Long Awaited Update!

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!