Birthday fun?

Quick update: I made it back to Serenje, yay! In Lusaka, we stayed one night with a homestay family and they were so sweet! Two other volunteers were also staying with them and they always open their home to PCVs plus she was a volunteer in the past and currently they both do development work here so it was great to talk to them. Not to mention they cooked us a wonderful meal and I had a dr. pepper which you can’t find in this country. After breakfast we headed to the office and then hitched a ride to Kapiri Mposhi. The police stopped us along the way trying to get a bribe by telling us it’s illegal to hitch in this country, which isn’t true. I refused to pay so I spent close to 30 minutes kindly explaining that we were only volunteers without a salary and that we just wanted to return to our villages so that we could help more people. Eventually he gave up and let us go so that he could hassle others for bribes. O how corruption frustrates me! From Kapiri we took a semi to Mkushi, it was slow, but safe. It began to pour as soon as we arrived, but these guys that service the MTN cell towers gave us a lift into the BOMA from the turn off and said they were just stopping to get diesel on their way to Serenje. I said we are also on our way to Serenje and just stopping to get our mail, do you think you could take us the rest of the way to Serenje. They quickly agreed and made room for our bags and the 4 huge packages I picked up at the post. The line was long because everyone was filling up 50 gallon drums because fuel isn’t always available these days what with the mini crisis here. Still I was happy to be almost back and looking forward to opening all my packages. The guys were really nice and took us all the way to the door of the PC house. It’s a good thing too because otherwise we would have had to take a taxi because it was getting dark, it was wet, and I couldn’t carry all the packages because they were so big. A few friends were at the house and they had bought a Pepsi and put it in the fridge for me and they baked cookies and wrote happy birthday Leann in purple icing on them. Then I opened my packages which were full of all sorts of goodies (Thank you Sherry, Vince, Laurie, Andy, mom, dad, Ann Marie and Andy) talked to my parents and then stayed up chatting with Mary. Despite being on transport most of the day, it was a pretty good day and I had cheezits, cake, brownies, etc. to enjoy for the rest of the weekend. I’ve been stuck at the house all weekend because medical said I shouldn’t bike so soon after the accident. It’s relaxing but I really miss my village, my own hut, and of course my kitty! Hopefully, I can go home tomorrow. Finally, I made a very close replica of a cosmic Karma: it was an expensive but heavenly adventure (for those of you who don’t get this mellow mushroom reference, I feel very sorry for you.)