Saturday, August 29, 2009

I'm going to Northern Province!!!

Just got my official site posting, and I'm headed to a site just northeast of Kasama in Northern Province. I'll be the first Peace Corps volunteer ever at that site (no pressure or anything!), and I'm leaving tomorrow (the 30th) to head up to Kasama for a week and a half. I'll let you know more when I get back!

Training Time

-- August 23rd, 2009 --
Life here in Zambia just keeps on trucking at breakneck pace. Two days after returning from our first site visit we were assigned to a language group (I’ll be learning Bemba!) and taken to live with our host families, where we will stay until the end of September. I’ll never forget the incredible nervousness, excitement, and anticipation we all experienced on that first night of homestay. A group of us - John, Leah, Angela, MaryEllen, Ashley, and I - were stuffed into the back of a Land Rover (again…), rehearsing our simple Bemba greeting more intensely than we’ve ever rehearsed anything in our lives! One-by-one the volunteers all said their anxious goodbyes, hopped out of the Land Rover and into the welcoming arms of their host family, anxiously reciting the aforementioned greeting to much smiles and applause. And just like that they were gone, disappearing into the sunset as we continued to the next volunteer’s house. It was at once a sad and exciting time - sad that our amazing Group of 42 was finally being separated, but exciting in that we each could look forward to our own unique homestay experience.





My new home at Ba Enock and Ba Robina's place





And for these past couple of weeks my homestay family has been absolutely incredible. My host father is 65 years young (and by young I mean not-a-single-grey-hair-on-his-head young), a retired Army contractor who is originally from Copperbelt province. My mother, also from Copperbelt Province, is the quintessential family matriarch - the one who really runs the show around this place. She has a quick and hearty laugh, and despite my dire warnings she has showed no qualms about entrusting me with the family cooking from time to time. I also have a host auntie who has been a truly unexpected blessing. She is in town only because she is sick (she’s waiting for surgery in Lusaka) but she is all smiles all the time. Every day she eagerly and patiently helps me through my often-futile attempts at constructing full Bemba sentences, and to her persistence I owe much of my current vocabulary. I also have a pair of teenage host brothers who are football-crazed maniacs, a trio of host sisters who love to play cards, and a whole gaggle of young kids, most of whom are probably not actually related to my family.


My host aunt, Justina, and Joshua, one of the chitlins around the house


Making nshima!


Our Peace Corps training here in Chongwe has been pretty intense thus far, but also incredibly rewarding. Every morning I meet with three other volunteers and a language trainer to learn Bemba for four hours straight. Learning language for four hours per day is quite mentally taxing, but boy is it effective! I’ve studied Spanish for five years and Chinese for two-and-a-half, and yet I think after these nine weeks of training I will be more proficient in Bemba than I ever was in those other languages.


After Bemba class I typically eat lunch with my host family and then bike eight or nine kilometers down the road (unpaved of course) to get to my technical fish-farming sessions. We do all sorts of crazy fish-farming activities in these sessions: we’ve measured and staked out a pond for construction, transported small fingerlings by bike for 13km, held fish-food-finding competitions, and actually harvested a local farmer’s pond. In the coming weeks we will perform a second, more serious harvest, which we may get a chance to sell in the local Chongwe market!








Looking forward, everyone here is holding their breath for next Thursday (the 27th), which is when we find out exactly which site we will be going to. As a Bemba speaker I know I will be going to either Central, Northern, or Luapula Province, but I’m still waiting on the specific details. And during the first week of Septembe we will go on a second, more extended site visit that will include a two-day stay at my site-to-be. So in two-weeks time I will be able to tell you all about the place in which I will be living for the next two years! But until then, stay well and enjoy those last few days of summer back in the States!


Field trip to Copperbelt Province

-- July 29, 2009 --

WOW! The Peace Corps certainly doesn’t waste any time getting our feet wet! After only four days in Zambia, the trainers split us up into small groups and sent us out into the bush to live with a current volunteer for a few days. What an adventure! My group of six trainees (plus our Host Volunteer, a driver, a stowaway Training leader, and luggage/food for everyone) all got stuffed into a single Land Rover for a ten-hour drive out to Copperbelt Province, where we received a brief but enlightening taste of life as a PC-Zambia volunteer.

Tight squeeze in the back of the Land Rover



Living conditions here are pretty spartan - I can see why Zambia has a reputation as the Peace Corps' most remote outpost. Volunteers live as one of the villagers, which usually means a small thatched-roof, mud-brick hut with no electricity or running water, using a pit latrine, cooking over an open charcoal fire, and taking bucket baths with water drawn from a well. Our site visit was no different.

Camping outside our host volunteer's mud-brick hut


THE 'BUSU!!! (short for 'icimbusu', the Bemba word for toilet)


But despite all the conveniences of my technologically superior Western upbringing, it's been surprisingly easy to adapt to this new Zambian lifestyle. In fact, the slower pace and lack of technology has in many ways been quite rewarding. Waking and sleeping with the daylight hours just feels so much more natural than those 1am college nights. And after a hard day's work under the scorching African sun, I actually really look forward to a crisp, refreshing, beneath-the-stars bucket bath. I've found that a book reads just a little bit better when its words are flickering in the candlelight, and I’m still discovering new possibilities in the world of one-pot cooking. I must admit I’m even becoming a fan of squat toilets (The genius of their design is that only the bottoms of your shoes ever touch anything dirty - imagine the wonders this could do at those appallingly-filthy gas station bathrooms back home)!


The highlight of our trip, however, was the day we spent meeting some of our host volunteer’s fish farmers. He made a point to introduce us to both his “good” and “bad” farmers, and the contrast was eye-opening. At one extreme was the farmer who designed and built his own two ponds, maintained them perfectly, and even developed his own farm integration system to irrigate his crops with excess fish-pond water (super-fertilized fish pond water works wonders on a maize crop). With the extra money he earned he’s managed to build a new house and put his kids through school. He also developed an appreciation for reading and wants to start a local library.


Checking out the local fish ponds!



On the other extreme was the farming co-op, which in theory wanted to have fish ponds but was unwilling to put in the work necessary to build and maintain the ponds. Instead they spend their time trying to secure free handouts, supplies, and labor from passing non-profit organizations. In the short term they benefit greatly from all those free goodies, but once the donors leave they are back in the same hole they've always been in. This co-op farmers had developed such a dependency on foreign aid that they'd lost sight of their own ability to generate income through hard work and an open mind. It was very disappointing to witness, but it’s a big problem here in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there are a ton of aid organizations spending a ton of money, but relatively few groups who have the skills and perseverence (emphasis on perseverance!) necessary to turn that money into truly sustainable improvements in the lives of Africans. That's why I'm in Peace Corps :-)

Saturday, August 22, 2009

IAMFINEHOWAREYOU!!!

--JULY 24, 2009 ---


Well, folks, it took four airplanes and ~22 hours of flight time, but I successfully made it to Zambia in one piece, along with 41 other superawesome Peace Corps Zambia trainees (yes, Hitchhiker fans, that means 42 of us total)! After convening in Washington D.C. for a day-long meet-and-greet, the entire group departed together on July 22nd for the Zambian capital of Lusaka. The whole trip was a rather surreal experience, filled with the complete range of human emotional expression. At one end were the teary goodbyes and thoughts of "what have I gotten myself into?" as I departed Kalamazoo. But that quickly turned to nervous excitement as I arrived in the D.C. airport, and began bumping into and meeting the other Volunteers (with their predictable age range and absurdly high luggage:person ratio, Peace Corps volunteers are surprisingly easy to spot in a crowded airport). And finally, by the time we'd all finished our D.C. -> Dakar -> Johannesburg -> Lusaka marathon, we were all chatting and joking like we'd been friends for years!






After arriving in Lusaka to the cheers and high-fives of PC-Zambia staff and volunteers, we hopped in the back of a Land Rover (our new favorite form of transport) and headed to a local government hostel just outside Lusaka. We've been staying there for the past few days getting our vaccinations and meeting the training staff, and we'll soon be heading out into the bush (i.e. getting thrown into the fire) on our first volunteer site visit. So far, though, Zambia seems like an incredible place; here are a few observations I've made thus far:

- Despite sharing a border with such conflicted countries as Zimbabwe, D.R. Congo, and Angola (or maybe because of that fact), Zambian culture seems to be obsessed with peacefulness. When a Zambian asks me what I think of their country, the greatest compliment I can give is to say "Zambia is peaceful" Rather than resort to violence, the 72 Tribes of Zambia seem perfectly content teasing each other good-naturedly about their various tribal stereotypes (i.e. Bembas are lazy, Nyanjas are dumb, Tongas are wierd, etc), and they are proud of the fact that they don't fight each other.

- Nshima, the Zambian staple food, also seems to hold a cult-like status. Nshima is a maize-based dough (think extrk-thick polenta) that you mold into small clumps with your hands, and then use to pick up other relishes like cabbage or chicken. It's really amazing, and I can see why people like it, but the extent to which Zambians revere this starchy substance is rather surprising. I've already heard several Zambians complain of moderate -to- severe lack of nourishment after being forced to "settle" for rice or pasta for a week.


- English may be the official language, but the only English I've heard spoken by native Zambians (apart from our PC trainers) is the word "IAMFINEHOWAREYOU!?!?" Yes, it is one word, and it is the only greeting I typically receive from anyone under the age of 20 (though I do receive the occasional "YOUAREFINE!!"). However, learning the main greetings of the two local languages - Bemba and Nyanja - scores me big points with the over-50 crowd. A simple "Muli Shani!" works like magic to induce beaming smiles (and rapid responses that I cannot understand) in all of the older folks I meet.

Well, that's about it for now. we're finishing up all our initial orientation session in Lusaka, and getting ready to head out to visit some current volunteers' sites. I'll let you know how that goes!