So the New Year is here and with it have come a lot of changes...but let me start with an update on my Christmas vacation. I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa where I stayed for 6 nights and it was AWESOME! It is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We stayed at a hostel on Long Street (which is like the Bourbon St. of Cape Town), ate a ton of amazing food, saw four movies, went on a biking wine tour, the art museum, the Castle of Good Hope, and a bunch of other stuff. We tried going to Robben Island to visit Nelson Mandela's prison cell but the boat malfunctioned half-way there and we had to turn around and come back. Needless to say, I was very upset about this as I have been wanting to visit Robben Island for a very long time. But I am just taking it as a sign that I will have to go back to Cape Town again :)

The best part of the vacation though was just getting to be a normal person. There were no kids chasing me screaming "muzungu" at the top of their lungs, no babies crying at the sight of my white skin, and no one trying to rip me off on prices just because I am white. Cape Town is a very diverse city both culturally and ethnically so it was nice to be just another face in the crowd for once and to have a break from my fishbowl-like existence here in Zambia.

New Year's Eve was spent at ATB lodge in Mkushi with a bunch of other volunteers and was definitely a good time. I've been back at site since then and boy have things changed! I am now teaching at the school (Grade 8 and 9 English) and I honestly could not be happier at my site. I was posted in my village last April and spent term 2 (May-August) monitoring the schools in my zone and conducting workshops. However, term 3 (September-December) provided a real slow down for me work-wise because it was hot season and being on a bike for 12 hours a day was no longer feasible. I was really struggling to figure out what work I could do at the school and was honestly feeling very depressed about not being able to find projects. These were some very difficult months for me and I spent a lot of time feeling as though I was contributing nothing to my community and even more time trying to justify my existence here in Zambia.

When I went back to my site after New Year's it was with the attitude that things couldn't possibly get any worse. But then they did - there was no water in my village (the borehole was broken and the stream had dried up), I was stressing out about what work I would be able to do at the school this term, and I got really sick again (I even thought it might have been malaria). All of this happened within the span of a few days and it left me feeling very low.

But thankfully, things have turned around completely. The RED project has changed its goals to include co-teaching and I am now teaching at the school Monday-Thursday, helping with the school library when I am not in the classroom, working with my anti-AIDS club on Monday afternoons, and working with the life skills club at school on Wednesday afternoons. I am very busy and spend most of my free time making lesson plans for my classes and clubs but I honestly could not be happier. I love being at my site now that I am busy and feel like there is a purpose to my being in Zambia!

Ok that's all for now, I will try and be better about updating the blog this year. I hope 2010 is off to a fabulous start for everyone!

So there's just about two weeks left til Christmas and it's really hard to believe how fast this past year has gone by and how many changes have occured during it. My thanksgiving was spent at the provincial house in Chipata which was fun but also completely overwhelming due to the sheer number of volunteers present, after provincials I traveled on to Lusaka and then spent a few days at the provincial house in Central Province which was awesome and super relaxing and has found me addicted to the tv show 'heroes' - I watched the entire first season in a matter of days. The trip was capped off with a RED project review with staff from Lusaka and DC which I thought was very helpful and I was glad to be a part of as the feedback from current volunteers will help shape the upcoming training and the future of the RED project as a whole.

I'm back at my site now and am just enjoying getting to be in one place for awhile and sleeping in my own bed. School is finished for the term and will resume in January so I am just trying to spend the next two weeks working on setting up programs for the new term. I am going to be digging and planting my garden tomorrow (hopefully!) and will be planting maize, beans, okra, cucumbers, and tomatos. The rains came briefly but the actual rainy season has yet to hit with full force which is good because I've been lazy and have yet to plant the garden - though I did plant a lot of sunflowers - none of which have actually grown yet.

I am also working on helping one of my community schools apply for funds to build a permanent structure so I hope to have several meetings on that before I head off for Christmas. Not much else is new though, I'm just hanging out in the village with my family and enjoying the time I have here before my super-awesome-exciting-vacation to Cape Town in two weeks! actually, it's 13 days....not that I'm counting or anything :) New Years Eve will be spent back here in Zambia, and then back to the village to get started on work for the new school term. Hopefully my ambitious plans to start life skills clubs at some schools and to help train students to run the libraries works out!

Oh and here's a list of stuff I would LOVE to have for Christmas:

- Starbucks instant coffee (I am amazed that they are making this now!)

- Marshmallow peeps!!!!!

- Magazines

- Travel size board games

- Mix CDs (of anything BUT holiday tunes)

- Nose rings/studs

- Candy of any sort

- oh and LETTERS of course!

This is an standard-issue Peace Corps line that often takes the place of the ole '...and then I found five dollars' and it ususally illicits at least a rolling of the eyes if not a laugh. Of course it's funny until you actually get malaria which is what just happened to me. I feel like I need to be given a commemorative t-shirt for surviving malaria.

I started feeling sick on Saturday morning when I woke up with a headache but I biked to Chinyunyu where I had organized a VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) event to get people in my community tested for HIV. 75 people were tested which was really awesome and made me feel as though I had done something good for my community. I felt pretty ok all afternoon but was exhausted by the time I biked back to my village. I didn't even cook dinner because I felt so tired. I ate a granola bar then got in bed, the massive headache started again, this time accompanied by nausea but I managed to fall asleep pretty quickly.

I woke up Sunday morning and had a headache but cooked breakfast and went about working in my garden, etc. Started feeling sick around noon, the headache got worse, diarrhea started around 14:00, and then I started vomiting around 16:00 with a massive headache behind my eyes and pain down my neck and back. So I called Peace Corps medical and they decided to send a cruiser to pick me up which I thought was excessive at the time but am in retrospect so happy that they did pick me up. Mainly because I spent all that night and Monday throwing up and lying on the floor in front of the toilet is infinitelymore preferable than lying on the dirt floor of my squat toilet throwing up in a smelly hole in the ground.

So now it's Tuesday night and I am feeling a lot better, I can sit up at the computer for more than 30minutes and haven't thrown up all day. Hopefully I will be able to go back home on Thursday so I am happy about that because next Tuesday I will be going out again to go to Provincials in Chipata, then to visit Sarah's village, then to visit waterfalls near Serenje in Central Province.

More postings will be coming after that adventure for sure :)

Two updates in as many days...unusual I know but I've been spending most of my lunchtimes at the telecenter now that it's too hot to bike home in the middle of the day. Today was quite the eventful day, I woke up at 5am (what else is new) crawled out of bed around 6am attempted to cook myself some eggs but failed for the second day in a row - I don't know what is going on, is my brazier not hot enough? I think maybe I am not patient enough and don't let the pan heat all the way and then I put the eggs in too early and they just end up mushy and uncooked. sigh. so I ate some apples and had two glasses of powdered chocolate soy milk (amazing!). My cat and her adorable new kittens (who came out of nowhere) did enjoy the egg mess so in the end it was not a waste.

Anyway, spent the morning with my Anti-AIDS club in the village (and by club I mean the two people who showed up) making a compost pile for the demo garden we're going to have at the hammermill. I'm planning on teaching them permaculture techniques which should be interesting...hopefully I can successfully get my own garden going before attempting to teach others. Good news though - my compost pile that I spent all day making last week is starting to work!!!!!!! You put a stick in the middle of it once you finish building all the layers and if you pull the stick out and it is hot to the touch then it means that the pile is working! and stuff is decomposing or reacting or becoming compost-y or something like that! This makes me really happy because for awhile there I thought it was failing, now I just need to find someone to water it while I'm in Malawi so it continues doing whatever it is that it is doing.

Biked to Chinyunyu around 11am and almost died because of the heat, went directly to the one shop with a fridge and promptly downed two ice cold coke lites...yum. I really was going to go for water but of course there wasn't any today. Went to a community school after that because the teachers requested my help with some library stuff - Room to Read donated a bunch of games for the students and the teachers couldn't figure them out so I (as a professional board game specialist) was called in to help. It was actually a lot of fun because we brought some students into the room and I taught them how to play the games and then I read them some books. It was heartbreaking though because there were at least 10 kids in there and not a single one of them knew how to read - not in English, not in Nyanja. Donating libraries to schools is the easy thing, figuring out how to actually teach children to read is a little more difficult. They were all looking at me with such hope in their eyes and I just don't know what to do. I can't imagine living without books and reading and I just wish there was someway I could teach every child at every one of my schools how to read.

Off to the basic school now for a SAFE (Student Alliance for Female Education) Club meeting. The purpose of this club is to help girls (but boys are also encouraged to attend!) to learn life skills and to encourage them to stay in school and to focus on their futures. I'm working with one of the teachers on this and we're even made an action plan for the rest of the term and decided which lessons we are going to teach each week. I am really excited about this club and if it goes well I hope to start some other life skills clubs at the surrounding schools. The teacher said over 50 girls have signed up to attend this week which is really awesome. I just hope that the exam schedule doesn't end up disturbing the club too much. Not gonna lie, I think I need this as much as the girls at my school do.

First of all, I want to start off by saying that it is hot as hell here. October is proving to be a completely miserable month - it's hard to believe that I spent most of June and July hunched over my brazier trying to warm myself up! I am sitting in the telecenter trying to pass the time until it's cool enough to bike back to my village. I had meetings this morning at the school that I expected to finish around 11 but of course everything went until almost 13 so now I'm waiting til 15 before getting back on the bike.

This past weekend was quite an eventful one, my neighbor Jenna and I went to our very first kitchen party. A kitchen party is the Zambian equilvalent of a bridal shower and let me tell you, it was pretty wild. The girl getting married is Tasila and she works at the bank in Chongwe (my nearest town) but we were actually invited to the party by Tasila's mom, Mrs. Banda, the awesome woman who owns our favorite take-away where I spent a ton of money on ice cold coke lites and scones. So we didn't actually meet Tasila until the day of the party but here in Zambia a little detail like that doesn't really matter.

We got to the party around 14:00 and were greeted at the door with cups of brandy punch and over 200 Zambian women. The best thing about the kitchen party is that there are absolutely no men allowed! Also, the party was a lot more bwana (rich/wealthy) than we had expected it to be - the house was huge with five bedrooms and all the modern conveniences, there was an ridiculous buffet, and the alcohol kept flowing the entire time - punch, liquor, wine, KEGS (!??!), oh and all the cold coke lite I could drink...it was awesome.

Not only was it awesome but it was also wild. There was traditional drumming and a ton of dancing and more than one woman was flashing her thighs (it is completely taboo for a woman to show her thighs in public in Zambia). I even got up and danced in front of all 200 women which was ridiculous because I am the whitest white girl ever and still have no rhythm - even after so many months in Africa.

The party started winding down after dark - most of the alcohol had run out by then - Jenna and I were sitting outside eating cake when we noticed there was a passed out Ambuya (grandma) on the lawn. It was like a frat party from my college days.I really should have taken the opportunity to introduce the keg stand to Zambia.

Just got back to the village on Sunday after spending two weeks away, first at In-Service Training in Lusaka and then on vacation in Livingstone - Vic Falls is AMAZING! (pics are coming soon!). I was more than a little stressed out about coming back to the village but it has been a surprisingly easy transition. I think the fact that I didn't have a single moment alone for two weeks straight has helped me appreciate the solitude of my hut. Getting 10+hours of sleep the past two nights hasn't hurt either! The village is pretty much the same as ever, not much happened while I was gone except a huge ant orgy/mass suicide in my hut which was weird but at least they were all dead when I got back - way better than the last time when my hut was infested with hundreds of live/hatching ants...that was gross.

I can't believe it is September already, it's looking to be a pretty busy month too, well at least the first few weeks. I am going to Lusaka at the end of the week because the NGO Room to Read (which donated all the libraries in my zone) wants me to help them plan a workshop on library activities that will be held for all of Chongwe district during the third week of September so that is pretty exciting! Next Monday my HIV club will be holding elections and their annual general meeting which will include amendments to the constitution, etc...nshima and moncoyo are already in the works. The meeting is supposed to start at 8:00 and I doubt it will knock off before 14:00 - it's going to be a long day. Tuesday and Wednesday my counterpart and I are holding a community school workshop at the Resource Center so we're planning that tomorrow and then I am going to type up and copy all the handouts when I'm in Lusaka. I'm also supposed to be getting a PC site visit sometime next week and I also need to get to Chongwe to meet with the DEBS...whew.

Third week will be the library training and this crazy meeting that the school wants to have where all the clubs in the zone are invited and we talk about my role here and how I can help them, etc. I am pretty sure this will result in even more people asking me for a borehole, but who knows, maybe some good will come of it. The school term starts on the 7th so I am going to work hard to get the anti-AIDS club going at my school, so that will meet each Wednesday afternoon, I really hope it works out because the youth club in my village hasn't really taken off and I really want to work on this issue.

After that, who knows...planning on going to Lake Malawi mid-October for a music festival which should be awesome. This will be in the midst of hot season so I am definitely looking forward to lying on the beach, drink in hand. That's about it for me right now, I'm still happy, healthy, and loving my crazy Zambian life with all its ups and downs.

ps- running low on crystal lite! please send me any iced tea or lemonade flavors as those are my favorites!!!

So I've been at my site for over three months now, my community entry has ended, and IST (in-service training) is looming on the horizon. I am ridiculously excited about reuniting with my intake and seeing what three months of village life have done to everyone! I am however, not looking forward to being in training again and having to sit in sessions from 8-5 everyday...especially after living by my village schedule (ie- no schedule) for the past few months. Luckily though, IST will be followed by my first real (provincials doesn't count!) trip since arriving in country. Some of my fellow PCVs and I are going to be making our way down to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls and I honestly can not wait! Basically I am going to spend my days there lying by the pool drinking (do I care that it's cold season? hell no!), with the possibility for rafting on the Zambezi, and the definite plan of going on a booze cruise - maybe I'll even get to see some cool animals other than the goats, chickens, and stupid guinea fowl that keep me awake all night!

Reflecting on the past three months in the village, and almost six months in country I am first of all pretty amazed how fast its all gone by. There were times (esp. during training and my first month at site) where IST seemed to be waiting at the end of some marathon of epic proportions and yet here I am all of a sudden wondering where all the time went.

The hardest part for me over the last three months hasn't been the loneliness or boredom because despite my ridiculously extroverted tendencies I do love being alone and am pretty good at entertaining myself (though I might not have made it without the internet phone!). Rather, it's the ambiguity of my 'job' here that I've struggled with the most. I've spent a lot of time worrying about the kind of impact I can have here and how I can help anyone at all. I've probably (no - definitely) spent too much time worrying about this and being overwhelmed by the big picture. But I am working on this and feel as though things in the village and my life in general in Zambia are beginning to pick up.

I think that my progress here can actually be tracked in terms of the amount of time I spend sweeping my yard. When I was first posted at the end of April and for the better part of May, I spent one hell of a lot of time sweeping my yard. Every morning I would wake up and go through my little routine of sweeping and making breakfast. I probably spent at least an hour a day sweeping which when I look at it now seems ridiculous and makes me sound like a loser but at the time it probably gave me some feeling of control and order within my own ka-tiny corner of Zambia.

But now I rarely sweep my yard more than once a week and I do it more to get rid of all the chicken shit than to fill my day with activity. Without my even realizing it, work here has begun to pick up and life in the village has been keeping me busy - busy enough to stop obsessing over the dirt patterns of my yard at least. This slow transition towards productivity and becoming integrated happened without my even being aware of it. The changes came about so very pangono, pangono (slowly, slowly) that I wasn't even aware of their occurrence - not until I stopped to pause and take a good look at the past few months.

Pangono, pangono has in a sense become my mantra and I find myself thinking it every day, several times a day. The reasons I came here in the first place were varied and many but I definitely came with a great deal of aspirations, both personal and professional. One of the biggest personal ones being the desire to gain some patience.Those who knew me in Americaland are well aware of my high achieving, type-A tendencies, generally characterized by my desire to get shit done and to get it done well. Needless to say, the type of person that I was in the states doesn't exactly fit in with my life in the village or in Zambia as a whole. I like to think that I am already becoming more patient and that I'm learning to relax...this is what I like to think at least. I'm trying to learn how to let go, let flow, and have faith that things tend to unfold as they should.

I should be updating this more regularly than once a month but I have actually been fairly busy as of late so this is the first time I've gotten around to it.

So the school term here is winding down and there are only 3 weeks left of class until the holiday in August. I have by this point managed to monitor every single school in my zone...it took almost three months and hundreds and hundreds of kilometers on the bike but I have now seen all 30 of my schools...whew.

And while managing to make it to all these schools has been a great accomplishment, I have unfortunately been left extremely discouraged by what I have seen. Every day at every school I encountered the same problems and came home feeling disheartened, wondering how I can fight the deep-rooted problems and issues that exist within the Zambian educational system...wondering if I can manage to help anyone at all during my service here.

I don't even know where to begin in addressing all the problems I've seen...the biggest problem I think lies with the teachers themselves. The majority of the teachers at these government schools (which count for 14 of my 30) are from large towns or cities and the last place they want to be is out in the middle of nowhere teaching at a sub par school. You would think that these teachers (all of whom are trained) would take the initiative to improve these schools and put their knowledge and skills to use in the communities in which they have been posted.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite is happening. Knowing that they will rarely be subject to monitoring of any kind, these teachers become extremely lazy - they don't bother making lesson plans, don't bother teaching many subjects, show up for school drunk, or just don't show up for school at all. They complain that the students don't know how to read and yet they don't bother to teach them - and they certainly aren't working to organize the libraries that have been so generously donated to their schools from the NGO Room to Read.

For example, I was at one school located about 20K off the tarmac and was observing a grade 4 english class. Realizing that these children were merely repeating everything the teacher said I got up and wrote a simple sentence on the board, "The boy ran after the cat." And asked the class if any of them could read the sentence. One girl raised her hand and struggled through the words. Afterwards I asked the teacher how many of the 30 students in her class could read and in response she pointed out about four students. I asked her if she was bothering to teach them at all to which she said, "Of course I am teaching them but I think they are all addled in the head. Or maybe they are all just stupid".It took all my willpower not to start screaming at her so instead I replied, ''You really think every single one of these 30 children are 'addled in the head'? that is the worst excuse for illiteracy that I have ever heard". And then I just walked away, too enraged to visit any more of that school's classrooms.

Honestly, I was almost happy to feel this impassioned, angry, response rising up inside of myself. I feel as though I am in danger of becoming to used to the inadequate standards I am witnessing here. I see the same problems over and over again and yet I've trained myself to be polite and respectful to the very teachers who are causing these inadequacies in hopes of persuading them to attend one of my trainings or to change their own view of their roles in these schools. But something inside of me just snapped that day and I couldn't take it anymore.

That feeling of anger with the overwhelming injustice which exists in the world is what led me here in the first place and I am hoping that it will continue to lead me in a direction that will effect change within my community in order to improve the standards of education for these children. But at the same time I look at the task in front of me and I feel helpless...how can I fight an entire system? How can I really make an impact or difference when what is needed is a complete and total paradigm shift on the part of both teachers and parents? It's discouraging to say the least but I'll just keep going along pangono pangono (slowly, slowly) hoping that something gives and that I can help at least a few people.

So that is in short what I have been up to as of late. I'm working on writing a report for the DEBS (District Education Board Secretariat) office on what I have witnessed here in my zone because they are certainly not aware of what is going on at those schools which are located very far off the tarmac...or even those on the tarmac for that matter. I am also going to be working on some trainings that we want to hold at the Zonal Resource Center for the community school teachers in our zone - those teachers that are working voluntarily in their schools and need (and actually want) training in order to improve their teaching.

For all its problems, I've never felt so grateful to have been a product of the American educational system as I am now. It's so unfair that the mere chance of where you are born will have such a drastic impact on the kind of education you will receive. I used to think that there was a plan, that everything works out in the end, that the universe tends to unfold as it should...but what kind of plan is it that includes all the poverty, injustice, and utter lack of opportunity as I have witnessed here?

This past Tuesday was my 23rd birthday. How did I spend my first birthday in Zambia?

well, I ended up going on a marathon bike trip monitoring some schools in my zone. I woke up at 5am in the pitch black, was on my bike for the 6am sunrise and spent the day biking ridiculous hills and bush paths visiting some of the more rural schools in my area for the next 12 hours.

I was biking around with my counterpart from my school and we didn't even stop for lunch. I ate one apple around noon but other than that I had no food from 5am until after getting home at 18:00. I was not a happy camper - those who know me know how grumpy I get when I am hungry.

I was so exhausted that I really didn't think I was even going to make it back to my hut! I got off my bike to cross a stream and could barely walk!

The sun was setting when I got home so I didn't even have time to heat my bath water - I don't like to bath after dark for fear of snakes - so yeah, that was my birthday...on a bike from dawn til dusk rewarded with nothing more than a cold bucket bath.

And then the cell network was down so I didn't get any bday calls at all! Not gonna lie, it was pretty lonely. though luckily I had some chocolate that I proceeded to eat for dinner and pretend it was birthday cake!

on wednesday, I got up before dawn again and spent eight hours on the bike monitoring even more schools...whew! life in the village is crazy, one week will pass when I am bored out of my mind, eating too much nshima, and making door mats and then the next week I will be busy to the point of exhaustion. It's crazy to say the least.

So that was my 23rd birthday....not the most relaxing one I've ever had, that's for sure.

Let's just say that birthday number 24 is going to be spent lying on a beach somewhere doing nothing but drinking rum and cokes all day long.

So it's only taken my four months but I'm finally managing to update this thing! There is a telecenter about a 30 minute bike ride from my village that has high-speed internet - how lucky am I? Of course it hasn't been working for the past two months but it was finally fixed this past week. yay!

So much to update on, I am doing well and enjoying life in the village and my work here in Zambia. The first nine weeks I was here was spent in training which was more than a little miserable, every day from 8-5 and four hour long language classes. Needless to say I spent a lot of time being grumpy.

Maybe that's why I'm so happy to be out in the village! My village is called Shangobeka and is located about 100K East of Lusaka along the Great East Road. My house is located about 2-3K off the tarmac and I spent a LOT of time on my bike biking around the African bush.

My main job here is to work on the Rural Education Development (RED) project. There are two types of schools in Zambia: Government and Community. Government schools are large, have trained teachers, and (are supposed to) receive funding from the Zambian Ministry of Education. But due to overcrowding and distance from these schools, many villages have taken it unto themselves to provide their children with an education - thus the rise of Community Schools. Unfortunately, these schools are often poorly funded (or not funded at all), have few trained teachers, and limited access to resources and supplies. As a RED volunteer it is my job to monitor and assess all the schools in my Zone (like a school district) and to provide these community schools with trainings for the teachers and help them come up with ways to pay their staff (through community contribution, grant writing, or income generating projects).

So that is my primary job here in Zam-land. In short, I am trying to help these schools build their capacity through knowledge and skills transfer. Needless to say, this is not easy and like all development, it is slow-going and results are not immediately seen. Many of my schools are very rural so when I go out on my bike to monitor them I will go to several in a single day and this has involved me spending up to 12 hours on my bike. I'm aiming for a triathlon when I come back to the states! I was lucky to be a replacement volunteer and have replaced an incredible and highly motivated volunteer named Angela so this has allowed me to jump into work right away as I have taken up many of her projects.

These secondary projects include an HIV/AIDS club in my village which meets every Monday. It was slow-going at first but yesterday we had a very good lesson about HIV-transmission! The group also has a Hammermill (to grind maize) so I will be helping them develop their business plan, they want to use the profits to start an orchard and a garden and hope eventually to be able to pay the school fees of OVC's (orphans and vulnerable children) in our village with the money that they make.

I am also teaching adult literacy to some people in my village who have approached me about learning English so we meet each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. I am still trying to figure out how best to approach TEFL...but now that I have internet, it will be easier to figure out lessons, etc. I want to start an anti-AIDS club for the youth in my village so I am currently spreading the word about this and I hope that it will pick up. I also want to become involved with some Girls' groups at the schools or an anti-AIDS club. I hope also to hold some exam prep sessions for the students in my village. Students in Zambia must pass national exams in Grade 7, 9, and 12 in order to continue their education. Unfortunately, these exams are in English and the English literacy level here is low. Oh, and there are several school libraries in my area that I hope to do trainings for as well - all those years of working in the UVA Special Collections basement are finally going to pay off!

I know that this is a lot of information but I do have four months to update on!

In the village I live on the compound of a family called Masoja. The family is made up of Daniel Masoja (Batata), his wife Mary Masoja(Bamayo), a niece named Lillian (F/17), a nephew named Consaviour (M/26), and a grandson named Dan (M/18). Also living on the compound are Consaviour's wife Mercy (F/21) and baby daughter Chipo (F/1). The family is wonderful and they take good care of me, watch my house when I am not there, and feed me endless amounts of nshima! I especially love my Batata, he is 72 years old and is awesome, home would not feel like home without him.

I've also made several friends in my village and spend many afternoons just hanging out and eating nshima with people at their houses. I really truly enjoy being in my village :)

For fun I spend a lot of time reading, doing crossword puzzles, listening to the BBC, and cooking. I've also become quite crafty, I've been sewing purses and wallets and curtains, and have also started crocheting a rug out of chetenge scraps! I hope to teach the rug making to some women in my village for an income generating project. Did I mention that I am in bed around 8pm each night? Let's be honest, I've turned into an 80 year old woman!

So I think that this post is long enough, I will certainly update more regularly from now on...hopefully! Coming soon are posts on what a typical day is like for me, and more information about education in Zambia in general, as well as the projects I am working on.

If you are reading this, it probably means that I miss you! Send me crystal light! :)

Address:

Jennifer Casto/PCV

P.O. Box 25

Chongwe, Zambia

Africa

Dear ipod,

Did you really have to die via the white screen of death two days before I leave for Zambia?

You have now rendered me an even more impoverished peace corps volunteer.

I ran my first half-marathon this morning (very early this morning) 6:30am to be exact, and it was AWESOME!! Since this was my first one, my goal was to finish in under 2 hours and I hit the finish line at 1:51:48!!!

While I've been running regularly for a few years now, training for this race definitely took a lot a dedication (11 miles in 7 degree weather, for example) but I think I proved to myself that I really can do anything I set my mind to - something I will definitely have to remember when the going gets tough in Africa. I am very happy and am definitely going to run more half-marathons and probably a full one when I get back from Zambia.

Speaking of Zambia, staging is in 3 days and then we fly out on the 18th! Have I packed anything? Of course not! I do at least have a very large pile of stuff ready to be crammed into a suitcase. The more I think about leaving, the more excited (and slightly nervous) I get.

I can't believe I'm finally going!

I came down to Myrtle Beach to run the race and tomorrow will be one long 8hr drive back home - with one last stop at UVA on the way! I'm planning on packing Sunday night, running some last minute errands on Monday/hanging out with my brother, and then off to DC on Tuesday! I'm just glad I live close enough to DC to have my parents just drive me in and drop me off - stressful domestic travel successfully averted.

Off to get some lunch now and then dessert...I think a milkshake is definitely in order today!

Since receiving my invite back in October, I've been getting A LOT of questions about Zambia and what I will be doing there so I thought I would attempt to answer some of the more popular ones here...

1. Where is Zambia?

Zambia is located in Southern Africa and shares a border with eight other African nations. Zambia was proclaimed a British sphere of influence in the mid-1800's and is the country formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. Zambia gained its independence in 1964 under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda who remained in power until the early 1990's.

Multi-party elections have been held in Zambia since 1991.The copper industry has traditionally dominated the Zambian economy but the declining price of copper in combination with a high rate of HIV/AIDS, an unstable food supply, and drought have left the country among the poorest in the world. Zambia is also home to the infamous Victoria Falls.

If you want to read more about Zambia, wikipedia can help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia

2. What will you be doing there?

I will be working as a Rural Education Development, or RED, volunteer. RED volunteers in Zambia have been working with the Ministry of Education since 2003 in order to expand a national educational radio program called "Learning at Taonga Market" which is an interactive program broadcast over the national radio system. The purpose of this program to provide education on the primary level to those living in the more rural areas of Zambia; places that may not have trained teachers or even school buildings.

RED volunteers train and coach teachers, or mentors, to teach children in rural areas, sensitize communities to the importance of basic education, assist in the development of schools, and train school committees in their responsibilities regarding support for these schools. The project has also expanded to include more work with government schools and other educational initiatives implemented at the zonal level.

Volunteers are also expected to develop a secondary project within their own communities, this project can be based on the interests of the volunteer though from what I have read so far it seems as though most of these projects are related to HIV/AIDS prevention and education. Those of you who know me know that I am very passionate about this subject and given the opportunity, I will most definitely be focusing my efforts on developing a project that focuses on this issue.

I am most interested in female empowerment and education in relation to both the gender hierarchy that tends to exist in places such as Zambia and the HIV/AIDS epidemic itself. I would like to start some kind of women's group that provides a safe and accepting environment for learning about, preventing, and confronting this disease. Of course, none of this is set in stone as it is important for me to assess the needs of my community before implementing any sort of program.

3. How long are you going to be there?

I will be living in Zambia for 27 months. All Peace Corps volunteers undergo about 10 weeks of intensive training and then are posted at their site for the next two years. Training will focus on technical, language, cross-cultural, health, and safety issues. I will be in training starting February 17, 2009 and then will be living and working at my site from May 2009-May 2011.

4. Is it safe?

Zambia has been relatively peaceful since independence and has a very low rate of violent crime when compared with the western world. I will receive a great deal of safety education during training which will hopefully provide me with strategies to reduce any risks. The Peace Corps also focuses on having its volunteers become a part of the communities in which they live and this integration is also meant to reduce any safety risks.

In terms of medical safety, the PC provides its own doctors in Zambia for volunteers and will provide me with a first aid kit and training so that I may deal with minor health issues on my own. I will be getting a wealth of vaccinations during orientation and will also be taking anti-malarial medication for the duration of my service.

5. Where will you be living?

During training I will be living in a home-stay kind of situation in which I will live with a Zambian family in close proximity to both my training site and the other PCVs from my group. Following training, I will be posted to a village where I will be living in an "earthen house" (i.e. mud hut) with no electricity. My site may be very isolated (please send letters!!!) and could be up to 40K (over 20 miles) from the nearest volunteer.

I will however be given an awesome mountain bike which will be my main mode of transportation. I will be more than ready for a triathlon when I get back!

6. What will you eat?

My diet will mainly consist of something called nshima which is a cornmeal porridge typically served with a relish of vegetables and on occasion, meat. I will be able to get fruits such as mangoes, guavas, and bananas and the vegetable variety is supposed to be good. I am definitely going to attempt to grow my own garden in order to ensure regular access to fresh fruits and veggies. Access to meat will definitely be limited once I get to site, so here's to living as an organic vegetarian for the next two years!

now I want to go get a burger...or steak...

7. You'll have email...right?

Taking the fact that 95% of PCVs in Zambia live with out electricity, I have decided that I will not be taking my laptop with me. This does not mean that I will not have access to email but it does mean that this access will be both sporadic and limited. I will however, have ample time to write letters and will of course absolutely LOVE receiving letters from those back in the states.

Mail takes 2-4 weeks to reach Lusaka and you should be sure to write "Air Mail" on the envelope. That being said, here is my address for training (keep in mind that this is only good through May 2009 and will change once I am posted at my site):

Jen ____/ PCT

Peace Corps

P.O. Box 50707

Lusaka, Zambia

8. Where will you shower?

Having limited access to electricity tends to go hand in hand with limited access to running water. It looks as though I will be bathing via bucket bath using water that I may have to walk up to half an hour to obtain and carry back to my residence. Needless to say, there won't be much showering going on!

9. Can you come back? Can people visit you?

As a PCV I gain 2 days of vacation for every month I work, this will total to 24 vacation days per year and while I am allowed to use these days to travel back to the US. However, flights back home will be very expensive and my income is going to be very limited over the next two years. This does not mean that I won't be back before 2011, but I will most likely stick to exploring Africa during my vacations.

This being said, come visit me! I would absolutely LOVE to have visitors and my hut door will always be open to any and all who are willing to make the journey! Visiting is supposed to limited during the first six months of my training and the last three but that leaves August 2009-January 2011 for visits.

World Cup South Africa 2010, anyone?

10. Why are you doing this?/Are you crazy?

I suppose anyone who wants to pack up and move to a foreign country, especially a developing one like Zambia, has to be at least a little crazy. As crazy as it may seem to some though, the Peace Corps is something I have always wanted to do. I remember being 12 years old and seeing a commercial for the Peace Corps, the tag line "Life is calling, how far will you go?" sparked in me a desire to serve that has not dissipated one bit over the last decade.

I have always been interested in traveling and other countries, spending hours pouring over National Geographic and pasting my walls with the incredible photos of all the places I wanted to explore. I have always felt this deep desire to travel and to see the world and I believe that the Peace Corps is going to give me the opportunity to see the world in a way that few Americans ever will. I would like to one day work at an organization that deals with international development, human rights, and global health issues. I believe that serving in the Peace Corps will give me invaluable insight into the actual situation in Zambia and other countries that are facing the same development problems. I realize that I will learn as much if not more from those I work and live with in Zambia as they will from me.

Being a PCV will certainly be a challenging, exciting, and difficult experience but I know that if I had opted for a job in the US right after graduating, I would be sitting at a desk in some office all day, everyday berating myself for not joining the Peace Corps. Helen Keller once said, "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all," and I am more than ready for my own adventure to begin.

So I finally received my invitation to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia beginning in February 2009. I am beyond excited and so very happy that it finally worked out - especially considering the fact that I applied in September 2007!

But now that I've received and accepted my invitation, the amount of preparation this endeavor will entail is finally beginning to set in. I've already filled out a ton of additional paperwork in order to get my new PC passport and Zambian visa, I have to get an entirely new dental exam in order to be medically cleared (once again) because my first exam is now more than a year old, and I have to send in a new resume and aspiration statement to the in-country PC office in Zambia. Did I mention the fact that I have to also manage to pack what I will need for the next two years of my life into two suitcases? It's all a little overwhelming...