I'm Back in Lusaka today buying groceries and splurging on ice cream. Tomorrow morning I leave to go on second site visit which is where I actually get to see where I will be living/working/being for the next two years. I'm pretty excited and I'll pass on the limited information I have obtained about my site thus far.

I'll be in the Kasempa district of Northwest province in a village about 25k outside Kasempa proper. I'm pretty close to a school and health clinic which basically means I'm downtown. My hut has apparently been painted bright green so you won't be able to miss it if you find yourself bumming around northwestern Zambia. My closest Peace Corps neighbor is my buddy Ken who lives about 35k away on the other side of the Boma (Kasempa). My next closest PC neighbor is about 150k in the next district over. There was a refugee PC volunteer at my site for the past year who had been evacuated from Madagascar due to political turmoil in the country. He's just finishing his service so hopefully I'll be able to pick up where he left off. Other than that I don't know too much but I'll take some pictures and notes this week and try and get those posted up here…

My size of my home stay family tripled yesterday in preparation for a wedding that is taking place today. I'm pretty bummed I have to miss it as I had already, sort of, learned one of the dances. Also weddings seem to be about the biggest party in Zambia. It was funny talking with the sister of my host mom last night about family relationships in Zambia. The way extended family is done here has been a bit confusing for me thus far but I think I'm starting to figure it out. Basically, all family lineage is passed on through the women. I've gathered this is due to the fact that when a woman has a child it can be relatively certain it's hers whereas if a man's wife has a kid, who knows. So for instance the son of my host mom and her sister are considered brothers where as the son of my host dad's brother and his son are cousins. I don't think that last sentence made much sense but just think about it. Anyway, apparently before Western/Christian patriarchy showed up here there was quite a bit of power held by women and many of the chiefs were women. I've been told the British colonial authority refused to recognize many of the women in power and thus overtime they became disenfranchised. This is a gross simplification but it's interesting to think about seeing how much of a male dominated Christian culture Zambia is today.

In other news, there are four (slow) computers at this internet café and about 20 Peace Corps volunteers waiting to use them and groceries to be bought so I think I will try to write a real post sometime after I get back from site visit so that you all don't give up on this blog completely. Everything is going great here and I hope this finds you well.