DAY 181: "We're going to a bakery if you want to come," Cristina said to me in the ZEHRP living/dining room that morning as I was typing a Blog entry on my iBook at the dining table. I took her up on her offer and hopped in the SUV with her, Jens and Deann, who was also tagging along for the ride since, although it was Saturday, Shelle was at work at the ZEHRP clinic.

The trip to the bakery wasn't a weekly Saturday affair for the married couple; Cristina, whose last day it was working at ZEHRP, wanted to buy cakes and pastries to thank her staff in the data department. Although she wasn't leaving Lusaka -- "There's a something about this place that just sticks with you and you can't leave" -- she was leaving the project she came for. From what I'm told, as noble a project like ZEHRP was, it had all the dysfunctional bureaucratic politics that are present in any organization, for profit or non, and for her, enough was enough. Luckily for her she landed a job at the U.S. Embassy, and would move out of the ZEHRP house to another one closer to the clinic where her husband Jens worked.

AFTER DRIVING THROUGH THE POORER "COMPOUNDS" of Lusaka and onto two bakeries in two Westernized strip malls (the first had no cakes), we had enough cake for her staff to have (and eat it too) and brought it back to the ZEHRP flats. Shelle was there waiting for us; she had managed to get off of work early (the ZEHRP work week is Tuesday to Saturday) to hang out with Deann a couple of more hours before she left. For Deann, it was her last day with ZEHRP too.

Until it was time to bring her to the airport, we just vegged out in Shelle's room while Deann did the final touches to her packing -- she was kind enough to not only lug some of my things back to The States, but some extraneous things of Shelle as well. I spent the morning playing MacGyver, attempting to fix Shelle's digital camera with a paperclip, scissors, tweezers and (of course) some duct tape.

"I just took a picture of you," I announced to Shelle when I got it working after about an hour. She was thrilled. The marvels of duct tape never seem to cease.

GEORGE PICKED US UP at the ZEHRP house at 12:30, and drove the four of us -- and the cute little puppy Lelo -- passed the number of women carrying goods on their heads, to the Lusaka International Airport, about twenty minutes away. The airport wasn't nearly as extravagant as the ones in New York or Paris -- not a duty free shop in sight -- so we just walked Deann to the exit fee desk and then to the security gate where only passengers were allowed beyond that point. It was there Deann said her goodbyes, which were only for the meantime; she knew that she'd at least see Shelle back in the States after her last day with ZEHRP in June.

"Nice meeting you," Deann said to me.

"I'll see you on the internet."

Two days later, she was already posting comments on The Blog.

ARCADES, THE LATEST WESTERNIZED STRIP MALL in the greater Lusaka area catering (non-exclusively) to the ex-patriate community, was on the way home from the airport, and it was there we stopped for lunch at Michaelangelo's. The new pizzeria tried to simulate a rustic, old-fashioned Tuscan experience with exposed brick and cracks in the wall -- simply by painting images of them on a flat wall -- but made up for their lack of building materials with really good pizzas. Over Castle beers, Coca-Colas and coffee drinks mixed with shots of Amarula, we discussed a debate that Shelle had been pondering in her head: if George, a third-generation Zimbabwean, managed to move to the U.S. and acquire U.S. citizenship, would he be able to apply and receive African-American scholarships even though he is of Caucasian descent? (Feel free to send your comments and thoughts on this matter below.)

Whether or not George would move to the U.S. was still in the air, but one thing for sure was, if you wanted to find George in Lusaka, Zambia, chances were you'd find him at Hooligan's, the humble, working-class bar where everyone knew his name. (It was inevitable; a big mural in the parking lot had "GEORGE" in big letters on it.) When George was living temporarily in a flat for two months without refrigeration, it was Hooligan's that he came to everyday for food, drink and company. After lunch, it was Hooligan's (picture above) where we went to kill some time and say hello to the usual barflies, including Lawrence, who joined us for a doubles game of pool. Lawrence, a boilermaker, was my partner, and a far better one at that, and I apologized for, for lack of a better phrase, totally sucking ass. His skill made up for my inability and we beat Shelle and George in a best-out-of-five series.

"YOU FEEL LIKE HAVING THE BEST STEAKS IN THE WORLD?" Cristina asked me.

"You mean better than the ones last night [at Cattleman's Grill]?"

"Yeah."

She was referring to the delectable steaks at Marlin's, a popular and somewhat fancy restaurant of the ex-patriate community -- so popular we had to make reservations -- where, according to the ZEHRP crew, I needn't look past the first page of the menu where all the steaks were. Dinner at Marlin's was originally meant as a Jens' and Cristina's payback to George for hooking up their stove for them in their new house, but it was also probably a good idea for Cristina to wind down with a juicy slab of beef after an emotionally exhausting last day with ZEHRP. Personally, my day was free of emotional exhaustion, but I fully enjoyed the pair of medium-rare porterhouse steaks with a side of creamy mashed potatoes anyway (all at the USD equivalent price of about eight bucks).

"You know I've been eating like a king since I've met you," Shelle said to me, eating her medium-rare rump steak smothered with creamy mushroom sauce.

"Me too," I said. "Until I bumped into you, it was all ramen noodles and cans of tuna."

The tuna and ramen noodles would have to wait, for it wasn't my last day with ZEHRP just yet. I knew that at some point, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end, but in the meantime, I knew that -- with the bakeries, pizzerias, bars and steakhouses I'd visited that day -- living the life of an ex-pat was much tastier than living the life of a backpacker.