Chipolopolo TIME!!!

The Zambian Futball team played Ghana last week in a World Cup Qualifying Match. We WON 1-0! The game also marked the opening of the new stadium in Ndola. It was built by the Chinese. Being inside the stadium felt just like watching a game anywhere in the world. Brought me back to my Michigan college days. Stadium was sold out with the capacity of 40,000 people. A bunch of peace corps came out for the big day. 

Outside the stadium before the game dressed in our Chipolopolo garb and facepaint

Me and Audge

Inside the stadium! 

Katie, Kinzie, and Deanna

And on that note tired and off to relax pre-bed.

Catch-ya later! 

Vaca Pictures Round Two

Alright-o

Here's the rest of the vaca pics. Continuing with Zanzibar adventures.

Outdoor Market Seafood Smorgaisborg

Tried prawns, some types of fish, bit of lobster with my favorites being the fry bread, banana nutella crepes, and sugar cane juice. 

The sugar cane juicing machine. Lovely invention.

Found giant bananas while we were exploring the market in Stonetown

Low tide on the east side of Zanzibar

Coconut milk and flesh are a delicious treat while wandering the shops in Stonetown

After our Zanzibar relaxation we had to journey back to Zambia. Tired of the train we took public buses for the most part in Tanzania. We stopped along the way to break up the many hours spent on buses. This is a crater lake outside of Mbeya, Tanzania. We caught a minibus out of town and then a local guided us up to the crater lake. It was a good 2-3 hr hike in and 2 hr hike out with all the downhills. Enjoyed a picnic lunch up top. Unfortunately the descent to the lake was a sheer cliff so couldn't stick your toes in. 

Crater in the background. Hung the camera from a tree and had some fun with the timer. Finally got one with mostly everything in it..

It was an easy hike for the first hour or so, starting on a dirt road, narrowing to a path and eventually turning to mostly a climb. This is the way back down. 

Back in Zambia we headed up to Northern Province to visit Lake Tanganyika. Spent two days down that side and on our way out of Mbala we visited Kalombo Falls. It was a rugged track that took 2 hrs by taxi to get to but was well worth it when we arrived. There's different vantage points for viewing the falls, this being the farthest, the closest being right at the top! At 235 meters it's the 2nd highest waterfall in Africa fun fact.

On that note that's the end of my vacation pictures. After our journey to Northern Province we worked our way back to Solwezi to return to village and work life. 

Hope this gives you all a bit more insight on what I'm experiencing over here. Next step will be to add some village pictures. 

Vaca Pictures Round 1

Alright this post I'm going to try a picture share. Cross your fingers with me that the internet holds up.

In April I went on my first African vaca. We took the train from Kapiri in Central Province to Dar Es Salaam. The track and train were built and donated by the Chinese a while back. And now the train is in fair disrepair and prone to break downs at least 50% of the time. Always an adventure traveling overland in Africa.

Good ole home sweet home for 3 1/2 days

Great fresh air intake location complete with scenic views. Great way to travel for a day or two...

Hanging out in the back of the train after a tracks walk. 

One of the front cars derailed leaving us stranded for 18 hrs while we waited for our rescuers 

(you can see them in the distance approaching) 

Took us the better part of 4 days of train travel then a short ferry ride and there you have it folks Stone Town!! Great little historic town. View of the port on our walk into town.

 Old Fort of Zanzibar 

Sitting on the beach celebrating our arrival to Zanzibar with a beer. 

Have a couple more pics to add but think the blog maxed out with number of pictures. Will try to another round... see what we see. 

Short and Sweet

Alive and well! Well have failed that New Years Resolution of a post a month. In my defense the months have been flying by so scarcely my fault when you speed up time :) Typing this in a word doc as the internet is out at this time. Pretty sure the last time I posted was back in February when I had been in Zambia for a year. Crazy it's now June and now have 11 months left (with April not counting so much as we're out of our village most of that time with paperwork and other cos, close of service, things) So potentially effective months remaining at 10 months. Makes me feel like jumping up and getting to work. Feel like I've been productive but have so many things left that I wanted to do before I left. See how far I get on those agenda points.

So what have I been up to this past bit? Friends and family have been asking. Been told several times that my blog misses me. Suppose you know it's bad when an inadamit object starts to miss you, particularly one that was created with the purpose of keeping home folk in the know. Well I'll get into all the details of things next week when I sit down with a cup of coffee and this blog. But as for now thought I'd throw you a little tidbit before I'm on my way.

The Zambia-Ghana game is tomorrow in Ndola (Copperbelt Province about 4-5 hrs east of Solwezi). It's the stadium's big opening; it's chinese built and HUGE. Seats 50,000 and apparently is completely sold out! I see it everytime we have to come and go to Lusaka so really excited to actually be going inside. They even apparently have concession stands, crossing my fingers for a hot pretzel... perhaps even with some nacho cheese? Would be lovely. But I'll settle for any type of concession. Really excited to see Zambia play especially after their big African Cup win. Watched that game play out on a television at a neighbor's house in the village. People went crazy jumping and dancing. Can only imagine what it will be like tomorrow!
Must be heading out now - off to Ndola for the weekend! Will update more on the game and also life in general this coming weekend. We have our provincial meetings at the house so I'll be in back in the village the beginning of the week and then back into town for the meetings and will tuck away some blogging time. Sorry I know I have been negligent.

Love and miss you all. Hope you are all enjoying summer for me. It is freezing cold over here in the mornings/eves but still good ole hot africa during the day.

Over and out.

A Year In Review

     Well trying to follow my resolution to blog once a month so here we are again. February 3rd or 4th was the official mark of living in Zambia for a year. The bigger benchmark will come end of April when I've been in the village for a year, the halfway point of my service. It's crazy how time passes.

     The month of March is full of programs.The new education volunteers are down in training right now. They're where I was a year ago. Next week I head down to Lusaka to help with the training. I'll be there for some exciting parts: when they find out where they'll be living the next two years, Supervisors workshop, and when they prepare for site visit to their village. From training I'll head to Central Province where there's the National meeting for Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). I'm excited to hear about how the other provinces have done their camps and generally just love girl empowerment programs. Then I'll head back to my village where a couple of days later the four new Kaonde volunteers will come to visit for 5 days. So that's what my life for the next month or so looks like... 

     But according to the title of this blog post I should be reviewing some of the past year... So here are some tidbits from here and there: 

* Mwinilunga Visit: I live in Solwezi district of Northwest. About 200 km down the road to the west is Mwinilunga District. I've lived in the village for nine months and figured it was about time that I explore a bit more. I caught the big bus (think greyhound, take it down a couple of levels, and add 20 more people than legal capacity and there you have it) out to Mwinilunga on a Thursday afternoon. Met up with Deanna, one of the other education volunteers from my intake. We met up with some other volunteers and just caught up over a couple of beverages. The next morning we started off early walking to the Trade Center for a meeting with the Director about holding the next Camp GLOW on his campus. The training center was farther than planned... and then we got soaked in a rainstorm during our walk, and arrived later than planned soaked. The location and facility is amazing and too good to pass  by, so pending any issues we have our location for our camp in December! Then we walked more, through thick mud, pushing one bike with us. (We needed to pick up another bike from another volunteers house.. but 20 + km later all we managed to do that day was crash that his house after eating a little feast (didn't really plan food provisions during our adventure). The next morning after 12 wonderful hours of sleep (yes we were asleep by 7 pm...) then we started the biking part of our venture. We biked from around Mwinilunga town to the source of the Zambezi. The road's unpaved and often washes out during rainy season making it impassable. So it's actually better to travel by bike... but still tough going, not to mention the bike I was borrowing only had the gears 2-4 to 2-6... the rest you had to manually change and brakes that rubbed like crazy. It all added to the value of the adventure. We got to the source, which is really anti-climatic. They have a nice center/museum area with information about the Zambezi river, a really nice board walk that is slowly rotting and sinking into the swamp, and then the source itself was a little muddy puddle. But when you think about the fact that this is the origin of Victoria Falls it's absolutely amazing. Having seen Victoria Falls in August, the thundering of water pouring over the falls and then jump forward to this muddy little puddle - CRAZY. Then we started off again - my legs were dead, I was getting annoyed with this bike that seemed bent on moving only at a sludge pace. But luck was on our side and a truck passed by right when we joined the road again and we got a ride for 25 km.. Leaving only 30 km or so to Mwinilunga Boma (town). Would not have made it back to town that day if not for that truck ride. Total we biked 75 km (Deanna had just gotten a bike odometer). We had one of the best cold showers ever and an amazing plate of fries and eggs. The next morning I headed back on the bus, spent from the trip, but worth all the effort seeing Mwinilunga and Ikelenge Districts and experiencing the even greener side of Northwest Province.
* Girls Club: We started our girls club beginning of January and things have been going really great! We've covered different topics such as HIV/AIDS, assertiveness, goals/dreams, and have recently been working on preparing two songs to present at Women's Day on March 8th. The girls clubs from Luamvundu (my school) and Lumwana East (my closest school where Audra leads the club) will sing "If you wanna be somebody" together and then each club will sing a song with just their school for the celebration of Women's Day. This week we're going to sew chitenge pads, using the skills the teacher's were taught during the camp. I got 40 washcloths for the final step of the pads today in the market. Girls when they are on their period often do not attend school or other events as they do not have any way of keeping themselves clean or maintaining themselves during their period. This means girls after puberty miss can miss up to a week of school every month.
* Reading Hour: This term working in partnership with Robyn, the wife of a miner at Lumwana East, we have been traveling to Nyansowe, my farthest school that is 15 + km away and on a washed away dirt road in the bush, to do a reading program with the grades 1-4. The main focus is simply to encourage a culture of reading, teaching the youngest pupils that reading can be fun and an interesting way to learn about different things.
* Penpals: I am mailing 58 letters written by the Grade 8's at Lumwana East to Mr. Babich's Grade 5 class in my hometown Northville, Michigan (note the grade difference because of English literacy levels in the village). My pupils have been really excited to have penpals in America and despite the struggle with writing letters and their English levels it is a program they love.
* General village life: Recently in the evenings I've taken to wandering. (Don't worry parents by evenings I mean wandering around 17-18 or so.) When James is in town I meet up with him and we wander by the river, around the market, or down a trail we found. Otherwise I visit Grace at the market, wander by the school, or just here and there. It's my final evening exercise to make sure I'm good and tired for bed and it's nice to meet and greet everyone as they travel home after a day's work. Most of my days are spent at schools: Lumwana East, Luamvundu, or Nyansowe mainly. But when I'm not at school or working on the program I've been working with the children in my family with their English language skills. We hang out in general, but they also come over for coloring pages or reading books from my basket. They also enjoy the occasions when I break out chalk and they use the board I painted with chalkboard paint. It's absolutely precious to watch the older children (age 8 and older) teaching the younger children the alphabet, words in english, and how to count. Love them.
Think that this is where I will draw this blog post to a close. It's getting late here and need to pack up before heading back to the village tomorrow. Hope that all is well with everyone and remember I love to hear from you how life is going and what you're up to in America.
Love,
~Andrea

January Addition

I don't even know where to begin. I realize I have been neglectful of my blog, last update was four months ago... so here you are family and friends. My New Years resolutions: operation hydration, eat at least one fruit, one vegetable, and one protein a day, and (drum rolllllll) make at least one blog post each month. So January addition coming at ya :)

As you can see I started a blog post while I was home in America but never did get to putting up all those pictures even though I had that wonderful high speed internet. So Americaland to begin with. It was oh so wonderful to see those of you I was able to catch up with and as always there is never enough time to catch up during the short bit that was the holidays so remember snail mail and the art of letter writing and I am also turning over the new leaf of being faster and better at writing everyone back that writes to me :) So many resolutions...

It was strange being at home because the first week it felt like Zambia had only been a dream, that it never really happened, everything about Zambia was just so distant. And then the second week rolled around and thankfully I got back the last year of my life and it all felt real again. Think looking at pictures, giving a Zambia talk to a classroom of fifth graders at my old elementary school, and acquiring things from America to bring back to Zambia made it feel real again. It is hard also on the flipside of things to think I was just in America less than a month ago. They are different worlds but both very redeemable with different highlights. I must admit I do love the rain or shine the sun comes out and stays out for most of the day. Unlike Michigan where I saw the sun perhaps 3 maybe 4 times while I was home. Could have acquired seasonal depression had I been there longer and not so caught up and loving seeing everyone again and in the holiday spirit. Words  cannot describe how wonderful it was to be with my family for Christmas Eve/Christmas and to be able to catch up in person, break out the onsie pajamas again.

And while it was really wonderful to see family and friends again and enjoy the delights of the modern world, it is also really good to be back in Zambia where the sunshines, the people are so friendly/giving of themselves, and to have purpose and direction working on my projects in the village again.

So you ask, what am I up to in the village these days? Well when not having parties in my kinzanza with my host family children reading the books my mom sent me (which they absolutely love, their eyes light up when I break them out), I am also up to a couple of things at the schools. I have decided my main focus areas are:

1. Girls Empowerment (as seen through my work with Camp GLOW, Girls Leading Our World, and the Girls Club in my village. We had our first meeting this past Tuesday. The girls voted and we will be called Girls Club, very original I know. During the club meetings we will talk about different health issues including HIV/AIDS, malaria, etc..., business skills, and various life skills such as leadership, self-esteem, etc... The girls seem very reception but a bit shy. Hopefully they will quickly warm to me and get used to the muzungu working at their school. This is my first project working at Luamvundu, the zonal school for my district. Previously my efforts have been focused at Lumwana East Basic.

2. Literary. Started a library club at my school and it's been going really well attendance wise. We've had anywhere from 60-100+ kids coming to look at the limited books we have at the school. We still need to work on increasing their literacy but starting with instilling a reading culture and interest/love of books. Books are really only seen at the schools as they are expensive for a villager and a luxury item. Along this same grain of thought Mr. Banda, the senior teacher, and I are developing a plan to build a library room or a completely separate library. We are still working out the details but created a materials list for both with most of the materials and general cost and quantity based on one of the school block renovations by the mine that we have the records from. Mrs. Comben's grade 7 class is also supporting us in this process and fundraising to build part of the library. We are hoping to receive a donation as well from the local mine. They have built several nice library buildings in the area at some of the local schools in their area of work. Feel like I'm reverting a bit back to my days of emergency home repair in rural West Virginia.

3. Learner centered methods. Or in other words teaching through other means just strictly the lecture based method. It is more difficult then it sounds because the children do not have textbooks to take home and study so they do need to write a fair number of notes down from the board so they have something to study off of. And because behavior change takes a fair bit of time. I have been co-teaching geography with Mr. Yambwana going on two terms now and hoping it is making some sort of change. I also teach TGMs (teacher group meetings) some Fridays to the teachers at my school about different topics: teaching and learning aids, classroom management, learner centered methods, etc...

So those are my main work focuses while I'm here in Zambia. Of course the other focus is cultural exchange which is an everyday activity. I must be going though, run some errands in town and then head back out to the village. This is hopefully the first of my now monthly updates!

Oh and this one is for you Dad - the word they call white people is muzungu or chindelli (something like that). The first one, muzungu is the kaonde, bemba, etc.. word and then chindelli is the lunda word. I have tried to teach the children my name so many times... newest approach is going to be to teach them my kaonde name - butemwe, it means love. The head teacher gave me my name and I have not used it. Chatting with a zambian friend in the village about the children always calling me 'white person' he was surprised I had not tried my kaonde name, as Andrea is not a common or known name in Zambia.

On that note, hope all is well in America and you are enjoying the snow!

Ten-Four
~Andrea

Americaland!!!

Disclaimer: was distracted in Americaland by my wonderful family and friends, good coffee, great food, etc... so never got around to posting this... so it's incomplete but plan to get a January blog post in tonight/tomorrow.

     Sitting in the family room watching the snow drift down outside snuggled under a blanket because I find this country freezing in comparison to Zambia. Home for the holidays and loving catching up with friends and family! It's wonderful to have good coffee, great food, and the wide variety of conveniences of America/a developed country. I don't have to draw my own water, figure out how I'm going to charge my phone or ration the juice on my ipod. It's a nice break.
     And now since I have great internet speed and a constant supply to power going to try to upload some long overdue pictures to my blog!!

                                                 Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World)
We held Camp GLOW the first week of December down in Kasempa at Mukinge Girls Secondary School. It's a week where two girls and one teacher from each volunteers school come together in a camp setting to learn about important issues including: girls empowerment, leadership, HIV/AIDS, other health issues, and business skills. The camp was a great success! Following the camp the campers and mentors will return to their villages and start their very own girls club to carry on the spirit of the camp teaching the girls they matter and can make a difference in their villages and communities by being positive role models. A special thanks to my mom who supplied the girls with their journals and the crafty supplies to make it their own as well as all the other supplies she donated and packed into those packages! Running a camp in a developing country is not without its challenges but the girls experiences were invaluable!

                                                 

                                     Checking in celebration: left to right - Kim, Kelly, Me, Sarah