New Things

So I’ve made it to Zambia. Actually I’ve been here for a bit over two weeks. I’m writing this now from my bed in my homestay with the hope that tomorrow brings the first chance at internet access since arriving in country. If not then I guess I’ll save this post and pretend I wrote it at a later date. Anyway, things here are great and Zambia is beautiful country both geographically and culturally.
Upon arriving in country, me and 46?... other peace corps volunteers were picked up at the airport… eventually and whisked off via land cruisers to a training center in Lusaka. We spent the first 3 days there attending meetings, getting shots, fitted for bikes and sleeping off jetlag. On day three we were sent off on what is called first site visit. Myself and three other volunteers stayed with a current volunteer, Aurora, in the eastern province for 3 days. She is a LIFE (Linking Income Food and the Environment) volunteer just like me so it was cool to get to see all the work she was doing with farmers and schools in and around her village.
Currently I’m in Chongwe which is about 45 kilometers outside of Lusaka. This is the site for pre service training. I am staying with a host family consisting of my mom, dad, two brothers and some cousins. Ironically this is about the same setup I had back in the states. The family is great and they are helping me immensely in learning my KiKaonde.
Everyday, except Thursdays and Sundays I have 4 hours of language training in the morning and then 3 hours of technical (learning how to farm) in the afternoon. Thursdays the Education and LIFE volunteers meet all together for a myriad of reasons. This week it was for safety and medical meetings where we were briefed on everything that could possibly go wrong over the next two years. For the sake of my Mom I’ll spare the details but suffice it to say 6 of the worlds 10 deadliest snakes live in Zambia. Thursdays also always include a number of shots, I have been pumped full of so many vaccines that I’m feeling a bit invincible at the moment.
My day to day life will be pretty routine over the next couple months as I continue with training. The internet café here in Chongwe hasn’t paid its bills recently and thus is without an internet connection, which in turn makes it hard to raise the revenue to pay the bills I would assume. Either way my access to internet is and will be quite limited for the duration of training. So if I am slow in answering emails or other forms of electronic media, don’t be surprised. You could always send a letter or make an expensive phone call as you are bound to get more interesting stories than I post here (peace corps reads these blogs). I hope this post finds you all well.
Here are a few pictures…

Actually the internet says no, so I'll try to work out the kinks and post pictures next time.