Exciting Couple of Weeks

I think it's safe to say it has been an exciting couple of weeks here in Zambia. Our three greatest fears are snakes, male predators, and car accidents all of which came to greet us.
The excitement began two weeks ago when on the final leg of a six hour car ride, the vehicle carrying Ben flipped taking a turn (see below). Fortunately, Ben made it out with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises, but three of the passengers were taken to the hospital for a week; everyone is now healthy and back at training. Kudos to the Peace Corps for quickly sending staff to be the first responders.
One week later, at about one in the morning Lizzy was woken up by a man peering through her window yelling that he wanted her. Lizzy was able to scream and scare away the intruder, and luckily nothing more came about. Lizzy's host Dad was kind enough to sleep outside of her hut for the remainder of the night.
And this leaves us with the snake. Ben was recently up at our permanent site in Kanona, when after dinner he went inside his hut and peering about with his flashlight noticed a tarantula on the wall. Having to face the music, Ben grabbed a shoe and killed the spider, on his way outside to throw the spider away, he was greeted by a Puff Adder snake, just a few steps from the hut. Instinctively, Ben screamed like a little girl, and the neighbor came over and swiftly killed the snake with a stick.

We are both very fortunate to have had such good outcomes, and such great people around us. Thanks to everyone for the prayers and well wishes to help keep us safe.



Photos courtesy of PCT Ben Frigo-Vaz



Rural Aquaculture Promotion

Ben is entering his sixth week of Rural Aquaculture Promotion training, or RAP for short. RAP is a well received program that villagers are excited to learn about, because one pond helps provide the majority of protein for a family, creates a supplemental income to their annual maize harvest, and helps diversify their often limited diets, among other things. A RAP standard pond is 10 by 15 meters in size, with a depth of 1.3 meters, and are dug by hand with a shovel or hoe.

Our New Home

This week we were able to visit our new house which we will move to permanently at the end of October.  We live on a compound with 4 other families, about 6K away from the village center of Kanona.  The families are great, there are several children who are absolutely adorable.  Ben's counterpart, David Mulenga, lives on the compound with us, which makes it very convenient for both parties. A 'counterpart' is someone who has requested a Peace Corps volunteer on behalf of the community, and who acts as a liaison between the volunteer and the community. Now onto the pictures:

Lizzy and Martius (our new best friend) in front of our house.

Ben and Martius.

Our kitchen/dining room 'insaka'.

 

Next door neighbors.

Backyard.

Dishes are done.

Bridge home.

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!