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.