Hooray for Luapula!!

I'm going to be placed in Luapula Provance. The district is called Nchelenge and my village is Kabuta. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear that it's beautiful. I'll be living near Lake Mwerau ( I didn't spell that right), anyway, I've been told that you can see the lake from my house!! Luapula is known for it's fresh fish (yikes), so I guess I'll have to learn to like fish. My water source is not a 30 minute walk each way, but just 500 meters... and the water comes from a covered spring!! I'm only 26K outside of the BOMA, but there is a market in my village where I should be able to get pretty much everything I need. I'm about 1K from the clinic, which is exciting. There are 3 NGO's there, Doctors Without Borders, FAO (which is some sort of food NGO) and PAM (but I can't remember what that stand for right now). My closest Peace Corps neighbor is also 5K away (which is super close). I've also been told that there is cell phone reception which is pretty exciting!!

Right now, I'm in Mansa. I was only able to make it 1/2 way back from our 2nd site visit. I was originally going to take a bus straight back to Kitwe, but I learned this morning that it decided to take a route through the DRC, so I couldn't go. I'm staying at the provincial house in Mansa tonight, and tomorrow morning I'll take a bus to Kiperie and then hitch the rest of the way to Kitwe.

My first experience on public transport in Africa was rather interesting. We took the Peace Soldier bus. We had a trailer on the back of the bus with everyone's luggage and bikes in it. I guess they didn't attach it very well, because about 500 meters down the road it fell off and rolled into a ditch. So we had to wait while they retreived it and re-attached it. They were holding the trailer on with a few salt bags, which clearly fell off somewhere on the road. So then a few hours later, we notice that the trailer is starting to shake quite a bit. Then we notice that it is fishtailing out of control!! We shouted at the driver to slow dow, but I think he started to go faster instead. Well, clearly, the trailer was totally out of control by this time and it was launched off of the back of the bus through the village and fields!!! Luckly no one was in the way, but the bikes were ruined (PC sent new ones quickly). I was suprised however, that none of the luggage fell off of the trailer during it's journey through the bush. So we had to pull over again for the trailer. In the end, we made it....

During our site visit, we were pretty busy. We had language almost every day, and had a chance to facilitate 3 different meetings. One on gender to grade 9, another on action planning to the HCC's (Health Center Committee) and mother to child transmission and biological/cultural reasons women are more volunerable to HIV/AIDS with the TBA's (traditional birth attendants) and various Community Health Workers. Each session was amazing in its own way. It gave me a really good idea of what I will be doing in the village. On the last day, we went to the waterfalls to swim and picnic. We weren't planning on swimming, but decided to at the last minute and ended up just swiming in our clothes, it was a lot of fun and the waterfalls were beautiful.

I will have a new address in the next few weeks, so I'll post it first chance I get. If you are planning on sending mail anytime soon, please wait for the new address. If you have already sent mail to Kitwe, PC will forward it to me at site. Thanks again to everyone who has sent letters and packages!!! I miss you all. ^_^

Well, I haven't slaughtered anything recently, but I did eat a catipillar and some impalla!!
With the chicken, I kept telling myself that it was for the cultural experince, as was the catipillar. However, I do think that the cultural experience can only take me so far, and the catipillar was pretty close to crossing the line!! They tasted just as bad as they smelled!! The impalla wasn't too bad; but I certainly wouldn't recommend catipillars for your next dinner party.

So apparently everyone in Kakolo village knows where I live. One of our trainers strongly encouraged us to explore when we got posted to our sites. He said that it was impossible for a PCV to get lost becuase everyone will know where we live. So clearly, because I have the worst sense of direction in the entire universe, I got lost (in my own village) walking home from tech training. Someone had put some new hay on the ground and since it wasn't there in the morning, I was just lost. So I remembered the advice that was given, and asked some lady walking down the road (with a baby on her back) for some help. The only problem being that I couldn't remember the name of my host family. So I went to this lady and simply said "I don't know where I live". She laughed and walked me all the way home!! Then she and my BaMayo laughed at me some more.

My days here are pretty routine. I get up around 6:00 am and tool around in my hut for a bit before going to take a bucket bath. Then comes breakfast, usually bread and jam and a hard boiled egg. Then it's off to language training, which is held under a tree in our language trainers front yard. I am there until 12:00. Then it's home for lunch, which is always a mystery. Yesterday it was potatoes, just potatoes..... During the afternoon I have tech training, which is about our HIV/AIDS program specifically, or Peace Corps. I am there until around 17:00 or so. then I'm home for another bucket bath and dinner, which again is a mystery. Last night it was rice and beans. After dinner, I sit and talk with my host family (utilizing the 5 sentences I know in Bemba over and over again), and it's off to bed at 20:00. I know, I know, I'm really pushing the envelope staying up until 8:00 pm!!!

People have been asking what to send in packages, so I've made a small list:

• Crystal Light individual packets (any flavor)
• Rechargable Batteries (AA and AAA)
• Any kind of sugarless gum
• Combos or Hot and Spicey Chex Mix
• Gallon size zipping zip lock bags
• Loofah's
• Anything else that seems interesting ^_^

We are going on our second site visit next week. So I will write all about it when I return. Thanks to everyone who has sent letters. I love you all and miss you.