Time for disease and vacation

The last week of November I went back to Kelondu after three weeks out. I attended a workshop in Solwezi with one of my counterparts, Dominic Kazhimoto, on how to implement HIV/AIDS awareness in our area. During the workshop I became quite sick, and had to go down to Lusaka to be probed by Peace Corps medical. It turned out I had some sort of gastrointestinal infection which I suspect was salmonella. It was a pretty terrible infection and I was put on Ciprofloxin for 5 days to basically nuke my intestines of any organisms. Even the antibiotics haven't really brought me back to normal yet, and I've since been having recurring symptoms. I just have to be more careful about what I'm eating and touching, try to wash my hands more, and never stray too far from home. It's really something that I've been learning to live with. It's sometimes easy to forget that there is no health code in Zambia. You do everything at your own risk, and sometimes you pay for it.

It has been an interesting few weeks in Kelondu since I returned after Thanksgiving. The rains have become regular, though not always predictable, and people have begun to leave the villages during the week to go work in their fields. This is the time of year when people plant cassava cuttings, government subsidized maize, and pineapple suckers, the three major crops in our area. People traditionally make mounds for planting cassava so that the tubers are easy to harvest. The cuttings grow quickly and produce sweet potato-like tubers after a year. The tubers are pounded into flour and used to make nshima, which we eat at least twice a day. We wouldn't normally grow maize in our area because the soil is acidic and not very fertile. Also, we don't get much sun in the wet growing season, making it difficult to get good maize yields. However, the Department of Agriculture runs a maize and fertilizer subsidy program that provides matching grants to farmers.  Most farmers take advantage of this program to grow some additional food for the year.

Christas (center) brought me one of the large local mushrooms she found near the fields.

I finally finished the windows on my house, so now you can't easily break in anymore.

Inside my chota (sitting shelter). A favorite place for goats to rest now that it's rainy season. I'm going to build a bamboo trellis with morning glory around the outside to keep the goats out. Also you can see my fuel-efficient stove under construction in this picture.

My house and chota. There are some citrus and guava trees in front of the house.

These are my wheels!

We've been attending a lot of funerals in the past few weeks. Three people in Kelondu have died in the last three weeks. In Lunda culture, funerals are among the most important events. Almost every adult in the area attends the funerals. Most funerals last several days and include a mourning period, burial, and finalizing arrangements.  My host family lost one of our grandchildren, Christine, who was 6 years old, last weekend. She had been at Kaleni Mission Hospital for 5 days after coming down with malaria. After a few, days we had learned from her grandparents whom were at the hospital that she had serious cerebral malaria and her condition was worsening. When I heard that news, I was fearing that she wouldn't survive. Malaria is extremely bad in Zambia, and it is a major killer of young children. Rural Zambians simply not not have access to doctors, medicine, and good nutrition like those in towns. The night she died, Saturday,I had spent the night at one of the teacher's houses because of rain. Early the next morning, as I was returning home on my bike, I saw people walking toward my village. I knew immediately what had happened before I even got the news. As I came to my village, I saw people huddled around fires who had spent the previous night mourning. I greeted family members whom had arrived during the night, and went in the house to see the body. My host parents had empty looks on their faces, drained from being at the hospital for a week. Their daughter Clara, 23, the mother of Christine, was a complete mess. I couldn't believe that a little girl that I had seen almost every day of my time with the Musokola family, was now lying in front of me dead. The funeral was very quick the next day. Hundreds of people had arrived on Sunday once they heard the news of the child's death. Some people came from 60 or more kilometers away, a sign of the respect everyone has for my host family. People rallied to build the coffin and bury the child before noon on Sunday. The graveyard is in a patch of forest not too far down the road. For the next two days after the burial, my host family struggled to set terms with the child's father, who gives little support to the two children he has fathered with Clara. About a hundred people were sleeping outside my house for 2 days in the rain. I decided I had to get out of my village for a few days and visit the new Aquaculture volunteers in Ikelenge, Mike and Kinzie. I had yet to see where they lived because they had just been posted in late October.

My chicken house

One of my hens, Kimbo



My other hen, Maude, and her 4 chicks that look nothing like her. Only the white one in the front has survived.



Me using a shallow plow made from an old bicycle frame at Mujila Farms near Kanyama. The farm is run by the Methodist Church to promote improved agriculture in the area.



My finished and functioning fuel-efficient stove



My brothers Fred, Kellis, Kephaus, and Clicent out on Nyambela Plain, one of my favorite places to go birding.


   I'm now in Solwezi preparing to go on vacation for a few weeks. I'll be heading down to Lusaka for a few days to take care of some things, then I'll be heading to Chipata in Eastern Province to visit some other volunteers. We will be spending X-mas at the Lundazi Castle near Lundazi. Then after a few days I will be travelling with some other volunteers to Nkhata Bay in Malawi. It will be a nice, relaxing beach vacation I hope. Lake Malawi has among the highest freshwater fish diversity in the world. We will be staying at Njaya Lodge for part of the time and Mayoka Village as well over New Years'.

I have really enjoyed receiving all your letters and packages. It really makes my days sometimes. Getting mail has never been so exciting, so keep writing because I want to hear about what you are doing, even if you don't think it is important.

Season of Plenty

It's been a while since I last wrote. Here's the latest update...

September and October I spent mostly in my village after being in Lusaka and Livingstone for most of August. September and October are the middle of the hot season here. Most people have told me that the hot season this year was much cooler than normal. This time of year we get a lot of fruit ripening in our area, mostly because it's hot everyday and the rains haven't quite begun yet. We have pineapples by the truckload in Kelondu this time. People wait by the road with their giant piles of pineapples, waiting for a truck to come and buy them. Usually the pineapples get taken by trucks to Solwezi or Copperbelt where they sell for 3-5 times as much as they do in my area. Some pineapple farmers rent trucks and take a load of pineapples to the DRC border and sell them for 5,000 Kwacha each (about one US dollar).  In Kelondu, pineapples usually sell for 1,000 Kwacha each, and these are the best pineapples I've ever had in my life. You've really never eaten a pineapple until you've come to my village and eaten a ripe pineapple straight out of the field. This time we also have a lot of other fruits including papaya, mulberry, and avocado.

My garden project has been taking a lot of time. My garden is a small plot, maybe 10 by 10 meters. I'm trying to use it to demonstrate practical, organic gardening techniques. Gardeners and farmers here suffer from the same misconceptions here as they do everywhere else in the world. The biggest issues...mono cropping, lack of crop rotation, insects, poor soil fertility, and of course, goats. We have some excellent gardeners in my area. We have abundant, year-round water sources, which makes gardening very practical. Most people have very impressive stream-side gardens. Unfortunately, farmers here suffer from the lack of availability of a good variety of seeds. Most of the seeds that they can get are poor-quality GMO seeds that can't be recollected and replanted from the crop. The major agro-industrial corporations have their grip even on the poorest and most remote areas of the world. There are a few local varieties of eggplant, tomato, and onion that people here have had a great deal of success growing here. People save seeds or bulbs and replant them. Unfortunately, because people plant these same crops every year, all year, the pest issues have become a huge problem, lowering productivity enormously and requiring people to spray pesticides. In hot season, all of these problems combine to make organic gardening extremely difficult. The goats, the insects, and the weeds have all claimed my garden as their home, and they love being there when I'm in Solwezi or Lusaka.
I've been holding some meetings with the gardeners in my area to discuss conservation farming techniques. Every time we meet, we discuss a different topic, composting, bed construction, pest-control, etc. So it's been a slow process getting farmers used to the idea that they can use certain plants to make pesticide sprays, or that they can use manure from their chickens or goats, or that they can plant different crops every season. The main incentive is that all of these things don't cost them anything, so it doesn't hurt to try a little. I don't have much to show for in my garden right now, but I'm trying to set it up well for the future integrating some useful tree species, live fencing using pineapples and mulberry to keep the goats out, stabilizing slopes and reducing soil erosion using grasses, and slowly improving the soil using manures and nitrogen-rich plant material.

The garden project is part of a larger idea that everything should be designed well and have a purpose. I'm trying to convince people that they should have chickens or goats for good reasons, not just because other people have them. They should be thinking about the purpose and function of everything they do... BEFORE THEY DO IT. People should grow pineapples, or garden, or plant certain trees, or have fish ponds because they fit into a larger system instead of standing as individual projects. For example, you can use the sludge from your fish pond or chicken poop as manure, then you can use garden wastes to feed chickens and fish. Pineapples can be used as live fencing, and don't necessarily have to be planted in perfect rows. I'm starting to keep some chickens (I have 4 hens at the moment) as somewhere to start. Lundas aren't traditionally good with animals. They have always hunted their meat and have never had the need to raise animals until recently. Now all the game has been sold down the road and people have to keep animals. Animals are, for the most part, treated like things. They aren't treated as if they have feelings or as if they can do useful things like pull carts, plow your field, or eat weeds. Animals here function as bank accounts, as indicators of wealth, and as sources of manure. It's really become something I want to focus on in my service, getting people actually using their animals correctly and having them for a good reason.

I've also finished building and have begun using a fuel efficient stove made out of village materials. I'll include photos of this one soon. This stove uses about one third of the firewood as a traditional 3-log fire, conserves heat, and cooks rapidly. I'm trying to promote these stoves trough the Forestry Department and through the local women's groups. These stoves are practical for families that have nshima cooking all day long. I used bricks, mortar, sand, and rocks, all from a 100 meter radius of my house.

That's all for now but I'll post more pictures and more stories next week.

No Sleep, Many Adventures

I've always loved sleeping so much, especially a solid 9 hours followed by a good morning of birding. You can't top that. Lately sleep has been hard to come by. I wake up at 3 or 4 am every morning, and I can't figure out why. What is by body trying to tell me?! I'm especially perplexed because my days are usually exhausting. My theory is that there is not enough time in the day to think, and I need time to think, so Travel is the most exhausting thing. My transportation standards are now lower than anyone in the United States could possibly imagine. I'm just happy to be moving these days, as long as it's faster than walking. Two days ago I spent 13 hours on one bus going about 600km with a baby kicking me the whole time, and no sleep...par for the course.
I've been on a few adventures in the last few weeks away from Kelondu. My community entry period ended on August 10th, so I had to travel to Lusaka for In-Service training. From Kelondu, it usually takes at least two full travel days to get to Lusaka. I started off on my bike around 7am, then made it to Mwinilunga around 11. I waited on the road for about 4 hours in Mwinilunga with no luck, so I stayed at the Catholic Mission that nigh and took the bus to Solwezi the next morning, a 4 hour trip. From Solwezi, I hitched the next morning to Ndola, 4 hours, then from there to Lusaka, another 4 hours.
After In-Service Training, I went down to Livingstone, an amazing town that in many ways feels like Adventure Land at Disneyland. I think photos can say a lot more than writing...

Where are we going? I experienced what the Amaamas know so well, walking 10km with a Zambag on my head.

My brother Cliff and I in our garden. We have Kale, Cabbage, Peas, and Lettuce.



Kelondu Basic School about 1km from my house. This is the school I usually work at, Grade 1-7.



My village tuck shops, you can see the pineapple fields in the distance.

The Great Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. I'm one of the few people in the world that has seen the Zambezi Source before visiting the Falls.

Me at the boiling pot below Victoria Falls. This is the put-in spot for the Upper Zambezi rafting trip.

Amabanda anyanya ku Samuteba.

Amazing Vic Falls at sunset. What else can I say?

This day I cooked caterpillars with onions and garlic, a hit in Nswanakabinda village.

This is one of the 7th graders Bwembya holding an Amethyst Sunbird he found with a broken wing. This day we walked to the Zambezi Source from Kelondu, a two hour walk.

Ami kwitempa. (Me in the garden)

The amazing Chitunta plain about 25km from my house. This photo does absolutely no justice to how beautiful this place is.

The lip of Vicotria Falls from the Zambian side. In the background you can see the footbridge across the knifeedge and the road bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

We are again in Solwezi for our provincial meetings. About 40 other Peace Corps Volunteers from Northwestern province have come to the provincial house for a few days to discuss some of the house rules, Peace Corps policy, and enjoy each others's company. I have been posted in my village for 6 weeks now.To get to Solwezi, I had to ride my bike for 3 and a half hours on a dirt road to the main town in my district of Mwinilunga, then get on a bus the next morning for 4 hours. The buses are actually pretty nice and modern. But, of course one of the two buses broke down, so the one working bus had twice the amount of people on it, plus chickens and pineapples.

Right now is the cold, dry, windy season. It's usually windy and in the 40s in the morning, but it gets up into the 70s during the day. We are growing some cooler weather vegetables in the garden; cabbages, peas, lettuce, and carrots. The garden is my big project right now, and its been a little bit of an obsession. Right now is a hard time for people because there isn't much to eat other than cassava root and leaves, as well as some fish and whatever people forage for. We have a few guavas still on the trees around the village, and pineapples are just around the corner.

I have really enjoyed exploring the area around my house. There is such a contrast between the landscapes, just short distances around my house. We have a lot of dry upland forest called ivunda. There is also the dense, moist riverine forest called itu along the watercourses. The region where I live has alot of springs, so these forests grow around these springs and the trees can get plenty of water during dry season. There are also some amazing plains, like what you would expect to see in Africa, both dry, upland plains and grassy wetlands, both just minutes walk from my house. I had a chance to walk into Nchila Reserve to see some Impala, Sable, and Puku antelope up close. Watching the impala run through the grass is amazing. The grass is very tall right now, so you just see a bouncing head most of the time.

I've been seeing some of the birds that people come to the northwestern corner of Zambia to see including, Bannnerman's Sunbird, Black-collared Bulbul, Black-and-Rufous Swallow, Brown-headed Apalis, Levaillant's Cisticola, and Anchieta's Tchagra. It's been great because all these relatively rare species of birds are literally in my backyard about 5 minutes down the trail from my house. My host family has been teaching me the Lunda names for all the birds. I'm also learning Lunda names for the local trees, of which there are hundreds.

I've been sick a few times, with a cold and strep throat. I also got some skin infections on my leg, so I'm taking some antibiotics. It's very difficult to stay clean here, but it might help to stop playing soccer and gardening barefoot.

I know that I can't possibly express in words what my experience has been like, so I will try to post more pictures next month. In the meantime, please keep writing. All your letters have been meaning a lot to me.

Another Blog link with good photos

Here is a link to a fellow volunteer's blog. Robert takes a ton of pictures, and there are a lot from our training that he has posted.

http://www.robrasa.com/hisblog/

More Photos - Swearing In

 These photos are from second site visit. It was our first chance to see Northwestern Province and the villages that we will be living in for the next two years. As I have been saying for the past three months, the bugs here have been one of the most impressive things about this place.

We saw this butterfly along the Kabompo River. The pink color on the hindwing can't really be seen in the picture but it was very bright.

This caterpillar has about the size of an index finger

We named this caterpillar 'Hellraiser'

 These photos are from my village in Ikelenge district, Kelondu. I will be arriving there on Tuesday for 'community entry' which means I will stay there for 3 months and "get known" by the villagers. Kelondu has about 300 households, so I surely won't be meeting everyone in that time.

This is my chota. It's the place outside my house where I'll eat, cook, and talk with people. It's not quite finished in this picture, but it will have a cement floor, short walls around the outside, and the roof will be finished being thatched. As you can see, goats will be an issue in my village, especially because I plan on doing lots of gardening.

This is the headman's brother, Robert, showing me the pineapple fields behind the village. The headman owns 4 hectares (8 acres) of land devoted to pineapples. You can see the strip of forest in the background behind the fields. This forest is very impressive spring-fed true tropical forest.

My house in Kelondu. I have a small orange tree outside my door, as well as several guava trees.

 These photos are from our cultural day in Chalimbana, the last day with our host families from training. It was our chance to say goodbye to the Katooka clan. We wore our chitenge material clothing that we had made by a local tailor.



The Katooka family, from left to right: Sylvia, Jessica, Amaama Anna, Me, Beauty, Ozzy, Rachel, Gloria, John, and Kelly.



Me with Jessica, Ozzy, and Gloria (hiding of course)

The Lundas with our Language and Cultural teacher Golden.

Me giving my speech at the U.S. Ambassador's house.

Last week of training

Training is finally ending next week, and we will be officially swearing in on May 7th. Today, we had our Final Language Proficiency interview. I had a role playing situation for my interview in which I had to explain to a village headman what I was going to do in the village and why I was there. The good thing was, when I visited my village a few weeks ago, I was faced with that exact situation in real life. I am very anxious about getting to my village. It's the situation I have been thinking about since I decided to apply for Peace Corps; getting dropped off in a village and being there for 3 months until you can return to civilization. I'm very excited about getting used to being there. I have been selected to give a speech in Lunda at the swearing in ceremony next week in Lusaka. I will be thanking everyone involved in training us. Here's the speech I have written...

Budidi mwani. Atwimushi mwani.
Ijina dami yami Larry Maurin. Kwimenaku mabwamu jami akashikola mu Peace Corps, tunazang'alali kwikala kunu.

Tunakukeng'a kusakilila mfulumendi ya United States of America hakututemesha kwinza nakuzatila mu Zambia.

Chamuchiyedi, tunakukeng'a kusakilila mfulumendi ya Zambia ha kutwiteja kwinza na kuzatila kunu.

Chamuchisatu, tunakukeng'a kusakilila ankong'i ejima amu Peace Corps, swejee antang'ishi a madimi, chisemwa, na Technical ha kuwunda kwanyichima yawu hadetu.

A Lunda ahoshang'a nawu: Winu wambachi wekala mukachi.
(This means: The dance of the tortoise is within)

Nasakilili mwani.

I will be getting to the provincial house next week, so I will be able to post some more pictures. I have photos of my house from my visit to my village. My house is not quite a hut; it has 5 rooms and glass windows, something not common in villages in Zambia. It's the nicest volunteer house I have seen in this country. My host is a pineapple farmer with 8 acres.

I have a new address effective now:

Larry Maurin
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 13
Ikelenge, Northwestern Province
Zambia, Africa

Some pictures, and hello from Solwezi

 
I have made it to the Northwestern provincial house in Solwezi. Here are a few pictures finally.

My homestay family in Chishiko. In front Gloria and Grace. In back, Mary, Ataata Ozwell, and Amaama Jessica.

My itala

This chameleon was going as fast as I've ever seen a chameleon go to get away from me. Chameleons are bad juju in Zambia, so people often kill them.

Visitors from our villages in Northwestern Provice. From left to right: Me, Kelly, Bozwell from Kawiko, John, and Dominic from Kelondu. Dominic is a shop owner and a pineapple farmer.

During technical training on this day we were learning about some of the agroforestry trees being used in Zambia. This big tree is a musang'u or acacia. It's very useful for farmers because it fixes nitrogen.

 

Cattle x-ing



This is one of the basic schools in Chalimbana we went to for world forestry day. A really big storm was rolling in when I took this picture.

Heading out to Kelondu

Hello everyone, tomorrow is a day I have anxiously been awaiting for what seems like a very long time. We are driving out to see our post villages for the first time. The name of my village is Kelondu. The name is derived from the word Kelong'a which is Lunda for river or stream, but not a big river. Last week, Peace Corps sent a representative from Kelondu down to Lusaka for a two day session with us. His name was Dominic Kashimoto, and he runs a shop and grows pineapples. We talked a little bit about expectations from both sides. The idea is that he will go back to the village for a few days and talk to people before I get there on Thursday. The drive from Lusaka to Kelondu is about 17 hours, so we will stop and stay in Solwezi tomorrow night. Solwezi I'm told is an interesting town in the heart of the mining areas of Zambia. Northwestern province will be one of the fastest changing regions in Zambia in the next two years because of the mining industry. There is talk of a Chinese uranium mine opening in Mwinilunga district and the building of a new railroad from the Copperbelt to Luanda, Angola for export of copper and minerals to the Atlantic. I have heard a story about villagers in Mwinilunga finding diamonds and rubies on their land.
I was very excited to finally get some details about my village. I will be about 500 meters from a middle school, and about 1500 meters from the source of the Zambezi River. There is a lot of beekeeping going on in the village, as the region is famous for its honey. You can buy honey for about 10 cents a pound there! I expect I will be doing some teaching and working with farmers a lot. I am so excited to get there. The education volunteers who returned from their site visits to their villages had giant smiles on their faces.
Training has seemed very long. My homestay family has been great, but I am very ready to be done with training and get to my village. The endless power point and flipchart presentations are numbing me. The hardest thing has been that nobody in Chalimbana, where I'm staying, speaks Lunda. Nyanja and Bemba are the languages here, so it's very difficult to practice Lunda. Another thing that has frustrated me is that I haven't seen any wild mammals in Zambia other than rats. Really, they should take us to a game park the first week of training. I am excited to have Nchila reserve near my village because it has some of the only true forest in Zambia and the richest bird life of anywhere in the country. I heard there are a lot of bush babies around there. I can't wait to see those big eyes! So awesome! I got lucky a couple of weeks ago and saw a Schalow's Turaco in Chalimbana. The rain is definitely dying down and the first signs of the cold season are here. We have crystal clear, windy weather, and you can see your breath sometimes in the morning. I am going to try to post some pictures here tomorrow. We'll see how it goes because the internet is pretty slow. Until then, keep sending letters and postcards, even if you have nothing to say. Postage is 50 cents for postcards and a dollar for letters. I promise to write back. Much Love.
Larry Maurin
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 50707
Lusaka, Zambia

LIFE brings mvula

Before we came to Lusaka province over 3 weeks ago, there had been about 3-4 weeks of drought. Zambia is right in the middle of rainy season, so there should be some rain almost every day. The day after the LIFE trainees arrived, the rain came. Mvula is the Chilunda word for rain. I have been living in Chalimbana in the Chongwe district for 2 weeks with a family of Lundas. My post in May will be to the Northwestern Province near Ikelenge and Mwinilunga at the source of the Zambezi river. The Lunda tribe traditionally lives in this area, so I have been learning the Lunda language, one of the 7 major languages in Zambia. Mwinilunga is famous as a pineapple producing region, which is funny because Chilunda sounds alot like a Polynesian language. It also one of the wettest places in Zambia (about 55 inches annually). I don't know much about it other than that right now.
I know everyone is anxious to see pictures. I will probably not be able to post pictures until May when I arrive in my province and can use the computers at my provincial house. Right now, I have to make do with the Internet cafes in Lusaka. It feels pretty weird to be using the Internet right now actually. I'm sleeping in a small mud house with a thatch roof and no electricity, eating nshima every day, and trying to teach my host family as many card games as possible. It has been a pretty amazing experience so far. We have a lot of people passing though our compound on their way to the borehole. My host grandmother has 8 kids and my host dad (her son) has two little daughters. Gloria, the youngest, cries at just about everything, but she is slowly getting used to me. Every day is very, very long, in a good way. Some days are fantastic, and some days not so much. Two days ago, we got flu shots and I felt like a corpse the next day. We spend half of our days in language, and the other half in technical training learning how to grow things in Zambia. We planted our first garden yesterday of cabbage, rape, and onions. I am surprising myself and am actually really enjoying learning this language. We had a game of football last weekend against the Education trainees. Sunday is my day off! We have our first language test on Monday, so I need to do some practice, but I'm going birding tomorrow morning. Birding is tough here now because the vegetation is so thick this time of year, but I'm seeing new birds every day. This week I saw some African Yellow White-eyes and a Common Fiscal. The ants here are incredible. I can't stop watching them. They rule over absolutely anything. They had a giant battle with the cockroaches in our toilet this week. I watched them shuttle cockroach parts out of the toilet one by one.
It looks like I will have some internet access pretty regularly, so you can send me an email if you like. I'm thinking of all of you back in the states. I really miss beer. I think I'm having withdrawls symptoms. So drink a good beer for me and for you. To your health! Much love, Larry.

Hello from Lusaka

I am in Zambia. Wow. This country is amazing. I am in a South African owned shopping mall at an internet cafe and have a few minutes to let everybody know that I'm here. Training has been very well organized so far. The people are incredibly nice here. I can't emphasize that enough. We are going out in the bush for 4 days tomorrow!! I won't have Internet access for a while after this, possibly a month. Anyway, things are great so far and I'm so happy and excited to be here. What a beautiful place. Haven't had time for much birding yet, but have seen some Pied Crows, Blue Waxbills, Masked Weavers, and Variable Sunbirds (look up a picture).  I am thinking of everyone back in the States. Much Love, Larry

It's time!

It’s finally time! I feel like I have waited so long for this time. I’m getting on the airplane in 3 days. I have been so happy to see so many friends and family in the last two months. Seeing all of you has really meant a lot to me, and has made me realize that it’s always worth making the effort to visit people you care about, even if it’s just for an hour. I’ll remember the times that I spent with everyone for a long time. I wish we could all be closer together. Keep up the good work everyone; that’s how we can stay close. If we all work toward the same thing, eventually, we’ll be back together again.

The best way to keep in touch with me while I’m in Zambia will be to write me. My mailing address will be:

Lawrence Maurin

Peace Corps

P.O. Box 50707

Lusaka, Zambia

Make sure you send letters via airmail. They should arrive in 2-4 weeks.

Right now I’m making final preparations: getting everything packed, getting my paperwork organized, getting anxious about travelling ( I don’t like airports for a lot of reasons), and trying to think of last minute things I need to bring. My bags are actually a lot lighter than I thought they might be. Plus, I can get almost everything I will need once I get to Zambia.

Yesterday, I got to go fishing with Scotty (the bro) and went out for some really good BBQ spare ribs at Robin’s in Pasadena. Tomorrow, I will have one last day of fun in the United States for a while! Birding in the AM, followed by beer and good, real Mexican food in the PM.

Thanks again for the support everyone. Make sure to become a follower of my blog, so you can be updated when a new post is up!

Cypresses, Cacti, and Vorticies

On January 19th I got on the Amtrak at Union Station in Los Angeles. I was leaving for the first big train trip I'd ever taken in my life. I was going to visit Galen in New Orleans, a city I had never been to. I hadn't seen Galen since X-mas of 2009, just after I had moved to Portland. It was finally time for me to go visit people, and see some new sights along the way.

It took 2 days to get to New Orleans on the Sunset Limited. I was in coach and enjoyed the comforts of sleeping in my seat for 2 nights. I noticed that there were two types of people on the train ride. The grandpa in the sleeper car going to see his grandkids, and the guy who just got out of prison going to get his probation changed to a different state. I enjoyed talking to both, especially when the train was in west Texas. This is the second time I've crossed Texas, and now I remember how big it is. I also had lots of time to read, and I had Endgame by Derrick Jensen with me. I've heard so much about this book and finally decided I had to read it, especially because many of my motivations for going to Africa are discussed in the book. It's basically about how civilization is killing the planet, and what we need to do about it. It is a dark book. It made me realize how monumental our environmental problem is. I can't recommend this book enough. It really helps explain the psychology behind the widespread social and environmental abuses of our time.

I made it to New Orleans on Friday the 21st. Galen was kind enough to pick me up at the train station in his rental car. We ended up hanging out with Galen's friend, Khaled, who is a cab driver in New Orleans. He was nice enough to give us a tour of the city so to speak. We ended up going to Bourbon Street, the Bulldog Tavern, Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, Cafe du Monde on Friday night. Saturday, Galen and I decided to rent a canoe and go on an alligator expedition. We learned later that alligators hibernate or are less active in the winter. Damn! Oh well, we still saw plenty of awesome creatures in the cypress swamps.

Galen and Larry prepare for the alligator expedition at Tickfaw SP

Stoked on cypress knees What the hell do the Confederacy and Largemouth Bass have to do with one another? 

We ended up paddling about two miles on the Blood River through some amazing cypress swamps. We saw a flock of about 600 Common Grackles fly around us. We had enough foresight to pack some beer for our lunch stop on a choice log.

On Monday, I got back on the train in New Orleans to head west back to Tucson, Arizona. There I was to meet up with Rose for a couple of days of birding in Cochise County, the birdiest inland county in the nation! There were bound to be tons of new birds for both of us and epic sparrow flocks. We stayed at my Aunt Sherri's friends Patty and Jim's place about 40 miles southeast of Tucson in St. David. Even Patty and Jim's yard had amazing birding including Inca Doves and Pyrrhuloxias in the yard, and Mississippi Kites and Green Kingfishers in the summer. We stayed in one of their guest houses. Jim and Patty were wonderful and extremely kind to us.



Rose and I at Karchner Caverns State Park near Sierra Vista

Larry looking for Rufous-winged Sparrows

Our guest house



Jim's man cave. Jim is a Packer fan at heart but he is also a Raider fan!

This was a Border Patrol Infra-red camera on Montezuma Pass overlooking the border. My theory was that there was a laser beam on this truck that could evaporate Mexicans instantly from a range of two miles. POOOOOOOFF! I never got to see the machine in action. The border patrol presence down there was ridiculous.



Scoping Sierra Vista Wetlands



Hundreds of Yellow-headed Blackbirds at Sierra Vista wetlands Venturing into Montezuma Cave at Coronado National Memorial

The whole trip had amazing birding. We visited some world famous spots including Ramsey Canyon and the San Pedro River House. I ended up with 21 life birds on this whole trip: White Ibis, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Tricolored Heron, Black Vulture, Eastern Bluebird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Pine Warbler, Common Grackle, Laughing Gull, Boat-tailed Grackle, Anhinga, Gilded Flicker, Pyrrhuloxia, Canyon Towhee, Curve-billed Thrasher, Rufous-winged Sparrow, Inca Dove, Bridled Titmouse, Yellow-eyed Junco, Arizona Woodpecker, and Lark Bunting.

On Friday afternoon, Rose and I drove up to Flagstaff to visit Lisa. Lisa and Derrick just moved into a new house and the got some chickens! On our way up, we stopped in Sedona to see the sunset and go to Oak Creek Brewery. Oak Creek Brewery has some really good beer, but the brewery is a little weird. For those of you who don't know anything about Sedona, it's a bit of a New Age capital of the world. Basically it's filled with rich white tourists looking for spiritual energies, a massage with many colors of red dirt, and a ride in a pink jeep. It was really odd to be in a brewery and be the only person resembling a beer nerd. Seriously, though their beer is really good.

Sterling Pass Trail in Sedona

Larry and Lisa wait for it.

Rose and Larry have captured the vortex at Snoopy Rock. If you look very carefully, you can actually see it!

Lisa's chickens

After lots of beer drinking, cooking, and hiking in Flagstaff, Rose and I made one final stop on the way back to Los Angeles. We drove out into the desert to a place I've been only one before, about 4 years ago. The place is informally called Dante's Descent. It's a 400-foot deep sinkhole in the middle of the desert. I couldn't believe I remembered how to get there because there are absolutely no signs telling you how to get there.

Me at the sinkhole

Rose was brave enough to get a photo of the bottom of the sinkhole. This picture does it no justice!

A Mountain Bluebird that was in a huge flock near the sinkhole

It's now two weeks until I am off to Zambia. I booked my flight for February 14th. I'm so happy that I can have adventures like this with my best friends. This was absolutely one of the best vacations I have ever taken.