Africa » Zambia
Africa » Zambia
Greetings from Lusaka, Zambia! - Friday, June 1, 2001
Jena here...
Hi Everyone!!! Well, where to start? The staging in Atalanta was easy, relaxed and in a fancy hotel. Met the group and everyone immediately got along! Which is great news. The staging was not too full with icebreakers, much to my relief and there was lots of coffee stops for Ratty. The flight from Atlanta to Johannesberg was uneventful, but looooooooong (over 15 hours).
The flight from Joberg to Lusaka on the other hand was all sorts of turbulence, yet we are safe on the ground in Africa and so far smiling every minute of the day. Ratty and I are still under the heavy influence of jet lag. However, the reality is that we are too excited to really notice. We stayed last night (and again tonight) at a place 7 km outside of Lusaka called Pioneer Camp. It's quaint, relaxed and we have our own mud/thatch guest house (room). The hostess is Beatrice and Rat and I keep wanting to call her Bernice (after the pet gerbil rat had as a child). Today we learned a bit more about our project and found out we will be posted in the Southern province of Zambia near, I believe, Chomo(?). The language we will be learning is Tongo and we are already practicing a few words. More on all of that later. Love to all of you. You will all be in our thoughts as we discover this beautiful place called Zamiba.
Love, Jena and Rat
And this from Ryan, aka Rat...
Greetings all! Not sure if JP has already written to some or all of you-- I'll write anyway in case she left out any juicy details. We're currently in Lusaka (capital city) at the Peace Corps headquarters- There is some shindig today (an ambassador or something), so we had a big breii (that's a Zambian BBQ) for lunch. The flight was long and uneventful, although the free wine was a nice suprise to our group of nine thirsty Americans! We've been staying at a hunting lodge for the last day or two (I'm still adjusting time-wise....), and on Saturday we will all head North to the Copperbelt region where most of our training will take place.
JP and I learned last night that our village (where we will live after the nine week training) is just south of Kafue National Park, and the language we will learn is called Tonga (or Chetonga)- This was all great news to us, and the fringe benefit is that the language trainer for Tonga is a botanist! [editor's note: Rat is also a botanist] I've been dying to have someone to guide me through the new biological wonders that abound here! Crickets at night that make you want to cry, and birds in the morning that make you want to sing!
We've been given our medical kits and final shots, so now we're ready to go out there and get sick! (Our volunteer group has decided that the first person to get intestinal distress will win prize- That may cushion the blow a bit...)
What's been very exciting so far has been meeting some of the Zambian nationals who will be with us through the next nine weeks of training. All of the rumors we heard were true: Zambians are wonderfully warm and accepting (and have spellbinding accents!). Hope all is well in the Northern Hemisphere- I will likely have email occasionally, so try it out- Gotta run (literally!!)
- Created:
- Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 12:20 PM
- Last Modified:
- Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 12:21 PM