Finally an update from the bush!

Hello all! I miss you all so much and am so glad I FINALLY get a chance to use the internet (and hopefully send home pictures, be patient!

So I have spent my first month in the village and I really couldn't ask for a more perfect situation. I absolutely LOVE my village, my community, and most of all my host family. I am living about 3km from a national park (hippos and crocodiles live about 7km away), I have 8 schools in my catchment area: 5 are government run and 3 (including a high school) are community schools. My host father is a beekeeper, farmer, bricklayer, former blacksmith, former diamond miner, fisherman, pastor, librarian, nursery school teacher, and a member of the neighborhood watch, so he is a really active and amazing resource for me to get to know people in all walks of life in my area.

I have a new local name, so I will be known in the village as Sombo. Sombo is the name of a bush fruit, which I have yet to see, but I am told it is small and blue. It is a Luvale name, and in Luvale the connotation is "girl who is always laughing and cheerful" so I think it fits. My area is not really heavily populated with Kaondes, the language they taught me during training, so that is a big issue I have been working on. My area is Chokwes, Luvales, Lundas, Kaondes, Luchazis, and Mbundas. So instead of attempting to learn all of those languages, I will be trying to learn Luvale and then maybe Chokwe eventuall. I can greet in all of them already, which is a start, but it is difficult to hear so many languages all the time.

Oh, my new mailing address is:
Carrie Navin/PCV
Peace Corps Zambia
PO Box 130050
Mufumbwe, North Western Province
Zambia
AFRICA

So I am in a part of my service called community entry. It is the first three months, where I am not supposed to leave my district (right now is the exception because I had provincial meetings) and I am not supposed to be doing any "work". What I AM supposed to be doing is meeting everyone I can in my area, sitting in on classrooms, going to meetings about school things and community events, learning the language, and getting to know the needs of the community. The idea is that you can imagine a Japanese person that knows how to say "how are you" in English, coming to your hometown and trying to "develop" it. Chances are they don't know how you do things and what your community needs or wants, so this is my time to learn about the desires and needs and priorities of my community, and not just doing things for my own agenda.

As I mentioned before, my host father is a beekeeper. He owns 386 hives all around the area I live, and I actually got to go collect honey with him and two other men. His hives are big barrel drums that he sets up in trees. I got to see him make a smoker out of local brush, and then smoke out the bees and collect the honey. I now have more honey than I know what to do with, but it is amazing!

Some other things I have been doing in the village include: Going to the Agricultural show to see many people competing for the best produce in the zone, Helping to paint the resource center in Kashima West to prepare it for opening, Attending my host brothers' mukanda (circumscision) ceremony, attending a mwali (girls' initiation) ceremony, attending the wedding of my nearest Peace Corps neighbor, Ryan, attending a different church each week to introduce myself to members of those congragations, meeting with the library committee, going to opening staff meetings at two of the schools, attending teachers' union meetings, attending a witchcraft trial, visiting schools in my zone, visiting and watching a blacksmith work, sitting and talking with people, asking questions, visiting the Kabompo River, hanging out at the clinic, and teaching my neighbor Lister, how to read in English. So I have been really busy and really happy. I have gotten to see my area a lot and have a long way to go.