Living Large!

My hut officially has two rooms now! I can't even describe how great it is to finally have more than the one tiny room to store all my junk. I really thought I'd be getting away from the mess of 'things' that always seem to clog up my room in America. Somehow that has not seemed to escape me. I don't even know where all the stuff has come from but it seems as though I just have books and papers and other chotchkies hanging around the house. Either way- it is great to have the space.

The people who have been working on my house did a great job. The roof building was quite interesting- it only took two days. They had to tear off part of the existing roof, add new supports for the new room, and then put the grass thatching back on. Peace Corps is nice enough to provide us with black plastic to put in between the grass of the roof to prevent leaks in rainy season. Then we have big plastic sacks nailed up to the roof on the inside to prevent dust and such coming in. It's hard to believe how much dust accumulates in that house on a daily basis. I mean I guess it's imaginable since the house is made out of dirt- but still. So after the roof was complete- Poulin and I limed the inside of the new room. Well it was more like Poulin limed and I pathetically attempted to help. We used village brooms (essentially a bunch of grass tied together) as brushes. Now I've done a lot of painting in my day, so I figured what is a paint brush if not a small broom of sorts? No problem right? Wrong... My broom had fallen apart weeks ago so it was in bad shape to begin with. Poulin had finished an entire wall with hers while I was working on one corner. Oooh well.

Next week we still have to 'plaster' the wall of the old room (smear it with cement and lime) and then it will be truly done. I'm also still waiting on shutters for my windows--- no there are is no glass- it's just an open hole with a shutter. I put wire mesh over my original window to try to keep out bugs and such. TRY being the operative word.

In not so positive news- I had a tree group meeting go horribly awry this past week. In fact it didn't even start. Apparently there were too many meetings going on that day so everyone was confused and wouldn't show up. I was quite upset considering I had invited the District Forestry Officer and he had come all the way from the boma to attend. Luckily he wasn't upset and agreed to come to a make-up meeting this coming week. We are hoping to get some tree seedlings from the Forestery Department for this group. We still have to decide what the group wants to do with the seedlings (start a woodlot, sell them, do seed multiplication, etc) but it is a very positive step.

I'm in town now for a going away party for a French volunteer who has been working with the Mpika dioceses. I've hung out with him a few times in town. It's quite interesting meeting these other international volunteers- I know people from France, Germany, Brazil, and Korea- right here in Mpika! Quite a cosmopolitan place we are!