The ongoing saga

So, it's been a while since I've posted, probably because I've been sick sick sick, and have been spending my weekends in bed asleep instead of in internet cafes. My roommates are really starting to think I'm like this lazy American girl who sleeps all the time--I've been sick for over a week now, and I seriously come home every day from work and go straight to bed. And now that the professors have gone, coming home straight to work means more like 6 pm, not 11 pm.
But, of course I have lots to tell you...

Mini bus update--I think I've finally gotten a handle on the whole mini bus thing. Since they're always harassing you and grabbing you at the busy stops insisting you get on their bus, I've started using this to my advantage by negotiating the fares down. Of course, mini buses are already ridiculously cheap, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to pay the local price, not the msungu special. So now, if someone grabs my arm to pull me onto a bus, I'll say "1000" and they'll either let me go (win) or give me that fare to wherever I'm going (double win).

Taxis--Taxis, on the other hand, are just really, really expensive, and there's no getting around that. You would think because there's so many of them one could play them off of each other in a similar manner, and end up with low fares. But they must have all signed some kind of secret developing country taxi pact, whereby they always charge a ridiculous amount to get anywhere, no exceptions. You do have to negotiate anyway, but the fare you end with is still three times what it seems like it should be, because the fare they started with was 12 times too high. This was especially true when we were leaving from the professors' hotel, the Southern Sun, one of the most expensive hotels in Zambia. Naturally, they assumed we were uber rich aid workers, not the mere underlings of the uber rich aid workers, and tried to charge us 50 pin to go anywhere, even down the block. I thus learned to say "I'm going just nearby", "niende pa fupe", in Nianja, so they would know I knew that my house was only a little ways away, not on the other side of town.

Speaking of hotels--Really, the Southern Sun is a very, very nice hotel. Which makes you wonder, why is there a hotel this nice in a country that can't afford roads? As I said earlier...aid makes the world go round. Don't any of these NGO/World Bank/etc. employees feel a little hypocritical staying someplace so posh? I'm not asking them to live in the village, but, as Richard said, "couldn't they still help poor people and be just as productive and blah blah blah at a hotel with only four stars?" I know all the arguments about attracting the best people, and about making life sustainable for aid workers, etc., and I can't say I disagree with those arguments. But doesn't the whole thing feel a little dirty? Things like this make you really want to question the decision to work in development. Can you save the world and keep your soul?

Talk time--Here in Zambia, air time makes the world go round. 95% of people are on pre-paid lines, which means you can buy talk time everywhere, no matter how remote. Someone told me (not sure if it's true) that in Kenya, 50% of household disposable income goes to talk time. And man, do I believe it. My phone helpfully tells me how much airtime I have left with every call, which means I know that that 2 minute phonecall to ask about some data just cost me $1.50. Airtime is expensive. But, you don't get charged for calls received, only calls placed. Which leads to the unusual practice of "beeping" or "paging", where you call someone you believe to be wealthier than you, or somehow better airtime-endowed, let it ring once, and then wait for that person to call you back, so you're spending their airtime, not yours. Sometimes I do it to Richard when I'm out of airtime--it drives him nuts.

The mysterious illness--And, back to my mysterious illness, that started out as a flu, turned into a major bout of intestinal distress (which they politely call "runny stomach" here), and then finished out with a cold. I can't decide if it's three separate illnesses or one long, horrible one. The folks here are calling it the "msungu flu", because only the white people have been sick, and we've all been sick. Whatever it was, it really, really knocked me down. I, however, was not hit as bad as someone else on our team, David, who decided it was a good idea to treat said unknown illness with Cipro (it turned out to be viral) and then go to Livingstone to hang out in the waterfall with a 104 degree fever, at which point he developed pneumonia and had to be hospitalized... So while the folks back home are yelling at me for not having seen a doctor, at least I'm taking better care of myself than some... And, the reason I didn't see a doctor is because we knew it wasn't malaria, and that's about the only thing doctors here know how to treat effectively. They're the ones who gave David the Cipro, and charged him $100 for the privilege. I'll take rest and hot tea, thanks.