So I am currently ALMOST two weeks into my stay at sight. Monday will be my two week anniversary, although honestly I feel like I've been living in the village A LOT longer than that...but it has gone by really quickly. I've made some new friends- namely the RAT that enjoys coming to visit my hut every night at about 11. I dont have any food in there, so I'm pretty sure he just comes around to hang out with me, which would be totally fine if I wasnt ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED OF RATS. Although the fear is slowly leaving me, and its being replaced with extreme annoyance- apparently this is something that all volunteers go through soo I'm just getting broken in for my service right. Thank-you Peace Corps. for making me face all of my greatest and worst fears- in the course of one week. From living by myself for the first time, to getting my phone stolen (happened last Friday right after I posted my blog), to visitors by rats, to an infected, pussing toe- I've had a pretty eventful week but I guess the main take home message of all of it is that I survived all of it. Although I'm not gonna lie I did get a bit stressed out there for a bit. Especially when my toe started oozing and waking my up in the middle of the night for some drainage (dont worry I am on antibiotics now and everything is chabwino -Nyanja for fine)
I have done some cool stuff in the past week though so I cant say it was all bad, because really, rarely is anything all bad. I visited one of the local schools and saw their garden nursery and beehives. I went to track down a rural health clinic- ended up finding it, although the person I was looking for that worked there has since left his position and no one at the clinic spoke English or Nyanja so that made communication interesting. Even though I didnt find the clinic I did find some really really cool baobob trees (google them) so that was a highlight of the day. I also went out to the fields with the farmers in my village to harvest some groundnuts (peanuts). My village is super dead till about 3:00pm everyday because everyone is out in the fields picking their crops (for the year!) so that makes it a little weird in terms of trying to get to know the community and holding meetings for projects but hopefully next month people will be around more. I have already been approached to help with a local community preschool (up to age 7) that is meeting under a tree, and to help with business skills for a carpentry project. I'm planning on visiting another local clinic next week to see how it runs and operates and again trying to get acclimated to my community and doing some exploring.
Right after I post this blog I'm planning to ride out of Chipata for the first time on my bike. Its only about a 35k ride but I havent really attempted any long rides since Ive been back in Zambia so we will see how it goes...I'm not sure when the next time I'll be able to post will be but until then...
