when you are engulfed in flames...

Good afternoon from another sweaty, sticky, sky-wanting-to-rain-so-bad-but-can't-commit day in northern Zambia. My friend Amy and I just arrived back in Kasama today and will be getting on the train to Dar Es Salaam around 2am Saturday. I'll write more about our travels/adventures later but wanted to write a quick post about a weekend trip I made in September with about 20 other volunteers to 'The Wonder Gorge', commonly referred to around these parts as the 'Grand Canyon of Zambia'. We rented a canter truck (basically a big truck with a huge bed used for transporting goods...and people) to drive us 8 hours into the bush. Our plan was to camp for 2 nights at the gorge, and hike into the gorge itself down to the river below to cool off in the thick of hot season. I can safely say this trip turned out to be arguably the biggest shit show I have experienced in this country. And that's says a LOT.

After 8 hours in the back of a truck in the hot sun we rolled into the top of the gorge in the evening. We should have taken it as a bad omen when we were literally driving through fires and smoke. If I haven't mentioned this before, Zambians light their country on fire during the hot season. If the fires aren't stopped they tend to just keep spreading with the wind. We spent literally our entire first night at the gorge fighting these fires which had drifted out of control. There were fires encroaching on our camping spot on the tip of the cliff overlooking the gorge, as the canter truck dropped us off and promised to come back 'on time' in a couple days.

First we tried to make a fire break around our campsite. Although I can proudly claim making it to Junior Girl Scouts in middle school (i'm brushing off my shoulder), my nature 'expertise' doesn't extend to fighting fires. I mostly stuck to knitting and selling cookies. Much more difficult. ;) Luckily the guys in our group became all gung-hoe (sp? is that even a word?) and it was contagious for almost the entire group. We found big leafy sticks and started chasing the fires and hacking them out. Night had fallen and we were a crazy sight in the glow of the flames, sweaty and frantic yet still laughing, mostly at the fact that yes, this was actually happening. We managed to control the fires long enough for us to enjoy some dinner. But before passing out from utter exhaustion we formed groups of 2-3 people who were responsible for 'fire watch' during a 2-hour chunk of the night. Each group, when finished with their shift, would wake up the next group, and so on and so forth until dawn. The flames would calm down during the day, but as the wind shifted during dusk we would once again go into survival mode.

Speaking of survival, I had never before been in a situation that allowed me to witness so many peoples' (and my own) varying ways of handling crisis situations. Some became panicked and needed to pace and talk themselves through it. Others were all about coming up with a plan and organizing the troops. Still others connected their ipods to speakers and played music. Even others just sat and stared...before deciding they needed to cook something. Thank god for the latter groups we fought Zambian bush fires while listening to tunes from America, and had yummy food to eat afterward. There was a point where people actually started setting the bush afire to create a fire break with a smaller circumference around our tents. At one point this self-formed fire got a bit too close to my tent. My friend Joan immediately realized this and sprinted toward my tent, grabbing it out of the fast-approaching flames before they could begin to melt the exterior. However, in her quick movement of the tent one of the poles snapped. Thank god for REI. I already have new poles on the way free of charge! Shout out to them. :)

The theme of our wonder gorge trip was Murphey's Law. Whatever could have gone wrong, went horribly wrong. After a night of interrupted sleep to watch the fire patterns across the hills, we decided to hike down into the gorge. What should have taken approximately 2 hours took at least 4...for those who made it. The wonder gorge is no grand canyon because rarely does anyone go there. There are no trails to the bottom of the gorge. And you are scooting on your booty on a steep incline for most of the trip down, yelling out for the sake of those below you when you accidentally break a rock loose that goes tumbling down...down...down...The whole idea was incredibly dangerous and in hindsight we should probably have been using climbing gear and a balet system. Out of all times in my Zambian life, my stomach decided to have a parasitic attack while I was scaling down the side of the cliff. Instead of calling out to warn of falling rocks, I was calling out "don't look up! i have diarrhea!". I would find the nearest tree and cling on for dear life while my stomach rid itself of something nasty. I won't go into detail. Needless to say I was forced to end my trek down into the gorge, turn around, and begin an equally taxing trek back up the cliff, stopping along the way to relieve myself. It was disgusting. I was disgusted by myself. I made it back up to the top eventually, joining with a few others who had either decided immediately that the hike down was too dangerous and not worth it (they were the smart ones) and others who, like me, had made it part of the way and decided to turn around. Of course it was the thick of hot season so we hung our african fabrics and tent rainfly's in the branches of leafless trees to create some sort of shade. I spent the remainder of the day either running into the bush or laying in the fetile position in the shade. It was one of those days where I wonder what the hell I am doing here. Some pepto helped a bit, and luckily I was ok for the long canter truck ride back to 'civilization' the next day.

To compound the effects of the oppressing heat, we almost ran out of water. The Canter truck promised to pick us up around 8am in the morning after 2 nights in wonder gorge hell, but instead didn't show up until about 4pm. Luckily we had 2 bikes with us and two brave souls biked 15km to the nearest village to fill two jerry cans with water and bike them back to us. By our third day, we could barely move because of the heat, we had just drops of water left, and we were using choice words regarding the drivers of the truck who had dropped us in the middle of nowhere and were 8 hours late in coming back to retrieve us. Oh, and did I mention that someone left honey out overnight and bees were swarming everywhere? gong. show.

I am proud to say we all managed to survive our wonder gorge camping trip. But the beauty of the gorge did not equal the misery of the weekend. The best thing we took away from that trip were the stories of misery and survival. Being a peace corps volunteer in Zambia teaches you two important lessons: 1) that nothing will ever work out as its supposed to, and 2) do whatever you need to do to deal with it. Oh, and that past a certain point, things can only get better... at the very least you will always have a good story. :)

That's all I have for now. It has finally started raining! The temperature has dropped at least 10 degrees. It's my last rainy season in Zambia. Actually, it's the last change of season I'll experience here. It will probably still be raining when I fly back stateside in the spring.

Hope all is well in Americaland!

.peace&hair grease.

katie