Hey All,

Just a quick post for this month. Right now I am working on a bigger and more grandiose blog post which I hope to have finished by the end of my service, but who knows.

On May 1st I held, what could be considered my first real fish farming meeting. Now that I have finally set up my two demo sites, one at my site and the other in Nshinso proper, I finally understand the model and how it is to be replicated in my village(its only taken two years.) So now that I have something physical to show with a Zambian who understands the process and knows how to explain it, I decided to have my first real fish farming meeting. I made signs, written in English and Bemba, and put them around town. The weekend I put up the signs, three weeks before the meeting, I went all over town and into the shops telling people about this meeting. Then the weekend of the meeting, three days before, I did the same thing. I went all over town telling people. Then May 1st came around and of course no one except for my new counter part had showed up at the spot in town where we were meeting up. So for the third time I went in and out of all of the shops telling people about this meeting that was being held that day in a few minutes. Just about everyone that I talked to said they would be coming, however in the end I was able to round up a total of four people. We then walked down to Ba Monga’s site and looked at his dam. There Ba Monga explained the finer points of dam construction and I would occasionally add something if I thought a point needed to be emphasized, but for the most part he knew and was able to explain the process quite well, all in Bemba.

After he ran the dam demonstration we had a condom demonstration. We talked about family planning and preventative measures against HIV/AIDS, then I answered questions. Overall, I was quite please in the end.

Although the meeting in the end was a success, the amount of work that was put into it, getting a demo site ready and then advertising for it, compared to the response I got was a bit frustrating. Needless to at this point in my service I am kind of coasting. The initial energy is long gone and now I am just looking to continue working with the two farmers Ba Monga and Ba Richard, who have both completed dams. I think I might be able two get two more started, but I am not holding my breath. But, I think that there is workable foundation and direction for the PCV which will be replacing me.

In other news, the month of June will probably be one of the craziest months of my life. My friend Rob Chockley will be flying into Lusaka on the 3rd. Then we take the train from Kapiri to Dar Es Salaam. There we will be meeting up with my friend Jeff Brown, from the states, who will have just flown in. We will spend the night in Dar and then the next morning head to the island and birthplace of Freddy Mercury, Zanzibar. There we will be meeting up with two other PCVs and figuring out life from there as the mood strikes us. Also at some point during this time my friend, from the states, Roland Bisio will be flying into either Dar or Zanzibar, but at this point we don’t really know. Then on the 14th we will return to Dar. The next day Jeff will fly back to the states and Roland, Rob and I will take the train back to Kapiri. That next morning I have to be in Lusaka for my Close of Service conference, where I will get to see all of the rowdy people I first came into country with, many of whom I havnt seen in the last two years. And here I will make the jump from months of spending at most four weeks straight in my village, with people who barely speak English to the some of the most extensive socializing I have done in the past two years.

But I live in Africa, so who really knows what will happen.

Ba Monga explaining how the spill ways have to be below the height of the dam wall.

Deep Contemplation.

Using a line level to see that the spill ways are actually below the height of the dam.

Condom demonstration, family planning and HIV/AIDs discussion.

Random pic of a rat my brother Ba Odrich has just cooked and now is about to eat.

From right to left: Ba Richard, Ba Odrich, Ba Gataya cooking rabbit(kalulu) and bush rat.

Me showing a farmer the dam.

A crazy hairy giant caterpillar.

One of the benefits of not really having a schedule is that often you can get up and go some where at any time. Well another PCV Ed Oconnell came to visit and that night we were eating with my ba tata and his brother who had come from Fawila a few days before. It turned out that he was returning to his village that following morning. Another PCV Natalie Neft also lives in Fawila and the bush path from her village to mine is over 30km long, over a small mountain and incredibly difficult to navigate without a guide. So we asked if we could accompany my ba tata's brother to his village. We stayed a few days with Natalie and climbed the mountains which are literally in her back yard.

Zambains rarely make chicken coops and so this is a rooster trying to roost in one of our trees.

Three puppies that have temporarily moved into my nsaka.

They have befriended the pigs.

Maybe a little to much.

The longest millipede I have ever seen in my entire life.

Some of the kids(from left to right, Matthew, Mildred and Mike) at the termite mound trying to get service.

A turtle I found at my site.

Hey All,

The evolution of work in the village has been moving along with an uncontrolable fluidity, if that even makes sense. As a Peace Corps Volunteer as much as you try to and schedule and plan your time the village has a way of dictating it for you. One month, you have have scheduled meetings with farmers to visit and assess their sites, but of course non of them show up, but then that very month almost every single day the village kids are at your door asking to go over the alphabet and geography, but then with a predictablity similar to say that of the wind, the thrill of studying geography and your abc's is gone and you've become chop liver. Then you start thinking, "wow, now the kids don't even want to work with me, I don't know how I'll occupy my time for the rest of my service." But, just as soon as that thought has entered your mind the carpenter stops by. And even though he told you he would have the top bars ready a month ago he has now shown up at your door and you can now finish the bee hive.

With the fluidity now taking some visible shape a few projects have actually been finished.

The first project that has been finished was Ba Richard's dam. I can't remember if I recounted this or not, but during the rainy season the water for the wall become so much that it broke the dam. Thus not enough water could be blocked and furrowed off. However, even though it was not functioning it still acted as an excellent visual for other farmers that were interested in building a dam, so I would make a point in showing it off.

Recently I did a site assesment with one of my neighbor's Ba Kanimba. He has a very large dambo area, with a great deal of water that runs through it seasonally. After, seeing that Ba Kanimba had land to build quite an exquisite dam, we then walked over to Ba Richard's to see the dam we had built together. As we arrived, I could only look on with shock and amazement. The dam was fixed.

Even with the water trying to flow through the broken wall, Ba Richard had moved enough earth to the weak part of the dam, stopping the water. He took the initiative to do work by himself that I thought wouldn't be able to be done until the dry season. When you see something like this, with all of its ups and downs along the way, well you just don't know whether to laugh or cry. So I laughed. The dam was successfully blocking water and furrowing it off to his gardens. He is quite possibly the only farmer in Nshinso that has any type of irrigation, doing any type of water management and ultimately will have water for much longer in the season than anyone else. Ba Kanimba was very impressed and now he is planning to build a dam of his own.

Water being captured.

Water being furrowed off.

The second finished project that I have alluded to is that my bee hive is finally done. As most of you know I have been working on building a Kenyan top bar bee hive with my Ba tata and one of my Zambian brothers. We started by making the base, to be honest I don't really know what it is called, where the hives actucally take up space. Once we finished the base we needed what are called top bars, which run along the top of the hive, where the bees actually attach the combs. Now the top bars have to be a certain size and shape otherwise it will not work. One of my brothers was working on getting top bars, but that process, was getting no where. I lack the skills to build such top bars and so the natural inclination is to ask one of the village carpenters. I considered commisioning the work myself, but referring back to my previous success with village carpenters, which is infact non existant(the success), I thought this project was never going to get finished. Then some indecernable time into the future I was visiting Ba Monga's dam and ran into on of the village carpenters on my way back home. So I figured, "why not, why not try to give this one last shot." So I asked the carpenter if he was interested in work to which he replied, "yes." I did my best to explain what I wanted, but clearly we were getting no where. He then offered to come to my house later that afternoon to see the bee hive and get proper measurements. We parted ways and I expected that there wasn't a chance in the world that this guy would show up. The rest of the day passed and then late in the afternoon, I went to network. As I am sitting up in a very tall tree trying to desperately to get a bar or two I hear a call from down below, "Ba Willy!" To my astonishment it is Mr. Makucha, the carpenter.

I greet him and then we walked over to my site to look at this bee hive. I explain to him what I want and then we negotiate the specifics of the deal. Now I have been around the block a time or two myself and have heard plenty of stories to know what and what not to do. We end up agreeing on the price, 30,000 Kw for 31 top bars. He tells me they will be ready tomorrow, I am pessimistic. He then asks for a 20,000Kw deposit so that he can buy the wood and start the bars. Eventually I work him down to 10.000Kw deposit and he will borrow the rest. I then tell him that he has to give me his hat, then once we have successfully made the transaction of goods and tender I will return to him his hat. I figure that way if I never see my 10,000( 2USD) Kw again well at least I got a hat and a mildly entertaining story out of the deal. As ridiculous as it sounds a deposit on things made by carpenters in the village is actually a very common practice, but is so disappointing when you realize that your carpenter can not even budget well enough to save $2. After we have made an agreement on the deal I got out two pieces of paper, wrote down the specifics of the negotiation and we each signed, this way each party had a contract. I then gave him 10,000 Kw, he gave me his hat and he went his merry way.

The next day I arrived at the agreed upon meeting place, waited an extra half an hour and or course he was no where to be found. I asked around, but nobody had seen him all day. Typical, I thought. Then one of the shop owners said that he had not seen Mr. Makucha, but that his tools were in his shop. I then proceeded to ask if I could see his tools. Seeing that Mr. Makucha had broken contract, I felt that it was my duty to rather subjectively decide the terms of his punishment. So I rummaged around took his hammer, obviously only selecting a tool that would not hinder the creation of my top bars. I then explained to the shop owner making it as clear as possible that I was in fact not stealing his friends hammer, but rather holding onto it until he delivered said goods. So on my merry way I went.

The following two weeks I biked into Nshinso everyday and asked if any one had see Mr. Makucha, to which they would respond no. When they would ask why I was looking for him I would then tell them it was because he is a thief, having stolen both my time and money. Two weeks went by and I had pretty much given up.

Then, about a week later Mr. Makucha shows up at my door with the finished top bars. His excuse is malaria, not the first time I have heard it, but oh well. The quality of work is not outstanding, but it will do the job. He sees the bee hive and the mold and expresses genuine interest. I tell him I am trying to get bee keeping going, it would be a great money maker for him, because every person that builds a hive will have to buy top bars, which they can buy from him, as I have done. Even more so he could build his own mold, making the hives himself and sell the complete set. We then set up a date to meet in Nshinso and build a hive together. He doesn't show. I am no longer working with him, but I do have a finished bee hive.(It currently has no bees, so I guess as of now that would make it a mud box with sticks on top of it.)

The last success has been working with Ba Felix, he is the herdsmen who has come to live with the Nsana family. Now his full time job is watching the cows. More than likely Ba Felix will never go to school and so I have been working with him where I can. All of the other kids know their Abc's quite well, but Ba Felix hardly knows his at all. I also know that he is not just stupid because when it comes to knowing the globe he is one of the best. So it has been my goal to make sure he knows his Abc's before I jet off back to America. I want him to learn his Abc's so much so that I made him flash cards with with pictures of something in English and Bemba, starting with that particular letter. He had been blowing me off for awhile, which was quite disconcerting considering that I had gone to all of the trouble of making the cards. However, lately he has been coming by in the evening with one of my ba tata's sons, Ba Junior. Normally when I am going over lessons with the kids one of them gets stuck, then the rest of them are unable to contain themselves and blurt out the answer, so I send the offender away. But Junior has finally figured me out and can now read me like a book as to how I conduct the children. He is able to notice when someone is struggling with a concept, allow them to struggle with it and then asks the person if they would like help and then asks me if I would like him to help, which is something I have really enjoyed. So, Ba Felix is getting much closer to knowing his abc's

Don't worry your tax dollars are not completely being wasted.

Will

Some of you have been asking for a more detailed tour of my humble abode. So here it is. You are welcome to come visit anytime, my door is always open.

The hut.

My door. It was painted by a previous volunteer.

The floor plan.

1. The chalkboard and pictures of my family and friends.

2. Storage benches.

2. Storage benches.

3. Where I store my food.

4. Where I enjoy lying down after a hard days work.

5. The storage benches in use.

6. ?

7. My beloved book shelf.

8. The messy drafting table.

9. The view.

10. Some art work in my free time.

11. Some more work, not exactly organized at this point.

12. My lofted bed where I sleep.

13. The kitchen space and multifunctional loft/overhang.

14. Kitchen space.

15. Kitchen and water filter area.

Hey All,

For those of you still reading, I hope that my tellings of life here in Zambia don’t solely paint a complete picture of doom and gloom, with the occasional reward of a vacation. On the contrary there are some very positive things happening here.

The first of these things is the time that I am spending with the kids that live around my site. And there are five of them, who are just about inseparable that I hang out with. Three of them are Gordon's, my second closest neighbor’s kids. I remember the first day I really met them, during community entry. When I first arrived at site I paid the kids in bubble gum, or “ama bubba” as we call it in the village, to do various odds and ends. These usually consisted of fetching water, getting firewood or cutting the grass around my house. I must say, I was happy they would do my bidding. It is common for volunteers to give sweeties to kids as a reward for doing different odds and ends. Little did I know this would become such a catch 22.

On the particular day that I remember meeting them, I had no work. That translated into no bubble gum. Naively, I assumed that they would walk off with the answer that I had given them. However, that answer did not seem to please the kids. Thus, they began to wander around the outside of my hut, looking through the windows saying “twafwya amapiece work(we want piece work)” or “ndefwaya ama bubba(I want bubble gum).” At this time my Bemba was even worse than it is now and I continued to tell them “lelo awe(today no).” But they kept persisting.

Eventually they went to the side of my hut, sitting against the outside wall and mocked my ability to speak the local language. Although I was inside and they were out, we were probably no more than 8ft from each other with only a dirt wall and grass thatch between us. At the time, all I could think was how awful this situation was. This is what the next two years of my service was going to be like. These kids, who I have no idea who they are, are going to sit outside of my hut and make fun of me when I can’t speak the language. I was terrified for the future of my service. I remember thinking, “what a bunch of pieces of shit.” I was almost to the point of crying. As I continued to brood in my hut I decided to say little prayer. Then I proceeded to fume for about 15 minutes.

Finally I decided, “welp, if they want to work so bad for some bubble gum then I am going to make them work until they never ask for bubble gum ever again.” I went outside and asked their names. And for the first time I was properly introduced to Matthew, Mike, Muna and Junior. Then I told them that they could get firewood for me. On this particular day, I knew that bathing and dinner were not to far off, so I did not ask to much of them, knowing that they would be back tomorrow. Just like clockwork that next morning they came around asking for bubble gum.

At that time I was still very optimistic about fish farming, so I told the kids that they could help me dig my demonstration pond. They found hoes and were ready dig. And boy did I make them dig. We worked for about three and a half hours in the hot sun and when they would complain I would make fun of them. Seeing that I was the authority figure, when I would make fun of one, the others were soon to follow. Junior was the first to drop and so he became the fodder for our amusement. Matthew was soon after. When they stopped I would tell them they only got one piece of bubble gum. But after an hour or so of work, one piece hardly seemed fair, so they kept working.

Also, to my advantage their collective bargaining skills were not very refined, thus their ability to organize and mass strike had been compromised. When one of them would complain and stop working, I would talk about how they would be given no bubble gum. However, to the ones that kept working, they would receive plenty.

Another tactic I used to my advantage was I never quantified a number. This gave them no basis to assess their own work done in relation to the perceived reward being given. Then once I decided I was tired we stopped and went back to my site where I paid them. My payment scale was based purely on my subjective observation of their individual work ethic, a method not exactly with in the confines of piece work.

I paid the three kids that worked the least, three, four and five pieces of bubble gum respectively. I then paid the hardest worker eight pieces of bubble gum creating enmity and division within the group when they saw how much more he had made. Junior the one that had made the least was ostracized and made fun off, because he had received the least. All the while, Muna, who received eight had to be careful not to get too high on his horse for fear of resentment from the other three. They all left that day dumbfounded not knowing what had just happened to them and I was left with a big ass grin on my face.

The fifth member of the group is Ba Felix who did not come until a few months later and I do not know if I will ever forget the day I met him. It was at night right around dinnertime. Normally I eat with the family, but this particular night they were nowhere to be found(of course not telling me where they had gone), either at a funeral or some church function. I had recently finished my corncob charcoal maker at the time and so I was out checking to see how it was drying. Then out of nowhere this little boy, no more than twelve years old showed up. I asked him how he was and he said good, but that he was hungry and he told me that he was supposed to be eating with my host family, the Nsanas.

At this point I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, I knew that the family would not be coming back for dinner and so this boy would probably not get any dinner, if in fact he was eating with the Nsanas. Also, seeing that I did not know the boy I naturally assumed he was just one of the village kids who I had not met yet. Normally I am willing to lend or give anything to Zambians, but I will not feed them, with the exception of when I eat with my family, but I consider that sharing. So seeing that the family was not coming by for me to share my beans with them anyways, I decided to break my rule and share them with boy who I did not know.

The next day I was sure I had been conned by one of the village kids, they saw that my Zambian family was not around and decided to see what they could get from the mazungu(white man). However, I found that this was not the case at all. What I found out was that Ba Felix was an orphan whose parents had recently died. They were relatives of the Nsana Family and so Felix had come to live with them. The Nsana family just happened to not be there on the night he arrived. He has been living with us ever since and I seen him daily.

Ba Felix became regular chums with the kids in no time at all and was no sooner asking for work like the rest of them.

From this the work and rewards system slowly evolved. A little while later I got a soccer ball in the mail from my loving family. I used this new found object to present them with a choice between a negotiated upon amount of bubble gum or the soccer ball in exchange for work. I always did my best to low ball the amount bubble gum I would give them and so the soccer ball increasingly became a popular choice. Also, by getting the soccer ball it took away my ability to individually assess their work. By not being able to do this, my ability to assess and reward their work individually allowed them to strike and collectively bargain on a unified scale. This took away some of my power as their employer. As time went on I became more and more of a stiff when it came to rewarding bubble gum and so I think they decided side step the issue altogether by requesting the soccer ball.

Our relationship evolved even further when one of the PCVs received a bunch of blow up globes in a package. I was fortunate enough to receive one of these globes and eventually it found its place hung up in my nsaka. Then I gave the kids another choice. Either they could work for “ama bubba” or learn geography and get the ball. Now they don’t even ask for bubble gum anymore.

Today our interactions have materialized into a routine. At about eight or nine in the morning the kids come around yelling, ”Ba Willy, twafya ukubelenga(we want to show)” and then I respond by telling them that I want to sleep for ten more minutes. They have turned into my alarm clock for the morning. As I grill each one of the kids making them find different things on the map quite often it is difficult for the other kids not to blurt out the answer. Then I yell at that particular kid(good naturedly of course) and tell them to go the ba mayo’s kitchen so that they do not interupt anymore, the kids find it absolutely hilarious and so do I.

Now all five kids can identify the seven different continents, five different oceans, and about eight countries. Even when the kids have friends come over or if someone wants to join their game they will send that person over to me before they are allowed to play. That way at the very least I can make them learn where Zambia and Africa are. Just as long as they learn something they can play. It is a gratifying feeling when you can teach someone for the first time how to locate the country in which they live on a map. Currently we have moved on to spelling and learning the sequence of the alphabet. After that I plan to start with addition, subtraction and multiplication.

Some of my favorite afternoons have been teaching the boys how to dive down by the river.

The other promising aspect about being in this country is that for every time someone lets you down or a plan doesn’t pan out, there seems to be something very optimistic that happens shortly after. This happened for me about a day or two after I found out the disheartening news about my farmers that were digging the dams.

Another farmer I have been working with Ba Kenneth Hamagoa, who has already dug a fish pond, showed up at my hut on time(45 minutes late) to help me with my experimental Kenyan Top Bar Bee Hive mold. He showed up at 9:45am and we got right to work. We started by mixing up a batch of mortar, half the refuse of termites and the other half sand. First we put down a layer of mortar. Then we laid elephant grass in the mortar in a similar fashion to rebar and concrete reinforcing the walls. Then again we relined it with mortar.

Originally it was my idea to line the box as if it was fully standing up and erect. We quickly learned that this was not working as the mud slid down and I was fresh out of ideas. It was at this time that Ba Kenneth and one of his Zambian in-laws took over. Instead of constructing the walls while the box was up, we laid the box flat and built each wall of the beehive individually.

Once we had figured out how to build each wall individually, the hardest part was figuring out where to put the box so that it was safe from the chickens and goats. The box is quite heavy and very delicate making moving it difficult with all of the walls down. We sat around for about two hours, coming up with no good answers and finally decided to leave it there and hope for the best. Several times we saw chicken, dog and goat foot prints on it and so I was constantly having to patch holes. We then let the box dry for two days. Once the clay was a stiff consistency, but had not yet hardened we scored the edges of each individual wall, putting silt on each of the joints. The walls were then lifted up and the joints pushed together. After a few days we then lined the box with a mixture of 90% mud and 10% sand to fill the cracks and strengthen the joints.

Now that all of the mud has dried we finally brought down the walls of the mold and are waiting for top bars to be made. Then we will bait the hive.

The fully mudded base for the bee hive.

Close up of the inside of the hive.

The mud Kenyan Top Bar Bee hive.

The mold walls coming down.

Reinforcing the outside of the wall.

Mixing more mud.

The third and smallest of the victories happened when I was having dinner with the family one evening. As much of an outsider you feel on a daily basis there are definitely times when you see how integrated with the family and community you’ve become. Every night I eat dinner with my ba tata and I will share a relish with them that to go with the Nshima. Usually it is two cups of beans, which at this point has become routine.

On a typical night it is just ba tata and myself. Ba tata sits in what looks like a wooden lazy man camping chair and I sit on a stool that is about a foot off of the ground. We then eat on a small coffee table. The three ba mayos sit on a blanket at the opposite side of the fire. From time to time we have a male guest join us at the coffee table. On this particular evening, Ba Kenneth Hamagoa, the man who has risen to the status of my favorite Zambian in the village, joined us for dinner. We washed each other’s hands as usual and I blessed the meal. Then as I always do, I split up the beans that I have cooked equally with the ba mayos, because, well, they are the ones that cooked everything. After serving the ba mayos first, I poured some beans in ba tata’s bowl. It had become the evening routine, no one even batted an eye.

As I was dispersing a majority of the evening meal I could see the apprehension on Ba Kenneth’s face. I think he thought he wasn’t going to get any of the beans and at any moment I might start dispersing the rest of the meal. He didn’t know what to do, he felt out of place, uncertain of what to do now that all the bowls for relish were gone. I usually eat from the pot of beans and I told him it was perfectly acceptable of him to do the same. Once we started eating, everything was once again commonplace.

I couldn’t help but smile. Although the event that took place so subtle in nature, if you knew what you were looking for it was there. It is generally not my m.o. to make people feel uncomfortable, but it was a win never the less.

Even though it was small it makes you realize how much you have impacted their daily lives and how they have shifted and even changed their lifestyles because of you.

Africa: living life daily, by doing all of the things you were told not to do back in the states.

As work continues to move at a snail’s pace or rather a Zambian’s pace, the people that you thought were hard workers, now only leave you disappointed and frustrated at the small amount of work they have or haven’t done. So your ability to relate to people and even animals begins to diminish more and more. It leaves you detached. For me the transition first started to take place with cats and dogs. With the feeling of detachment becoming constant, starting with the animals. To Zambians they are nameless creatures that continue to breed, some may survive, but most probably will die, just enough to prolong the species usually. Sometimes when I return to the village and realize that a cat or dog that I used to know is no longer around I try to ask where it went or what happened to the animal, but they ask what cat or dog seeing that they still have others. There is no way to identify one nameless beast from the other, dead or alive. The most disheartening is when I see the family’s starving pregnant dog, scrounging for food only to get beaten when it is not fed. And when the dog does have puppies and they try to feed off the mother they are barked and growled at, because she doesn’t have enough food for herself, let alone four puppies. It looked skinny when it was pregnant, now it could be on deaths door. It longs for affection, to be petted, but it is too difficult for fear of attachment. With most volunteers their closest friends are children. However, I used to pride myself on the fact that I had adult friends in the village. By having adult friends I thought that I could make real connections with people and it left a gratifying feeling. Obviously a great amount of patience has been needed, but that goes with any undertaking that you first start. But again, that transition is slowly starting to take place in myself as well. I am beginning to distance myself more and more from the adults as my patience grows thin. Less and less am I meeting people with a smile and friendly handshake. Now, either you are meeting me about work or wasting my time. Otherwise I will just read a book. I think the gravitation towards children is because regardless of language or cultural barriers there is an inherent innocence that we want to cling to. A world where we are also children, outwardly looking at this mystifyingly broken world of grown ups. A world that is distant from us. A world we feel we will never understand. As volunteers and Americans, regardless of how hard we try to integrate we will always be foreigners, outsiders looking in. The native children reflect a similar light, even though they are within their own culture they are still not completely integrated either. Rather, they are still finding their bearings and it is in this similarity that we connect. Like when you are a guest a party where you know no one, but surprisingly enough you are some how able to pick out those few individuals that are also guests. They stand around awkwardly trying to avoid the same conversations of what you do, where you are from and why you are here. As time progresses in the village more and more I feel like I am standing around awkwardly trying to put on a smile, talk about the weather and being polite. Sometimes I feel like I have made a connection, but then it is fleeting. Now that I am a year and half into my service it is just expected. One of the first people I met and one of my closest neighbors in the village is Gordon. He has told me time and time again that he wants to work with me, but never does the things he tells me he will. Didn’t start the dam, didn’t dig the pond, didn’t drop off the cement, didn’t get the wheelbarrow, never gives me a straight answer, still owes me money. Chundu was one of the next people I formed a bond with. However, when I have checked his progress with the dam, he always has more and more excuses for why more progress hasn’t been completed. The final straw for me was when I was on my way to his dam to check the spillways he told me he had dug. I met him on the path, as he was walking to go see the African Cup, an activity that takes up 6 hrs of the day. A combined 3hrs of travel time and 3hrs to watch the game as well as pre and post shows. As I met him on the path to his house I was no more than forty yards from his dam and I asked him how progress had gone on the spillways, seeing that I was on my way to check them. He responded that they were finished. I was delighted and now all the more eager to check the progress. Got to the dam, no work had been done. He lied right to my face. The biggest disappointment though has been from Ba Richard. I knew that him and his wife had been having problems, but on my return from Mozambique, my bata(father) had informed me that his wife left and took the kids, he had been beating her. This is the person who I have done the most work with in the village, the person with whom I spent three weeks digging a dam. Now, I don’t know if any of that work will ever be completed, because I don’t know if I am going to work with him any more. There are countless other examples, but those are the ones that get to me the most. It seems like each promising friendship that is forged generally results in some kind of let down. And so you revert, you become a child, looking for the simple pleasures once again. There is simplicity in the relationship, you don’t have to worry about them giving you a hard time for not saying “hi” or forgetting their name or never coming to visit. With kids there isn’t that constant feeling of forgetting something that you should be doing, but at that same time having the feeling of never accomplishing anything either. You enjoy the moment, because right now, the kids aren’t let downs, just kids, stuck in the same unfortunate situation as yourself. Though you know they are the same kids, who will become the people that currently let you down. We put so much emphasis on saving the children, all the while the people we are saving them were once the same people we are trying to save. They are children still, never having been taught or properly developed. We point the finger, but they were once the same children we now pity.

At the beginning of January the rains finally came with a mighty force. No longer is the soil dry, with the rains filling up the dam quite well. However, it did magnify some areas in which we fell short. That aspect was a bit frustrating, but it was solid progress none-the-less. We could clearly see our mistakes and what we needed to work on. The biggest take away though was that the dam holds water, giving us a base to work from.

The first shortcoming was a combination between the lack of compaction of the back wall and the grass that we laid down had not yet established roots. Without established roots, the grass merely lay on top of the loose dirt. When the rains came the water went right though the clumps of grass and washed out a section of the back wall. We still could have fixed it with time and manpower, but now that the rains have come Ba Richard is busy in his fields and has no time for the dam. And seeing that this is not my dam I have no intention of working on it by myself, I am just the helper.

The rains continued to pound away through out the month of January. Then the combination of the dam already seeping, due to the washed away dirt and the spillways not being deep enough to mitigate the water, water continued to push out on that section of the dam. It was not the entirety of the wall, just about 30-40cm of a one-meter section in the top. Still fixable, but we will now have to wait until the dry season.

The second dam that is currently under construction is with Ba Monga. Ba Monga is one of the more bwana(rich) farmers that I am working with and so he decided to hire people to dig the dam for him. He pays his workers 15,000 kwacha for a day of labor. For those of you thinking that sounds like a good amount of money it roughly translates into three dollars a day.

Even though his dam is slightly larger about 40 yards in length. It has taken him much more time to build. Now that he has finished both dam walls, he wants to plug it in the middle of rainy season. I have told him time and time again that this is the worst time he could possibly plug it, seeing that the water is flowing at its strongest. Finally after informing him that Richard’s dam wall partially broke, I think he has decided to listen. His progression on the dam has been so slow that I have threatened to stop working with him, but when he is the second most productive farmer that I am working with there aren’t many other options. Also, he gives me things like beans, cookies, or a soda when I come to visit him. So I am never that disappointed.

The third dam is being constructed with one of my Zambian brothers, Chundu. Chundu has a significantly smaller area than the first two, but it has taken him even longer than the first two. The dam has filled with water, so that is at least something positive. However, even though the dam is holding water, it still has no spillways, so every time it rains the water either flows over the top or out the sides, eroding away with every rain.

Pictures should be coming, but my SD card is suffering from a virus and so pictures will be dependant on its recovery.

Hey All,

Here is a post that another volunteer wrote, but I feel that it is just as applicable.

"12 Reasons to Date a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer

By Erica Burman on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

(credit: http://laurapruittdesign.blogspot.com)

It’s Valentine’s Day! A day when we celebrate friendship, love, and romance. Through the years here at the National Peace Corps Association, we’ve heard countless stories of Peace Corps romance. The couples that met at the airport on the way to training. The couples that met while serving. The Peace Corps Volunteers that fell in love with a host country national. And the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers that connected back here in the States, discovering that the shared bond of Peace Corps service was the spark that led to a relationship.

Peace Corps is a life-changing experience that develops a unique set of skills and attributes. So it goes without saying: Returned Peace Corps Volunteers make GREAT dates. And just to prove it, we’ve started a list.

12 reasons to date a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer:

1. We can woo you in multiple languages. Who else is going to whisper sweet nothings to you in everything from Albanian to Hausa to Quechua to Xhosa? That’s right. Only a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

2. We’re pretty good dancers. Yeah, we don’t like to brag, but after 27 months in Latin America or Africa we know how to move it.

3. We’ll eat anything. Seriously. No matter how bad your cooking, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have had worse and will eat it with nary a blink. Sheep’s eyeball? Water buffalo gall bladder? Grasshoppers? Bush rat? Bring it.

4. We know all about safe sex, thanks to our very thorough Peace Corps health training. In fact, there’s a chance that we’ve stood unblushingly in front of hundreds of villagers and demonstrated good condom technique with a large wooden phallus.

5. We’ll kill spiders for you. Well, actually, we’ll nonchalantly scoop them up and put them out of sight. Same goes for mice, geckos, frogs, snakes. Critters don’t faze Returned Volunteers.

6. We have great date ideas: wandering a street market, checking out a foreign film, taking in a world music concert, volunteering…. Romantic getaway? Our passport is updated and our suitcase is packed. With us, life is always an adventure.

7. We like you for “you”… not your paycheck. Especially if we are freshly back from service, a local joint with “character” will win out over a pretentious eatery. Living in a group house? No problem. Does it have running hot water? What luxury!

8. You won’t get lost when you’re with a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. Navigating local markets on four continents, we’ve honed an uncanny sense of direction. Or else we’ll ask for directions. We’re not afraid to talk to “strangers.”

9. Waiting for a late train or bus? Don’t worry, we’ve been there, done that. We can share lots of funny stories about “the bus ride from hell” that will make the time go quickly and put it all into perspective.

10. Our low-maintenance fashion style. Returned Peace Corps Volunteer guys are secure in their

manhood and don’t mind rocking a sarong. Women often prefer flip flops to high heels. We don’t spend hours in front of a mirror getting ready to go out.

11.Marry us, and you won’t just get one family — you’ll get two! When we refer to our “brother” or “mom,” you’ll want to be certain we’re talking about our American one or our Peace Corps one. You might even get two wedding ceremonies, one in the U.S. and one back in our Peace Corps country.

12. And last but not least, we aren’t afraid to get dirty.

Do you have a story of a Peace Corps romance? "

So, just to keep in mind all of you single ladies reading my blog.

Well once again my over reaching plan has changed, but at least this time around I am already seeing more quantifiable results. A few months ago a fellow volunteer came to visit my site, Ed “kick in the pants” O’connell. Ed is the other aquaculture promotion volunteer that was placed in Central Province from my intake. One day while he was at my site I confided in him about some of the struggles and apprehension I had met with getting fish farming going in my village. One of the biggest adversaries that I had faced was that of the dambo or a low lying area of land that collects water, similar in many regards to a swamp. The reason undrainable ponds are so feared is because the amount of controllable variables is significantly less. Now in training we learned about rural aquaculture that specifically dealt with drainable ponds. An area in which I had no prior knowledge and it was a beg step out of my comfort zone. Seeing that Nshinso has few to no furrows, I was a bit nervous of working with dambos or undrainable ponds, being an even further stretch outside of my comfort zone. Most volunteers avoid them if they can, a crowd of which I was apart. Then if the crowd of aquaculture volunteers that participate in dambo ponds is small, the group of volunteers that actively builds dams is that much smaller. Aquaculture was already a stretch for me, building a dam was just too far. Too far that is until Ed “kick in the pants” O’connell asked why I hadn’t already built one, making it seem like the most natural thing a person could do. For some reason this innate sense of reservation has not presented itself in Ed. I think it might have something to do with the fact that he has not read a single book at site. Instead, he has stock piled his hut with Peace Corps manuals, getting to know them quite intimately. To my good fortune I was in the process of staking ponds when one of my closest neighbors quite randomly expressed interest in building a dam for his dambo. So with Ed’s kick in the butt, I figured why not. Now building a dam is not exactly a small undertaking because you are trying to block a large amount of water all traveling one direction. Furthermore, seeing that this farmer was a subsistence farmer with two kids, the oldest being no more than two ruled the children out of helping. Also, he had little capital to invest in the hiring of help. Weighing these factors I eagerly offered my assistance seeing that I also had no idea what I was doing, this way we could help each other along. As a side note: A common theme in Peace Corps is getting asked for wheel barrows from the natives, seeing that many Aid organizations have built reputations for giving them out. I was not planning on doing this, so I figured it was a good chance to see what the bare minimum amount of tools was that we would need to build the dam. Even more so, no one else was using me and I figured why not. So, with two hoes and a shovel we started picking away at this monster panono panono(bit by bit). We broke ground and from the get go we were already having disagreements. More often than not I won the argument, but occasionally I would have to bite my tongue. We started around early October and a few days later the first rain was soon to follow. The problem with this is that as soon as the rain comes Ba Richard would have to start working on his maize field, which would halt any progress made on the dam. The first rain struck and we were filled with panic. If we had any hope of finishing we needed to kick it into high gear. A typical day would start at around 6am and we would work until 11am. Generally we stopped at 11am because by then the sun was beating down. The early rain also required us to plug the key early(center of the dam wall usually left to be filled at the end). This is because as the rain increases the flow of water running between the walls may become to strong and compromise our ability to plug the middle of it. So we plugged it prematurely even though the dam walls were not finished. Plugging the key early means that building the dam becomes a race. If the water level keeps rising, we then have to build the height of the walls before the water level reaches the top and flows over. We proceeded to plug the walls as quickly as possible, neither of us knowing if it would really hold water. The next day we kept working, continually observing the dam. We noticed something but both of us were too nervous to tell the other. Finally, after the second day we couldn’t hold it in any longer and I finally remarked quite jovially to Ba Richard, “Do you see that, it is actually blocking the water!” Just below the dam had completely dried. None of it was leaking. But the first rain was just that and the second and third were no where to be found. We continued digging, but day by day it seemed to just get hotter and dryer, eventually the dambo completely dried. Fortunately and unfortunately, the rain that led us to believe a down poor was coming turned out to be a flash in the pan. Crazy. It is the only way to describe how one feels when looking up at a cloudless sky, tossing on another shovel full of dirt as the wind picks up and blows it back in your face. You know that rainy season is supposed to be around the corner, but you begin to think that it is all in your head. In practice Ba Richard and I currently have a meter and a half high mound of dirt that is increasingly getting dryer as hot season progresses. In theory we have a dam. As the rains come, which should be any day now, the dyke wall is supposed catch the water, raising the water level. On either side of the dam approximately 20cm below the height of the dyke wall we have two spill ways, a place for the water to exit, before the dam over flows. As the water reaches the spill way it is then furrowed off. Water that originally acted as run off can now be used for gardens, drainable fish ponds or maize production. Also, it gives the farmer the ability to have a regular amount of water that can be irrigated for a few months of the year rather than depending on the unpredictability of the rains. Thus, my focus by working on a farmers demo plot has shifted from a top down, to a bottom up approach. “So Will, we have heard you rant about what you “trying” to do in the past and have seen how effective those attempts have been, what makes this time any different?”There are several things that have already made this plan much more effective. The first is that this farmer and the dam are quite close in proximity. From my door it is about a 10 minute walk to the dam and even closer to the farmer’s house. This cuts down significantly on travel time. Furthermore, it provides a visual for the farmers to see how the theory will work in practice as opposed to working purely from theory, also known as a demo plot. The next big benefit is that it effectively weeds out those who are just looking to waste my time. Before I would bike about 30 minutes to Nshinso(the epicenter of my village), set up times to meet with farmers in town and then wait about 2 hours for them not to show up. Then I had a nice 30 minute bike ride back home. In all, my previous method wasted about 3 hours or more of my day producing no results. Now just I set up a time with the farmer for them to meet me at my site. This allows them to see a dam being properly built, also providing an opportunity for them to talk with Ba Richard explaining things that I might leave out, in their native language Bemba. So how has the plan actually worked in practice? Since we have started, I have had about scheduled 7 meetings and three of people I have scheduled with have actually shown up. For those that did not show up, instead of wasting over 3hrs I have relaxed in my hut reading or occupying my time with other activities. If you make it out to my site to see the dam I will then explain the finer points of dam construction. This gives the farmer a chance to see a finished working model and you have won the chance for me to visit your site and make a site assessment. Out of the three farmers that have visited, I have staked three dams and two have broken ground. For this late in the season I tally the progress as a huge success.

Hey All,

For those of you on the email list I asked if anyone would like me to send them a homemade postcard and after several months I am finally going to get them sent out. Please check the cards out here. Also, if anyone out there reading this would like me to send them a postcard, please send me your address and I would be happy to. Just keep in mind that this first batch of cards took many months to get out, so don't hold your breathe.

I have finally finished them and will be heading to the post office tomorrow. But before I officially put these in the mail I would like to clarify a few points. The first is that I said the postcards would be hand made. Although at the time I was insinuating that I myself would be responsible for the aesthetic application, I never specified that in the email. So instead I am sending out postcards that some of the children in my village have drawn. As I said my original goal was to create them myself using each card as an exploration of the aesthetic, but perhaps we will have to wait for that until next time. Instead I saw the loophole and decided to exploit it. Using child labor to my advantage, I lured the children in with candy to do my bidding.

The second thing that you should know about these postcards is that they are all made out of garbage, yes the other term is "recycled". Seeing that there is no type of garbage collection or waste management in this country all of the garbage is either thrown out on the street or burned. I already burn enough of my trash so I decided to slap a postage stamp on it and send it on over to America. That way you can put it on your fridge and admire it.

I hope you all enjoy.

Will

The busy workers in my Nsaka, from left to right: Dorothy, Felix and Mike.

To Ian J. Gilbertson

To Linda and Andy Ferguson.

To the Meyers family.

To Uncle John and Aunt Sally.

To Jeff Brown.

To Charley Sullivan.

To the Makowski family.

To Stephen Jew.

Hey Everyone, recently I got back from a vacation to Mozambique. Another Peace Corps Volunteer, Melissa and myself both wanted to do a week of surfing somewhere and Tofo beach in Mozambique just so happened to be the closest possible location. So here is the day to day play by play.

Melissa and I on the Intercape on the way to Maputo.

7th- We left from Lusaka flying to Johannesburg. Looking back it is kind of scary the things that we were allowed to bring on the plane. They let me slide through with two full jars one of peanut butter and the other with jelly. Even more so, in my carry on I forgot a metal butter knife to spread it with. Once the plane took off my travel buddy and I took advantage of the their free bottle service, feeling the need to do repeated wine tastings to understand the idiosyncrasies between the Cabernet, Shiraz and the Sauvignon blanc. Once we landed in Jo’burg we were picked up by a guy named Rob, who ran a backpackers lodge out of his home called Shoe Strings.A sign we saw in the bus station. Please notice the bottom right symbol, it is a tribal spear. 8th- The next morning we took a taxi to the Jo’burg bus station, where unfortunately we did not stop at the first Mcdonald’s I have seen in well over a year. We took a bus liner called the Intercape and they were very efficient and friendly. The ride to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique was absolutely beautiful with rolling hills and mountains around every turn. We arrived at the backpackers and grabbed some dinner with some South African friends we had met on the bus.Some of the scenery on the bus ride.9th- We woke up at about 5am and headed to Tofo on another bus, which was a bit more cramped than the first one. As we got off the bus and our eyes met the warm water of the Indian Ocean and immediately it became a race to see who could get into the water first. Later that evening we checked out a local beach party a little ways down the coast.In the dorms at the back packers.Some waves.A big bright full moon on the first night in Tofo. 10th- The next day was met with much anticipation as we ventured out to find some surfboards to rent. Before we headed out though, we purchased some eggs, vegetables and rolls for egg sandwiches. Just as a side note it is very interesting to see the intrinsic subtleties left by colonialism. For example, Zambia has these deep fried balls of doe, called friters, left behind by the British. Where as, in Mozambique we are left with freshly baked rolls with coconut, which were absolutely delicious, cementing its position as our breakfast ritual each morning.The daily view. We discovered more and more as we roamed the streets of the little beach town of Tofo. However, our roaming was not aimless, it was a search for a shop we had been told about called Water Works, where we could rent some surf boards. We got the boards and walked down to the beach where my friend Melissa, our resident surf expert, explained the ins and outs of how to catch a wave. The essentials consisted of things like turtle diving, diving under a wave with the board as it crashes over you and when catching a wave, catch it right before it breaks. After about an hour or so of paddling out trying to catch just about anything rolling past, I was finally able to catch my first wave. Even though I was up for probably no more than two seconds it is absolutely exhilarating. As soon as you time the break, you frantically start paddling, increasing your speed as the wave picks you up. It is like a drug and once you get that first hit you keep coming back for more, trying to recreate the experience. I can now understand why some people spend their entire lives looking for that perfect wave. That is once you figure out that one of the most important things about surfing is timing the break. Unlike snowboarding and slalom skiing where you are able to continually reproduce the same effect by simply getting back on the ski lift or having the boat swing around and pick you up, you are constantly waiting for that perfect alignment of events, the tide, wind, under toe, weather and water conditions farther out on the coast, as well as your positioning in the water to these elements, waiting for that perfect wave. I got up few more times that day with relative success. After about 4hrs we called it a day and looked for a place to get some grub. That afternoon we spent reliving our perils against the waves we had faced earlier that morning. Seeing that we had no real guide we were just winging it, until we met some people with more authority on the matter. 11th- The next morning we decide to do our own things, with the exception of the egg sandwich breakfast ritual of course and so I woke up early that day and headed out to meet the waves with two other Americans I had met the prior evening. The waves were a bit more docile which was unfortunate. The day before we had been told that there was a cyclone a ways off the shore which was the reason for the bigger waves earlier in the morning. We got in about 3hrs of surfing with a small share of ups and an even larger share of downs. That evening as the tides came in and waves got much bigger it was captivating to see the much more experienced surfers take to the water, watching them never ceased to amaze me. 12th- By the third day my traveling companion and I were equally wiped out and slept in a bit later. We decided it was time for a change of scenery. So just before noon we hoped on a bus and headed to the slightly bigger beach town of Inhambane. The city was beautiful and lively with the remnants of crumbling Portuguese architecture everywhere. We did the touristy things, took some pictures and scoured the curio shops for souvenirs. For lunch we had a local meal called matapa, very similar the Zambian dish, ifisashi. Matapa is a combination of ground cassava leaves and cashews served with nshima mealie meal. In typical Will fashion I easily cleaned the plate and the people were so amused as well as impressed that they brought me a second dish on the house.A mural in Inhambane.Some of the buildings.The thinking man. 13th- By this time the 13th had rolled around and we were still quite sore so we decided to go on an ocean safari in search of whale sharks. Unfortunately however, Friday the 13th and its uncanny association with bad luck lived up to its name. On our particular expedition there were no whale sharks to be seen. Thus the two hour boat trip amassed to paying a combined total of $120(non refundable) to sit in a boat while I got to watch my friend get sea sick and up chuck off the side of the boat for the entirety of the second hour. The rest of the afternoon I moped around disheartened at our lack of success and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the porch reading, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee. The day brightened up a bit with a rousing game of volleyball on the beach just before sunset, which should brighten just about any man’s spirits. 14th – We had finally come to our last full day and like any great vacation it had come and gone too quickly. I was able to get in one last day of surfing, this time by myself waiting till the afternoon allowing the tide to come in a bit for some bigger waves. Then afterwards I went to another backpacker’s lodge called Bamboozi’s a little farther down the beach to meet up with friends to watch the sunset and grab dinner. We had parting drinks and then I headed off to bed so I could wake up for our 4am bus ride back to Maputo. Sunset on the last night. 15th- We took the bus from Tofo back to Maputo and had the rest of the afternoon there. With the extra time we decided to stroll down to the waterfront. In the capital, Maputo there is a little bay and as we got closer we noticed something incredibly strange about the water. The water was a very deep brown color and as we got closer, eventually reaching the walkway along the water we also noticed an unpleasant smell, it had a tinge of sewage in the air. We decided to give the wonderful city of Maputo the benefit of the doubt guessing that the bay had become a collection of silt deposited from the Indian Ocean. However, when we got back to Zambia and talked to some Zambians that were well traveled they assured us that Maputo does in fact dump their sewage directly into the ocean. So much so that when you are at the waterfront the water is brown as far as the eye can see. A breeze then blows what is now only a mild stench onto the coastline. I can only imagine what it will be like in ten years time. It was truly amazing to see the immediate effects of improper waste management as well as giving a grim look at what has become acceptable practices in most of the world. The sign for the hotel that we stayed at in Maputo. Last but not least some food for thought: Weeks ago when Melissa and I were planning this vacation one of the reasons that we stayed at Fatima’s backpackers was because in a back packers guide, we had read that if you stayed at their lodge for more than three nights the shuttle from Maputo to Tofo was free, which we were very excited about seeing that we are some broke volunteers. But after having a short stint in the motel business myself, one knows that quite often things that get printed by third party publications are not always true. We emailed the lodge asking them about the specifics of their offered services. In the responses from the backpackers we never really got a straight answer to our questions. So, being pressed for time we assumed that the shuttle was in fact free. But, like all assumptions, in the end we made an “ass” out of “u” and “me.” Near the end of our vacation, my friend Melissa had a phone conversation with the owner and began to explain some of our confusions due to the wording of her responses. Shortly after the conversation started it began to turn sour, the owner admitted to the fact that her English was not that good, but then proceeded to accuse my friend of being an “arrogant tourist,” “who comes to a country with out learning the local language.” The conversation continued on for a little while longer with some “loud talking” as the owner described it, but being a guest at one of her lodges one might consider it as yelling. Please keep in mind that this is the owner of to large backpackers lodges, not the uneducated guy selling coconuts on the beach. Furthermore it was surprising to hear coming from someone who first of all works in the tourist industry and secondly the majority of her clientele are in fact native English speakers coming not just from the good old U.S.A., but from all over the world. One would think it would make business sense to be able to communicate with the largest demographic in which you do business with. Although I personally believe this stereotype has begun to wan, the stereotype of “arrogant tourist” is one that has typically been pinned on American’s for various reasons. It is a stereotype that plays into the age old distinction between vacationing and traveling. Vacationing generally being when one goes to a foreign place often restricting their area of travel to the resort or lodge they are staying at, never venturing further than the beaches they are visiting. Then on the other hand you have traveling. Where one might go to a place for an extended period of time, maybe stay with a friend or family member that lives there or maybe even a local hotel. This traveler then might try to learn the basics of the local language, usually restricted to greetings and bargaining in markets. They might even get out and mingle with the local people. Now when the owner of the backpackers called my friend an “arrogant tourist” “who comes to a country without learning the local language” this phrase raises a few interesting questions and points about international and domestic travel, but even more so specifically to Mozambique. The first is the use of the phrase “local language” What exactly does that mean? In the most rudimentary form of the words they often mean a continent, country, city, town, section of town or village that is the most significant means of communication between the people in that area using a specific dialect. In Zambia, where I currently live they have 72 different local languages with the official language being English, another large remnant of colonialism. Those 72 different languages belong to a language family called “Bantu” spreading across large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Mozambique is quite similar in that respect having 43 different languages. However, again due to colonialism thanks to our friend Vasco Da Gama who wanted to sail around the world colonizing the different places that he stopped, Portuguese became the native language. However, interestingly enough in the country where we were accused of not learning the local language, the national language that they currently speak is in fact a direct result of a foreigner who also decided not to learn the “local language,” in the process colonizing and enslaving large portions of the countries inhabitants. So I don’t know if when my friend was told to learn the local language, meaning Portuguese, the owner was subtly telling her to recolonize Mozambique and establish English as the national language. I am not sure. Is it helpful to learn another language? Absolutely. If you are traveling or vacationing to a place for a week how much time should be spent learning the local language? I don’t know, you probably don’t need to be fluetn. Or if you are the owner of a backpackers lodge with a predominately large clientele of English speakers would it make good business sense to cater to your clientele? I think so. Unfortunately we feel this way about the places that we live as well and the people who come to visit. The biggest stereotypes would have to be New York and L.A. New York being a place I have traveled a few times, where us stupid tourists don’t know exactly where Brooklyn is or how to pronounce the name of the park they are looking for even though we are speaking the same language. I guess what it all boils down to is when the shoe is on the other foot, or first look at the plank in your own eye, or walk a mile in some one else’s shoes, or any of those other cliché phrases, when it comes down to it, we are all tourists and if you never are you need to get out more often. Also, we are all natives who maybe need to be a little more understanding. Good travels you arrogant tourists, Will P.S. Luckily I don’t have to worry about it being from Detroit, because well lets be honest, no one travels or vacations there.

"Hey Bridget, Thank you so much for the solar charger. Will"

Here is a thank you card I recently gave a fellow volunteer after she gave me a very nice solar charger(fo free), but as with everything in Peace Corps a lengthy back story is required.

So as many of you may or may not have heard, a few months ago I was bit by a dog. Please do not worry, it was minor and nothing life altering.

I was visiting a farmer who was building a dam and like every Zambian family they have a bunch of mangy dogs running around the compound. Seeing that most Zambian's beat their animals, I generally enjoy being the one person in the village who shows some affection for the creatures. So, like I said, I was at this person's farm when I whistled for a dog that was about five feet away from me. It hesitatingly approached as I stuck out my hand to pet it. However, to my dismay, it bit my leg. The bite has fully healed and even left a nice little scar on the side of my calf. Although, the actual tear was not exceedingly deep, the possibility of getting rabies is always present. Even though the wound would have been rather simple to clean and bandage I immediately knew that I had to call our Peace Corps office to report the incident. I bicycled to the nearest hill side(to get network) and informed the Peace Corps Medical Officer. They then instructed for me to head to Lusaka for rabies shots the next morning.

So, how does this estranged story of you getting bit by a dog end up with you writing a thank you card?

At the office I met with the other unfortunate volunteers who were suffering from one ailment or another. Now at this time, seeing that at the office we have unlimited supplies of electricity, I charged my ipod and listened to it frequently. I know for those of you at home this might not seem like a big deal, but when you live in a mud hut and can very easily go three weeks with out having any electrical anything, an unlimited supply is joyously welcome.

Another volunteer noticed how frequently I was listening to my ipod and commented on the fact, saying something along the lines of, "Will, why are you listening to your ipod so much, arent you sick of it after listening to it constantly in the village?" Normally this would be a very accurate observation seeing that most Peace Corps Volunteers come with some form of solar charging apparatus or another. Now I myself did in fact come with a solar charger, but me being the frugal(cheap) person that I am, I purchased a very inexpensive(cheap) one. It of course broke after two months, leaving me unable to charge my few electronic possessions.

About a day before this observation was made we were hanging out in the volunteer lounge the same volunteer asked if she could borrow some talk time(pay-per-minute phone card). I was happy to give her some. She asked if she could pay me back, but I assured her that I did not mind giving her the talk time in the least.

It is here where these two seemingly remote situations begin to collide.

Upon making the observation the volunteer then informed me that recently she had a visitor from South America that found her on the website couchsufer.com. He was trekking through Africa and simply needed a place to stay for a night or two. The visitor enjoyed his stay very much and wanted to give the volunteer a token of his appreciation. It turned out that he had an extra solar charger that he was not using and wanted to give it to the volunteer even though she already had one. She graciously accepted.

So here are the main points of the story: 1.) I was in need of a solar charger, 2.) She had an extra one that she got for free from random visitor, but most importantly 3.) She was still reeling with gratitude from the dollar of talk time that I had given her. After these three important aspects came together she then asked if I would be interested in an extra solar charger that she had. I replied yes.

I received the solar charger shortly after, which works wonderfully and so I wrote her a thank you card.

This is a typical Peace Corps story.

Hey All,One of my latest developments as a Peace Corps Volunteer has been the planning of an up and coming vacation. Another volunteer and myself have been trying to plan a week of surfing in Mozambique. However, the plane tickets were a bit more expensive than we expected and so we started getting desperate looking for any possible surfing locations. That is when I remembered a sticker advertising surfing in Maldives, so we thought we would check it out. It turned out surfing in Maldives was one of the most expensive options. So we thought we would send them an email explaining our predicament.

Desperate Peace Corps Volunteers Who Think They Will Love Maldives To Whom It May Concern: Dear Sir or Madam, Greetings and Salutations, Hello, my name is Will Makowski, and I am a Peace Corps Volunteers currently serving in Zambia. My friend, Melissa and I would like to spend the holiday surfing come December. Please allow me to share my experience of how I was so privileged to learn about the immaculate surfing of Maldives: Upon my visit to Victoria Falls in the lovely town of Livingstone, Zambia, I stayed at a delightful hostel by the name of Jolly Boys. After dinner one fine evening, I visited the nearest restroom. Needless to say, I was not fixing to take a rest. As I was doing my business, I just happened to glance upon an adhesive advertising devise (or in laymen’s terms, a sticker) promoting the enchanting island of Maldives. I was transfixed and had to learn more! That brings us to the present day.Within the last few hours we have been scouring the depths of the global system of interconnected computer networks (or in laymen’s terms, the internet) only to have our hopes and dreams of surfing in Maldives dashed upon the rocks of reality. And that reality is, it is a pain in the ass to book, let alone find a flight to Maldives. How do you get there? The current reality becomes even more devastating as my friend and I view the stark contrast between the extravagance of the private planes in comparison to our oath to serve and live as the fellow poverty stricken men and women we are helping (in laymen’s terms, we’re broke). So, we come to you today as humbled, adventure-seeking vagabonds in hopes that you will lend your hand and your fancy planes so that we may soar on the wings and waves of your generosity. Or some simple information concerning flight schedules would be just fine. Thank you for your time, and please enjoy the rest of your day. Sincerely,

Will Makowski

And for those of you at home, staring up at the night sky, wondering what I am staring up at on my side of the globe, here is a little taste of what I get to see.

Ba Tata, Lieson Nsana, the man of the house.

Costen reaching for some shima.

The evening meal with the Nsana family, from left to right is nswa(termites), lepu(similar to lettuce), chilemba(beans) and Shima(a more solid form of gritz). All eaten with the hands.

A giant snail I found. Zambia being a land locked country, I have no idea where it was going and no idea where it was coming from.

A chameleon I found on a path by my house. Most Zambians believe that they are related to witch craft, because they change colors and so are often killed when found.

A snake I killed just out side of my house. After I split it open I found that it was digesting a baby chicken. All snakes are pretty much killed on sight here, considering Zambia is home to some of the most dangerous snakes in the world. Identifying snakes can be very difficult, for example a Black Mamba is identified by the black inside the mouth and not by the skin. So if you are close enough to try and identify one and it bites you...well you have 7hrs to live.

The gang in Mpulungu, before we head to Lake Tanganika from left to right, Brooksykins, Neil and Andrea.

Compaction, compaction, compaction is the name of the game when building a dam and that is exactly what Ba Richard is doing.

Charcoal out of maize.

The corn cob charcoal maker, behind that I built behind my house.

I have a globe in my nsaka, where I go over geography with the kids, after they have successfully located a few different continents and counties I let them play with the soccer ball. But as soon as the camera comes out, their focus changes.

The bride and groom.

A Zambian wedding, the parents of the groom bringing a mattress to the couple in conga line fashion.

One of my happiest days in the village, when I found two things, the first being a place deep enough to dive into the river. The second being a spot to dive from. Since then I have taught 4 kids how to dive.

This is my kitchen area in the hut, then above the counter are hanging pots and pans and above the pots and pans, the mosquito net where my bed lies.

Sevren playing guitar at Pre-Service Training in Chipembi.

One of the most epic pictures of a bug. Ever.

Golden stringing up and skinning a goat we ate later that evening.

A Zambian artisan wearing a Case Western t-shirt that Nathan had to him as part of a barter for a hand made chess set Nathan received.

Justin, Nathan and myself in the back of a Tanzanian's semi-truck on the way to Livingstone.

Pulling up the pig after pit roasting it for 24hrs at the Pre-Luncheon.

Mom and pops again in the back of my brother Golden's truck on the road from my village to the Great North Road.

Family foto on the same mountain.

The mom and pops on top of the closest mountain(very big hill) to my hut in Nshinso.

Emily and Zach in the back of our gracious host's truck Eli, in the parking lot in the airport.

The choir singing. Ba Shoko the young man in the middle is the one that I have been reading with.

A typical church service at the Salvation Army Church in my village that comprises almost entirely of my Ba Tata's family. Men on the right and women on the left.

The kids that hang around my hut from left to right, Dorothy, Muna, Mike and Matthew.

Boiling a pot of beans at dusk.

This is why you wear shoes when you bike, so you don't hit a stump and rip your toenail off. Naturally my first inclination was to take a picture. Fortunately, this has been my worst mishap since being here.

At the boiling pot in Victoria Falls.

Bein very close to a lion.

Hangin out with some lions.

Roland and myself at Victoria Falls.

Clay about to do an amazing jump onto the slip n' slide.

The biggest and most intense slip n' slide you have ever seen in your life.

And then even more beautiful John Abrams.

The beautiful Sylve Rawls at the beach on Lake Samfya.

Volunteers Shaun and Megan checking out a farmer's ponds in Luapula

My brothers truck loaded down.

Some chickens hiding in my nsaka from the rain.

The faithful steed.

The hut.

My families broken ox cart.

Some pots and pans.

Kundalila falls.

The view from the path on the way to the base of the falls.

Just chillin.

In the back of a canter truck on the way to Kundalila falls.

Ed and I jumping into the Abassador's Pool during swear-in.

It has been just over a year now and as I have said so many times and I am sure I will say so many more, I am absolutely loving my time here in Zambia and the work that I am doing. A few months ago I hosted what is called First Site Visit. First Site Visit is when Peace Corps Trainees, after just a few days of being in country, are taken to see a Peace Corps Volunteer who is currently working in their respective program. This gives them an understanding of why and what they will be training for over the course of the next few months. Depending on the type of volunteer they stay with, First Site Visit allows one to gauge the way you may or may not want your service to be and what to focus on during training. So on August 6th PCTs(Peace Corps Trainees, yes we have many acronyms) Mike, Sam, Morgan and Carlsye arrived at my site, all four of them having no prior rural fish farming experience or knowledge of the local language. As a Peace Corps Volunteer(PCV) it is often difficult to gauge how much you have learned since being in country. However, when you see people who have only been in country for a few days the difference is obvious. Now that is not to say the new volunteers are idiots or will not be good volunteers it just means that it takes a little time to adjust to a new country and program. I must say they reminded me much of myself of when I first came into country: anxious, nervous and excited, not knowing what the next two years would be like. At the time when I was applying, me being the studious person that I am, researched extensively different articles and opinions for why and why not development organizations in general, as well as the Peace Corps specifically would be a good way to spend the next two years of my life. The majority of what I found was positive, however one of the articles I came across was an OP-ED written by a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer(RPCV) and Country Director that did not display the Peace Corps in the best of lights. This article written by Robert L. Strauss, former Country Director of Peace Corps Cameroon, was one of the largest factors that played into my nervousness about joining the Peace Corps. In short, Strauss makes the argument that today Peace Corps no longer provides an effective developmental service by not sending the top college graduates to countries like it did in the 1960s. Rather, the Peace Corps now focuses on the number of volunteers sending out many unqualified volunteers as possible. But please, make your own synopsis by reading the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/09strauss.html Before making the decision to even apply, I read this article many times but talked with RPCVs who said otherwise. Even after making it through the application process and getting my invitation I was still wondering why I was even doing this. However, after being here for more than a year I am left dumb founded and irate at Strauss’s misunderstanding of what the Peace Corps is and was and what an incredibly diverse experience Peace Corps can be for volunteers(diverse in the sense you could be teaching English in Eastern Europe with electricity and running water or teaching fish farming in Sub-Saharan Africa with no running water or electricity)what volunteers do and the obstacles that they have to overcome to facilitate forward progress. Now I have a confession to make. Tom Kennedy, please don’t read this. When I arrived in country I myself had no previous fish farming experience, I don’t even like fishing that much. Even with this knowledge, I planned my own demise by actively seeking out a program that on paper anyone with two eyes can tell that I am unqualified for. “So Will, is there a good reason why you arrived to a country with no knowledge of the local language or practical work experience in rural aquaculture?” Yes, and I don’t even hold myself responsible for the rash decision, rather I choose to blame a friend of mine(life is always easier that way), Peter O’neall, RPCV Gambia. What Petey told me, among the other copious amounts of advice he gave me, the most helpful was, “Will, do whatever you can to get into a program that is either agro forestry, business or anything else that isn’t teaching English or HIV/AIDS related, because there are plenty of chances throughout your service where you will work on both of these, but the other programs are much more fun.” So that is exactly what I did. Even after Peace Corps had sent me a nomination for Africa doing rural aquaculture promotion, they later called to inform me that they were rescinding my nomination for that program, but that they still thought I was a very qualified to serve in other programs. A few months later they called with an invitation for teaching English in Eastern Europe, but a cousin of mine assured me that she thought I had a good chance of getting Africa(thanks Betsy), so I turned it down. Even later I was given an invitation for doing youth development in Central Asia, Peace Corps told me over the phone that I had an hour to decide. I turned it down. Needless to say I was sweating bullets at this point wondering if I would be given any other placements. Then about a month or two later the Peace Corps Placement office called, offering me the official invitation for the nomination that they originally said that I was not qualified for. Everyone please note that nowhere in my application did I mislead the Peace Corps into thinking I had any experience in aquaculture. As I was talking to the placement officer on the phone I remember beginning to ask why they were giving me a placement that they had originally said I was unqualified for, but then I realized I should probably just keep my mouth shut and go with it. After getting off of the phone I had to check a globe just to see where the country was. So from that time up until I got on the plane for Georgia(where we had staging) when people would ask me where I was going I would tell them, “Zambia,” and then they would follow up with, “well, where is that?” And then I would tell them, “somewhere in Africa.” And then people would ask me what I would be doing there and I would tell them, “Rural Aquaculture Promotion.” And then they would ask me what I knew about rural aquaculture promotion and I would tell them, “Not a thing, but I got two years to figure it out.” Then shortly after, I landed in Zambia “possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma”(Strauss, Too Many Innocents Abroad, 2008). And that leads us to Strauss’s first and main point, “I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most younger volunteers could not, extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers”(Strauss, 2008). Already, I can feel the uncomfortable silence in the room, but before we rush to any conclusions lets pick this statement apart and figure out what it really means. So what does a college graduate offer today? An American that makes it through elementary school, then high school and quite often, but not always, depending on ones previous work experience, as a requirement for the Peace Corps, a person must become a “college graduate”(Strauss, 2008). College graduates are found in nations all over the world and in that fact Strauss would be correct. But to say that the quality of education that a college graduate receives from a university in the States, is comparable to the education that the citizens of developing countries receive is absolutely ridiculous. Please allow me to make some comparisons to the country in which I am currently working. Recently in Zambia there was push to raise the passing rate. And so what was the solution? To lower the score in which a student needed to achieve a passing grade. Already we discover how the foundation of Zambian education is compromised and lacks compared to the education found in a developed country. Another example lies in one of the Zambians in which I currently work with. He is intelligent, open minded and one of the more educated people in my village. He made it successfully through basic school (grade school), upper basic (high school) and even went on to university to receive his teaching certificate. He is very proud of his accomplishments and his family is also quite proud of him, for good reason. However, one day I was reading outside of my hut when he noticed I was using a dictionary as I was going through the book. He then asked if I would teach him how to use the dictionary. This is one of the more educated Zambians in my village; he is certified to teach others and yet he does not know how to use a dictionary. So no, a well-educated citizen in a developing country is not always comparable to well-educated citizen in a developed country and rarely is it ever. Furthermore, in a study conducted by Times Higher Education, it concluded that out of the world’s top 100 universities 45 of them were found in the U.S. This clearly demonstrates that the U.S. is in fact in a tier of its own when it comes to the quality of education that is received post high school. In contrast, out of the 76 countries in which Peace Corps currently serves combined only three universities (Tsinghua University, China, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea) were found on that list. But that is just Strauss’s first and least offensive blunder. His next one comes from his comparison of Peace Corps from its infancy to the organization that the Peace Corps has become today. First Strauss assures us that back in 1961 the Peace Corps was not guilty of sending “minted college graduates”(Strauss, 2008) that “lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century”(Struass, 2008). Seeing that Strauss provides us with no hard facts or outside sources other than his general observations, I will offer research from a variety of sources more accurately painting a picture of what the Peace Corps was like back in its conception. Robert E. White, Peace Corps Regional Director for Latin America, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1970, “In the early days…it was like a parachute drop. A volunteer would be told, ‘Here’s the bus you take. Go and look around and get off where you think you can do some good.” An official report by the government of Honduras concluded in 1968, “The volunteer appears to be someone with nothing to do; the community doesn’t know what he has to offer in the way of help.” One Latin American government official complained to a Peace Corps Auditor in 1968, “The volunteers recently –with one exception- are not helping us at all. They created problems for us”(Forgotten Failures of the Peace Corps, Freedom Daily, Bovard 2011). To add the proverbial cherry on top according to Peacecorpswiki.org the 1960s suffered the second highest Early Termination(ET) rate, while the 2000s have the second lowest ET rate since Peace Corps began. I could go on with countless other examples and statistics, but my goal is not to diminish the work of Peace Corps Volunteers who paved the way for me. Instead I would like to thank them for having the guts to just get on a bus looking for someplace to do some good, laying the foundation for volunteers today. It is sad to see someone so blindly criticize an organization they served and worked with while being in a position, as Country Director, to make those changes suggested, but not doing so. Glorifying his own guilded work all the while marginalizing the achievements of his fellow colleagues. From there Strauss begins to provide his own solution for how to fix the Peace Corps: “What the agency should be doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates as the top professional schools do and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country”(Strauss, 2008). Here Strauss fails to realize two things. The first is he misjudges what effective development work is and the way in which to achieve it. Strauss views it like a puzzle and that once you find a match the pieces just fit together. The problem with that theory is that in development work 2+2 doesn’t always equal 4. He views it as problem/solution, development complete, but rarely does it work like that. Finding a person, who on paper is qualified for a job, does not always mean that they are the best ‘fit’. The second is that Strauss conjects that Peace Corps does not recruit people that have extensive professional experience, which often times is true. However, what he fails to recognize is that many Peace Corps Volunteers do have extensive professional experience. Unfortunately, often they are left angry and frustrated because their experience is regularly wasted. In developing countries you have to deal with things like, oh no I just got malaria, my bike got a flat tire, I have to start a fire in the rainy season so that I can cook my food, I have set up the Nth meeting and people are still failing to show up or the simple fact that the farmer would rather drink at the bar than put more work into his farm. Unfortunately, extensive professional experience will never prepare you for any of those situations. What Strauss presents as effective development is naive. Rarely is it so cut and dry, supply and demand, problem and solution. Usually the problems of developing countries are so multi-layered and complex that it takes a wealth of creative solutions from volunteers in the field working alongside the local people to solve them. One of the problems that another volunteer has faced in her village was people not respecting her, and saying that she had nothing to offer them because she is an African-American. That village’s expectations of Americans was and is a young white person; so that is who they were willing to work with. Does that mean that we should just not allow any African-Americans to serve as volunteers in Zambia because that is not what is in “demand?” Or that their ability to serve in developing countries is less valuable because they are black? Here, we have a classic case of how even though this volunteer was perfectly qualified for the position she was recruited to do, one of the most substantial things that this volunteer will be doing throughout her service will be redefining people’s perceptions of Americans. Strauss argues that the Peace Corps is ignoring the needs of the countries it is trying to help by not specifically giving them what they ask for and continually sending English teachers. In one of my fellow volunteer’s villages, they set up a meeting with their chief to ask what their village most desperately needed. The chief’s response was that they needed a cell phone tower so that they can receive full network in their village. (And for some reason the Peace Corps continues to keep sending volunteers to teach English, I wonder why.) Here is the reality of the situation, much of the health and education programs often work extensively with women’s issues. Unfortunately, women’s issues do not get the time it deserves in programs like business, agro forestry, and agriculture at a time when and in the places it is needed the most. So in short, this is Strauss’s solution, increase the development of information and technology, all the while ignoring women’s rights and issues in patriarchally dominated countries where legally women have rights, but culturally their rights are few and far between. Big surprise, the people making decisions in developing countries do not have the least empowered people in mind. I guess that it is just too bad for those women that those specific services were not requested. If the most effective route to development is what we are looking for, then we should probably just enslave all the inhabitants of developing countries, strip them of their rights for freedom of speech, right to vote and make them build roads and construct buildings. Strauss is correct; considerable amounts of development could get done that way. But if the type of development you are looking for is to develop the minds of Americans and members of participating countries to new ideas, through the exchange of culture and furthering their ability and capacity to make conscious decisions that reference a myriad of other possibilities than I would choose the Peace Corps route. One of the biggest problems with foreign aid or development work is that often times people are hesitant of giving money to organizations seeing that transparency is often lacking. People generally are afraid of donating their money not knowing where it will do the most good. By having Peace Corps Volunteers working in the field that capacity is provided allowing them to utilize their network of friends and family back home. No longer are people donating to a faceless organizations or projects, but rather they are donating to their friend, who is working on a specific project in conjunction with the local people, whom they can hold accountable. But the Peace Corps is more than just the immediate aid or development work that happens during a volunteer’s service. Serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer also works exceptionally well as a building block for people who are looking to get into development work. And what could possibly be a better way, two years of being in the field, working with, seeing and hearing stories of countless development organizations, NGOs and government organizations being able to see and compare how they actually work on the ground level. Further on in Stauss’s article he goes on to make the comparison of what if you sent an untrained native of a developing country to the U.S. Wouldn’t the American farmer see it simply as a publicity stunt? Wouldn’t they see it as completely ridiculous, which it would be and for good reason because this comparison falls short in many places. The first is that any professional/commercial farmer in the U.S. would never request any kind of volunteer from a developing country to teach them how to farm. The Peace Corps entry into a country is completely dependent on a country’s request to have volunteers work there. Secondly, the Peace Corps generally works in conjunction with a country’s national strategy for a program and so the placement and training that the volunteer receives is usually relative to the country’s needs. Even more so this fictitious example that Strauss provides is not applicable based upon my previously stated comparison of the education in the U.S. to that of most developing countries. Strauss then goes on to describe this fairy tale of a situation as a “publicity stunt”(Strauss, 2008). And I must say that observation is correct, it is a publicity stunt and I would like to be the first to congratulate him on his groundbreaking realization. After two years of serving with the Peace Corps and five years of working as Cameroon’s Country Director you would think that he would have figured out what Peace Corps actually is; a public relations organization that does development work. If you go to the Peace Corps website and look at its goals you will notice the first goal of the Peace Corps is to “1.Help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.” But here Strauss is myopic in his understanding of the Peace Corps. The second and third goals are as follows, “2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served. 3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples served on the part of Americans.” In laymen’s terms that means cultural exchange. What that means is that two thirds of what the Peace Corps does, is promoting the U.S. and promoting the counties in which the volunteer serves. So yes he is correct, the majority of the Peace Corps could be seen as a publicity stunt, but that is nothing new, and like I said I am glad to see that Strauss finally broke the case. If Strauss complains about the Peace Corps, why doesn’t he equally address organizations like USAID, when their sole purpose is to be one big publicity stunt. Hand out a bunch of stuff that may or many not be helpful, brand the hell out of it, slapping USAID stickers on everything reading, “From the American People.” He was probably too busy making changes with in his own organization to see the juxtaposition clearly, but unfortunately you will see that this was not the case. Strauss was the Country Director of Cameroon, the highest ranking official in Peace Corps for an individual country. He was in charge of the hiring and firing of the Associate Peace Corps Directors(APCD). Hiring the right people for these positions is crucial, they are the ones that are responsible for creating the lists of qualifications for incoming Peace Corps Volunteers that the country is looking for. Also, they develop the strategy that their respective program will be implementing in the field. One would think that he would use his position to hire the correct people for the job. But perhaps addressing the quality of work that one of your employees is doing would be too easy. Another option would be to create some kind of dialogue between him and his supervisor Henry Mckoy, Regional Director for Peace Corps Africa from 2002 to 2009, addressing the issues he presents. Even more actions that Strauss could have taken would have been to work with the Peace Corps office in D.C. in the restructuring of the reporting tool for the country in which he worked. This would allow for him to receive more accurate data, about what Cameroon needed in terms of development and to problems that volunteers faced in the field using more quantifiable data to receive more qualified volunteers, creating the “organizational introspection” Strauss so longs for(Strauss, 2008). But instead of taking these very practical steps, Strauss writes a letter to no one specific, “addressing anyone”(Strauss, 2008) presenting a ridiculous comparison that is supposed to leave the reader shocked by an observation of something the Peace Corps already promotes, cultural exchange. The sad reality is that Strauss was not only in a position, but rather it was his job to fix the problems he saw, but instead he choose to take an ineffectual route of putting a complaint in the suggestion box. So what is the Peace Corps doing? What is the point of sending unqualified volunteers with no more than good intentions thousands of miles away? The Peace Corps approach to developmental work can be compared to Freedom Summer, The Mississippi Summer Project. Freedom Summer was a campaign launched in 1964 to assist in the voters registration of the African-American population in Mississippi. (Which had one of lowest voting percentages, but had a large African-American population.) The project consisted of over 1000 volunteers the overwhelming majority of them being white. Almost immediately as the campaign started, it was met with violence, murders were carried out by the KKK as well as other racist organizations and government officials. On June 21st, 1964 one black volunteer and two Jewish volunteers from New York were shot shortly after their release from jail for their involvement with the project. Immediately mass media attention was drawn to the incident. Friends and family of the volunteers were now being directly affected by problems that had been persisting for decades. Social outcry had been sparked by this new media attention. Discrimination, murder and racial violence existed long before 1000 white volunteers ever showed up in Mississippi (and let’s be honest it still happens), but it wasn’t until the problem personally affected friends and families of the volunteers that action truly began to take place. This is not to say that forward progress can only be made by mass amounts of white volunteers, rather it goes to show how it takes people working from both sides of the aisle, working together to make progress. Granted, this is an extreme example and the Peace Corps is not going to actively put its volunteers in harms way, on the contrary we are provided with a very extensive support network. But what is at the heart of both of these situations is putting people in impoverished, segregated and desolate places. People that have the ability to critically think, putting a face on and a shedding light onto a problem to people that would otherwise be disinterested and removed from what is happening. Concurrently, putting their friends and family that remain in the safety of their homes in a position that makes them uneasy. Giving them a will to take action now that it is some one they know who is being directly affected by the adverse conditions they once thought remote and faceless. Is what Strauss saying have any merit? Yes, there is absolutely merit to what Strauss is saying and yes, the problems he highlights are prevalent in the organization. But what Strauss fails to mention is that those problems he highlights are problems that plague most if not all development organizations, NGOs or otherwise. It just so happens that it is not simple creating and implementing programs that help elevate people out of poverty. An Australian Organization was working on assisting a Zambian monetarily so that he could go to university, instead he went to Ndola and spent the money producing a pop album. USAID gives out thousands of mosquito nets very year and yet very few of them get hung up. Rather the vast majority of them are used as fishing nets. So much time, money, and manpower is wasted when an inaccurate perception to a problem is seen as and implemented as a solution. Then, what is the purpose of Peace Corps? Peace Corps is about getting into the field at ground level and being able to get to know the people and the problems on a personal level. Peace Corps is not about going to some distant land and helping remote people. It is about helping your neighbors making them better people and through reciprocation your neighbors help you to become a better person. It just so happens that your neighbors differ vastly ethnically(but not always), culturally, and economically than you. Is the Peace Corps a perfect organization? Absolutely not. Could the Peace Corps remodel some of their programs and structuring? Absolutely. But often times problems change as quickly as the people in the organization change and people’s views of those problems and how to change them often differs and it takes time to develop and implement a new plan as well as restructure an entire organization. To make matters worse, a bureaucratic government organization working in a developing country makes things that much more difficult. But so often the myriad of factors that determine whether or not one has an effective service so rarely depends on a volunteers qualifications. The factors that effect volunteers include things like village life, what if the people to not show up to scheduled meetings, maybe the village is very spread out, maybe the village is so used to handouts from NGOs that thy are unwilling to work with knowledge based development, maybe the volunteer eats a lot and much of their day is spent preparing food, maybe there is a near by prison break and you are removed from your village due to safety and security reasons, maybe your site originally had a good water source, but now you have to bike 6km to get water, maybe you have no working cell phone service in your area and so setting up or canceling meetings with farmers is next to impossible, maybe the reality of the situation is that most of the people that Peace Corps Volunteers work with have the education level of a elementary schooler and that the level of farming that they are doing is so low intensive that, yes, a volunteer with a few months of training in a crash course following a unified national plan for the program can have a big impact. In September, I was asked to help with PST(Pre Service Training). My specific topic was dams. Again, something that I knew nothing about before I came here, but since being here I have built one and have two others under construction. At training three people stood out to me Brian, Matt and Ben, however these three were memorable for a completely different reason than the first volunteers had been. Each of these gentlemen had majored in aquaculture. Yet, even with their extensive knowledge of aquaculture, not a single one of them would have be a good fit for the village that I am currently serving in. They are over qualified and probably would have quit, because the gap from what subsistence farmers know, to what one of those educated individuals know is so great, that their experience would have been worthless. Now that is not to say qualified volunteers are not needed or ineffective. On the contrary, they just need to be effectively placed, similarly to the way a volunteer with less extensive experience would be placed effectively. The learn as you go method often avoids the frustrations for more qualified volunteers. Also, it allows for that site to be prepared and a foundation to be set for a more qualified volunteer to truly be effective later. But with that being said, what do I know. I am of the inexperienced volunteers that Strauss speaks of. So anyone reading this should probably take my views with a grain of salt. If Strauss where critiquing this response he would probably tell me that I am unqualified to write it, seeing that I have no extensive writing experience, but rather I have majored in Art and Design, so if it is anything outside of a picture book, well then, I am just at a loss for words.

The view from the top of the hill on the path to the falls.

The pool right before the falls. On the left Tanzania, on the right Zambia and about 15ft below, the 2nd highest water fall in Africa.

The boat trip on the way back to Mpulungu.

Group pic over looking the gorge in Nsanga bay.

Crazy twisting tree on the rocks.

Panorama of the view.

The second highest water fall in Africa, Colombo falls.

In Mpulungu, on the boat headed to Nsanga bay.

Adam and Sevren jamming out during some free time, after training the new volunteers.

The dam a little closer to being done, with most of the water having dried up in mid-November.

The beginnings of the dam a villager and I have been working on, with a small amount of water retention after the first rain in early October.

A panorama of the inside of my hut.

Me bathing in the river close to my house, don't worry, the last time my village saw a croc in it was two years ago.

As many of you have guessed work continues to go slowly here in Nshinso village. Fingerling production is trudging along at an exacerbating slow pace. And working with many different people up to 20km(15mi) apart, with no reliable cell phone service is slow. Although I am not a parent I can imagine it is a frustration similar to getting your kids ready for school or having them do their homework(of course not that this was ever a problem for me). I have not given up on fingerling production by any means, I have just begun to diversify with projects closer to home that I have more control over. For now I will focus on the main three.

The first is a Corn Cob Charcoal Maker. For many subsistence Zambian farmers the most common fuel for cooking is wood from trees they either find or cut down. Seeing that the cutting down of trees without replanting them causes severe deforestation, which causes a myriad of other problems the good people at D-Lab(for those in the know), also known as Design Lab, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) based group that works on creating Appropriate Technologies(AT) for developing countries. The Corn Cob Charcoal maker is one of these technologies. Basically, this charcoal maker is a hollow brick cylinder about three and a half feet tall, by two feet in diameter, with four holes at the bottom to allow the flow of oxygen. You fill the cylinder with dried out maize cobs and set it on fire. Once the cobs are adequately lit and burning, the cylinder is sealed cutting off the oxygen supply allowing carbonization to occur. After a few hours the cobs have turned to charcoal and the pieces should be promptly doused in water to prevent any further burning. Now that you have a bunch of pieces of charcoal, using an adhesive from plants ranging from cassava to aloe, bind the pieces into single briquettes. Then you will allow the briquettes to dry for three days after which they will be ready for use or sale. Even though the process may seem unfamiliar or even complicated, if integrated properly into the farms day to day activities it can actually take less time than the collecting and burning of wood for charcoal or fuel.

The second project that I am working on is beekeeping. About two years ago a NGO called DAPP, Development Aid from People to People, came into my village and held a beekeeping workshop. My Ba Tata, Mr. Nsana, attended this workshop and built a massive 25yrd by 8ft long apiary(shelter for beehives to be stored). But that was as far as he got and there that apiary has sat, untouched for the last two years, slowly being eaten away by termites. So I have purchased some supplies to make molds for the Kenyan top bar beehives and after the molds have been built, I will fill them with clay, let them dry and then fire them. This is quite tentative and quite experimental. Originally, the beehives have been made out of wood, but for subsistence farmers finished wood can be quite expensive. I believe that the same result can be achieved through fired clay, but as always...tukamona(we will see).

The third project I am working on and quite possibly the most effective has been the English teaching I have been doing. Allow me to elaborate. Understandably, there are two ideals common ideal among volunteers. The first is to help the helpless. To be able to find some destitue person with potential, fully understand the need and communicate with them to an extent to make some forward progress to bringing that person one step to a solution. Whether that goal is literacy, HIV/AIDs awareness, agro forestry or even fish farming(clearly these goal are specific to Peace Corps Zambia). The second ideal is to work with a specific individual or group of people, maybe not the most helpless and destitute, but someone that wants to work and get things done, the all stars of the impovirshed community if you will. Then work with them long enough to see a significant impact or change in a person's life or lifestyle. As selfless as volunteer work might seem, there are inherent desires to see the impact of one's work, to see hard work not wasted.

I thought this was happening with the teaching of English and to some extent it is, but more and more it feels like tossing seed onto rocky soil. Recently, I received by mail some books for reading from my parents as well as an ESL book(English as a Second Language, thanks Mr. Postma, if you are reading this I should have the thank you letter in the mail by tomorrow). I was talking to one of my next-door neighbors in the village about how I had received the books and was hoping to start teaching English out of my house. And like so many other times I received a very positive reaction, he even asked if he could tell some of the other villagers as well as members of his family. As you can imagine I received his response with much delight, thinking to myself, "this is great, here I have a farmer who for his village is relatively successful owning a truck and a hammermill that not only wants to further his literacy skills, but his children's as well." I then asked him what day and times would work best for him and he said Saturday at 2pm. So for the rest of that week I found myself scouring through the ESL book, writing down helpful hints preparing for the coming Saturday.

Finally, two o'clock on Saturday arrives. Nobody shows up. Thinking they are just late I continue to hang around the house(tardiness is often commonplace in Zambia, most village meetings I have attended often start two to three hours after the scheduled time). As I watch the sun continually sink west I decide to ask my Ba Tata where he thinks his son might be and of course Ba Tata thought he might be out drinking. Just great. Later through the week after visiting a villager's farm I passed by one of my other neighbors, Mr. Benard Zanduka. Without ever even mentioning teaching English to him he asked if I would be holding English classes again this Saturday at my house at two o'clock. Once again I excitedly thought to myself, "this is great, word of mouth has spread that I am willing to teach English to anyone who is interested, pretty soon they will be banging down my door, to be taught by one of the most proficient English speakers with in miles of them." I even see Mr. Zanduka in the morning that Saturday and once again he assures me that he will be there two o'clock sharp. And once again no one shows up and the sun continues to sink farther west.

"But Will, didn't you say that you had been teaching English in the village?" Allow me to explain. On of my Zambian brothers Ba Shoko (he is technically a brother-in-law being the brother of my second ba mayo, Gene, but ba tata took him into the family when he married his second wife), has a severe learning disability. I don't know exactly what it is, but it is quite apprent nonetheless. He will never marry and never own his own farm. One day I was sitting in my nsaka reading a book when he came up to me and asked what I was doing, of course I replied that I was reading. For a second I put the book down and while I was attending the fire he curiously picked it up. Jokingly I asked him if he could read the book, thinking to myself that there wasn't a chance in hell that he could. However, to my surprise he was actually able to pick out some of the words and even tell me what they meant. Naturally I let him know that I had some books and was happy to go over reading with him whenever he wanted. Quite jovially, he said yes. And that is exactly what I have been doing. Almost every night for the last two and a half weeks, for about an hour after dinner, after he has been doing hard manual labor all day, we go over reading. And he is actually improving. Occasionally, my sisters and ba mayos will join the late night reading sessions, but it is usually just Ba Shoko and myself.

I am currently working under Zambia's Department of Fisheries. Rural Aquaculture promotion was what I went through two months of training for when I first landed here in Zambia. And now that I have been here for just over a year the most consistent and productive work that I have done is working with a person who will never own their own farm, never marry or have kids of their own, marginally elevating a 3rd grade reading level.

This past 4th of July was a fun one. But as everything that I blog about it requires a back story to provide some context, so please allow me to begin. Mkushi, the city, or boma, closest to where I live is regarded as the bread basket of Zambia. Here is where the majority of maize as well as other cash crops like tobacco, sorghum and cotton are also grow. However, the majority of this production is not done by the black, subsistence, Zambian farmers that live out in the bush. Rather, it is done by a select group of white farmers(and some black, but very few with much smaller farms). Some of the farmers are Zambian(white and black) others coming from South Africa, and others yet that were originally commercial farmers that lived in Zimbabwe, but had to flee(one might even call it white flight) after Mugabe instated his "land reform policies" in 2000 that essentially stripped white farmers of their land, who are now forced to call Zambia their home. This small demographic of farmers have their farms in a section of Mkushi simply called the "farm block". And their several hundred farms significantly out produce the few thousand subsistence Zambian farmers. So for us Americans(the most obvious differentiating factor being that most Peace Corps Volunteers are white, but not all) and living in a small town where there is a relatively small population of white people living in Mkushi and a number of those white people living in Mkushi(referencing specifically to those kicked out of Zimbabwe) have had less than a positive experience with the dominating ethnicity of the country in which they now live, there is a natural tendency for them to gravitate towards us Americans(again the most obvious differentiating factor being that most of us have the same color of skin as they do). Even though this mid set is slightly nihilistic. Given that prolonged continuation of segregation even after the obvious recourse seen in other countries(our own included), the trend continues. So the obvious question is why am I hanging out with all of these white racists? So there is a distinction that I move to venture. Is it racism or being prejudice and well one might say, "what is the difference?" As they would in fact be so inclined. But, is it in fact prejudice, referring to prejudgment, making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case or event? How is it prejudging if one has a lifetime of experience with a group of people. But I wish to take it even farther, how could you not be a racist if growing up one of your uncles is lynched, you are forced to move due to threats by the KKK and even later in life your friends are murdered for the color of their skin in north states. A lifetime of experienced racial violence. It is not until your pilgrimage to Mecca that for the first time in your life you see racial harmony and disavow racism, even your own sayings like, "by any means necessary". I don't know.

So in short, seeing that white people stick out like sore thumbs in Mkushi boma we were invited to MFest(Mkushi fest). Once again I will set the stage. Mfest is a two day festival held at the Mkushi country club, not the nicest country club in the world, but for being in Sub-Saharan Africa, a nice one all the same. Also, for those of you paying attention at home I must apologize. I lied. The longer I live here, being a white American(not that different from being at home actually) one is able to quite easily network with the commercial farmers in the area and so the Peace Corps experience only has to be as "bush" as the PCV wants it to be, because there are relatively close, welcoming people with amazing things like running water, electricity and even internet, which they don't charge us for. Please allow me to continue. All of the commercial farmers in Zambia are invited to Mfest and sports tournaments like cricket, squash, tennis and golf are played over the two days. And the even just happens to be held on July 3rd and 4th, with a spectacular fireworks show the night of the 3rd. In all eight of us attended, four of us participated in the cricket tournament(myself included) and even others participated in squash. But we all celebrated Independence Day.

Our Zambian adventure- Part 2 After our trip to the Falls, I decided that Sara and I needed to go on a mini-safari. Everybody but Will had told me that since we were in Africa anyways, we had to go on a Safari. Jollyboys offered a day-long safari for about $145 a person. Besides, our three children already needed a break from us. We left Jollyboys at 6 a.m. with two other couples. Our journey across the Chobwe River into Botswana and to the safari “house” was quite eventful but I will leave that for sara who is doing transportation. We did notice a change in cleanliness for the better as soon as we entered Botswana. We also noticed that women were given a higher place in society. We toured in the morning in a jeep and in the afternoon in a boat. I was a bit concerned about payment since they only took credit cards and I had informed my cards that we were traveling to Zambia, not Botswana. I figured they would work something out if there was a problem. It went real smooth. Before we even entered the chobwe National Park, we saw a herd of elephants by the edge of the road. As we entered the park, we saw Impala a long ways away and all of us were clicking away. Little did we know that we would see hundreds more and much more close up. We saw elephants-big and small, hippos- big and not quite as big, crocodiles, 4 kinds of dear, oodles of birds including eagles and egrets, giraffes, kudus, wart hogs, cape buffalo, a chameleon and a monitor lizard (they are scary looking). All of this was in a natural environment without fences. After a marvelous lunch, we got to see the animals from a totally different perspective in a boat. We all continued to click away. After a great day in the sun, we returned to Jollyboys where we grilled out again. It was about this time that I was getting a little nervous about the fact that I couldn’t get the ATM machines to work. Cute story- the family went to the shop rite to get some food and there was no bread because some women had bought out the bread supply and set up shop in front of the store to sell their bread at a 66% profit. The next morning we were up for another 6 a.m. bus ride. We arrived in Lusaka and Will took us to the Lumphala Market (a little bit unwillingly). There we were, us white people with our backpacks in an area that no tourists ever go. Will warned us not to take pictures. To get to the market, we were basically walking on a bed of plastic bottles because the trash is just thrown on the ground and no one picks it up. The shopping trip will be left for Emily. We were then feted to another wonderful dinner and evening of fellowship with our new found friends and missionaries, the Toribios. The next day would be a long trip to Will’s village, N’shinso. Cedar Point has nothing on the truck ride itself but the description for the destination will be for part 3. Again, if you are thinking a going, don’t think, just go.

Our adventure began when I e-mailed Larry Martel, another Zambian PCV parent, who said, “ don’t wait it’s the best trip you’ll ever take” Then my doctor (I recently had a bone marrow transplant) said, “Go now. You will never be any better.” So with these thoughts in mind, I decided not to wait to take the trip until next Christmas when rates would be low and looked at the winter season (May-Aug) when the kids would be available. Rates in May were $7-800 less than July or august so our daughter, Emily, missed her High school graduation, senior party, senior banquet and a couple of soccer games and Zach, our youngest son missed some school and track meets and off we went. Sara, my wife, will blog about our transportation so I will start covering the events. Will and Eli Toribio, a missionary in Lusaka whom we had never met but with whom we had traded e-mails, met us at the airport. They hosted us for the evening. We got to experience pretty nice living arrangements, eating a feast and having great fellowship for the night. It almost felt like florida with all of the houses being walled off from the world. It was fun and very informative to hear Will and the Toribio’s tell us stories about living in Zambia. They seemed to feed off of each other and they each confirmed the other’s experiences. On our first whole day, we traveled to Livingstone. Will took us to Jollyboys Backpackers. It was great to have Will taking us directly to where we needed to go without having to rely on the hordes of Zambians who wanted to be our best friend and taxi us to our destination. As soon as Will would start speaking Bemba to them, we would be shown much more respect. (Ahh, the musungu knows Bemba) Jollyboys was a great place to stay for a few days. The rates were reasonable and the service was great. It is situated inside a walled compound of course but the grounds are very nice. Sara and I stayed in our own grass thatched hut which was just darling while the 3 kids (our other 2 boys joined up with us at the end of the trip) stayed in a dorm room with 5 other people. The bathrooms were shared which was just fine. We hung out at the pool and in the communal living area that is covered with pillows. The first night we ate pizza at Olga’s Kitchen after hooking up with a second pcv, Leigh, and her sister. The next two nights we grilled our dinners on the grill at Jollyboys using their communal kitchen. All meals were great. We visited Victoria Falls first. We began on the bridge to Zimbabwe. Zambians were always wanting to sell us something so we stuck very close to Will.. Will and Zach did the 3rd highest bungee jump in the world(110 meters) and jumped over the Zambesi River. It was pretty exciting. Emily and I took the less dangerous zip line across the river gorge. Sara clung to the hard earth on the Zambian side of the river and prayed a lot. We then went to the actual falls. They were awesome. The power and sound was extraordinary. This was just after rainy season. We walked on the promontory of land that juts out and faces the falls. A significant part of the falls was covered in mist. The water would fall the 300 or so feet, hit the bottom, rise back up 400 feet and then fall on us on the land facing the falls. We were drenched and the experience was incredible. The barriers between us and a 300 foot drop off on rain drenched and slick trails was either nothing or next to nothing. Even though it was a sunny day, we often felt like we were in the middle of a rainstorm. Next we walked down to the boiling pot which is at the bottom of the falls. We could see the bungee jumping bridge and the angry river at the bottom of the falls. The vegetation was lush and the views were spectacular. We also ran into some baboons. Will told us to keep our passports in different sacks from our food because they like to steal people’s food. We had no problems but Will and the kids did the next day while Sara and I were off on safari. At the end, all but me went shopping in the little shops at the falls. If you believe the natives, everything was built in their little village. All kinds of bartering went on. Sara got some earrings. Emily bought a purse and Zach was given a small giraffe on a string. We crashed back at Jollyboys. I will continue next time with more. But first, if you are even considering visiting your pcv, my advice is to go now and don’t wait. It will be trip of a life time. On our visit, we used ATM machines. This got a little dicey when they were not working in Livingstone after the first night. At that time, I started to worry about running out of money. We eventually got another machine to work when we returned to Lusaka. It was just as I needed to pay for our $300 taxi ride but that is for another day.

I have now been here for almost a year the most common question is what,"What have you been working on?" In the village the the answer is more or less, "nothing." Progress has been moving slowly as many of you have probably guessed. The biggest and most recent accomplishments so far have have been book shelf I built in my hut, a turn of the century design, based on two of Le Corbusier's five points of architecture, using a pilotis, or reinforced concrete stilts, and a free facade. Other highlights have been the arrival of the Makowski Family. I will give a preview, but I told them that if they wanted to visit that there was the condition that they each had to write a blog post. So hopefully they should have a much more detailed description of the events that unfolded.

The Mom and Dad, Em and Zach arrived on May 12th. I met them at the airport, arriving with a Eli Toribio a missionary working here in Lusaka. Their family invited our family to stay with them the night before we headed to Livingstone and they cooked us an absolutely amazing dinner. In fact that night I learned that they feed their dog Nshima, the same thing that for dinner every night in the village. The next morning we took a bus down to Livingstone and we stayed a backpackers lodge called Jollyboys. The first day we went down to see Victoria Falls. Zach and I did the bungee jump, the third highest in the world at 111 meters. Em and Dad zip lined across the river. Mom took pictures. The next day Mom and Dad went to Chobe National Park in Botswana and I hung out with Em and Zach, as well as another PCV Leigh and here sister that was visiting form California. In the morning we visited the falls again(there is much to do there). Then we went to the crocidile park, the most exciting part of the corc park was when for a small "fee" our guide had Zach climb in the cage with the biggest croc in the park, nicknamed godzilla, then as our guide proceeded to hit the croc in the mouth with a stick to agitate it, and believe me, it was agitated, Zach, standing about 4ft away had to throw a giant piece of meat into the croc's mouth. Hopefully Emily will post the video. After the croc farm we headed over to the Royal Livingstone Resort, which is with out a doubt one of the ritzest places I have ever been, there we hung out with some zebras and watched the sunset over Victoria Falls. Later that night we had a big braii(barbecue) and caught up with the mom and dad to swap stories, later heading to bed exhausted.

The next morning we took arranged transportation to Mkoshi, the closest "town" to where I live, where we waited for one of my Zambian brothers to pick us up in his truck and wait we did. Then we spent two days at my site, where I showed my family all of my exciting daily activities like going to the ant hill to check the service on my phone, walking a few hundred meters to draw water and pooping into a hole in the ground. On Friday morning we got a ride from my site to the junction of Great North road. From Great North I was able to get a hitch for the five of us with a Tanzanian semi-truck driver up to Serenje.

There I dropped my family off at a hotel while I went to go and work on preperations the 50th Anniversary Luncheon that was at our Provincial Resource Center the next day. The night before however, Nathan and Justin flew into Lusaka and stayed with the Toribio's, who were excellent hosts once again. Instead of having to hitch hiking up to Serenje, I was able to get them onto a bus of Peace Corps staff and volunteers heading up to Serenje for the Luncheon. And so I met Nathan and Justin when they arrived in Serenje at the Peace Corps Resource Center. The next morning was a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Luncheon, which two other PCVs Allison and Natalie and myself, planned and organized. We hosted roughly 75 people with displays about our different programs, activities and artwork scattered around. Our cooks prepared an absolutely delicious Asian-American cuisine. The musicians serenaded our guests and in the afternoon we played a game of Jepordy, with the questions(or answers) based on American and Zambian history. The next morning I arranged transportation for Mom, Dad, Emily and Zach to the Lusaka airport, while Nathan, Justin and myself stayed in Serenje. There we spent the night and the next morning we hitchhiked down to Lusaka where we took the bus down to Livingstone so that they could see Victoria Falls. There we checked out the falls, some animals and then we went to visit one of Justin's friends Sam who is working just outside of Lusaka with an organization called Light of Hope. Justin played in a soccer(football) game while Nathan and I sat on our butts and watched. The next morning we took a bus back into Lusaka, got some lunch and headed back to the airport.

Now, for what I have been actually working on in the village. Seeing that my actual job description is Rural Aquaculture Promotion I have some obligation to work with farmers to promote fish farming. And that is just what I have been doing. When working in development or really anything for that matter one of the first and most important things that one should do is assess the site and/or problems so that actual solutions can be developed for specific problems as opposed to trying to apply generic solutions to perceived problems.

So here are the specifics, my village is fairly remote. It is 39km(24mi) from Great North Road and another 30km(18mi) from Mkoshi, the nearest town. Nshinso, my village, has a fairly high water table that remains almost all year round. Most of the farmers have dambos, low lying areas of land where water collects(similar to a marsh, but not really) and a few of the farmers have furrows(off shoots from rivers or irrigation canals). Many of the farmers are hard working(mostly the Tongas), but many of them are also just lazy drunks. A few different NGOs(non-governmental organizations) have already done some work in in my village, but most of the work that has been done generally has fizzled out, broken down or the villagers simply do not know how to maintain the work that has been started. Whether the reason for the progress's regression is ignorance, apathy or a lack of training is often unclear.

Also, my village is about 55km(34mi) from the closest fingerling production site, most of the road that will be traveled on winds up and through many hills on a rocky road. Additionally, it can be rather expensive for a subsistence farmer to travel the 55km to buy the fingerlings(small baby fish that will turn into bigger fish), then because the distance is so far and the road rough there is a good chance some of the fingerlings will die during transport. So after assessing many sites and meeting with many different farmers I have found one who I think will be able to start fingerling production. At his farm he has furrow that runs all year long. When producing fingerling it is crucial to be able to control the water supply, giving one the ability to drain the pond as well as to fill the pond. As opposed to a dambo, where water seeps into the pond from the ground.

By having a farmer in my village who is the supplier of fingerlings to all of the farmers in my area, it reduces the amount of travel for the farmer, the cost involved with getting fingerlings and keeps all of the profits in the community as opposed to outsourcing out to the Mkoshi District Officer for the Fisheries Department, who doesn't do his job anyway. Once Mr. Balele, the farmer I am working with, and I have developed the business and structural plans for his fish ponds we will start teaching a fish farming class to the good people of Nshinso, which will hopefully start in the next month or so. By having the supplier of fingerlings also act as the main promoter of fish farming for the village, it provides some incentive for him to actually make sure that the farmers are understanding the material, getting them interested in fish farming and make sure that they are maintaining their ponds, because the more people that are buying fingerlings from him the more money he will be making.

Will this plan work out? who knows, but it is making progress, so I am pretty happy about that.

Another thing that I am working on is bee keeping, but I will fill you in on that more, next time.

Also, please let me know if you have more specific questions as to what I am working on in regards to fish farming.

As the days wear on and more time is spent in the village, the volunteer slowly becomes increasingly integrated into the hustle and bustle of Zambia's daily activity, "hustle and bustle" that is a substantial part of the success and or demise of the country's future. The greenness and initial excitement have worn off, because it is no longer the "Peace Corps" experience or "African" experience or countless other things that it has been perceived to be, but rather the joys and frustrations of daily life have set in. Writing no longer comes with the same jovial and exuberant ease as it once did, because things that used to shock and awe have now become commonplace.

There were 60 of us who flew into the country at the end of July and after meeting with fellow volunteers for In-Service Training, you can see it on their faces, the change of composure and hear it in the tones of lingering conversations. The honeymoon period is over and now the immediacy of our trainers, staff and comforting voices of friends and family from back home are hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The problems that were faced in Community Entry, the first two months of living in the village, will be the same problems that we will have to deal with for the next two years.

But often the problems can be split into two categories. The first category is the problems that have simple solutions, the ones that leave you thinking, "how in the world have you not figured this out on your own, why am I here." The second category is the problems that are so large and have been compounded for so many years that leave you thinking, "where do you even start, is this problem even solvable, why am I here." The problems of poverty, starvation and distended bellies that are seen become a part of daily life, with nowhere to run to look from afar and no suburb in which to hide.

It is no longer just the old dinnertime adage, "you better eat that, you know that there are starving kids in Africa." As I finish eating dinner with my Ba Tata(Zambian Father) as I do every night, we say, "naikuta(I am satisfied or full)" and can not eat any more of the evening meal, one of my brothers(and it is always one of my brothers, never is one of my sisters fortunate enough to eat my leftovers) is lurking just beyond the grasp of the candlelight, they quickly hurry to gather the remains of what I haven’t eaten. And I watch him eagerly scarf it down, only a few feet away from me. The remains of my meal that I may or may not eat could very well be, depending my appetite, the basis for my brother or sister's nutritional intake.

Dropping off canned goods will not bring satisfaction, no weekend clean up will change the amount of garbage thrown in the streets and no donation will reverse the mismanagement of the little money that my villagers have. Handouts become crutches and that dependency leads to an affirmation of behavior, which only compounds the problem further. They are not just faceless people that are being given to or helped. And even though you are here and a part of the community, helping on the personal level, there remains of a large part of you that stays emotionally detached and has to say, “No, I can not help anymore today.” Because, every Zambian wants you to take them back to America. Every Zambian wants to be your friend. Every Zambian wants to feel like their interaction with you is something special. But its not, no matter how hard you try your Zambian friends, family and neighbors all become lumped into a forgotten thoughtlessness. A job for which you clock in, but cannot clock out of until your two years is up. The physical and emotional detachment from your day-to-day realities becomes a necessity. Because the realization is that even if one were to become an efficient volunteering machine, even a lifetime of work would barley scratch the service. Every problem is so multi-layered and the need is everywhere. So what can just one person do? Some days I will just sleep in and read a book.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer you are immersed in the day-to-day life of the Zambian people and most of the time you have to go on with a smile on your face as if nothing is wrong or out of the ordinary, because nothing is out of the ordinary, it is daily life for these people. And even though the volunteer's perception is that you are in the thick of the shit, helping some of the poorest people in the world, at the same time you know that there are even far more impoverished areas of the world and even more down trodden people than this. Or conversely you know that there is a Zambian in your village that is more qualified to do what you are doing, but isn't, so your "help" is not even needed. And even these thoughts and feelings are nothing new or original, but lost in the depths of volunteers, humanitarians and human beings that gone before me and have yet to come.

Just a quick post. Zambia is great. I am loving my village and the work that I am doing. Right now I am working on getting fingerling production going on in my village to supply my farmers with fingerlings(baby fish that will grow into big fish). On the 12th Steve(dad), Sara(mom), Emily(sister), and last but not least Zach(brother) will be flying into Lusaka. From there we will go down to Livingstone for a few days to see Victoria falls, then head up to my village for a few days and then we will head to Serenje for Peace Corps Zambia's 50th Anniversary Luncheon. Nathan and Justin(my brothers) will be not have the privilege of having me as there guide and have to traverse to Serenje, about a 5hr drive away, all by themselves to meet us in Serenje for the festive event.

Here is an excerpt from an email that I sent to Nathan and Justin and how they will begin there adventure:

From the backpackers lodge you will have a few different options, 1. The first option and quite frankly the more exciting option is to hitch hike up to Serenje the night you arrive to the airport. Coming out of the airport there should be taxi drivers you will ask one of them to take you to Independence Stadium. The taxi ride altogether should cost some where around 150pin, which is the same as 150,000 kwacha. Independence Stadium is located on Great North Road which is also the same road that Serenje is located. From there there is a gas station about a kilometer up the road. That would be a good place to hitch hike from. 2. This is probably the best, fastest and cheapest option. You will arrive at the airport at 2:35pm. Upon exiting the doors taxi drivers should be immediately outside. From there you will have a taxi driver take you to Lusaka Backpackers. If you are feeling adventerous you can venture into the North Mead area, but the backpackers lodge will also be serving food, if you so desire to stay put. The next morning wake up around 7am or 8am. Either you can ask at the front desk for them to call you a taxi or there are often drivers waiting outside of the Backpackers Lodge. Ask the driver to take you to Independance Stadium(every driver should know where this is). The ride from Lusaka Backpackers to Independence Stadium should cost no more than 50,000 Kwacha, but it will probably be around 30-40,000 kwacha. Independence Stadium is located on Great North Road which is also the same road that Serenje is located. From there there is a gas station about a kilometer up the road. That would be a good place to hitch hike from. 3. Then there is always taking public transportation. You will arrive at the airport at 2:35pm. Upon exiting the doors taxi drivers should be immediately outside. From there you will have a taxi driver take you to Lusaka Backpackers. If you are feeling adventerous you can venture into the North Mead area, but the backpackers lodge will also be serving food, if you so desire to stay put. The next morning wake up around 7am or 8am. Either you can ask at the front desk for them to call you a taxi or there are often drivers waiting outside of the Backpackers Lodge. Ask the driver to take you to the Juldan Bus Company. Again this taxi ride should be no more 50,000 kwacha, but somewhere around 30-40,000 kwacha. Then you will buy a ticket to Serenje that will cost somewhere between 110-150,000 kwacha. The buses suck, they are always over croweded, stop very often, are slow and occasionally break down. Also, just because you buy a ticket to Serenje does not mean that they will remember to necesarrily stop at the junction. Once at the Serenje Junction: There is a small sign that says Serenje, other wise most people driving cars or trucks that will pick you up and are driving past should know where it is. When you get to Serenje there will be a gas station along with a few other shops. There should be a few sky blue cars around the junction, these are taxis they should know where the Peace Corps House is(this ride should cost no more than 15,000 kwacha altogether). Or Just start walking down the road, stick your hand out and start hitch hiking again and either a taxi will stop. When hitch hiking: You will be staying on The Great North Road the entire time. At Kapiri Mposhi is the only time that the road diverges. To the left or immediate north goes to the Copper Belt, cities like Ndola and Kitwe. To the right and due east(the way you want to go) the next towns are Mkoshi(where I live) then Serenje. Total travel time should be around 5hrs. If the person that stops is only going as far as Kabwe, I would wait for one that is at the very least going to Kapri Mposhi. If the hitch that stops is only going to the next town over, the price should be about 10-20,000 kwacha each. If you are going through one, two or three towns it can be any where from 20,000-40,000 each. Hitch Hiking Tips: To hitch hike get on the left side of the road, becasue that is the side in which cars travel, stick your hand out and wave it up and down. Eventually someone will stop. Hitch hiking in Zambia you are expected to pay for hitches. So who ever stops, just because they try to charge you does not mean they are trying to scam you. Having smaller bills like 10,000 and 20,000 kwacha pieces are helpful to have so that you can pay with exact change. Get past the hustle and bustle of whatever town you are hitchhiking from, on the side of town in the direction that you are headed. The only town that you will run into this dilema is Kabwe, because it is slightly larger. So if you do get droped off in Kabwe, you may want to ask a taxi to take you to the north end of town. Ideally a nice car or truck stops that is going the same direction and takes you, but that only sometimes happens. Canter trucks(the have a squarish looking front and large open truck bed) are always a good options. The drivers are generally Zambians that know the area and know where to stop. If a semi-truck stops this is just fine, they are probably Tanzanian and going to Dar Es Salamm. There English is ok most of the time and the other language that they speak is Swahili. They are harder to barter with because they have never heard of Peace Corps and they just assume that you are white travelers that they can get some extra money out of you(again they are not taking advantage of you, it is just how things work). Also the trucks travel quite slowly and you will be passed by many cars. Finally, because truckers travel such far distances they probably will not know where the Serenje junction actually is, so you will have to keep your eyes peeled. Everything is a barter, whatever they say they want to charge you, a general rule of them is to reply with half and work your way to the middle of half of what they originally offered. If they ask you what you can afford start low about 10,000 Kwacha and work some where in to the middle. The towns go in this order, Kabwe, Kapiri Mposhi, Mkoshi, Serenje.

I honestly cant remember, but there could very well be cell phone dealers at the airport and it may be worth the time to buy a cheap cell phone, sim card and about 50pin or 50,000 kwacha of talk time. Kwacha and pin are the same thing, it is just a shorter way of saying something is several thousand. 50pin = 50,000 kwacha = $10USD 1pin = 1,000 kwacha

Hiking down to the boiling pot just under Victoria Falls.

"Oh, what is that up there?"

Some Zebras in Mosi-O-Tunya National Park.

My first visitor, Roland Bisio and myself petting a wild lion.

Victoria Falls during rainy season.

Casey Koleski, John Abrams and myself hanging out at Lake Bwengelu.

A picture from my front porch out looking my family's compound.

My mud hut with thatch roof in Nshinso.

A puppy eating my feet.

Some of the Nsana family at my site in Nshinso, Mkoshi

One of the many hornets that I have killed in my hut in Nshinso.

Ba Cedric and Ba Grace, the family that I stayed with during Pre-Service Training.

Pool party at Graka lodge in Chongwe during Pre-Service Training.

Beautiful African sunset in Chongwe.

Second site visit, hiking to Kundalila Falls

Second site visit, Tech Trainer, Ba Fraser, helping us assess fish ponds.

My ba mayo(host mother) and bankashi(sister) in Chongwe.

Nshima, Soya and Rape that I cooked for my host family.

Pre-Service Training(me cooking nshima).

Now that I am a full fledged Peace Corps Volunteer life has actually been pretty slow. Rainy season is now in full swing and most of my farmers are busy planting maize in the fields. However, I did not allow this small set back to keep me from doing fish farming. So I went and bought a shovel and started digging my own demonstration RAP standard fish pond. The measurements for the pond are 20m by 15m by a 1m deep. After three days of monotenous digging, I slowly started to realize the stupidity of my decision and have began to concentrate my efforts elsewhere. Christmas has come and gone and I must say it was a relaxing one. On the 23rd I left for Serenje whereI spent the holiday with six other volunteers. I must say that the quality of food substantially increased from what I was cooking for myself in the village. Although I was never trusted enough to be in charge of a meal for some reason, I did my part by helping out with the dishes. For Christmas another PCV, Allison Fisher and myself had arts and crafts time and made Christmas cards for the house. Dinner was absolutely amazing. The main course was canaloni with eggplant parmasean. Even the salad was a refreshing course considering most of the vegetables I eat in the village are either cooked to death or soaked in oil. Each volunteer was clothed in their swankiest attire to complement the fine linens and exquisately ornate mango and glass ware center piece. The candle light dinner was a delectably sensual experience from beggining to end. And then I did my part of washing the dishes. Unfortunately, I can not say that my New Years was met with such a liesurely demeanor. And here is why, being the exceptional Peace Corps Volunteer that I am, I decided to spend New Years with my village. So on New Years day my batata(father) and two other bandumes(brothers) and I went into our boma to get seasoning as well as other odds and ends for a goat we were going to roast that evening. Of course his truck had to break down as we were running errands in town. After several hours of trying to Zam Rig it into working, we gave up. Admitting defeat was no easy task, mainly because we were 70km from our village with no way to get back. So I spent my New Years sleeping in the back of my brothers truck with only a small portion of a tarp to cover my shivering body. HAPPY 2011!!! When I thought the new year could not get any better the next day I started feeling sick. Immediately thinking that what I was feeling was malaria, resulting from the onslaught of misquitos that I had to fend off the night before, I checked into the towns clinic. Fortunately, it turned out to not be malaria and just a cut that had become seriously infected. The next day we were able to get the truck running again even with the intermitten push starts along the way. The following day was a sunday and I had made some post NYE plans with a few other volunteers to visit one of the seven wonders of the world, Victoria Falls.

Once again it has been to long since my last blog post and as I am sure most of you are wondering if I have been kidnapped, eaten by a lion or maybe even bitten by the deadly black mamba. It is with the utmost confidence that I can answer these nagging thoughts with, "I am alive and well." And if history has told us anything it will be months until my next blog post. But my response to this like so many other things in the village is...Tukamona(we will see)!

I sit here writing the draft for this blog post on the veranda of a quaint little restaurant. It serves meat pies, egg sandwiches, french rolls(which is a scrum diddly umptious arrangement of ground sausage wrapped in a tortilla shell and then deep fried) and of course the Zambian staple of nshima and relish. The establishment is nestled in the center of Mkoshi, the city(or boma) that acts as the closest electricity and running water with in 65km of me. The name of the restaurant is Shalom Takeaway and like so many other tug shops and businesses in this beautiful country, rarely is the name an accurate representation of the facilities actual function. The store mirrors its neighbors in representation, like "Christ Embassy," that sells cell phones or "Praise Comfort Enterprises," a shop no bigger than a full size van that sells clothing and carpets. And of course my favorite, "God is Able Botique," the beauty shop where young ladies can get their hair did. The signage here is reflective of so many other aspects of Zambia. A country where everything from culture to language to business are all hand-me downs from religious organizations, NGOs(Non-Government Organizations) and foreign capitalistic endeavors. One of the many beautiful, frustrating and intriguing aspects of this wonderful country. So internationally eclectic and yet so uniquely Zambian. So now that I have gotten that diatribe out of the way, please allow me to fill you in where the story has left off. I have made it through Pre-Service Training, I didn't get kicked out at swear-in and I am now living in Nshinso village about 39km from Great North Road(the closest paved road) and another 30km from Mkoshi. The languages spoken here are Lala(a dialect of Bemba), Tonga and broken English(the country's official language). I am now in a period called Community Entry(CE). During this time we are required to stay at our site(or at least with in the confines of our boma) and really work on integrating into the community. Many volunteers have said that with the exception of PST, CE is another tedious period of PC where you just have to get though it. For me, I assure you that has not been the case. Tiring and exausting yes, boring, no.

For over a month and a half now my schedule has looked like this. I wake up at about 7 awazi(7am) and from there I work for an hour. The work I have been doing usually ranges from hammering, sawing and measuring to mixing, fixing, slicing and dicing, under the cool morning sun. Then I start a fire to warm water for my morning hodge podge of oatmeal, soya flour, brown sugar and a splash of milk. After my quick meal I get back to work. As noon approaches I start another fire in the 90 degree heat to cook lunch, which typically consists of noodles or rice with soya pieces mixed together in a frying pan. Next, I will rest in the shade for a while, where I will muster up the energy to walk 1.5km so that I can stand on top of a termite mound to receive one bar of cell phone service. That is if the fire ants are not to bad and if they are(which has recently been the case with the rains coming) I have to bike 6km to highest elevation with in 40km of me to check the messages on my phone.(Please understand that all distances are based upon my lazy nature, tendency to exaggerate and abhorrence for any sort of physical activity and not scientific data) After seeing that no one has either texted or called me, I will spend a little more time working, which then brings me to my least favorite part of the day, an event that happens daily which I have coined as the....THE BAMAYO GAME!!!!

Each night I eat dinner with my Ba Tata(or father). I was told by the family that if I just bring the ingredients for a side dish(or relish) for dinner, that they would be happy to cook it for me. After a long day of hard work I am very accepting of the invitation. Now please allow me to explain the complexities of the game. My hut lies at the end of my compound(about half the size of a soccer field) so in front of me lies a row of three huts that serve as three kitches, one for each of my ba mayos. And so every evening and around 17 awazi(5pm) I venture out from my hut looking for a ba mayo to give it to. Each step is taken with uncertainty as I never know which unfortunate victim I must burden with the laborious task of cooking my evening meal. My eyes linger with doubt, as I walk past each kitchen looking for a ba mayo. Then, when one has been found I clumsily hand off the food to usually the second or third wife. Awkwardly the word, "natotela(thank you)" escapes my mouth as I leave to walk back to my hut and the game has been "won".

Then I wait for my evening bucket bath to be drawn by the first ba mayo. After washing all of the dirty crevices of my body, about the time when I am drying off I am finally called to dinner. Along side of a campfire, my ba tata(Mr. Nsana) and myself sit at a small coffee, where one of us will say a prayer for the meal. As we eat the meal with our hands, I converse with Mr. Nsana in a mix of English and Bemba. When the meal is finished, I will linger around the fire a little longer to get some family time in. After which, I will head back to my hut, do devotions for about an hour and then head to bed. Climbing my ladder, up to the newly lofted bed, to close my eyes waiting to do it all again tomorrow.

Wow, It is nice to finally sit down and process the past two months without having to worry about having hitch hike from Lusaka to Chongwe before it gets dark. The past few months of Pre-Service training or better know as Patience and Flexibility training have been the equivelant to putting ones life through the spin cycle, all the while trying to be patient with a schedule that is poly-chromatic. Also, after maticulously planning and packing my bags before I left the Sates now I am just happy to have four bags of a disorganized assortment of belongings that are still with me. Right now I am at staying at Central District's provincial house and in the next two days I will be placed at my site in Mkoshi.

Two days ago all fifty six trainees were invited to the U.S. Ambassador's house for our swearing in ceremony. It was very swank and everyone was dressed to a T. The ceremony was really nice, with speaches from many of the higher ups in Peace Corps and even the Ambassador Storella gave a speach, which was quite good. One of the many parts of the ceremony was that all of the trainees had to sing the national anthem and I was given the honor to start the national anthem for the whole group. Also, as you can imagine sitting around all day fully dressed in a black sports coat in the middle of Africa can get a bit hot. So Ed, a fellow trainee, and myself, thought that the best way to cool off would be to jump into the Ambassador's swimming pool fully dressed. After words we of course had to thank the Ambassador himself as were were soaking wet.

So now that I have been sworn in, I can now officially volunteer in a third world country. Also my apologies for not posting any pictures yet, but I do like to tease. Hopefully I will be able to get those up in the next two months.

So as most of you can tell the by expedious repetition of my blog posts, right now I have amplitudes of free time and access to Internet. So again I find myself having to cram a weeks worth of experiences into the next few pages. So here are the highlights and a few after thoughts.

As many of you know my previous blogpost has alluded to the fact that I have always been an avid soccer player even though my soccer career my say otherwise. About three weeks ago one of our Technical trainers let me in on a little secret that that following Saturday there would be a Peace Corps(PC) Trainers vs PC Trainees football(soccer) match. But, before I go any further allow me to provide a bit of a back story to give some context to the situation. Our trainers are all native Zambians who treat playing football with the same passion and excitement as if you were to take all American sports fans and make them love only one professional or collegiate sport. In addition to this startling observation the trainees had not beaten the trainers in the past six years. A fact in which the trainers took pleasure in reminding us.

With this in mind my competitive nature got the best of me and so I was compelled to dismiss the majority of my studies and concentrate solely on getting myself and my fellow trainees ready for the game. I started bringing a ball to class with me so we could juggle around and get some touches on the ball. Ed Oconnell, a fellow trainee, and myself played a small sided of 3 vs 2 game against some local Zambians to sharpen our skills and fine tune our athletic prowess and of course there were full fielded scrimmages on the weekends. Word of the trainees insatiable appetite to win spread among the trainers like wild fire and you could see the worry perspire like beads of sweat upon their brow. A day before the game one of my fellow trainees, Chuck, had some American flags, so we ripped off the stems and sewed them onto our jerseys. And team America was formed. Game day came and we were ready. In the first 20min attacker Kenny "freight train" Ray scored his and the teams first goal in his first football game ever, ripping his shirt off in celebration. We continued to dominate throughout the match winning the game 4-3. Afterwards, Kenny and myself traded jerseys with our sewn on American flags with our trainers in true international football fashion. Then we celebrated the victory into the wee hours of the night as word of our valiance spread throughout the country side.

As sweet as this moment was unfortunately I can't say that all my moments here have been as sweet. Which allows me to transition to my next story, which requires another contextual understanding as well. In Peace Corps Zambia there comes a time in each volunteers service where we are all called to join one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, "The Club." It is said that all PCVs join at some point and invitations can be issued at any time to potential members though out ones service. Also, they can become a member for any number of reasons, for example not acclimating to the local food, getting food poisoning or maybe just getting stuck on the bus. So as most of you have guessed by now joining the club is a self induced venture that requires one to explosively poop their pants. Unfortunately my invitation came much sooner than the rest of my fellow volunteers. After eating a dinner of shima and beef I noticed soon after that I was not feeling well and my guess was that I had food poisoning. I tried to lay down and rest but the queasy feeling remained. I knew I couldn't hold it in any longer and something had to give. I rushed to the door and that was as far as I made it. As the door swung open I lost all control of my bowel movements. Simultaneously as I was puking my brains out, I expelled the greater portion of my meal into my trousers. I then wobbled over to my cimbusu(toilet) where I continued to puke and diarrhea. I didn't know what to do with the soiled garment so I just left it in my out house. The next morning, feeling half dead I worked up the courage to tell my fellow trainees. Many congratulated me for being the founding member of the club, but to my dismay a fellow girl trainee had joined the week prior, but was to embarrassed to tell any one. The following day three more admitted that they had also joined. So, the take away moral of this story is, to quote Billy Madison, "If poopin in your pants is cool, you can call me Miles Davis." So I hope every ones day is just a little brighter knowing Will Makowski pooped his pants.

On a lighter note we have finally received our placements for the village we will be working in for the next two years. And training is almost done. I will be living in central province in a village called Nshinso, where the closest town is Mkoshi(you can locate it on a map). The village rests upon a mountain side and when I bike from my hut to the local school and clinic I am surrounded with looming mountains that wait to be visited. I have my own hut and the family I live with is wonderful. My Bataata or father has 3 wives and when I asked how many kids he has he replied that he just stopped counting after a while. When I was visiting my site I went camping a water fall with some other PCVs. Another notable fact is that my birthday was yesterday and I spent most of the day jamin out singing, while my friend Max played guitar.

As I sit here writing, I find myself obligated to leave you all with some food for thought. As my time in country increases the face of globalization becomes more and more apparent. Zain and MTN the two major wireless companies continue to increase their cell phone coverage over the country. Day by day every one becomes more and more connected. Everyday new Chinese mining companies come in to site areas for minning copper. And the resources of one of the poorest countries in the world are being exported daily by the rest of the world. Development continues, the longevity of life and as consumption of products increases, while resources continue to be spread more thinly. So I work as a Peace Corps Volunteer developing fish ponds, experimenting with peoples lives in an attempt to find a way for the world to live sustainably.

Muli Shani,

or Hello,

As most of you know(and some of you that don't) my capatilistic tendencies have gotten the best of me so decided to join the Peace Corps. Some of you asked to be updated on my travels, while others of you were unfortunate enough for me to feel that I should bother with constant updates about my life for the next two years. Anyways, I left for orientation July 20th in Atlanta, Georgia, there we got to meet all 58 of the Peace Corps Volunteers for the first time. Half of us are in the Rural Auquaculture and the other half are in the Community Health Intergration Program and together we are Fish and Chips. The Peace Corps decided to put me into the Rural Aquaculture Program. Basically what that means is that I will be working with subsistence Zambian farmers, to create fish ponds as an extra means of nutrition as well as a way to build revenue. For those of you asking what do I know about fish farming, well I don't, I've never even been big on fishing . But for some reason I turned down two placements where I had experience to specifically get one where I knew the least. All ready I am a pro at scaling, gutting, and frying fish. And the learning curve is a steep one. For the next nine weeks we have language training every for four hours in the morning and three hours of RAP training in the afternoon.

But before I get to ahead of myself let me explain how I got to this point. Flying from Detroit to Atlanta was no problem, but as soon as you add in the international aspect of the equation things get quite a bit trickier. We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa two hours late, so of course we missed our connecting flight to Lusaka(the capital of Zambia). We were in Johannesburg for about 24hrs so Peace Corps put us up in a pretty swank hotel for the evening and a few of us were even bold enough to venture into the city for the evening. The next day we got to the airport and at first only half of us were able to get tickets for a flight later that evening. The Peace corps was trying a myriad of different approaches of flying us into the country, like having some of us flying through Angola and Botswana and ending up in Lusaka, but nothing was seeming to work. Bit by bit more and more of us were able to book tickets for a flight later that evening, but by the end we had to leave 6 of the remaining volunteers at the airport. Feeling helpless in a strange new country and overwhelmed with international travel many of us boarded the plane. As we were sitting and waiting we noticed that the final 6 where some how able to board the plane. The group landed in Lusaka and immediately as we were leaving the airport there was a faint smell of campfire smoke and as we loaded our bags on top of the Land Rovers, climbing into the back it finally felt real, like I was really in the heart of Africa. From there we drove to the Ministry of Agriculture where there was a compound we stayed at for the weekend. Then we had our first site visit, by driving up to the North Western Province(16hrs in the back of a Land Rover on dirt roads). It was nothing short of amazing a bunch of villagers greeted us and sang songs for the four of us volunteers that were staying with another PCV. I got the privilege of cutting the head off of a chicken. The next day we harvested five different fish ponds. When I was in the states time after time, when I would tell people I was going to Zambia many of you told me how careful I should be to where shoes and avoid swimming in water, due to the large infestation of parasites. And of course with in the first weekend of arriving in Zambia I am tromping around barefoot, waist deep in mud, dragging a net through the water. It was a blast. We took some fish home that night and cooked them over a fire. The next day we went to a school where and I showed pictures of my family and did my best to explain why you throw someone into the water after winning a regatta(it was slightly lost on them). Later in the day we played soccer for about three hours and finally went to bed.

Currently, I am living with a temporary host family in Kukubo, a village in Chongwe, a suburb of Lusaka. There I live with a host family, my bataata Cedric and bamaayo Grace. They have 10 kids. I have my own hut and sleep quite comfortably under my mosquito net every evening.

There is still so many details I want to elaborate on and adventures to tell, but I have to catch the bus back to my village with the other RAP volunteers.

Any one who wants to hear more, it does not cost me anything to receive a phone call from you, but I only make $2 a day so please do not expect an international calls from me anytime soon. I have plenty of time and would love to talk your ear off about what I have been doing, the people I come to know and love and the wild adventures that are only truly appreciated in certain circles. The country code is 011 then dial 026 then my number is 0979104476.

Also, If you would like to mail me anything I would suggest sending to my parents first at

5052 Avery

Detroit, MI 48208

or

Peace Corps

PO Box 50707

Lusaka

Zambia

but please dont send anything yet, because there are certain things you need to do to ensure that it does not get stolen, but i do not have time to go into that yet.

ciisuma shalenipo,

Will