It's hard for me to remember what I did without my journal in front of me. Everything kinda runs together. It's already August. I just completed a year at site which I celebrated by not being at site. At the end of July, we got our newest batch of trainees in. It's an exciting time when we get newbies. My group was the newbie group for a long long time then we got two more sets in the matter of a couple months it seems. So now it's like I'm a junior in high school with the senior class graduating in April and my class in August.
I got to host 5 newbies for their first site visit or as some people refer to it as the demystification. It's to show what Peace Corps is really like. When they arrived I wanted to be seated in a throne with a big headdress on with a fire blazing in front of me and the local children kneeling with their hands on the ground in your typical praising position with another child fanning me with a banana leaf, maybe a pig head on a pike and some kind of sacrifice happening nearby, human or otherwise. But I never got around to it. So the 5 newbies enjoyed themselves. We saw a few ponds, went on some hikes, stumbled upon what I'd bet 5 newbie lives on were 2 mambas mating and the next day a third one that was enjoying the single life.
After they left I did more stuff around site for about a week before I set off for Livingstone. But ended up turning around and heading back to site after about 100km. I hung out at site for 3 days and took off for Lusaka where I had to get bloodwork done to see what kind of damage these TB pills are doing to my liver. I've been told my liever enzymes are doing well. I've always prided myself on my enzymatic awesomeness.
I spent all of next week in Chongwe assisting with training the newbies. Monday and Tuesday was all about fish farming—making flipcharts, A-frame levels, staking ponds and such. I really enjoyed it. Wednesday was their homestay day (ie a free day for me to spend watching movies and eating fried foods in Lusaka). Thursday I held a session about the benefits/drawbacks of volunteers having their own gardens (free veggies!/ Hoein' ain't easy). On Friday, I went back to Lusaka with the other trainers to get fingerlings for the training ponds. Saturday was slow to start with but picked up mid day when I got to go to the airport to pick up my friend Emily who came to visit her sister Julia who is a volunteer here in Zambia. We got a bite to eat and then it was back to Chongwe for the night. I left on Sunday to attend the viewing of our late president, Levy Patrick Mwanawasa who passed away on Tuesday morning after more than a month of life support. He had a stroke while in Egypt and never recovered. When I got to the showgrounds, the only place large enough to support so many people, the lines were ridiculously long and I gave up. People had been there for 1½ hours and didn't make any headway before turning around. So I went to a friend's barbeque instead. Not quite as culturally sensitive but it was enjoyable.
The death of the president has left many of us in a state of unknowing. No one seems to know who the next president might be. For the next three months the vice president will be acting president, but because he is appointed and not elected we will be having elections after 90 days.... It'll be an interesting time to be here in Zambia for sure. I just hope everything stays as peaceful as it is.
Update on the best letter contest—Keighty is winning in the non-Becky division, with Kimmy in second place. And in the Becky division, Becky is winning.
That's all for now. No crazy costume parties recently.
