Working for a living

Community entry is over. In-service training was a blast down in Lusaka. We spent a week catching up as an intake group, telling each other about our different sites and what we have been up to so far. Several days were also spent with more specialized training in topics that we did not get to in our initial training. That included lectures on bee keeping, livestock rearing (rabbits and chickens), the non-existent Jatropha market, mushroom growing and much more.

Back in my village I have continued working with my local women's group. I gave a demonstration on how to make bread on a brazier. We made regular bread with white flour and one with maize flour. Both turned out wonderful! I usually end up burning my bread a little, so I was thrilled when I got it right in front of a group. Only problem was there was barely enough bread to pass around the big group. I think everyone left happy though.

My work with Mabula Upper Basic School has started this week too. Last week I went to outline my program with them. As much as the school would love to give me a few classes to teach I have declined. Not only do I not feel qualified to be a teacher but more practically I will be gone too often to be of much use as a teacher. Different programs and obligations will have me away from the village at least two weeks each of the next three months. I also have many other groups and individuals that I work with while I am at site. Although I am not available to be a teacher I still think it's important to work with the students. My plan with the school then is to work with their agriculture science class doing a project once or twice a month.




My class and their trees.



This week our first school project was to start a tree nursery. We planted some quick growing agroforestry trees that we can the leaves use later for making compost, and a few lemon trees that later we will graft into oranges. Next up for projects will be teaching conservation farming in the school field and composting. Gardening, solar drying foods/nutrition, alternate technology and environmental conservation are topics I am looking at for later.

My newly furnished house.



I have also spent the last couple weeks biking back and forth from Kasama trying to finish furnishing my house. It took several trips but now I have some shelves for my 'kitchen' area (corner really) and a small table with an awesome little shelf for keeping all my books off the floor. I'm really happy with how homey my little hut is getting to be! This week I'm planning on building a nice little adobe oven at my house too. It should make baking bread easier and more fuel efficient (not to mention cookies, cake and pizza). I'm really enjoying cooking now that I have lots of time on my hands. Lunch yesterday was soya tacos with fresh handmade tortillas. Yum!!!

Soya tacos!!!!

Charlie is great too. He has really taken to village life, chasing chickens and children and hanging out with his BFF and neighbour Bullet.

Chasing chickens.

Charlie and Bullet

 

More later. Be well.

Communtiy Entry

Communtiy entry is the first 3 months of service in the village. It is a time we get as volunteers to introduce ourselves to our village and determine the types of programs that are needed most. It's also a time for us to adjust to living in a village by ourselves. We are incouraged to stay in our village for the full 3 months and can't use our vacation or house (the Peace Corps house in our provincial capital) days. We can go visit our peace corps neighbors in our district. I did visit my two closest, Ross, 10km away, and Aniella, 25km.

In my first 3 months I visited with many of my surrounding villages and farmers. I did some work at my house too, making compost, gardening and tons of other little projects. I stay in the village Mabula. My house is in the middle of my village near the school so it is often noisey and I frequently have visitors stop by to greeet me (some stop just to stare, but that is happening less often now).

Soon I will start holding workshops to teach my community about composting, gardening, and planting trees. I will add and adjust depending on what people are interested in but they will all center around agriculture and the environment.

Day to day is hard to describe, it depends on who is busy or not, or if I have work of my own to do. Lately my dog, Charlie, does not let me sleep too late. The mornings are pretty cool (around 40F) so first I usually make coffee and a warm breakfast. My popcan stove works pretty well so the lack of electricity is not really a big deal. Having to go to the river to get water is a pain though. It's only about 500m from my house but 20L jugs are heavy. Other than that each day is different, sometimes I have meetings, sometimes I clean my house and garden, sometimes I visit with people in my community, and on nice quiet boring days I read a book.

Now that community entery is over I will be visiting the provincial house (where I can update this blog), doing trainings, visiting other volunteers, and going on vacation, so I will be in the village less often. That is why community entry is so important. It gives you time to establish a connection with your community so doing work is more effective. In a few weeks I'm off to a two wek in service training where any topics we missed in pre-service training will be taught. Then maybe a short vacation to Victoria Falls, I haven't decided.