Productivity, Puff Adders, and Sticky Fingers

My dear friends and family: I have survived my longest stint in the village so far! After 3 ½ weeks, I have finally gained some ground in my projects and feel like I’m forming relationships with my neighbors and counterparts. We are actually in town sooner than expected because we will be moving around a lot in the next few weeks to take advantage of vacation days and attend an in-service training in Lusaka in mid-July. So, if you would like to call me while I have access to a landline, I will be at the house until Thursday morning.

I will celebrate 5 months in country this week and passed the 70 day mark in the village! These were huge markers for me since I feel like I’ve made it over the initial culture shock! I’m sure there are more uncomfortable moments to come, but it’s nice to say the first huge surprises are over and I’m getting far more comfortable with getting around the markets, transport, and conversations. Plus, I finally received parcels in Mufumbwe! Apparently the parcels truck had not made any trips up to town recently, so I received FOUR packages in one day. It was like Christmas and I've been pigging out on American junk food ever since. I've probably gained 5 lbs just this week! Big shout out to my mom, Peg, Andrea, Sis. Bass, and the gang from M&M. Seriously, I never knew dehydrated food packets and granola bars could taste so amazing!

I have lots of stories to write, and will try to do as much blogging as I can while I’m in town. For now, I’ll offer up the highlights.

First, I’m very excited about potential projects in the near future. I’ve been attending some teacher training workshops in the past few weeks and working closely with the schools in my zone and the administration on “school monitoring.” This is essentially evaluating how current curriculum is being administered, how the teachers are functioning in their classes, how effective Ministry of Education programs are at the school level, and also reporting on the state of facilities. I’m working hand-in-hand with the administration to create a streamlined monitoring form and process so that each school is monitored objectively and equitably.

I’ve also been working with an adult school very close to my house. It’s a private school that works most closely with women who have had to quit school for one reason or another and want to return to complete their education. Starting August, I will be helping them with a Life Skills and Adult Literacy program. They have almost 100 motivated men and women who attend classes every day during the afternoon. I’m so impressed with this group of community members who see the value of education and are working diligently to increase their capacity for providing for themselves and their family. I’m also working with a small group of girls in their mid-teens in an HIV/AIDS awareness and life skills program. It’s my hope to work with this small group intensively in the next few months and then establish a peer mentoring program so that these young women can work with other young women in a “straight talk” format that may not be comfortable for older teachers.

In other news, my phone went missing this week. So, if you’ve been attempting to send an SMS, no luck! I was able to get another phone this weekend and will have my old number programmed in on Monday. I’m learning to be more attentive to my things since in just this past week I've had a disposable camera nabbed out of my backpack and 50,000 kw taken from out of my wallet while I was on transport. I’ve had no problem with theft until just recently, but I think I’ve also been a bit less vigilant than I was the first few months.

Finally, in the big news for the past few weeks, I saw my first scary snake! I was home briefly one afternoon for dinner and while I was inside my house munching on amazing pasta, I saw my neighbor fly by my door gripping a giant pole in his hands. I walked outside in time to watch him bash a 2-3’ puff adder to death. My kitty Mio saved the day! My neighbor saw the cat stalking something moving in my yard and came over to check in and noticed the snake. I took a photo of the snake and took it with me on a visit I paid to missionaries near my house and we confirmed in the Africa Snake Book the type of snake. One of the missarionaries, a nurse, let me know that puff adders are quite poisonous, but are very slow and I shouldn’t really worry about them. So, now that I’ve gotten that first encounter out of the way, something I had been very concerned about, I feel a little more at ease with the knowledge of snakes in my area. I actually even felt a little bad for the snake—he never had a chance.

I’ll be back later in the week! Hope all is well with all of you.
Stacey J.