Zambia in April

Hi, everyone!!!

Eugene and two of my best friends, Matt and Sara, are coming to visit me next week! My next e-mail will be full of travel exploits - we're visiting Victoria Falls, Zambia; going to Cape Town, South Africa; and the week after they leave I'll be heading to Lumumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (site of the bloodiest civil war recently - 3,000,000 died, even more than Darfur, I believe - conflict ended maybe 2-3 years ago but don't worry, it was in a different part of the country, plus I'm going with a friend who's Congolese and visiting his family.) But this time, my e-mail is full of anecdotes about money and sex, boring boring. =>

MONEY
So Matt booked a room at the Lusaka Hotel (aptly named, I know) for their first night in town, and Deborah and I stopped in today to have a look around. Deborah was entranced - the place has a water feature, and art on the walls, and upholstered chairs in the lobby. I was, uh, impressed by the place's swankiness by Zambian standards, but it's hard not to notice the flaws. As a small example, the aquarium was unbelievably dirty, and the linolieum was peeling. (The service was impeccable, by the way -- when I said a friend had booked a room for next week, they said "P________?" (<-Matt's last name) and they showed me the room we'll be staying in.) So, you guys, don't spoil the luxury for Deborah - you have to see the hotel through her eyes, please. (I hid my giggles - the juxtaposition of my impression of the place and Deborah's was just too funny.) That is, if I don't decide a backpackers place I know is a better bet. I'll let you know.

Another thing about money: when you come here (especially for Matt, Sara and Eugene), do not give away any money (or talk time, which is the same thing) to anyone. Everything you do will be expected of all white people. I have become experienced in telling everyone from strangers to close friends that no, I can't give them money, for any reason. And I don't overpay for anything. On the other hand, economic exchanges at the local market price are highly encouraged as promoting hard work and the local economy. I figure, since I travel quite a bit, eat out every so often, and patronize internet cafes, I'm doing my fair share to move American dollars into Zambia in a productive way.

SEX
At a teacher's workshop this week, we were practicing answering embarrassing questions professionally. One of the questions was, "can you get HIV from having oral sex?" The teachers asked the person answering the question for a definition of oral sex, and he said "oral sex is talking about sex." My God. So I've started asking my students, privately, "what is oral sex?" People who will openly admit that they had sex once when they were twelve will absolutely refuse to try to define oral sex. Most of them really don't know, or they've heard vaguely about blow jobs before (not the words but the concept), but no Zambian I've asked so far has ever had oral sex.

Let us all take a moment to be grateful for the quantity of ambient sexual knowledge in the United States, which enables us to have profoundly happier and more satisfying sexual relationships than would otherwise be possible.

By the way, in this case as in most others, I shun the "cultural" explanation for this difference in sexual practices in favor of a logical reason. To a much greater extent than sex, oral sex is a skill. It's pretty unlikely you're going to give good oral sex the first time around. If your partner has never had oral sex before either, then a couple is fairly likely to give up oral sex after a very limited number of tries. If, on the other hand, your partner has already had good oral sex (or has heard his/her friends or the media raving about good oral sex), they will have both the knowledge and the desire to coach their partners into developing the skill.

I tell you, ABC (abstain-be faithful-use a condom) is all over Zambia, but people are still having tons of unprotected sex. Why is no one promoting oral sex and masturbation, two practices that have the enormous advantages of (a) being sexually satisfying (b) avoiding HIV and (c) avoiding pregnancy? Well, now that I think of it, I am. => Like I've said before, one of the big advantages of it being my job to talk about sex is that it never gets boring... (Also provides a handy excuse for talking about sex: as in, I can't believe I'm writing to everyone on this list about these topics, but hey, it's my job! =>)

FYI, Jasmine, people masturbate here, but they feel guilty about it, worry it's unsafe, lack privacy, and don't do it very often. And homosexuality is illegal, but people know it exists elsewhere and tend to be curious, but also they're sure it's a sin - this is legally a Christian country. Polygamy, on the other hand, does exist in some places here. Also there's the super-bizarre process of "sexual cleansing," in which a widow has sex with her late husband's brother or cousin in order to avoid being haunted by the ghost of her husband. Fortunately, this unbelievably unsafe practice is now in most cases modified somewhat to present less of a risk of HIV transmission.

A GOOD STORY
So a couple of scary things have happened to me here, and since they make good stories I'm going to share them. Remember, though, my life here is basically blissful and totally safe - things similarly dangerous happen at home too, the dangers (like car accidents) are just more common at home so they seem less scary somehow.

Anyway, Deborah and I heard a noise one night as we were going to bed, and so I went to close the door (one of those sliding-lock things, and a persnickety one at that.) We climbed under our mosquito net, tucked it in, and then prepared to go to bed. All of a sudden Deborah sat straight up and said "Summer, there's a snake." Now, Deborah, like most Zambians, believes in witchcraft and had been pretty afraid at night for awhile, so I was like, "please, can't we just go to sleep?" I wasn't wearing glasses either, which didn't help matters. Anyway, she was right. The snake slithered over to the door and scratched its fangs against it (it wanted to get out) and then started slithering toward us - which is when I finally saw it. Recall our hut is about twelve feet in diameter - so it was pretty close already and coming right for us. Displaying, if I may say so, excellent presence of mind (and thanks to brother Paul for his years-long snake obsession that taught me this) I banged on the ground, and sure enough the snake didn't like the vibration so it went back and started slithering against the far wall. This was sort of an improvement, except our hut is round so it was still coming toward us, and plus we got a good look at the size of it - much bigger than we'd originally thought, maybe five feet. I gathered my courage and slid out from under the mosquito net and won a fierce but fortunately brief battle with the lock. I wasn't sure what to do next - wait for the snake to leave? - but fortunately Deborah did, and she flew past me and ran next door to the girl's dorm - I realized her excellent judgement in the matter and followed at speed.

It turns out what happens next is, the entire school wakes up, the head teacher sees you in your pyjamas on an adrenaline rush, and hordes of guys from the far-away boys dorm come over, and then they kill the snake!! They killed it in our hut!! And learned that it was a venemous cobra, by the way. Apparently it's typical to see the corpse of the thing after it dies to avoid being haunted, which Deborah did but I refused. As a result, Deborah is convinced the snake was six feet long and as big as my thigh, and I think that's a fish story but can't prove it. We slept at a nearby teacher's house that night, and the next morning had the pleasure of picking up our torn-apart house (finding a snake leads to a frenzied throwing about of property, it seems) and cleaning snake blood off everything. So gross. Also, we re-arranged our stuff so it's now impossible for a snake to hide along the perimeter of our hut, so don't worry, we're safe. (hee hee. I think I get a sick pleasure in tormenting those of you who think I'm really in a dangerous place.)

That's the story, I have some more but goodness I think this e-mail is already quite long enough as I'm sure you'll agree, so proceeding to the final bit of news...

HARVARD
I learned Wednesday that I've been accepted to Harvard Business School!!! Those of you (and there are many on this list) who have viewed my lifetime Harvard complex with bemused resignation can now switch to ... well, more bemused resignation. => Special thanks to my recommenders, Jonathan, Joe, and Ezra. Many thanks also to my friends at Fenway Partners, Marc for providing invaluable criticism of last year's application, and Clint for showing me around HBS. And a special hello to Nate - I'll be visiting you in August. =>

FIN
Each time I sent out a mass e-mail I get a few lovely e-mails from various people on this list - sometimes people I don't expect, which keeps me convinced that all of you breathlessly await my latest missives from this corner of the world. You guys are the best e-mail audience an adventurer could hope for, and I can't thank you enough. => As a reminder, all of these e-mails are posted online at http://summerinzambia.blogspot.com by my talented and also globetrotting sister Audrey (who, by the way, is heading from Germany to South Africa on in 3 days, safe travels chica!)

I can't believe how long this has gotten - and to think when I started writing I was worried I wouldn't have anything to say!!

Love to all,
Summer