Northern Province

It is true... I am officially going to be spending the next two years--beginning the end of April-- in the northern Province of Zambia. More specifically in Mpika district which is in the southern area of the province (google it!!). My site is about 25k from the boma (marketplace/town area) and I am 30 k from the closest volunteer. THe provincial capitol is Kasama and this is where the provincial Peace Corps house is-- about 150k from me. I am leaving tomorrow to stay with 2 other LIFE trainees at a current PCV's home in Northern Province. We will stay there 4 days then be taken to our villages for two days. This will be our first taste of what our life in the bush alone will be like. I am nervous and excited.The RED volunteers in my intake already visited their sites. There are a few of them posted in my district also and they had all good things to say about Mpika.

Now back to life in Chongwe. The most exciting event of late was a cobra being found in the 7 meter deep hole being dug in our backyard for a new toilet. My cousins spent 2 hours trying to catch and kill it. Thankfully I never saw it alive. The day it was found was the day of our "snakes and crawlers" session where we learned that if we are bitten by a snake we will automatically be med-evacuated to South Africa because Zambian hospitals don't have antivenom.

Otherwise we have been learning abuot dating and marriage in our cross culture sessions. It is entertaining because our language trainers (who are all Zambians employed by the PC) put on great skits for us depicting cultural norms here. For instance, did you know that a man's family must pay a woman's family a dowry type gift before the two can marry? :o)

Other bizarre cultural norms I notice revolve around food and cooking... Women here cook on charcoal braziers and will often pick up white hot coals with their bare hands. Zambians apparently develop a "nshima glove" or very tough skin on their hands from years of balling up scalding hot nshima to use as an eating utensil with every meal. Another popular trend is creating a "soup" with every mean which is essentially the oil from the meat boiled with cooking oil or water and tomatoes. This is basically just a sauce you then soak up with the nshima to add flavor.

I will end with yet another acronym that for once didn't come from the Peace Corps (in fact I think it came from the movie "Blood Diamond"). Whenever we are delayed because a Zambian is on "African time" (a much slower pace of life and disregard for being on time), or when we learn about another disease, plant or animal that may kill us, or when we see the amazing sunsets here with clouds like you have never seen before, or when we experience any other bizarre event that would never happen in the states, we simply say TIA... This is Africa