David Berger

Category: General

  • Keeping on balance

    Aurelius: Book Seven – Entry 61 “Living is more like wrestling than dancing; you have to stay on guard; ready and unruffled, while blows are being rained down on you, sometimes from unexpected quarters.” No kidding! What an amazing sentiment – especially poignant for a PCV! We are more or less isolated, surrounded on all…

  • Project Updates February

    Recent project update: feb ‘ 12 Well! Here’s a quick technical update. Only three things. First, spirit stove. Using methylated spirits, two soda can bottom halves, zen focus, and a small nail I built a common peace corps utility – a stove that runs on methylated alcohol! Pretty exciting! It’s perfectly useful for heating my…

  • Another dark topic – yikes

    While my mind is conjuring odd memories and I’m surrounded by thought-provoking human emotion and expression, I thought it prudent to write you of one particularly interesting memory. Last month (sometime around the 23rd of February at 10:14am) during our provincial collaboration workshop – a session designed to foster better communication, working relationships and sensitize…

  • A darker topic

    Good evening everyone. I’ve been quiet for a while, looking for inspiration for a blog and processing. Well tonight that inspiration arrived in a darker way than I’d hoped it might. Two houses away from me there’s a funeral. The procession from the clinic came by around 1600 hrs (4pm). I want to describe what…

  • Finding intellectual motivation

    Here’s a tough one for ya, how do you motivate yourself into deep thoughts? How do you probe and push and fight your way into the darkest depths of your reptilian brain and begin to explore your own intellect and humanity? Intelligence is a funny thing. Complex yet simple, rooted in process and subject to…

  • Working the nights away

    So, you might not know this about me, but I’m safely indoors, windows closed, netting drawn tight, candles blazing as soon as those last tender rays of sunshine vanish from the horizon. It’s a defense mechanism bred of the misery of being outside without repellant and long sleeves/pants. Also…it’s my quiet time. Time set aside…

  • Parenting

    Let’s get some perspective. I am 24-years-old, single, and a firm believer in family planning. I’ve had serious and not-so-serious relationships. At times I’ve even contemplated how many children I wanted, when I’d have them, and what socio-economic status I’d reach before I deemed it appropriate to reproduce. I haven’t found that special someone and…

  • Work and freedom

    According to our manuals there are four primary duties of a health extension volunteer: 1. Sensitize and educate on decentralization of the government and health sector in Zambia, and the role of Peace Corps in that system. 2. Form/reform neighborhood health committees and help them understand their role. 3. Capacity build community-based organizations, neighborhood health…

  • Family

    There is no future for a child without family. Not in this world. We owe our success and defeats in large part to our families. I’ve been spectacularly blessed. I’ve had the good grace to be welcomed in many families, people who love and support me without question – the Wolf Pack, my own flesh…

  • A collapsed latrine

    What a surprise…a rumble…a crack…cement splitting, the floor turning on angle, walls sliding out, brick mortar raining down, a flood of light and a quick exchange of fouled air for fresh. At least that’s how I imagine it. While in Mansa, on business my pit latrine collapsed into it’s, well, it’s pit, haha. It seems…