in and out

So I suppose it is time for another update.  My life in Zambia has been super busy these past few months.  I have many different programs which have brought me to various places in Solwezi.  I feel like I have not been in my village that much, alas, most of them I think will be very beneficial to the community.

Also I have had a visitor from the states, Rachel.  You should totally check out her blog because it does a good job of going over the every day facts of life which I am not going to write about in this post. http://bendrothtravels.blogspot.com/

One of the greatest joys that I have in the village is the children.  They are amazing.  If I am having a frustrating day then I go home and the children can cheer me up in a heart beat.  They are so joyful and thankful for what they have.  They know how to make me smile.  With that said they are also becoming more and more like my brothers and sisters and figuring out how to push my buttons more and more but I still love it.

This is Lozi while I was doing my laundry she decided to wear clothes pins as earrings.  Precious.

The kids they even help me out

This is Millie who is in second grade and I swear can carry more water than I could ever imagine I would be able to.

Lukatazho and Evans helped me to catch a mouse in my house.  Here is the successful catch.

Lukatazho playing with a tire. Who knew they could be so fun.

Giravi after he had been dancing...how can this not cheer you up?

Oh no there are 6 puppies in my village.  They are so adorable.  I am in love.

So many of you already know but I got an African hairstyle for a few weeks.  It was painful at first and hard to sleep on but it made the villagers so happy.  I am glad the five hours of sitting on a stool was worth it.

before

 

after

after after...in the process of removing the braids...boy was that a task.

I just wanted to share a picture of my bamaama and bataata.  These are my Zambian parents.  They are amazing.  He is a senior headman which means he is the traditional leader of the village.  Currently they are rebuilding their house so they built a temporary grass shelter in the middle of the bush by their farm and they sleep there at night with their kids.  I think that they are crazy!  I would not want to do that especially sleeping on the ground I would be too afraid of things crawling over me.  I miss them but I have gone to visit them a few times it is about an hour walk one way.

Bataata is the one on the right.  They are drinking Monkoyo a traditional alcoholic drink made out of fermented corn.

This is at one of their fields, they have 2.  It is currently time to harvest the maize.

So as I said since April I have been in and out of my village alot.  One of the programs I participated in was Camp E.L.I.T.E. which is a camp where each volunteer who is participating brings 2 boys in Grade 7, 8 or 9 and then one teacher.  At the camp we play football in the morning and in the afternoon teach about different health issues, gender equality and other things.  At night we watch movies or we shared what smores were.  IT was crazy to see the boys reactions to the movies.  Many of them only watch TV at teachers houses and they usually are charged.  The EE!s and Mamamamas! were hilarious.  But one of the best activities is we did a gender really race.  Where the boys had to do the tasks that many of the girls are required to do before even going to school (fetching firewood, water, washing, shelling peanuts, sweeping) all while carrying a "baby" (5 liter water jug) on their back.  It was awesome.  Here are some pictures below.

 I also attended a nutrition program training.  This was about starting a program where we use mothers of well nourished children to teach mothers of those with not so well nourished children how they cook and care for their child.  It is called PD Hearth or Mama lumieres.  This was really exciting because it was a program that I had written a paper about while in grad school and now I am going to be carrying it out in my village.  Also my counterpart has the cutest baby ever who was there.  I love spending time with this baby and I am going to kidnap her and bring her to America with me.

Minata, my counter part, and me

I also attended a PEPFAR training with Mr. Mafewshi who has turned into a key person in my village.  He helps me with just about every thing I want to do.  He is amazing because he is a new headman and he isnt afraid of upsetting some people for helping out the entire community.  He has been really supportive and receptive to me and new ideas.  We are going to start a health drama group where one week we will learn about a health topic and the next week the group will do a drama about this health topic.  I think this could be really successful.  I hope we can get it up and running.

 So I think that I have figured out my four projects which I want to focus on for my service that I  think will have the potential to be really successful.  One is that drama group that i was just talking about.  The other is the nutrition program that I talked about.  The next is the Womens Group. There is a group of ten women in the community that want to start a women's group.  Right now we are working on starting a garden to help with food security and sell the produce to other villagers.  The next project is going to be sewing school uniforms for the children.  I just want to throw a shout out to the Mighty Oak class at Acorn School for helping to raise money for these women to start out these projects.  We have been raising money by buying talk time for phones and selling that in the village but it is a slow process.  We also are considering starting a small "bank" within the group so when there is an emergency and someone needs money or maybe wants to start a business there will be a small pot of money for them.  The last one is the nursery school.  Unfortunately for this term the school did not open, there was some difficulty.  The teacher, Precious, went for a job interview but has yet to return because she doesn't have enough transport money to get back.  Another women was asked to teach but she refused because she was so busy. The community wants this but no one was willing to step up when the teacher was missing.  I hope that we can figure this problem out because I think that it is a good program.

So that has basically been what I have been up to.  I think it is crazy how my service is finally beginning to come together.  I am really excited for what is to come and being able to really dive into these projects.  Service definitely has its up and downs but I definitely am happy that I am here and  I can not imagine leaving my village.  I realized the other day how sad I would be if I never saw some of these children again.