Hey everyone! I apologize for taking so long to get another post up! It's been a month now at my site! Adjusting to life at site has been pretty good, and work is coming along rather quickly, which I was definitely not expecting. My village is great, I've been making lots of friends, and my house is slowly coming together.
As far as work goes, I've been spending a lot of time at the school near my house, and traveling by bike to visit some of the other schools in my zone. One day a couple of weeks ago I biked over 100 km with my counterpart to visit 4 schools. I was extremely unprepared, and only brought one water bottle, and no food. It was pretty tough, especially on one part where we were carrying our bikes up a cliff! It was wonderful to arrive home to find my host family waiting with a hot bucket bath for me and some fresh nshima! Other work has involved teaching some of the teachers how to use the computer. My school has an old desktop computer with windows 98 on it, but at least it's something! I've also made a new friend at the school, she's an 8th grade student named Fridah. She has recently moved to Mungwi from Lusaka after her mother passed away. She speaks great English, and is the only student I can really communicate with, beyond small conversations about food, school, etc. She is very smart, and I'll probably be helping her with science, as she helps me with my laundry...and I definitely need it!
My village is fantastic! I live right on the compound with the headwoman and her family, so there's always something going on. They have a big insaka behind their house, which is used for meetings and other village gatherings. Recently, my village has started a dancing and cultural club, with drums and singing! I took some video footage, which I'll try to get posted up here if possible. They also had a blood donation drive, and some other workshops and meetings. I'm usually invited to most meetings, although I have a hard time following as they're mostly in Bemba. I've also made friends with tons of neighbors, and of course the kids. There are usually about 15 children hanging around my house, they love looking at my photos I brought (especially my calendar of the Boyd side of the family, thanks Mom!). They call them snaps, and have a lot of fun picking out Ba Laura in a sea of muzungus (white people).
So I'm in Kasama right now for our provincial meeting which happens every 6 months. When I left on Saturday, there were 5 people working to put cement on the floors of my house. I'm very excited to return to my new floors, I sure am sick of sweeping my mud floors multiple times per day. My time in Kasama has been great, tons of American food, and catching up with friends I haven't seen in a month. We had one meeting this morning, and another tomorrow. One of the PC staff from Lusaka is here to meet all the volunteers in Northern Province. Wednesday night we're heading out to camp at Chishimba Falls, some beautiful waterfalls about 45 km from Kasama.
There's a big football (soccer) match coming up on June 6th, Zambia's playing to qualify for the world cup...I expect you all to be watching. I will be, along with the rest of the country. I've been invited to one of my teacher's houses to watch the game, should be a ton of fun. Zambians love football!
I'm definitely getting used to life in Zambia, and enjoying every adventure! I hope summer is wonderful at home! I hear that camp started yesterday, it's strange not being there, I want to see tons of photos! Congratulations big bro for graduating from law school, Marigny from Vandy, and all the Trinity 09ers! I'm loving all the mail, please keep it coming, getting mail and emails is one of the my favorite things! I wish you all the best, happy June!
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