I'm about to move!!

So I'm moving to my village on Tuesday. I'll be arriving in a landcruiser full of stuff, and then i will look around, be in shock, set up my mosquito net and try to cook some dinner. and also drink some wine. haha, but seriously it's going to be extremely overwhelming. I've heard that my community is really excited to see me. My village is in the most beautiful district. It's called Sinda. It's not on most maps of Zambia because it didn't use to be a district! But it's between Katete and Petauke in Eastern Province if you are curious. There are tons of fabulous rock formations all over and sunflower fields, rolling hills, lilypad ponds and flowers. It's awesome. I live next to my clinic. I'm not sure where my phone reception is but I'll find it eventually! I have a 2 room hut, a cooking mpala (round covered outdoor space for cooking and entertaining guests), a pit latrine, and a bathing shelter made of grass. It's also really close to the basic school, a boarding school and an orphanage so I'll have lots of groups of kids I can try to work with! There are also a lot of football fields nearby so hopefully I can play with people.

I'm pretty nervous about getting moved in. This time is called community entry and I will have to spend 3 months in my village getting to know people, learning the ropes of the area, figuring out who wants to work with me, developing a schedule, and just learning how to live in general! It's gonna be really intense, but I can do it. I'll appreciate emails - i can check them on my phone! - and when I get my new address in Sinda I'll let you all know because I have tons of time to write letters.

For those of you who are curious my job entails doing health education with community organizations and at the clinic, working with and training neighborhood health committees, teaching people about the decentralized health care system here, and also being a link between the community and the district offices. It's mostly pretty vague for now, but once I have specific projects going I'll talk more about it.

My cooking skills are definitely improving. I've also found that it is a lot easier to "get low" when dancing since i've spent so much quality time squatting in a pit latrine! Right now I'm just hanging out in the PC house in Chipata, eating fantastic group meals, sleeping in a bed, showering when the water is on, watching movies when the electricity is on, shopping. I'll be back in Chipata in 3 weeks or so to do work visa stuff, so hopefully then I'll be able to tell you tons of stories about my first 3 weeks alone in the village!

lusaka morning!

so im in lusaka. we just spent about 900,000 kwacha on groceries for the week. yikes! but we're gonna eat good. we're going to katete in eastern province for our second site visit, which means im gonna get to see my new house and meet people in my village! then after that we just have 3 more weeks of training before we swear in! so i have to go, because i have a lot of eating to do before i leave the mall! im changing my address soon - i'll post it on facebook, and have my mom post it on here!

Here in Lusaka!

So I'm at the mall today and i'm going to post a little about my daily life. I went on a site visit a couple weeks ago in central province which was amazing and I basically spent the entire time going "I could totally live like this!" So then we moved to our homestays in Chongwe district, Lusaka province. I'm staying in the village of Kapamongoma. My family has 10 children ranging from the ages of 5 - 35ish. Most of them live at the house, some of the older ones also have a bunch of children living there, so basically i live with a ton of people. We also have 13 goats, a bunch of chickens and roosters, 2 oxen, 2 tiny skinny dogs, and a cat. A lot of the neighbors have pigs and cows too. Everyday I wake up around 6:15, take a bucket bath, eat breakfast (eggs or bread or scones), and go to class. I have class basically 6 days a week from 8-5. most days i have language, some days I have class with everyone, where we talk about culture stuff, and i draw pictures and do sudoku. It's a lot of class. We drink cold beer when we can. Then I bike home on a dirt path, greeting everyone along the way. I eat dinner in my hut because my family won't let me be outside with the mosquitos and then i go to bed around 8:30. It's great.

Also, it's completely gorgeous, the sky is amazing - so many stars. and most days it's just surreal that this is my life. Although i can't wait for training to be over so I can move to eastern province and do my own schedule!

Muli Bwanji?!

that means how are you in my new language, nyanja. this means i will be based in eastern province. a few of my friends are going there too. I'm off to a site visit tomorrow in central province until saturday to see what the lifestyle is like. I have an internet phone. the number is 0976862401, you will have to dial a country code, and possibly drop the 0. i really dont know. just look it up! but hopefully i will be able to email fairly frequently! it depends on my service though. anyways, all is good. its hot, and beautiful and ive seen hundreds of spiders and some geckos, but no snakes yet.

peace out!

SO i'm leaving in 1.5 hours. I'll be in DC for 3 days, which I'm really excited for. I haven't really told people about that though. So if you are in DC and reading this, I will be available in the evenings, but I don't really know my schedule.

Also, I'm so nervous and stressed out. and I have a cold. I'm nervous my bags will be overweight or they won't arrive or something bad will happen. I'm nervous that I'm in over my head, or that I'll hate it, or I don't even know. That's the thing, I just don't know. It's impossible to really know what to expect. And I've read some extremely eloquent posts about peoples reasons for leaving, and I'm sorry but I just don't have one right now. I'm nervous. I'm excited too, but due to the thousands of emotions fogging my brain, I can't explain it right now. All I can say is that I'm running late and I'm sure I have more last minute things to do before I leave!

the end/beginning is near.

so i'm leaving Tuesday afternoon. um yikes. I'm ever-so-slowly chipping away at things I need to do, but it still seems a little overwhelming. One thing that is easing the transition was that I had visitors last weekend! 3 of my future pc coworkers were in town for various reasons and we went to ethiopian, and then to the red door in fremont. aside from the general fun, ridiculousness, and a towing incident, it was just nice to meet people in person and build up a comfort level before we actually leave. We were able to talk about things we are nervous for, things that are frustrating for us in our preparations, etc. There are so many emotions that I switch back and forth between every day that no one can understand unless they are going through the same thing. I just have hundreds of questions that I can't even articulate, but they keep me up at night anyway. My nerves were definately calmed a little simply by knowing that I wasn't alone.

I think I have every meal planned before I leave. Kind of sad, but getting lots of food variety in is important! Justine made me chile rellenos, guacamole and cookies on Tuesday when I went down to visit with her and the kids. Despite the fact that she kept apologizing for sick kids and not much excitement, I enjoyed myself. i probably enjoyed myself even more than when we have wine-induced dance parties, because we got to just hang out, do homework, eat popsicles, go to afterschool activities. It was verey relaxing - except when we visited marina at middle school which was terrifying and crazy! SO many small children running around, calling us "really big 8th graders," grabbing at french fries, trying to flirt with girls twice their size. wow.

Coming up I have a lovely romantic valentine's with julia. first up: MAC makeovers (i'm totally nervous I'll have to spend the day with heinous blue eyeshadow and no eyebrows), then step up 2 the streets (which i'm excited for, give me a break), and then a 5 course moroccan meal, and delivering valentines to our bartenders. Tomorrow is definately errand day for most of the day, then happy hour with dad and cheryl. Saturday more errands with mom, followed by last homecooked meal, and my goodbye ballard bar crawl (look out!). Sunday is last minute things and then family dinner at dahlia lounge because I've been wanting to eat there for years. Monday is up in the air until hopefully a last sushi dinner - I can't go to africa without eating more eel!

museum anthropology

today i went to the newly remodeled Seattle Art Museum, and I loved it. It's a really great remodel and the exhibits are cool. They've added a lot of new modern art, which is great because that's my favorite. However, the best thing about SAM is how they treat world art. They have always had a great display of pacific northwest indian artifacts but they also have great displays of australian aborigine and african art that is new. They have cut down on their japanese art, but that's ok. Sometimes I get really annoyed at art museums when they treat art from parts of the world that isn't from europe or north america as if it's not art at the same level. They treat it as merely "artifact" instead of as legitimate art that is designed for aesthetics. So many museums treat this kind of artwork as if it's merely designed for purpose, and that it's beautiful by chance, not by design.

My favorite part was that the african section had a very original display of west african masks. Masks in african cultures are used for performance, and the mask generally transforms the actor into a spirit or other important person, and then the actor is subject to new societal rules while wearing that mask. In museums they are always displayed on walls without the action that traditionally accompanies a mask. At SAM they dressed manicans up in modern outfits and put masks on them to show the character, as well as having mask performances playing. They also included modern african art which was great. So often those displays only include "ancient artifacts" as if art has ceased to exist in those parts of the world. There were some absolutely amazing modern paintings by aboriginals that had such detailed stories behind them. I learned a lot.

This contrasted so severely to a couple recent museum experiences I had that were negative. I went to the Louvre in August. It was horrible. Now to be fair, i realize that it's a massive and impressive collection. But i hate renaissance art. it bores me to tears. But we got lost trying to run away from all the tourists at the mona lisa and found ourselves in the very scant african art section. Half of the pieces didn't say where they were from, there was no context to any of it, and it seemed that most of the pieces were there for shock value alone as if they were saying "look at this giant african penis! it's from somewhere in africa! exotic!" ugh. Also in October I went to the fairly new Museum of the American Indian in DC. It was such an overwhelming layout, so many colors, so many videos, a twisty turny path. It was extremely difficult to stop and read anything, without getting bogged down for an hour in one little section. There wasnt a very good spread of tribes and I felt that it was way too hard to get anything out of the experience. I couldn't imagine being a child in that museum! There was so much going on, with a not clear divide between old, new, modern indian practices, conservation, etc, etc. When I see things like that I get really annoyed because museums can be done right. it is possible to stroll through a museum and still read about interesting items. It is possible to treat art from the whole world as actual art and to give context to things people might not be familiar with in the same way that context is given to modern art movements, or renaissance portrait techniques.

anways, the new restaurant at the museum is awesome too! and so is the shop!

small talk

sometimes I get really annoyed when I have to explaining this adventure to people. I was at the dentist today, and I've been going there since I was really little, so they've known me forever and they started asking a lot about the Peace Corps. (they did all the x-rays, so i knew this was coming) Now small talk at the dentist is never easy - it's tough to make a complicated point when there are sharp metals things in your mouth - but I think it's even more difficult when I'm trying to explain my completely foreign job. It's hard to explain something I haven't started yet, something that I don't fully understand, something that I have thousands of different emotions about. It's also annoying when people ask questions, but in a really ignorant way like "well at least you won't have to spend much money there, cuz what would you spend it on?!" and i just want to go into a total tirade about how actually there are lots of wonderful tourist destinations and beautiful things to spend money on. But then I think that it's probably not even worth it to try and summarize all the many things I've read in less than a minute in between rinses. I wish people were more educated about the diversity of Africa, but I can't be the person who changes every opinion. First of all, I'm not qualified (who really is?), and second of all, I wish people wanted to learn these things by themselves. Although I can't expect everyone to be as curious about Africa as I am, after all, I don't know very much about the vast area of the former USSR, or South America or Physics or Cars, to name a few things.

In other news, I've started laying out my clothes, I've got basically everything I need, things are coming together. Also, I'm reading "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman which I have wanted to read since it came out a few months ago. It's SO interesting. I'm learning a lot about modern engineering, material properties, climate history and geography. It also includes a pretty hefty amount of archaeology, which I've always loved, and it's neat to see applied archaeology used in this way. Weisman interviewed so many different types of experts that it's turning out to be a very balanced and complete analysis. I heartily recommend it.

Some Things are Awesome

I just installed my new ipod, which is amazing. Now i just need tons of new music to put on it, so that I have an endless supply of new tunes as well as music for every occasion! My philosophy is that you just never know when you'll need a trio of say Aqua "Barbie Girl", Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon", and NWA. It could happen. Anyways, I'm also thinking of what tv shows and other things I might like to have on there. I have the office season 2, which is wonderful, but I really wish i could have all my movies. I remember when I was in Cape Town and I neglected to bring any movies. I was forced to rewatch over and over the same 10 movies that I didn't even like for 5 months. Needless to say, I watched How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days with commentary more than once.

I love television. Currently I'm watching School of Rock, which I happen to love. And today, after I returned from my trip to the farmer's market with mom (armed with delicious cheese), we sat down to watch some football. I will really miss being able to yell at sporting events thus terrifying my dogs. Hopefully my village enjoys soccer.

I think at one point a lot of my friends and family were really excited for me, but now that i'm leaving in 30 days, the reality is setting in. Sorry to friends and family who are reading this - I will miss you too. But it's a really exciting adventure, and who knows where it will lead my life! I mean, I have a general plan for what I want to do after Peace Corps, but it could always change...one never knows what will happen.

One of my good friends, a fellow ADPi pc'03 with me, Danielle, was/is a pc volunteer in Kenya. The last I read was that she was being sent back to the US after a couple weeks in Tanzania. I am so sad for her since she's only been posted for 6 months and I know she was getting really excited about her work. I hope that things in Kenya stabilize sooner rather than later so that the volunteers there can continue to work. Danielle, if you read this: I miss you and wish you well!

wrapping my mind around it

this whole "getting ready to leave" thing is really hard. on one side i'm trying to buy all the camping gear I need, read up on local events, and read the recent books on african politics, and on the other side I'm attempting to be normal, go to lunch, have happy hours, work, meet new people and be in the moment. I'm having a really tough time balancing it. In DC, which i love and miss dearly, I had a very socially vibrant lifestyle where I was at all the hot restaurants, bars, movies, shopping and going out frequently. I lived it, I worked it, I miss it. Here in Seattle, I work in retail when the January labor budget allows, I go out when one of my few friends here is available, but it's all a lot more anticlimactic than it used to be. With everyone I meet I feel like I should add the caveat "but don't get too attached to me, because I'm moving to Africa in 6 weeks, as long as everything goes as planned." It's very difficult to live with the same abandon and spontaneity as I would normally with this constantly in the back of my head. Should I stay in my house and prepare for the journey? or should I live out my life here as I would normally so that I get the most out my last 6 weeks?

I have no idea. and I don't think I'll resolve these two sides of me before I leave. There is always something to prepare for, something to look forward to, something to miss. We just have to live in the moment and hope that the past or the future don't dominate too heavily so as the destroy the current.