overdue thoughts

Sorry to have had so much time between the last real post and this one, which will be relatively brief since it's almost midnight here.  The combination of lack of functioning internet, sharing Mike's computer with him (thank you, Mike!) since mine continues to refuse to turn on, and the recent inundation with residency-related matters to try to handle at a distance has left little time for blog postings.  But here we go.  I'll do it in a bullet-type format since that seems like it might be most efficient.

* I have now heard the wailing that Zambian women do when someone dies after hearing about it from my parents growing up.  I don't know that I've heard a more poignant sound than the almost-musical mourning that goes up and travels with its producers around the hospital campus announcing the family's new grief.  It never fails to make my throat tighten up and sometimes bring tears to my eyes.

* Bryce visited Macha last weekend after our trip to Livingstone with him the weekend before.  Mike was happy to have another guy around, and the two guys, Heidi (a SALTer), Abby (an MCC nurse and Jeff grad), and I had fun playing Dutch Blitz one night. 

* Recent meals with both the Thumas and the Spurriers, the two long-term expat families here, were helpful in building relationships and also in providing cultural and historical insights.  It made me proud of the way the church here is national-run (and the services much different from churches in the States) and nationals and expats work together in the hospital.  Their stories of long-term successes against measles, neonatal tetanus, and now increasingly even malaria were also inspiring tribute to the benefits of working in one community for years and years.

* We came back from Livingstone last week to find that Carl, Mike's cozy immobile wall spider, was gone.  He hasn't shown up again, which is probably to his health benefit.  That said, there are apparently still-living spiders now on Mike's side of the room.  And Mike reports he barely notices the spiders on the walls in the lounge here in the dorm.  Progress has been made.  :)

* Mike leaves tomorrow (and with him my access to a computer for a few days) for Lusaka, and Linda arrives in Livingstone on Friday.  I will go down to Livingstone to meet up with her, and then we'll meet up with a couple other Macha expats to travel back to Macha on Sunday.  Hopefully that will make the apparently-inevitable taxi ride (~$50-80/trip vs. $3 for the trucks) cheaper to split up since the trucks don't run on Sundays.