randomness

So it has been a long time since i was able to sit down at a computer and update this blog, sorry for that. I've been in my village since the end of April and I love it there, despite the frustrations and miscommunications that i've had to deal with. I have met several new friends in the village who have helped me find my way around, meet people, learn bemba etc. Also my neighbors generally help me fetch water, wash my dishes, wash my clothes, and they invite me to dinner every evening so its kinda nice even though i am able to do all those things for myself. I have found several green mambas, a puff adder, a dead spitting Cobra and another snake that i have not been able to identify yet. My mud hut is a nice cozy home now the bedroom is just bigger than my bed and has one small window, 1 ft squared and the other room has my bike, a small cofee table, two wooden chairs and a tall bookshelf thing for all my stuff. It's nice to finally not be living out of my suitcases. I went to the border with the Congo and their is a stone pillar with a C for Congo carved on one side and an r for rhodesia on the other side, nothing fancy but it was cool to seee. I enjoy biking and hiking through the forested area near my hut and there are a lot of hills which provide different and beautiful views. This weekend i was in Mkushi BOMA for an agricultural show that was supposed to open on Fri but when we went there was really nothing there. On Sat the plan was to hike up a mountain: on the way my flip flop broke, so much for these fancy "durable" Reefs but with few other options I chose to continue barefoot. Then the path that we thought would take us up the mountain just ended before we got to the top and what the the lack of path and lack of shoes we just stopped there to enjoy the view which was still amazing from where we were and to have a snack. Then we headed back down into town then past town and over another smaller mountain to a lodge for the night. The barefoot part led to painful blisters all over the bottom of my feet and my knee/ankle were hurting from limping. (Also the day defore i walked for 1.5 straight and then walkewd around town all day in my new hiking shoes that gave me blisters on my heels from not being broken in which is why i chose not to wear them up the mountain) Then i spent two nights recovering at the lodge, watching movies, showering with hot water and eating delicious food so all in all it was a good weekend. Also, i think i will take it easy the next few days in the village since i'm still sore and my feet feel painful. The other very exciting part of the weekend was visiting the Post Office where i had 6 packages waiting. So thank you very much to all of you who sent me packages, it was like Christmas opening everything at the same time and I really appreciate your thoughtfulness!

Other news: I have an African doormouse in my hut that is really noisy and keeps waking me up throughout the night, but it's so cute that i hate to kill it. I'm still working on the cat thing but so far no luck. Hopefully soon and hopefully the cat will chase off the mouse and keep other ones from moving in. I had food poisoning for about 36 hours- not fun but not too bad and other than that i've been healthy and safe and things have been really good. I'm getting used to the hitching thing and i kinda enjoy it sometimes because i've met some nice and interesting people that way.
Random facts:
1. it takes exavtly 1 hour to crack a 4 digit bicycle code where each digit is 1-6, yes i tried it
2. Zambians cannot say the r sound instead they say l, but they insisnt on naming their children things like ruthi that sounds like lucy and its impossible to differentiate between pray/play; rice/lice; fly/fry etc.
3. They cook ubwali which is a think mashed potatoe type consistency made from boiling ground finger millet, cassava, sorghum or more commonly maize (the maize kind is very much like polenta) and then you eat lumps with your hands and dip them in the relishes of greens, beans, meat or whatever. But whenever they try to explain it to me they say "ubwali or in english you say nshima" then they get really consfused when i try to explain that nshima is not actually an english word
4. Most people buy second hand american reject clothing from the thrift stores here so its common to find really crazy and funny outfits like a man wearing a santa hat in June.

I wish i could think of a funny story to leave you with, but i have nothing so you'll have to wait until next time which hopefully won't be too long. greetings to all you friends and family, I miss you!

hello everyone, i'm sorry that I have not had a chance to post anything for a while. Site visit was very nice, there was some miscommunication in my village, but overall it was amazing. My village is very close to the border of the Congo which is marked by beautiful hills/small mountains. There are trees everywhere and it is very close to a forest reserve and some waerfalls, there is a lovely stream just behind my hut and a borehole very close to get safer drinking water (yes i also have a water filter). The school is close and the teachers are all very nice, i met a lot of nice people and i can't wait to work with them. They are already trying some neat things so hopefully they will be open to learning new things and trying different agricultural techniques and income generation ideas. Today I officially swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer, the ceremony was at the ambassador's house and it was actually i very nice ceremony and delicious brownies/cookies. I also bought a lot of things for my hut, especiaaly pillows and blankets-it was really cold the two nights that i was at my site and the cold season is only just begginning, apparently june/july are very cold and it often freezes at night. My hut is rather small, but it is divided into two rooms and has two windows of about 1ft2 each and it has been limed to the walls and floor are white inside and out meaning it holds more light and stays cleaner. I have a sweat bathing shelter wih a shelf for soap etc and a bench to sit on while i bathe. I have an insaka (basically like a gazebo) that will have a 2-3 foot high brick wall around it when they are finished. I have a temporary icimbusu/pit latrine, but the permenant one should be built soon. I am hoping to have a separate small hut built to store my bike/charcoal and other things since i don't have room in my hut. My host is the headman's son and he came to Lusaka for a 2 day workshop where we set a plan and timeline for the first 3 months of communiy integration. He is helping me have shelves, tables and chairs made and he assured my that he will help me get a kitten because i don't want the rats or lizards in my hut. Also since my hut is brand-new the roof is nice and edoes not leak. I can't wait to get to my site and start meeting people, although i can't offically start work for 3 months. I'm learning the language, i still have a long way to go, but i did pretty well on my language proficiencey test so thats good. Isaid goodbye to my host family yesterday and we had a lovely cultural day celebraion the day before where we cooked american food, i helped make pizza and garlic bread which was amazing! Also, i'm loving my bike now and i want to work my way up to biuking the 100km into town and back once a week, i'll let you know how that goes.

quick update:
I just found out that I will be living in Central Province for the next 2 years the closest Boma is Mikushi about 48km away. Luckily transport is very easy in central province and its also easy to travel to other areas from there. The provincial capital is about a 1 hour drive from the Boma. My site is also very close to the DRC so that's interesting. I am the virst volunteer to live in the village, but i have a health care volunteer about 8km away from me and a borehole with clean water less than 1km from my hut. Tomorrow i am going to visit a volunteer in central and i will spend 2 nights at my actual site so i will tell you more after i find out this week!

My host family is a young couple with a 2-3 year old child, i have my own hut on their compund and it's pretty nice. So far no rats, spiders, bugs etc. I did have the neighbor kids chase away the two skinks that were living on top of one of the walls and they haven't been back so thats nice. I also have a bathing shelter and a pit latrine. my host mother asks me what certain english verbs are like the verb for "to hang your clothes out to dry" or "to carry buckets on your head", she is very disappointed when i say that we don't have words for those things. then what do you say and I explain that we rarely hang things out to dry we have machines for that and we don't carry things on our head. we have had some interesting conversations on these types of topics. The language classes are from 8 to 12:30 with a few short breaks. There are 5 of us in the language class (and my teacher as well as my fmaily sends there greetings) so we get a lot of time to practice in class and i guess we are learning fast. WE had an evaluation on friday and i got almost perfect although i still feel like i can barely communicate in bemba, fortunately most people speak english as well, my family is fluent so that helps. Language is 4-5 k from my hut and i go there every monday, tuesday, ednesday and friday morning on my bike then bike home for lunch then bike about 2k into town fro technical training from 14 to 17 those afternoons. On thursday and Saturday i have to bike over 7k into the training center where everyone from out intake has health and HIV sessions. I get a little tired of the biking sitting biking sitting combination especially with the muddy, sandy, bumpy, hilly, pothole filled road that is also used by cars, pedestrians, ox-carts and cattle, but i'm getting used so it's not as bad anymore. When i come home around 17:30 or 18 i bathe and relax until dinner then i talk with my family until about 20 and then despite how tired i am i stay up until 21 reading/ I feel like an old lady going to sleep that early, but it's dark and the after an hour my eyes hurt from reading in the candle light and theres really nothing else to do. Then i wake up at 5 and do stretches and exercises until the sun starts to come up then i get dressed and ready and read my Bible grab some fruit for breakfast and head off to class. By the time Sunday comes I am ready for a break and i truely enjoy the day of rest. The first week i went to church in nyanga which was super confusing and last week i went in english so i could understand although i still didn't really like the service (it's catholic mass) but i go because it's where my family goes and i don't know anything about the other churches. I think i will be posted in Luapula province after training, but it's possible that i will be in central province. I filled out an interest with requests, such as being close to a boma/privincial house and preferable having a protestant church nearby. I have no preference over a pioneer site or a replacement site where someone else has been working for the past 2 years. I can't wait to find out were i will be. Time seems to be flying by here. Also, i bought an internet phone so i can get emails out at the training site. It's too difficult to respond most of the time, but it is nice to hear updates from home every now and then.
PS. We have already lost 2 or 3 people from our group, one guy didn't show up in DC, another guy left last week because he has not been feeling well and the last girl was sent home because she is allergic to bees and they had planned to send her to a beekeeping project in northwest. They should have already klnown she was allergic because it was in her med file and even when they found out they could have sent her somewhere else. The peace corp administration processes can be very annoying at times, they seem very unorganized and they waste a lot of time talking to us, but they never really tell us what we need to know, even when we ask sometimes they act like it's a big secret and they can't tell us, i don't really understand them , but i don't really care either, just as long as they don't send me home over something stupid.

I am in Lusaka, Zambia, after a really long ravel period. I'm adjusting to the time change and trying to catch up on sleep. We have not seen much yet mostly just meetings and paperwork and other less fun things. However, tomorrow I am going to the eastern province to visit a volunteer that is almost finished with his service. % of us LIFE volunteers will visit him and learn what it will be like in our villages. Then when we return we will be told which language to learn and which province we will be living in for the two years. Everything is great so far, they even gave us toilet paper, soap, matches, candles, pens, sheets and some other essentials. Overall, I think I packed a lot of things I don't need and the list was not all that helpful, but I guess it's better to be overly prepared. Thats all for now!

Ok here is my mailing address for the entire time I am in Zambia:

Leandra Clough, PCV
Peace Corps/Zambia
BOX 50707
Lusaka,
Zambia

If you choose to send anything through DHL or something other than the US postal service you should use this address:

Leandra Clough, PCV
US Peace Corps/Zambia
71B Chitemwiko Road
Kabulonga, Lusaka
Zambia

and the Peace Corps Zambia phone number is 260 1 260377 and it may be needed to send packages. Padded envelopes are reccomended for packages.


Also they suggest you write AIR MAIL on the letters

I have joined the Peace Corps and I will be in Zambia for the next 27 months. The project is called Linking Income, Food and the Environment or LIFE project and I will primarily be working on sustainable agriculture, environmental education and income generation. I fly out on February 18th, 2009. Thats about all the information I have right now. I don't know my address yet, but I will let you know as soon as I find out because letters and emails will be greatly appreciated!