy, splatter-resistant cover.

Because there is constant volunteer and staff turnover in Peace Corps, I am looking for someone new who will take on the next revision:  addition of an index, a section on building and baking in a dutch oven, to mention two felt  needs.

Here is the photo from the cover (from my village of Mpepo, of course).

Lusaka in pictures

I don't think so

I'm confused

Eastern Traditional dancers in the middle of the Great East Rd

Our new hangout:  They have bagels and blizzards!

Mind your diction!

How to unload a semi-trailer truck full of ceramic tiles

Finally!  An honest agenda

Flash flooding on Cairo Rd after 10 minutes of rain.  Reason?  All the sewer drains are clogged with rubbish.

My morning commute during rush hour.

Our local lunch wagon (the black plastic-covered structure) on the corner with my friends preparing fish.

Kitchen talk

After two years of cooking over charcoal on a brazier the size of a frying pan, it is glorious to have a kitchen.  The refrigerator is apartment size, but enables us to buy and eat meat.  We opted to continue to drink room temperature water so that we could shop for fresh foods once per week only.  The stove/oven resembles a microwave oven in size and having the door open the oven.  The 2 burner stove is directly on top of the oven.  The unit sits on a small table which I brought down from my hut in the village.  I was so disappointed when I discovered that only one of the burners worked.  I was really looking forward to expanding my cooking beyond one-pot meals so I bought a two burner hot plate and am happy.  The oven bakes pretty hot so is ideal for homemade bread.  To my great relief, my cake pans fit inside.  It probably uses less electricity than a big oven.  Then the whole unit shorted out and we had to buy a replacement last Saturday.  Maybe it was worn out from all the baking I have been doing, including bread.  So now I am baking and cooking on a brand new unit.

At work I have been revising the Peace Corps cookbook called "Where There Is No Take-Away".  It has been great to add tips and correct recipes.  Last night I baked the corrected brownies recipe and it received approval from my official taste-tester and roommate.
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The apartment has a meter to measure the units of electricity that we have to pre-pay and then load.  Next week we will walk over to the nuclear plant owner and plunk money down for another 45 units. 
We lost electricity last Friday night, so went to bed early and read by candlelight.  We just went into the village mode.  However, through my window I noticed that the apartments across the courtyard all had lights.  Next morning I checked with a neighbor who was watching TV.  Her husband came down and immediately located the problem as a tripped fuse switch on our meter.  Like any new resident, we have to learn these things.

More on Life in the big city

Yes, you are seeing correctly:  Lusaka has it's very own nuclear reactor located in the center of town.  Thankfully, the power company no longer uses it but relies on hydroelectric sources instead.  The edge of the building you see in the right side of the photo is a brand new shopping mall.  Nice backdrop!  I have used the tower to fix my location while navigating the new city since it is not far from where I live and visible from afar!

Every weekend, my roommate, Laura and I have explored the town by foot (of course).  We just get on Cairo Rd and ask people where something is located.  Not only are the pedestrians happy to stop and tell us, they often want to walk and show us.  I love Zambians.

One of our first outings was to the local market of Kumwala.  It was a maze of shacks with mud streets.  The Saturday we went,  it had just rained and every path was flooded.  There is very little drainage in the city and it rains hard here so Lusaka streets flood regularly.  Anyway, back at the market, the word "plague" came to mind and we couldn't wait to get out of there as we clung to the high ground.  I have since gone back when it was dry and explored.  We bought linoleum flooring, Christmas decorations,  sewing supplies, dry fish for catfood, and "Cheeky Chili" which were so much more available there than in the supermarkets.

I have had three occasions where a stranger has touched my skin in passing like they were just checking out what I was made of.  That surprised me because I had never experienced that in the rural areas where I might have expected to be the oddity. Very recently, I lost my wallet on Cairo road.  Peace Corps security officer took me to the police station to make a report and then to the bank to get a new bank card.  The next day I got a call from Peace Corps that a stranger had driven over there to return the card and ID papers.  Somehow the wallet and cash went missing (surprise! but the important stuff was returned across town.

I spent two afternoons tracking down the store that supplies satellite TV.  I had planned to subscribe over the holidays if it was affordable.  It isn't.  I was told that our TV was ready for the service but it wasn't.  The converter box needs to be upgraded and the channels we wanted to watch were of course only in the most expensive package.  So now we are watching movies that Laura has on her computer's  hard drive.  I still get a thrill over having electricity 24-7.

We have continued to have a good experience living in our 3 story apartment building which faces an identical building, separated by front lawns and sidewalk.  The children make happy noises on the front yard all day long.  The ice cream man peddles his bicycle freezer daily up the sidewalk ringing a cow bell.  There were 3 weeks of fireworks which was annoying but it stopped at a reasonable hour at night.  We learned more about the history of the buildings, too.  They were built by the African National Foundation (ANF) for anti-apartheid South Africans to work from. This explains why my 84 year old landlady is a South African Chieftainess (Zulu) and why our front door reads African Heritage House. Because of the dangers of becoming targets of violence, names of ownership or occupancy were never written down so most people stayed rent-free and ownership disputes had to go to court on a case-by-case basis.  The original occupants knew one another and had lawn parties on Friday nights.    The flats have since been rented to strangers such as Peace Corps. (smiley)  We are having some difficulties with bill payment.  I moved in on Dec 2nd but Peace Corps couldn't pay until the 26rd so I scraped together half of the quarter's rent because I wanted to move in right away. I paid the remainder on Dec. 26th.  The landlady was not happy to say the least.  On the 30th we got a 2 day shut-off notice for our water.  I had given the landlady the money already so I sent the bill to her and talked by phone.  On the 30th she left a rose bouquet and cake inside our apartment with a card.  Two days later, our water was shut off so I paid it and sent her a text because she was planning a holiday visit to South Africa. Luckily they reconnected the water the same day so nothing was lost but an extra K100,000 and time off of work.  Other than those issues which hopefully we can sort out by the next payment due, we love the furniture, kitchen, bath, etc and wouldn't think of moving.  Cleopatra, our African Queen Cat came to live with us toward the end of December.  By that time, we had all the mosquito screens on the windows so she could be an indoor cat for a week of acclimatization.  She was calm and happy from the start.  Luckily her real owner had her fixed so I don't have to do the kitten routine.  The cockroach population has also receded partly due to her, I think, and the other part to cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  We know they can always run back and forth between apartments so will probably never be totally rid of them.

Now that I live in Lusaka I am expecting--and getting--a lot of Peace Corps Volunteer visitors.  So is Laura.  Hers are from Eastern Province and mine from Northern so we are becoming acquainted with a lot of new folks.   Some are passing through for vacation.  Others actually want to visit.  On Jan 2 I had 4 camped out in the living room (tent, couch and floor) and one on the spare bed in my room.  They were happy to have a free bed for the night.  They are expected to help with food and drink but that is all.  I kind of like cooking still.  I made cakes, cookies, biscotti and bread in the little oven.  The volunteers are so appreciative of anything.  They are low maintenance visitors.

Beware of Wild Animals In Lusaka

On January 1, Barb and I went to Munda Wanga, the animal sanctuary in Lusaka.  These are rescued animals who are eventually turned back into the wild. Can you see the Cheetah under the sign?

It was an inexpensive way for two volunteers to get up close and personal with the animals who live in Zambia.  Since I didn't get to see Zebras or Lions on the safari in Chobe National Park, I was very happy to get the snaps of these beautiful animals, albeit behind wire fences. 

The Zebra who was MIA at Chobe Safari

Of course the Warthog, aka PUMBA, delighted us.

The camels were a surprise but they were rescued.  Someone tried to introduce them as work animals  but the Zambians did not take to them.  As you may already know, they are very useful in Sahara region of Africa.  Just shows you how large and varied the continent is.

Where ARE we?  What is this greenery?

Then we came upon this poor tortoise on his back with his soft side under the hot African sun and watched to see if he could right himself.  After observing another turtoise (sibling?) give him wide berth while passing him, I thought WWZD (What would a Zambian Do?)  So I went looking for and found a long bamboo pole to reach him over the barrier and flip him upright.

Rescued tortoise.  Can you see the mud on his shell?

He stayed withdrawn for only seconds before taking off to Mama Tortoise who was sunning herself on a nearby rock.  You can actually see clumps of mud on his back from his struggles.  I tried to upload a video of his attempts but it is too large a file for our system.

Sun bather

Then we proceeded to the cafeteria and botanical gardens which are also housed in Munda Wanga.

The first thing we checked on upon arrival at Munda Wanga was the availability of eating crocodile for lunch only to be told that they sold out the day before.  When we came back to order later, we learned that there was ONE crocodile steak.  Hopefully, it wasn't one of the rescued crocs we had just visited.

Sibling Rough housing

More on National Food and Nutrition Commission

 Along with 100 other pedestrians,  I walk 5 blocks in the industrial area to get to work on Lusaka's busiest street-Lumumba Rd (which only sounds like a dance but is really a slow crawl).  Luckily I don't have to cross it cuz that is done on the run.  
Here is Beatrice, my main boss.  Even she uses her personal laptop at work. She found the apartment and hired me and told me that I will work in all departments.

This is the doorway to my office which I share with Gladys.  Last Friday, we were told to take the whole week off while the managers (like Beatrice) had a retreat but I didn't make any plans so am coming to work anyway.  You can tell by this posting how hard-working I am.  Here I have free internet.

Our buildings include the warehouse where my office is to the left in the picture below.  Trucks can drive in through the garage door.  Luckily for our lungs, that has only happened once since I started working here.

Next picture is the front wall mural outside our office.  The major focus this year will be the nutrition of the fetus and child until age 2--aptly called First 1000 Days Campaign.  This will include maternal nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding.  I am really glad we are addressing these critical first 1000 days.   Zambia has 48% stunting rate which is irreversible and impacts the child's learning capacity for life.

I have been assigned the task of writing the nutrition guidelines starting with General Nutrition.

Extension is not about my hair

This is an attempt to explain the concept of extending service after the basic 2 years of Peace Corps.  And then I will answer your questions as to What I am now doing?

Extension is an additional one year (13 months including one month of mandatory home leave--like that adjective is needed) of service in Peace Corps.  The volunteer needs to apply to the country where he/she is serving and be approved based on track record and country budget.
Once approved, the PCV finds her own job possiblitities:  she can extend in her own village or another location in the country.  That involves interviewing with the organization.  Then Peace Corps sees if they can write an agreement with that org:  who pays for what.  Generally the org pays for housing and Peace Corps continues to give the monthly stipend, insurance and plane ticket.
In my case, I knew I had an additional year to kill before I qualified for Medicare but I kept my mouth shut until a year into my service.  I applied to PC and was accepted with 3 references.  I wanted to work in my own field of nutrition rather than general health.  It wasn't hard to find something because every organization has a nutrition component and I had done some work for AfriCare and partnered with World Vision, etc.  But my Coordinator advised me to go to the National Food and Nutrition Commission.  I stopped in the office to make an appointment for an interview, talked with the Deputy and Director and they expressed interest in me from the get-go.
I was very excited because this is an "autonomous" policy-making division of the National Health Department.  They work with EVERYBODY in the country--other branches of the government like Agriculture and most Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO).  It also was my comfort zone to stay in government.
Here is their website link on the blog if you are interested to see more details.  www.nfnc.org.zm 
I helped them write my job description since they hadn't had a Peace Corps Volunteer before.  That was fun. Anyway, when I showed up, they said they needed me to write the nutrition guidelines for Maternal Nutrition, Child Nutrition, PD Hearth (done!!), HIV positive people, and Micronutrients.  Well, after my home leave of 6 weeks and some time off to settle the housing issues, I really only have 9 months of work to accomplish this.  The first week on the job I attended two workshops which they were sponsoring--one for the radio communications personnel and the other for the Iodine Deficiency Taskforce strategic plan.  After a week of meetings I was ready to get to work so I picked Iodine as my litmus paper.  The 8-5 day was hard to get back into.   It took two weeks to do the on-line research and historical review of Zambia's salt fortification program.  Now I submitted the paper to my two bosses and the point person on the Iodine committee.  We'll see how it goes.  The internet connection has been the only drawback:  it keeps cutting out during search or download or attaching.  My co-workers are very welcoming--no surprise there. They are so hard-working.  On Monday I found that several had worked all Saturday to finish a report.  Meanwhile, we sponsored and open-house for our new apartment.  Hopefully I won't be pulled in on the weekends or to go to too many more workshops unless I am presenting (HA!HA!)  I don't do windows, either.  Hhmm.  I sound like a retiree!  I am going to shoot for a paper a month and then spend the rest of the time getting feedback and revising.