Our Life in Photos

Photographs courtesy of Elias Sinkus http://sinkusphotography.com/kickabout/

Joey and Eli enjoying a cup of instant coffee to start the day in our insaka and the new table that the carpenter finally brought over!

This is our beautiful Bamaayo (host family mother) all dressed up for church and smiling for our picture on the road (path) between our two homes.

Checking our phone on cell phone mountain. The closest cellphone network is 1.5 km from our hut, but the view could be worse. 

 

A group shot of us and our friend Eli (the photographer) on his way through Zambia. The small hut you see in the back is our pit latrine, the icimbusu. Also notice the white bag on the side of the hut. This bag was FULL of charcoal and we use it to cook over.

Our adventure of buying village chicken off the side of the road!  Our faces say it all.

We visited the local school to help shell maize and observe the school groundnut field. After we helped with the school crops, Joy sat in on a Zonal Workshop for the 6 schools in the district while Joey and Eli started a soccer game with the kids.  Joy showed up for the last 30 minutes but scored the game winning goal on a left-footed shot in her skirt and nice shoes.

Joey in the field hoping to promote conservation farming.  He will help with the cultivation of the school field next season.

Enjoying ourselves in our hut. Our walls are painted with white lime to discourage termites and other pests and our ceiling is lined with plastic to protect the inside of our home from falling thatch and dirt.

 Joy cooking sweet potato curry over rice on our charcoal brazier with our neighbor's dog, Danger, watching closely.

Joy hanging our laundry out to dry.  We do a little bit of laundry every week, but usually it's only a few major articles.  Our definitions of 'dirty clothes' have changed considerably in our short time here. 

Is it a...what day is it?

It’s hard to believe, but we left Lansing 3 months ago today! Time is moving quickly here. We have already completed 3% of our service as Peace Corps Volunteers and are about 1/9 of the way through our total time in Zambia. We haven’t felt out of place or uncomfortable much at all – not bad considering I had never been outside of Michigan for a consistent stretch of more than 10 days prior to coming here. Undoubtedly the main reason we feel comfortable is that I have Joy and she has me. Together I think we can make anywhere home. Sometimes I forget that we are actually in the African bush. I joke with Joy and ask if she’s sure we aren’t really in rural Arkansas. (I know that it can't really be rural Arkansas because no one lives there and we see other people everyday). Probably the biggest adjustment for me has been the weather. It is cold in the early morning and at night – we sleep under 2-3 blankets – but at mid day it’s always sunny and hot. It’s been surprisingly windy the last few days which has been great. The closest thing I can relate it to is Michigan in August, but the weird thing is that the weather never changes. Since we arrived in Zambia the rains have stopped and the temperatures have dropped, but it’s been such a gradual transition that day-to-day the changes are not noticeable. And it’s never cloudy, which is something that I have never experienced for this long of a stretch. I take it as a good thing that the biggest adjustment has been the weather, but Zambia hasn’t been without other challenges and minor adjustments.  (picture of Joy cooking in our newly remodelled/smeared insaka).

On the home front, we continue to make progress and changes to home and each day we get slightly more settled and organized. We had two meetings this past week and both went very well. They were almost carbon copies of each other just with different people and in different places. Both had about 12 adults there at the beginning and about 30 adults there at the end. Joy and I both gave summaries of the work we will be doing – in Bemba – and someone explained the list of Peace Corps policies for us – things like we can’t let anyone borrow/use our bikes and we aren’t here to give money so don’t ask for it. We ended with a Q & A session. The response we received from those in attendance was quite positive and promising for work in the area.

The highlight of my week by far was visiting a nearby tomato farm while they were harvesting. We got to see the nice plot of tomatoes and the awesome irrigation system that they set up. They have a channel that runs about 400 meters to a nearby waterfall where we got to see monkeys playing in the trees. The farmers work together to box the tomatoes and rent a flatbed truck to drive to Ndola (about 90 km away) where they can sell them at a higher price. The truck is expensive, but they load it up as much as possible and drive s-l-o-w-l-y. Market access is a huge problem for farmers in Zambia and it’s encouraging to see this group make do.  They are a good batch of farmers here, at least the ones that are willing and able to work with me.  But much room for improvement.

Settling In

It is Sunday morning, May 9th, day 10 in our village. (picture was taken this morning! Joey's lookin good in his hat and I'm staying warm in mine).  Joey is outside attempting our first effort at making tortillas for lunch and I am inside our hut drafting this post to be put up later today. Our home is coming along just fine. Upon arrival, our host family put out a few green plants for us to have in front of our house. It was really sweet and I am thankful every time I see them. Joey and I are also planning on starting a garden just down the path, near the river, where the soil is moist and we can grow cucumber, green peppers, watermelon, carrots, broccoli, and green beans. Joey has also built us an awesome bookshelf for our hut and I have lashed together a pretty cool shoe rack. Last week we asked the local carpenter to build us a table, desk, and another bookshelf. When we asked him when they would be ready, he couldn’t commit to a date. He replied, “Ah, things…they come up.” We are learning quickly that things just don’t happen on a schedule here. The culture is polychromic which means time elastic and can be pushed or pulled, so there is little importance placed on deadlines/times for anything. There is not necessarily any rush or importance to finishing something “on time.” Meetings may start 2-5 hours later than scheduled, or someone might plan on coming to visit on Tuesday, and come on Thursday. In our monochromic American lifestyle, things just don’t work that way. It is an important part of the culture here that both Joey and I are easing into. While I don’t think I will ever live a polychromic lifestyle, I can learn not to book more than 2 meetings in a day and not be overly frustrated when my counterpart is 2 hours late for our afternoon meeting. We have also noticed we are the only ones that wear watches! The people here just depend on the ever-present sun to determine the time of day. Speaking of time, on Wednesday around 14:00 hours we have planned a village meeting with 6 of the 9 headman in our zone. We are hoping many people will come so we can introduce ourselves and our programs. We also have another meeting on Thursday with another headman and his village. Joey and I will also try to use our Bemba, which is coming, slowly, but it’s coming. Just today we learned that there are 5 ways to say the verb “to taste”. (ukuumfwika, ukumyanga, ukuesha, ukupima, and ukusonda). In other news, I just found out yesterday that my counterpart for the RED project, the head teacher at the local Missionary School, has been transferred to another school and will be moving by the end of the week. I was really looking forward to working with her, as she is one of the few female head teachers in Central Province, as well as very organized and enthusiastic. Her husband also happened to have the only car in our entire village. Bummer. She told me she applied for a transfer back in 2006 and had nearly forgotten about it. The school has not yet hired a new head teacher. Joey recently met the Agricultural Officer for the area when he pulled up in front of our hut in his bright red motorbike. He is a very energetic, busy man. I think it will be a nice partnership. Unfortunately, PC has very strict rules about not riding on motorcycles while serving or else Joey and I would have had a nice ride to town! Our good friend Eli from camp will be in country the end of May. We are working hard to find a way to see each other and exchange stories. It will be really fun if we get to meet up. Tomorrow, Joey and I will ride 35K to the nearest market to try to find a loaf of bread, some eggs, and a proper latch for our door. The ride should take us about 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get back. So far, in our village, we have found people to provide us with tomatoes, bananas, groundnuts and guavas. We are still trying to figure out how to find avocadoes, any green vegetable, and mealie meal (corn meal). We did, however, find a little store that sells warm coke-cola in a glass bottle for 3,000 kwacha (around $0.70).




We feel like our new life has finally started. We are completely on our own schedule for the first time in 3 months and are enjoying easing into our beautiful, patient community. We have not been rushed into starting work and have instead been politely greeted and given our own space to explore our new surroundings. In Bemba, a common phrase is “panono panono”, bit by bit. This is how Joey and I are approaching the next 3 and ½ months of community entry before our next In Service Training in August. Panono panono, we will learn the way of this land.



- Joy and Joey



p.s. Joey’s tortillas were delicious! And a very special and happy mother’s day to all!!!