In and out of Chibansa...

Muli Shani, bonse?

Happy february! So sorry this blog has not been updated for quite some time...my life has been on the go for the past month! Hope everyone is happy and healthy back home.

Things in Zambia are good. I am in Kasama right now...tomorrow night I'm heading out on the midnight train to Zanzibar with Kate, Meera and Mary Ellen for the music festival! I am so excited..ithe journey to Zanzibar is a two day train journey through a game park in Tanzania so it will be like a train safari...it should be a great time :-) I'll write all about our fun travels when we return.

So January was a jam packed month for me. I had my village inspections on the 12th and they went so well. My neighborhood health committee (NHC) led the inspections and I tagged along to meet more villagers and observe. As we were on the inspections, I noticed that most everyone in my village had tippy taps-I was baffled by this because it is a fairly new concept and was surprised that everyone had built one. I asked my NHC chairlady about it and she said that during the ORS demonstration a week before, she handed out fliers on the importance of tippy taps and told my community that they would be looking for this during village inspections so that's why everyone had one. Well I certainly missed that memo...by the time the committee got to my house, they charged me 2,500 kwacha which is equivalent to 50 cents...way to be a role model right? So now I have a project to work on when I return from Zanzibar!

On January 16th, I was picked up by the PC cruiser and along with my fellow intake Northern PCVs, we're driven down to Lusaka for our ten days of In-Service Training (IST). It was a pretty exciting time because it was the first time we'd get to see everyone since our swear-in at the end of september. It was great to see everyone and catch up with friends from the other provinces. Everyone seems to be doing really well and are happy, so that was great. Training started on Sunday-we had a two day hands on workshop on perma culture gardens-we actually dug and planted a garden and it was so fun! We learned the double digging technique which I hope to teach my villagers (aided of course by a LIFE PCV) next planting season. The perma culture workshop was the highlight of IST-after this, we had our regular health tech training and the sessions were very long! They did not built in a day of rest so we went straight for ten days...by the end we were so exhausted. It did not help that every night, we went out for dinner and some drinks, and coming from the village life were I don't drink and am in bed at 8 pm, my body certainly took a beating so of course, I'm just now recovering from a cold. But the nights out were a great stress reliever from our long days of training.

So after two weeks of being gone, I returned to my site for a week before this trip to Zanzibar started. I met up with the teacher for my anti-aids club...things are going well with them. I am really excited because USAID and some staff from the U.S Embassy chose my school to visit so the anti-aids club will be performing a drama for them. I'm sad I'll miss the performance since I'll be in Tanzania but am very excited for them! It is a great opportunity and they are thrilled at having guests to entertain. I also attended a village headmen committee meeting and that went well...it was really long so I ended up leaving early, but it was nice that I've finally met all the headmen from my catchment area.

When I return from Zanzibar, I'll get to meet the new LIFE (Linking Income, Food and Environment) and RED (Rural Education Development) volunteers who will start their training. It is so exciting because we'll no longer be the newbies :-) And it will be nice to have some new neighbors!

So that's about all that has been going on...things have been busy and on the go. I can't wait to return and be settled at my site for a bit. Hopefully I'll get some work accomplished!

Hope all is well back home. Miss you all tons! Please continue to write as I love hearing from you all!!!