It's hard to believe that I've already been in country for a month - or is it more? or less? - i'm not really sure anymore. That said, there's something about time here that i can't quite wrap my mind around. It was just the other day that we were in Atlanta for staging and yet i often find myself counting the minutes that feel like hours.
There's plenty of stories to tell of the last month but I would be here all day writing about it. I'll do my best to paint a picture of my experience here. Zambia is known for being "the real Africa" and Peace Corps Zambia in every way embraces that philosophy. They say that if you're looking for the "real" Peace Corps experience - Zambia is the place to go. You hear stories of PC volunteers across the world with electricity, running water, toilet seats, and even internet not to mention beautiful beach front property. Well, you get none of that here in Zambia. We have candles, long treks to the water hole, we poop in holes, and we share living spaces with mice. However, we do get a mean mountain bike and my phone has internet...
I'm currently at the Provincial House in Kasama, the Northern Province of Zambia waiting to be transported by Land Cruiser to a current volunteers house where my days will be filled with learning Mambwe (one of 73 bantu languages...another post in itself) and seeing first hand how I will be trying to apply all the technical knowledge of fish farming that I've obviously mastered in the past 4 weeks along with the mambwe i've also mastered. I'll be posted about 38km from Mbala which itself is about 40km from Lake Tangynika. I should mention that Kasama is about a 12 hour Land Cruiser drive on good roads from Lusaka (the Capitol).
My time here is about up and should stop hogging the only computer in the house. Training is pretty hectic as PC tries to adequately prepare us for life in the village. Until I swear in as a volunteer (I'm currently a trainee) and I figure out how to live my new life (about 3 months from now) I have a sneaky suspicion that this blog will be quiet for some time.
kacili akasanya (translate: the day is still young...i think)
