Auxier Welcome Party in Chibempi

In honor of Lizzy's coming to Chibempi to stay with Ben and his host family, Ben's host family the Mukukas threw a traditional African dance party. The party was planned for Saturday night (when Lizzy arrived) and the village had been practicing every night of the previous week. Unfortunately, after five hours of dance practice on Saturday the battery for the stereo died and the party had to be delayed until Sunday morning. It was still a great time, and as we have come to realize is pretty typical of Zambian planning.

 Ben and Lizzy leading the African 'congo' line.

 Solar powered, car battery Zambian entertainment system.

 Zambian knife girls (a traditional Congolese dance).

 Ben with Uncle Lolands Mukuka.

Lizzy and Ben showing Zambians how to really dance.

Getting settled...

 Ben outside my house with my new bestfriend.  Ben named her Charley, she sleeps outside my door every night!  I feel very protected:)

 Touchdown Zambia!

 The sunsets are amazing here...I live just in front of the palm trees a bit.

Since arriving in Zambia a few weeks ago the time has flown by.  We are both in training, Lizzy in Chongwe and Ben in Chipembi until mid October when we will be together again!  Ben was able to stay with me in Chongwe until his training started this last week so that was nice and next weekend I will get to go to see where he stays.  We are each living with host families during our training which is quite an experience.  We live in mudhuts, I have a metal roof but Ben has the real deal thatch roof and electricity is no where to be found.  The food is taking a little to get used to, we eat a lot of nshima, which is basically a massive polenta cake that you use to scoop anything else you might have on your plate.  We are both learning Bemba and found out that we will be living in the Central Province outside of Serenje once we are done with training and official Peace Corps volunteers!