October was back into the bush for me. I got to check in on my project to see how they were going.

Before I left for the trainings I did a long in depth lesson on how to stake a fish pond and why it needs to be staked a specific way. Then we went out as a group and staked a pond together. I left with them all the tools they would need for staking, directions and a drawing of exactly how a staked pond should look. I was a little nervous coming back in because sometimes nothing gets done with out you there. I was happy to come back to seeing the pond we staked was almost all the way dug. Also they staked eight ponds while I was gone. I went and checked to see how the ponds were staked and besides a few minor flaws, they were done very well. The group is going to dig them out working together one pond at a time. I’m

hoping to have fish in ponds by December, which is not the ideal time to stock a pond, but better then nothing.

My women’s micro loan group gave out their first two loans. Which was really exciting. Unfortunately meetings have dwindled the last couple weeks. I’m hoping they pick back up here soon.

Bee keeping us still going slow. The counterpart I took to the bee keeping training in September has been teaching people in the community how to make modern hives with local materials. He has already made three himself and has bees that have swarmed in them too.

The school is slowly slowly slowly going. Before I left for my workshops in September, I wrote out weekly learning objectives for grades 1-2 and 3-4. I based the learning objectives from Zambian government national learning standards. I gave the two teachers notebooks to write lesson plans in. I also wrote out tips for teaching different subjects. One of the community school teachers is actually writing out lesson plans now, which is great. The other is taking attendance which is good too. Now only if I can get both teachers to write lesson plans and take attendance (plus record children’s performances) then I’ll be pretty happy. Because the students often times don’t have paper and the teachers sometimes don’t even have chalk, I’ve been trying to collect bottle caps for the last couple months. I plan on writing individual letters on the caps, so then the students can take a pile of caps and spell out words. I also plan on doing this for numbers as well. If anyone has any ideas on how to make learning materials with no resources, I could use some ideas!

I did get to help my community with a work day were we fired bricks. Because the bricks are made from mud they have to be fired after they dried or else they won’t last through the rainy season. This was a lot of work and it took all day just to fire one stack of bricks. But hopefully we will get the remodel done on the school and the potential teachers house before the rainy season starts.

The rainy season in Zambian is from November until May. When it’s not the rainy season it literally does not rain a drop. It’s so weird, there will be obvious rain clouds in the sky, I’ll look up and ask if they think it will rain. Zambias always say “no it is dry season why would it rain?” (I don’t know the dark heavy looking clouds above us) “it does not rain until October 24th”. And they are right it doesn’t rain.

So far in my community I have only seen the dry season. Even though I’ve been in my community for basically six months I haven’t seen it rain once. The dry season is split up into two season. First is the cold season then it’s the hot season. I’m in the hot season right now and it’s bloody hot. It actually looks like fall because all the leaves in the trees have turned and fallen off (lack of water) and it’s fall back home. Except here I’m sweeting my ass off by ten and not drinking a pumpkin spice latte. Hot season takes its name seriously. When I’m walking through the bush I’m often just fantasizing about ice water. When you don’t have electricity or anyway to cool down, it can be a little rough.

One of the best things I did during October was a malaria bike tour. I helped organize some of my fellow volunteer and we biked to three different villages (where Peace Corps Volunteers are located) and taught about malaria and malaria prevention. It probably wasn’t the smartest to do four days of biking during the middle of hot season, but it was fun.

The second half of September was full of traveling. Travel to some workshops and travel to vacation. Traveling is one of the worst things about Zambia. As PCV we are not allowed to drive we have to either hitch, take a mini bus or take a bus when we are moving long distances.

I know hitching is what serial killers do in the USA but in Zambia it’s more like Uber than anything else. Mini buses, to me, are one of the worst ways to travel in Zambia. They basically are a big van with multiple rows of sets and they stuff as many people as possible into them. I’ve been in some that had 20+ people in it. They stop every time they see a person on the side of the road and sometimes don’t leave a stop until they are filled (which can take forever). Regular buses are a close second, and I often times refuse to ride in them. They are really unsafe (google Zambian bus accidents) and they are very uncomfortable and always so hot. Most Zambians don’t wear deodorant because it’s basically a luxury item here (if you afford to send your kids to school you’re not buying deodorant). So the buses often times have this sweet, sticky, body odor smell to them.

Because there is only a couple paved roads in the country it took me two days of full travel to get to the trainings. The first one was over bee keeping. The second one was about orange flesh sweet potatoes and orange maize. These orange plants have a higher amount of vitamin A in them. It was a super interesting workshop because vitamin A is one of the leading deficiency in Zambia. It leads to eye problems, lower immune system and extras causes death. At the end of the training my counterpart and I were given seeds of the sweet potatoes. We are hoping to grow them and slowly give out more seeds that will be produced.

I will say that my travel to my vacation was well worth it. Every quarter we get four Cultural Days to spend exploring different parts of Zambia. We get to choose when in the quarter we want to use them and we’re we want to go. Unfortunately we don’t get any money for these days so everywhere PCV go we have to do it on a very slim budget.

A friend and I chose to use our days at South Luangwa national park. We stayed at a lodge that is right next to the park and got to see some amazing animals. We spent four days there and had one full day of safari into the park.

The lodge itself was located along a river, which had a ton of hippos in it. Hippos are so hug! They also had this really cool outdoor bathroom/shower set up that was under this big tree. There were monkeys that ran around the grass area of the lodge all day long. Elephants walked through the lodge grounds every day we were there. On the first day even a herd of giraffes walked through.

Because it was dry season the water level in the river was really low and the bush was dried up so it was really easy to see all the animals.

The safari was really a life time experience. I hope I never forget the feeling of seeing all those animals at once. Complete joy. It was really breathtaking. During the drives we got to see: elephant, giraffes, zebras, lions, a leopard, hyenas, hippos, squirrels, vultures, water buffalo, money’s, deer, warthogs, and more I can’t think of. We got to see some cool birds too, weaver birds and their woven hanging nest, tiny colorful bee eaters, eagles, and one of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen (only second to the macaws) a velvet breasted roller.

There were so many animals during the safari and majority of the time you were getting multiple animals in one shot. Hippos next to zebras, giraffes and elephants next to each other. There were so many elephants at one point I go “ohh it’s just another elephant”. The last hour and a half of the safari was at night. That is when we got to see the leopard. It was amazing the way it walked and it seemed pretty big. The leopard, like all the other animals didn’t even seem to care that we were there.

I feel so lucky to have seen all the animals I did and really hope I get to go on a couple more safaris when I’m in Africa. I will say my new favorite animal is a giraffe. They are truest magical.

If August was busy, September went by in a blur. I was once again out for much of it going to trainings and even got a mini vacation in.

To kick off September I got to go to a wedding. Two Peace Corps Volunteers got married. For Peace Corps to allow them to live in the same village and house they had to get legally married in Zambia and have a village wedding. I got to attend the village wedding which was a mix between American and Zambian cultures. It was held at a local orphanage. Majority of the children were gone back home for school break. Orphans in Zambia are children who have one of both parents that have died. They might go live with other family. If their extended family cannot afford to take them in there are some orphanages that will take them in during the school terms then they go back with their extended family in between terms.

To start off the festivities they had a Kitchen Party the night before. I was able to attend a Kitchen Party during PST, you could compare a Kitchen Party to a Bridal Shower. The one at PST gifts were given, traditional dances were done. The soon to be bride was completely covered in chitange for majority of it. The soon to bride was only uncovered when the fiancé came in, gave a gift, then slowly uncovered his bride as his family and extended family threw down money on the chitange as he was rolling it up.

The Kitchen Party during PST went all night long, but being in training I had to leave early to get to bed. During this recent Kitchen Party I got to see what I missed out on in PST. Let’s say it’s definitely not PG.

The Zambian women took the PC bride into a back room. There they gave her tips on how to be a good wife, also on how to please your man (were talking sex here people). Then the Zambians came and got us other female Volunteers. We had to get in a line and crawl on our hands and knees into the back room. Once there we all sat with the bride and drums began to play. Then two Zambian women started dancing. Then all of a sudden they took off their cloths only remaining in their panties. Then one of the women put on a wooden penis. The two women kept on dancing, wooden penis dangling and all. Then the dancer slowly started to dance into different sex positions one can do.

I don’t know what I expected as I had to crawl into a back room of an orphanage, but seeing two basically naked women display/ teach sexual moves was not one of them. As you can imagine us volunteers were a little shocked, laughing, hooting and hollering.

The following day, the actual wedding day was more tame. One of the big differences about the wedding that I noticed was there was a lot of dancing during the ceremony. At one point a cake was brought to the center. The kids who brought in the cake danced it in. Then people who brought gifts would dance up, place their gift on the table, get a piece of cake, say a little speech then dance on back out.

Zambians love to dance. When they dance often times they tie a chitange around their waist. They do this crazy hip movement things when they dance. I don’t understand how this type of dance is humanly possible. I’ve tried when I’m alone in my hut before and I’m pretty positive I just look like I’m having a weird spasm.

The wedding was super fun and it was great to see another person village. There are definitely some parts that will be very difficult to ever forget.

I had originally planned to have August just be in one blog post. But I guess I like to talk about myself too much.

The second half of August consisted of a little over a week in my village and four days at CAMP TREE.

Going back into the community felt a little weird after being out for over two weeks. I don’t know how to explain it but it’s a common feeling for Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). You’re going back into a community where you have been away for so long, back to no electricity or running water. Plus you are always a little nervous about what you’re house is like when you come back. Have all the spiders I’ve killed come back for revenge? Do I even have a house anymore or is it just one big spiderweb? Have mice/rats gotten into my house and turned it into their own little mouse resort, eating all my food? I always open my door very slowly and hope for the best.

I’ve been pretty lucky so far and haven’t had any major issues. Some other PCVs have. One guy returned to have some mice eat all around the lid of his peanut butter jar. The mice never fully got into the actual jar, but they did manage to poop in it. I’m telling you, if mice came into my house and turned my peanut butter into their own personal toilet, little mice heads would be rolling! Peanut butter and jungle oats (oatmeal) are a vital part to many PCVs lives, they are easy to cook, good source of protein and remind us of home. Every time I’m low on either and know I’m not going to the BOMA for a while, dooms day scenarios start playing in my head.

The last week of August was reserved for Central Provinces Camp TREE. Camp TREE is a camp that is meant to teach kids about the environment and how to take care of it. We got to go to this national park and camp for three nights. Each PCV got to take a boy and a girl plus a counterpart. This was pretty exciting for some kids who had never been out of their village before, no less been camping. At the camp they had western style bathrooms and showers. Basically they had a big water drum above the bathrooms and that was be used to flush the toilets and another for the shower. Because majority of the children that come from the village have never used a western toilet, things got a little interesting. Bathrooms in the village are basically just holes in the ground that you squat over and do you’re business. So siting on a toilet is a very strange thing for people who have never done it before and we’re never taught how to use one. We think some of the girls were standing/squatting on the toilet seat, because the toilets were often very … messy.

Camp TREE was pretty fun. I think the kids had a great time. Even though we didn’t see any, we could hear hippos and hyenas at night. We got to go for a nature walk and a cruiser ride around the park. We seen alligators, warthogs, lots of monkeys, deer and different types of birds. It was cool and the kids loved seeing all the animals because most people don’t have them around their village.

As I remember from my time in the Amazon, monkeys are total assholes. There was a pack of monkeys that were above our sleeping area. I became friend with one of them. We played peek-a-boo together, waved at each other, totally thought we had became friends. I guess not because next thing I know the monkey is trying to pee and poop on me! I faired better than others, one monkey pooped all over a kids backpack.

So that was August for me, not a ton of time in the village, but still pretty memorable.