Free fallin'....

Hey everyone, I am sorry it has been almost 3 months! well, I was in community entry for the last three months, but I am finally out, and a full blown volunteer for the next 21 months...

I am a little concerned how fast time is flying by. I still pinch myself every time I think about how I have already been here for a half of a year!!! It does seem like I just got here a little while ago, but time is actually flying by!

The last three months of my life have been full of fun, fear, frustrations, cuts and bruises, and beauty. I might have to write several posts to cover it all, but I can talk about some of the everyday stuff, and leave specific stories for later.

So community entry is just 3 months where new volunteers must "remain" in their village and get to know the people, the layout of the land, and get accustomed to live in the village. I visited my school, clinic, and farmers a lot. I also went to the river often to do laundry and to bathe, but it is now rainy season, so the river is running too hard for me to swim and wash until the dry season. I also spent most all of every day reading, gardening, and building stuff. So let me break this down into a few sections and then I can add more later

I ) KIDS:

I typically don't mind children. I don't like Zambian children very much. First of all they are the ones who carry all the diseases that can put me on medical leave back in the states for months like TB. They are typically very dirty, and if you give them anything at all, they will keep asking you for more and more. I do have a little friend names Manuel. He is my "hired" help, and he gets water for me when my rain catch does not provide enough water for my American demand for water. He also slashes grass, and helps me build stuff. I send him into the bush (and very often go with or on my own too) to cut down trees, or make bush rope. When I go on vacations, it will be his job to feed my cat, feed the chickens, collect chicken manure, change the liter box, collect eggs, etc.... He is an honest kid and it helps to have a little helper to get things done. Another thing that really frustrates me is my trash pit being robbed. Kids love to go through my trash for little hidden treasures, but instead of taking the trash they want away, they always take out the trash and litter my yard with it all. So now I save up trash and have trash fires. The look on their face is one of serious misery, anguish, and sadness. But I do put out all of my plastics and tins out front of my fence and it is always swept up quickly by my host family. Education is very localized in Zambia. People that grow up in Copperbelt where there is a lot of money, have much better education. Also in town. My school and my clinic have no power... So kids build these little toy cars out of trash they find. It is funny to see the differences between village and city cars, because the kids in the village will build them and they will not have moving wheels, and they are usually just a few pieces of plastic with sticks pushed into them so that the kids can "drive" their cars around town. In the city, the toy cars become much more elaborate with wire, and moving wheels, some even have wheels in the front that turn when they use their long stick with a steering wheel at the end of it.

II ) So a real quick one is the lack of critical thinking, and education in the general populace. A quick story, I was in Lumwana West trying to catch a hitch out of town towards Chisasa and eventually my site. While I was waiting Ryan and I wanted to buy some drinks from a local shop. we pull out 4 drinks, 2 waters, and 2 orange drinks. The next 15 mins of my life were the most frustrating in Zambia thus far. with the aid of a calculator and with 4 drinks sitting in front of her, and two college educated Americans both yelling the total sum of the drinks, she still kept adding up the cost of 6 drinks... I literally sat in front of her counting 1,2,3,4... and adding up the total for her time and time again, even using the calculator for her, and she was COMPLETELY lost!!! Drove me crazy!

III ) Rainy/Dry Season:

So When I first arrived at site (you can see in the pictures) all the grass was brown, the earth was just arid dirt, and you could see distances when walking through the bush. NOW, rainy season literally changed my site into a jungle. Grass is now taller than I am, all the trees are full and fruiting, weeds are taking over everywhere, and the bugs have come out! Literally you can not dream up bugs that are here in your wildest imagination. I see moths that have 8-10" wing spans, beetles the size of my fist, spiders as large as CDs and small as a tic-tac w/ really scary bodies, all sorts of different colors, and body sizes. When walking in the bush you never see them, and all of the sudden your face is stuck in a huge web 5ft wide and thick. The spiders are so scary, they even make a "heavy duty" silk that is yellow and really strong. I get stung by little wasps once a month, but those are just annoying, nothing serious. I have seen 3 more snakes since the incident at the river. I have also been attacked by army ants and the red ones too. Army ants are everywhere and I battle them frequently. It is fun because they make a collective hissing noise that is really weird, and they are very sophisticated with their organization. The red ones are really interesting. they are a colony of maybe 5 million ants, and every 5th or 6th on is a slightly larger ant with massive and very painful pincers. They come up out of the ground and will just dominate an area 15x15m or larger. If they move into your house, you literally just have to leave and stay somewhere else until they decide to leave.

IV ) Making my home homely was a very large part of my community entry. I started a garden, and almost everything I planted came up. I have peas, carrots, beans, lettuce, beats, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin, garlic, spinach, broccoli, and onions. I usually spend the early hours of my morning (if I wake up early, I typically sleep into about 8) weeding my garden while the sun is down and it is not so hot. I will have to make a smaller garden that I can water easily during the dry season later, but for now with all the rain, my garden can be huge.

I also build a lot of things. I have built a really nice cat bed for Honkers and her kittens, a 3 shelf bureau for my bedroom, so I can finally put my clothes away and organize my life. I have built a shelf for my bath so I don't have to squat down over the bucket any longer, now I can take my bucket baths standing up. I have carved out a giant upside down V in my chota (cooking shelter) and put a awning coming out from it so I no longer have to bend over 30 times a day to get in and out of the chota. I put my flag pole up, and fly Ole Glory every day. I constructed a really nice rain catch, that when it rains, I can fill both jerry cans, and my 70L, bucket so that I have a total of 150L of water on hand. I have to treat the water with chlorine, but that is because all sorts of bugs and weird water worms grow in the bucket if it sits for a while. The process of filling just entails putting a rag over the jerry can hole, and pour through that to filter out the bugs and water worms, then treat it with the chlorine. I built a 6 ft long bench out of just bush wood and some string, it reminds me of the camp furniture we would make as kids. Lastly, I also built a really nice chicken coop, and two 5-room hen houses to go along both sides of the coop. I built them all my self using trees, mealie meal sacks, bush rope, a few nails, and grass to thatch the roof. It came out really well, it is a beautiful home that I named the "Hen House Hotel."

In all seriousness though it is more of a rehab center than a hotel. The chickens I am buying are hybrid birds that are bred to lay eggs (layers) and grow fat full of meat (broilers). But they have no instincts to look for food like the village chickens, raise chicks like village chickens do, and in the case of the broilers, they don't know how to walk! So I spend plenty of time during the day trying to feed them and get them to wander around outside my fence, and getting the broilers to walk around more and use their legs. I bought 5 chickens thinking that all broilers are cocks, but 4 of them died on the way to site, because I put them in a zam bag  (plastic 2x1.5x1.5ft bag with a zipper on top). Then with the one remaining chicken I realized was a female too, so completely worthless for me (or so I thought). So I ate chicken for 3 days straight after that and realized I need to be more careful. The remaining chicken I took with me to Mwinilunga one day, and it is very funny, because here in Zambia you can go into any restaurant and hand them a live chicken over the counter. They take it, butcher it, and cook it for you. Imagine walking into a KFC or nicer restaurant in America and handing them live animals for them to prepare for you... That is one of the really neat cultural differences here.

Well, a week later I came into Solwezi to update my visa, and I bought 2 layers and 3 more broilers, but this time I put them in nice plastic carry baskets and gave them water often so that they didn't die. Again, it is alike a rehab center spending time getting these chickens used to the village life. The goal of mine is to fatten all the birds up and get them wandering around like other birds, so that my host father's cock will mate with them and fertilize their eggs. Because they don't have the instincts to rear their chicks, I will get a few village hens who are laying, and when they decide to sit, I will eat the eggs from the village hen, and put the hybrid birds' eggs under the village chicken who WILL raise the chicks up. So I am hoping eventually I can inject some of the good and strong hybrid genes into village stock.

My Chickens!

bench

Cat Bed

My garden, chickens, fish ponds are good for me, but also tools I am using to get my village interested in better gardening and animal husbandry practices. After all I am here to improve food security, so that has become my main goal.

Wanna see pictures?

And here are some of the links to my facebook albums. It's easier for me to put them online there, and just share the links.

Pictures of the Hut, Oven, and Solwezi before posting

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Africa in general from arrival into training...

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Here is my site BEFORE I came to it

Enjoy!

Quick, but lengthy update...

Hey yall, I am really sorry I havn't been able to post about all that has happened in the past month. ALOT has happened.

To start, I finished training. I scored intermediate low on my language test, which I was ok with, because after 2nd site visit I lost all motivation to study and keep up. I knew I was already passing, so I just kinda let it ride... I also passed my technical exam, obviously. Swear in was a blast! My intake was invited by the newly elected president of Zambia, Michael Sata, to join him and a ton of other foreign dignitaries at the State House (their White House...). It was pretty cool, was broadcasted nationally here and on the radio. The actual swearing in took only 20 mins, but then moved outside to a huge banquet where they fed us some amazing food (not nshima!!! yay) and all of the other dignitaries and the president got a chance to make a speech. It was a huge deal, because it was Sata's first official State House function of his presidency, it was the first time in P.C. -Zambia's history of a swearing in ceremony hosted by the president, AND it was (I think, or I was told) only the 3rd time in P.C. history of such an event. PRETTY awesome.

Ok so the days after were spent shopping in Solwezi for my move in. I bought all sorts of things, but didn't have to worry about much, because the previous volunteer left me a bunch of stuff (I will explain my house later in the post). But some of the items I really am happy I got was a little bush hoe/axe (the blade can be knocked out and turned 90 degrees to change from hoe to axe whenever I want), a new mattress, lots of food, and my big ticket item: a flag pole! Welding in this country is done on the ground by metal workers that do not wear anything but sunglasses... it is crazy. but after 20 mins of my trying to explain to them what I want, it took another 45 mins to fabricate it, but finally when all was said and done, and 250,000 kwacha later ($50), I had myself a flag pole ready for pick up by the land cruiser. The pole is made up of two 3m lengths (18ft), that one pole slides into the other, and there are 2 sets of holes that go through both poles where I can secure them together with bolts. All I have to do is buy some paint, and wait for my American flag to get here.

I was suppose to post on a thursday, but instead last minute they asked if I would be cool with going on Wednesday a day early, and of course I complied with the request. My village is awesome, it is full of as many motivated and hardworking farmers as drunks. But I guess the mix is what makes it so homey. I am located in the middle of no where, but I am only a stones throw (literally) from the main tar-mac. I live right next door to my local headman (not a chief, but the guy that has to deal with all the local issues and disputes), and behind me is nothing but miles and miles of African bush until you hit the Congo. I have a huge avocado tree inside my fence in my front yard, as well as 2 clusters of banana trees and two single banana trees I transplanted recently outside my fence towards the bush. Here is a small layout I made on my computer just now with paint (took me forever, so enjoy!):

I had a full day to move in, and I spent the whole night putting up mealie meal sacs (they are pure white) on my ceiling to increase the brightness of inside. I also hung up a few shelves, decorated the walls with my map of Narragansett, and other things. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my co-op had finished the construction of my fence around my new home which we can call "Fortress America" for names sake. I also got to work immediately on staking out where I wanted to have my garden, and putting to work my army of little children, cutting down, carrying back, digging holes, and erecting all 50 of the support poles for the fence. as well as cutting down,...,...,... all of the bamboo to line the fence with to keep the goats out. Over the following week, my co-op cut grass and put up grass about 4 ft high, so the goats can't see what I am growing and be tempted to push through or down my fence...

I also had the chance to make myself a little mud brick oven out of soil from a termite mound (clay) and water. It took me a total of 5 or 6 days, but I successfully baked 3 loaves of bread when I fired it up for my trial run. It worked awesome and I am really happy I can now have fresh bread on a consistent basis, because it is really hard to get fresh bread in the village. RAIN RAIN RAIN, I haven't had too much of it really, BUT the times it rains, IT POURS! Literally these storms are so intense they almost scare me.

OH, and the best part of my day, going down and swimming in the river. Now instead of my regular bucket bath, I was shown the swimming hole by my closest PC neighbor, Joe. The top part and bottom part are slow moving (where crocodiles hangout), but in the middle is a 25-30 yard set of very fast rapids. Over the years Adam (the volunteer I am replacing) and Joe, have dammed off some sections here and there, so that the water is still rushing through, but there are little jacoozi pools where we can sit and relax, and recently where I take all of my baths and now wash all my clothes. I should have pictures of this place, and all the above soon on facebook, and I will be sure to share a link on the blog.

SO, everyone might be wondering what am I doing online when I am suppose to be in my village for community entry for 3 months... well, Adam (again, the previous volunteer in Kanzala), had started a project where he got a grant to purchase a hammer mill and supplies to build a Chigayo in Kanzala. So I was cleared to go to Solwezi with 3 members of my co-op to begin work with the project. It calls for me to have quotations for all items to be purchased, opening a bank account, ect. So, yesterday after unsuccessfully catching a bus to Solwezi, (another long story I will write about in a sec), we came to Solwezi this morning, and found prices, haggled, and quoted door frames, doors, nails, roofing sheets (metal), lumber, concrete, hammer mill and engine, jerry can's to hold diesel, diesel fuel itself, and other little extras. we came out under budget considerably, so we think we will get extra cement, roof sheets, nails, door frame, ect and build an office of business next door to the chigayo for the co-op to manage itself with. Should be good.

Before I go, a quick story about waiting for the bus yesterday (Tuesday). So I got up at 6:30 to get ready, we planned to begin waiting road side at 7:30, and the two big buses that come by usually arrive between 8-9. So 7:30 I am by the road side with my 3 counterparts in my co-op, and there are 10 people completely shitfaced, and another 10 villagers drunk, some are sober, but they are the ones opening up their shops and selling Jilli-jilli packets to these people.

 ---side note--- Jilli-jilli is really cheap booze that is 50% alcohol made from cane spirits. they come in little packets that are 3ounces (ish) and they are dirt cheap, and what most of these people drink, because it is affordable and packs a very heavy punch. there are many down sides; it's cheap enough that they drink all the time, it keeps people from being productive (obviously) even though some claim to be very functional even while drunk, and the worst part is that the ground around the tuck shops and the road are littered with not 100, 1000, but 10,000+ empty 2x3inch plastic packets... I meanthink about it my village drinks combined probably 50-100 packets a day, and the ground never gets cleaned up... ---- long side note, sorry----

So anyways, all morning long I am listening to drunk after drunk asking me to give them things, which every time the answer is always no. They will get upset every so often, because "I don't like them" because I don't give them tons of free shit, but they understand eventually after my counterpart and I begin trying to explain to them that I am a volunteer, not an ATM. well regardless "I want your glasses," "Give me just one pin" (for a packet), "give me this, give me that..." It gets old quick. Well anyways this one guy showed up during one of my quick visits to my house, and he looked horrible. Poor guy, had no shoes, pants and a shirt that were both at least 10 years old, no one would talk to him, he sat alone in the middle of the pull off staring at the dirt. He wasn't close to me, but close enough, and all of the drunks thought they were impressing me when they started making fun and saying jokes about this guy. Everyone but he was laughing... I got so mad, I think I scared a few of them, because immediately it was me yelling at them. I asked them all if they were Christian, and they all agreed. And I told them for about 5 minutes, what shitty Christians they are, and how they should feel ashamed of themselves. Also, and this is a trick for anyone who ever goes to Zambia or a Christian African country, tell them that God is watching and that he is judging them. It really freaks them out.

After my scolding, I returned to my house, got a nice button down shirt of mine, and filled a quart size zip lock with an oat trail mix like thing I had, and returned to give them to the poor man in the dirt. Well, I hope they learned a few things from my example, but the sick thing is that I could see in some of these drunk people's faces they were upset that I refused giving them stuff all morning, and gave the poor outcast a ton of stuff. My counterpart later explained that the guy has a mental issue (which I don't really believe), and that he roams from place to place staying with anyone who will take him in, but all I saw was a guy who needs friends and a job (HE was one of the ONLY people there NOT drinking... might be a hard worker if anyone gave him half a chance). Regardless I will be sure to follow up on this guy, and see if I can't get him tending to someone's gardens, or something.

OOOOKKKK, well I wish I had time to tell another 20 stories just like that one about all the other crazy stuff I see and do each day, but I got to go to sleep, because tomorrow is a very long day. OH, wait just one last thing. I saw my first snake yesterday. I was so tired and hot from waiting by the road for 4 hours, that I went and sat in the river for 3... on my return home I was walking my bike on the bush path, and out of no where a snake was all of the sudden in the grass running away from me. Scared the daylights out of me, but at the same time it was cool to finally see. It was pitch black, and all the villagers concurred that it was a cobra. of some sort. it was about 4 ft long, so big, and probably dangerous. It won't stop me from going to my watering hole every afternoon, but I will probably tread carefully, with my eyes peeled.

Love you all! hope that this will quench any of your thirsts for info, until I get back to the house in a few weeks for our provincial meetings and Thanksgiving. Shalenuhu!!! OH, please forgive any spelling mistakes, I don't have the time to read through this whole thing and spell check. If there are any questions that need clarification, please feel free. Love

So Close, yet soooo far....

I am so close to finishing training and swearing in, but yet so far from the end of this journey.

Where to begin...

I guess trainging. training is almost over. I am in Solwezi now with internet, after finishing my 3rd and final site visit where I got a chance to live alone in the village I will spend the next 2 years of my life in, but more on that later. Tomorrow we return to Chipembi to start are final 2 weeks of training. I have to pass my final language exam, as well as take my technical training test, but I am not worried about either. Two Land Cruisers have flipped over in 2 weeks. Only once was it full of trainees, and, thank God, all are alive and well. I am anxious to gtfo of there and get to site.

3rd site visit was amazing. It is a very long car ride to get to my district and site. One day we spend on the road from Lusaka to Solwezi, spend the night, and then the following day head out further west. When I showed up, no one really was expecting me to be there, so for the first hour I was entertained by a local drunk. There is alot of drinking that goes on here in Zambia. Culturally is it only acceptable for the men, but it is very prevalent due to the lack of work. Too many people are out of work...
Finally my counterpart, Edward Ngundu and my headman Mr. Kapupa came with my house key. I was home at last. I was able to unpack some things, and sweep the hut. I found my cat, Honkers, and discovered she has 5 baby kittens. They have all been claimed already by other Volunteers, and one for the provincial house. They are really cute, and it helps keep me less lonely at night when they are there meowing and crying for mom. I didn't really do much my first day, but walk around and see the fish ponds, and also refuse drunken request after drunken request from people that see the white guy as a free ticket to anything they want.

One man, wanted me to send him to Tanzania to continue school, so that he could then go and take car of his mother who "is crying, she's crying right now for me..." Constantly saying "God is great and God loves all, and shares." Christianity is all well and good, but anyone could lead these people to believe anything so long as it was in the name of Jesus. I went to my Catholic church on Sunday, and the "priest" was (I didn't know at the time) one of my fish farmers. He was dressed in a Green Bay Packer's Jersey with a cross around his neck. The mass was quite entertaining because customs here in Zambia say that all the women sit on the left side, and all the men sit on the right. I tried to "break the gender roles" like they want us to do, and I sat with the women. BIG mistake. there was a young girl about 14 (age to begin thinking about marriage here in Zambia) and she sat right next to me. she kept sitting very close, and every time I would inch over she would inch with me... Then all the other women kept handing me their babies to hold and play with, and this sucks because I am not the biggest fan children here in Zambia. PVCs who play with the kids and spend time with them, are known to be chronically ill throughout their service. They cough, and are really dirty.

>>Side Note: This is also one of the things I really admire though. American mothers are overly protective of their children. 99% of them, and if any mother wishes to contest that, please come visit, because what you consider not being overly protective, you have no idea. Here kids are allowed to be kids. they play in very dangerous places, they drink and eat out of and off of very dirty dishes, they run around all the time bare foot, kids 10 years old swinging axes.... It is awesome.<<

So anyways mass went on with alot of singing, with drums and guitar like instruments. But only scripture was read, there was no Eucharistic part of the mass, because like I said the "priest" is actually more just like a leader of the readings.
Also on Sunday I had my first meeting with my co-op. We started by introductions, me introducing myself and my family back home in Lunda. It took a while but I explained what I used to do, what I went to school for, who my brothers and sisters are, where they live, what they do, and how old. Also all about my parents and about Manie. Then it was on to business. The previous volunteer Adam has put together a very capable group of fish farmers. They have many ponds and are highly organized. He also started a project that was awarded a grant, but to see that through to completion is up to me. The farmers are concerned about getting a hammer mill to begin producing fish feed. It is a really good project but it requires bank accounts, lots of invoices, and logistics to transport and build everything. The last part of the meeting was bitching about how I do not want to be annoyed by drunken men wanting cigarettes or whatever else this miracle worker can do for them. It was a serious discussion, and the conclusion to the meeting was that I will build a very large fence around my house, AND that anyone who would like to have words with me, must first go to my Headman (my closest neighbor and the boss of the entire village) and ask permission to see Mr. Bryanie. Only if he deems them of a clear mind and with important enough business, then they may come ask for me.

So, that said Monday I went to visit the school and the clinic. I met all the teachers and discussed the possibilities of building a library in Kanzala. I also met the local doctor who is a very bright young kid. The trouble with age in Zambia is that is it very hard to tell how old someone is. It is nothing like in the Western world. Literally a man might look 30, but is actually 21, or he looks 25, but is actually 40. There are kids, adults (no matter what age they look about the same), and then the very old... Spent the rest of the day reading, cooking, doing laundry, and contemplating where I wanted my fence to be built.

Today, the final day, I decided to stake out where I wanted my fence to be, but instead I put to work an army of young kids and we went hiking into the bush to cut down trees. We dropped 25 perfect trees; straight, strong, and thick. Then I had them dig 25 really deep holes, and put the posts in. A project that was really simple and only suppose to take 10 mins, turned into a huge project that would have taken me 2 days on my own, but instead it was finished in 2.5 hours. Now that I am gone, I have left it in the hands of my headman and the co-op to cut the bamboo and grass, and to thatch the actual fence all the way around. It is going to look really good, because my Chota (cooking shelter) is very big and round, and has a beautiful new thatched roof. the fence intersects it perfectly through the middle, so I have a semi circle "castle" like thing sticking out of my Fortress America. I can't wait to return and see how it came out.

Lastly the RAINS!!!! Holy holy holy RAIN. I had my first real storm, because it is the beginning of the rainy season, and it POURED. I think I have seen it rain that hard maybe 2 or 3 times in my entire life. and the lightening was out of this world. for 5 hours straight huge loud claps of thunder would shake the area. I would look our my front door into pitch black, and every 1-2 seconds a flash would temporarily light up the entire area! I felt like I was in a movie about Vietnam, waiting for some viet cong to come creeping out of the banana trees towards my hut. I am really looking forward to the rains to come.

OK well, I don't have my camera, I left it in Carlsie's backpack in Lusaka, so I once again can not post any pictures. But, when I do there might be just a few on here, but most of them will be in the form of albums on my facebook page. It is easier to upload lots of pics there. Love you all and hope this suffices for a little while!

Sorry that my last post was so short, but it is very hard to upload pictures where I was because the internet is very slow. Zambia has taught me many things, but the biggest thing is that time slows down and nothing is immediate.

I just got off of second site visit, where I actually got to go to Hunter's village and hangout a while. On he way I also got to stop and visit my village that I will be posted in! Might site is pretty amazing. I have a cat named Honkers that just gave birth two 5 kittens that are not even a week old. I also have 50ish fish ponds in my area owned by a very motivated fish farming co-op.

There are too many things I see everyday to talk about, but I did hear a pretty interesting story about witchcraft at site visit. The low down is that any animal that is active at night is probably possessed or owned by a witch. Also women are more powerful witches then men. Witch doctors are ok because they help the villages find witches. AND all witches are afraid of tobacco, so as long as you are chain smoking cigarettes walking around at night, you are safe... but the story is about these "things" that walk around my area at night. I don't remember the exact name but will begin writting down these tales when I get posted. They are masks, that are made by very powerful witches. They have to collect the hair, heart, and shadow of someone so that with these items they can inchant the mask. Then, at night they command the mask to go out and either kill someone specific, or protect the area. It is said that you can die just looking them in the eyes, and if you see one in the woods to run. But basically these maskes come alive and walk around looking for people. The freaky thing is that there are some volunteers that have actually seen AND been chased by these things before! Its pretty wild, how far into the African bush I am being posted. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am being placed directly in the heart of Africa.

Country elections are happening this week. It is a wild race between 3 big parties and tensions are running pretty high. It is pretty exciting to watch their process at work, but 29 people have died as of today! Don't worry though, we are all safe! But politics are so different here it is insane. Cars drive around all day with loud speakers ontop of them broadcasting campain speaches. Different parties will show up in our villages every other day and hand out chitenges (skirts/blankets), bikes, fertilizer for farmers, t-shirts, or anything else to get people to vote. In the village where we are training they just brought in a bunch of construction vehicles to "build" a road that they have been promising for years. They parked the bull dozer infront of the watering hole for a week and rebuilt the road about 2 miles to convince everyone in the area to keep the ruling party in place. But, the sad thing is that they only made the road look nice and added no gravel to it. So, come rainy season a month from now and after elections, everything is going to wash away and the village will have the same old shitty road. I won't mention party names, and I do not actually care who wins or not, but it is just fun to observe a political system so different.

Don't worry, By January these posts will be come much more regular. I have been kind of lucky to have extra access to computers recently, and I should be able to post again soonish. Love yall!

I lied, I'm back!

Just bought more time because I was able to load pictures onto this computer!!! here are some shots and I think one video of the village I visited during first site visit singing to us!

Me at the wedding with a random cling on

Paul my language teacher

sorry they take forever to load I will get back with more later!

I made it to Zambia!

Hey everyone I know it has been a long time since I have last posted but it is really hard to get onto the internet when you only have a really shitty phone and no service. I am in Lusaka today shopping and getting ready for my second site visit. I am going to Hunter's site for the visit but also have the advantage of getting to see my own site and where I will be living on the way. I know this has to be a very brief post because I have already spent 23 mins of my 30 minute allowance just trying to load this page.

Training is going great. At our first site visit we everyone I went with got food poisoning. It was very interesting, but I blame it on the vegetarian lifestyle... Zambia is really amazing. I have never met nicer people in my life. Everyone here believes that everyone is brothers and to be free.  I am training in a place called Chipembi it is north of Lusaka and I am pretty sure that you can find it on Google Earth. I am staying with a really nice host family in Suse village. Michael and I both live there. It is really hard getting used to all the biking we have to do all the time, but hopefully soon my legs will be conditioned.


My language is Lunda, so I will be posted up in the Northwest province of Zambia. I am headed to the village of Kanzala right on the Kabompo river between Solwezi and Mwinilunga. Since I have been in training I have build a chicken house with my host family, acquired a sling shot that I am becoming very good with, but have seen no real "african" wildlife. Many years ago there was a bad drought in Zambia and to feed themselves the Zambians killed just about every living thing they could find besides each other. But there are lots of game reserves around that you can visit to see elephants and the like.

Staging in Philadelphia went over pretty well without much problems. I was running on very little sleep, and to make matters worse we had to catch a bus to New York at 2:30a.m. on Wednesday. I volunteered to be one of 4 team leaders, but after a night out in Philly with all the new friends I became only one of 2 leaders that morning to get everyone to Africa. It as actually really funny, and we all still tease Sam about it now and again.

I got to go see a traditional wedding the other day which was very fun! There is a lot of dancing involved and it is custom that when dancing or seeing the bride and groom to shove money down her chest into her wedding dress. I think it is really funny how different it is between America and here, and I will post soon about only that! But for example little 14 year old girls in the states listen to taylor swift and constantly are glued to their ipods and phones. Here in Zambia and most of Africa they are carrying 5 gallon buckets of water filled to the top perfectly balanced on their heads! I will post pictures and videos of everything I am explaining. I have great pictures of my host family, some of the other trainees, and of life in general so far.

Hope all is well back home, and I will try to get back on soon! Love yall much!