So finally, a month and a half after my arrival in Zambia, I am updating my blog. My last two attempts to upload my blog entries were comedy of errors- a constant struggle between Zambian internet connection, myself and the fact that we only go into Lusaka every two or three weeks.
The past six weeks have been intense. We have class Monday- Friday from 8 to 5 and Saturday mornings until 12. We are learning language (I’m learning Bemba) in groups of 3 or biking to a local school working towards TEFL certification. It definitely keeps me very busy. Without electricity, my sleep schedule is waaaayyy different than my sleep schedule in America. Every day I am up by 6:30 and in bed by 8:30. I haven’t kept a schedule like that since elementary school. Also, I have been biking a TON! On the days we bike to the local school I easily average somewhere around 10 km. Biking was definitely something I was nervous about coming to Peace Corps Zambia but now I am definitely biking with the best of them. :)
Right now, I am at a pretty swanky internet café at the Manda Hills Shopping Mall in Lusaka. Tomorrow, we are all getting into land cruisers and going to heading to our Sites, where we will be living and working for the next two years! This time around we are going on something called site visit. We will only be staying at our new site for a week to get the “lay of the land” so to speak. That is we will be checking out our huts and seeing what repairs, if any, need to be made; seeing the school and meeting the teachers we will be teaching with; most importantly we will also be meeting the villagers and neighbors that will become our community and family for the next two years. After that, we will be staying with a current Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in the area for a couple of days before returning to Chongwe to complete our last month of training.
I will be living in (drumroll)….
Chinsanka Village, Luapula Province! The village is 50k away from the districts biggest city, Samfya and then another 40 or so km away from the Provincial capital, Mansa. My Head teacher assures me that both are very easy to reach in a couple of hours by motor-transport. Samfya city also lies along a huge lake whose beach is supposed to be beautiful. I will keep you all updated on that!
It’s hard to believe that after months of waiting in America and now a further month and a half of waiting here in Zambia, I will finally be seeing my future Zambian home in less 48 hrs. I know very little about it except that it is one kilometer or so from the school I will be teaching at and my water source (a borehole/handpump) and is complete with 3 rooms and a porch. I am also living very close to the village headman so my head teacher assures me that I will be very safe.
Well that’s it for now! Tomorrow we are off to our various sites. The six of us bound for Luapula Province are in for a 8-10hr drive. Wish us luck!
Tukamonana! (We will be seeing each other)
