My permanent site is in a village called Nglande in the Chitambo District of Central Province. This area has lots of hills (some call them mountains but being from the Pacific Northwest they are hills to me), valleys and is a forested area. Looking out my front door I see lots of trees and the top of the next “mountain” which the sun sets behind every night. Central also will randomly have large rocks protruding from the ground which only adds to its appeal. People in my village speak a mix of Bemba and Lala, but so many people in the area speak English (it is the countries national language) that I unfortunately am barely using my Bemba. 
There are some really beautiful views in my area. From one of my host fathers farms you can see the forest canopy of the valley below and the rolling hills all around. There are even a couple places that have the quintessential “African” landscape with the thick tall grass and trees sprinkled about. I think my site is definitely worth a visit from the States! 

My site is very spread out. My house is about 10 kilometers from the road/tarmac. Unlike other villages there isn’t any true village center. There is no market or shops. So I have to pack in my food when I come from the BOMA. Which isn’t horrible because my host father send the kids to the tarmac to help me or sends them with my bike (another reason why my host family is great).

Besides fish farming and continuing the bee keeping project the last volunteer had, one of my main projects I’ll work on for the next two years is trying to help my Community School become an actual school recognized by the government. Community Schools have volunteers from the village teach the classes and not government teachers. They also don’t receive much financial help from the government. 

Right now the Community School (grades 1-4) is in disarray. The school is a mud brick rectangle shape building with two classrooms and a small office/storage area in the middle. Each room is separate from one another and has its own door that you enter from the outside, no hallway. The windows are basically just square holes in the classroom walls. There is no glass or bars covering the window. There is no door for the classrooms either just a doorway. The office had a door and a lock (a chain that goes through the doorframe and the door that you have separate lock for) which I guess is a newer addition to the school. Unfortunately only one of the two classrooms is really useable because the roof of the second classroom is falling down and there is no chockboard. So there is a lot of work to be done on the physical building part. There is also a ton of work to be done on the teaching side. The school has almost no resources only amount of school limited books that were provided by the government. The teachers have no lesson plans or ways to keep records. This will be the first thing I focus on. 

Fixing the Community School is an vital project because the closest government school is a 1.5-2 hour walk away. As you can imagine having the younger grades do this walk everyday through a forested area is a scary thought. Some of my host siblings that are in the upper grades do this walk. Recently they have been doing the walk barefoot because my host father just bought them shoes and they don’t want to get them dirty. Which I find cute and incredibly sad at the same time. It really makes me disappointed in recent cuts to humanity programs like Let Girls Learn and the Peace Corps that can help with problems like this (especially when Peace Corps members are volunteers). 

The school system in Zambia is a little different than ours. First they don’t have a big summer break like in the US, they go to school for three months then have a one month break, plus national holidays off. So they have the month of April, August and December off. Which I think is a great school schedule! 

In Zambia grades 1-7 are free from the government but grades 8-12 the parents have to pay for. This can be very hard for the parents to do, so often times you’ll find people who don’t have higher then 7th grade education. The cost of the school varies in my area, it’s anywhere from 650-1050 kwatcha (Zambians currency) that is about $65-100. Plus the school several hours away so you have to pay room and board as well. Unfortunately this is impossible for many parents to pay. What happens is children go to school when their parents can afford it. So, there might be several year break between grades 8 and 9, for example. One of my host brothers is almost 22 and in 11th grade. He is a very dedicated student, which I am really impressed by. There probably is a lot of pressure to do well because such a large portion of your families income is devoted to your schooling and the fact that many families can only afford to send one child at a time. 

I am hoping that all of this feeds my passion to help the Community School. Also, that it is a project that I will be able to accomplish in two years time. 

I have moved into my permanent community and I’m over a month into what Peace Corps calls Community Entry. Community Entry last the first three months at a volunteers permanent site. During this time you are not obligated to work on any projects, you are just supposed to start getting adjusted to life on your own. This time is used to get to know your new community and host family. Get your house settled and try and build relationships that will help you the rest of your service. Also, during this time you are not allowed to have any out of country visitors or leave your district (county) unless you are going to your BOMA for food/resources.
I am once again very lucky to have another great host family. I am staying with the Chitambo family. My host father and mother are both in their early 60’s and have eleven living children. Some of them have their families and are live on the compound as well. It seems like no matter where I go I’m distended to always be around large families. Unlike the host families during training the new hosts do not get a stipend from Peace Corps for hosting volunteers. The families are only required to provide volunteers a house and it’s the villages responsible to do upkeep on the house. Anything else the family does is extra, and mine do a lot. My family heats me up bath water every night that I use in the shower the previous volunteer built (no bucket baths yay). I eat dinner with my family most nights. Also, my firewood pile and water buckets are never empty. It’s like magic, whenever they get low the next thing you know they’re filled up again. Which I’m really grateful for, I’m more than happy not to walk to the nearest stream to get my water. Sometimes the little girls will come over and help me with dishes and sweep out my cooking shelter. I am getting better cooking over a wood fire. Starting the fire itself is another issue. Oftentimes the little kids will come over and help me with the fire, which really puts my self esteem in check.

To easy my fire starting, I have gathered dead grass to use as kindle, I put it in a large bag and hung it in my insaka (cooking shelter). On occasion I have gone out to see two of the families goats suspicious standing guard at the insaka entrance, while another was trying to stretch its neck up to get the grass filled bag. They were not hard to spook off, I just stuck my head out of my house door yelled “hey” and the all jumped in the air, then traded dirt for a while and scurried off. I have also seen the families cat lazily crawl out of the bag after using it as a bed. The other day I oddly found a single egg inside the bag.

My host parents work very hard. Right now they are in the middle of bean and soya harvest. It is unbelievable amount of work they have to do. Everything is done by hand to get the beans and soya from the field then un-pod them one by one and clean them to put in a bag to sell. My host father also has shown me around the community and helped me find meetings for me to attend. He also goes with me to these meetings. He is very involved with the community. You would never guess he was in his 60’s he is so active. I was talking to him the other day about how he is always busy, he told he cares a great amount about bringing development to the community. Which makes him the perfect counterpart.

Like training I have my own house separate from the families. It’s made out of mud bricks and a thatched roof. The roof has black plastic tarp nailed to the inside, not to keep out the rain (the thatch should do that) but to help keep out the dirt. My new house is much bigger than the little hut I had during training and even has some furnishings graciously left to me by the previous volunteer. I am currently in the process of cementing the brick walls so they’ll be nice and smooth for me to paint designs on. The floor is even cemented which is an upgrade from the clay floor I had in training, it helps keep out the termites.

The only complaint I have about my house is my ongoing war with spiders. I have found myself walking around the outside and inside my house holding a can of DOOM (insect killer) with my finger on the trigger ready to spray. I have started to like the smell of the chemical spray, which I don’t think is the best sign.

On one of these spider scouting trips I noticed in a small gap between the roofs plastic tarp and the wall, there was a large spider nestled in there. The spider was near to were I hang my mosquito net, so I was not having it. I pointed my can of Doom and unloaded on the monster spider. After, I peered in the gap, as I seen the spider slowly shriveling up I breathed in the sweet chemical smell of victory. Later that day I went to check that the spider was still dead, because apparently I’m paranoid about spiders. To my horror there was no shriveled spider in the gap at all! I tried not to freak out; maybe the spider fell, maybe it crawled away to have a dignified death, maybe it’s plotting revenge against me, maybe I have inhaled too many chemicals, who knows. A little while later I was walking by my bed and looked over and that bastard was just chilling on top of my mosquito net. So I did what any rational person would do. I grabbed my box of matches and went outside. After I stuck a match I said “hasta la vista el spider” the set my thatched roof on fire.

Joking, I got a broom swept the spider off my net, then stomped the sh#t out of it. Victory at last!

Next post I’ll talk about what my village is like and the projects I hope on doing while here, besides murdering spiders.