Yesterday I read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" which has prompted me to apologize for the gramatical and punctuation errors that I'm sure abound in my previous blogs. And unforunately I cannot even promise that future blogs will be any better, they will probably be the same. I seriously apologize because gramatical mistakes do annoy me and I find myself counting the mistakes in every book I read; however, with limited internet time I type as fast as possible and don't even re-read anything I write. Anyway, I highly reccommend the book, it was vey entertaining and I found myself having to supress laughs a few time (my sternum hurts pretty bad when I laugh, sneeze, or cough.) The punctuation discusion reminded me of a sign that I recently saw in Zambia. We were on our way to Eastern Province from Lusaka and just before the road curved there was a sign beside the road. It was a white triangle-shaped sign similar to a yield sign in America. The border was a burgandy color and in the middle of the sign was an exclamation point, also in burgandy. When I saw it, all sorts of crazy things ran through my mind. I was filled with suspense and even some anxiety as to what the sign was supposed to be saying. Was it warning that something dangerous was right around the bend or was it saying there was something really cool and exciting just around the corner. Those two possible meanings alone are very different and then I was worried that maybe the sign was telling us to do something, but how would we be able to follow its instructions if we had no idea what the sign meant? To add to this, we were driving really slowly to it took a long time for us to round the bend and see what was on the other side. As it turns out they were repairing a section of the road (which in itself invokes the surprise and excitment of the exclamation point because it's so rare in this country) so the road was detoured around it and I assume that was the reason for the exclamation point sign, but overall it still perplexes me a bit.
Other interesting signs that I have seen:
*Germstone Restaurant (yes germstones)
*Layer Hens for sale cheep cheep cheep-which I found rather clever until I figured out it was probably just a typo
*Please flash the toilet when your finished-your not you're and yes some of us volunteers comply and flash the toilet on our way out
*Similarly another public toilet says "no monkey style please" still not really sure what that means???
*God Only Knows Take Away-I don't feel comfortable eating something if only God knows what t is
*Time will Tell Transport-I really don't want to wait until time tells me what will happen with he transport, if it will break down, crash, just decide to stop for 3 hours etc.
*Finally: as we were driving through South Luangwa National Park we came to a sign asking us to slow down because we were at a wildlife crossing. Yes that one particular spot was an authorized wildlife park despite the fact that we were in a national park with wildlife everywhere and they don't know where the one crossing is or don't care because they cross wherever and whenever they wish.

This is just a small selection of interesting signs that I can remember, but I have seen o so many in this country.