2006.12.15: December 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Zambia: Viggage Soup: Peace Corps Volunteer Josh Meservey writes: From Waldoboro to Zambia
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2006.12.15: December 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Zambia: Viggage Soup: Peace Corps Volunteer Josh Meservey writes: From Waldoboro to Zambia
Peace Corps Volunteer Josh Meservey writes: From Waldoboro to Zambia
The rain came piling pell-mell out of the sky, the individual raindrops hurtling down to smash themselves against the ground and ooze away to try again during some distant storm. The suddenness of the onslaught was surprising, as if a massive watering can had been precipitously dumped and its contents spilled onto the earth (I find myself thinking more and more in terms of agricultural metaphors), and my Mango tree was already proving itself unequal to the task of keeping me dry despite my huddling progressively closer to its trunk. I began to run over my options in my head and concluded that I could remain crouched down under my beleaguered tree and get mostly wet, or hop onto my bike and pedal wildly for Muyembe and get completely wet. Neither of the options struck me as particularly appealing when suddenly a third one presented itself in the form of a little Zambian girl dashing through the rain towards me; she had obviously heard about the dripping muzungu (foreigner) trying to take cover beneath the porous shelter of a tree.
Peace Corps Volunteer Josh Meservey writes: From Waldoboro to Zambia
From Waldoboro to Zambia
By Josh Meservey
ZAMBIA, AFRICA (Dec 15): Zambia is currently in the middle of the dry and hot season, aptly named I think as there is dust everywhere and days when the heat is so oppressive I feel like I could physically swipe it away from my face by waving my hand in front of me. But I have already seen a few rainstorms, harbingers of the fast-approaching wet season which will bring with it cooler temperatures. Occasionally the storms have been accompanied by some truly spectacular lightning displays, as if a hand had ripped for a moment a heavy black curtain covering the face of the sun that could then blaze through along the ragged torn seams.
While the lightning is beautiful it is also functional; it serves as a very clear warning to head for cover of any kind, a lesson I was reminded of recently. I was on a bike trip and had been watching for a while the dirty gray clouds trundling along low in the sky when I suddenly realized I was going to get wet-it turns out I was very correct. I dashed for the nearest viable shelter, a lone Mango tree already swaying in the wind. As I reached it the clouds began to dump their cargo. The rain came piling pell-mell out of the sky, the individual raindrops hurtling down to smash themselves against the ground and ooze away to try again during some distant storm. The suddenness of the onslaught was surprising, as if a massive watering can had been precipitously dumped and its contents spilled onto the earth (I find myself thinking more and more in terms of agricultural metaphors), and my Mango tree was already proving itself unequal to the task of keeping me dry despite my huddling progressively closer to its trunk.
I began to run over my options in my head and concluded that I could remain crouched down under my beleaguered tree and get mostly wet, or hop onto my bike and pedal wildly for Muyembe and get completely wet. Neither of the options struck me as particularly appealing when suddenly a third one presented itself in the form of a little Zambian girl dashing through the rain towards me; she had obviously heard about the dripping muzungu (foreigner) trying to take cover beneath the porous shelter of a tree.
She did not bother with Bemba or broken English as the sheets of rain fired from the sky lent an urgency to the matter that precluded any attempt at garbled verbal communication-she rather gestured with her hand that I should take cover in the nearby schoolhouse. I nodded and we were off, hopping puddles and dodging slippery patches of mud, my progress slowed by my bike and hers by concern that I would not make it to shelter unaided.
We joined perhaps a dozen Zambians patiently waiting out the storm under the eaves of the school. I stared out at the deluge that had been unleashed and realized that if I had ever witnessed such a ferocious rainstorm before I could not remember when. The rain seemed almost vindictive, beating the ground for some misdeed as it raked the bare flank of earth first one way and then the other, depending on the gusting wind.
A watery haze sprang up, obscuring the trees in the distance and bundling tightly against their trunks, giving an ethereal feel to the scene. The school had a tin roof and the rain hammering against it created an absolute din-if Noah's ark had a tin roof, this is surely what it must have sounded like inside, I reflected.
My attention in time shifted back to my rescuer who was gazing out at the rainfall, humming slightly and seeming at peace with her world despite the water dripping over her face and onto her damp clothes, mementos of her rescue of the silly foreigner. It was not the first time, and I sincerely doubt the last, that I had been impressed by the generous act of a Zambian on my behalf.
Josh Meservey is a 2000 graduate of Coastal Christian High School in Waldoboro, ME, and a 2004 graduate of the Templeton Honors College within Eastern University in St. Davids, PA. He is currently serving as a forestry and agriculture Peace Corps Volunteer in Luapula Province, Zambia. He can be reached by mail at: Joshua Meservey-PCV, PO Box 730083, Kawambwa, Zambia, Africa.
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Headlines: December, 2006; Peace Corps Zambia; Directory of Zambia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Zambia RPCVs
When this story was posted in March 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Viggage Soup
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