90 days and counting....

I guess I should be happy that Ive finally made it to the 90 day mark but its really bittersweet. I officially have three months left in Zambia and three months to wrap up two years of work. My time in the village is starting to feel like one long drawn out goodbye. I have so many things that I want to complete but I feel like I have no time to do it. Never thought I would feel this way, but two years is really not a long time at all.
Ive finally got the literacy group started in my village and people are excited for the opportunity to learn. The resource center that I have been trying to stocks since I first arrived FINALLY has some books and there are more on the way, thanks to my Alma mater Maryville College. I feel at home in my hut, maybe too much so as I like to hide away on the weekends. I feel grounded in the village, like I'm suppose to be there.
I wanted to extend. I went back and forth in my mind about staying in Zambia. The program in Kenya I wanted to extend with is no longer an option so I thought about doing something special education related in Zambia. It didn't work out. I'm not ready to go back to Americaland. I have to start speaking proper American English and I'm not sure if I can. I'm scared of all the people, the noises, the cars, the lack of communication on transport, the pace of America and choices. I'm so nervous about choices. I am excited to see my family and friends, to be able to trust transportation, to stand in a line and know for sure that I am next, to eat sushi and to be in Chattanooga again. But it'll be extremely hard to leave this place. This has been my life for 2 years and its become so normal and Ive adapted to this way of life.
BUT on the bright side of things. I do have plans for this term. Instead of trying to extend to do special education work, Ill be working at Musakanya Basic in Mpika Boma in my last three months of service. The school has a Special Education Unit which is specifically for Deaf students up to grade seven. I went to the school and talked with the Headmaster and a few of the teachers. They welcomed me and were very excited that I was interested in working with them but upset that Ill be leaving in April. One of the teachers at the school is Deaf herself and was impressed that I could actually sign. She told me I was a much better signer than the other teachers and I needed to come to the school so she could have someone to talk with. Yup that was the highlight of the day for sure. Since I live 105k from the school it will be a "come when you can" type of situation. I'm happy that they are willing to work with me. This is something Ive wanted to do since my first year but I never felt I had the time.
Since I am not teaching at my school this term, I have more time to do other things. I decided that I didn't want to start something I couldn't finish with this new group of Grade 9s. Ive been able to work start to finish with two grade 9 classes and its something that I loved about teaching here. I got to see the kids grow. I don't want to start in term one and not be able to follow them all the way through their grade 9 year. Ill be there for tutoring, and I want to go in a few days a week and start a reading program with them but I cant be their English teacher. Kinda sad but its better this way. Ill get to work more on teacher training in the schools which is something I enjoy and something that needs to happen. Ill also have enough time to work at the preschool and with the teacher on curriculum development. The teacher is good with the kids, they just aren't learning as much as they could. I guess since this is their start to education its only fair that they start their route memory training now but if I can teach the teacher a new way to set up her classroom and help with new methods then maybe the kids can learn a bit more before they go to Grade 1. Ive seen a few of the preschool kids from last year at Mpumba and they look so cute and eager to learn. Its refreshing!
I guess for the next three months Ill take as many pictures as I can, sit with as many people as I can and eat all the Nshima my body can handle and try not to look at my neighbors like its the last time. I can do this....I can. Its like my first 3 months all over again. Living in two places at once and not knowing exactly where I want/need to be and not knowing how to focus on the here and now. That should really be the goal for the next three...focus on the present and enjoy it for what it is.

Holiday Tour de Zambia

This year I had a crazy Holiday Season! After a highly successfully Camp GLOW (thanks everyone who donated and supported)I started my Tour de Zambia. My goal is to travel to all the provinces in Zambia before I leave. So this Christmas, instead of travelling abroad I decided to see more of Zambia. So on Christmas Eve, I made my way to Luapula Province. Home of more Bemba people, a beach, great fish and the best dancers in Zambia. The trek to Luapula was long as with any trek in Zambia. The only transport leaving was a semi truck. The driver was very nice and basically told me I had no other options and of course he was right. So 7 hours later, I reached the capital of Luapula just fine! There I was greeted by some of my FAVORITE volunteers. It was so nice to spend Christmas with friends. We did a "dirty Santa" gift exchange, channeled our inner three-year old by using way too much face paint and had a fantastic meal, all of which cooked with out any electricity. It just confirmed the fact that Christmas isn't about fancy gifts and material luxury, it's about spending time with the people you love and being grateful for the things you have even if it isn't much. I also got the chance to hangout with some Zambians on the dance floor on Christmas night. New experience indeed. The next day,a small group of us went to Samfya and visited Lake Bwangweulu. It was a beautiful sandy lake front where we just enjoyed looking out into the water. We jumped in for a bit but the fear of shisto kept us a bay. We had a picnic there and even got fishing lessons from local kids. We also were warned about the crocs that like to hangout in the water but there were no Croc sightings that day. All in all, a great trip to Lupapula and Id love to visit again.
Then it was time for the 2nd part of my "tour de Zam" which was a 17 hour trek to Eastern Province. Ive been to Eastern many times but this trip was for one reason only. ZEBRAS! I had gone on safari before and never got the chance to see the "rock stars" of the Savannah. So we went to South Luangwa National Park which is one of the biggest and best game parks in Zambia. We were greeted by elephants as soon as we arrived and had monkeys playing on our porch. We only could afford to stay one night but it was New Years Eve and what better way to bring in the new year than with the sound of elephants trumpeting and monkeys playing. We went on a game drive on New Years Eve which was nice. We even got stuck in a huge mud puddle and got the chance to walk around the park a bit. It was beautiful. We attempted to stay up until 12 but since my friend and I are so use to village time, we fell asleep at our normal time of 9pm. The next morning we went on a game drive and the first thing we saw were Zebras! There were so many. That day we saw: mating Lions, giraffe, warthogs, buffalo, elephants, lots of monkeys, impala and hippos. We also saw a beautiful Baobab tree, Ive grown to love these trees since being here. It was a nice vacation spent in Zambia. And to top it all off we had our Close of Service Conference immediately after. So after seeing my favorite animals, I got to see a group of my favorite people!

Hot off the Press!

Its been a very exciting few days! I got a call a few weeks ago asking if I would be willing to bring a few of the most active girls in my GLOW club down to Lusaka (8hours away) for an event. I was only told that there were VERY important people coming from America and the event would showcase what we do as a GLOW club at school and what we do at our GLOW camps. At first I declined the offer (although I was very honored to be asked to do the event) since I was waiting to hear about the grant money I applied for to do an World AIDS Day(WAD) event. A week later, I still hadnt recived any word or money regarding the grant for WAD so I decided to see if the offer still stood. I was then told who was coming to Zambia...President George W. Bush and his family. I immediatly started getting in touch with the girls and their parents. The grade 7 and 9 girls had already finished their exams and were preparing to take their holiday. I picked four of the most active girls and my GLOW counterpart to come Lusaka with me. All the girls were excited, except one. 3 of the girls had just completed grade 9 while one had just completed grade 7. The grade 7 girl was nervous about her English. She's the only one in her family that knows any English and the only time she gets to practice her English outside of school is with me. She was afraid that people in Lusaka would laugh at her. She had also never left the village at all let alone gone to the capital. I assured her that things would be fine and she should speak in whatever language she is comfortable with. So we all travelled in the Lusaka as a big group. Along the way we stopped for shawarma and got two flat tires. Eventfull day indeed. The girls got some time to rest then it was all practice for the important visit that was going to take place. The girls also met up with 14 other GLOW girls from differnet schools and different provinces. There were 5 groups in total. We decided to do three activites: a girl empowerment song, a self-esteem activity, and a sugar daddy skit. The girls practiced so hard and it all paid off. They did an AMAZING job! The Bush family was so impressed with what the girl preformed for them today. My girl who was afraid of going to Lusaka even lead the girl empowerment song in her local language!!! I was so proud! We took lots of pictures and this is something the girls will remember for the rest of their lives. They had so much condfidence in themselves by the end of the week. This is why I love GLOW and my job. I feel like I get the opportunity to change people's. These girls experienced new things, met new people and had fun and I got to play a part in that. If feels good. The Today Show came to interview the girls and film the day. There should be a showing of the event on December 12th. Check us out if you can!

Exciting times in Zambia

Its been an exciting few weeks here in Zambia with work and everything else. I did my first condom demonstration in the village and it went really well. There were 2 more villages on the schedule but when people found out what I was doing they also wanted me to come to their village to do the demonstration. My PEPFAR counterpart (also my best friend in the village) did a GREAT job with our village talks. In addition to condom demonstrations, we talked about HIV transmission, the importance of getting tested and also gave out condoms as well. I was surprised they responded to me so well due to the fact that I am young and a female but they were open to asking me questions and willing to learn. I felt really good at the end and so did my counterpart. The village also kept saying how good of a teacher I was. Since I am busy teaching their kids this was the first community event I was able to do, it wont be the last.
Also I had an interest meeting with the women at the Catholic Church. The meeting was initially supposed to be just with the priest to see how he felt about me using the Church but it ended up being a interest meeting about starting a Woman's Literacy Group at the Church. It slowly ended up being a empowerment meeting and all the women are really excited about this group. I told them if they raised the money to buy note books for themselves, I would buy the pens. They told me to get pencils to start. There are women who finished grade 10 as well as women who just finished grade 1 so it will be a multi-level class but I have a local woman helping me. We start our 1st class October 4th. They keep reminding me about the class when I see them around the village.
Our GLOW Camp has been officially funded! It got funded really quickly due to all our friends and families donating (THANKS GUYS). We have already started the planning for the week and its going to be great. Also my neighbor is going to be a peer mentor at the Camp. She wrote a great essay about why she wanted to help the girls and how she was an example to them because she was single and completed school/grade 12 (which is a big deal in a village where early marriage and pregnancy is on the rise for some reason) and how she believed that girls should have rights. I helped her get her thoughts together but she wrote the essay herself. I was really proud of her. Now I am submitting a grant for a World AIDS Day event my PCV neighbor and I are doing. I will also be doing a teacher training the same week on HIV and how to care/support orphans and vulnerable children in our Zone. The guidance and Counseling teachers as well as the Anti-AIDS club matron/patrons from each of the seven schools in the zone are invited. On World AIDS Day, people will be getting tested for HIV, school groups will perform, a person living with HIV will speak as well as several other activities. We will also be holding a raffle to encourage people to get tested. The prizes will be....local items but mainly shirts, hats and bags. If anyone sees any hats, bags or shirts with things/scenes/advertisements from America on them and want to send them my way...I would greatly appreciate it. Also I have been getting a lot of support for the resource center I am working on. THANKS AGAIN! Things are really coming together.
Last but not least the most exciting thing by far, were the elections held last week. Zambia has a new president, Michael Sata. Sata is actually from Mpika district so everyone in Northern Province was really excited that 'one of their own' is now the President. The elections were relatively calm and people were excited for change in their country. I went to the school on polling day and except for lines outside the door, it was exactly the same as home. I walked around the village encouraging people to vote and explaining why I myself couldn't vote. They didn't think my being an American was a good enough excuse. 2days later around 2am, I heard screaming and cheering in the village and knew that Sata had won. I was very proud of Zambia. The former president stepped down gracefully and showed the world that there can be free and fair elections in Africa. Zambia remained the peaceful nation that everyone claims it to be. I constantly find reasons to fall in love with this place, and this is one of them for sure. I am excited about how things are going in my life as a volunteer and in general and Zambians are excited about the route their new government is going to take!

hut sweet hut...and the village kids

Sunsets on the Savanna: All I want for Chirstmas...December

Camp GLOW Donation Site:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=611-071

All I want for Chirstmas...December

School is out and I am still running around the village like a mad woman. I went on a mini vacation to Eastern Province to visit friends (picture soon) before they finished their services. I got back to the village and had programs in the village scheduled but they got canceled due to 'lack of materials'. What materials? CONDOMS! I will be doing village talks on HIV, VCT (voluntary counseling and testing for HIV) as well as condom demonstrations. In conjunction with this I also want to do condom distribution in these villages. I searched everywhere for condoms. No one has them. I finally went to my provincial capital (where I have the luxury of typing this entry)and got more condoms than I can carry home. I'm excited to do these sensitization in the village. It will be interesting to see how people respond, especially to the condom demonstrations. Ive had more people recently asking me for and about condoms, especially the female condoms, so this is a great chance to educate my community. The topic is taboo in the sense that I am a women, HIV has a huge stigma and the people in my area are very traditional. They all think I'm crazy anyway essentially because I left America to live in a rural village in Zambia, but they do respect me and what I have to say. My PEPFAR counterpart/ best friend in the village will help me with translating and also discuss VCT. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well! In addition to this little project I have 2 HUGE projects I'm still working on. Camp GLOW and books for the Resource Center.
Its time for Camp GLOW planning and fund raising again. This year the Camp will be held during the week of December 11-17 in my district of Mpika. GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World. Camp GLOW is a week long girls empowerment camp where each volunteer brings two girls & a counterpart to learn life skills, increase their confidence, instill leadership and to begin developing girl groups at their perspective schools. There will be separate sessions for the counterparts and the girls and all the sessions for the girls are done in local language. Last year the sessions for the girls dealt with self-esteem, assertiveness, sexual violence, early marriage/pregnancy and establishing goals. All of the counterpart sessions were focused on how to facilitate these sessions in their school clubs. Along with the sessions there are a lot of games, songs and my personal favorite....CRAFTS! The Camp was very successful last year and has been one of my favorite projects so far. BUT all the money from the camp is donated. This is where you all come in. If you are interested in helping me, there is a link on the peace corps website where you are able to donate. All money that is donated for the camp will go through this website and we will receive it in one lump sum. If you want to send materials for the camp you can mail them to me. Last year Little Debbie donated snacks for our big party at the end of the week and several people donated art supplies for our crafts and balls/games for our activities. Please help us out. This camp is great for the girls. My girls are more confident since the camp and it really is something that is uplifting and empowering for everyone evolved! Here's the link to the donation page:

If the link doesn't work the project number to enter on the page is 611-071 and the volunteer name is SMITH.
Another BIG project I am doing is gathering books for our Resource Center. I have been trying for months to gather books locally and I have received a few but we need more. The Resource Center is still empty. This Center is in the middle of my zone that covers 5 government schools and 2 community schools. The center is open to everyone in the community so the books will be utilized by several people. I envision the resource center as a place to gather materials for the teachers developing lesson plans, for continuing professional development, possibly having a reading corner where teachers and parents can read to their pupils, where pupils can study and increase their reading interest. While the gathering of the books is "easy" in the sense that textbooks, resource books, fiction and non-fiction book and any other type of books are welcomed but the shipping of the books from America to Zambia will be costly. Maybe if any groups are wanting to do projects for Christmas/December or just want to take on any volunteering projects this would be something they are interested in. Everything is welcomed and helps in the stocking of this Center. Once the books start coming in, I will train teachers at the school where the center is located in how to catalog and store the books so they can even be checked out. If enough books get donated, there is even the opportunity to develop class libraries at the community schools which are several kilometers away from the cente