Happy Birthday To Me!

Sorry for the long absence. I have only been out of the bush once since my last posting and as Kasama is continuing its existance as the communication black hole of the universe, I was unable to use the internet. Today it is my birthday and I am spending it at a meeting in Lusaka. It has been almost three months since my last blog, so I don't think I will get to fill you in on every detail in this blog. Instead I will give you a quick summary of my average day for the last three months.

1:30AM -Get woken up by mouse terrorizing my house, eating everything it can get it's teeth on. Spend the next two hours chasing it around my house and trying to get back to sleep.

6:30AM-Wake up and listen to BBC World Service while drinking instant coffee and eating oatmeal

7:00AM-Start my daily chores of sweeping my house, getting water (I hate carrying water), etc.

8:00AM-Work on whatever project I have going at my house at the time. For example, building a solar food dryer, building a fuel efficient cook stove, working on my garden, slashing the weeds around my house, feeding my fish, etc.

10:00AM-Get on my bike and ride anywhere from 5 to 20 kilometers to visit farmers (I already have about 1,500 miles on my bike since December).

1:00PM-Eat lunch with whatever farmer I am visiting (usually consists of beans, mushrooms, and nshima the local delecacy).

3:00PM-Teach fish farming or English one of the local schools.

4:30PM-Take a bucket bath

5:00PM-Start cooking dinner

7:00PM-Eat dinner

8:00PM-Do yoga

9:00PM-Go to bed

Things that might make me stray from this schedule include, but are not limited to, visits from other Peace Corps Volunteers or Staff, being sick (only one day so far), being to tired or lazy to leave my house, rain not allowing me to leave my house, and fish farmer meetings.

Sorry for the boring blog entry. I have about two hours to check my email, buy a plane ticket home for June, get money from the Peace Corps office, and buy my bus ticket back to Kasama tommorrow. So, I am in just a bit of a hurry. I will be back in Lusaka after Easter for training, so check back then for more details.