bats and such

So it’s been awhile, but hey time’s polychromic here meaning this post is coming exactly when it’s supposed to. Currently I’m sitting in my hut waiting for the invasion of the bats. I thought yesterday I had adequately bat proofed the place, but as it turns out I only succeeded in trapping the bats once they penetrated my defenses. I hope by the end of writing this I’ll have discovered where they are getting in.
Anyway, a lot has happened since I last updated this blog so I’ll give y’all the cliff notes of the last month of my life. I passed my kikaonde test with a score of intermediate mid which from what I gather means I can greet people, tell them what I want and make apparently hilarious semi-sentences— I’ve never gotten so many laughs in my life. I said goodbye to my host family which was a bit sad because I really liked them and then swore in at the American ambassador’s house which was about the swankiest event I’ve been a part of. After a bit of celebration it was off to Northwestern province where I stayed at the Peace Corps provincial house while buying everything I would need for the next two years. I was briefly a millionaire but after buying my pots, chair and mattress I managed to rectify the situation. Then after a couple days in the provincial capital I loaded up a land cruiser with all of my possessions, drove to my village, unloaded everything in front of my hut and watched to cruiser disappear.
I’ve been in my village (I guess I’m not supposed to write its name?) now 6 days. I arrived in the early evening of the district by-elections so the place was abuzz. A different district in Northwestern pulled all the Peace Corps volunteers from their sites due to a bit of violence associated with the elections but things have calmed and those volunteers are now back at their sites. I’ve been working on getting my garden up and going, building my bed and trying to meet and remember the names of every member of this and the surrounding villages. I’m having much more success with the former two. The past two days I’ve been attending an agribusiness workshop that the agricultural camp officer in my village is putting on with one of the local farmer’s co-ops. I really like my camp officer and am looking forward to getting to work with her. Yesterday was her birthday so I helped her make and eat a cake.
Tomorrow I’m riding 35k into the big city of Kasempa where I hope to buy a hoe, borrow a saw, post this blog and meet up with the only other Peace Corps volunteer in this district. He lives a lot closer to town then me and has a house about 4 times the size of mine so I think I’ll probably stay at his place and then come back the next day.
I have a new address in case you’ve been waiting to send me a letter. I’ll put it up under my address section of this blog but here it is. P.O. box 120045 Kasempa, Zambia.
Well I guess maybe the bats aren’t coming tonight but I’m too tired to wait any longer I think it’s nearly 9! So maybe I’ll add to this post tomorrow or more likely I won’t but I’ll try to get them up on a regular basis.

I wrote this post yesterday but I thought I'd add an update. I've been staying in kasempa with Ken and was in a bit of a bike accident this morning with a motercycle hitting me from behind. I'm fine but they guy on the motorbike went flying and is at the hospital. I think he will be fine I'm going to see him today. my bike is pretty busted up so I may have to try and get a new one. Anyway nobody was too seriously hurt and I'm fine, just a bruise on my leg. Nothing to worry about (mom). Ok I'm off, I hope this post finds you all well