Friday, July 08, 2005

update

I am currently in Livingstone relaxing after attending a second site visit.

The second site visit was near Monze town in the Southern Province of Zambia. Three other trainees and I facilitated a workshop for about 30 Zambians (adults) about HIV/AIDS. I presented parts of the immune system and assisted with other things.

We had a language and technical trainer that functioned as mentors and assistants with translating to the villagers.

It was fun though exhausting and we are now at a campground doing some R and R before heading to a District health meeting in each of the districts that we will be working in. I will go and present my background and working plans to district Ministry of health officials. After that I will head to Lusaka to hang with Emory folks and finally to Mwekera to finish training.

I am finally getting used to the pace, which is comical as this pace will be over in the next couple weeks and I will be operating on village time, which is apparently verrrrrry slow. I am looking forward to changing gears though.

I have found out that I will be near Monze town for my 2-year Peace Corps service in a village/area called Keemba. It is where my host mother’s family is from and she is very excited to visit during my stay. I got a chance to check out Monze and feel as if it is bigger than the town I grew up in. I will only be 30 km from it, which will make my stay here less “bush” than I had previously thought. I will probably be able to check e-mail about every month in theory, so we will see.

The previous address for the Choma house will work for mail and I will post any address that I get in Monze. Monze is a 3-4 hour bus drive from Lusaka and roughly the same from Livingstone for any of you that would like to visit. Transport is very easy to Monze, though I have yet to figure out how easy it will be to my site.

Anyway, this is the second post as my other one was lost after about an hour of work so I will try it now.

Love and hugs to all and I hope everyone is enjoying good health and company.

Amusyaale (stay well)

Niko.

No comments: