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!!!