I know, I know, I haven't updated my blog since June! My only excuse is that not much has been happening around the village lately, but my dear Mother informs me that people would LOVE to hear about even the experiences that I find trivial, boring, or just plain GROSS....so here I go:
Work has been going well as of August and September. I organized and carried out my very first health training for one of my Neighborhood Health Committees. In order to boost the "sustainability" of the training, I decided to carry it out without applying for funds from the district and to have different members of the group facilitate the training themselves. In order to do this, I had about 12 people (out of a group of about 27) volunteer to teach certain subjects. Each group got to choose 1 out of 6 subjects (Malaria, HIV/AIDS/STDs, Child Health & Nutrition, TB, Water & Sanitation, & Safe Motherhood & Family Planning). From there I met with each group individually, before the week long training was scheduled to begin, to give them sort of an indepth training on that specific subject & some hints on facilitating methods.
Overall the training was a great success. The NHC members gained a lot of knowledge on preventitive health care and having Zambian counterparts facilitate most of the training turned out to be a splendid idea due to translation issues. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to sit through a meeting or class with the teacher's lecture having to be translated, or even a teacher with an accent, but its TOUGH to pay attention! So that worked out very well. The biggest problem of the training however, since I didn't get funding through the government, was finding food for lunch each day. The participants seemed to think that I needed to bring it all for them, which we had discussed from day one would definitely NOT happen. Even when working with the Zambian government on projects such as this, they usually always require the community to contribute something, usually food, so I knew my members could manage. But eventually the group came together and figured out lunch plans & I brought cooking oil as my contribution.
So after I completed my week long training in Chisengisengi (a village that is 30min bike ride both ways from my village), I decided to meet up with some other volunteers in my district to ride out with our head boss lady to the Zambezi source, up in Northwest Mwinilunga district. This was exactly the get-a-way I needed after a stressful week of trainings. We saw the source, which is basically just a small puddle in the middle of a jungle, and it was amazing somehow. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Zambezi River, it is the river that feeds the magnificent Victoria Falls in Livingston...very huge! After visiting the source, we drove up to this big hydro dam that powers alot of northern Mwinilunga & got to SWIM, which is a sport that doesn't happen very often in croc & hippo & bacteria infested zambian waters!
Then after those 2 great activities, our boss & about 5 of my fellow volunteers, got to go camp at a game reserve close to our friends village. We are out in bush bush Africa, camping in a park with wild animals, in the most spectacular facilities. There were nice brick shelters with running water, electricity & even a proper toilet! Unreal. The reserve is private and owned by missionaries, which explains the luxuries!
So after this great adventure I went back to my village to get back to work, only to discover 2 days later, that dysentery had set in! This involved 2 long days of running to the toilet to squat for hours, barely being able to stand due to the pain in my abdomen! I don't want to get too graphic here, but I'll tell you 2 funny things I got out of this experience:
1. No more fear of bats in the pit. Imagine it is late at night and you wake up, only to realize you have GOT to go. So you run out of your hut to your "hole in the ground" that you call a toilet. You know there is a bat that lives there and under any normal circumstances late at night, you would stand there for at least 30 seconds shining your flashlight into the hole to make the bat come out before you squated down to do your business. But in this particular circumstance, you don't HAVE 30 seconds, so you go for it. And the bat does indeed fly right between your legs, yet all you feel is relief, not fear!
2. Joined the club. In Peace Corps Zambia we have this little thing we call the club. To most of you back home, this is going to seem ridiculous, as it did to me when I first learned about it during training. Yet as the time passes here in Zambia, more and more of my friends are joining the club, me included. So, what is the club? The club is basically pooping your pants. Right, I know you are thinking, "Come on Tamra, it isn't THAT hard to control yourself". But think again. Lucky for me, I was at my own hut when I joined! Many volunteers don't have that luxury, especially when considering in public transport, which usually consists of 8-13hours on some kind of open bed truck or bus! I don't tell you this to disgust you, but only to enlighten you a bit as to one of the major topics of conversation for peace corps volunteers in Zambia!
So once I got the dysentery taken care of, my next big adventure, which I've just returned from, was a camping trip into a national park directly south of where I stay. West Lunga National Park is a very bush park, meaning hard to reach for most tourists. Me & 3 of my friends planned a 3 day adventure into the park by boat. We brought out our own fuel to the camp entrance & spent 3 days paddling and riding down the Kabompo river & up the West Lunga river, which are both home to crocodiles & hippos! Luckily we had 2 park rangers with us, both armed with AK47s, to keep us safe. Along the way we saw many crocodiles (some so giant they almost could pass for dinosaurs!) , lots of very exotic birds, monkeys, baboons, snakes, but unfortunately no hippos. I guess the river was running a bit low, since we are at the end of dry season. It was a very beautiful ride..very hot, but totally worth the 3 day build-up of sunburn I acquired!
Now that that adventure is over, I'm headed back into the bush, to my village to take on the rains. Among setting up meetings with my farmer's cooperatives and other groups, I'm also working on a spectacular garden that hopefully will be producing in the next couple of months! My father would be proud!
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Getting a little work done...Finally
Well I suppose it is about time for me to write a little bit about what I am actually doing out here in bush Africa, eah?
I've spent the last stretch of 4 weeks in my village only and actually had a fair number of meetings. It is hard to describe exactly what my job is here without going into immense detail about the decentralized health care system that Zambia has in place, but I guess I'll give it a whirl and try to make a long story short!
I am working primarily with the Rural Health Center(RHC) in my village, which is the only health center in the catchment area I work in that covers about 35km. The way that the health system works is that the RHC reports to the district, which reports to the province, which reports to the national. Anyways, in the area I work in, there are about 8 villages who have voluntary health "clubs" called Neighborhood Health Committees (NHC). These NHC's are the groups that I meet with most often. In an ideal world, the government would train the NHC's on all sorts of health issues, since these groups are the ones the government says are in charge of realizing their own health problems and reporting back to the Health Center (RHC). Anyways, this often doesn't happen due to how remote the villages are and how far behind the rest of the country Northwestern province is. SO this is where I come in!
My job is to meet with these NHC's and help them become trained on the major Health thrusts that are prevalent in their regions; Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Family Planning, TB, Water & Sanitation, & Child Health/Nutrition. The idea is to teach these NHC's everything they need to know in these health areas, so that the NHC can teach the rest of the community and also start to develop ways to prevent & treat certrain problems that arise. Alot of my job requires motivation and encouragement to the village, so they can realize that there is actually alot they themselves can do.
Anyways, over the past 4 weeks I've met with all my villages and have been pretty pleased that they are all at least on the same page as I am now (*for the most part). I was a little weary that the meetings would never happen, because I had bad luck trying to get my first 2 meetings underway. Lucky for me this time, all the meetings happened (granted they all started 2 hours late, haha) and now I'm off to a good start. Some of my groups need to be reformed, some retrained, and some are even a little more advanced and ready to start working on small community projects, such as health education. Which is nice for me, because it is very interesting to see how each different villages NHC's evolve differently.
But enough about work for now...I'm sure there will be plenty more on that later. An update on village life: Not much has been going on in the village lately. It is burning season here, where they burn all the bush grass, and one windy day they were burning behind my house and the kids accidentally lit my bathing shelter on fire..oops. I wasn't mad at first, but when they didn't fix it for 2 weeks, I was getting a little stinky (literally)! But life is better now that I am able to bath outside again! I also cemented the floors to my hut, which entirely changes the atmosphere in my hut, I now feel like I live in a mansion! haha. Except for my "pet" chicken that sleeps in the corner of my living room! One of my friends gifted me a chicken and I've yet to build him a house outside and the villagers tell me the bush animals could eat him at night, so I have to keep him inside!
Well I'm sure my next update will be more entertaining. I am fixing to attend my first big Lunda festival in the beginning of July. It is going to be at a giant cave and there is supposedly going to be alot of singing and dancing and eating. They even built me my own grass shelter out there and told me that I will have to kill some bush meat for the ceremonies! Could be antelope, or maybe even a bush baby (*they look like little furry monkeys, but I've yet to eat one)! SO be looking forward to details on this up-and-coming event!
I've spent the last stretch of 4 weeks in my village only and actually had a fair number of meetings. It is hard to describe exactly what my job is here without going into immense detail about the decentralized health care system that Zambia has in place, but I guess I'll give it a whirl and try to make a long story short!
I am working primarily with the Rural Health Center(RHC) in my village, which is the only health center in the catchment area I work in that covers about 35km. The way that the health system works is that the RHC reports to the district, which reports to the province, which reports to the national. Anyways, in the area I work in, there are about 8 villages who have voluntary health "clubs" called Neighborhood Health Committees (NHC). These NHC's are the groups that I meet with most often. In an ideal world, the government would train the NHC's on all sorts of health issues, since these groups are the ones the government says are in charge of realizing their own health problems and reporting back to the Health Center (RHC). Anyways, this often doesn't happen due to how remote the villages are and how far behind the rest of the country Northwestern province is. SO this is where I come in!
My job is to meet with these NHC's and help them become trained on the major Health thrusts that are prevalent in their regions; Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Family Planning, TB, Water & Sanitation, & Child Health/Nutrition. The idea is to teach these NHC's everything they need to know in these health areas, so that the NHC can teach the rest of the community and also start to develop ways to prevent & treat certrain problems that arise. Alot of my job requires motivation and encouragement to the village, so they can realize that there is actually alot they themselves can do.
Anyways, over the past 4 weeks I've met with all my villages and have been pretty pleased that they are all at least on the same page as I am now (*for the most part). I was a little weary that the meetings would never happen, because I had bad luck trying to get my first 2 meetings underway. Lucky for me this time, all the meetings happened (granted they all started 2 hours late, haha) and now I'm off to a good start. Some of my groups need to be reformed, some retrained, and some are even a little more advanced and ready to start working on small community projects, such as health education. Which is nice for me, because it is very interesting to see how each different villages NHC's evolve differently.
But enough about work for now...I'm sure there will be plenty more on that later. An update on village life: Not much has been going on in the village lately. It is burning season here, where they burn all the bush grass, and one windy day they were burning behind my house and the kids accidentally lit my bathing shelter on fire..oops. I wasn't mad at first, but when they didn't fix it for 2 weeks, I was getting a little stinky (literally)! But life is better now that I am able to bath outside again! I also cemented the floors to my hut, which entirely changes the atmosphere in my hut, I now feel like I live in a mansion! haha. Except for my "pet" chicken that sleeps in the corner of my living room! One of my friends gifted me a chicken and I've yet to build him a house outside and the villagers tell me the bush animals could eat him at night, so I have to keep him inside!
Well I'm sure my next update will be more entertaining. I am fixing to attend my first big Lunda festival in the beginning of July. It is going to be at a giant cave and there is supposedly going to be alot of singing and dancing and eating. They even built me my own grass shelter out there and told me that I will have to kill some bush meat for the ceremonies! Could be antelope, or maybe even a bush baby (*they look like little furry monkeys, but I've yet to eat one)! SO be looking forward to details on this up-and-coming event!
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
will I ever make it back to the village?
I'm sitting here writing this blog, while waiting for the giant truck we are trying to ride home to fill up with people, so we can make a go at attempt #3 to get back to the village!
One of the first things you get used to in Africa is waiting paitently for transport, sketchy, packed transport at that! My neighbor & I had our first crazy day of transport on Saturday, it was just too ironic & funny not to write a blog about. And forgive me if this doesn't seem as entertaining as it did to us, it might be a "you had to be there story", but here it goes:
There is a mission bus that goes back to our village, which we weren't quite sure where it left from or what time, just that it only leaves on Tuesdays & Saturdays. So we call a taxi to come pick us up from our house in town. Taxi says I'll be there in 10minutes, which we know means more like a half hour. So we wait for over an hour and the taxi finally arrives. When we get to the bus station, the people tell us we missed the bus by like 10minutes, but don't worry, there is a canter (large open bed truck) going to the village also that day. SO we pay our money, and the guy tells me he can even drop me right at my house which is 18km past the village they are going. At this point I was stoked, because its not often I will ever have transport right to my door. So what do I do, I go and buy a bunch of reed mats, because they are too big carry on my bike and now I have transport! The truck driver said we were leaving at 12 hours, so we load the truck, stuffed FULL of luggage and people, but that is typical. At 13hours they say we are leaving, so we take off, but only make it to the gas station, where they proceed to rotate all the tires on the truck. We are thinking, wow, what a late start we are getting, haha little did we know what the day held for us!
Finally we leave town at 14hours. It takes about 6 hours to get back to our houses, so that would put us home just after dark (which for us in Zambia is LATE). We get about 15km outside of town and the truck breaks down. So we all get off while the men tinker with something under the hood. They say its fixed and we get back on and go another 2 minutes or so and guess what, the truck breaks again. So we spend about an hour waiting while someone drives from town to come and fix the truck. They say again, don't worry its been fixed, so we all cram back on the truck and give it another go, but lo & behold, we break again. At this point my friend and I are thinking, surely we will just drive back to town, since we are still so close and its almost dark, but NO they still think we can make it 300km on a broken truck.
The icing on the cake was that behind us, and moving towards us, is a GIGANTIC storm, and here we are with all of our luggage, trying to hitch back into town, into this giant downpour. So we jump on the back of another openbed truck heading back into town, kind of mad because the other guys didn't give us a refund, but happy to be getting back to town.
Then the downpour begins, lucky for us they had a giant tarp that we held up over the 20 of us in the back of this truck. But because the rain was SO heavy, the tarp was going wild, and just smacking up and down on our heads, at least we were dry though. It felt like we were being smuggled over a border or something, really was quite hilarious!
SO finally we make it back into town, lugging all of this heavy stuff around and try to find a taxi to take us back to the Peace Corps house. Most of the taxis are telling us NO because it is way too muddy, but finally we find one who consents. WEll sure enough the taxi gets stuck about halfway back to the house, so we are stuck walking in shin high mud home, with me carrying 3 large reed mats on my head, a huge backpack on my back, and a wood chair in one hand, and barefoot! I only fell about 3 times and was only about half covered in mud.
But just as we are almost home, my friend that I'm with says to me "Tamra, you know would would make this day even more funny..."and AS he says that he just bites it face first into the mud with all of his luggage! He wasn't really a happy camper in the end. But what can you do other than laugh it off and think...only in Africa!
I tell this story only to give a little taste of the fun of traveling in rural Africa. It is kind of fun because you never know what to expect and you just have to go with the flow...so what if you make it home maybe 5 days late...at least you made it!
Now I am going to give it a try for the 3rd time!Wish me luck!
One of the first things you get used to in Africa is waiting paitently for transport, sketchy, packed transport at that! My neighbor & I had our first crazy day of transport on Saturday, it was just too ironic & funny not to write a blog about. And forgive me if this doesn't seem as entertaining as it did to us, it might be a "you had to be there story", but here it goes:
There is a mission bus that goes back to our village, which we weren't quite sure where it left from or what time, just that it only leaves on Tuesdays & Saturdays. So we call a taxi to come pick us up from our house in town. Taxi says I'll be there in 10minutes, which we know means more like a half hour. So we wait for over an hour and the taxi finally arrives. When we get to the bus station, the people tell us we missed the bus by like 10minutes, but don't worry, there is a canter (large open bed truck) going to the village also that day. SO we pay our money, and the guy tells me he can even drop me right at my house which is 18km past the village they are going. At this point I was stoked, because its not often I will ever have transport right to my door. So what do I do, I go and buy a bunch of reed mats, because they are too big carry on my bike and now I have transport! The truck driver said we were leaving at 12 hours, so we load the truck, stuffed FULL of luggage and people, but that is typical. At 13hours they say we are leaving, so we take off, but only make it to the gas station, where they proceed to rotate all the tires on the truck. We are thinking, wow, what a late start we are getting, haha little did we know what the day held for us!
Finally we leave town at 14hours. It takes about 6 hours to get back to our houses, so that would put us home just after dark (which for us in Zambia is LATE). We get about 15km outside of town and the truck breaks down. So we all get off while the men tinker with something under the hood. They say its fixed and we get back on and go another 2 minutes or so and guess what, the truck breaks again. So we spend about an hour waiting while someone drives from town to come and fix the truck. They say again, don't worry its been fixed, so we all cram back on the truck and give it another go, but lo & behold, we break again. At this point my friend and I are thinking, surely we will just drive back to town, since we are still so close and its almost dark, but NO they still think we can make it 300km on a broken truck.
The icing on the cake was that behind us, and moving towards us, is a GIGANTIC storm, and here we are with all of our luggage, trying to hitch back into town, into this giant downpour. So we jump on the back of another openbed truck heading back into town, kind of mad because the other guys didn't give us a refund, but happy to be getting back to town.
Then the downpour begins, lucky for us they had a giant tarp that we held up over the 20 of us in the back of this truck. But because the rain was SO heavy, the tarp was going wild, and just smacking up and down on our heads, at least we were dry though. It felt like we were being smuggled over a border or something, really was quite hilarious!
SO finally we make it back into town, lugging all of this heavy stuff around and try to find a taxi to take us back to the Peace Corps house. Most of the taxis are telling us NO because it is way too muddy, but finally we find one who consents. WEll sure enough the taxi gets stuck about halfway back to the house, so we are stuck walking in shin high mud home, with me carrying 3 large reed mats on my head, a huge backpack on my back, and a wood chair in one hand, and barefoot! I only fell about 3 times and was only about half covered in mud.
But just as we are almost home, my friend that I'm with says to me "Tamra, you know would would make this day even more funny..."and AS he says that he just bites it face first into the mud with all of his luggage! He wasn't really a happy camper in the end. But what can you do other than laugh it off and think...only in Africa!
I tell this story only to give a little taste of the fun of traveling in rural Africa. It is kind of fun because you never know what to expect and you just have to go with the flow...so what if you make it home maybe 5 days late...at least you made it!
Now I am going to give it a try for the 3rd time!Wish me luck!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
And the Journey Begins...
*Wow! 2 weeks in and the bush is already starting to feel like home! Haha. Sort of. I've begun to "get used" (as they say in Zambian English: Zamlish) to many of the aspects of life here with relative ease. Adjusting to life without certain amenities, such as electricity and running water, wasn't nearly as hard as one would imagine, but when it comes to mingling with the "laid back country folk"- life is pretty awkward-that is the best way to put it. Lucky for me though, I've mastered the phrase "nachitiyi wanyi", which means "i don't understand" in Lunda! Whenever I pull that one out, I'm sure to get at least big grins, if not laughs! One of the best things about this Lunda culture: if there is a situation that is in ANY way awkward, everyone just laughs and laughs - hardly ever any long faces.
*As for my community, I'm very excited because they seem very motivated to start working, not just with me, but on community health problems as a whole. They really seem to have it together and are more organized that I expected! Now my job is to figure out where I fit in. By this I mean seeing where the community wants/needs my help and deciding the best way to transfer my knowledge-so not to create any dependency. Really just motivating and training will probably be my focus!
*I got to take my first bush adventure too this last week. My neighbor and I decided to visit our friend up north of us for her birthday and rode our bikes up an 80km (50miles for you american folk) bush path! Might not sound like much, but coming from the girl who hasn't ridden her bike more than a mile probably in 15 years, this was a feat! The locals told us we shouldn't take the path cuz it was overgrown and there were too many "mountains". But we decided we needed the adventure of it and that the Zam's didn't really know what mountains were, but let me tell you: they were mountains and they INDEED knew what they were talking about, haha!Good Times! But to make it better, we had to ride BACK 80km, then it was another 40km to my house. SO in the time span of a week, I rode my bike 240km, which is roughly 150miles! Hard work but quite relaxing!
*Anyways, more updates later!
*As for my community, I'm very excited because they seem very motivated to start working, not just with me, but on community health problems as a whole. They really seem to have it together and are more organized that I expected! Now my job is to figure out where I fit in. By this I mean seeing where the community wants/needs my help and deciding the best way to transfer my knowledge-so not to create any dependency. Really just motivating and training will probably be my focus!
*I got to take my first bush adventure too this last week. My neighbor and I decided to visit our friend up north of us for her birthday and rode our bikes up an 80km (50miles for you american folk) bush path! Might not sound like much, but coming from the girl who hasn't ridden her bike more than a mile probably in 15 years, this was a feat! The locals told us we shouldn't take the path cuz it was overgrown and there were too many "mountains". But we decided we needed the adventure of it and that the Zam's didn't really know what mountains were, but let me tell you: they were mountains and they INDEED knew what they were talking about, haha!Good Times! But to make it better, we had to ride BACK 80km, then it was another 40km to my house. SO in the time span of a week, I rode my bike 240km, which is roughly 150miles! Hard work but quite relaxing!
*Anyways, more updates later!
Monday, March 12, 2007
**When trying to update this blog, i have no idea where to begin, so I apologize if I seem a little scattered brain about everything, there is SO much to tell about and sadly the internet cafe I'm at is a little pricy, so I'm rushed!
ANYWAYS, Life here is still great! I'm getting very used to the little things that seemed like minor adjustments before. Right now we have only 2.5 weeks of training left, which is very nice because "boot camp" is getting a little old! :)
I spent this past week up in Northwest Province on a site visit to the area in which I will be living. I got to see my village and my new house, which is actually kind of a "mansion" compared to what i thought my hut would be like. I even have 4 rooms in my little house, which may not sound like much to ya'll, but I think having a cozy comfy house will give me some degree of sanity in my 2 years of bush life:)
ANYWAYS, Life here is still great! I'm getting very used to the little things that seemed like minor adjustments before. Right now we have only 2.5 weeks of training left, which is very nice because "boot camp" is getting a little old! :)
I spent this past week up in Northwest Province on a site visit to the area in which I will be living. I got to see my village and my new house, which is actually kind of a "mansion" compared to what i thought my hut would be like. I even have 4 rooms in my little house, which may not sound like much to ya'll, but I think having a cozy comfy house will give me some degree of sanity in my 2 years of bush life:)
But more about my village, I am living on a compound with the headman of the village and there are about 5 or 6 other families living on that compound too, so there are sure to be plenty of people around at all times, which is exciting for me! AND i got to meet two bran new babies, so as most of you know, i will be quite content with that! My house is right next to the basic school of the town (grades 1-9) and the rural health center, where i will be facilitating trainings and meetings with neighborhood health committees and working with under 5 clinics and etc. My closest peace corps neighber will be just a short 45km bike ride away from me! (I know this sounds like alot to many of you, but belive me, i lucked out on this one!) Also the area i live in is huge on growing beans, which i just discovered one month before i left the states that i absolutely LOVE! So i'm pretty excited about beans, haha. Also the area i'll be in supposedly has some realy cool "landmarks" around, like rapids, waterfalls, & a "tunnel" or "cave" that you can walk in for about 50 min and come out somewhere else (this was a new discovery i guess, so i'll have to post up with that later!)
Anyways, my site visit was awesome because I finally got to practice some of the language i've been learning and the pieces of this puzzle are kind of starting to make sense in my head! All the poeple in my area are SO nice and I am very excited to get started working on health issues. Another highlight of my trip is that I got to kill a goat (Yes, i know i'm starting to sound like a psycho animal killer, but i figure if you are going to eat the meat, you best be able to kill it yourself). And come to find out, goat actually tastes very delicious, kind of like roast beef that's been sittin in mom's crockpot all day! MMMMM
Well I think that is enough about life here in Zambia for one day, but whoever is reading this blog, don't forget that I would love to be getting some real mail from you , so i can write you back and so i know how things are going with all my lovely friends and family back in the states! My addy is different now, and I dont' know if off the top of my head, but if you really want to mail me, look on facebook, or ask my awesome mommy! Tukadimona!
Anyways, my site visit was awesome because I finally got to practice some of the language i've been learning and the pieces of this puzzle are kind of starting to make sense in my head! All the poeple in my area are SO nice and I am very excited to get started working on health issues. Another highlight of my trip is that I got to kill a goat (Yes, i know i'm starting to sound like a psycho animal killer, but i figure if you are going to eat the meat, you best be able to kill it yourself). And come to find out, goat actually tastes very delicious, kind of like roast beef that's been sittin in mom's crockpot all day! MMMMM
Well I think that is enough about life here in Zambia for one day, but whoever is reading this blog, don't forget that I would love to be getting some real mail from you , so i can write you back and so i know how things are going with all my lovely friends and family back in the states! My addy is different now, and I dont' know if off the top of my head, but if you really want to mail me, look on facebook, or ask my awesome mommy! Tukadimona!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Enjoyable changes
So this would be my first post from Zambia!
there is so much to talk about it is hard to know where to begin. I should first begin by saying that I love everything about Zambia and the people that i've come to know here so far. It is a very friendly culture and my host family couldn't be better!
Right now I am in training about 40km from the capital, Lusaka. The days are busy!! 4 hours of learning Lunda in the morning ( a language only spoken pretty much in the NW province where I will be after March 30th but scarce around the area i'm living in now). After Lunda, I walk 30 minutes to my house for lunch, then 30 minutes back for 3 hours of Tech training in the afternoons!
The weather is nice and toasty and humid! I've already suffered my first major sunburn, so glad to have that out of the way! Lucky for me I was smart and brought along a huge bottle of Aloe Vera!:)
The first week in Zambia was spent on a site visit to a current PCV(volunteer) who was living WAY out in the bush! The most exciting part of that trip was getting to kill my first chicken! Also just a preview of what life will be like for me for the next 2 years when i'm out in the "bush".
I already know which province I will be living in (NorthWest) and it is the most "bush", "hard-core" province out of them all. Just in the sense that I will be farther away from other volunteers & the bigger villages. The other positives of my province are Pineapples & Mangoes & Honey!
So the biggest shocker so far has been a tie between the giant cockroaches and the rats! The cockroaches I've come to term with because they pretty much leave you alone. The rats on the other hand, they poop everywhere! Before I left the states I had only thought about rats in the sense that i might have to eat them, but little did I know that they would be scampering across my roof all night and somehow managing to get into my house to poop all over! But hey, they don't bother me, so I'm fine with it:)
Well that is the update for the first 3 weeks of my life in Zambia! I miss you all! and the snow!
there is so much to talk about it is hard to know where to begin. I should first begin by saying that I love everything about Zambia and the people that i've come to know here so far. It is a very friendly culture and my host family couldn't be better!
Right now I am in training about 40km from the capital, Lusaka. The days are busy!! 4 hours of learning Lunda in the morning ( a language only spoken pretty much in the NW province where I will be after March 30th but scarce around the area i'm living in now). After Lunda, I walk 30 minutes to my house for lunch, then 30 minutes back for 3 hours of Tech training in the afternoons!
The weather is nice and toasty and humid! I've already suffered my first major sunburn, so glad to have that out of the way! Lucky for me I was smart and brought along a huge bottle of Aloe Vera!:)
The first week in Zambia was spent on a site visit to a current PCV(volunteer) who was living WAY out in the bush! The most exciting part of that trip was getting to kill my first chicken! Also just a preview of what life will be like for me for the next 2 years when i'm out in the "bush".
I already know which province I will be living in (NorthWest) and it is the most "bush", "hard-core" province out of them all. Just in the sense that I will be farther away from other volunteers & the bigger villages. The other positives of my province are Pineapples & Mangoes & Honey!
So the biggest shocker so far has been a tie between the giant cockroaches and the rats! The cockroaches I've come to term with because they pretty much leave you alone. The rats on the other hand, they poop everywhere! Before I left the states I had only thought about rats in the sense that i might have to eat them, but little did I know that they would be scampering across my roof all night and somehow managing to get into my house to poop all over! But hey, they don't bother me, so I'm fine with it:)
Well that is the update for the first 3 weeks of my life in Zambia! I miss you all! and the snow!
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