…a month of photos and some interesting quotations…
“There is a hippo in that room, her name is Billy”
-guard at chimpanzee orphanage, outside Chingola. our guide pointed us in the direction of Billy, who was laying down in her favorite hide out. No cages for this one, she wanders freely and seemed to find shade in an old barn
“I’m not so good today..well..i shot a guy last night, i hope he’s dead”
- an employee who works near me, Lusaka. Robbery is too common here, in the past month myself and 2 other houses of my friends were robbed (yes, i was robbed at night while asleep, thats another story, no quotes with that one)
“hey good morning, breakfast soon, who’s up for shooting stuff?
-shawn the owner of a game farm, where i went camping last weekend, outside Mazabuka. beautiful game farm owned by a friend of a friend. A bunch of my american friends went down, chilled out, saw some animals wandering around and of course, shot at some stuff before breakfast (stuff is not animals, stuff is bushes and trees)
“well actually yes there is crime here, yesturday there was a guy outside there closing shop…over there see…and a whole gang attacked him…and…wha tha…*runs off and chases a gang*
-the one guard with a big ak47, city market, lusaka, when I asked him if he had ever had to use the gun. my bus from livingstone broke down on the way to lusaka, and I ended up taking a sketchy ride into City Market, where plenty of crime just happens to be going down at 11 pm ofcourse. I was waiting 2 minutes there for a pick up and watched a gang of people rob someone, and run off…and ofcourse the guard had to run after them with his gun. my ride came right then, didn’t bother to find out how things turned out.
“They are NOOOT monkeys!!! they are apes!!”
-chimpanzee orphanage owner, outside chingola. She got reeeeally mad when i said they were monkeys..sorry, did i insult the monkey?
“i’m not sure what i’ll say.. maybe that i ate really bad chips yesturday, thanks for that one nico”
-ngo worker friend i brought up to Maheba Refugee Camp. We were invited to attend a traumatic counseling workshop for refugees - and although i’m sure we all had low points, we all figured our story sharing wouldn’t include anything as traumatic as being run out of your own country by war. So this girl thought she might bring up the “traumatic” fact that i brought her to the worst chip place in zambia.
“it should get better when the wind picks in the afternoon”
-vilage neighbor at Maheba. the “spot” for cell phone reception is in a miniscule piece of a air space half way up a termite hill. It also apparently gets better with more wind…hrmm… it didn’t.
“grandpas not doing so well…”
-myself, somewhere along a 10 hour drive, concerning “grandpa lion” my jeep. the windows decided to stop working.
“he’s a character”
-my volunteer when asked what it was like to have nico as a boss. we had a teambuilding weekend in livingstone, time to relax, see the victoria falls, and for the volunteers in rural communities especially, a time to take a shower and eat pizza.
“i’m pretty excited to slaughter my first chicken”
-myself, chikuni mission village. one of my volunteers was preparing a course, and finding food for the youth who would be participating, we thought live chickens would be the most economical and satisfying.
“these are not cooked enough”
the general opinion of those trying to eat cooked caterpillars bought from the market, Livingstone. i’ve had caterpillars before as I’ve stated, but these ones definitly needed an extra 30 minutes of frying. yes, they were still moving you could say.
“what? malaria AND jaundice…again?!”
-myself, Lusaka. Getting the news that one of my volunteers had just been informed they had malaria again, for the 2nd time in 2 months.
“there’s no words to describe how happy I feel right now”
- translated from french (spoken in congo) by a refugee in maheba camp.An american staying at the refugee camp had a small party for everyone. Sudanese, congolese, angolans and others. Its not hot showers, food, nice cars, or internet that makes people. Its a sense of community, which these refugees have none. that is all they wanted, and thats what made this person happy.
-home very very very soon. find me in halifax and ottawa…
