Back from the Bush

As with all blog posts thus far, this one comes to you live from Lusaka, home of the internet. I hitched in yesterday with some friends and met up with some japanese volunteers who together with my buddy Ken cooked up a giant pot of curry which was the best thing I've had since the fried caterpillar my host mom made a few weeks ago.
I saw my site this past week and it is pretty awesome. It's basically a cottage in the woods. I live close to a family and not far from a school and clinic. I got the chance to meet the local headman, some farmers, teachers and clinic workers all of whom seemed excited to work with me. It was incredibly relieving to be able to put a face on what I will be doing and who I will be working with for the next two years. then the past couple days my counterpart from my village made the 13 hour journey down to Lusaka for a workshop where we discussed what I will be doing for the first three months I'll be at site. It was great and appears I will be able to stay pretty busy. I'll try to post pictures when I can figure out how to get my camera working...
Some people are heading out to some Chinese store to buy discounted soy sauce so I don't want to let that opportunity pass me by. Hence this blog is rushed and short. I promise to make a more detailed/interesting post in the near future.

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.

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.

The Beginning

    I have always thought that I would be the last person in the world to maintain a blog. Talking about myself to an anonymous audience is not something that I am entirely comfortable with. Yet this blog performs the unique function of allowing me to keep up to date those interested in my life while at the same time not flooding those who aren't with massive email updates about how I go about buying groceries. It is impossible to say to what extent I will be able to keep this blog updated throughout the next two year, but I can promise I will do my best.

     I leave for Zambia on the 17^th of February 2010 as a L.I.F.E (Linking Income, Food and Environment) volunteer— Job title: Forestry Extension Agent. I most likely won't return until mid 2012. This means I have plenty of time to update this blog and all of you have plenty of time to write me a letter or two. I simply wanted to get this blog up and running before I got to Zambia. I accomplished this and thus I will write furthers once I have more to say.