Training and Vacation

After the period of community entry I was ripped from my village and
thrown head first back into civilization with the event of our
provincial meetings in Mansa followed by our in-service training in
the capital city of Lusaka and then a holiday vacation to round out
the year. Provincial meetings consisted of all 37 of the Luapula
volunteers coming together for the latest policy updates and meetings.
It was also a chance for all of us new PCVs to meet everyone else in
the province. We crammed a ton of people into the prov house and
prepared group meals together each night. We played frisbee and
kickball, had a costume party, hauled water from the garden to bucket
bathe, and got to know each other. It was a fun but expensive event.
It happens twice a year but this one is the expensive one with a voted
amount contributed by each PCV for christmas presents for our staff, a
slush fund for improvements to the house, and a nice but expensive
thanksgiving meal. As a rule cities and towns are always more
expensive because you can get luxuries that cannot be found in the
village like cheese, ice cream, and wine. And even the most
budget-conscious volunteer can’t resist at least some minimal
temptation of civilization and refrigeration. After a week at the
provincial house my intake of RED PCVs headed down to Lusaka for two
weeks of in-service training. We were lucky that our training
coincided with the provincial staff’s quarterly meeting in Lusaka and
were able to get a free ride down on the PC Cruiser. I’d rather be
stuffed in a cruiser with my pals any day over a stinky, crammed,
theft ridden, panic inducing Zambian bus for 12 hours. Plus our
awesome driver got us there in 10 with very minimal stops! I was
additionally grateful since the night before I had a fever and was
feeling really ill. I can’t image having to do that trip in the state
I was in on public transit.
Our two week long training consisted of some snoozer sessions about
policy and reporting but then focused on a gender based violence
training with a teacher counterpart from each school. Unfortunately I
missed a better part of training having to go back and forth to our
medical office but I’ll save that for another post. The second week of
training a village health counterpart joined us for PEPFAR training.
PEPFAR is a program started in the US to help address the problem of
HIV/AIDS. It stands for President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief and
targets education for HIV prevention and positive living in addition
to helping supply medical resources such as ARV drugs and testing
kits. I was excited to have the village midwife attend but the day
before I left the village she backed out saying someone was coming to
help her farm and she couldn’t attend. I asked my host father who
heads up our village health committee and he graciously agreed to
attend. I loaned him some money to get to Lusaka and he showed up on
time and eager to learn and immediately repaid the 200 kwacha loan.
Did I mention my host father is awesome! Luckily they had a Bemba
translator and I think he learned a lot about the nitty gritty details
of HIV. He already had a general knowledge but our training went into
depth about contraction, prevention, stigma, counseling, treatment,
virus lifecycle, and numerous other aspects of HIV and AIDs. We also
got to participate in a couple practice sessions for GRS or Grass
Roots Soccer; a program developed in South Africa to bring HIV
education to young kids using soccer as a draw. My host father is
excited to run the 12 practice (12 week) program once we are back in
the village. We also setup an action plan to do some HIV education
with the mothers during a monthly program called under 5’s where
babies are weighed and monitored. The training was long and exhausting
running 6 days a week for two weeks solid.

Luckily once we came to the end of training the real fun began! Sarah,
my nearest neighbor, met Asia and I in Lusaka for the start of our
holiday adventure. The plan was a trip to Southern province to see the
great Victoria Falls, then we would have to stop back in Lusaka before
traveling to South Luangwa to go on safari in Zambia’s top rated game
park. We took off on a bus headed to the most touristy destination in
Zambia, Livingstone. It felt weird to be a tourist but I was white,
traveling to Livingstone, and didn’t speak the language so I fit the
bill, all except the pockets loaded with USD part. We actually found a
surprising amount of people that spoke Bemba in Livingstone and were
able to swing a few deals based on our limited bantu communication. We
stayed at an eclectic hostel called Jolly Boys which is perfect for
any budget minded traveler. It was quite busy when we got there as
there was a large group of teenagers from Australia camping there with
a program called World Challenge. Despite the boisterous teens they
were pretty respectful and kept the hostel environment relaxing. We
hadn’t made any plans for Livingstone other than seeing the falls so
we did exactly that. A free shuttle took us into the park from our
hostel and we got in on the cheap with our ARC (Alien registration
card) that shows we are residents. Our price dropped from $50USD as
tourists to 7kr which is a little over $1USD. Score! Despite it being
low flow season the falls were beautiful and breath-taking. We walked
all around the Zambian side of the falls and watched mindfully as
baboons came all too close for comfort. Our limited Bemba skills won
us a discounted taxi ride back to our hostel and we looked at the
possible activities and our budgets for the rest of our time there. We
decided to do a Livingstone Island tour and white water rafting,
because why not! The island tour took us out to Livingstone island in
the middle of the Zambezi and the edge of the falls by speed boat.
Once there we swam out to Devil’s pool. For those who don’t know what
Devil’s pool is; youtube it! The pool is only accessible during low
season as the current during high flow would take you to your death
over the great Victoria Falls. There is a lip of rocks at the edge
that create a calm enough pool to swim in and sit in the water on the
edge of one of the world’s seven wonders. As you can imagine we got
plenty of photos which will be uploaded one day when I have internet
that can handle photo uploads or when I send a thumb drive back to
America Land. Our tour with finished with an eggs benedict breakfast
before we were rushed off the little island. Because we had
anticipated it taking much longer we had a whole day left and we
killed some time wandering around the museum right across the street
from our hostel. If you are into museums its a pretty good one. The
following day we decided to hit the local markets in search of
chitenge and home decor. We succeeded and put some big dents in our
pocket books with beautiful paintings and chitenge material. That
night we spoiled ourselves with Italian food and gelato. I was
hesitant to order the Tiramisu since most food in Zambia doesn’t live
up to our American expectations of the dish due to ingredients and
cooking methods but boy was I glad I took the risk! If I could pick
only one desert to eat for the rest of my life it would be tiramisu
and this one was pretty darn good. It had a good balance of cakey and
creamy and tasted like a tiramisu should! Olga’s Italian restaurant is
an awesome eatery and to make matters better all of its profits
support a local organization that trains at-risk youth with trade
skills. WIN WIN! Since I had made the stellar choice to eat desert for
dinner I skipped on the tiny gelato place we came across on the street
but don’t worry we returned again and I indulged in the best ice cream
I’ve had in-country to date. The best day though had to be white water
rafting. Coming from Colorado and being of adventurous spirit I’ve
done my fair share of rafting but I can easily say this was the most
epic river trip of my life to date! We had so much fun navigating the
class 4 and 5 rapids with our boat of strangers who quickly became a
team. We chose the full day rafting trip which can only be done during
low season and had a blast paddling our way through 25 rapids and
flipping on 2 of those. They wouldn’t let us raft the class 6 rapid
and instead made us walk around the roaring water on the rocks while
sending the unattended boats down the river. It was an awesome day
with gorgeous views and we realized close to the end that there were
actually baby crocs sunning on the rocks in some places where we swam,
but the guides told us we could swim and even jumped in themselves.
The rafting was a pricey excursion especially on a Peace Corps budget
but it was worth every penny.

After Livingstone we headed back to Lusaka for a couple nights where
we learned that the chitenge shops at Kamwala market are indeed closed
on Sundays. I also discovered that my nice waterproof sneakers were
stolen from my luggage under the big charter bus on the ride back from
Southern. We braved inner city bus station, the embodiment of
hell-on-earth, to get our tickets to Eastern province. The bus ride to
eastern was long and cramped and took us through some winding
mountainous roads. The views were pretty and the temp dropped as a
storm moved in. We stayed the night in their provincial capital of
Chipata and found a bus to take us to our destination the following
day. The 2 hour ride turned into a 4 hour overcrowded mess and I swore
we would never take that bus line again. Unfortunately it was the only
line that went from Mfuwe all the way back to Lusaka so we did indeed
take the line again although it was a much more pleasant experience
departing at 3am. We arrived in the night to South Luangwa and had to
setup camp in the dark with our dying headlamps. On the flip-side of
that experience we woke the morning of Christmas eve to a beautiful
site. We couldn’t see what it looked like in the night but the morning
provided a gorgeous view overlooking the river. There were monkeys
running around and hippos filled the river. We took a morning safari
with an awesome and knowledgable Zambian guide named Duncan. It was a
slow morning and we didn’t see too much but the night safari provided
a number of animals including lions. Christmas day was a repeat and we
did a morning and night safari. The park does not have rhino but we
saw the rest of the big 5 in addition to plenty of other wildlife. The
illusive wild dogs we searched for all 4 safaris never did make an
appearance but I was awed and amazed none the less. We saw lions,
leopards, hippos, crocodiles, tons of birds, impala, water bucks, bush
bucks, cape buffalo, thorn-croft giraffes, tons of elephants, velvet
monkeys, baboons, mongooses, gennets, rabbits, a hyena, cranes, puku,
a snake, and plenty of insect life. Despite not having anything but my
little canon G16 point and shoot camera I got some great photos and
couldn’t believe how close we were to big cats, elephants, and hippos.
We ended up getting a private safari every time due to large groups
hiring private vehicles or us being the only ones. It was a beautiful
park with vast differences in the landscape and wildlife. Despite it
being the holidays it didn’t feel like it with the hot temps and
fending monkeys off my camp meals. We packed up camp in the middle of
the night and  hopped on the 3am bus back to Lusaka. After 12 plus
hours and a few entertaining movies on the bus we arrived back in
Lusaka and returned to Lusaka backpackers for the weekend. We made it
to the Kamwala market and stocked up on chitenge before boarding the
bus back to Luapula which consisted of another 12 hour ride into the
night.  The ride home was probably the most uncomfortable yet but just
the thought of getting back to somewhere familiar was reassuring. We
made it back to our prov house in the middle of the night and enjoyed
a taste of home. Asia and I headed back to my site for New Years Eve
where we joined the owner’s of the Kasembe Orphanage to put on a
fireworks show for the village. It was a blast, literally, and I
couldn’t have asked for a better holiday away from home. A big thanks
to my lovely travel partners. And happy holidays to everyone back
home.