Profiles » Ratty_n_JP » Two Years in Zambia
Africa » Zambia
She was seen by Dr. Jealous... - Saturday, September 15, 2001
We had a telephone call from Ryan and Jena at 6:30 a.m. today. Jena was talking to us, with occasional chirps from Ryan in the background. She sounds great and filled us in on the current living situation for them:
About 10 days ago they left Mukalamuti village for good, due to the local politics and the realization (by them and Peace Corps that they would be sort of "wasted" there.) They are living in the Peace Corps house in Kalomo for at least a month while 2 other villages are under consideration for their placement. (One is 120 km from Kalomo -- a LONG bike ride, she said! -- and the other is 50 km from Kalomo.). Each has its advantages and the kids are now composing lists of pro's and con's about each possibility.The likely winner village will be the one which can provide housing for them.
Jena recently went up to Lusaka to get medical opinion about her collarbone, injured in a bike wreck and slow to mend. She was seen by Dr. Jealous (no kidding!) in the capitol city, and his pronouncement was that JP has only a major sprain.
The kids' general outlook on PC and Zambian life is still excellent, tho Jena continues to be blown away about gender differences between here and there. She said that Peace Corps experience often turns PC veterans into patriots as they learn first-hand about the differences in opportunity available to both sexes, but especially to Zambian women.
They had first big rainstorm of the upcoming wet season yesterday. Rat said the volume of rain coming down was breathtaking.
We discussed mail and package situation with them and it looks like all of our letters and all but one package have arrived there. Not yet time to worry about the fate of the second package because we mailed it more recently, and packages travel much slower than letters.
In a nutshell, that's it. The big news from Zambia is that RT & JP are still loving and growing from this whole experience.
Jack & Anne
- Created:
- Tuesday, October 19, 2004 at 2:43 PM