Hello, hello!

I apologize for the delay in my updates but this is the first time I
have been able to get on the internet since my return to Zambia.

Everything has been going really well and great progress has been
being made. Leo and I are still diligently working in the garden and
have made much progress in the past few weeks. The vegetable nursery
should be completed by the end of next week and we have already
started to till the land for the crops.  So far have planted tomatoes,
impwa, okra, spinach, lettuce, cabbage and onions all of which have
started germinating and will be ready for harvest in about a month and
a half.  The tree nursery is also coming along very well although I
don’t have nearly the number of trees planted that I would have liked
to by now but its okay; I still have time to make up the difference.

Leo, Lilian and I are currently in Mazabuka for our Task force week.
We will each be going out into different areas to learn about the TCE
project and to gather information to take back to the Chibombo
district with us since we have no resources to work with there.  I’m
going to be working with Miranda (from my team) in Munenga, on Monday
and Tuesday, where we will be visiting support groups and learning
more about herb gardens.  For the rest of the week we are going to be
working on developing a pamphlet with information on how to use the
herbs that can be grown here and their medicinal properties.  I’m
really excited about this project as it was one of my tasks to
complete while here and we also found out last night that DAPP will be
providing the funds to publish it thanks to a grant that was recently
received to be used for information to encourage positive living for
those with AIDS/HIV.  This same grant is also going to be providing
the funds for a project that Leo and Lilian are working on in
Children’s town.

My time here is going so incredibly fast and its so hard to believe
that i’ve already been here for 2 months.  I have many pictures but I
forgot the cable to send them right now.  I’ll do my best to get them
out later this week.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the wonderful summer season!!!

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First off, I’m not sure whats wrong with word-press; the formatting is totally off. I don’t have time to fix it now but I’ll figure out whats wrong before my next post.  Sorry for the difficulty of reading this.  

Hello, hello! This is the first chance since I left that I’ve been able to have Internet access thus the first time that I’ve been able to contact and update anyone.
Well, I arrived in Zambia about a month ago and was informed that I was being sent to a different area (not lake kariba) so I am now living in the Chibombo district right outside of malambanyana.  I love it!!!

The project:
I have set up for myself certain goals that I want to accomplish for the time that I am here.  I had a meeting with the project leaders to go over everything and they think its great. Here it is-
1.I am working on building a tree nursery.  So far I only have about 200 trees planted because I ran out of fertilizer.  The goal, however, is to plant about 3,000 trees by November.  I am planting mostly Moringa trees (for their healing benefits) and Jatropha trees (for their bio-diesel benefits).

2. The jatropha trees are allowing me to take part in the bio-diesel project. I know that I won’t be here to see the end results because its going to take about 2 years to get the project totally off the ground but its really good to know that I have taken part of it by planting the trees.

3. There is a “garden” at the school that is really just a piece of land with a bunch of weeds.  Me and Leo (another d.i.) are going to be working on getting the model garden totally up and running with different examples of gardening based off of the size of space one might have and the types of crops one be growing.  We are also building a model irrigation that I really, really hope works out because his idea is just awesome.

4. Lastly- I am also incorporating a medicinal herb garden in with the model garden. When it is finished I will be distributing brochures throughout the community on the herbs they can grow and how to use them.  I will also be giving presentations to AIDS/HIV support groups on the herbs and their benefits for their immune booster properties and how to make teas they should drink daily.

Needless to say I have a very busy 6 months ahead of me and I definitely have my work cut out for me as well.  I am so excited to begin seeing the fruits of the work that is going into these projects!! 

Housing- well, hey, I live in the bush.  Our house is actually really nice although we have no electricity or running water.  There are pictures of it in my “Zambia” album.

The area- There isn’t really much around where I am. We have 2 markets that we can walk to for food and other goods and I find that I usually end up walking to one or the other at least once a day for something. I will try to do more updates since I just figured out how to access the Internet using my cell phone. 

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 I have 24 days left until I leave for Zambia and I can’t believe that its finally here.  I’m still out fundraising even though I have raised over my part of the goal.  This last trip didn’t go so well for everyone so we still have to raise around $8000 which isn’t that much compared to the original goal.

 In other news…. someone has been stealing boxes!
Why? What on earth would you do with a box? Why would you want to steal it? Either way, it sucks.  The first one was sort of funny like “what the hell, the giant, green box was seriously stolen?!?” but today we had our sixth, that’s right SIXTH police report filled out and it just getting to be sort of ridiculous. 

Specialization has been going sort of slow, I still have a lot of tasks to get complete and that is going to be my focus over the next few weeks, that and finding sites (of course!). 

One of the other WalMarts in the area has agreed to let us place boxes and that is VERY good news and it seems to make everyone happy.

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here I am again, site finding…

 It actually hasn’t been going that bad here. I got a site at our very first Walmart which was a HUGE deal (although I’m not sure why because it seems like some of the other boxes produce more).  This is scheduled to be our forth and final fund raising trip before the team leaves for Africa.  Instead of the usual 2 week trip, this one was planned for 3 weeks (so we will definately raise our money!).  I am more than ready to be finished and out of here.

We are scheduled to leave for Africa on May 5th with the execption of a few people who will be departing earlier for visa reasons.  I have decided that I’m going to be traveling very light and am actually going to try and fit all of my things in my backpack which can be carried on. I don’t think this will be a problem as I don’t really require much and most things that take up space (toiletries) I will just purchase when I arrive. 

Nothing else much to report, i’m hoping to get more pictures up this week however, my laptop hasn’t been working:( 

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… everyone should read it! Its a book of essays written by David Sedaris and it is bound to make you laugh out loud.  There are very few books like this that I have come across.  In the past month and a half I have read all of his writings and every single book has been hard to finish only because I don’t want them to end.  Well, I received my specialization tasks this past week and have begun slowly working my way through them.  The specialization period is the last period in my training here at IICD.  I have 45 tasks I have to complete.  All the tasks are education based are designed to create materials that I can bring with me to the Child Aid project.  The tasks help make sure that I am well educated in a lot of the issues I will be dealing with i.e. common diseases in the area, HIV/AIDS, basic mechanics, etc. Its going to be a lot of work to complete these tasks but I am actually really looking forward to working on them.   This week we have our action week. I am going to mostly be focusing on getting donations to bring with to the projects. I’ve already made some contacts with people who are going to be donating art supplies and I’m sure by the end of the week I’ll have plenty more.   

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Well, the past two weeks we have been studying health and hygiene here at the school. Last week we focused on different diseases that are common in the areas we will be going to and this week on learning more and more about AIDS/HIV.  I am officially off the mountain for the next two weeks and have begun (well, on Monday) fundraising trip #3. I am back in Albany to do some more site finding.  The goal is one site per day but the weather has been HORRIBLE and that makes site finding so much more difficult.  It hard to believe that February is halfway over and I’ll soon be going into March here.  Its been nearly 7 months since I first arrived and time has gone by so quickly… most of the time.  After this fundraising trip I will begin preparing for my first Action week (more on that later) and the I begin my specialization which is what is really going to help prepare me for my project in Zambia.  I am more than ready to leave! I’ll, hopefully, be getting more vaccinations over the next two weeks while I’m here in Albany.  This is all I have for now. I’m sure as the week goes on more and more things will come up. After all, what’s a fundraising trip without a horrible story to tell?!? 

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After only a few short days in Charlotte, NC half of us decided that it would be beneficial both, economically and mentally, if we came back to the east coast.  Although the people of Charlotte were very nice and praised the work that we are going on to do, we just weren’t making enough money in the 2nd largest financial district in the US (ironic, huh?).  Four stayed behind to work the stores that we did have set up and five of us returned. I’ve been site finding in Albany for the past few days and its been going just fine and the others who returned along with me have been doing various fund raising activities that have been generating pretty close to goal.  I’m trying to think of some other income generating projects I can do to raise money for my team while here in Albany.   The August team is getting ready to leave the mountain soon and that makes me really sad.  I’m not sure how I’m going to keep my sanity  up there after some of my beloved comrades leave this beautiful place.  I’ll be returning to the school mid-week next week for about a week an half and them I’ll be back here site finding and the a week off and then I get to do my first action week.  I’ve been looking into several options and I’m pretty sure that I would like to work at a mother house facility.

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We arrived in Charlotte, NC this morning around 7:30am after a long 15 hour drive.  We came in two vehicles and I drove one the whole way down (I volunteered to). The drive was actually not that bad. Aymee and I had some rather interesting conversations, listened to some great music and filled our minds with information from the NPR podcasts I had downloaded before we left.  We somehow managed to get ahead of the white mini van and that upset someone in there who I will call G. G thought we should follow each other for 15 hours which is crazy but he really just wanted lady M to ride with him (understandable).  We didn’t meet up with G and the rest of the van until about 30 miles outside of Charlotte at which point WE ALL agreed to get a hotel room once we got in so we could sleep and then begin fundraising in the afternoon.  This to me sounded like a great idea since I was going on 24 hours with no sleep.  We decided to go to the Comfort Inn in Charlotte and get 2 rooms for the day.  Before arriving G convinced everyone in the van that getting a hotel room and sleeping was not a good idea since we have accomodations available to us later in the evening (oh yeah, we had no place to go for the day) and that there would be no point in spending money on a hotel and that we should all just go and fundraise.  I told him that I thought he was crazy and that made no sense. I also informed him that I was going on 24 hours with no sleep and had been driving the whole way so everyone else could sleep and not alternating with another person like they were in the van. G told me that they were all tired.  We exchanged some very, very kind words.  All I have to say is that right now I am sitting comfortably in a hotel room feeling very rested while they are out trying to fundraise.  I don’t think that my request for sleep was unreasonable. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows.  I do know that this is my last fundraising trip with this crazy group of people.  

 note: this version of what happened was painted very nicely.      

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I recieved my official project description last money Monday and I’m VERY VERY excited- I’ll be in Sinazongwe, Zambia (close to Victoria Falls!) working at a Child Aid and Environment project.  Our mission with this project is to work with children, families and communities in order to improve living conditions for children and to ensure they develop to their full potential.  The project targets the whole community and all aspects of development in the community and is organized in 10 “lines” each line focusing on one particular area of development in the community.  The lines are as follows: 1) Strengthening the economy of the family2) Health and hygiene hereunder HIV/AIDS3) Preschools4) Children are active participants in society5) Children without parents6) Educations7) District Development8) Environment9) Food Security10) Information, communication and culture Each line has a set objective and activities to work with in the the community.   I cannot wait to leave and begin working at the project!!!I have also begun to make plans for my return home and it looks like I’ll be coming back to work in Albany at the collection.  

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