Written October 25th, 2009) Greetings all! I am almost at the 5-month mark, meaning I have 3 months left. As the Zambians say “Ahhhhhhh! Eeesh!” It’s gone by incredibly quickly. This week has been both frustrating and interesting. The petrol shortage continues, and I am no longer finding the whole thing funny, now that the price of taxis has gone up. Also, when I do take the bus, it takes (and I am by no means exaggerating) 2 hours to get anywhere. The traffic is so bad because the line-ups for petrol are insane and can block an entire stretch of [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, It is sooooooooooooo hot. Today, by 9am it was already 36 C. I sure miss that great Canadian fall weather! I have spoken to some of you, and have heard several complaints about the cold in Canada. I am envious! The heat is not so awesome in a landlocked country where no air conditioning exists and you have to pay considerable amounts of money to use hotel swimming pools. Also, wearing shorts is not really an option- I already receive too much unwanted attention from men wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Originally, I had thought that Thanksgiving was going [View Full Entry]

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Written: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 There and back again Hey Everyone! Surprise! I was in the UK for 10 days. No one knew I was going except for my lovely aunt “Sophie” who kindly engineered the whole thing. I went to the UK to attend my grandfather’s memorial service. It was definitely time for a break from the whole Zambia scene. I was getting frustrated and needed a change for a while. Tom and his mother drove me to the airport at 6am. As I sat in the departures lounge, I began to get a knot in my stomach. I had [View Full Entry]

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(Written Friday, Sept 4, 2009) Mwalyeni bwino! (this is a common greeting in Bemba- it means “Are you eating well?” And in turn, you respond “kulila mulelya” which means “provided that you are eating well!”) Hence, I hope you are all eating well! I know I am. On a more interesting note I am beginning to lose my sanity a bit. Well, not really, but I definitely need a break from Lusaka. I was hoping to get to a town called Siavonga this weekend but that didn’t really work out. Dan was going to come with me but he has things [View Full Entry]

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Muli bwanji! (That’s Nyanja for hello and how are you?) I have been very skimpy on the photographs, so I am trying to post more of them for everyone- this may prove to be difficult because the internet connection here is just something else. I will try though! This past week was a lot better for me. I’ve made a lot of progress with regards to my thesis. One of the major stakeholders called me and wanted me to meet with her, which I gladly did. I got a lot of feedback and spent most of the week working on perfecting [View Full Entry]

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I hope everyone’s week was much better than mine! This week was really brutal. On Tuesday, I found out by e-mail that my grandfather (who lives in the U.K.) passed away. Although this wasn’t unexpected, it really took a toll on me and I wasn’t really able to function for the rest of the day. I felt really terrible- my family had gone to the U.K. to help out and I was unable to do anything. I didn’t hear anything more from my family until I skyped mum on Sunday. All in all- not so fun. The bad vibes continued for [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, I am sick…again! My bladder infection came back to haunt me on Friday night…and it came with a vengeance. Luckily, the clinic that I went to last time is open 24 hours. I gave another urine sample and was told that my original infection never actually went away, so this time round I had to be given more antibiotics AND an injection. What fun.So…this pretty much spoiled the plans I had this weekend to host a braii (party) for my birthday. I have given up on doing anything to celebrate and am just going to accept my 21st birthday [View Full Entry]

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Hello hello Everyone, Life in Zambia continues. I had the worst birthday ever! Seriously, I had made plans to have a small party on the weekend and maybe go out for dinner on Wednesday, but no. Clearly the universe hates me because I woke up with a bladder infection and abnormally coloured urine. It was a wonderful 21st birthday gift. Tom knew a good hospital, so he took me there and I payed 40$ for the fastest medical care known to man and some seriously strong antiobiotics. While this seemed relatively inexpensive for health care I realized that a lot of [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour all, I can’t believe it’s the end of July already! Absolutely crazy. That means I’ve been here almost 2 months! Work has been busy- I am trying to finish up a grant proposal that is due on Aug 1st, but we want to email it in Thursday. Its going well, except the budget portion (its math…go figure). I’m not sure what I will be working on after this- I’ll probably have to find myself another project- I will probably end up working in the organization’s database a bit. Its been a very frustrating process but I have learned a lot [View Full Entry]

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Hi All, I apologize for the lapse in communication, I haven’t been visiting internet cafes that much lately. What I usually do is write blog stuff at home and post it when I access internet. I’m a bit behind… Last week (when I got back from Vic Falls): My 3-day week at the office was quite eventful (remember there was a 4 day weekend). Technically, I guess it was a 4 day week because I came back a day early to meet up with Dan and get moving on the proposal. Dan has a motorbike, so he picked me up and [View Full Entry]

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