Waiting

So there was a small problem moving into my site on tuesday which means that I am back in Solwezi for a few more days but I willl explain about that later. I figured I would write a proper blog post for you all.

I don't know how well you can see it but Leanne is standing in the middle of the picture and that hill behind her is an ant hill...now I understand why they call it an ant hill. They are everywhere in the Northwestern Province.

First off I wanted to share some pictures from my first visit to my village, Nyansonso.

This is a picture of my host, Precious, and her son, Douglas.

A picture of some of the landscape.The basic school is the buildings in the background.

Okay so after visiting my village me and three others, Charlie, Jon, Leanne and myself all hitched back to Lusaka from Solwezi. It is about a 10 hour drive, or at least that is what is should be. The morning started out uneventful we got two rides from Zambian buisness professionals and then stopped for lunch. However, at this point I was not feeling well, so I didnt eat more than a bite of my sandwich and then had some soda. We then had to wait a while for another hitch to pick us up. We ended getting picked up by a Zambian who worked for an NGO, DAPP. At this point I had taken some anti nausa pills, stomach antacids and more medicine but I could not sleep...it was a rough end to the day but we made it safely to Lusaka albeit a little late but

The end of training was rough. It was hard because we had seen our sites and it was so close to being finished but there were still many exams and celebrations to prepare for. Below is a picture of my language class on our last day of classes.

Charlie, Frank (teacher), Leanne, Me

Language class had its ups and downs and some days I wanted to throw things at Ba Frank because I was so fed up with learning the language but other days we would joke and tease and try to get Ba Frank to teach us inappropriate words (like poop and pee) and I would learn a lot. I am definetly greatful towards him. I learned so much and the class was not unbareable which I think would be quite difficult in such an intense program with so many Peace Corps guidelines on what needs to be taught and how quickly. I will miss the class although he said he would come and visit us.

This is a picture of Leanne, Jennifer, Sarah and me after we finished our LPI (language proficiency something that begins with an I, basically language final) It was such a releif to finish that. It was stressful to study for everything and after that exam we only had one test left and a weekend to study for it...although tha weekend proved to be problematic. Lets just say I joined the "club" multiple times. The club is when you poop your pants. I had some crazy diahhrea and barely got any sleep and what was the most frustrating was that it was my last weekend in Chongwe so I just made sure I was close to a bathroom or pit latrine at all times. I still made the most of it, considering how poor I felt. This included hitching to Lusaksa in the back of a truck!

Charlie, Me and Lizzy

I also wanted to show you some pictures of my host family in Chongwe.

This is Erria and his mother which they call mother erria. I am not exactly sure how they are relaetd to the family but they moved into a house on the compound that my sister was staying in with about 1 and a half months left in my stay there. My sister moved into what they were using as the kitchen.

This is Charity and Baby Hanson, not her child. I am not sure how she is related but she moved in a few weeks before I left and lived with my sister. She was going to school close by but the strange thing is that her grandmother lived a few compounds down, so I am not exactly sure why she was staying at my familys compound.

This is my host sister Erissa.

Bataata (father), me and Bamaama (mother)

Bamaama and me

Bataata and me

To celebrate the end of training and the end of staying with our host families we had cultural day, which i talked about in the previous blog post.

Here is a video of some of the entertainment

Let me tell you a funny story about Bamaama...these ladies were dancing and in the middle of the dancing she got up and stuffed some Kwacha (Zambian money) down the girls shirt. Then many other people started doing this. Apparently this is completely normal but i felt uncomfortable about it. It kind of reminded me of a strip club...oh well something I will have to get used to.

Bataata, me and Bamaama

Me and Ba Charles, one of my favorite tech trainers.

So all of the Kaonde ladies and our teacher got matching dresses...none of us are sure exactly how this happened, but it did.

After that we headed into Lusaka to tie up some loose ends and then have our swearing in ceremony at the Ambassadors house. Which by the way is spectacular and they had delicous food like chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies and muffins. It is the little things I swear. So this ceremony is when we officially become volunteers and are no longer trainees. So you can now refer to me as Ellen Taetzsch, Peace Corps Volunteer.

This is me giving my speech.

Me, Sarah, and Jennifer

Me, Ba Frank, Leanne and Charlie

The CHIP 2011 volunteers

So the next day we traveled up to Solwezi to do some shopping for our sites. We bought buckets, food, brasiers (the things we cook on), gerry cans (to carry water in) etc...

On Tuesday Leanne and I packed all of our things and headed out to Mufumbwe to move into our huts. We first dropped off Leanne at her site. I helped her move her stuff in but we didn't stay long because Ba Patrick (the driver) was afraid it was going to rain so we moved on to my site. We unloaded everything and put it in my hut, which is huge fyi...perfect for visitors ;). Then Ba Patrick took a look around and realized that my pit latrine was not finished and neither was my kynzanza (out door kitchen). My pit latrine had a hole but no structure around it for privacy and my kitchen only had poles stuck in the ground. PC has a policy that we cant share pit latrines so we loaded my stuff back into the cruiser and ended up locking it up in the storage room at the clinic. So hopefully everything will be finished by saturday and I will be able to move in then. But it was nice to come back because I ordered some furniture for my hut. There is more I want to get but I figured I need to save some money and there needs to be room to transport it out there. Anyway I will just be hanging out in Solwezi until my hut is ready enjoying warm showers, flushing toilets and electricity.

Stay well.

My New Addresses

So I found out my address for the next two years but it is alittle confusing for the beginning of my time here.

You can send all letters for until November to:

Ellen Taetzsch
Peace Corps
PO Box 130050
Mufumbwe, Zambia.

All packages and letters after November can be sent to

Ellen Taetzsch
Peace Corps
PO Box 110264
Solwezi, Zambia

I hope this isnt too confusing.

The end of the beginning

I am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I have completed training and will be posted to my site on tuesday! It is bittersweet I am going to miss my host family and friends and the ability to speak english and vent and the comfort of the known but I didn't sign up for the PC for that so now the real journey begins...

The past few weeks of training were pretty uneventful..I had more classes and lots and lots of tests which I am happy to say that I passed all of them. Our last day at our training site was cultural day in which the trainees (us) get to cook for our hosts.Many of them were not fond of the food. We had a cook out where there was hamburgers and sausage and a bunch of different salads. However, Zambians don't seem to enjoy when there is a bunch of things mixed together (i.e. most salads) or when things need to be chewed so I think that the Americans enjoyed the food more than the Zambians..but I suppose cross cultural exchange took place. I got a little teary eyed saying good bye to my family...they just did so much for me and really cared and took care of me when I was sick. Which I got pretty sick twice in the last few weeks of training with some explosive diarrhea for a few days.

I was also chosen to give a speech at the swear in ceremony in front of the ambassador and both Zambian and American government officials in kaonde that was being broadcast on the national television station...i dont like doing this sort of stuff and was not to pleased about not having a choice in the matter. I can't say I did a a great job, I definitely pronounced some words wrong, but it wasn't awful. It was a nice day and there were some great food.

Below is a link to all the pictures I have taken so far some are more relevant than others but I figured I would share:

http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=7361150008/a=53767593_53767593/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

I am excited to move to the village and not live out of a suitcase, eat what I want when I want, bathe when i want. I am a little anxious but starting anything is nerve wracking to me and i need to look forward to the many rewards that are coming in the future.

I know this was a quick to the point post so I apologize, I am borrowing someones computer to write this so I dont want to take too much time. I hope you all are doing well. Stay in touch!