So I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer! The last couple weeks of training were pretty much like finals week. Cramming for the exams.  Then on our last day in the training village we threw our host families a party. The Peace Corps calls it Cultural Day because we cook American style dishes for the families.

The final language test was pretty nerve-racking especially because I had a case of Mr. D the day before and the day of the test. It is an oral exam where you have a conversation for about 40 minutes with the tester, it is recorded and multiple testers listen to your conversation and rate you. We had a practice exam the week before and I got a passing score of intermediate mid. The tester did tell me, that during my final I need to make sure I am speaking clearly because if the recorder doesn’t pick my voice up I’ll have to take the test again and “it will cause me much stress”.  It is good to find out that I cannot speak clearly in any language, it is important to be consistent in life.

The day of the language test I had three goals 1. To not poop myself because of Mr. D 2. To speak clearly 3. To pass the exam. I’m very happy to announce I accomplished all of my goals! We also had test over fish farming, safety and security, bike maintenance, and medical.  Even though there were a couple people who did not pass the language portion of the test they still are letting everyone get posted to site. Which was really exciting to hear that we all get to go through the posting process together.

Culture Day was really fun. We got dressed up and did a little performance for our host families. All the host families got dressed to the nines too, it was really fun to see. Then we exchanged gifts, as the host families gave us our gifts they sang for us. Which was very sweet and emotional.

After the performance we served the families food. Everyone had a station. Condiments aren’t really a thing here, so we eventually had to put someone on the condiment station after seeing Zambians put mustard on their mashed potatoes.

It was really hard to say goodbye to my host family but I was one of the luck few whose host families were picked to come to swear-in.

After Cultural Day we were taken back to the same motel we stayed at when we first flew into Zambia. After a day of sessions we were ready to be sworn in the next morning. The morning of swear-

With my host family at swear-in

The Sam’s at Cultural Day

Some of my host family

in Peace Corps still did not get the memo on when I like to wake up. Even though the ceremony didn’t start until 10 they decided to have another session before swear in. We had to be at the Peace Corps office by 6:30 which meant we had to be all ready to go by 6.

For swear in everyone had outfits made out of chitenge, a traditional fabric. Everyone looked great in their bright outfits. At the swear in, we had Zambian government officials, the Chiefs from the two different training areas, plus the US ambassador. Straight after the ceremony we were taken to a mall in Lusaka and given about an hour and a half to shop for items that are harder to find outside the capital. It was really rushed especially because after we are posted we have community entry and are not allowed to leave our district for three months.

Now I’m sitting in the Central Provincial house waiting to be posted. Every province that Peace Corps is located in has its own provincial house. It’s a place to hangout, have wifi, do research, and have providential meetings. I am a little nervous to be posted and to be without any fellow Americans. Hopefully community entry goes well and I can integrate into the community.

Pond staking

I just got back from site visit, it was exhausting but really fun and I got a peek of what my life will be like for the next two years. I’m happy to say that I will be going to be working in Central Province of Zambia in a village called Nglande. The area speaks Lala, it is very close to Bemba. I think it is very appropriate that I’ll be spending the next two years in Lala Land because I’m pretty sure I already have spent majority of my life in my own lala world.

I’ll be the second Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) the village has had. I was really lucky to have already met the volunteer I’ll be replacing before site visit. Matt (the awesome current volunteer) was the PCV of the week a couple weeks back. Every week during training there is a current volunteer that comes and helps with the training.  As soon as Matt started talking about his site I knew I wanted it. The site is not as fish farming heavy and the projects that Matt has started is more business focused, which I like.  There is also lots of opportunities for improving youth development in the village. I’m hoping my past work experience will help me have a successful service.

Site visits took about a week and a half, the first 6 days were called a cluster site visit.  The 3 other future RAP Central Province volunteers and I went and stayed 6 nights with a current RAP Central volunteer. During the site visit we staked out a couple fish ponds, staked a dame and furrows, we also harvested a fish pond, told a local farmer how he could renovate his fish pond, gave a couple fish farming lessons to a women’s group in local language, met the local chief and had several language lessons.

It was great to see how a current volunteer is living out her service and talk to her and the two other volunteers that were helping her host. We had a great time joking around at night as we cooked our dinners. It was a nice change of pace to eat American style food.

During the cluster site visit they also ask if one of us would kill a chicken for dinner. Even though I decided I would start eating meat while I was in Zambia, I was not about to kill a chicken. Especially after the chicken killing horror stories I head from other volunteers at their training home stays. One of the other trainees said when his host family had him kill a chicken it did not go smoothly. When going in for the kill he unknowingly didn’t have the chickens full body properly secured. After he cut the neck the chicken got loose and was running around the yard spraying blood all over, it even ran into the house at one point. I think I’ll be okay if I leave, the chicken running around with its head cutoff experience to other volunteers.

After cluster site visit everyone went to our individual sites.  When I got to mine Matt unfortunately had fractured part of his wrist. He had to go into the city where the Peace Corps provincial house is located to get X-rays. The surprise of being by myself the first day made me very nervous. I’m pretty sure I just nervously laughed and and talked in a high pitched voice all day.

The next morning I was able to help a little with the cilemba (bean) harvest. Which is a lot of work. I was able to feel like a real Zambia and carry a (small) bag of bean pods on my head!

When Matt came back the second day of individual we had a great time.  He was able to introduce me to a bunch of people that I’m so excited to work with. Literally everywhere we went people were giving us food. At the head women’s house I was served the biggest lumps of nshima I have ever seen (don’t know how powerful that statement is considering I didn’t even know what nshima was a couple months ago). Everyone else had finished two lumps so, I decided to try and dabble in the two lump world. I immediately regretted  it. I ended up force feeding myself nshima and still did not succeed at leaving nothing on my plate. One day I will become a nshima eating champ.

During the visit it was cool to see (and a little intimidating) that everyone was sad too have Matt leave. I really hope I’ll be able to have as good of service as he did.  Matt also introduced me to a game called Skip-Bo and he kicked my ass about every game. I think I might get pretty good at games by the time I leave Zambia, when your living with no electricity you don’t have much else to do.

Now that site visit is over and I’m back in training I have mixed emotions. I’m happy to be back with all the other RAP volunteers and to be with my training host family again. On the other hand I am ready to be done with training and to be on my own. Make my own schedule and not have to worry about the big test I’ll have at the end of training.

Staging was a lot of information at once. The information was mostly about, the history of Peace Corps, goals of Peace Corps and how to achieve them.  We had diversity training about how to adapt to a new culture and not judge it.  Also some basic safety tips.

For the training they separated us by project.  There were two programs going to Zambia on this trip, RAP and LIFE.  I am in RAP which is, rural aquaculture promotion. LIFE is about linking farming to income and environmental sustainability.  The trainings were long, and technical, the trainers did their best to be entertaining which was nice. The purpose of staging basically was to give us a better understanding of what the Peace Corps life was like before we left the country. There was a decent amount of talk about pooping, and how we all will become friends with Mr. D (diarrhea). I also found out that when you are puking and having diarrhea poops at the same time it’s called “the double dragon”. Which, apparently we will most likely have the pleasure of experiencing too, fun!

The Peace Corps must not have gotten the hint that I don’t like getting up early because our bus from staging to the airport left at 2:30 AM. To be honest I didn’t actually go to bed that night. Between the 3 hour time change to the east coast and the fact that some fellow volunteers and I had one or two maybe three “last night in America” beers, it was too difficult to sleep. Still, starting your day at 2:00 am in never acceptable.

We were put on two buses for our move from Philadelphia to JFK. It was so hard traveling with 4 bags! Especially when it’s 2 am and your body isn’t working. Once we got to JFK one of the other volunteers had so many bags she tipped over and her feet were up in the air and her body was squished between her bags. Being the kind Peace Corps members that we are, we laughed then helped her up. I was happy to have had enough time to talk on the phone with the people I love before boarding.  As I got on the plan I was crying thinking about everything being left behind and how much I’m going to miss everyone.  I felt really grateful for my fellow volunteers because we all were there to emotionally support one another.

Our flights were from JFK to Johannesburg then Johannesburg to Lusaka. The flight to Johannesburg was 14 hours long, the longest flight I have ever been on. They fed us well on the flight two meals and multiple snacks one of which was a sandwich. I didn’t watch any movies because I tried to sleep, but it was difficult to get. We had a tight connection in Johannesburg then a two hour flight to Zambia. To my surprise they gave us lunch on the flight even though it was short. All the food really helped with my Zambian weight. For those of you who don’t know Zambian weight is weight I gained since I got excepted this summer and (for good measure) some holiday weight gain.

Arriving in Zambia two things hit me at once. The heat and the fact that I was now in a developing nation.  The airport was very simple and a little ran down looking, especially for a capital city and the only international airport in the country. Just coming for 30 degree weather the heat was unbelievable, the volunteer couple from Florida was loving it because it  reminded them of home. I however was sweating in everyplace possible.

I expected that getting through customs was going to be chaotic, but it went smoothly. Peace Corps had extra people there to make sure we got through in a timely manner. Plus there was plenty of Peace Corps staff and even some current volunteers to make sure we all made it into the vans and to the hotel we were staying in. Amazing all of our bags made it safely. Unfortunately the devil himself, aka TSA, searched my bags and neglected to place my shampoo and conditioner back in the plastic bag I had them in. Naturally they exploded all over my bag, thanks TSA  you’re the best!

When we got to our hotel we got a run down of what the next couple days in Lusaka were going to look like. Before letting us leave for our room they took our individual pictures that will be used for our Peace Corps ID and Zambian ID. As you can imagine traveling for about 24 hours + extremely sweaty = magical picture.

On the last day of our quick training in Lusaka we were assigned our language. I, like majority of the RAP group, received Bemba. Bemba, behind English, is the second most spoken language in Zambia. This does not really help me narrow down what province I will be living in after training.  I’ll have to wait until week 5 of training to know my site.

After we are assigned our languages we have to say by to our LIFE friends, we get trained in different locations.  Then we board a couple large vans and he’d off to Pre Service Training (PST) and to meet our host families we’ll be staying with for the next couple months.  Exciting stuff!