so, in my endless time while i sit and wait for test results i thought i'd put up these two articles... they are pretty interesting. sorry, i couldn't figure out how to get them as links, so copy and paste. it's realllllly not hard!
first: an article about conflicting positions and arguments in today's world of microfinance. who does microfinance serve and how do we do that best? it's an article from the new yorker, oct 30th 2006. enjoy.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/30/061030fa_fact1
second: another new yorker article about water in india. after reading that the average american uses 400-600 litres of water A DAY, i calculated how much i use in my village and that maybe, maybe, if i do dishes, laundry, it's hot and i drink a lot, AND i bathe, i would use about 20. crazy. i don't, however, carry it on my head. though everyone else does. it's from oct 23rd, 2006. enjoy.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/23/061023fa_fact1
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
lusaka...
so, after 7 days and many many trips to my cimbusu (toilet) i am in lusaka for medical tests for a runny tummy... :-/ i'm still not sure what it is and it's definitely a bizarre sickness because mostly i'm feeling better except for my stomach just not feeling "right." i'm hoping to get test results today and head back up to kasama for peace corps meetings tomorrow and then back up to my site by sunday! :-) we'll see. fingers crossed.
that said... a description of my adventure down here might be amusing. i talked to the peace corps medical officer on sunday morning. all the buses from mpika to lusaka leave around 8 in the morning, so as i looked at my watch i realized i had missed all of them. so, sick, on a sunday morning i was going to try to hitch the 7 hours to lusaka.
i packed stuffed up, got my soccer balls back from the kids, got my cats to a new friend in town and walked down to the gas station. i waited for about an hour with about 5 cars passing me, until finally two guys in a white van stopped and asked where i was going. i said lusaka, a bit anxiously, hoping that they wouldn't laugh that i thought i could possibly go that far. to my amazement they said "well, today we're heading to serenje (about two and a half hours south of mpika) and then are continuing on to kabwe (two hours north of lusaka) tomorrow. but, if you want to come to serenje and continue on from there, you're welcome." i hopped in and got to serenje where i decided to spend the night at the peace corps house instead of sitting by the roadside with my fingers crossed and that i would have another ride at least half of the way the next day.
so, i hung out at the PC house where i took one of the hottest showers i've ever taken in my life. it was amazing. honestly, i know i've talked about showers before, but i think a hot shower is truly something i will forever be thankful for from now on. standing under running water, even as i know how much less water i CAN bathe with, is amazing.
then, i continued on the next day with chris, my new friend the driver, to kabwe. we spent the entire ride chatting, which was really nice... about zambia, about american political candidates, about egypt (which he travelled to for the africa cup last year and loved), about marriage and having children. he laughed that i thought i would start having kids around the age of 30. he said "that's when we STOP here in zambia!" then he dropped me off at the bus stop in kabwe and i waited to catch one of the many buses on their way to lusaka. luckily it only took about 20 minutes and i was in lusaka by 2 in the afternoon, only 28 hours after i had left my house in mpika. oy. and then made it quickly to the pc office.
since being in lusaka i've been staying with a family, which has been really nice. the peace corps has a bed and breakfast program that sets us up with american families in lusaka, which is so nice. it's nice to be in a house and the family i'm staying with has an almost 3 year old daughter who is the cutest thing. they are so sweet and worried about my tummy, which as it settles a bit can actually eat the food that they are feeding me! i've moved on from soup which is what i ate for most of last week. and they are just interesting to talk to and it's interesting to imagine a life as an ex-pat in lusaka...
lusaka has developed so much in the last 5-10 years that i think living here is pretty easy. a lot of the comforts that americans are used to are becoming easy to access in lusaka. whether that's reliable electricity and running water or spices from the new south african brand grocery stores or soft serve ice cream, you can find it. but lusaka is also a bit strange... each house is guarded and gated, each family seems to have a maid, a gardener, a guard, and struggles with how to be employers but not development workers but also kind and caring. it's definitely a strange world to try to navigate.
anyway, i'll close there and maybe get another update up soon. kisses! oh, also, i got SOME (very few!) pics up and unfortunately they are on facebook. so, check them out. but the computers even here can only put up pics slowly and one at a time. so that might be slow forever. but i might get a couple more up today. so, if you don't have facebook, get a kid to show you how to use it! haha.
that said... a description of my adventure down here might be amusing. i talked to the peace corps medical officer on sunday morning. all the buses from mpika to lusaka leave around 8 in the morning, so as i looked at my watch i realized i had missed all of them. so, sick, on a sunday morning i was going to try to hitch the 7 hours to lusaka.
i packed stuffed up, got my soccer balls back from the kids, got my cats to a new friend in town and walked down to the gas station. i waited for about an hour with about 5 cars passing me, until finally two guys in a white van stopped and asked where i was going. i said lusaka, a bit anxiously, hoping that they wouldn't laugh that i thought i could possibly go that far. to my amazement they said "well, today we're heading to serenje (about two and a half hours south of mpika) and then are continuing on to kabwe (two hours north of lusaka) tomorrow. but, if you want to come to serenje and continue on from there, you're welcome." i hopped in and got to serenje where i decided to spend the night at the peace corps house instead of sitting by the roadside with my fingers crossed and that i would have another ride at least half of the way the next day.
so, i hung out at the PC house where i took one of the hottest showers i've ever taken in my life. it was amazing. honestly, i know i've talked about showers before, but i think a hot shower is truly something i will forever be thankful for from now on. standing under running water, even as i know how much less water i CAN bathe with, is amazing.
then, i continued on the next day with chris, my new friend the driver, to kabwe. we spent the entire ride chatting, which was really nice... about zambia, about american political candidates, about egypt (which he travelled to for the africa cup last year and loved), about marriage and having children. he laughed that i thought i would start having kids around the age of 30. he said "that's when we STOP here in zambia!" then he dropped me off at the bus stop in kabwe and i waited to catch one of the many buses on their way to lusaka. luckily it only took about 20 minutes and i was in lusaka by 2 in the afternoon, only 28 hours after i had left my house in mpika. oy. and then made it quickly to the pc office.
since being in lusaka i've been staying with a family, which has been really nice. the peace corps has a bed and breakfast program that sets us up with american families in lusaka, which is so nice. it's nice to be in a house and the family i'm staying with has an almost 3 year old daughter who is the cutest thing. they are so sweet and worried about my tummy, which as it settles a bit can actually eat the food that they are feeding me! i've moved on from soup which is what i ate for most of last week. and they are just interesting to talk to and it's interesting to imagine a life as an ex-pat in lusaka...
lusaka has developed so much in the last 5-10 years that i think living here is pretty easy. a lot of the comforts that americans are used to are becoming easy to access in lusaka. whether that's reliable electricity and running water or spices from the new south african brand grocery stores or soft serve ice cream, you can find it. but lusaka is also a bit strange... each house is guarded and gated, each family seems to have a maid, a gardener, a guard, and struggles with how to be employers but not development workers but also kind and caring. it's definitely a strange world to try to navigate.
anyway, i'll close there and maybe get another update up soon. kisses! oh, also, i got SOME (very few!) pics up and unfortunately they are on facebook. so, check them out. but the computers even here can only put up pics slowly and one at a time. so that might be slow forever. but i might get a couple more up today. so, if you don't have facebook, get a kid to show you how to use it! haha.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
adventures and mishaps
ah, so i tried to update this yesterday and wrote up about a page and a half of what i had written and then somehow erased it. and the internet is so slow that i just gave up and came back in today!
things get better here each day; though they are still filled with so much up and down that it can really be exhausting at times. i feel like i am making friends and am at the same time lonely, i am starting to love cooking on my little brazier but get frustrated when i can't light it fast enough (i'm getting better at it!), i start to feel that i have ideas and/or plans for what i can do and offer here and then i go to a meeting in bemba and feel incompetent. all of it is, i know, a lesson in patience and i know that thigns are feeling better overall... but there re moments of such confusion and missing people that it definitely doesn't feel like home yet.
that said, i've had a bunch of adventures in the last couple weeks, one of which ended with me coming back to my village and feeling such relief that i was coming back to MY house... my bed, my dishes, my cats, my routines. so, that's nice. and, i now have furniture! which is amazing. sitting in a chair to read and listen to music is sooooo much better and makes it feel so much more settled.
so, adventures: two weeks ago i went down to visit another volunteer who lives about 25 km south of me, or so. she's a health volunteer who lvies near a mission hospital and i went down for the last week of the month when the hospital does outreach in far away villages for the under-5 clinics. we went to 4 villages and probably weighed over 300 babies! crazy. while we did that, there was a hospital nurse who was doing ante-natal and VCT (volunteer testing and counseling) for HIV counseling and results. it was all really interesting and also, at times, frustrating. sometimes it felt that the mothers have just created this monthly or bi-monthly routine, or which they don't understand much... go weigh baby, don't understand the graph or what to do if your baby is malnourished, and come back next month. maybe i'm wrong. i hope so because this is a very amateur observation... but it was def something i thought about a couple times over the three days.
who, you might ask, was the we in this situation? me and the other PC volunteer went with two hospital workers both days and then the first day also went with two dutch medical student volunteers who are doing a study on malnutrition and a zambian music/drama group that does outreach and education. watching them made me really really want to speak bemba better.
the last night that i was down there was actually one of the dutch volunteers birthdays, so we stayed in the hospital compound to celebrate. we made a yummy hamburger curry, took a warm bucket bath, watched a movie, charged our phones, and listened to music. amazing!
i got back to my house with a cemented floor in the front room, which is also amazing. it's so much easier to sweep and take care of and the house just feels much cleaner. unfortunately it was followed the next day by a random, fluke rainstorm (the rainy season is over!) which proved that my roof will, and does, leak. a lot. since then the windy season has also come in in full force and my roof now has a very clear hole in it. i think someone might fix it today, and i have plastic over my bed now, so i think my bed, at least, will be dry and junk free. that day though, my bed, my newly cemented floor, my clothes were all wet. and while attemping to nail some plastic to my walls to cover it all i stepped into a candle and my skirt caught on fire!! in retrospect, it was all pretty hilarious because i noticed right away and didn't get burned at all. but i know have one less skirt and i lespt in my sleeping bag that night so that my sheets could dry. :-)
another adventure, i went to a zambian wedding! which, in the midst of, i realized was either the same day or the day before (turns out the day before) my cousin aaron and denise's wedding in jamaica. it made me feel once again that the earth does little things to remind us of our many little connections. other examples were e-mails from friends literally the day after thinking of them... little, vivid memories of places and then a mention of that person somehow.
anyway, the wedding was interesting... it was at the pentecostal church and then the reception was at a restaurant in town. the wedding ceremony itself had a lot of familiar parts: rings, vows, white dress, veil... in some ways it felt TOO Familiar and reminded me that christianity was brought here and, in many ways, took over leaving little of the old traditions behind. people seem to feel a pressure to give up on the old "african" ways in order to prove their christianity... which seems sad to me. though, the women's clothes and yells and dacing and the beat of the music helped to remind us all that this was an African wedding.
the pastor made a lot of references to the bible and jesus which made me want to read the new testament. i'm putting it on my list. most seemed implausible. one example: he said that adam and eve were married in the garden of eden and that jesus officiated hence proving the divine sanctioning of marriage (old testament, i know) but, um really?! are you really saying that? oy.
the reception was also interseting. pretty structure with people dancing, the bride and groom feeding each other cake, some toasts... a bit bizarre in its structure. and they handed out packaged food because, as another volunteer said, otherwise people would take too much. so we sat and watched the whole thing and then maybe when we left there was dancing... not sure. i wanted to get home before dark.
ok, this is getting really long. since then it has been a bit quiet. this week the schools opened again, which is nice. i'll have more to do. i had several meetings in my village last week which made me feel like i have something to offer here, it was exciting. working with women's groups, doing business training, i'm starting a youth group tomorrow... though i got sick for the first time since being here really, which is frustrating. my stomach is very unhappy and yesterday and today i feel a bit yucky. i went to a meeting at the ministry of ed yesterday morning, then felt so yucky afterwards that i went to see a friend who runs an orphanage in town to see if she had a thermometer and if i could lie down. luckily she did, i didn't have a fever, and i feel asleep for two hours, waking up feeling, though not perfect, much better! so... hopefully tomorrow i'll be even better!
we have meetings in the provincial capital with all the peace corps volunteers in northern province next week, which i'm excited for. i'm excited to see the other people in my intake and here their stories and adventures. and it'll be nice to be somewhere else for a couple days.
anyway, i think i should stop. if you've read this far, amazing! people have been asking me if i need anything from america and i'm not sure what to say... i know it's expensive to send packages and i feel a bit silly asking for things. at the same time, mail is amazing! i've never felt so dependent on that little connection. so some simple ideas: boxed food (mac and cheese, cous cous), granola bars and snacks, chocolate, music, anything to read, anything that makes me feel pretty and clean (both very rare occurrences!), candles, things to give the kids to play with (games, balls, art supplies), batteries, pictures of you! but, really, letters are also just as good. i think if everyone reading this blog wrote a letter every two or three months i'd have a letter almost everyday! hehe, yay!
ok, i miss you all a lot. sooooo many kisses and some zambian love.
things get better here each day; though they are still filled with so much up and down that it can really be exhausting at times. i feel like i am making friends and am at the same time lonely, i am starting to love cooking on my little brazier but get frustrated when i can't light it fast enough (i'm getting better at it!), i start to feel that i have ideas and/or plans for what i can do and offer here and then i go to a meeting in bemba and feel incompetent. all of it is, i know, a lesson in patience and i know that thigns are feeling better overall... but there re moments of such confusion and missing people that it definitely doesn't feel like home yet.
that said, i've had a bunch of adventures in the last couple weeks, one of which ended with me coming back to my village and feeling such relief that i was coming back to MY house... my bed, my dishes, my cats, my routines. so, that's nice. and, i now have furniture! which is amazing. sitting in a chair to read and listen to music is sooooo much better and makes it feel so much more settled.
so, adventures: two weeks ago i went down to visit another volunteer who lives about 25 km south of me, or so. she's a health volunteer who lvies near a mission hospital and i went down for the last week of the month when the hospital does outreach in far away villages for the under-5 clinics. we went to 4 villages and probably weighed over 300 babies! crazy. while we did that, there was a hospital nurse who was doing ante-natal and VCT (volunteer testing and counseling) for HIV counseling and results. it was all really interesting and also, at times, frustrating. sometimes it felt that the mothers have just created this monthly or bi-monthly routine, or which they don't understand much... go weigh baby, don't understand the graph or what to do if your baby is malnourished, and come back next month. maybe i'm wrong. i hope so because this is a very amateur observation... but it was def something i thought about a couple times over the three days.
who, you might ask, was the we in this situation? me and the other PC volunteer went with two hospital workers both days and then the first day also went with two dutch medical student volunteers who are doing a study on malnutrition and a zambian music/drama group that does outreach and education. watching them made me really really want to speak bemba better.
the last night that i was down there was actually one of the dutch volunteers birthdays, so we stayed in the hospital compound to celebrate. we made a yummy hamburger curry, took a warm bucket bath, watched a movie, charged our phones, and listened to music. amazing!
i got back to my house with a cemented floor in the front room, which is also amazing. it's so much easier to sweep and take care of and the house just feels much cleaner. unfortunately it was followed the next day by a random, fluke rainstorm (the rainy season is over!) which proved that my roof will, and does, leak. a lot. since then the windy season has also come in in full force and my roof now has a very clear hole in it. i think someone might fix it today, and i have plastic over my bed now, so i think my bed, at least, will be dry and junk free. that day though, my bed, my newly cemented floor, my clothes were all wet. and while attemping to nail some plastic to my walls to cover it all i stepped into a candle and my skirt caught on fire!! in retrospect, it was all pretty hilarious because i noticed right away and didn't get burned at all. but i know have one less skirt and i lespt in my sleeping bag that night so that my sheets could dry. :-)
another adventure, i went to a zambian wedding! which, in the midst of, i realized was either the same day or the day before (turns out the day before) my cousin aaron and denise's wedding in jamaica. it made me feel once again that the earth does little things to remind us of our many little connections. other examples were e-mails from friends literally the day after thinking of them... little, vivid memories of places and then a mention of that person somehow.
anyway, the wedding was interesting... it was at the pentecostal church and then the reception was at a restaurant in town. the wedding ceremony itself had a lot of familiar parts: rings, vows, white dress, veil... in some ways it felt TOO Familiar and reminded me that christianity was brought here and, in many ways, took over leaving little of the old traditions behind. people seem to feel a pressure to give up on the old "african" ways in order to prove their christianity... which seems sad to me. though, the women's clothes and yells and dacing and the beat of the music helped to remind us all that this was an African wedding.
the pastor made a lot of references to the bible and jesus which made me want to read the new testament. i'm putting it on my list. most seemed implausible. one example: he said that adam and eve were married in the garden of eden and that jesus officiated hence proving the divine sanctioning of marriage (old testament, i know) but, um really?! are you really saying that? oy.
the reception was also interseting. pretty structure with people dancing, the bride and groom feeding each other cake, some toasts... a bit bizarre in its structure. and they handed out packaged food because, as another volunteer said, otherwise people would take too much. so we sat and watched the whole thing and then maybe when we left there was dancing... not sure. i wanted to get home before dark.
ok, this is getting really long. since then it has been a bit quiet. this week the schools opened again, which is nice. i'll have more to do. i had several meetings in my village last week which made me feel like i have something to offer here, it was exciting. working with women's groups, doing business training, i'm starting a youth group tomorrow... though i got sick for the first time since being here really, which is frustrating. my stomach is very unhappy and yesterday and today i feel a bit yucky. i went to a meeting at the ministry of ed yesterday morning, then felt so yucky afterwards that i went to see a friend who runs an orphanage in town to see if she had a thermometer and if i could lie down. luckily she did, i didn't have a fever, and i feel asleep for two hours, waking up feeling, though not perfect, much better! so... hopefully tomorrow i'll be even better!
we have meetings in the provincial capital with all the peace corps volunteers in northern province next week, which i'm excited for. i'm excited to see the other people in my intake and here their stories and adventures. and it'll be nice to be somewhere else for a couple days.
anyway, i think i should stop. if you've read this far, amazing! people have been asking me if i need anything from america and i'm not sure what to say... i know it's expensive to send packages and i feel a bit silly asking for things. at the same time, mail is amazing! i've never felt so dependent on that little connection. so some simple ideas: boxed food (mac and cheese, cous cous), granola bars and snacks, chocolate, music, anything to read, anything that makes me feel pretty and clean (both very rare occurrences!), candles, things to give the kids to play with (games, balls, art supplies), batteries, pictures of you! but, really, letters are also just as good. i think if everyone reading this blog wrote a letter every two or three months i'd have a letter almost everyday! hehe, yay!
ok, i miss you all a lot. sooooo many kisses and some zambian love.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
two weeks
where can i possibly begin? i got to site two weeks ago tomorrow and it's been a roller coaster two weeks. the first week or so was incredibly overwhelming and incredibly up and down... a lot of feeling like i have no idea what i'm doing here or what exactly i have to offer a community so different from anything i've ever known. on wednesday i went to a meeting at the school near my house which was all in bemba and which i left thinking "i will never understand this language..." and, that possibly, if there was anything specific that i would get out of this experience, it would be that i should live near my family and the people i love in the future.
but, then sometime around friday last week something clicked a bit. there are a couple women near me who are becoming friends and who stop by just to say hello or sweet dreams. i've been to a couple people's houses for nshima and some of my other neighbors have brought by other food. i have two kittens, rex and chibwabwa, who are really cute and keep me happy and give me company. chibwabwa means pumpkin leaves in bemba and the kids LOVE that that is his name. rex was named by the man working on my toilet and is actually a really hard word for bemba speakers to pronounce, so she has become lex or blecks a lot of the time.
i've started to work on creating a daily routine of sorts. my house is a two room mud hut with a grass-thatched roof at edge of a village and right by a new school. i usually wake up around 6 and feed the cats, brush my teeth and wake up a bit. then i try to do yoga, find the BBC on my radio (sometimes i try to listen in arabic for old time's sake!), and make myself breakfast. the morning then proceeds on with looking at some bemba, reading about peace corps and my project, looking at some of the workshops and such that people have done and all the books and resources peace corps gave us. i then head into town or to the ministry or to the school near or another school in town which is the zonal head school that i will be working with or other schools around the zone. i spend time doing that until lunch when i come back to my site, play with the cats and kids, sometimes explore my area, the hills, the schools or visit people. then, around 16:00 i bathe and start a fire by 17:00, cook dinner and try to chase the kids away by 18:00 so that i have time to read, write letters, study more bemba, play with the cats and i'm usually in bed and heading to sleep by 20:30 or so.
there have been several other peace corps volunteers who have been around lately so that's been helpful for starting to create a support network. they've all been here for 7 months to two years. on thursday i'll head up to one of the HIV/AIDS volunteer's sites, then next week i'll head out to see a health volunteer's site and visit some clinics with her. maybe the following week i'll work with her and another volunteer on a project that works with women and vulnerable children around craft training. the first three months at our site are really about learning about our community and what is going on here. so at first that seemed daunting, now it seems that there are more opportunities each day and that i have so much to learn before i can offer anything. the schools open again for the second term may 7th and then we have meetings in kasama with all the northern province volunteers from may 16th - 19th... so i think it might be june before i know it.
one of the most difficult things for me is to figure out how to graciously accept my neighbors' kindness and also say no to requests. everyone asks me for things. from water to money to food to biscuits... and i know that i can't feed a village, even as they are so kind to feed me. it's gotten to be a lot less though. i think as people see that i am there to live and to work they have stopped seeing me as someone who can always give give give. but, it makes me think a lot of the development system that we have created, in sub-saharan africa particularly, but in the world as a whole. the development workers, who are usually white, come in brieftly with money and resources to give away and without much local language ability. there are too many people who need too much and thus they all ask because "why not?" maybe they'll be lucky.
peace corps though, fits into this somewhat awkward spot where we are wealthy americans who do have enough money to live and travel on our own and yet what we are offering is our time, our presence, our commitment. we don't have money to build a school, feed a village. so, how does that work exactly? i don't pretend to have any answers right now. but it's definitely an interesting and challenging way to think about what we can do or offer and how to empower people.
i've started to think more and more that development is about teaching people that they have the power to change their own lives. this is difficult because so often they don't. they just don't have that power because they don't have any resources to access. but i think in some ways that's what i'm starting to think of myself as here to do... to lead by example and show how to link up opportunities and network. and there are some teachers at the schools and the ministry and people in my village who already seem so ready to do that. so, we'll see.
some of my other ideas for projects include doing some work in conflict resolution training, working with the clinic to work with young women about decisions around sex and how to talk about condoms (there are SO many young mothers and so many women who i've heard say "this is the last one." and i wonder if it actually will be), working with an orpahage in mpika that has a lot of support in the UK to make friendship bracelets to sell and fundraise in the UK (and maybe america), teach a photography class to kids (is there anyone who thinks they might be able to find cameras to donate to me?!)... and none of this will actually start happening for a while as i still try to use the next couple months to learn learn learn.
on that note, i think i'll close. this is long. but i miss people so much. each day i have moments where i think of specific people and how much i miss you all at home. i'm getting really good at writing letters and i will really write back to anyone who writes. i love the letters and though my western internet speed mind struggles with how to adjust to communication that takes weeks, it's something i'm also starting to love. and, it makes me feel not nearly as far away when i see all your lovely names either in my e-mail inbox or my po box! keep it up. it helps keep me sane!
but, then sometime around friday last week something clicked a bit. there are a couple women near me who are becoming friends and who stop by just to say hello or sweet dreams. i've been to a couple people's houses for nshima and some of my other neighbors have brought by other food. i have two kittens, rex and chibwabwa, who are really cute and keep me happy and give me company. chibwabwa means pumpkin leaves in bemba and the kids LOVE that that is his name. rex was named by the man working on my toilet and is actually a really hard word for bemba speakers to pronounce, so she has become lex or blecks a lot of the time.
i've started to work on creating a daily routine of sorts. my house is a two room mud hut with a grass-thatched roof at edge of a village and right by a new school. i usually wake up around 6 and feed the cats, brush my teeth and wake up a bit. then i try to do yoga, find the BBC on my radio (sometimes i try to listen in arabic for old time's sake!), and make myself breakfast. the morning then proceeds on with looking at some bemba, reading about peace corps and my project, looking at some of the workshops and such that people have done and all the books and resources peace corps gave us. i then head into town or to the ministry or to the school near or another school in town which is the zonal head school that i will be working with or other schools around the zone. i spend time doing that until lunch when i come back to my site, play with the cats and kids, sometimes explore my area, the hills, the schools or visit people. then, around 16:00 i bathe and start a fire by 17:00, cook dinner and try to chase the kids away by 18:00 so that i have time to read, write letters, study more bemba, play with the cats and i'm usually in bed and heading to sleep by 20:30 or so.
there have been several other peace corps volunteers who have been around lately so that's been helpful for starting to create a support network. they've all been here for 7 months to two years. on thursday i'll head up to one of the HIV/AIDS volunteer's sites, then next week i'll head out to see a health volunteer's site and visit some clinics with her. maybe the following week i'll work with her and another volunteer on a project that works with women and vulnerable children around craft training. the first three months at our site are really about learning about our community and what is going on here. so at first that seemed daunting, now it seems that there are more opportunities each day and that i have so much to learn before i can offer anything. the schools open again for the second term may 7th and then we have meetings in kasama with all the northern province volunteers from may 16th - 19th... so i think it might be june before i know it.
one of the most difficult things for me is to figure out how to graciously accept my neighbors' kindness and also say no to requests. everyone asks me for things. from water to money to food to biscuits... and i know that i can't feed a village, even as they are so kind to feed me. it's gotten to be a lot less though. i think as people see that i am there to live and to work they have stopped seeing me as someone who can always give give give. but, it makes me think a lot of the development system that we have created, in sub-saharan africa particularly, but in the world as a whole. the development workers, who are usually white, come in brieftly with money and resources to give away and without much local language ability. there are too many people who need too much and thus they all ask because "why not?" maybe they'll be lucky.
peace corps though, fits into this somewhat awkward spot where we are wealthy americans who do have enough money to live and travel on our own and yet what we are offering is our time, our presence, our commitment. we don't have money to build a school, feed a village. so, how does that work exactly? i don't pretend to have any answers right now. but it's definitely an interesting and challenging way to think about what we can do or offer and how to empower people.
i've started to think more and more that development is about teaching people that they have the power to change their own lives. this is difficult because so often they don't. they just don't have that power because they don't have any resources to access. but i think in some ways that's what i'm starting to think of myself as here to do... to lead by example and show how to link up opportunities and network. and there are some teachers at the schools and the ministry and people in my village who already seem so ready to do that. so, we'll see.
some of my other ideas for projects include doing some work in conflict resolution training, working with the clinic to work with young women about decisions around sex and how to talk about condoms (there are SO many young mothers and so many women who i've heard say "this is the last one." and i wonder if it actually will be), working with an orpahage in mpika that has a lot of support in the UK to make friendship bracelets to sell and fundraise in the UK (and maybe america), teach a photography class to kids (is there anyone who thinks they might be able to find cameras to donate to me?!)... and none of this will actually start happening for a while as i still try to use the next couple months to learn learn learn.
on that note, i think i'll close. this is long. but i miss people so much. each day i have moments where i think of specific people and how much i miss you all at home. i'm getting really good at writing letters and i will really write back to anyone who writes. i love the letters and though my western internet speed mind struggles with how to adjust to communication that takes weeks, it's something i'm also starting to love. and, it makes me feel not nearly as far away when i see all your lovely names either in my e-mail inbox or my po box! keep it up. it helps keep me sane!
Monday, April 02, 2007
t minus 24 hours
oh so much has happened, i feel like this entry might be a little all over the place. i have pics up on snapfish (i think, fingers crossed) and will hopefully send a link out for those soon. i'll try to put up a couple on here and if you don't get a snapfish link and want it, e-mail me! :-)
i'm in lusaka today. we came in thursday and then swore in as volunteers on friday at the peace corps office. i didn't really expect to be very moved by the ceremony, kind of anticipating that it would be silly, but it was more moving that i thought. it was a little silly, but there was something more meaningful than i expected about finally becoming a volunteer. that i'm here! that i'm now part of this bigger community. that i'm not heading off on my own. that i get to create this experience in a way that i want from now on... it's crazy.
then after swearing-in we loaded up all the vehicles saturday morning and people headed out to their provinces. all my stuff and my life was sent up on a vehicle while me and two other people in my group stayed in lusaka for passover. we're going to seder at the synagogue tonight, which should be really interesting. i'm excited. i think it's mostly expats who are involved, but we'll see! we made gefilte fish yesterday with the woman we're staying with which was SO yummy! and had mexican food for dinner and a washing machine for our clothes! pretty wonderful.
i head up to my site tomorrow, bright and early and then get "posted" on wed. that means that i'll do shopping for my house (buckets, jerry cans, a brazier etc) and then they'll drop me off and i get to figure out what's next. it's a little crazy... that in 48 hours i'll prob be alone at my site trying to unpack, hang pictures, put my mosquito net up, figure out how/where to get water, and where all the schools i'm working with are.
the first three months at our sites are called "community entry." that means that we have time to create our lives, figure out how to live and make routines, figure out where we are and where other people live, watch and observe our schools and the teachers we work with, and mostly do needs-assessment and network. i'm excited and feel a lot more ready than i thought i would. i kind of anticipated feeling only terrified about going off my own and that i would have no idea what to do once i got there. and terror is def. involved in the equation, but it's also excitement to finally be going, to finally be figuring out what my community needs, what i have to offer, and what these two years might look like a bit more.
i'm also so excited to start creating my own routines... yoga, cooking, riding my bike, reading, planting a garden. i've already read five books here. i just finished obama's first book, which i loved. i think partly that was because it seemed so relevant to my time here. his writing about community organizing and africa just resonated so strongly. so i'll have time to do all of that, things i haven't had time to do in so long!
the fear is mostly about worrying that i might not really have much to do, that i won't know what to do or that my village will expect different things from me... i think day 3 is what i'm scared about. once things are unpacked and my day is unstructured and i don't know what to do next, will i feel lonely? will i feel like i have nothing to offer? will i feel depressed and confused about development? i don't know, i hope not. or i hope just a little, so that life feels grounded but not overwhelming.
anyway, i feel like i haven't done a very good job and of explaining things in this entry, but maybe that's because things feel so scattered for me. i'm excited that i'm about to settle down for longer than i have since high school! and you're all still welcome to visit!
i'm in lusaka today. we came in thursday and then swore in as volunteers on friday at the peace corps office. i didn't really expect to be very moved by the ceremony, kind of anticipating that it would be silly, but it was more moving that i thought. it was a little silly, but there was something more meaningful than i expected about finally becoming a volunteer. that i'm here! that i'm now part of this bigger community. that i'm not heading off on my own. that i get to create this experience in a way that i want from now on... it's crazy.
then after swearing-in we loaded up all the vehicles saturday morning and people headed out to their provinces. all my stuff and my life was sent up on a vehicle while me and two other people in my group stayed in lusaka for passover. we're going to seder at the synagogue tonight, which should be really interesting. i'm excited. i think it's mostly expats who are involved, but we'll see! we made gefilte fish yesterday with the woman we're staying with which was SO yummy! and had mexican food for dinner and a washing machine for our clothes! pretty wonderful.
i head up to my site tomorrow, bright and early and then get "posted" on wed. that means that i'll do shopping for my house (buckets, jerry cans, a brazier etc) and then they'll drop me off and i get to figure out what's next. it's a little crazy... that in 48 hours i'll prob be alone at my site trying to unpack, hang pictures, put my mosquito net up, figure out how/where to get water, and where all the schools i'm working with are.
the first three months at our sites are called "community entry." that means that we have time to create our lives, figure out how to live and make routines, figure out where we are and where other people live, watch and observe our schools and the teachers we work with, and mostly do needs-assessment and network. i'm excited and feel a lot more ready than i thought i would. i kind of anticipated feeling only terrified about going off my own and that i would have no idea what to do once i got there. and terror is def. involved in the equation, but it's also excitement to finally be going, to finally be figuring out what my community needs, what i have to offer, and what these two years might look like a bit more.
i'm also so excited to start creating my own routines... yoga, cooking, riding my bike, reading, planting a garden. i've already read five books here. i just finished obama's first book, which i loved. i think partly that was because it seemed so relevant to my time here. his writing about community organizing and africa just resonated so strongly. so i'll have time to do all of that, things i haven't had time to do in so long!
the fear is mostly about worrying that i might not really have much to do, that i won't know what to do or that my village will expect different things from me... i think day 3 is what i'm scared about. once things are unpacked and my day is unstructured and i don't know what to do next, will i feel lonely? will i feel like i have nothing to offer? will i feel depressed and confused about development? i don't know, i hope not. or i hope just a little, so that life feels grounded but not overwhelming.
anyway, i feel like i haven't done a very good job and of explaining things in this entry, but maybe that's because things feel so scattered for me. i'm excited that i'm about to settle down for longer than i have since high school! and you're all still welcome to visit!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
feeling settled
so, another update.
i've been in kasama, the capital of northern province since saturday and have been staying at the peace corps house up here. in zambia there are peace corps houses in each of the provinces which are places volunteers can come to take a shower, use a real stove, go grocery shopping, rest if you're sick etc. zambia is one of the few countries that still has this and it's been great. it's a little compound and it's been very very good to have some down time. i think it was actually the first time that i've started to feel settled and relaxed since i've been here. and one of the first times that i've got to have interesting conversations with other volunteers about things unrelated to zambia. so exciting to realize that i'm around interesting creative people. because i felt like i knew it was true but that i hadn't had much time to explore the other people AT ALL.
anyway, you have no idea how much you take your shower head for granted! not that bucket baths are bad... a couple weeks ago i was standing in my ulusasa (shower shelter) as it rained in the distance but the sun set over me and there was a HUGE rainbow in front of me. what could be more amazing? out in the open african air showering with a beautiful rainbow! that said, showers are pretty amazing.
other than that my week has been pretty uneventful. i think taking the bus and getting out of mpika was a really good way to move on from my ipod and solar charger loss. i think i was bummed that a connection to something comforting was lost, but also that on top of that my sense of comfort and space was violated, that i wanted to believe that things were safer and they weren't. it was a good thing to be reminded of and it was a good thing to physically be able to move on to another PLACE in order to help myself get over it. so, i'm feeling much better about it! if anyone wants to send CDs of fun music my way, they will DEFINITELY be listened to! hehe.
we've been studying bemba all week at the house which is feeling frustrating. we've been moving onto conversations about what we're doing here and opinions about politics and the health and education systems. we will be tested in two and half weeks and have to prove ourselfs "proficient," whatever that means. but quite frankly, i still haven't mastered the present tense, so i feel like we're jumping ahead and really losing out on the basics. it's frustrating and it's even more frustrating that that's kind of what's expected. i think it would be much better to just drill the tenses and vocabulary. but instead we move on very quickly and there is very little re-enforcement. not exactly my learning style. so, when i get to my site i might be able to kind of say, incorrectly that i work in education and that peace corps is a development agency, but if my bamaayo (mother) tells me that she is going to the market tomorrow, i might very well think she said she went yesterday. great.
anyway, i'll wrap up because i've been on this computer for a while. a couple people asked in e-mails if i've been sick. (knock on wood) i've been very healthy. there have been people in my group who have already gotten various illnesses, from malaria to strange bug bites. but, thankfully, other that some occasional dehydrated lightheadedness or stomachaches, i've been really good. maybe my stomach was hardened after cairene street food!
i miss you all and hope everyone's well and really would love to hear from you! i check e-mail (sporadically) but LOVE to see your names and thoughts and stories. so, keep sending and i'll try to write back as much as possible!
i've been in kasama, the capital of northern province since saturday and have been staying at the peace corps house up here. in zambia there are peace corps houses in each of the provinces which are places volunteers can come to take a shower, use a real stove, go grocery shopping, rest if you're sick etc. zambia is one of the few countries that still has this and it's been great. it's a little compound and it's been very very good to have some down time. i think it was actually the first time that i've started to feel settled and relaxed since i've been here. and one of the first times that i've got to have interesting conversations with other volunteers about things unrelated to zambia. so exciting to realize that i'm around interesting creative people. because i felt like i knew it was true but that i hadn't had much time to explore the other people AT ALL.
anyway, you have no idea how much you take your shower head for granted! not that bucket baths are bad... a couple weeks ago i was standing in my ulusasa (shower shelter) as it rained in the distance but the sun set over me and there was a HUGE rainbow in front of me. what could be more amazing? out in the open african air showering with a beautiful rainbow! that said, showers are pretty amazing.
other than that my week has been pretty uneventful. i think taking the bus and getting out of mpika was a really good way to move on from my ipod and solar charger loss. i think i was bummed that a connection to something comforting was lost, but also that on top of that my sense of comfort and space was violated, that i wanted to believe that things were safer and they weren't. it was a good thing to be reminded of and it was a good thing to physically be able to move on to another PLACE in order to help myself get over it. so, i'm feeling much better about it! if anyone wants to send CDs of fun music my way, they will DEFINITELY be listened to! hehe.
we've been studying bemba all week at the house which is feeling frustrating. we've been moving onto conversations about what we're doing here and opinions about politics and the health and education systems. we will be tested in two and half weeks and have to prove ourselfs "proficient," whatever that means. but quite frankly, i still haven't mastered the present tense, so i feel like we're jumping ahead and really losing out on the basics. it's frustrating and it's even more frustrating that that's kind of what's expected. i think it would be much better to just drill the tenses and vocabulary. but instead we move on very quickly and there is very little re-enforcement. not exactly my learning style. so, when i get to my site i might be able to kind of say, incorrectly that i work in education and that peace corps is a development agency, but if my bamaayo (mother) tells me that she is going to the market tomorrow, i might very well think she said she went yesterday. great.
anyway, i'll wrap up because i've been on this computer for a while. a couple people asked in e-mails if i've been sick. (knock on wood) i've been very healthy. there have been people in my group who have already gotten various illnesses, from malaria to strange bug bites. but, thankfully, other that some occasional dehydrated lightheadedness or stomachaches, i've been really good. maybe my stomach was hardened after cairene street food!
i miss you all and hope everyone's well and really would love to hear from you! i check e-mail (sporadically) but LOVE to see your names and thoughts and stories. so, keep sending and i'll try to write back as much as possible!
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
my new address and my site
hello hello all,
so, i'm on my second site visit which is actually to MY site!!! i'm going to be living in the town of kamwanya (it's actually pronounced how you would think it is... bemba is easy to pronounce once you see it written). it is about 3 km outside of the BOMA of Mpika (pronounced Impika), which is the capital of the district of mpika. and, there's internet! if slow, it's pretty exciting.
i saw my house yesterday. it's huge! at least by my current zambian standards. i have two rooms, lots of light, a big yard (though i might have to plant some hedges so that i have a BIT more privacy). i'll be living very close to a brand new school. since january they have started with three first grade classes, a second grade and a third grade. they use the radio program that we work with, which is exciting and a really interesting teaching tool. though, i heard they don't get the best reception, so we might have to trouble shoot around ways to deal with that. they have two rooms right now and are in the process of building three more so that for the second term (which starts in may) they will also add a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. it's pretty exciting and actually looks like a really nice new building. i still haven't brought my camera cable and i think that putting picturs up might take FOREVER, but i will try sometime soon. my house is about 100 meters from the school and a short walk up a hill from a boor hole with good water. they still have to put a door on it and build the walls for my toilet, but they have a month, so i think it will happen. also, everyone says that because they met me yesterday and they now have a face and a name, they will get it all done much more quickly. yay! i'll try to get a pic of that up eventually as well.
i'm staying with a volunteer who has been here for the past three years. he's an older man who also did a peace corps service in st. lucia first and he's been incredibly helpful. he's obviously well known and people seem to really know him and respect him. so he keeps reminding me that "you get to do things your own way!" but i think that i shouldn't have any fears about replacing someone who is so well respected in the BOMA and with the district ministry of education officials. also, he's been living IN the BOMA, so i will actually be the first person in my village, which is exciting. he's also just been really nice to me, trying to tell me everything he can think of that might be helpful.
today, we went around with the zonal head teacher who is the head teacher of the zonal head school in my area (Zambia's education system is divided into many levels: national, the 9 provinces, districts in all the provinces, and then ZONES in all the districts). my job is going to be primarily working with the zonal head school to develop a resource center and monitoring activities in my zone, so that schools are monitored, teachers are trained, and professional development opportunities are provided. we went around with the two zonal officers to visit three schools today, which was very interesting. they all seem pretty organized and i haven't yet been able to figure out if the ideas are there but the implementation isn't or if things are really going as smoothly as they seem. i suspect the former. i will also get to do anything else that seems interesting i think, and a friend of mine here and i have really been looking into what kind of micro-finance opportunities there are here. it seems like there are very few, so we're both interested in seeing where we can go with that, if possible.
anyway, i also have my new address!
Hannah Lantos - PCV
P.O. BOX 450100
Mpika, Northern Province
ZAMBIA
i'm going to try to update the side, but it might take too long. so, anything you mail after say the 10th of march, should probably just be sent to this address and then when i move in, it'll be waiting for me instead of getting lost in lusaka. i can't tell you all how happy mail makes me! it's such a light and a feeling of connection, so even just a postcard! send an address and i promise i'll write back. :-)
in other news, there's a synagogue in lusaka and i think peace corps is going to let me spend an extra night in lusaka after staging so that i can go to a passover seder for the first night! it should be fun. i'm pretty excited since i think that will be comforting.
otherwise, things are going really well and as i get to see my site and meet people this all starts to feel like i have an image of what my life is going to be like. the hardest part about training for me has been feeling like i am completely incapable of planning, that i know so little that i just have to take things as they come and it finally feels like i can think past the "now now," as zambians say! i miss everyone and i hope you're all well!
so, i'm on my second site visit which is actually to MY site!!! i'm going to be living in the town of kamwanya (it's actually pronounced how you would think it is... bemba is easy to pronounce once you see it written). it is about 3 km outside of the BOMA of Mpika (pronounced Impika), which is the capital of the district of mpika. and, there's internet! if slow, it's pretty exciting.
i saw my house yesterday. it's huge! at least by my current zambian standards. i have two rooms, lots of light, a big yard (though i might have to plant some hedges so that i have a BIT more privacy). i'll be living very close to a brand new school. since january they have started with three first grade classes, a second grade and a third grade. they use the radio program that we work with, which is exciting and a really interesting teaching tool. though, i heard they don't get the best reception, so we might have to trouble shoot around ways to deal with that. they have two rooms right now and are in the process of building three more so that for the second term (which starts in may) they will also add a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. it's pretty exciting and actually looks like a really nice new building. i still haven't brought my camera cable and i think that putting picturs up might take FOREVER, but i will try sometime soon. my house is about 100 meters from the school and a short walk up a hill from a boor hole with good water. they still have to put a door on it and build the walls for my toilet, but they have a month, so i think it will happen. also, everyone says that because they met me yesterday and they now have a face and a name, they will get it all done much more quickly. yay! i'll try to get a pic of that up eventually as well.
i'm staying with a volunteer who has been here for the past three years. he's an older man who also did a peace corps service in st. lucia first and he's been incredibly helpful. he's obviously well known and people seem to really know him and respect him. so he keeps reminding me that "you get to do things your own way!" but i think that i shouldn't have any fears about replacing someone who is so well respected in the BOMA and with the district ministry of education officials. also, he's been living IN the BOMA, so i will actually be the first person in my village, which is exciting. he's also just been really nice to me, trying to tell me everything he can think of that might be helpful.
today, we went around with the zonal head teacher who is the head teacher of the zonal head school in my area (Zambia's education system is divided into many levels: national, the 9 provinces, districts in all the provinces, and then ZONES in all the districts). my job is going to be primarily working with the zonal head school to develop a resource center and monitoring activities in my zone, so that schools are monitored, teachers are trained, and professional development opportunities are provided. we went around with the two zonal officers to visit three schools today, which was very interesting. they all seem pretty organized and i haven't yet been able to figure out if the ideas are there but the implementation isn't or if things are really going as smoothly as they seem. i suspect the former. i will also get to do anything else that seems interesting i think, and a friend of mine here and i have really been looking into what kind of micro-finance opportunities there are here. it seems like there are very few, so we're both interested in seeing where we can go with that, if possible.
anyway, i also have my new address!
Hannah Lantos - PCV
P.O. BOX 450100
Mpika, Northern Province
ZAMBIA
i'm going to try to update the side, but it might take too long. so, anything you mail after say the 10th of march, should probably just be sent to this address and then when i move in, it'll be waiting for me instead of getting lost in lusaka. i can't tell you all how happy mail makes me! it's such a light and a feeling of connection, so even just a postcard! send an address and i promise i'll write back. :-)
in other news, there's a synagogue in lusaka and i think peace corps is going to let me spend an extra night in lusaka after staging so that i can go to a passover seder for the first night! it should be fun. i'm pretty excited since i think that will be comforting.
otherwise, things are going really well and as i get to see my site and meet people this all starts to feel like i have an image of what my life is going to be like. the hardest part about training for me has been feeling like i am completely incapable of planning, that i know so little that i just have to take things as they come and it finally feels like i can think past the "now now," as zambians say! i miss everyone and i hope you're all well!
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