Food Baby!!!

With only about a month left before I leave for Zambia, I have begun scrambling to consume as many of my favorite comfort foods as possible. This may seem like an easy task, but right now, I sit here typing feeling extremely uncomfortable, pregnant with a slaw dog, french fries, and two glasses of Pepsi, and I wonder if I can go on. I have done pretty well so far, tried to pace myself, and have a few more things to eat before I feel like I am ready for Africa. So far my food triumphs include: Biscuit Factory, Krispy Kreme, Thai food, a waffle cone of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, Dog House, pizza, and a banana split. Still to come are BBQ, a Cookout milkshake, Alex’s House breakfast, Mediterranean Deli, and fried chicken. I am a little over halfway there, so I hope I can see this through to the finish. Elasticized pants are definitely in my future, and I am thankful that I hear that those wraps women wear in Zambia can be very forgiving. Let’s hope so at least!

Ugh, off to take some tums and digest…

Roach Motels and Rat Traps

I am going to stop reading the blogs of current PC volunteers serving in Zambia. In my excitement to learn more about the country, I thought that reading first-hand accounts would give me the best idea of what to expect. While there are many touching stories of connections made with host families and village residents, the stories that seem more common are more of the “holy mother, you will never believe what happened today!” type events. There are stories of ants and termites that can bore through concrete floors, roaches and spiders who are so numerous that they become housemates or are named as pets, a rat the size of a large cat falling onto a sleeping volunteer’s face, and a cobra curled up underneath a volunteer’s bed. With all these online cries for help, you’d think Terminix would have swooped in by now to corner the market on pest control. The need is obviously there. I am now wondering whether I should devote the majority of my packing space to rat traps and roach motels, as it appears that a large majority of the volunteer’s day is spent either trying to catch or squash the little vermin, and if those efforts prove ineffective, they devote a great deal of time to writing about them instead! Either way, I know that am going to have to get to know nature a little bit better : /