Apparently Zambia Has Run Out of Cloth Napkins

That's the only logical conclusion I can come to anyhow. Now I realize that this is very much a first-world problem and not that bad in the scheme of things, but it's so bizarre, I just needed to share it. Yesterday I decided to eat dinner at my hotel. When they brought me my food I asked if they had a serviette (apparently that's the word for napkin everywhere in the world except for the US). The woman said she had given me one already and pointed to the baby napkin sitting under my drink. "No, a cloth one," I asked in my nicest voice. Her response was baffling: "Sorry, we've run out." She then proceeded to bring me a stack of about 15 cocktail napkins. My question is how does a hotel run out of cloth napkins, especially a hotel with TWO restaurants--one of which is relatively high-class--and especially since this was at the beginning of the dinner hour.

Then today, I went to my favorite steak restaurant, which has cloth tablecloths and usually cloth napkins, but I actually saw them bringing back a bag with some packs of napkins. Once again, I don't understand--where did all the cloth napkins go? I'm curious as to whether or not this is a trend or just a very odd coincidence. I look forward to seeing how this goes.

So the other day I discovered Trevor Noah, and apparently he's coming to DC some point this year, and I hope to see him live. He's a South African comedian and has great material. This video about Bafana Bafana, South Africa's national soccer team, really cracks me up. Oh, and the clip mentions Zambia, so I had to pay special attention to it! :)

I Guess I Didn't Take a Russian Children's Poem's Advice on Traveling in Africa

A common rendering of Barmaley

I studied Russian for three years in high school, yet except for a small amount of vocabulary and some grammar rules, my knowledge of the language has mostly dissipated. I guess that's what happens when you take several other languages in the intervening years...the brain only has room for so many. Well, there's one major exception to my dwindling Russian knowledge, and that's a common children's poem called Barmaley. I vividly remember senior year (so, that'd be about 8 years ago now) memorizing the first stanza of the poem, and not only can I recite it back to this day--weird, I know--I still remember what all the words in it mean. This, effectively, is 90% of my limited Russian vocabulary.
 

The poem Barmaley starts off as a warning to kids not to go traveling around Africa. Oops. It was only today that it finally hit me. I wasn't really into Africa during high school; I was much more fascinated by Southeast Asia at the time (that fascination hasn't gone away, it's just been surpassed by sub-Saharan Africa). So today, as my eyes glazed over temporarily at work, out of the blue the words to Barmaley popped into my head. The poem goes like this:

 

Маленькие дети! Ни за что на свете

Не ходите в Африку, в Африку гулять!

В Африке акулы, в Африке гориллы,

В Африке большие, злые крокодилы

Будут вас кусать, бить и обижать,

Не ходите, дети, в Африку гулять.

 

For those who don't read/understand Russian, the poem, as transliterated by me (with a little assistance from Google Translate, but I've re-Englishized it to make it sound normal and poetic still):

 

Little children! Under no circumstances in the world

Don't go to Africa, in Africa for a walk

In Africa there are sharks, in Africa there are gorillas

In Africa there are big, evil crocodiles

They will bite you, beat and hurt you

Don't go, children, in Africa for a walk

 

Yeah, I guess I didn't take that advice. Not only have I traipsed around the continent, but I've also gotten up close and personal with gorillas in Rwanda. I haven't done a walking safari yet--some day, perhaps--but I would still say that I've completely violated the author of Barmaley's advice.

 

Anyway, that was the whole point of this post. I find it strange that I remember this poem so well, and how it is somewhat relevant to my life nowadays. At least for now I've avoided the main reason the author tells children to avoid Africa, because Barmaley is an evil pirate who eats children.

 

В Африке разбойник, в Африке злодей,

(In Africa there's a robber, in Africa there's a villain)

В Африке ужасный Бар-ма-лей!

(In Africa there's the terrible Bar-ma-ley!)

Он бегает по Африке и кушает детей

(He runs about Africa and eats children)

Гадкий, нехороший, жадный Бармалей!

(Nasty, vicious, greedy Barmaley!)

 

And to conclude, I love this video and finally am remembering to connect it to a post on this blog as a video of something that makes me happy:

World's Worst Safari: Feeling Like an Adult in Zimbabwe

It seems to be happening with more frequency the older I get. I know it's obvious, but as time goes on, I start feeling more and more like an adult. Several times over the past few weeks I've asked myself, "What would my parents do?" and then did just that. It's scary, because I don't remember when this started or know how it will progress, but I fully notice that it's happening. In addition, I'm with increasing frequency feeling like a responsible adult and actually believe that others who see me believe it too. Weird, right?

Black Bazar--a Congolese band (plus a Cameroonian) during
HIFA 2014

A lot of this adult feeling over the last few days happened on my weekend trip to Harare, Zimbabwe, to visit friends. It's hard to find real faults with Lusaka, but it's also nice to get away from time to time, and with some good friends just a 37-minute plane ride away, how could I resist. [side note] Air Namibia is an AMAZING airline. On the short flight, they served KitKats and juice boxes. It was awesome. [end side note] Anyway, I took the weekend trip to the neighboring country and in my short 48 hours there did some amazing fun, enjoyable, adult-y things.

It started off with getting cultured by attending the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA). To be fair to me, HIFA was really more like a random hippie-esque music concert, but it was still an adult-feeling activity to me; it's hard to explain exactly why. But that day I paired HIFA up with barbecue chicken and playing with dogs. How does it get any better? It was a completely chill day/night, and that made me feel like an adult.

Picturesque Point in Lake Chivero Recreational Park

The next day, we took a safari drive not far outside the city and, even though it was probably the world's worst safari drive--we saw a couple of impala and there was an ostrich in the road--I thoroughly enjoyed it. The company was great and we had a drink at a really picturesque point. So maybe the animals all decided to stay in and the safari-aspect of the drive was a bit of a bust, but the whole day itself to me was a success.

There was nothing inherently adult-y in the trip, except in the way it made me feel. The whole weekend--from the concept of the trip itself to the activities--to me was a merging of adult life and non-adult life (I don't want to call it childlike, because that carries negative connotations that aren't right). I know that's a lot of thinking for a 2-day trip, but it really did feel like that to me. I'm looking forward to having more of these adult-like moments behaving in a responsible manner when I return to the US. I hope. In the meantime, this video that makes me incredibly happy is a perfect blend of youth playfulness and adult activity!

I Am Your City

I am your city.

I am where you live, you work, you play.

You know my heartbeat, it is unlike any other.

You know my sights. You know my sounds.

I am your city.

There's a construction company in Zambia called Lafarge, and over the last few days, I have heard their radio spot many times. I usually catch it about two lines in as I think to myself, "This is really good, I like this." I obviously can't find a cut of this commercial because it appears it only plays on one Zambian radio station, but the first two lines are something like that, at least in spirit (I'll update this post if I ever hear it again and catch those lines), and the last three are definitely that.

What makes this commercial even better is that it is said in a deep, even voice over music that I can only describe as triumphantly sentimental. I honestly can't think of a better way to phrase it. It makes me hopeful for the future and proud of who I am, in a similar manner--yet not as brassy and bold--as the Olympics' theme.

Georgetown University, my home for 4 years

Why am I writing about this? Well, every time I hear it, it makes me miss my town/city. I know this sounds completely bizarre, but while I know Lafarge is talking to Zambians and people in Lusaka, I imagine it is DC speaking to me, or my little town in Virginia. Or even my hometown in New Jersey, where I spent the better part of 17 years. Every place I've truly lived, this sentiment rings true. I'm not sure I'm feeling that in Lusaka, in part because I'm not mobile here and living in a hotel, but even the sounds on the streets still sound foreign to me. I've adjusted quickly to other places, knowing their sights and sounds in a way that makes me think I could pick them out of a lineup, but I'm just not getting there in Lusaka.

So thank you, Lafarge, for getting me thinking about home and what makes home feel like home. When I leave Zambia I'll be going back to a heartbeat I know, a place where I know the sights, the sounds, and the smells. A place I work, play, and live. Now that it's May, the journey home is much more in sight, with the Zambia adventure ending in just about a month. I'm starting to get excited to return to "my city."

I stumbled across a girl on YouTube who puts songs through several layers of Google Translate and then sings the results, and sometimes she brings friends along. Not only does she actually have a really good voice, but I'm always left chuckling, brightening any day. So enjoy one of my favorite Broadway songs and check out the rest of her videos in the Google Translate Sings playlist. And on this one, I don't exactly know why, but I lost it at around the 3:20 mark...something about that line is incredibly funny to me:

Dutch Market

The last Saturday of every month, the Dutch Reformed Church of Lusaka hosts a market where one can buy the usual stuff that appears to be in every market in sub-Saharan Africa. Or, at least that's what I thought. The Dutch Market pleasantly surprised me for not only having more than just the standard curios, but also because it was well-organized and the prices were much fairer than I was expecting at a place that caters to expats and tourists. There was produce, furniture, grills, and fire pits. In a way, I wish there was an easy way to get some of that here to send it back to DC, but alas, it would be cost prohibitive and extraordinarily difficult.

I successfully got all the gifts I think I need to bring back with me. I had been putting off getting the things as long as possible because I didn't want to store them in the hotel or schlep them around if I was going to end up switching hotels. However, I needed to see this market--everyone talks about it--and I leave Zambia the day before the next market day. Terrible planning, because clearly I come to places like Zambia just to go to markets.

Anyway, Zambian markets are unlike the markets I've been to in other parts of southern and eastern Africa. In general, the sellers are not hawkish. Negotiating is relatively simple: they give a price that's not completely unreasonable, I counter with a low-ball price, they counter at the price I was expecting to pay at the end of the day. In a way, I almost feel like I must be doing something wrong and that perhaps I should go even lower, but I'm not trying to be unreasonable. For example, the other day I wanted a Zambian football (soccer) shirt and anticipated paying about $15. The guy started at $12. I was taken aback and ended up actually paying his original price. Did I overpay? Probably. But it was fine; I got it for less than I had expected.

This post's video is of a hamster not really eating carrots, but definitely hoarding them. It made me laugh more than it probably should. I'm really curious what the hamster did afterwards though--did it spit them out or finally chew and swallow them?

Note: After watching many more YouTube videos, I am led to believe that hamsters storing food in their cheeks is a common practice. Doesn't make it any less funny to me, though.