Yum! I made some fresh fruit an d veggie juice last night during a downpour. It is delicious. Recipe: I just threw in whatever I had, and tried to chop it a bit first to help the blender. 8 mangoes, 1 banana, some spoonfuls of applesauce, tomato, spinach lettuce and moringa leaves, pro-biotic yoghurt and [...]
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Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer before lunch: I biked 15 miles I prayed in iciBemba with 6 prisoners I got left alone with those same 6 prisoners (for 10 minutes only and they’re minimum security) I Was denied access to a prison-wide address by the visiting deputy commissioner on prison conditions. I already have [...]
Mango season is here. This is a happily anticipated season and season of overdoses. I am not entirely joking when I say that mangoes are the reason I became an extension Volunteer. Mangoes are quite possibly the world’s best fruit. The Achilles heel of my current accomodation is the absence of mango trees. My plan [...]
Unique Christmas presents! I’ve sewn a few gorgeous totes and handbags from traditional Zambian kitenge cloth pieces. Choose one as a Christmas gift and I’ll donate the money to a deserving organization or person of your choice. Totes: $10 (50,000ZMK) These are PERFECT for grocery trips to save on plastic! Handbags: $10 (50,000 ZMK) Small clutches: [...]
Yesterday was one of those days a Volunteer lives for, a day with a perfect moment of success with your projects. There are also plenty of days of frustrating struggles with work too and life immersed in another culture, all a part of life as a PCV. All days offer welcomed opportunities for personal and professional [...]
Peace Corps was founded 50 years and 7 months ago with the idea of achieving three goals: (see peacecorps.gov for the goals verbatim) 1. Meeting the development goals of interested countries by providing trained women and men. 2. Building friendship by educating host country nationals about America. 3. Building friendship by educating Americans about the [...]
A quick “blog-let” (def: n: meaning small blog post) Let me highlight culture norms through the example of lunch. Culture norms greatly dictate lunchtime protocol. Your job status and gender and marital status all play a part in where you eat. It is logistically necessary as we’re all eating nshima from communal bowls. Only so many people [...]
A happy party of 14.5 started off for West Lunga National Park on a sunny Friday morning. Everything was packed and strapped to the top of our full vehicle. The road is BUMPY! Not quite like the hippo highway, but BUMPY! We reached safely and began setting up our campsite. Next was lunchtime—yum delicious nshima [...]
Greetings from Zambia where life is raw and real. The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful yet chilly Tuesday. Don’t underestimate tropical Africa, this is winter and I recorded 3 degrees Celcius this morning when I left for work. I know what you’re thinking: that’s 38 degrees F. Still reaches almost 80 degrees F [...]
Greetings! All is well here- I’m working hard and playing harder. Work is a good challenge and I’m never bored. The most newsworthy thing in my life (besides recently hitting the quarter-century-mark!) is that I made a visit last weekend back to my village in Mufumbwe. It was so perfect to be back in the [...]
Greetings from my house in Copperbelt province! I want to do a quick post of a small story if mine which was published in the oh-not-so-formal PC Zambia newsletter. This is a belated post. My favorite success story of this quarter revolves around one day’s conversstion in my cooking shelter. I have a loyal group [...]
Goodbye to Americaland! I’ve had a great leave barring a few small things. Here’s a run down of the important details: 2pm Wednesday EST: leave the great Hoosier state for Georgia. 7pm EST: leave Georgia for Johannesburg, SA 8 hours later: somewhere over the Atlantic 12 hours later: still on that dang plane! 16 hours [...]
28th April 2009 I moved in to my grass thatch mud house and cried out of an overwhelming fear of failure. 29 March 2011 I moved out of my grass thatch mud house with an overwhelming sense of success yet sadness for leaving people I came to love. Can’t really complain, eh? First story: In [...]
I’m writing this blog entry while charging my phone at the clinic. I’m sitting on the porch of the clinic kept company by the pregnant women waiting for check-ups and by the biggest spider I’ve ever seen. Honestly. None of these phases me anymore: crazy huge bugs (outside atreast), pregnant women who look like girls, [...]
Twelve pupils and I grabbed hoes Sunday afternoon and walked on the winding bushpaths leading away from the school. Just a simple beautiful image – all of us walking away from the village and into the fields, hoes carried over our shoulders or balances on our heads. All the kids were jovial and chatting waaaay [...]
In line with the buckets entry, let me tell you about facets of peace corps lifestyle through a lovely song composed by a few of us over dinner Christmas Eve. All of you should recognize the original… On the First Day of Christmas, my Headman gave to me: …A botfly in a Bush tree. Luckily [...]
I’ve had this title for a week, but then I get stuck with condensing my thoughts into one cohesive blog. Thanks to recent conversations about faith with priests in my village, letters from friends, etc, I’ve decided on the title. Alluding to advent, yes, but these past few weeks in my village were the last [...]
Yes, another blog entry! Why so soon soon? I am in town with a clinic worker from my community for a workshop on HIV prevention and decided to write a blog about language. Why? Because I realized today that I have reached a point of fluency in compresension of local language, and so this occasion [...]
So, have you been wondering who that is in my fb picture? Sorry for the dalay, my failthful readers; I’ve been busy in the bush for a while. Let me tell you about Mupala. The senior chief of the Luvale people holds one of the best ceremonies in the country, so the first weekend of [...]
It’s all fine and good to enjoy in town then foods and other things we miss in the village. But I doubt you want to read about how much I crave pizza sometimes. Instead of the have-nots, let me tell you about some of my favorite haves of village lifestyle. I can eat all the [...]
So I thought I’d change it up a bit and give you a lighthearted entry: a look into my life through my buckets. So I own 4 buckets in my house. 3 are green and 1 is orange. Two are big enough that I can fold myself and fit in. One is midsize and round [...]
So it was more than great exercise or completing a big personal goal, my 271 km bike ride wasan experience of true community and solidarity. Everything I love about this culture comes from the Zambian concept of community and solidarity. What a great adventure! I rode from my village to our PC provincial house in [...]
It’s humorous really, the difference between village time and just about anywhere else. I have accomplished in 12 days in and around Lusaka what would take exponentially longer in the village. I’m pretty pumped actually, I’ve done some work for village projects, made initial headway into finding an extention project, did tons of required PC [...]
Today’s post is brought to you by the simplicity pillar. I think I’ve always said how living more simply was a motivation for PC service, and it continues to be true. I love the things I can see/experience/do/be a part of when I step away from extras. Lately I have been fascinated [...]
I’m taking advantage of a quick moment to access internet and thought I’d write some totally true anecdotes about transportation here. Anecdotes I honestly wouldn’t trade for the world. Stay tuned for further installments.
You know you live in a developing country when…
…When you notice a seemingly large influx of new brightly colored [...]
I feel like recent weeks have been a rough phase of my service personally. Nothing terrible, but reflecting on the bigger picture has given me a better perspective. So I thought I’d try to theme this entry with other current events. So here goes with State of the Village, or progress in [...]
What a surreal past few days… Faithful readers will already know I spent New Years in Livingstone. So did many many other travelers from all over. On two separate occasions I played the what’s-the-capital-of game with non-Americans who did quite well. Imagine! One was in the car with the nice family [...]
So been a long time, and I have a lot I think I’ll try to catch up on. First Merry Christmas and etc happy holidays. I am currently in our provincial capital where I’ll spend Christmas Day before going on a small trip to Livingstone to see Vic Falls for New Years. [...]
For those of you who followed my roadtrip blog last year you’ll be familiar with the staccato 2 word title. I’ve been thinking alot lately about what it means to be a white female in this country. Specifically I’ve been thinking of the dichotomy which arrises when it comes to transportation. My [...]
caption id=”attachment_118″ align=”aligncenter” width=”150″ caption=”Ba Christine modelling THE HAT”][/captioncaption id="attachment_120" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Me modelling THE HAT"][/captioncaption id="attachment_122" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Parade of Mukanda boys"][/captioncaption id="attachment_123" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Inside view of my house"][/caption]I’ll begin this blog entry with a reason to be jealous of me. Last weekend my village held a funeral for a distant cousin. [...]
Another blog update already- YES! Just a short one but I wanted to take advantage of the one place in the country I can get free internet; PC headquarters! We’ve finishedour 10 day long IST but I am currently in town one extra day to handle bank errands which can’t be managed from [...]
Forgive me for not updating in such a long time, I haven’t even seen a computer in 10 weeks now. We’re just now finishing our initial period of community integration, so all village all the time. Sometimes all village too much of the time.
Maybe this will shed some light on why I chose the title [...]
These words define my days as a new Volunteer, I swear. Byepi Mwane is a greeting I must say a million times a day to anyone and everyone I meet on the road. I must say mfwaiyo -I don’t have- just as much to the army of children who rush me for sweeties. So it’s [...]
So this is the night before posting - that means tomorrow I will move in to my village as a sworn in PCV. 35 of us became official Volunteers last Friday morning at a lovely ceremony at the Ambassadors in Lusaka. This involved us really standing and repeating the same oath as Obama (except I [...]
First post from Zambia - the real Africa! Today is day 23 in-country and our training group got an un-expected trip to the big city to use the internet and eat dairy. That’s the entirety of my goals for the day. First off, things are going really well. We arrived without problems to Lusaka airport [...]
Know that cheesy song? “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…” Well, that’s too long of a blog title or I’d have used it. I’m headed out tomorrow morning, so I wanted to reiterate some last things with the blog.
* As much as it is anticipated, don’t look for any updates for the [...]
Well, the Farewell Tour has ended, the Farewell Party guests have gone, so all that’s left is the farewell. And the nagging feeling that something is missing from my blog. My pre-departure thoughts are missing. I’ve only really written about tangible cameras, backpacks, and solar chargers (albeit a really fantastic one) and this relative superficiality [...]
What will you be doing Feb 17th at 11:06 am? I will be on a plane leaving the great Hoosier state for adventures unparalleled! US Airways will take me to Washington DC, where our staging event is held. This is paperwork, shots, “welcome to the Peace Corps”, and other important necessities. This is where the [...]
Yes! 1 month and 1 day until staging begins! I thought I’d post about books because there is yet no staging information to report. Here’s a list of PC and Africa books I’ve read and recommend:
Power Lines by Jason Carter (Pres. Carter’s grandson), Dear Exile by Liftin and Montgomery, Let Every Nation Know: JFK in [...]
Now there are less than 2 months before staging! I’ve done all the prep things which require $$. I finally decided what internal frame backpack to invest in, and got the snazzy raincoat and sleeping bag I’ve been wanting for a while. So, the bag is made of 51 recycled plastic water bottles - how great [...]
It’s about time I started my blog! This ideally is to store my news as I prepare to leave on the biggest adventure of my life so far, and my reflections etc during my 27 months of service in Zambia.
More to come, but here’s a quick breakdown: Nominated last December. Then a 5 month process [...]
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