Zambia 5


This is where we shared each meal. Starting and ending the day with laughter and love.











My new friends. I'm so so grateful.














This was when my Zambian pharmacist friend taught me that my phone will take a photo if I wave my hand. We laughed because I didn't believe it.












Traditional Zambian food: beef chunks with nshima (corn meal porridge), typically eaten by hand.


















This is the village of Garneton. It's the only paved road in the village. 











I'm ready to go back...

Comments

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said…
You won't be the newbie the next time. I hope you get the opportunity again. I only had the opportunity to return to Venezuela once, during my first Sea Year. I did manage to look up the parents of an old friend though (he was away at college - Wake Forest). We took the Teleferico (cable car) from Maiquetia, over the mountains and into the capitol city. It was all taxis from there. Good times. :)
May 7, 2024 at 1:48 PM
Jen said…
It's amazing that part of your childhood was spent in Venezuela! I can't imagine having grown up in a foreign country and how that could influence your entire world view. I've only been outside the US as an adult and even then only a few times. It's definitely something everyone should experience.

May 8, 2024 at 11:21 PM
Thersites said…
I agree. It makes you appreciate what it really means to be an American. I was too young to remember living 3.5 years in Madrid before Venezuela (ages 2.5-6), but the Spanish did come easier to me than most when we arrived in Venezuela (ages 10-14) (I'd forgotten it all). Military deployments. In '67 his choices were Vietnam (1-year single) or Caracas (3 years - w/family). He chose family (and a longer deployment which he extended a year so as to get a "promotion" and "retire" in '70).

This trip probably opened you eyes a bit more, too... although Texas is pretty close to Mexico. As for me, I only really saw Manzanillo (Mexico) in '76, and it was very much like Caracas (only slightly more arid).
May 9, 2024 at 7:18 AM
Thersites said…
I suppose you could say the I live on the "inside edge" of American society. Always have. Always will.
May 9, 2024 at 7:21 AM
Thersites said…
...well, maybe not. I do now live only 55 miles from the DC beltway, after all. ;)
May 9, 2024 at 7:34 AM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said…
And the older you get, the harder it gets to cross the road for the 1st time. Glad you made it! ;)
May 9, 2024 at 2:45 PM
Jen said…
I listened to Inside again last week. It's an absolute favorite.
May 12, 2024 at 9:12 PM
Jen said…
Off topic: are you arguing with yourself again over at Farmers Letters? 97 comments about Ukraine?
May 12, 2024 at 9:13 PM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said…
No, I have an anonymous poster named 'Q' who is pro-Ukrainian and writes like an Eastern European. He's a big Sci-Fi fan (Stanislaw Lem is his 'mentor'). I think he might be part of the Ukrainian effort to maintain Ukrainian support, but he won't tell me much about himself, but wants me to be very concerned about "Russia"...

....and you know me, contrarian to the core.

He seems to be a decent guy.... but I wouldn't bet my life on it (yet).

And yeah, I'm still digesting "Inside"... and still have problems leaving my own comfort zones. One day, I'll take it all to heart, but am probably MUCH too comfortable at present.
May 13, 2024 at 10:30 AM
Jen said…
I think I've spent the last 20 years avoiding my perception of a comfort zone.

I guess it's different for everyone, but being domesticated and doing the same thing every day has been frightening for me.
Life is just so short.

There's certainly been a come down since getting back home but it's not what I expected.

I'm having a hard time caring about so much of the daily minutia. Entitled people. Messy kitchens. Work. Politics blah blah

Apparently my comfort zone is in avoiding the daily grind.
May 13, 2024 at 9:49 PM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said…
Again, it's probably our different upbringings... I spent most of my childhood living WAY outside of my comfort zone, so as soon as I could find one, I crawled into it. In my mind though, i see myself living as a South American expat. Chile probably. It feels very "California", but without the crazy Californians. Valparaiso... or even Argentina/ Buenos Aires...

Did you ever know Jungle Mom? She's in Uruguay...
May 14, 2024 at 6:30 AM
Jen said…
Yep I remember Jungle mom.

I see myself somewhere other than the US. I think we're headed in a bad direction with the growth of Christian nationalism.
May 15, 2024 at 10:22 AM
Thersites said…
Yeah, I never understood the appeal. I like the idea of having 'lifestyle options'. I'm sure I'd make a terrible 24/7/365 Christian, and would always be 'suspect' since I refuse to do communion any more. I'd have to move someplace 'remote'.
May 15, 2024 at 3:05 PM
Jen said…
I don't think Christian Nationalists have a single thing in common with followers of Jesus. Quite the opposite.
May 17, 2024 at 10:41 PM
Jen said…
Have you seen the movie Poor Things? I just watched it.
May 17, 2024 at 10:41 PM
Thersites said…
How'd you like it? I saw it about a month or two ago. I remember it had an interesting premise, a woman with her baby's brain relearning and re-experiencing everything.

I can't say as I ever met a Christian Nationalist. My sister was a devout Christian though. She's living in Kodiak Alaska now, and she has a workshop where she restores Eastern Orthodox Icons. My BiL is very religious as well, studied "theology" and became a business consultant for executives of a large San Francisco based private construction firm (Bechtel). He's retired now, but active in the Russian Orthodox church. I think that they both became eastern orthodox when they retired to Alaska. We're not very close. She dropped out of UC Santa Cruz and married in 1970 when we returned to the US after living in venezuela for 4 years (she only lived there for 1). They were "hippies"... while my BiL was attending seminary (Princeton) they ran a halfway house for ex-cons transitioning from prison to the outside. That was when I was at the Academy.
May 18, 2024 at 5:07 AM
-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said…
Perhaps the real fear of a Christian Nationalist is a fear of "the other's jouissance". Sounds like the Christian religion in a protective secular wrapper (that can perform the immoral acts that keep its' central religion 'pure').

The solution?

...>we need a solidarity of struggles, not a “dialogue of cultures" (or nations).

The only way to effectively fight ​“Eurocentrism” is from within, mobilizing Europe’s radical-emancipatory tradition. In short, our solidarity with non-Europeans should be a solidarity of struggles, not a ​“dialogue of cultures” but a uniting of struggles within each culture.
- Zizek, "The Need to traverse the Fantasy"
May 18, 2024 at 8:22 AM
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