Updates!

Oh my goodness I can’t believe I am counting down the days to month 10 here in Zambia.

Life is oh so good.

My fish farming co-op and I are going to apply for a grant through the Peace Corps to help buy them a hammermill. This will allow them to make their own fish feed (which can be very expensive) and also be an income generating activity because they will be able to charge people to grind maze in to mealie meal. We had a co-op meeting yesterday. I always buy them a chicken for the meetings we have. It is a fun way to draw people to the meeting as well as a way for me to eat meat for dinner! This time I gave them 50 pin (the standard chicken price is around 35-45 pin) and they added 30 pin of co-op money to purchase an 80 pin goat ($16). We had cabbage and beans along side and of course nshima. Deeeelicious. The only part I didn’t like was sitting on my porch listening to the goat wailing while Ba Rocket cut it’s throat with my less than sharp kitchen knife. My co-op has expanded while I’ve been here. We had around 20 members attend the meeting one of which was the sub-chief’s wife. It is pretty exciting as a volunteer to see your projects expand and actually work.

My Peace Corps friends Sarah and Kinsie helped me with a Women’s Empowerment Group recently in all of our villages (Kimeteto, Nfwala, and Kyafukuma). We picked 10 to 15 girls from our schools aged 13 to 16. It was a three day workshop after school that focused on strength, self-respect, and sister support. In Zambia women are considered second class citizens. In the villages where we live this is particularly prominent. Also, these girls that we targeted are of the age where they either get pregnant and quit school to raise a family or finish school. Unfortunately if a boy wants to have sex with a young girl it doesn’t take much to force her in to it. Girls are taught to be seen and not heard and along with this they are taught to submit to males. In our workshop we talked about how women are very strong – especially in Zambia. They are in charge of all the household duties (cleaning, fetching water, cooking…) as well as raising the children. We pointed out if the women did not do these duties they would not get done at all (god for bid a man would do them). This made the girls giggle. We then tied this strength in to why women can have a choice and a voice. If they are responsible for at least 50% of the household (most likely the majority) then why do they not have a voice when it comes to decision making?? We talked about the importance of staying in school and receiving an education. We talked about the choice of having sex or not and the consequences of doing so at such an early age. We talked about rape being a punishable crime. Finally the last day we made bracelets with three beads representing each day of the workshop. We told the girls to give the bracelet to a girlfriend in the workshop that she will choose to support. All in all it went wonderfully and I feel really good about it. In the future I would like to do a similar workshop but with boys.

A new batch of volunteers flew in to Zambia in February. They just finished training and now have been posted in their villages and are starting the long three months of community entry. I feel really good about where I am in my service and looking back on this stressful time I am glad I am on this side of that hurdle. I know the routine of what life in Zambia is like and am very comfortable in my village community. It is extremely hard drop your life in America completely for the Peace Corps, fly halfway across the world, and start over in every aspect imaginable. Language, lifestyle, job, friends, diet, income, housing, smells, tastes, sounds you name it they are all different. It takes a long time for you to feel comfortable again. The best part about all this is that the Peace Corps is voluntary. You can leave whenever you want. As you’re sitting in your hut with cockroaches crawling past you, a plate of nshima on your lap, and a fresh sunburn tickling your nose you remind yourself of the volunteering aspect and it takes a lot of guts to keep your chin up and stay. I am proud to say that I have gotten past all of this and now feel that I have a home here.

I was playing with my 2 year old brother the other day helping him count his toes. I tried to imagine the day I would leave him and it made me very sad. I love my new family in Zambia. I have bonded with them in such an intense way. They were the ones I turned to when I needed help, was sad or frustrated and now I feel attached to them. When I leave it is likely I will never see any of them again. It is certainly a bitter sweet feeling being able to return to America but leave my home in Zambia.

My good friend Jonathon (yes that is how you spell it) just had his two friends from Peace Corps South Africa visit. They both just recently finished their service and are now traveling the world on their way home. They told us all about what Peace Corps was like in South and it is very different from Zambia. They laughed when they said they thought they were in rural Africa and then they came to Zambia. This is literally the last most remote Peace Corps country. They also talked about how the Zulu men in their villages were very aggressive. Here in Zambia the men are quite timid. They don’t look you in the eye and would never think of making physical contact unless granted otherwise. When all the war and aparthide was happening in South Africa the people that didn’t want to have anything to do with the fight and struggle fled North. It is interesting to see how these habits of being timid or aggressive have been passed down in generations. Zambia is an extremely peaceful nation – it is stocked full of people that would rather avoid a confrontation than face one. South is stocked full of in-your-face kind of people and because of this it is not as safe. The two volunteers from South said they would have never been caught out past dark and they were amazed at how free and relaxed the Zambia volunteers were. They also pointed out that there is a very high ET (early termination) rate in South. In Zambia the majority of volunteers finish their service (or extend!). This was an interesting point because South volunteers get electricity. There is easy transportation to and from high populated areas with any food options you can think of. Zambian volunteers are issued bicycles because the transport in the the country is very poor and they do not have easy access to food variety (let alone refrigeration to keep these exotic food choices). Does the constant struggle of life in Zambia keep our minds of of ETing?

All I know is that I am extremely happy to be here and am still loving my Peace Corps experience! Thank you Zambia!

 

Humanity

It is hard to explain how I have changed because of the Peace Corps. I know that I have changed tremendously but it is hard to put it in to words. The best way I can come up with explaining this is by saying that I feel that I have found my humanity here. I can’t take credit for wording this so perfectly – my friend Brien and I were discussing this and he put it in this way.
By moving my life to Zambia I have stripped away all the pleasures I once knew. There is no snow here – I can’t ski. There is no running water – I can’t take a long hot bath. There is no electricity – I can’t sit down and watch a new movie. There is nobody that speaks fluent enough english to discuss the current political climate. There is no internet access in my village – I can’t readily look up an answer to a question I have. There is no deep freezer I can pull rocky road ice cream out of when I am feeling especially sweaty and hot. There is no oven I can whip up a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies in – heck there is no chocolate! There is no massage therapist to ease the tension in my shoulders (couldn’t afford one if there was!). There is no corner cafe I can have coffee in with my best friend.
But as you can see most of these things are material possessions. This is how American life works – it is cushioned by these luxuries. So cushioned that one does not have time to find their humanity – they are busy watching Giada de la Whatshername whip up some lasagna.
Here I am in Zambia without my comfy American cushions – so what do I have left? Humanity is what is left. People co-existing with other people to survive in a 3rd world country. I am discovering here what it means to be human.
I am discovering here what it means to be human.
Zambians are extremely expressive. They don’t just speak a sentence – they act it out – completely feel the sentence as they say it. Their facial expressions, tone of voice and body language all play in to a fantastical way of communicating with one another. They shout across paths to each other “Good morning! How did you wake? What are you doing today?” Well… why not? They live outside. Their neighbor lives outside in their backyard. There are no privacy fences or walls to separate them. So they just yell at each other from their kinzanzas.
To go along with this they yell for each other. If a mom can’t find her child she screams his/her name until somewhere in the distance an answer is heard. When something is funny they laugh a happy strong laugh followed by a high pitched “ieeee!!:. They don’t hold back. When something is sad they wail with the sorrow of 10,000 strong. The only emotion that doesn’t come out 10 fold is anger. Most of the time they deal with anger by saying “ieee *tsa*” (the last word being a click of the toungue in the front of the mouth.
When your cushions are stripped you are left with the inner framework of your couch. You are left with what it means to be human in this world. Emotions and expressions and feelings.
Along with this Zambians will drop everything to help each other. It doesn’t matter how impossible the feat may seem they will do everything they can to be there for each other. Because quite frankly, all they have is each other – one human to another. I can see and feel now what it means to be human and I have the opportunity to live this way and express and share myself like they do. My host mother told me “Ba Katie, we have different skin but the same heart.” Amen sister!! We are all just humans.

I have made a wonderful friend here in Zambia. Her name is Sarah and she is extending for her third year as a volunteer. She is a fantastic person and I feel lucky that she is staying. Her village is located about 40K from mine and recently we visited each other’s sites. I got to see the wonderful and loving relationship she has made with a family in her village. Their last name is Sam and Sarah has fondly nicknamed them “the Samus”. The husband and wife are both teachers at Sarah’s school and they have 3 children with one on the way due in June.

I sat under a star filled sky gazing at the milky way (the nights are breathtaking here because of the lack of light saturation) talking to Mrs. Sam while she was cooking us chicken feet and heads for our dinner on the open fire. She asked me why I wasn’t married yet and did I want to get married and have children. This is a very common question in Zambia. Actually,  it’s right around the 3rd question that you get when you meet new people. Zambians marry very early and have children immediately. (Then most of them don’t stop having children) So it is very strange for them to see a 25 year old woman with no children and no husband. The quickest way to answer this question with the least amount of confusion is to say “God hasn’t sent me a husband yet.” Translation – women in America have a million options on their plate and the first one they chose isn’t always marriage.

To tackle the second question I always throw in a little education. First I respond with yes I would love to have children. “How many?” is soon to follow. “Just two” I say. “Kika?? (What??) Mambo ka?? (why?)” they say. Then I continue to explain that I want my children to have the highest education they can receive and I won’t be able to afford the highest of education if I have more than two children. This is usually a relatable topic because education in Zambia is also expensive compared to the salaries of its citizens.

As if these answers weren’t shocking enough to my conversation partner I hit them with the biggest shock of all. “I want to adopt my children.” (Mrs. Sam almost fell off her stool with shock) Why would I want to adopt children when I can just have my own?? This is when I explain that the world has too many people on it and it is irresponsible of me to make more children when there are plenty that need food and shelter and love already here. Lots of Zambians laugh at this point and brush off the subject because it makes them uncomfortable – but then I mention that perhaps I’ll adopt a Zambian and then they are very excited.

I try to slip education in to most conversations I have with Zambians. They know that Mizungus are crazy anyway so I can pretty much say anything I want to them and not hold back. Most of the time the person I am talking to acts like it is the first time in their life they have discussed such topics and most likely this is the case. That is the 2nd and 3rd goal of the Peace Corps – to share each others culture. There is a reason why America is the way it is and if I can rub off new ideas to a Zambian I will.

My host father Ba Rocket has become very ill recently. I am worried about him because he isn’t getting better. I’m assuming he has HIV/AIDS but he has told me he doesn’t. Perhaps he does but does not want the rest of the village to know because of the horrible stigma surrounding the issue. He told me he has malaria and is taking medication for it. I took him as my counterpart to a 2 week long workshop we had in Lusaka for our in-service training. When we arrived home he was very weak and tired and told me that if I can teach his oldest daughter Janet what I know about fish farming perhaps she can be the one to attend the next workshops. I think he is realizing he isn’t as young and spry anymore and it makes him sad. I hope that by me educating his daughter about fish farming he will see that his family will be successful and be able to find peace in that.

I was talking to a volunteer that is just about to leave the country after his 2 long years in Zambia about my extension option. He gave me some excellent advice. He told me that this country takes a toll on you whether you like it or not. He said that if I’m going to extend it should be “worth it”. Unfortunately Zambians are very hard to work with because culturally their work ethic is much lower than Americans but also they are very busy taking care of their families. He said that if I can get further in life by spending this third year in America I should do that. I will need to look for an extension project that will be “worth it.” My eyes are peeled. Otherwise my other option could be to come home 6 months early (May 2013). This also sounds nice. Hmmm… not sure yet.

Thank you so much to all who have donated to my plane ticket home in November. I am very lucky.

Help me visit my family

I would like to spend Christmas with my family back home this coming December 2012. My first thought was I could save a chunk of my Peace Corps allowance every month to buy a plane ticket. I make 10 dollars a day. I figured if I could save 2/3 of what I make each month I could afford a 2,000 dollar ticket. This has proven to be extremely difficult. I have realized that I like things like toilet paper and peanut butter and buying things like this in Zambia have crushed my income. I have decided to create a donation account for all you Holder fans that would like to help me see my family this Christmas. Anything will help. Thank you in advance for your generosity, and for those of you in the North Western United States I’ll see you soon!

Update! We’re up to $470 folks! I’m so lucky thank you all. I can almost smell the Big Macs…

Lots of things

Big news! Peace Corps is proposing to have only two programs in each country they occupy. Currently Zambia has 4 programs (RAP-fish farming, CHIP-health, LIFE-ag/env, RED-education). The RAP/CHIP intake starts together and the LIFE/RED intake starts together. When I flew in country last August I was joining the CHIP intake that had flown in two weeks earlier. The newest RED intake just flew in at the beginning of February followed by the newest LIFE intake two weeks later. LIFE and RAP are very similar programs. LIFE is work that is focused around sustainability and the environment and RAP is specifically fish farming. Peace Corps Zambia is looking to combine these two programs and just include fish farming in with all the programs LIFE partakes in. Our RED program is failing miserably because the educational system in Zambia is corrupt so Peace Corps Zambia is thinking about cutting this program and just having CHIP and a combo LIFE/RAP (LARP? LAFP? RIFE?).

To make this change happen RAP is being moved to flying in with the LIFE program at the beginning of the year instead of the end. This means we will be receiving a new RAP (with CHIP) intake in August 2012 as well as another RAP (with LIFE) in January 2013. This leaves out a new RED intake all together and groups the like programs together. This impacts my intake (RAP ’11) greatly. First of all we will have 2 groups to train and post instead of 1 as well as getting our replacement volunteers 7 months earlier. Peace Corps puts volunteers in 1 village in three stages (1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation). The idea behind this is that development happens slowly over time and a 2 year service isn’t enough time to leave a lasting impact. Because our replacements are coming in 6 months early we have a few options. We can either go home early, extend for a third year early, or overlap the replacement in the same village for the last 6 months of our service.

I was already thinking about extending my service for a third year because of all the wonderful benefits gained. Peace Corps Zambia allows volunteers that want to extend to pick from a variety of projects (basically anything you want to do) and live in a bigger city  or stay in your village for a third year. The third year extension volunteer gets a raise in pay (because you live in a populated area that is more expensive), your readjustment allowance doubles, you get priority placement for government jobs back home, you get a 1 month home leave paid, and it also looks awesome on your resume because the Peace Corps wanted you to stay with them for another year. It’s all very cool.

Extending for a third year can take on different forms. For us, because we are being bumped out early from our sites, we can extend 1 year from the early village leave or 1 year and 6 months to make it a full 3 year and 3 month service. I had a meeting with my Peace Corps bosses last week and discussed my options with them. What I am going to try and do is find some sort of law related extension in Lusaka and extend for 1 year and 5 months so that I can make it home in time for law school to start in the fall of 2014. I want to find an extension that will look good and count for something on my resume. There are lots of cool things to extend with (orphanges, clinics, NGOs ect.) but only a few directly relate to what I want to do in my future. An extension volunteer is paid half by Peace Corps and half by the organization they are working for. Sometimes the Peace Corps needs to pay for the volunteer’s housing and sometimes the organization has lots of money to put the volunteer up in a place. What this means for me is that 6 months before I was planning – I will have running water and electricity!! Yay!

I have seen the set up that a few extension volunteers have in Lusaka and it is very very nice. It is just like an apartment back in the states and they work a “real” job with “real” working hours. This would be a nice transition time for me to get used to America-land life again. I just came back from IST (in-service-training) in Lusaka. I’m not going to lie – it was very strange to have running water, electricity, pavement, traffic, food choices etc all available to me again. We are put in our rural villages, stripped of our American comforts and expected to deal with solitude all while trying to fit in with an entirely different culture than our own. It’s funny how your mind/body/soul go in to survival mode and you adapt accordingly. This means that I’ve been taught to slow down my pace, be patient and flexible, like nshima and other native foods, not be afraid of creepy crawlers, and speak kiikaonde. I was finding it hard to conjure up a few english words simply because I haven’t been using them at all. I am assuming that being tossed back in to American life right away where you always have 5 things going on at once will be overwhelming and difficult to adjust to. I am looking forward to investigating a good extension option for myself.

We were very fortunate to catch the finals of the Africa Cup in the big city – Zambia won!! The President allowed Zambia a day off from work and Lusaka shut down the day after the game and everyone came out in to the streets and celebrated. It was amazing. There was a parade of vehicles with screaming fans with painted faces spraying baby powder on everyone followed by a brigade of police officers riding their motorcycles and teasing the crowd with bike tricks. Following them was the football team and people went absolutely wild. It was so much fun. CHIPOLOPOLO!!

Our intake has been very fortunate to have seen two ground breaking events in Zambia: The election of the new President (we got to meet him at the State House!) and the winning of the Africa Cup. So cool. Zambia is a third world country made up of people that see extreme hardship everyday. It is an amazing feeling to see those same people with faces lit up in permanent smiles being able to forget about their troubles and celebrate their country.

Tomorrow it is back to the village for me. Currently I’m working on a Youth Group that meets every Wednesday at 14 hours to talk about HIV/AIDS. The youth are very excited about being able to get questions answered that they are normally uncomfortable asking. The word is spreading fast and about 25 youth are coming every week. My good friend Ba Daka and I are working on a proposal for Kansanshi Mine to help the youth group buy some resources that will help attract them to spend time in a constructive environement instead of wasting time after school learning how to drink and do drugs and sleep with each other. Eventually I would like to see an after school program most days of the week. We are lucky in America that there are many options for our children after school that further their education or athletic ability. There isn’t anything like that in these small villages and unfortunatley the youth of Kyafukuma start drinking and doing drugs and sleeping together way too early. This, coupled with the low level of education on HIV/AIDS is a terrible thing.

My fish farmers are doing really well. During IST we learned how to make village fertilizer and how to perma-garden. We are already creating a garden next to our fish ponds to work in a symbiotic way (waste = food) so Ba Rocket and I are going to teach what we learned to our co-op. Zambia has plenty of resources to have food stability it is simply the application of these resources that brings people down. This is where the Peace Corps comes in – EDUCATION WILL SET YOU FREE!

I am planning a trip to Lake Malawi in the beginning of April. It is supposed to be beautiful and I’m looking forward to it.

Now to a very sad topic. While I was away in Lusaka for most of February my good little friend Ba Denkya (5 years old) lost his father. Poverty and other hardships in his life drove him to hang himself. This is a very common way to take one’s life in Zambia. Ba Denkya is a sweetheart. He comes to my house almost everyday and we draw and play games and I let him wear my sunglasses and cowboy hat. We also put on music and dance and make each other laugh. I know from experience that my friend is going to need a shoulder to cry on. I will do my best to express my sorrow and understanding to him – he does not speak english and I know very little kiikaonde. I think a good old fashioned hug will help. My village did another flying coffin for Ba Denkya’s father. The person they beat to death this time was the village sub-chief’s son. I guess ju-ju doesn’t turn a blind eye to authority.

If you can for a moment imagine being in a place in life where you are so broken that you feel the only choice is to die, and your beautiful 5 year old son can’t even pull you out of this dark place. Now I want you to look around at all the wonderful things you have been given in your life because you are an American – appreciate them. I hope Ba Denkya’s father is in a better place now where he doesn’t have the worry and sorrow that burdened his life in Kyafukuma, and I hope the people reading this story are inspired to look after each other. I am looking forward to returning to my home tomorrow and being with my little friend again – he is going to need some love.

The Flying Coffin

I live in the land of the Kaonde tribe. There are hundreds of tribes in Zambia that all speak a different language and have different traditions and culture. I experienced one of the Kaonde tribe’s interesting traditions last week. It is called the “flying coffin.”

The rural people of Zambia experience lots of death. I was warned by many people upon arriving in Zambia that death is a big part of village life and one of the hardest things about volunteering. I have been introduced to many people in my village that have passed away during my stay in Kyafukuma.

Most of the villagers that live in Kyafukuma have an education level of grade 7 at best. Many do not finish school because of the hard and time consuming demands of farming (the only way they can access food). Only recently in Zambia has there been a push for young people to stay in school, but there is strong family pressure to help on the family farm to provide food for many hungry mouths.

This low education level effects the lifestyle and decision making of my villagers everyday. They do not have a knack for planning for the future. They very much live in the moment. One of my biggest projects is turning these behaviors around and teaching how if one invests time, labor, and money in to a project now – one can reap the benefits of this hard work later.

There was a man in my village that was working hard in his field last week. He was working along side his wife when she said he dropped down to the ground. She ran to get him water and help but when she returned he had passed. My conclusion was that he must have had a heart attack or stroke. 

My villagers believe that when someone unexpectedly dies juju is involved. Juju is like saying “voodoo” or “black magic”. They believe that when somebody unexpectedly dies somebody else used juju to strike them down dead. How they find this person using juju to kill people is where my story picks back up.

My villagers built the dead man a coffin and placed his body inside. Then they put some sort of secret magic inside the coffin with him (I asked what exactly this was but could not get a straight answer out of anyone). Word got around that the family of the deceased was making a flying coffin and hundreds of villagers caim to witness. I marched out with my camera ready to die for the cause of witnessing something incredible but was told to stay home for safety reasons. Luckily my host father Ba Rocket told me the rest of the story.

6 strong men (including Rocket) picked up the magic coffin and carried it around until it led them to the house of the person responsible for killing the man with juju. (I pictured this like a giant wiji board – like a magnet pulling the coffin to the correct answer). The coffin then proceeded to go through the wall of the accused man’s house, and was used to beat the man responsible to death. Yes – you read that correctly – my villagers beat an innocent man to death because they think he used juju to kill another.

This crazy story happens quite a bit in Kaonde land. Another PCV had this happen to her next door neighbor. She called our safety and security officer and spent a few days in town while her village settled down. It’s too hard to get in and out of my village quickly so I just let the storm ride keeping my trusty dog Piko in site at all times just in case we needed to fight a magic coffin together.

This story gives a glimpse in to the minds of my villagers. When one lives in the middle of nowhere with poor access to education and no access to current news and events – the only other option is to fully accept any beliefs and behaviors being currently practiced. I tried to picture this mind set as I sat alone in my hut in the middle of the African bush. There were a few scary nights when the storms of rainy season rolled in and the thunder, lightning, and rain beat down on my grass thatch roof. But the sun came out as it always does and Kyafukuma became normal again.

I transported fingerlings to my village a few days ago and that was really fun. As I was half submerged in a pond pulling a net to collect the baby fish on a beautiful warm blue sky day I had a scary thought. What am I going to do when I go back to Americaland and have to hold down a real job? How am I going to go from constant field work to being stuck inside with a 9 to 5?? It sounds horrid to me, especially since my life for the past 6 months has been so awesome. I have always wanted to pursue a career that keeps me active and outside, and this urge has never been so strong.

I am still loving everyday of my Peace Corps experience and am constantly in awe of the people of Zambia. 

Best Bus Ride Ever

I don’t have much time on the internet but I just had to share my bus experience today. My foot was not healing so I went to Lusaka to have it checked out. I got a great ride down from Solwezi to Lusaka with our PCVL Otter and her awesome Uncle Gary who was visiting. I did not have this luck on the way back up to Solwezi and I had to take the bus. My journey started bright and early at 4:30 am. I was told to get to the bus station around 5 or 6 in the morning to secure a seat. I called a taxi and was on the road by 5:15 am. I was worried about the bus because I had heard horror stories from many volunteers about how awful it is in Zambia. My friend John said he had a woman puke in to a miniature zip lock back beside him and it overflowed on to her lap. The main consensus is: the bus is hot, overcrowded, very slow, always stops and is just generally unpleasant. So here I am with a bum foot and a set of crutches to add to the chaos. I decided not to drink any water or coffee that morning because I knew that once I got on the bus it would be very difficult to get back off. Because the bus stops so much the 7 hour ride from Lusaka to Solwezi turns in to 10 to 11 hour ride.

As the cab driver and I approached the station my stomach flipped a bit as I gawked at the fifty or so buses idoling in every crazy angle possible – no structure at all – hundreds of passengers rushing around with their luggage (chickens, goats, children, you name it), and hundreds of other people rushing around making money off of the situation by selling random snacks (eggplants, tomatoes, cookies, chips, sausages in plastic bags) or assisting the bus drivers with selling tickets and loading people and luggage. I was expecting the worst.

I hobbled out of my cab and got my crutches in place and was immediately swarmed by three men yelling at me in Bemba/English about where I was planning to travel to. One of them reached in to the cab and snagged my bag as this was going on. I thought I could either relax and go with the flow or freak out and possibly hurt my foot even worse. I decided to just go with it so I started yelling back in Kaonde/English of my plans to go to Solwezi. Within 30 seconds I had a ticket written out and I was hobbling up the bus steps, following the man with my bag, in to the pit of animals/children/adults/luggage. I reminded myself that it was ok if I was shoved in to the back pocket of the bus because I didn’t drink anything and I could just mellow out for 10 hours and not have to get off the bus. The three men yelling turned in to seven men yelling and all of a sudden I had a seat in the very front with room for my bum leg. The bus was already completetly stuffed and they had to rearrange seating and luggage to allow for my seat. The second I sat down the bus started to move before the door was shut. I was elated. Not only did I have a great seat we were pulling out of the station right away. To top all this off the driver put in church choir music videos – rad.

I learned something about the people of Zambia during my 10 hour voyage. People here take care of each other. As the trip went on for every one person that got off five more boarded. It started to get pretty ridiculous. The bus driver was purposefully selling way too many tickets to make extra money. The man next to me explained that nobody can really complain because the new administration in power is turning a blind eye to this. Eventually, there was 30 extra people on the bus – each person carrying on luggage. We had 17 people in the first row alone. It was awesome. One lady got stuck with her foot lunging across a pile of luggage and then nobody else moved to let her get settled and she rode that way for at least an hour. An adorable little girl with a frilly sparkly get-up and three pig tails sticking straight up out of her head ended up standing/leaning across me (how lucky am I?). We were all holding random bags that started falling from the cubbies above. The last five hours of the trip got really interesting. One time the bus pulled over and the crowd passed a child up to the front to pee. Another man was very sick and the bus pulled over so that he could crawl over everyone and violently vomit outside. Poor guy. When he got back on the bus the crowd found him a spot in the front propped up on top of some luggage, some random medication that somebody had that helped with nausea, and water.

I cannot imagine what this situation would be like in America. Because this isn’t unique in Zambia people have learned to make the best out of the worst. Everybody on that bus was miserable, but when we got pulled over by the highway patrol 10 minutes outside of Solwezi and had to sit for another hour everyone in the bus just started laughing. We had all been piled on top of each other sweating for the past five hours, nobody able to move, and these people still had the energy to make light of the situation. They take care of each other. They find a cripple Mizungu a front seat, they help pass children from the back of the bus so they can pee, they give a good seat and medication and water to a man that is very ill, they look after each others luggage that is falling from the roof, and they help each other laugh in moments of utter dispair.

I can’t say it enough this country is amazing.

Keepin on keepin on

I have a new address! Don’t worry for those of you who have sent items to the Lusaka address posted earlier. They will get to me, but this new address will be faster.

Katie Holder Peace Corps Volunteer

P.O. Box 110264

Solwezi, Zambia

AFRICA

It helps if you write a bible phrase on the outside – the people of Zambia are very religious and avoid tampering with religious material.

Life is getting much more comfortable in Kyafukuma the more that I’m there. It’s turning out to be a really nice place to be. It feels good to know my community better. I am starting to blend in a bit instead of being the exciting new Mizungu that everyone wants to greet and shake hands with.

There is the Kyafukuma Farm Institute an hour and a half walk from my hut that I have discovered. It is an institute that hosts projects and workshops revolving around sustainable farming practices. This is a breath of fresh air for Zambia. The farmers in my village do not farm sustainably – they keep growing the same crop on the same land year after year. This has resulted in many of the families in my community having to move during cultivation and planting season to fresh lands far away. My host mother has spent the past month and a half at her farm planting food for the family while my host father has stayed home to tend to the fish ponds. It is hard on the family to be separated, and the children go back and forth helping both parents when they can on the weekends. School in Zambia starts in Jan and ends in Dec. Every 4th month they have off of school so for the month of December they all have been helping at the farm.

Rainy season in Zambia is in full force. You would think that Zambians would be used to the rains and work through/with them. This is not the case. When it rains it is a “get out of jail free card” for any and all activities. People just hunker down in their shelters and wait for it to stop. This, coupled with the farm migration, bodes for a quiet couple months in the village.

To keep myself busy I have been doing a lot of work on my hut trying to make it feel more like a sanctuary. I’m very pleased with my work painting and patching walls, sealing my ceiling with plastic, hanging shelving for my kitchen, hanging a bamboo pole for my clothes, sprinkling poison for insects and spiders, and killing the rats in my roof with poisoned tuna. It’s really coming together. The other night I listened to the rat in my roof sneak over to the tuna, have a couple bites, sneak back over to it’s nest, struggle to make himself comfortable, seize up, roll down my roof, and plunk on the ground outside. Katie 1 – Zambia – 0.

I have also been running a lot in my village and unfortunately have sprained my ankle doing so. The trail that I run on is very rough and because it is rainy season there are a lot of mud puddles that have built up. This makes for more of an obstacle course/cross training running experience. At the end of my run I come across fields and fields of maze that follow rolling hills and ancient trees up and over the distant mountains melting in to the cloud spotted bright blue Zambian sky. It’s absolutely beautiful. I am currently in Solwezi resting up – not as beautiful.

This Saturday we are harvesting our fish ponds! I have set up free transport from Kyafukuma to Solwezi with Kinsanshi Mine (so the fish can be super fresh for the market) as well as a free police officer that will be helping keep the thieves away. Harvesting is a very exciting time for fish farmers but it can also be quite stressful. I held a co-op meeting two weeks ago to show the farmers how the harvest will look. The last harvest they had sounded very unorganized and confusing and lots of the fish were stolen as a result. They were very excited to see a plan laid out for the harvest, and I’m hoping it goes somewhat smoothly.

There are designated jobs for everyone. Nobody is allowed to work outside their designated job. There will be four people allowed in the pond holding the net to catch the fish. There will be two people on the outside of the ponds holding the ends of the net. My good friend Ba Terry and I will be at the end of the pond sorting the fish in to fingerlings and adult fish. Terry will pass the adult fish to four women that will wash and store them and I will pass the fingerlings in to the holding pond so they can rest for a couple days and be redistributed in to fresh empty ponds. The police officer and three other villagers will be watching for thieves and keeping people away from the activity. My host father Ba Rocket will sleep at the ponds (yup, just right on the ground!) and open up the outlet pipes at 3 in the morning to allow the water to start slowly draining. By 6 hours the ponds will be ready to rock and roll. We have told the village we are harvesting around 10 hours to lessen the unneeded commotion, and hopefully by then we will be wrapping up and ready to sell fish to those who stop by!

For Christmas/New Years I will be traveling to Lake Tanganyika. I have been told it’s a beautiful place with white sand beaches and plenty of camp sites available. We are planning on staying a few nights at a lodge and then crossing the lake on a boat that will take us to a waterfall/white sand beach area where we can camp. I’m very much looking forward to a mini vacation.

All is still wonderful in Zambia. Time is flying and I can’t believe that when I come back from vacation on the 3rd of January I will have been in Zambia for 5 months. At night time when I’m sipping on my hot cup of tea next to my partner in crime Piko watching the fire flies play in the sweet fresh air of Kyafukuma I realize that this won’t last forever and that I need to soak up every single moment.

Community Entry – Month 1!

It is that time of the year to sit down with the people you love and eat too much food to commemorate something way back in American history but you forgot because at the moment you’re comatose from food intake. Yes yes what a wonderful American holiday. Here in Zambia all 200 volunteers get to come out of the bush, take their first hot shower in who knows how long, and meet to discuss Peace Corps Zambia and the improvements that need to be made. Long story short PC Zambia recognizes that it is hard to be so far away from family and friends missing out on the festivities. We have all signed up for a dish to make (I’m on pie duty of course – thanks Grandma Holder).

So far Community Entry has been really awesome. I live next door to a polygamist family (1 husband Ba Sibolo, and his 2 wives and roughly 20 children). There are pros and cons to this. The children are very curious and in the beginning of the month they would make daily visits pretty much just to stare at me. I made the best of this situation by having the kids help me clean out my kimbusu (toilet) and shed that have been idol for 8 or so months waiting for the next volunteer. They also help me fetch water.

I get my water from the clinic down the path from my hut 500 yards or so. The government kindly installed a water tower and 4 taps that draw water from the ground. This is an extremely clean way to get water – other volunteers are dealing with bore holes (a cemented structure with a medal attachment you pump repeatedly to draw ground water) or shallow wells. Both of those methods are quite labor intensive and all I have to do is turn a knob and fresh water comes out. I have three 20 liter containers and one 10 liter container. In the beginning the kids and I would fill up all 4 containers, strap them on the back of my bike, and slip and slide our way back to my house. I quickly found out that all I had to do was give my bike and the empty containers to the kids and they would fetch my water for me in trade for a small gum drop each (child labor? perhaps but the kids come back an hour later to ask if I need more water). Then I quickly found out these kids don’t need a bike – they just throw those 50lb containers on top of their heads and carry it back to my hut like it’s a feather. Perfect. For drinking water I use a large filter PC has given me, and for cooking, cleaning, and bathing I don’t treat the water.

To bathe I fill a bucket and take a cold bucket bath every 2 days or so in a grass enclosure. Most volunteers heat their water first but I’m lazy and also from Montana so my standards of what “cold” is are very different than my Zambian counterparts. I have grown to love the bucket bath and found that coming in to town to take a hot shower feels quite wasteful.

For laundry I use a laundry soap in a paste form that I rub on major stains and let soak overnight. Then I scrub the clothes together with my hands, ring them out, rinse them, ring them out, and hang dry. Because I am in the village and everybody smells like a ripened compost pile I have found that because it is so labor intensive to do my laundry I reuse all the clothes I wear a lot before I declare it “dirty”. The only thing I refuse to reuse is underwear – so all in all my standards of what “clean” is has dropped dramatically but I think I’m still being clean enough to keep from becoming sick. I hang my underwear up to dry in my kimbusu because it is bad news for a woman to expose their undergarments to the world (as well as their opinions and thoughts).

To cook I use a brazier with charcoal (my Zambian counterparts walk 20 meters in to the bush, drag out three trees, and burn them in a triangle formation tucked around home made bricks to allow air to reach the fire below the cooking pot set up on top of the bricks). I spend 10,000 kwacha (2 USD) on a bag of charcoal that lasts about a month. The charcoal is made in the village by chopping up trees and burning them so they turn out to be black chunks of wood. This method cuts down on smoke almost completely but isn’t used by everyone in the village because it is too expensive.

I love my hut. It is so amazing to me that it was made from the resources found in the area. It is a rectangle split in to two rooms built from village made bricks. These bricks are covered with a mud mixture that when dry acts like cement. The roof is made from wood and grass. The inside of the roof is covered with maze sacks – so as of now there are only 2 major leaks. I am going to buy bulk plastic and fabric and line the inside of the roof with the plastic first, and then the fabric to make it look clean. My Zambian counterparts don’t have many things to actually get wet so they just rock the grass structure. I feel very spoiled. I also bought buttercream paint and have so far painted my kitchen and plan on painting my bedroom this next month. This cuts down on dust and bugs and feels a bit homier. I have a village built bed frame where my mattress lives that is covered by a mosquito net. I have a village built book shelf and a waste high table to store my other belongings.

I have requested my village to re-mud the outside of my house and once that is completed I will lime it – yet another method to cut down on bugs. There is a family of mice that decided to venture in to my hut in the beginning of the month, but I found their entrance and jerry-rigged a plastic water bottle with wire so they can’t come in anymore (for now). I keep my food that is canned or wrapped up high on shelving, and what is opened goes in to plastic containers. My fresh food I keep in 2 baskets that I have hung from the ceiling – this keeps air flow around them prolonging their life span, as well as keeping them up off the ground.

I have become a vegan by default. Obviously I don’t have access to food preservation techniques that require electricity so the option of dairy is out the door, and meat is only eaten on very special occasions because it is very expensive. My protein comes from a packaged food called soya. It comes dried and you soak it, squeeze it out and cook it how you will. It’s actually really delicious if you prepare it with fun spices and sauces. I bought dried milk and mix that with my coffee, tea and oatmeal hoping that will help my calcium intake. Everything else I consume comes from the local gardens in my village. In season right now is rape (a dark green Zambian version of kale), onions, cabbage, tomato and kasava leaves (a dark green leaf that comes from a root). Rainy season (late Oct to late March) brings a variety of different fruits including mangos and avocados. All in all my diet seems to just be simplified. This is TMI (too much information) but in America my pooping schedule was all over the place. In Zambia I poop like the healthiest person in the world and I think it’s because I am not consuming preservatives and hormones that American food has. That’s kind of cool to think about – but I find moments of craving Big Macs and extra large chicken breasts sometimes – ok most times.

The farming co-operative in my village is very motivated to work with me to improve and expand their fish farming activities. As of now we have 12 ponds and the villagers have set a goal of 50 ponds dug by the time I leave. There is a government built dam that will eventually become the water source for these unborn ponds as well as many many gardens that can be dug in the area. Right now the neighboring mine (Kansanshi) has donated the time and resources to construct a furrow from this dam to feed the above mentioned land. It is currently not finished, but slowly having progress made everyday. My first goal is to measure how much piping the farmers need that will connect to this furrow and feed the ponds and gardens. I will write up a proposal and turn it in to Kansanshi mine. My guess is that Kansanshi needs to donate so much money per year to “community development” activities so that they can continue raping the land of copper only 20K from my hut. I plan to take full advantage of these handouts to help improve the livelihood of my villagers – but I fear that the mine will just continue to expand and one day Kyafukuma will be turned in to yet another hole in Zambia. Perhaps if the area is showing development and improvement they will move else where, but time will only tell.

My village also needs a hammer mill to grind maze, finger millet, and kasava for their staple food nshima. Right now they must pay a stipend to the Catholic Church in the area to use the hammer mill the church owns. This hammer mill will cost 20 million kwacha, which is roughly 2,000 USD. I plan on setting up an account on the Peace Corps website so that all you avid readers and Holder fans can donate some money to the cause. I want this hammer mill to come from the generous people of America. I want Kyafukuma to forever remember the Peace Corps volunteer from Missoula Montana that helped them get the machine that supplies their staple food every time they grind their maze. How cool would that be? The mine has plenty of money to donate to buy a hammer mill but that doesn’t feel right to me.

Once this furrow is finished and the piping is installed there will be plenty of water year round to support as many ponds Kyafukuma wants to dig and as many gardens they want to plant. Anything served along side nshima is called relish, and Kyafukuma suffers from non-reliable sources of relish. I hope to secure Kyafukuma with the resources they need before I leave to feed their families for generations. I also hope to lay the ground work for the potential of commercial fish farming in the area. They have the means and the motivation, they just need the financial backing to get them rolling. Perhaps the next volunteer can start teaching them the business side of growing, harvesting, and selling fish. They are very close to a major city in Zambia and have all the potential to become the largest source of fish in the area.

My host family is wonderful. They live right next door to me. My host father’s name is Ba Rocket (badass right?). He is a wonderful man and I feel extremely safe with him always looking out for me. He has seen 2 previous volunteers through their service and I really feel like I can trust him. That’s a great feeling. We have stayed up together many nights after our nshima consumption is complete for the evening and talked about everything – HIV/AIDS, his girlfriend in Congo, his dreams for his children, and his all time favorite America. I can see that the bond between my host family and I will be very strong and over the two years that I am in Zambia will form in to a unique relationship that I will share with only a handful of people in my life. I am so relieved to finally be in my new home knowing that I have awesome projects to complete and amazing people to share my time with. There are so many unknowns when you first get in country and I feel that I finally have a grasp on what my next 2 years will be like. I love what I see.

My favorite moment in the past month was with Ba Rocket. We were sitting under the open Zambian sky with the full moon shining down on us. I was telling him how beautiful it was and how amazing it is to be able to see during the night with the moon shining so brightly. He gave a satisfying sigh and said in his thick Zambian accent “Yes Katie, this is what god has given us.” A very overwhelming feeling of gratitude flushed over me as we sat in silence together in the moonlight. I love this country.

Peace Corps Volunteer – Finally!

I’m officially a Peace Corps Volunteer as of a couple days ago. After three intense months of technical, language, and cultural training 35 of us swore in as official PCVs in front of President Sata himself. For the first time in PC history in Zambia volunteers were invited to the State House (partly because of the 50th anniversary of PC/partly because Sata is a brand new president and probably wants to rub shoulders with the US in positive ways). It was amazing. We were served an amazing luncheon spread and were serenaded by a live marching band. There were random monkeys and peacocks everywhere, kind of like the playboy mansion and everything was so so clean.

The next day we made the front page of the Zambian Post and the Zambian Times. Pretty big deal.

The next couple of days are going to be pretty stressful. We are given a chunk of money to buy all we need for the next 2 years. Today we went to Shop Rite and bought nonperishable food items in bulk. Next we will visit the Solwezi markets and hardware stores to collect hard goods. I will purchase some furniture from the carpenter in my village. I will be posted this coming Wednesday and will be in the ‘community entry’ portion of my service. This is a time to get oriented in to our respective communities (map out the village, meet neighbors, visit interested fish farmers, fix up our huts etc.) This will last for three straight months. We are not allowed to move outside of our respective districts – basically I won’t see an American for a while. It is going to be really awesome trying to use my Kiikaonde skills to meet people and orient myself with my village.

Today I am shaving my head – it is way way too hot in Africa right now. My hair feels like a permanent hat and scarf. I have always wanted to do it and I figure I won’t have a better time to try it then now. Perfect.

I have posted a large photo album on my facebook account. For those of you who have facebook check it out! I have tried to upload photos to my blog but for some reason they are not working. I will try again soon.

I visited my new home at the beginning of this month for 4 days. It is beautiful. I have a large porch, a storage shed, a grass bath shelter, an insaka, and a kimbusu. It is quite large compared to other family’s homes in my village – and family size is huge here! I have inherited a very sweet dog named Piko that was left from the last two volunteers. Poor thing is horribly skinny and has fleas. She will be a happy plump puppy dog very soon. The family that lives right next door to me is amazing. They have adopted me as one of their own and the entire time I was visiting they took very good care of me. There are many very educated folks in Kyafukuma. They have 5 schools and a well established medical unit, both of which attract educated people. Some people speak english but mostly Kiikaonde is used. I am going to do my best to only use Kiikaonde so that I can learn more of the language.

Kyafukuma has a very nice government built dam. A mining company has donated labor and money to help build two concrete furrows branching off the dam to help feed future gardens and fish ponds. My first project will be helping the mining company finish the furrows and connecting underground piping to feed water to individual farmers. The area has amazing potential even in the dry season – there is plenty of water. The people of Kyafukuma just need a bit of guidance and a few resources and they could go very far. I am planning on setting up a donation fund for them on the Peace Corps web site. Even ten dollars goes a long way here in Africa. It is an overwhelming experience to see the extreme poverty and starving people of this country. This experience in helping ensure food security is a big project and will be very rewarding in the end.

Kyafukuma here I come!