IST - only the strong survive

They don't call me Hard Core Christi for nothing....I survived a week in Lusaka at In Service Training. I averaged 3 hours of sleep a night and still made it to almost every session. It was so great to see everyone that we stayed up late every night catching up on the last 3 months.

Lusaka is the 88th most expensive city in the world and I can believe it. I have no idea how much I spent but I would estimate about a million Kwacha (about $250 USD). I had pizza three times and countless other really good meals. My body hates me for all of the "foreign" food I gave it but we are back on speaking terms after a couple days of running. I will be taking a few days to detox once I get back to the village.

I arrived back in Chipata on Tuesday evening after sitting on a bus for 12 hours and I am in town to celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday!!! Great transport story.....We are about an hour into our bus ride to Chipata and I'm the only m'zungu (white person) on the bus and the bus drivers side kick brings me a cell phone and tells me that someone from Lusaka will be calling me on this phone. The call finally comes and it's the guy who sold me my bus ticket the day before.....he wants to come see me in Chipata and go back to Chicago with me. I kindly explained that my husband and I didn't have room for him in Chicago...so sorry! Just another day on over crowded Zambian public transport.

I now have a train ticket to Tanzania for Christmas and New Years! I'm hoping to be enjoying dinner on a beach on Christmas Eve/Day.....it will still be a white Christmas (just a little warmer than I'm used to). I've been told it's cold in the Western world - not the case here! I'm soaked in sweat 24/7 - in fact, it's easy to forget that it's the holiday season!

I'm really excited b/c people are starting to make plans to come see me!!! Whoever wants to come, I will meet you in Lusaka and we can hang out in the village and do some traveling in Zambia or surrounding countries. Your summer is my winter so if you don't want to deal w/ heat or rain that is the time to come.

I'm excited to get back to the village and see my friends and neighbors. The students will be out of school for a month right after I get back so I won't be teaching in the school but I might try to have some informal classes at my house.

Thank you for all of the birthday cards and wishes...it means alot! Packages are really slow getting here but I'm hoping to get some on Saturday! Call me if you want - I have service all the time now!!!