Offically a PCV

"Hi there friends, family, and blog readers. I'd like to first apologize for the blog silence as I've been fighting technology in the bush here for a couple months now. Wow, where to start.  It's  been a crazy ride completing training and all the testing, swearing in and becoming an official PCV, and getting posted to my site in Luapula Province. Unfortunately, I wrote out numerous blog posts during this process that were eaten by my blogger app or are still trapped on my smartphone which can't get enough reception to post to the blog. That being said let me try to recap these past couple months. Additionally don't be surprised if numerous postings hit the blog when I get wifi at some point. I also hope to mail a thumb drive of photos back home at some point for upload via 1st world internet. August was a crazy month as I crammed as much bemba as possible into my tiny brain. I had a mock LPI (lang proficency interview) test followed by the real thing the following week. During this 30 min interview you are asked a series of questions about your family, work, hobbies, travel, education, and other misc things and you must hold a conversation in bemba for that time. For some people it's not hard but for me it was the major barrier between training and service. Needless to say I scraped by with the required minimum of Intermediate mid level proficiency. Trust me when I say this sounds far more impressive than my actual bemba skills. Unfortunately the test makes you talk about a bunch of stuff that never comes up in the village so a lot of what I learned is useless here in village life. I wish I learned to talk about the weather and health problems. Those would've been far more beneficial. The teaching final was a breeze and I really enjoyed our teaching practice with the Zambian classrooms including getting to teach my host sister Phades. I love teaching and can't wait to have my own class at the start of next term. I only teach English and teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Lang) is tricky enough. Towards the end of August we held a big cultural day at the training facility and the families, chief and training staff all attended to watch us sing, dance, give speeches in the local languages, and generally show off what we learned in our 3 month intensive training program. That day might rank as the most chaotic day in Zambia so far. I woke at 4am to pack up since it was also move out day. We started cooking at 6am since we had to feed the masses. Somewhere in there I had to take a cold shower and locate my cultural Zambian clothes we all had made. 10 am rolled around and parents filled seats to see their "adopted" children. We served our meal and everything good was gone by time the trainees got to eat but at least the families got to try our All American cuisine. We put on our show giving the American rendition of Zambian songs and dances. Overall it was a good time but that was short lived as we literally said goodbye to our families an hopped into a cruiser Lusaka bound. We got to our hotel to find our mountain of luggage waiting for us. Seriously it was a mountain. 30 volunteers stuff to live for 2 years including things we had acquired in country such as bicycles, water filters, bedding, etc. It took me a good while to locate all of my bags and care packages and load them all into my hotel room for the next 3 days. Between my things and Leah's you could hardly see the floor. It was the 3rd Zambian hotel I had stayed in and the 3rd not to have running hot water (they all claim to have it). Needless to say your standards change considerably after bush life. We were reunited with the health trainees that night that we hadn't seen since the first week in country. It was a lot of "who are you again?" As expected,  dinner and breakfast were late every meal during our stay. Zamtime. We conducted some final trainings, swam in the pool, and enjoyed our few days of civilization. Asia and I decided to take public transit to the mall and the market. Needless to say we never did make it to Kamwala market to buy chitenge but we did walk around a shady part of Lusaka for a while. I also spent way too much on chitenge from a random lady on the side of the road but I was determined not to leave empty handed after our crazy adventure. (chitenge is a general use cloth they sell that can be used as a towel, curtain, skirt, or anything else you can imagine) Our last day in Lusaka was swear in. We all woke early, dressed in our finest Zambian chitenge tailoring, and took off for the embassy house where we would be sworn in as official PCVs! It irritated me a little that even that morning they made a point of referring to us as trainees and not volunteers yet. But that's government beaurocracy for you. We all sat excitedly through the speeches and the same thank yous until it was time to stand and take our oath. One piece the guy said was so long  that no one could remember all of it and we all kinda muttered and giggled. But alas we were official! By the end of the ceremony I'm pretty sure you could hear the cadence of all the PCV's bellies grumbling for food. We ate some darn good h'our derves and then it was off again. We piled by province into the cruisers and were taken to the mall to do our final shopping! That posting allowance that seemed so sweet at the bank went far too fast leaving me without furniture and a few other necessities. PS the bank was an adventure;  it was an all-morning-3- different-locations-around-Lusaka kind of adventure aka the Zambian standard. The madness of trying to get everything you need in only a couple hours is horrifying. Also I'll never again complain about a Wal-Mart line. ShopRite has topped the charts on crazy lines. That night we all went out and celebrated our new PCV status. Since we had to be up at O'dark thirty we pulled an all nighter. Ok confession; I feel asleep with 5 or 6 people in my room talking the last hour or two. But we had a good time dancing it up, drinking, and singing karaoke. Finally it was time. The highly anticipated day of posting! It was filled with more mixed emotions than a container of jelly beans. Excitement for the unknown, horror when I couldn't find my bag of electronics, sadness to leave all of our new friends, loathing for the long drive ahead, and so on. But regardless of the wet eyes we were off. I think it took us 13 hours to get to the provincial house via cruiser. It's crazy how that ride wears you out when all you do is sit! On the plus side we stopped at this little food place with American style food and I got a burger and coffee milkshake. It wasn't exactly Red Robin or even Sonic but I was happy for the comfort of even somewhat familiar food. We made it in just before dark and had to again unload all of our masses of stuff. We had a pretty grand night hanging out together. Before the last bought of market shopping commenced Marcus arranged for us to spend a day (few hours) at a nice waterfall. Best 50 kawacha I've spent! We swam and jumped off the falls, all the while trying to grasp that this was our new home. The cliff jumping was terrifying especially if you are afraid of heights but a motto I like to try to live by is "do one thing every day that scares you." So I did it twice! The next day consisted of visits to immigration to secure our work visas and 6 hours to get our ARC (alien registration card). When we finally finished and had our ID in hand several of the Zambian baymaayos (mothers) were gesturing for us to give them our cards. We handed them over and they inspected the cards and shook our hands with warm smiles and bemba congratulations of sort. It was really endearing and it was one of those "well I'm Zambian now!" kinda moments. Then came the market; a magical mysterious maze of bulk goods, chitenge stands, dried food, second hand clothes, and more. It's what you probably think of when you think 3rd world market. It's crowded, jam packed with goods, and everyone wants your money. But we came out mostly victorious. I secured enough TP to last 3 months, loads of matches, pots, plastic buckets and basins, beans, misc kitchen wares, candles, yarn, a braiser, and probably a few other misc things I'm forgetting. We hit up the hardware store last securing wire, nails, and paint. The paint was far more than I wanted to spend and I got the cheapest of the colors but the beautiful sky blue has turned my mud hut into a cozy home. No regrets. And that pretty much sums up August and the first week of September. I packed up and arrived at site thereafter and have been living in the village since, but I'll save that for a different post.