Staging Updates

Well it's officially a week away. Bit crazy - this is my last Monday at home. Below I'm posting an update of what I'm doing when I depart from Michigan on the 31st.

Schedule

January 31st
2 pm Fly out of Detroit
3:43 pm Arrive in Philadelphia for training
6 pm Peace Corps Registration (paperwork time :)

February 1st
AM clinic time
PM expectations/what's next

February 2nd
2:30 AM (that's right not a typo) bus to New York
10:40 AM Fly to Johannesburg

February 3rd
8:40 AM Arrive in Johannesburg (15 hour flight + 7 hour time change)
10:30 AM Depart for Lusaka
12:30 PM Arrive in Lusaka, Zambia!!!!!
Stay at the In-service Training Trust (ISTT) site in Lusaka for 3 nights

February 4th and 5th
Orientation/training at ISTT

February 6th and 7th
First Site Visit

February 8th
ISTT

February 9th-Mid April
After the site visit we'll go to the training site hub located at the Farmer Training Institute (FTI) in Chalimbana, Chongwe (~45 km east of Lusaka).

During this time we'll stay with families in villages within 11 km of the FTI. Our living conditions will the same as when we serve: mud huts with no electricity or running water (ie no internet at our homes or the FTI).

We'll eat regularly with our host families. Foods we'll experience include: maize meal nshima, sautéed cabbage, chicken, beef, and a small sardine called kapenta. Should be an interesting experience.

Typical M-F schedule: 
8:00-12:00 Language *
12:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00 -17:00 Technical

* We'll learn what language we're assigned within the first week there are six they train volunteers in. They are: Bemba, Nyanja, Lunda, Tonga, Mambwe and Kaonde.

April 21st, 2011
Officially sworn into Peace Corps after successfully completing all training  




Communication:

Mail: 
We will have very limited access to internet during training as well. I had originally thought we'd have internet daily/weekly - apparently not the case. Going to work on my snail mailing - my address during training is

Andrea Moehle
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 50707
Lusaka, Zambia

... you can also find my address on the "My Address" page which also gives you some advice of how to mail things so check it out (located on the right hand side of my blog right on top of the map of Africa). I'd love to hear from you and what's going on in your life stateside. Promise if you write me a letter (snail mail) I will write you one in return. Emails I'll read them all and do my best to respond to them but the simple fact is I'll have far more time away from computers/internet then I'll have with my paper and pen.

Phone: 
Planning on getting a phone when I arrive in Zambia. Land lines in Zambia are quite expensive. I'm not sure how this entire process works or what the cost is associated with it. I'll post an update when more develops. Apparently there's service in cities and perhaps towns? And a Returned Peace Corps volunteer from Zambia that I had coffee with was able to text in his rural village (pending the battery was charged) so we'll see what my situation's like. Who'd have thought perhaps my parents will get texting? 


Blog Posts: 
It's just a guess but think I should have internet every 4-6 weeks once I'm at my site (end of April). Not all that often but I do have to ride my mountain bike from my village however many kilometers to the Peace Corps Provincial house on a day I have off/a weekend. During training not really sure how often I'll have internet at all... when I do I'll post updates even if they're brief. 


.... Basically, let's keep in touch.