August 17, 2007
Ndi kaipeela mu Peace Corps

(I am a volunteer in the Peace Corps)

Hi everyone! I'm writing to you as a full-fledged, bonafide Peace Corps Volunteer- VEERY exciting place to be, it means we're finally through training and this morning swore in as PCVs. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture was there, as well as the US Ambassador to Zambia- and because the SADC Conference is being held in Lusaka, Zambia currently, we got to sit in traffic watching long motorcades with various leaders of African countries drive by on our way here- and thus probably saw some important world leaders whiz by!

I don't know when I'll load pictures of the ceremony up, but they do exist. Also, I was chosen to give a short speech in Bemba, which was really quite a fun challenge- I talked about the goals of the Linking Income Food and Environment program and used an amazing Bemba proverb: Imiti iikula empanga, which means "The trees that are growing will be the bush", which was taught to me by a blacksmith I met a few weeks ago. Hurrah for conservation and sustainability.

Highlights of the last few weeks- I got to celebrate my 21st birthday at a botanical garden/zoo called Munda Wanga, seeing some really amazing indigenous and other tree species, and in the afternoon chopping up fruits and vegetables with a machete and feeding them to monkeys.

We learned a ton about beekeeping and got to help process some fresh honey.. which of course also involved eating a ton of honey, and thoroughly enjoying it. I'd never seen that done before, or actually even seen honey still in the comb, and it will definitely be helpful in my work since I know there are several beekeeping groups already working in my village and catchment area.


Site visit to Luapula was wonderful (can't remember if I already wrote about all of this, sorry)- we were able to go to a traditional festival called the Mutomboko Festival, which celebrates the coming of the Lozi people into what is now Zambia, from the DRC. There were tons of people and it was a really exciting thing to be part of this large, crushing crowd observing a ceremony that their ancestors have been doing for so long. Also, while we were camping on the lawn of an orphanage in the process of being constructed, we found a chameleon :-)

This past week involved several comprehensive exams, in tech and language, so it's a huge relief to have that over, and to have training completed- now I'm doing what I have been planning for so long- I'm a Peace Corps volunteer!!

So in conclusion, I'm continuing to love Zambia, and it's really exciting to be on my way to Mansa, Luapula tomorrow! We'll spend a few days at the Provincial House buying supplies for our houses, and then it's off to the village to see what I can do.

Thanks so much to the people who have sent me mail, I really really appreciate it. Mom, I just got the first package, and the books made me laugh and reminisce and I'm excited to read them during the loooooong drive to Luapula tomorrow!

Love from Zambia,
Nan

July 22, 2007
Mwanasasa Village, and a NEW ADDRESS

Greetings from Luapula! I'm in my province now, in the provincial capital, or boma, Mansa. We're here for a week-long visit to a current Luapula volunteer. Last Thursday we were given our site assignments- I'm going to be a second-generation volunteer in Mwanasasa village in the Mansa district of Luapula- my site is about 25 kilometers from the boma, which means I'm very close to our Volunteer House in the boma. This house is phenomenal; it's hard to explain how exciting it is to see a place that feels like home- bedrooms with beds, real walls, DVDs and bookshelves and couches and a SHOWER- and fruit trees in the backyard- but the place is going to be an amazing solace and refuge when the village gets too overwhelming. We're allowed to spend a few days a month at the house, and also go there if we're sick or having meetings or similar situations.

And I'm very excited to watch a movie tonight, and sleep without rats coming into my room.

But anyway- about my site- I'm replacing a guy who did a lot of work with agroforestry and fuel-efficient stoves. This is very exciting because I am also very interested in agroforestry, and definitely feel more confident in that type of work than I do with strictly agriculture work. Also, my closest friend here, a girl named Gretchen who's an HIV/AIDS volunteer, is my closest neighbor, only about 25 k away. We requested to be near each other, and the Peace Corps and God definitely conspired to work that out for us! Apparently the community I'll be in is amazing, they were really excited to be doing the things that my predescessor was presenting, and I'm very excited to get there and pick up where he left off (he left in November).

Luapula is beautiful- the largest bridge in sub-Saharan Africa leads into it, over a wide swampy-area. This comes about 6 hours into an 8-9 hour drive from Lusaka to Mansa (10 people in a Land Cruiser... good times :-p) My wetland ecology class taught me that a swamp is a wetland with trees in it, so this is somewhat of a swamp- it's what I imagine the Everglades look like, broad and flat and grassy, with small mounds with trees growing on clusters. People were out on the water in dug-out canoes fishing, and then waving the fish at the side of the road hoping we'd stop to buy some.

We went through some very hilly regions, but where we are now is fairly flat- though I hear there are several beautiful waterfalls near my site, and I'm relatively close to the Luapula River also, which is the border between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A bit about the weather, because my aunt requested it: right now it's "winter"- the cold, dry season- cold being a relative term, while it did get nearish to freezing during some nights, for the most part it's still very warm, I'm comfortable in a t-shirt and a skirt during the day. There aren't a lot of clouds in the sky, but when there are clouds they seem very very near for some reason. We're still trying to figure that out. The rainy season will begin in November-ish, and be followed by the hot, dry season.

MY NEW MAILING ADDRESS IS:
Nan Davis, PCV
Peace Corps Zambia
PO Box 710150
Mansa, ZambiaThat's for EVERYTHING- packages and letters.

Thanks SOO MUCH to those of you who've written me, I'm insanely excited every time I get mail.

Love to those of you to whom it would be appropriate to say that,
Nan