The Middle Wife

The ‘Middle Wife’ by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I’ve been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they’re welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She holds up a snapshot of an infant. ‘This is Luke, my baby brother, and I’m going to tell you about his birthday.’

‘First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom’s stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.’ She’s standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I’m trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me.The kids are watching her in amazement.

‘Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!’ Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. ‘She walked around the house for, like an hour, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

‘My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn’t have a sign on the car like the Domino’s man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.’ (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.) ‘And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!’ (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands mimicking water flowing away. It was too much!)

‘Then the middle wife starts saying ‘push, push,’ and ‘breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom’s play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there. When he got out, the middle wife spanked him for crawling up in there.’

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I’m sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it’s show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another ‘ Middle Wife’ comes along.

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Ron Chama on 107.7 fm



Last Sunday we were proud to have Ron Chama (above) as the guest on our weekly radio show – The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient ft George Soulchild. The programme airs from 20.30 – 21.30 hrs live on Zambezi 107.7 fm and also streams live on the internet (or is supposed to!) Links are available on the Chanters Lodge website as well as the station’s own site.

Ron is also known as Ron da Prod and is Livingstone’s best known record producer. After the introductions, Ron told listeners that he’d been in the record production business for about 6 years and had his own record label ‘Raising Sounds’. Almost as soon as the show began we received a text message reading ‘seeing you now have Ronny as a guest on your show you should get him to do you some decent jingles for the programme!’ “Can you do that?” I asked “sure” replied Ron, who is a man of few words! We might well take him up on his offer!

Ron told listeners that he was very proud of the fact that many of Zambia’s leading musicians had recorded with him when they could easily have recorded in Lusaka. He explained that following his initial realization that he loved record production, he’d attended a course in Zimbabwe to learn more about this field. Amongst the stars he’d produced were Gen Ozzy and Roberto. Talking of General Ozzy, one of the tracks we featured on the show was his latest with O.C entitled ‘Zanga’. Great track! Ron explained to listeners that he had a full time job with Radio Mosi-o-Tunya (Livingstone’s other radio station) as Production Manager which he enjoyed, as it invlolved much of what he was used to doing by way of production. He’d been with that station for about 9 months.

The music on the show was right up to date. Apart from Gen Ozzy’s latest we hit listeners with ‘Promises’ by Nero the latest UK number one back to back with ‘Moves Like Jagger’ by Maroon 5 ft Christina Aguilera. Chipolopolo (remix) by Exile & Pompi followed, together with ‘Roll Up’ by Wiz Khalifa and ‘Miss Right’ by Ne-Yo. Our oldie of the week was Bobby Brown’s ‘Every Little Step’ and we had a prize winner who knew the name of the artist. We closed with ‘4am’ Melanie Fiona’s latest, coupled with One Direction and ‘What Makes You Beautiful’.

We wanted to know if Ron was married and his reply was “not married but not available”. This raised and dashed the hopes of the Chanters Girls listening back at the lodge, in a matter of seconds. He also revealed that on leaving school he had undertaken a course in purchasing and supply at Livingstone Institute for Business and Engineering Studies (LIBES). He told listeners that his father is a lecturer at the same institute. Milli Jam asked him what football team he supported in UK and he disappointingly replied ‘Chelsea’. I thanked Milli Jam for not talking about football given Arsenal’s poor situation.

Ron said that in 10 years time he’d like to be established as an international record producer – I wouldn’t bet against it!

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Laura Goble & Carla Roberts Have Impact on 107.7fm



Meet Laura Goble (left) and Carla Roberts pictured above, project and volunteer co-ordinators respectively with African Impact in Zambia, an organization with over 5 years experience facilitating quality volunteer programmes they are the African specialists in volunteering. These two pretty, funny, lively, vivacious young ladies represented the organization brilliantly on the latest edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild, our regular Sunday night radio show airing live on Zambezi 107.7 fm at 18.30 hrs GMT and now streaming live on the internet. We had proof that the streaming is normal, receiving messages from England and Scotland while we were on air. Very excited about that we were too! Thanks to Edward Chanter and Isaac Mwanza 107.7 fm is now available on the Chanters Lodge website too! Scroll to Radio Show on our site!

Laura comes from South Africa while Carla hails from Ireland, we discovered as Milli Jam started to interview the girls. They explained to listeners that at the moment African Impact has 20 volunteers in Livingstone, all staying at Livingstone Backpackers and involved variously in education and health projects. We were told that the majority of the volunteers came from UK but also from other European countries such as Holland and Germany. Milli Jam seemed taken aback that Laura and Carla were not staying at Chanters Lodge – “how did you meet Richard then?” He wanted to know. “We met him at the airport while we were all waiting for clients” the girls explained. “Are you in the habit of picking up old men at airports?” The clearly envious Milli Jam continued. “Only if they’re good looking like Richard!” was the wonderful reply. (Flattery will get you dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge! Lol!)

The music on the show was a great mixture. The girls requested Flavor’s track ‘Sawa Sawa’ a smash hit in Zambia for the Nigerian star, which they dedicated to all the African Impact and Livingstone Backpackers staff, as well as volunteers listening to the show. Before that track we’d opened with ‘She Makes Me Wanna’ by JLS featuring Dev, the current UK number one, back to back with Ester Dean featuring Chris Brown and ‘Drop It Low’. More African tracks were Dandy Krazy with ‘Donchi Kubeba’ and Ty2 ft Kaufela with ‘Spotlight’. We played Ice Prince ‘Oleku’ as well. Oldie of the week was the late Akim Simukonda’s haunting ‘Bana Bandi’ (‘don’t hate each other when I’m gone’ his advice to his many children recorded just before he died). We asked for the name of the artist singing Bana Bandi by text to win a prize of dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge with drinks and the prize was quickly snapped up!

The girls told listeners they’d done loads of the activities available for tourists – everything from elephant riding to the zip line, excluding bungee! That very day they’d returned from a weekend on Bovu Island which they’d loved. “It used to be famous for fun and games” I commented. The girls just giggled. Enough said.

“Are you married?” Asked Milli Jam. “No” the girls replied. “Boyfriends?” Milli Jam persisted. “No” replied the girls. “George!” said Milli Jam as we laughed. Asked about their musical tastes, Carla surprised us ‘Aqua’ she said. “What!?” I exclaimed “Barbie Doll Aqua?” “Yes” said Carla. I was stunned. ‘Pink’ said Laura much more understandably. Milli Jam closed with the usual question of where the girls would like to be and what they’d like to be doing 10 years from now but the answer didn’t go much further than “errr Africa”.

Good show this one!

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Children And The Ocean


Thanks to Judy in Australia for these Saturday sizzlers concerning children writing about the ocean!

1) – This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles.
(Kelly, age 6)

2) – Oysters’ balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)

3) – If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don’t have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (age 7)

4) – Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson She’s not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6)

5) – A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head.
(Billy, age 8)

6) – My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6)

7) – When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn’t blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7)

8) – Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6)

9) – I’m not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can’t think what to write. (Amy, age 6)

10) – Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7)

11) – When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6)

12) – Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can’t go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8)

13) – On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won’t do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7)

14) – The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don’t drown I don’t know. (Bobby, age 6)

15) – My dad was a sailor on the ocean He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn’t know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

If you didn’t chuckle at one of these, you need to find a better sense of humor.

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Gayle-Anne Drury on The Chanters Lodge Experience


There were some technical issues on the latest edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild – partly I guess because George wasn’t around this week – wearing his rapper hat George aka ‘Kaufela’ had gone to Lusaka to try and speed up the release of his forthcoming album. However it was a good show and our Guest Gayle-Anne Drury, pictured above, was a lively and interesting Guest. Our programme goes out on Zambezi 107.7 fm radio in Livingstone and streams live on the internet every Sunday night at 18.30 hrs GMT, 20.30 hrs Zambian time.

Gayle-Anne, a psycho therapist was staying at Chanters Lodge. She runs an organization in York called Baobab Centre.”The Baobab Centre provides one-to-one support through counselling, coaching and mentoring, training and consultancy to individuals and organisations. They provide the knowledge and understanding which underpins relational management and offer care, expertise, tools and strategies to individuals, teams and organisations to help maximise potential growth and development” Gayle-Anne told listeners.

Her visit to Zambia was to assist Tujatane School in Livingstone on a voluntary basis by way of training their teachers and teaching assistants to counsel, coach, mentor and build relationships. She stressed to listeners the importance of ‘listening’ to build relationships. “Yes” I said “and they should jolly well listen to the Chanters Lodge Experience every Sunday night too”! We moved on. How long had Gayle-Anne been married, Milli Jam asked. “A very, very, very long time!” She replied and refused to divulge further details! She told us of her son Adam 26 and daughter Ruth 24 living in London and doing well.

The music on the show was fine as usual apart from ‘I Wanna Go’ by Britney Spears that refused to play for some reason – perhaps she really did ‘wanna go’! Our Zambian tracks were ‘Manone’ by Chika and the catchy ‘Wa Overtime’ by Salma. “Salma’s telling her audience that she doesn’t want one night stands but something longer term” explained Milli Jam – I thought perhaps the lyrics were deeper than this, but no further explanation was forthcoming! The very latest releases from Example – ‘Stay Awake’ and Akon ‘Keep Up’ went down well, so too did Nicole Scherzinger’s ‘Right There’ and the worldwide Pitbull/Ne-Yo smash ‘Give Me Everything Tonight’ – the latter had the Chanters Girls singing along at the lodge, so I’m told!

Gayle-Anne told listeners she’d had no time for tourist acitvities while she’d been in Livingstone due to pressure of work. She further revealed that she’d actually been born in Zambia and had undergone most of her primary education here before moving to South Africa then UK. She told us she’d very much enjoyed a visit to Simonga Village the previous day where she’d been invited by friends.

We thanked the staff at the lodge for their very hard and excellent work during the first 10 days of July and gave away the usual dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge to the first person to text us Gayle-Anne’s country of residence. The response was excellent! Delvick won.

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Ruth Binney


My sister Ruth (above) has a lovely, sparkling new website put together by the team at Collaborative Connections including my son Ed, Ruth’s nephew. You can read all about Ruth on her site and here’s the link. Ruth Binney. A brief resume of Ruth’s career reads:

Editor at Mitchell Beazley, including the natural history and medicine volumes of The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia.

Editor at Marshall Cavendish partworks, including The Book of Life, Nice ‘n’ Easy and Doctor’s Answers.

Editorial Director at Marshall Editions, book packagers – responsible for a wide range of successful titles, ranging from The BUPA Manual of Fitness and Well-Being to Great Battlefields of the World, The Manager’s Handbook, Structures and Strange Worlds, Amazing Places.

Development Editor at Reader’s Digest – responsible for generating ideas and close involvement in the testing and marketing processes. A key member of the senior management team. Involvement with the production and quality of titles, specialising in cookery, gardening, natural history, medicine and health, computer and puzzle titles.

And here are her titles of books she has written herself:

The Gardener’s Wise Words and Country Ways
Wise Words and Country Ways for CooksThe Allotment Experience: Everything You Need to Know About Allotment Gardening – Direct from the Plot
Wise Words and Country Ways for House and Home
Wise Words & Country Ways Weather Lore
The English Countryside (Amazing and Extraordinary Facts)
Wise Words & Country Ways Slipcased Set

Go and take a look!

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Paul & Lesley Jenkins on Zambezi fm


Meet Paul and Lesley Jenkins (above) from Cambridge, England, guests on the latest edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild – that’s our regular Sunday night radio show airing live between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station, reaching a radius of about 75 kms and streaming live on the internet. (Just go to the Zambezi fm website and click ‘listen live’). Lesley and Paul were guests at Chanters Lodge and kindly agreed to appear on our show.

Lesley told listeners that she’d been in Zambia longer than Paul, as she’d been volunteering with Book Bus and went on to explain that The Book Bus aims to improve child literacy rates in Africa and South America by providing children with books and the inspiration to read them, books impart knowledge, fire the imagination and open up new horizons; they are also a tremendous source of enjoyment. The Book Bus is currently working to improve literacy rates at a community level in Zambia. She had much enjoyed her time as a volunteer.

Paul explained that he had only arrived in Zambia two days before the show but had managed to pack in a lot of activity in that short time! He and Lesley had taken the sunset cruise on Lady Livingstone the previous evening and on the morning of the show he’d taken a 15 minute microlight flight while Lesley looked on! He reported the view of Victoria Falls from the air as ‘amazing’. Before coming on the show they’d taken the rhino walk with Bwaato Adventures and had been happy to find and photograph one large rhino with its baby.

The music on the show was great. We opened as usual with ‘Candy’ by Aggro Santos ft Kim Wyatt, followed after the introductions by ‘Moves Like Jagger’ – Maroon 5 ft Christina Aguilera, back to back with ‘Don’t Wanna Go Home’ – Jason Derulo, the current UK number 1. “Up to date as usual on The Experience” I commented. Our Zambian tracks were ‘Mukondo’ by 4th Rock From The Sun coupled with ‘Move Me’ – Sobre, KRay Jay ft Salma. Milli Jam chose ‘Just A Dream’ by Nelly and Rihanna’s ‘Man Down’. We also played Flo Rida’s ‘Good Feeling’ and ‘TGIF’ by Katy Perry. The Chanters Girls rocked back at the lodge!

Paul and Lesley told listeners that Paul was a season ticket holder at Portsmouth FC in UK, that they’d been married for more than 30 years and had a son Matthew 21 and daughter Emma 24, back home in England. Paul is a banker. Lesley had recently visited Rwanda where she’d seen and been captivated watching the mountain gorillas. She’d also spent time in Mombasa,Kenya. Lesley said she’d love to volunteer again with Book Bus. She passed her greetings on to all the staff and volunteers with whom she’d worked in Livingstone, especially Kelly. The day after the show this funny and loving couple told listeners they were going to spend a week in the South Luangwa National Park.

Finally we gave away the usual dinner for two at Chanters Lodge to the first person to text us telling us which country Paul and Lesley came from. There was an excellent response some of which gave a new meaning to predictive texting as they told us the answer before we’d asked the question! Our weekly prize is very popular in Livingstone!

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Absent From School


Loved these from Gill Staden’s excellent weekly Livingstonian.

Actual Absentee Notes from Parents in South Africa

– My son is under a doctor’s care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.

– Please excuse Promise for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

– Dear School: Please ekscuse Sipho being absent on Juneuary 28, 29, 30, 32 and also 33.

– Please excuse Blessing from PE for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his
hip.

– Please excuse Khanyile from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre) (dyrea) (direathe) the
shittings.

– Please ekxcuse Wiseman for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the verunda, and when we found it on Monday, we thought it was Sunday.

– Winnie was absent December 11 – 16, because she had a fever, sore thorat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever and shore thorat, her brother has a low grade fever and headache ached all over, I wass’nt the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.

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Maya


George da Soulchild, co-presenter of our Sunday night radio show reports:

She may be one of the most sought-after upcoming female singer and rapper on the local music scene, but Cynthia Chalwe is very down to earth – the 24-year-old popularly known as ‘Maya’ shot to fame early last year, after releasing a single entitled, ‘Life Yama Diva’, under the XYZ recording label.

A law student at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), she relates that although some sections of society have shown misgivings about her alliance with a male-dominated, youthful recording label, she rates herself among the most principled youngsters. “It has not been easy, I have been faced with too many challenges as a female musician. Everywhere I go for shows, people think that I am bitching around, but I really believe in myself, I am hard working….a goal-getter, someone who has self-control and is principled,” she says.

Maya explains that through her good conduct, she has continued to be a role model to many young people. “I am here to inspire a lot of young people. Equally, my dad Sam Chalwe at first had some reservations about me taking up music as a career. He used to tell me that singing will not take me anywhere, but by my good conduct I have managed to convince him and he believes in me,” she insists.

Maya notes that through her association with the XYZ crew, comprising rappers Slap Dee, Ruff Kid and Lloyd among others, has made her fans identify her as the official XYZ first lady. “I am part of XYZ crew, after all I am the official XYZ first lady although people may say I’m dating Slap Dee. I’m very comfortable about it. He has been very supportive to me and actually he is my producer and manager,” says Maya, who is committed to someone she declined to mention.

The singer and rapper says she has been receiving considerable support from her fans, since she joined the industry last year. “I receive a lot of messages from all my fans including kids. It’s so amazing. I have traveled to different places in the country. Sometimes kids run to me whenever I am passing to tell me that they want me to be their playing mum and I accept the request because I love mingling with kids. I have no problems taking photos with them,” says Maya, a devoted Christian belonging to Christian Mission in Main Lands.

Maya’s music career can be traced way back at school when she used to sing in a school choir. “I remember the first time I knew I could sing was when I was 13-years-old in grade eight at St. Mary’s Secondary School. My family is very supportive of my singing career too,” says Maya, a second born in the family of four.

Maya who draws her inspiration from the late local musician Lily T, American-based singers Beyonce, Rihanna, Kelly Hilson, Whitney and Nick Minaj among others says her passion for education has compelled her to set-up a youth organisation called ‘Xample Yama Diva’ (XYD), stating that the organization is aimed at promoting girl-child education in the country. “I am the CEO Chief executive officer of Xample Yama Diva and through this organization we are encouraging more girls out there to realise their potential and work hard in school. Girls should believe in themselves, because everything is possible if they do that and they should put God first in all they do,” Maya says.

Her album could be out this year – be on the look out!

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Jerry & Carol Evans


45 years married, with 3 sons and 5 grandchildren, meet Jerry and Carol Evans (pictured above) from Denver, Colorado, USA, guests on the latest edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild – our regular Sunday night radio show airing between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s popular local radio station. 107.7 fm broadcasts 24/7 to a radius of about 75 kms from the city centre which is just 10 kms from Victoria Falls in Zambia. Our show is a lively mixture of music and chat.

“We’re mini missionaries” replied Carol when Milli Jam asked this warm and interesting couple what they were doing in Zambia. “We’ve come out to your country for a short time, voluntarily, to help at the Rafiki Mission in Chongwe near Lusaka” she continued “and we just had to come to Livingstone to see the world famous and amazing Victoria Falls”. Jerry and Carol went on to explain that they were helping tutor children at the orphanage especially those who were behind with their spelling, grammar and maths! They were also assisting with the construction of more cottages to house the children at the mission, which at the moment catered for 50 live-in orphans and loads of day children as well. As if this wasn’t enough, Carol was also involved in establishing a children’s library at Rafiki.

Rafiki operate in about 10 African countries and Jerry and Carol have been to several, including the one at Jos in Nigeria, they told listeners. This interested me, as I was general manager of Plateau State Hotels Board based in Jos in the 70’s prior to coming to Zambia. Sadly, Carol and Jerry told us that some of the orphans at the Rafiki Mission in Jos were there as a result of losing family in the recent unfortunate troubles between Christians and Moslems in that city.

The music on the show was a nice mixture of new, not so new and local. We played ‘Chasing U’ by Akon and ‘The Apple’ by Eminem which are both pretty new, together with ‘White Flag’ by Dido and ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley which are not. ‘Crazy’ used to be our theme tune on the show before we updated to ‘Candy’ by Aggro Santos. The local selection starred Brian featuring Exile with ‘Mailo’ and Marky II featuring Petersen with ‘Gelo Wanga’. Milli Jam chose Shayne Ward’s ‘Just Be Good To Me’ and Wiz Khalifa’s smash ‘Black And Yellow’.

Carol and Jerry told listeners that Jerry was a retired banker and that while they were in Livingstone they’d had a ‘delightful’ sunset cruise on Lady Livingstone and found Victoria Falls ‘wonderful’ even though they’d got soaking wet! On their last morning, the following day, they planned to go on the lion encounter, as they wanted to see the new white lion cubs at
Mukuni Big 5. Luckily we were able to get them a short notice booking!

We gave away the usual dinner for 2 to the first listener to tell us which mission these good folk were involved with – that tricked the listeners who thought I would ask where the couple came from, though sharp Jak did win! We greeted staff and guests at the lodge and in closing Jerry and Carol thanked Zambians for giving them such a warm and wonderful welcome to their country.

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