Lusaka

IST (in service training) has finally come to an end. While it was fun to see the other volunteers from my in-take, it has also been semi stressful. Not to mention two weeks of in tense training and partying will wear you out. I am definitely ready to go back to my nice quiet and calm village life although my departure from the city has been slightly delayed. It turns out that I chipped a crown on my molar which allowed food to get caught in the crevice and cause periodic infections and over time (this has been going on for the past 6 months)it began to cause a cavity in the tooth next to it. Sounds strange and complicated but the point is I needed to have the crown replaced, therefore while all the other volunteers headed out for home/vacations this morning, I went to the dentist and for almost 3 hours of drilling and pounded and other less than fun aspects of the dental procedure. Fortunately that part is all over now and I have a temporary crown in place. If I'm careful it is supposed to last for 2 weeks, at which point I will have to return to Lusaka to have the real crown put in (it has to be made in a lab in South Africa so it will take at least 2 weeks for them to get the impressions, make the crown and ship it back.) You probably don't care to read all this about my dental experience so I will move on, but I was plesaently surprised to find that the dentist is super legit and even better than the dentist that originally put the crown on.

Lusaka actually has all kinds of crazy nice things. Before coming to IST I was reflecting on how traveling in Zambia is like travelling through time because the villages are really isolated, lacking modern technology and the typical lifestyle there is not much diiferent from that of 2000 years ago. Then as you go to the bomas you make your way all the way to the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are cars and bikes but not much else (of course you have to substitute cell phones for land lines). Then when you get to Lusaka its almost like you're in the 1990s which is really exciting if you recently came from AD 100s. You might think I'm exaggerating, but not by much. We were all a little shocked and overwhelmed to be back in Lusaka and my excuse all week was I'm in Lusaka which allowed me to eat all sorts of junk food and spend much more money than I normally do. This week I've had lasagna, a smoothie, a salad, chinese food, indian food, pizza, a burger, and a lot of soft-serve icecream just to name some of the delicious treats available in the capital. Also I went to see a movie for the first time since I left America and the experience alone was fabulous, but the movie was the hangover which is one of the best/funniest movies ever to it was awesome. I stocked up on spices and food supplies to bring back to my site. I went out to Kareoke one night which was really fun and I went to a few clubs which can be fun, but are also pretty sketch at the same time. Yesterday I wandered around two of the main markets and the down-town area with a friend. It was nice to actually see a different part of Lusaka and get an idea of what you can get at the markets and what the average prices are but it was a bit overwhelming with all the people and loud music playing on speakers everywhere. It's been a while since I was at a big and crowded market. As we were walking along one of the streets near the City Market a man grabbed my left shoulder and tried to turn me around to face him- I said "iwe Leka...Fuma" or you stop/let go...go away(iwe means you litterally but its usually used for children almost like calling the person a child is they are and adult). I added the Fuma because he was still touching me after the Leka and I was annoyed. Then another guy (his friend) shoved his hand in my right front pocket and tried to grab my phone/money. (Purse cutting and stealing as well as reaching into purses is a problem so I decided just to bring my phone and a few bills in the very bottom of my front pocket knowing that my jeans are tight enough to make stealing nearly impossible.) I wipped around and slapped him on the shoulder pretty hard grabbed his hand to ensure he didn't have any of the small change from my pocket (I could feel that the phone was still in my pocket and the big bills were under the phone). I don't think I have ever taken out so much anger on a person...excluding family members of course. I yelled at him and his friends in a mixture of Bemba and English which they thought was hilarious and their laughter only fueled my anger. Finally I walked away but it took a few minutes for me to calm down. Not exactly a fun story but stuff happens and you're a really obvious target as one of the only white people to venture into the "sketchier" area of the city.

As for training, I did learn some helpful information. We talked more about conservation farming, agroforestry, seed multiplication projects, animal husbandry projects, and premiculture gardening. We actually spent the last two days building a permiculture garden which was great. After sitting in classes the whole time it was nice to get out and do physical work especially when we could see the end result as a nicely landscapped garden. It was also somewhat interesting because our LIFE project made a garden and so did the RED rural education development project and there was such a huge different in the approach. They spent more time planning and tryuing to organize whereas we all tried to grab a hoe or rake and start digging. Also they were all dressed up in leggings, running shorts, sports bras, athletic shirts and many expressed concern about getting their clothes dirty. Us LIFE volunteers on the other hand were wearing the same things we wear any other day jeans or comfortable pants with tshirts or tank tops. Some RED volunteers were avoiding work as much as possible but most of the LIFErs were eager to jump in and trying to find work wherever possible (I'm not trying to say anything bad about the RED volunteers I'm just saying you could tell who was in their element for the most part.) Another aspect of the week was a counterpart workshop where we each had a counterpart of our choice come to Lusaka from our village to learn about how to best work with their Peace Corps volunteer to promote development in the village. Ackson came which is nice because he's my friend, but overall those 2 days of the workshop were so stressful! The first day we had to work in a group pf all the volunteers and counterparts from Central Province to determince the biggest issue in our district. It started my each counterpart naming 2 issues from their area, then we picked the 5 most common issues and tried to rank them acording to how much of a problem it is, how important it is to fix it, and how easy it is to fix it. We tried to rank each of these categories on a scale of 1 to 5 but the Zambians couldn't understand the idea of rating and it was really frustrating to try to explain it. After awhile we gave up and just voted on which was more important comparing 2 at a time but even that was problematic. I asked are there many people in your village that are ill? Raise your hand if there are many people in your village that are ill..I got blank stares and no responses. I said "so poor health is not a problem in our area" and eventually they said yes it is a problem, when asked to explain how it is a problem they just stared again. Despite all the rephrasing and translating we were getting no where and we took twice as much time as all the other groups and still didn't manage to finish even half of what we should have. The group work was far too frustrating but the idea of picking a problem and mapping out a potential project to address the problem and going through all the steps of project development and management is good. I will say the the RED group had very talkative and interactive counterparts that probably got more out of the workshop than the LIFE counterparts did. Also the RED volunteers were all dressed very professionally for their workshop whereas us LIFE volunteers thought it was enough to put on a nicer and clean shirt for a change but otherwise still wearing mostly jeans or comfortable pants rather than slacks or skirts.

I think thats all I have for now I am attempting to hitch back tomorrow but I guess now I will be back in the city soon so I should be able to update in 2 weeks if not before then.

If you are interested in reading about other volunteers in Zambia check out this website becuase it has a list of blogs
Peacecorpsjournals.com/zambia