October

Hello again,
Sorry it has been so long since I’ve updated. Unfortunately the internet is rarely working lately and even today the computer is being super slow and its driving me crazy. Anyway I have been back from Lusaka for about a month now, mostly staying in the village. My cat is still adorable and super friendly and its really nice to have her around to keep me company. Also I now have two other pc volunteers nearby and I just visited the commercial farmers near me this week and its was wonderful. Not only was I spoiled with a hot shower, delicious lasagna, ice cream, cake, and salad, but the company was wonderful and its always nice to talk in English sometimes. The not so good news is that I came home the other day and my family was eating roasted rabbit, Spice, my male. The story keeps changing as to the dogs killing the rabbit, someone poisoning it, or me giving it bad food. But the cage is high so the dogs couldn’t possibly have killed the rabbit unless someone took it out of the cage. I didn’t give it bad food and even if it was poisoned they should have left the rabbit in the cage instead of taking it out and eating it because its not their rabbit, its mine. They were kind enough to offer me a piece of what was left when I returned but I politely declined, said I didn’t believe their stories, said they should have told me the truth and that I was upset that they ate my rabbit. So now I need to figure out how to deal with it because the rabbit was not that expensive but I don’t want them to think they can get away with stuff like this bc that would make the rest of my service living with them horrible. Also I don’t want anything to happen to my other rabbit, Sugar and her baby. The whole point is to breed rabbits to help interested farmers start keeping rabbits. I was going to teach them how to care for rabbits and give them one rabbit which they would them give one of their first litter to another farmer and down the line until everyone had a start. Well, I can’t breed them if my family keeps killing and eating them, and I don’t have money to keep reinvesting in this if I’m just losing money everytime. Its frustrating!
Wonder Gorge: What a nightmare. It took us over 5 hours to get there, all 23 of us volunteers, we got delayed and lost a bit so it was almost dark by the time we arrived. The canter we hired said they had to leave but would be back in days by am. There were wild fires all around us so we took shifts watching all night to make sure our tent area was ok. Then some people decided we should make a fire break around the camp site which I said was a bad idea bc it was dark, very windy, the fires were currently being blown away from us so we would peobably be fine until the morning, we had no water source nearby in case there was a problem, no time to dig a ditch, no tools to dig with, and the people weren’t exactly experienced with dealing with this stuff. (I actually studied controlled burns in college for wildlife conservation). Altogether it was a bad idea but they did it anyway and I couldn’t stop them it did almost burn everyone’s stuff and I’m just glad no one got hurt because basically they were acting really stupid about it. The next day we walked over to a precipice where you could see down into the groge where the two rivers meet. It was pretty but not the best view with the smoke and the fact the most of the vegetation was charred black. WE started hiking down to the river but it was really steep and I kept slipping and sliding and cutting myself and we had to cross another fire and after about an hour and a half I realized we were only half way and I decided it wasn’t worth it just for a river so I headed back with a few others (a lot of people had turned back at the fire and we probably should have to because the second time we crossed it, on the way up, was worse) Anyway it was fun and a good workout and I wasn’t disappointed that I didn’t make it down. The next morning I walked out to the precipice again and watched some baboons playing nearby so that was fun. Then we sat around in the heat all day, we had run out of water, and most of the food, and the canter of course was super late. I was so bored I went for a long walk and came back and still had to wait hours until the canter finally came at 16:30 and we got to ATB lodge in Mkushi just in time to eat dinner and go to sleep. I was pretty tired.
Since that trip made me really want a real vacation, and a certain special day in November is coming up I decided to head to south Luwangwa national park for a 3 day safari with another volunteer. I am really looking forward to it and I hope it will be amazing!
That’s all I can think of for now, hopefully it won’t be so long before the next update