Reality in May

I want to preface this post with a note. I love Zambia, Zambians, Peace Corps and the work I am doing here. However it is hard hard work that comes with a lot of emotional and physical difficulties. So this blog post isn't my usual peppy happy blog post but I don't want that to come off as a negative thing or have anyone think I still am not loving it here. I just think its important to share the reality that is living and working in a third world country. With that said the following blog was written in my hut over the past few weeks and I have transferred it to my computer. Therefore it is read kind of as a mix of a journal entry and blog post. I hope you all enjoy...

Some of you may have noticed that I skipped my monthly blog in May. The reason for this wasn't because I was particulary busy or was on vacation, it was because May was a hard month. It was a month that I wasn't sure I wanted to share with my blogging world. However now that May has passed and we are onto a new month I have decided I think it is important to blog about May. All of my previous blogs have been of my adventures, experience and lessons learned in the village. May was a learning month but in a much harder and different way.

I returned from vacation at the beginning of May after being away from my village for 3 weeks. It always takes me a day or two to get back into the groove of village life; the constant Bemba, being constantly watched but also kind of lonely. However this time there was additional hardships which came in the form of funerals.First let me back track and say that in April the day before I was about to leave for Camp Glow and my subsequent vacation there was a funeral next door.
In Zambia you know a person had died when you start to hear wailing. Wailing is the only way to describe the noise that comes through my hut however it seems more than wailing to me when I hear it. It seems like women loudly yelling out their hearts, souls and tears for the person they have lost. It is the truest expression of grief I have seen in my 24 years in this world.
So the day before I left I was cooking lunch like I do everyday for my Zambian counterpart and I. I was in my insaka (a kind of open gazebo) and started to hear the wailing. At first many times it is hard to tell where the loss of life has occurred or who it is affecting as people come from surrounding villages wailing as the walk from kilometres away. However I asked one of my children and they informed me it was my neighbours granddaughter who had passed. My heart dropped as her two granddaughters are two of my favorite kids. However I soon found out it was a granddaughter from another daughter of hers who lives on the village over. I did not know this little one. But the second I could take a breath of relief I just kept thinking it could have easily been one of my little ones.
The child mortality rate in Zambia is one of it's biggest problems. Children die daily from curable illnesses such as malaria, diarrhoea, and malnutrition. I know this not just from living here but from being a health volunteer who reads the statistics and articles about it everyday nonetheless who sees it daily at my clinic. However this never makes the reality any easier. On my way out the next morning I stopped by my neighbours early in the morning to offer some salt and saladi - cooking oil, as that is what is customary when someone is grieving. I wanted to sit and sing with them and the over 100 people who had slept outside and in their yard that night but truthfully I wasn't comfortable enough yet and so I biked off into town, hoping it would all he better when I returned.
I returned in May. My second day in the village it started again. Wailing. Constant, all encompassing wailing. This time it was the mother of one of the girls in my youth group. I couldn't get a clear reason for her death - a common issue here. Some said she fell off her roof, others said she started coughing blood ( a possibility that she has TB but since there is stigma surrounding TB as it is often an opportunistic infection related to HIV many don't seek treatment). Either way his time i was ready and really wanted to go to the funeral, especially as I had just been with the girl the day before. So I went. Women were wailing, people were singing and talking. It was a Sunday so they combined the church service with the funeral. Here it is traditional to leave the body out in the open so people can pay respects and wail over it until it is buried later in the day. In the middle of the service a few of the bamayos - (village women) that I knew tapped me on the arm and pointed to my arm hair. It was a chilly day so my arm hair was standing up which they thought was hilarious. Zambians don't have much body hair so seeing mine put them on a tizzy. It was a nice break in the service. I left the service early - as they can go on all day- and went back to my hut to reflect and cook some food. Although the funeral was incredibly sad I still felt a bit lucky. I hadn't really known this women although I m sure I had waved to her many times, I couldn't place her exactly and felt lucky that once again I had been one step away from the true grief.
Then Tuesday May 17 came where I wasn't so lucky. I was in Mansa doing some work for my my training and was getting ready to head back to my village. It was early in the morning probably around 06:00 and I got a call and text message from my best friend emanual in the village.

From this point forward I am just going to copy and paste my journal entry from that day. The grammer is horrible, sentences disjointed but it is the truest description of what happened and how I felt. It is very personal to me but at the same time feel its important to share..... I titled it grief that day and just started writing.

I think grief and grieving is such an interesting emotion. Today Ba Emma and Stella’s first born one month old daughter, Florence passed away. They will never know why as Zambia’s health care system isn’t up to par to diagnose anything other than malaria and a headache outside of the main hospitals in town that nobody can afford. I was suppose to meet her next week. I kept meaning to give emma baby blankets and onesies that my dad sent but I forgot. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had given them to him. But then would that have made it harder for him? To have a pink blanket and onesie with no little girl to go into it. I mean I am sure they have clothes and blankets that she was wrapped in but for some reason I feel like it would have been harder if it was something I gave to him. But I still wish I could have given it to him.

The only type of grieving I have seen in Zambia is at funerals in the village. I have only been to two. One during community entry when my bamaayos friend passed away from “ high BP- blood pressue”. It was more of a cultural experience at that time. I was taking in the wailing, the waiting, the singing, the following of the cast. It was very sad of course but I was so detached at that point that it didn’t hit me too hard. The second funeral was the one I went to in Kalaba. It was for one of my youth’s mothers. I I felt included when I was invited to the funeral as it was the first I was invited to in my village. This one hit a bit closer to home. It was my village, my neighbors, the wailing could be heard from my house and I had had a meeting with the youth a day before and had laughed and pushed through brush with the daughter. Still, it wasn’t like this.

This one was raw. Emanual was my first and still best friend in the village. Maybe it is because his English is good, maybe it is because for the first few months we were both bachelors living on our own, maybe it is because he is an outsider from Chipata (Eastern Province) like I am from America. For whatever reason we have stayed close friends for the past 7 months here. He has been there when I needed help finding things in the village, would feed me even when he has no money to feed him and his new baby and when Stella came opened her up to me just like we were the three musketeers. This wasn’t a perfect pregnancy. It was an accident. Stella still has one year left of school and when I found out she was pregnant I was FURIOUS at Emma. HE IS A YOUTH, he sells condoms in his shop, how could this happen!? She only had one year of school left, she was a smart girl, she has been through so much in her life and still beat the odds by making it to high school. But she was pregnant and that was not going to change. So then I started worrying she wasn’t eating enough, working too hard. She was my first pregnant friend and she was Zambian which is a completely different pregnant culture than Americans. I had no idea what to do but was just worried. Then the baby girl came into their lives.. Flo.

I found out while all of the crazy riots where going on in Mansa. I was worried because I knew they were planning on going to Senama clinic which is close to where the riots started. Luckily I found out it was ok they delivered at central clinic and mom and baby were healthy. Now it was time to plan a visit. But first I had a bunch of funerals in my village and started getting busy with the NHC planning. So my plan was to visit her during PEPFAR training at the end of May. I would be here for a week and I could give them the baby clothes then. Then came today..

Got a phone call and text which I assumed was Brendan (my ride) telling me about when he was going to pick me up which was instead Emanual saying his precious baby daughter had passed away early this morning. I called immediately. He sounded devastated on the verge of tears. I lost it when I got off the phone. I called my mom in the middle of the night American time. I needed to talk to someone. She was wonderful per usual and calmed me down and talked to me for as long as I wanted. Then I wanted to run, to get out. So I ran. Then I went over in the afternoon. I expected wailing like usual but found out since the baby was so young that the tradition is different and they bury them right away. So instead it was more like a wake where you go and just visit. I sat there as they told me the story of baby Flo and how sick she got. They tried to take her to the clinic but they couldn’t help. So then they resorted to traditional medicine which I have no idea what they even gave them, but like Emma said, they had no other option? I would have done the same. As other people came, Stella moved closer to me. Eventually we were just holding hands as I watched tears stream down her face and could physically feel the pain radiating off of her. It was one of the hardest moments I have ever been through. No words had to be spoken. Just holding her hand, she wouldn’t let go and neither would I. Eventually I had to go, more people were coming and I needed to get back. I told them both how sorry I was again and left. Stella is 17, Emma is 26, they lost a baby today and I don’t know how they are dealing. I do know that all I can do is try and be there for them as I know they would be for me. They are my family as I am there’s.

Camp GLOW

For the past two months I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with 3 other wonderful PCV's in organizing and planning a girls empowerment camp called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). Camp GLOW was first started in Romania by PCV's during the 1980's. It has since been picked up by fellow PCV's in countries throughout the world. In Zambia the camp has been going on for a few years in the different provinces throughout the country. However my province, Luapula, has never before planned and held a Camp GLOW. I am not exactly sure why, but it just never happened until this year when three girls who came a year before me and will finish their service in September decided to take on the task of planning the first camp from scratch. In late February, only two months before the camp was planned to start, one of the PCV's had to go home unexpectedly to take care of a family illness. It was at this time that the other two girls asked myself and my friend Tiffany to hop on the organizers committee to help them plan the camp. It was an honour to be asked to be such a vital part of such an important project so early in my service, and it is something that I will be forever thankful to them for. Therefore for the past two months my every thought and movement has mostly been around planning this camp. From getting things sent from the U.S., to going around to local businesses for donations, there was a lot that needed to happen in a very short time. However, it all got done and this past week Luapula province held its first Camp GLOW. It was indescribable.

The girls showed up this past Saturday to a catholic youth center that we had rented out for the week. There were 16 girls and 8 mentors. Eight PCV's were asked to bring two girls from their village, ranging in age from 13-16 ( grade 7 and 8) and a mentor who was a women in the community which was well respected and would continue to work in forming a GLOW group back in the community after the camp was finished. We had everyone from teachers, to Traditional Birthing Attendents to Women's development leaders. It was quite an amazing group of women that I was lucky enough to get to know throughout the week. The week was filled with educational sessions on issues which have been proven to hold girls back from succeeding, especially in Zambia. We discussed boyfriends and peer pressure, early marriage, HIV/AIDS, rape and sexual assault, reproductive health, women and traditional rituals, confidence and motivation, educational goals and ended the week with a career panel filled with women that had grown up in the village and were now working women in Mansa, the provincial capital where the camp was held. It was an amazing week and the girls were absolutely incredible. They participated in a way that I have never seen girls in Zambia perform, they opened up about very personal and sometimes painful issues and they grew close to one another as the week continued. They also were able to participate in the fun camp activities that I as well as my fellow organizers remember so well about our summers at camp. We had a movie night with popcorn, arts and crafts sessions to decorate journals and tshirts, sports which included an intense game of netball, friendship bracelet making, a talent show and finally a bonfire on the last night that was filled with dancing, singing and of course Smores. At the end of the week it was like the last day of camp that I remember so clearly from every summer of my youth. There was lots of hugging, some exchanging of information and all smiles as they all departed with a bag filled with lots of goodies, but more importantly with friendships and knowledge that they will hopefully take back to their village and continue to spread to their friends and peers. It was by far the most impactful week of my service this far. To teach these girls the basics of puberty and how their own bodies work, which they would have never known if they hadn't been to this camp ( because its just not taught in schools or really talked about in home life) is just one of the things which really seemed to hit me hard. It makes you appreciate your upbringing and all of the education and knowledge that we took for granted as well as how important it is to spread that knowledge to others who might not have had the opportunity otherwise. To sum up the camp in one blog is nearly impossible, however my friend tiffany did make a slide show that we showed at the end of the camp which is attached to my facebook page. So please look at that to see all of the smiling faces and wonderful girls and women that I was able to get to know over this past week. Peace Corps has its highs and lows, as does life, however this past week was why I have always wanted to do Peace Corps. To see such a difference that you can make in 5 short days makes you wonder the difference that you can make in two years or even a lifetime of work. I am not saying that some of the girls might go back to the village and ignore everything they were taught, as they are 13 year old girls and that is a reality with anything you do. However with my service I have realized if I only changed one girls mind about staying in school, using a condom, or standing up for themselves in school or at home, than I think it was all worth it. I hope you all check out the slideshow. It is pretty wonderful and tiff did an amazing job on it. So now I am off to Livingstone for a short vacation after a long two months of work, just the next adventure in my service! Thank you all for continuing to read, keeping in touch and being so supportive from near and far.

Lots of love to everyone,

Kelsey/Bupe

A Day in the Vil

So everyone always asks me what " a typical day in the village" looks like. I always have a hard time answering the question because each day can be so different from the next. One day I can have a meeting with one of my zones which is 25 kilometers away through the tall grass, broken bridges and muddy slush. Another day I can sit in my hut all day, reading an entire book, listening to the BBC and doing cartwheels with my iwes. However I know that is difficult to explain my new Zambian life to everyone back in America. I thought I would take just one day last week and take you all through step by step. Now this is going to be detailed, so if you don't have time to read it now, you are at work, about to go to sleep, or just busy, I understand. No worries, this blog isn't going anywhere and you can always come back and finish reading later. So, here goes one example of a "typical" day in the village. I usually wake up around 6 to 630am, usually awakened by my rooster which lives outside of my hut and decides to crow, starting around 5:00 am. I lay in bed for about a half hour listening to the rooster constantly crowing, some kids playing and whatever morning madness is going on as most of my villagers have already been up for at least an hour at this point. This particular day I woke up and decided I wanted to go for a short run. I laced up my very muddy shoes ( rainy season=everything is muddy and moldy constantly, one gets used to this quite quickly) and decided to get my day going. I started off on my normal path, which goes over a river and up into the next village however today it had rained an incredible amount so the river had flooded the road and created a small lake on either side of the river. Therefore there were about 20 naked little boys swimming in the newly formed pond and yelling " Kels, Kels, Kels" ( its either Bupe or Kels at this point as Kelsey seems a little difficult for Zambians to pronounce). At this point I realize two things: first, in the U.S. this would be considered wildly inappropriate even though none of the boys were above the age of 6 and were just enjoying a nice morning swim, and secondly, I needed to turn around unless I was going to try and forge the river. So I decided to turn around and run back towards my house and along a different path that led to a different field. However this required me going past my house, where I had already greeted all of my neighbors (Mwashibukeni Mukwai, Good Morning in Bemba had been said at least 20 times at this point) but there weren't many other options. I went back towards my house, where all of my neighbors children started running after me which only made me run faster which therefore made me tired much quicker. Anyway, I got a good 30 minute run in ( a good amount considering all of the distractions) and went back to my hut where my iwes ( what they call children here) were awaiting my arrival. Yes I know right now you are thinking, wow a lot has gone on in the first activity of the day, but just wait it gets better. I returned home, where I know have to light my brazier so I can cook some breakfast and heat my bath water. My iwes are very good at helping me with this as they have been doing it everyday, three times a day since they were born. I on the other hand am still pretty horrible at it and must swing the brazier at least 50 times back and forth ( yes I count when I get bored) just to get some of the coals warm. Therefore, the iwes win. So I made my usual oatmeal for breakfast, took a nice bucket bath and swept the hut of termites and ants which continuously form greater piles every night. They really are quite interesting little things. Anyway, this day I had a meeting with one of my Neighborhood Health Committees to discuss an upcoming training which I am putting together for them as well as some ITN's (Insecticide Treated Nets, aka Mosquito Nets) which are coming through the district and will need help being distributed in March and April. So we walked to the meeting (usually we bike but this zone actually happened to be in my village) and sat under a tree to wait for the meeting to start. This usually takes about an hour (on a good day) from the time we get there, to organize everyone and get the meeting started. However this particular meeting happened to be very well organized so it only took about 30 minutes until it started. The meeting took about an hour and then we were done. However at every meeting it is also culturally necessary to feed your guests so even though this meeting took place in my village and my hut was only about 1 kilometer away, we still had to wait to be served lunch ( which is usually the highlight of my day considering I am not a huge fan of cooking lunch in the hot heat in the village.. yes even though it is rainy season the days have stayed VERY warm). While waiting for lunch one of my committee members took out his sling shot and started aiming into a tree. I didn't see anything so I didn't think much of it, when all of a sudden he shot and something fell from the tree. He went, picked it up and brought it back to show me. It was a baby bird. I almost started crying on the spot. It was dead. I was confused. I asked why he shot the little bird and my counterpart told me he was going to eat it. It was a "I am in a third world country" type of moment. It was only exasperated when a few minutes later my counterpart and I were led into the home to feast on a lunch of half a chicken (meat is only served on very special occasions), nshima, the traditional porridge type of food made out of maize ( my friends call it grits in a hardered form and without any butter or cheese) and a leafy green vegetable. This is the Zambian way. Even if they haven't eaten all day or might only have one meal in a day they will be sure to feed you their best chicken and make sure you eat until you can't breath any longer. After the meal was finished, my counterpart and I walked back to the clinic where he had to go back to looking after patients as he is a voluntary casual employee who although not formally trained gives out medicine when no one else is there to, while I finished up some notes from the meeting and headed home. Of course within 5 seconds of being home my iwes were there to greet me, wanting to fetch my water, sweep my yard and just stare at whatever I do of course all in reward for a "sweetie" which they don't know is actually a flinstone gummy, haha I am so tricky. We hung out, had an art hour where they got to draw whatever they like with the crayons I provide while I got to write in my journal, listen to Larry london on Border Crossings , Voice of America, and then turn in for the day. However not before being lucky enough to stand on my mound and talk to my parents for a few minutes to tell them about my day. After that, its about 6:30 which means a light dinner ( if you ever eat Nshima you won't want to eat for days) and an early bed time, usually crawling into bed by 7:30pm. Yes I know it sounds crazy but when it gets dark, my mouse (which I have named micky) comes out to scavange for food as do other insects, rodents, etc. Therefore I tuck myself into my mosquito net, read for a while, check the news of the day and turn in by 8:30 or 9 for a good 9 hours of sleep. These days the rain usually puts me to sleep, especially now that the leaks in my roof are fixed I can stay asleep without worrying that I will wake up to a flood in the morning. Then the day starts over again. This might sound like a horrifying day to some of you, or one that is unimaginable, however for me it was a great day. I got a lot of things accomplished, only if just meeting people in my NHC and learning what their needs are and what we will work on in the future. I got to hang out with my iwes, have some time to myself, and watch a rainstorm roll in. Life in Zambia is great. It is VERY different than my life in America but I love it all the same. So hopefully this gave you a little better of an idea of what at least ONE of my many days here looks like. So I know my blogs have been few and far between but now that I just got my computer sent, hopefully I can catch you all up a little more often! So I hope everyone is keeping warm in the last few months of winter, just know that lots of love and warmth is being sent from Zambia!

Malawi My Love

Happy Belated New Years everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and start to 2011. My holidays were spent slightly differently this year as they were my first holidays in Africa. I was lucky enough to spend Christmas day with some close friends at a home stay family here in Lusaka. We went swimming ( yes the weather is still very warm here, even with the rains), watched TV and made a delicious Christmas dinner for some other friends who were in Lusaka. The next day we were off to Chipata, the provincial capital of Eastern province. My friend Tiffany and I got a lovely hitch from some men who worked at Barclays and who bought us chicken on the way as a snack. Truly lovely people. I think that is why I love hitching so much, it can be a pain and sometimes it can take forever, but you always meet different people who have different stories. I really wish it was safer in the States so that I could just get rid of my car and hitch everywhere! I have started keeping a "hitching journal" where I tell about our hitch and the people we meet. I hope to look at it at the end of my service and have such good memories of all of my travels throughout Zambia and the surrounding countries. So we arrived in Chipata and met up with some fellow PCV's who were going with us to Malawi. Spent the night there and then we were off to Nkhata Bay! It took us another full day of taxis, mini buses and big buses to get there but once we did we knew it was worth it. We stayed at a lodge which was right on Lake Malawi which other PCV's had recommended to us and it was BEAUTIFUL! It was right on the water, we all had our own porches overlooking the lake, and the people, food and atmosphere was unmatched to any other vacation I have taken. While there we went on a boat tour where we got to go cliff jumping ( not really a cliff but more like big rocks), saw monkeys and eagles and played soccer with some locals on the beach. The rest of the week we really just laid on a platform in the middle of the clear blue water, went snorkeling, ventured into town to explore and ate good food. It was wonderful with amazing company of 12 other PCV's, truly a perfect ending to our Community Entry. So we ventured back into Zambia after another LONG day of hitching and getting back across the border, then stayed in Chipata for a few more days. Chipata is really a beautiful city with green mountains surrounding it. I was happy to get to explore another province for the first time since being in country. My goal is to get to all of them before I leave, they are each so unique and I think you have to see all of them to get the real feel of Zambia. So from there we hitched back to Lusaka, a hitch that should have taken 6 or 7 hours which took 9, ah the life of a PCV. So now I am back in Lusaka for training for two weeks. It has been wonderful eating good food, Thai, Chinese, Irish Pubs, Indian, really anything you could want! However now I am ready to get back to my village. It really has become my home and I miss my friends and family back in Kalaba. So I am here another week and then head back to beautiful Luapula. So I know this blog entry might not have been as profound or "cool" as my other stories from the village, but I thought it was important to know that as Peace Corps volunteers we work hard and play hard. So far 2011 has been an incredible year that I only hope will get better and as these past almost 6 months have been, I can't see it going anywhere but up.
Love and miss you all! Keep the letters, emails, and good thoughts coming. Oh and of course, GO STEELERS ( I will actually be able to watch the game tonight!!!)

All my love,

Kelsey/Bupe

It only took 5 months..

Muwabombeni Mukwai bonse ( How is everyone working/doing). I am currently sitting in an Internet cafe in Lusaka ( the capital) and feeling like I am in America. I took the first hot shower with pressure this morning, watched some TV, then went to go eat a BAGEL ( new bagel shop just opened) and now I am on a computer with good Internet connection as I watch people talk on their cell phones walk by. This is weird. I haven't seen so many white people, big buildings and nice cars since getting sworn in at the end of September. I have gotten used to watching my iwes sit on my porch and play with ants, greeting every person who bikes by my house, watching the clouds roll in before a big thunderstorm and having a social life which includes listening to BBC and Voice of America while eating dinner. So needless to say being in Lusaka is a bit of a shock. However it also exciting because it starts my first vacation in Zambia as well as the end of my Community Entry!! I am FINALLY a 100% pure bred REAL REAL REAL volunteer!!!!! It only took 5 months, two months of training, three months in my village, many meetings, greetings and teachings, but I made it! A lot of people have been asking me how my service would change now that I am a "real volunteer" however the work in my village really won't change that much. The only difference is now I am allowed my four days at the provincial house each month as well as the ability to take vacation and cultural days to explore more of Zambia and the countries surrounding it. So I will spend the next few days in Lusaka for Christmas and then start my long journey across the country to Eastern Province and then Malawi!! I am going with a group of volunteers from my intake and couldn't be more thrilled. We are spending seven days on Lake Malawi which should include getting my scuba diving license and relaxing in the warm sun on the edge of a beautiful Lake! We are planning to hitch all of the way there so I am sure it will be an adventure. We completed our first " long hitching experience" as we left Mansa to head to Lusaka ( it is 10 hours in a Land cruiser so we knew it was going to be a long day). Needless to say 14 hours, two 18 wheelers, a lot of stops and a block of cheese later we arrived in Lusaka! It was definitely an experience but I went with my friend Tiffany and as we kept saying on our journey, " Hitching is so fun because it gives you the best stories". We met some interesting people, saw some incredible scenery, had talks about everything from issues with aid in Africa to the new Usher song and paid with our last 5 hour hitch with a block of cheddar cheese. Like so many other things that I experience here, I just kept thinking "Only in Africa".
Anyway, back to my community entry. Not to much to update on since my Thanksgiving blog, however as I have come to the end of another chapter in my Peace Corps service I thought it would be only fitting to write a short list of some of the things I learned during community entry. This list is short and not all inclusive as I am paying for internet by the minute and a real list would take all day to write.
1. If you get sick in your village and tell one person, the whole community with undoubtedly know in less than 10 minutes. You are famous, never forget it.
2. If your counterpart asks you to name his child and you take days thinking of a name, don't be offended when they ditch the name and just name it after you. Be flattered, it is probably the only person in the world that will be named after you before you die.
3. Don't bike too close to Zambians, they usually have no breaks on their bikes and it can make for a dangerous situation.
4. Embrace the bug bites that you receive during rainy season. It is a mystery how you get bitten in certain places or what insect the bite is actually coming from, but unless it starts to blow up just enjoy that your legs look like you have the chicken pox.
5. Wall spiders are your friends. They eat some of the other bugs that are in your house and really never bother you unless you bother them.
6. If there is a rat in your roof, there is truly nothing you can do about it. You can name it, yell at it, try and scare it but it will just continue to scratch at your plastic and bother you all night. Instead just put in your ipod and pretend it isn't there.
7. If you give one iwe (child) a sweetie, no doubt he will bring 20 of his closest siblings and friends back to get some as well. So just give them Flinstone gummies and feel good that you might be adding a little nutrition to their diet.
8. If you leave your village, have friends come visit, make food for a neighbor or go to the bathroom too many times, everyone will know. You are famous, never forget it.
9. DISCLAIMER- sorry to mom, grandma, or anyone else who might be embarrassed by this comment. You will know every bowel movement, urination and grumble in your stomach and try to self diagnose yourself with every disease in the book. You probably just ate some bad caterpillars, drink an ORS ( Oral Rehydration Salt) and you will be better in the morning.
10. If you listen to BBC or VOA all day, they will repeat the same book club discussion, or interview at least 5 times. Just wait until it is 17:00 and border crossings comes on for a dose of a little American music.
11. Last and most importantly, Zambians are one of the most kind, thoughtful, giving people on the earth. Cherish every moment you have with them as well as the surroundings you are living in. The African bush is unlike anywhere else on earth. It is pure, natural beauty that is undeveloped and hard to come by these days.

So I know this post was a little quick but I will be back in Lusaka for an In Service Training after my trip to Malawi so I will be sure to update everyone then on how the vacation went! I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas and New Year holiday and just know someone in Zambia is sending you lots of love!!

All my love,

Kelsey/Bupe

Happy Thanksgiving from Zambia!

Happy turkey day everyone! I know it has been a while since my last update and I feel like so much has happened. So I will try my best to update you on my first two months in the village! I guess I will start from the beginning with the first week in Kalaba. Everyone always talks about the dreadful moment after you are dropped off and the cruiser leaves you for the last time, on your own, in the middle of the African bush. However for me it really wasn't so bad, my neighbors and housing committee were there putting finishing touches on my hut and I was given a welcome meal of ubwali ( traditional Zambian dish also known as nshima, basically mashed up maze) as well as chicken(which is the most expensive and respectful food you can give in the village). So the first day wasn't so scary and I was so exhausted from all of the shopping and prepping that I was happy for some peace and quiet. However the first week following that day was a bit of an adjustment. I had to finally learn how to start a brazier much less cook on one, how and where to fetch my water ( our well is broken so when I say I fetch my water I literally mean I am pulling a bucket on a string all the way up the well), as well as all of the other daily chores that come with being a villager! It was a long week and there were definitely times when I had to pinch myself to make sure this was really happening. I was actually living in a mud hut where wall spiders and lizards were my roomates, cooking on a contraption which required me to use charcoal and swing it back and forth like a mad woman just to cook a meal, and speak a tribal african language on a daily basis while living in a village 40 kilometres from any sort of paved road! Like I said, it was an adjustment. However now although it has only been a short two months I am smiling as I type this because all of those crazy things which I thought I would never get used to are the things I have come to love about my village and my life here in Zambia.
So onto the work side of things. Although during our first three months of community entry we aren't technically supposed to be doing "work", all of you who know me know that didn't last too long. After finishing my fourth book in the first three weeks I started getting pretty antsy to say the least. So my counterpart and I started coming up with a schedule of things we thought would be important for me to do while integrating into the community. How the health system is set up in Zambia is that it has to be extremely decentralised to reach all of the people in the rural villages that make up this country. So for example I am lucky that I live very close to my Rural Health Center (RHC). This health center or clinic as most people refer to it is in charge of 14 "zones" which surround it. These zones are basically villages which each have a Neighborhood Health Committee (NHC) who are responsible for the health education and if necessary certain medications and health support in their own villages. These NHC'S are extremely important considering that some of the zones are as far as 30 kilometres from the RHC. With most zambians having no form of transportation, only a lucky few have bicycles, most of these people will never make it to the clinic to deliver babies, get medication for their families or get any other sort if health care. So right now I have been biking to all of my zones and meeting with the NHC's to see what they have been doing. As I found out on my fourth zone visit although my NHC's were formed in the 1980's none of them have ever been trained since then so they have no idea what their actual roles are in the community. Sadly this is a common theme in the village where people have certain titles however are not sure of the responsibilities that go with those titles. So a lot of my job over the next year will be putting a workshop together to train my NHC's so that when the next volunteer comes he or she can start doing larger projects with them. Although this might seem like very basic work it is really the most sustainable thing I can do in my service because once the NHC's are trained they can begin teaching health education to their own communities. From what I have witnessed thus far a huge problem with health in Zambia is lack of education. So if they can teach their own communities how to take better care of their health it could be a massive step in the right direction! I know the abbreviations and the work I am doing can be a little confusing and this is just one of the bigger projects I am trying to accomplish. Smaller ones have included helping out at my clinic, putting together some pamphlets for my clinic with recipes and information for HIV positive mothers, and planning some small programs for World AIDS day which is December 1st! So it's not your typical nine to five job and when people ask me what I do on a day to day basis it's kind of hard to explain because it is constantly changing, but hopefully that gave you a little glimpse into what I am doing. Lots of biking, trying to speak Bemba, and just learning to live in the village is what takes up the majority of my time! All in all I am really loving my life in the village. Currently the rainy season has started and watching the rainstorms roll in every afternoon has started to become my new favorite thing to do! I know it might sound crazy but the sky here is so big and beautiful that you can watch the storms roll in for hours at a time. All in all I am really loving my village, the work I am doing and Zambia as a whole. It's crazy to think I have already been here four months and I only have one month left of my community entry! So thanks to everyone for all of the sweet letters, emails, packages, etc. They really do brighten my day every time I get one. I am missing everyone over thanksgiving and hope you are enjoying time with family and friends during the holiday season! There are so many things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving but instead of listing them all I will just give a short list of "firsts" that i am thankful for being able to experience in Zambia.
First time: eating caterpillars (shockingly tasty), being given a live chicken as a gift, naming a baby ( my counterpart asked me to name his new baby girl- I named her Leia after my great aunt Leah and cousin Luke), hitching on the back of a truck with chickens,fish and my fellow Zambians, biking from my village to town- 40km on a dirt road (I have done it 3 times now), running through the bush with African children yelling muzungu muzungu ( White person), actually seeing the thanksgiving turkey be killed ( we did that today in the backyard) and finally being given a Bemba name- Bupe ( pronounced Bu- pay) meaning gift. It is now what everyone in my village calls me and it makes me smile everytime. So lots of love being sent from Zambia back to America! I miss and love everyone tons and again hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Look out for another update after Community Entry is over December 18! lots of love, Bupe

P.S. Pictures will be coming soon! I am so sorry I haven't posted them yet but it takes about 3 hours to download 10 pictures so I promise they are coming soon!