Weekend recap

Recap of weekend events:

[Context: Previously, I spent a lot of time in the NGO office doing data work, but since the results of the last pilot were not good, I've been going out "in the field" i.e. visiting households in the poor housing compounds for the past several days to investigate what went wrong in the pilot.]

Friday:
- first day in the field: discovered that one particular team had seriously messed up the intervention protocol
- went to a Zambian wedding reception of a daughter of a powerful politician and absolutely hated it. it was trying too hard to be an American wedding reception. The ballroom (while very posh for Zambian standards) looked like a run-down Holiday Inn room. I was the only non-black. Everyone stared at me. The emcee thought he was really funny when he started imitating Chinese sounds. It really wasn't funny.
- when the father of the bride started quoting marriage verses from the Bible, especially the part about not letting anyone put "asunder" what God has brought together, I cynically snickered to Grace, [supervisor I work with who invited me] "hm.. I wonder how many other women he's slept with while he was married "

Saturday:
- Moved from my host family's house in the middle of nowhere to a new posh guesthouse in the posh expat area of Lusaka, called Kabulonga.
- I love it
- I have broadband internet access in my room, almost unheard of in Lusaka
- I have my own kitchen. I can make my own food. WOO HOO. WOO HOO.
- I sleep in a queen-sized bed. In a queen-sized mosquito net frame.
- I have cable TV. I can watch BBC World Service. WOO HOO. [By the way, I've begun to hate American news media. I've become a British-only junkie now. Economist, BBC, Bean, you name it.]
- I have a SHOWER. you do not understand how important that is. especially after you've been taking baths with a pail.
- the electricity is regular

Sunday:
In my posh room:
- killed a spider in the room about 2 inches in diameter.
- killed a 2 inch roach with spray
- killed 3 mosquitoes
- tried to cook for myself. this is a big task for me. i haven't really had to cook for myself full time.... ever.

Today:
In the housing compounds:
- I walked by a small boy drinking brown water from a small carton. the community health worker (CHW) I was with yelled at the boy for drinking dirty water and snatched it out of his hands. the CHW asked the mother why she let him drink that. the mother said that he saw the boy urinate in that carton. the CHW yelled at the mother for letting her son drink his own urine. the CHW slapped her on the face. the mother and boy walked away, apathetic.

- Stopped by a house and found a crying baby and 6 other children, all under 8 years old. the parents were nowhere to be found. the mother left somewhere, the neighbor said. neighbor didn't know when she was going to be back. the baby hadn't eaten and was crying. the children were mixing dirt, leaves, and some other unknown substance in a dirty tin can. I think they were trying to eat it.

- I watched some children playing soccer (football). They had no shoes. The ground was littered with garbage, sewage, and even broken glass.

- Relatively more creative pick-up line from a Zambian man: "Hello, teacher, please teach me kung fu!"

Prayer requests:
- To resist the urge to give my middle finger to all the men who yell at me when I walk by

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Don't worry if this sounds too depressing. I'm going to have a "Why-I'll-never-regret-going-to-Zambia" list soon.