Ding-dong the witch is dead

I wish to welcome you lab tech bliss. It’s going to be wonderful. I find myself excited for the staff more than myself. They have dealt with this for much longer than I have and though the release is sweet to me it must be nothing short of nirvana for them.

Kahler and I are going to take a practice GRE exam in the morning from the study books that we have gotten from Dr. Kilembe. I am a touch worried to be hit with the reality of where I am as far as being prepared for this test. At least I will know if I am on the right track or if I need to dial my studying up to super duper serious.

Work yesterday was very interesting and my days in the lab seem to be growing longer. It is not necessarily a bad thing but I do need more than one day a week in which I can find a moment to myself.

Church today was good. A few new things to note there, we decided to sit in the back where there were chairs rather than the back breaking wooden pews. Well in the back there seems to be a greater concentration of flies. You know those REAL annoying ones that you take a lazy slap at and they are long gone and are now some where around your ears doing a victory lap to rub in the fact that they are faster than you are.

They were really diggin me this morning, I was doing my darnest to pretend that it didn’t bother me but, I was going out of my head. About seventy-five percent through the sermon a monster bomber kamikaze collided into the back of my head. I probably freaked out a little but did what I could to keep my composure. Ok so this thing just hit me and I am think after I did my flick move to get it off that it might have fallen down my collar. I resituate to check… yep definitely there. So I lean forward to give this thing a clean window toward the light. It turns out that this fella is a vampire fly and hates the light and just take a trip south. By the time he is in the middle of my back I am start to worry a little bit. I don’t want to just slap this thing into my back, cause, well, that’s gross.

I tried to give the sucker another try for the light. Again, no luck, in fact, he is now buzzing around at the small of my back. I tried to isolate him and just maybe keep him still until I get the chance to rip my shirt off and squash this pest into oblivion. So now, what do you do in church with a fly exploring the waistline under your shirt? Well you do what any American Christian does and wait for the pray when you can exact your revenge.

Finally we bowed our heads and I ripped the tail of my shirt out and crushed the demon. I don’t know if anyone noticed the dead fly that fell through the cracks in the seat on the chair but I am really ok if they did. I felt quite justified in my extermination.

Oh, and big news in that there were four muzungus at Emmasdale Baptist this morning! A girl named Allison from Australia (sorry Reece and Chris, you know that Kiwis are still our favorite) was in Lusaka to work with a social project, I don’t recall exactly. It is fun actually knowing enough to tell someone else a few of the tricks. She seems very nice and will be fun to get to know Zambia with her.

Well I think that I am going to retire for the evening. Practice GRE exam, go pick up a package from my folks, maybe go and look at a car with Kahler, go and eat Mexican food at Mike and Lindy’s and then shopping for food for the week. I dang busy day off I would say. I will try and do better this week getting back to everyone. It has been incredibly busy and if I get a free moment I am usually eating or trying to sneak a nap in. Thank you all for your continued loyalty in communication, you know that it means a ton. Becca! It was great getting to talk to you! Welcome to wonderful Skype Land!

 I would like to introduce you to Diego and Suki. I snapped these shots as I was waiting for the counselors to come in today form all of the field clinics (where all of out recruiting into the program takes place). I had to open the site and count receipts and reconcile all of the 17 cash boxes and check in all of the confirmatory draw EDTA tubes into the lab log. Only takes around three hours. Being on-call is a kick in the head. On-call examples of agony aside, these dogs are predy good, haha. They are big softies that scare the crap out of the Zambians. Suki really just wants attention (is it redundant now to say that Suki is a girl?) and Diego really just want you to throw a rock so he can bring it back to you, cool but, maybe a little dumb (I know I know... Diego is a boy, touche)

Suki

Diego

Taking a moment to be thankful that webs are working this weekend! Miss you all so much.

Trusting you all will make this week fabulous! All is pretty flippin sweet