Woo, its Official!

So, I have officially become a Peace Corps volunteer! (Insert raise the roof hand motion). I can honestly say that swearing in to become officially a volunteer was one of the proudest moments of my life. The ceremony was held at the US ambassador's house. It felt kind of like a country club...with basketball courts, tennis courts and personal pools. It felt like I was at Daddy Warbuck's residence or something. There were all the important PC officials there as well as important Zambian officials. Our swearing in picture even made the front of the Zambian Paper. I have never felt so famous in my life. Fifty two of us volunteers swore-in and all of us now are heading to our prospective provinces. Out of those, only four of us are heading to central province, myself including. There are around twenty current volunteers already serving there. PC took us shopping today for items needed for our house. Tomorrow I will be moving into my hut permanently for the next two years...gulp! I am excited to set up my new residence and start my African bachelor pad. I have several PC volunteers around me. With the closest being 15 k away, 25 k away and 30 k away. My bike will be racking up the miles (or kilometers as us Africans say). The next time we will see other volunteers from different provinces will be around Christmas time. Myself and some of my friends here are already planning a trip to spend Christmas somewhere together. Anyways, I have appreciated all the comments, mailed letters and emails. All my friends here are jealous that my friends back in the States are so solid....so keep up the good work gang! Haha. Anyways, have a great day and Rock Chalk!

Thanks to everyone again for all the responses. It makes it more fun to post when people respond back! Matt the soccer here is pretty good but the playing style is completely different. At the village that i will be in there is a competitive team that i will try and get on. They travel around to other villages so i am hoping to summon my inner pele and join the club! Oh and yes the zambezi is basically in my back yard. Andrew i think the spring break idea is a great one! Ha ha. I move into masansa after swear in. Swear in date is sept 2 4 so it wil be soon after that. And about fantasy im just trying to give you all a break. You are lucky i am in africa. Next near they are gonna name the trophy after me ha. Andi i have decided meat pies are my favorite thing in zambia. The meat is a mystery but it sure tastes like paula dean made it! Our pre service training is almost done! We finish training in a week and a day. I have a mock final language test tomorrow and then the real one next wed. Everything has flown by for sure. Every day i feel more and more african. I can now balance water on my head for more than five seconds and i can start a fire within ten minutes. I even enjoy climbing under my mosquito net right before bed. It almost feels like a safety net of sorts. There is something re assuring about it now. Especially considering i first thought it was a ghost every time i woke up in the middle of the night! I got letters from a few people this week and it made my day. Responses are coming! Oh and i almost forgot, rock chalk baby! Stacia texted me and told me the news of the victory! I hope they heard the celebrations all the way in columbia. I also wanted to give my email address on here. It is baperry59@gmail.com this is the best way to contact me for sure. I check it every day several times. Im actually suprised obama has yet to contact me through it. I hope everyone is doing well! Stay classy america. Ha ha

Masansa departure!

Thanks to everyone for the comments! Glad to hear you got my letter ryan. And amanda i can already picture our click conversation we will have when i return! So as i said in my previous post, i will be going to central province! I will be staying in a village called masansa. It is about forty kilo from the district capital, mkushi. It is also nearby luangwa national park, which is a great safari area. Notice the plug to entice people to come visit me?! I am currently on a site visit which means that for those of us im training we get to go spend some time with actual volunteers helping them do their job. Myself and four others stayed with a volunteer near my future site. We also went camping for two days and got to spend some time at a waterfall that is around eighty k from us. It was a good chance to learn about public transport in zambia. . . . Or lack there of! On friday i got dropped off at my future residence in masansa. I have been meeting clinic staff, local leaders and also playing with the football club. It has been good to get a feel for what my future town will be like. I leave tomorrow morning for training in lusaka. Oh and for all of you wondering, no i am not as sun burnt as you might think! Bull frog sun screen. . . . I owe you my first born. I hope school is going well for everyone. Rock chalk!

Central province

Sorry but this will be a quick update! Thanks to everyone for the comments. Matt as always, i appreciate the insight and humor. Ryan i am glad peace corps gave you a thoughtful moment. Todd i hope the raiders win the big twelve(or ten) with the new man behind the helm. So i found out a few days ago where i will be spending the next two years! I will be in central province in around mkushi. The province has mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and forests. It has it all. So i am excited about that. I am about two kilometers away from another peace corps vol. So that will be nice as well. Tomorrow we will be going to out future sites for about a week and a half. So peace corps gave us shopping money to use at a grocery store in lusaka for two weeks of supplies. Apparently we stay a week with a current vol in the bush and then spend some time at our future site. Hope everyone is well back home!

Under zambian skies

Hello everyone, i hope this post finds everyone well. To those of you back in school im sure you all are unfortunately getting into the swing of things! Our training class here in zambia recently learned that ex peace corps individuals cannot be on the show survivor. The show tends to think that people that have been "surviving" for two years in a third world country are not fit for a show entitled survivor! Our training continues to go smoothly for the nor part. Still lots of language classes and technical class take up most of my day. Its like an accelerated semester in school, except it is hands on learning and it is usually things i have little back ground knowledge in. Last week we dug an environmentally sustainable well for a local village. Earlier this week we learned how to council aids patients. We also learned about mosquito nets and how to promote their use in a village setting. Those are just a few of the sessions we have had over the past two weeks. As for the village life, i am becoming accustomed to it for the most part. I have become friends with the mice that i share a room with. They even think we are good enough friends that they can share my peanut butter. Apparently my idea of friendship was a little bit different. It is very relaxing to take a bath under the stars every night. A great way to settle down for the evening. Not to sound like a hippie, but when i return to the states i would like to carry over the tradition of star-bathing! Also i have my house lit at night by candlelight. Upon attempting to blow out the candles for bed, a candle fell onto my wall and nearly burnt my entire thatch house down. It turned out okay thankfully considering the closest fire department is hundreds of miles away! Thanks again for the thoughts. Hope everyone has a great day!

Tums please?

Cungalupo! Thanks to everyone for all the posts! Andi- no fowl sightings yet. Andrew- i actually was thinking about my blow gun and how practical it would be here just yesterday. So i am just getting over my first (of many to come) stomach virus of zambia. I spent many hours leaning over the icimbusu (toilet) the past several days. I have a feeling that my host family thinks i am trying to make friends with the bathroom as they see me running from my hut to my bathroom every thirty minutes! Good news though, i am getting better and i ate food today for the first time since the kennedy administration without vomiting. In other news, i passed my first language test! I wish i had a refridgerator to put my score up on! I also want to tell everyone gearing up fro class starting soon that im thinking of you and wishing you all the best this upcoming semester. As billy madison once said, "do it mano e mano". I continue to get closer and closer with my host family. The language barrier has decreased a bit as my language skills have gotten better (or maybe my hand motions are just getting more precise). Also our peace corps training class is bonding nicely. We all are becoming more comfortable with each other, which is good considering we all are leaning on each other for support. Tomorrow we get to speak to a group of zambiams living positively with aids. It will be an exciting and emotional day im sure. Thanks for the continued comments and thoughts!

Winter in the summer

First and foremost i would like to dedicate this post to megan maloney, who recently celebrated her twentieth birthday. Sorry i was not there for it! Secondly, i want to thank everyone for their comments. It is great to know people are thinking of me back in uncle sam land. (matt i still cant believe you have moved to manhattan ha ha). To those of you who are unfamiliar with african winters (this includes me until a month ago) they are cold! I would never dreamed i would be so chilled in a continent associated with heat. I wake up every morning to cold air where i can see my breath. On a few mornings i have lost sensation in my feet i have been so cold ! The arctic blast ensues when i ride my bike thirty minutes to training every morning. However, the scenery makes it all worthwhile as i cross steams and hills and valleys. Usually the sun is coming up at this time and it is a sight most people would pay thousands for. For the past few weeks i have been living in a small agricultural village near lusaka so i have just been getting acquainted with my host family and immediate neighbors. However this saturday we are all going to lusaka to go to a mall there and go shopping and hopefully get a small glimpse of the big city. Then i will finally be able to get on face book again. I almost forgot what it was! The other volunteers that are with me are great. They are all very passionate about being here. It has also eased some of the home sickness knowing that we are all in an unfamiliar place. To storm, the only thing that has gotten me through a few nights around the campfire has been third eye blind. Thought you would appreciate that ha. Tomorrow we have our first language test. We are all very nervous about it. I wish they accepted the american dollar here because if so i might have to slip my teacher an andrew jackson. Anyways i am off to fetch water and kill a chicken with my host parents (seriously, im not even joking) ha ha. Shalenipo mukwai!