Home for 24 months

Site location.

I am very excited that I have found out where I will call home for my two years of service.

I will be in the Central Providence, a part of the Kapiri Mposhi district. My village or umushi (Icibemba) is Chibwe. The two bombas (larger towns or cities) that I am near are Kapiri and the Central Providence Capitol of Kabwe.

The site is about 2 hours north of Lusaka, and about 2.5 hours southwest of Serniji where the Peace Corps has a Providential house.

My site is first generation, no one has been there before. However, there will be a few other PCVs within 15-50k of me, I plan to work with them. I will be laying the ground work for the development that will come. My primary focus will be aquaculture in earthen ponds, the ponds will help to provide food security and economy development. As a side project I plan to work with a local school and help in whatever way possible.

In about 2 weeks I will have the chance to do second site visit and see my exact location. After I do this I will have a better understanding of location, and the project that I will work on.

About a month in...

How do you write about the first month of a life changing experience with hardly no time?
Highlights!
I have had some long travel days but I think the one getting to Zambia tales the cake 15 hour flight. Here are a few notes that I took about that day.
The song "She's like Texas" by Josh Abbot made for good travel music.

Travel day
I can't say if we started at 12pm
Or when we got on the bus this (July 18th) morning at 2:30 am.

Rewind back just a bit... July 17th
7pm conclusion of staging training
9:30pm finish 'Merica dinner last 1 at five guys burgers
11:17 pm two brews with new friends
Midnight calls home and packing
July 18th
1:20 am debate if a power nap is worth it... Shower
2:00 am in hotel lobby ready to bus to JFK
5:36 am hurry up and wait to check in.
8:24am a breakfast of champions crapy pizza and chocolate milk, time to get felt up by tsa... Solar powered water bottles
11:00 am seated in the plane
14 hour 45 min flight....
3 different movies, a few cat naps and dinner and breakfast later we will look to be on the ground in about 38 min

The first few nights we the new intake of Peace Corps Trainees, PCTs were at the Barn Hotel. We had Sessions about heath, introductions, and safety. Shots and anti Malaria medication were some of the highlights.
Maybe we PCTs had a little down time with live music and local beers.

All of the PCTs then when out to a first sight visit. We did this to experience site with a current volunteer what and an example of where we could be for service. 3 days and 2 nights of living in the bush, Cooking on braziers, hauling water, 40 k to the nearest paved road, a hole in the ground, phone service at atop "cell phone mountain."
This was a great experience.

I am now in my home stay, with my host family the Mwansa's. I am in the Kakubo village near Chongwe. I have plenty of things to learn. The technical aspect of building fish ponds with limited resources. The Bemba language. An plenty of culture.
More later when the time arises, I hope you enjoyed