Africa » Zambia
Africa » Zambia
A Phone Call From Zambia - Monday, June 18, 2001
From Anne and Jack...
They're having a wonderful time !!
They are about 10 days into their two-and-a-half months of training near the northern city of Kitwe. They live with a wonderful host family, which includes father (a farmer who speaks English), mother (who cooks 3 filling meals per day and heats a basin of bathing water for them), two young children and various other members of the extended family. Plus a few chickens. Ryan and Jena have their own little thatched-roof mud hut to sleep in out behind the family's two-room house. Here they study their Tonga language homework by candlelight every night (dusk comes at 6 p.m.). It is the start of the dry, cool season, and they report that the field burning smoke makes for lovely sunsets.
They are in language training all morning; six days a week, then spend afternoons in classes learning about Zambian culture, farming techniques and such. Rat says the only frustrating thing about this training regimen is that they've had almost no time to learn the names of new plants and birds. He did mention that they saw two huge "fish eagles", one of which was attacking a blue heron-type wading bird. Their Tonga language training teacher is also a botanist, but
R&J say they are not getting time to ask botanical questions because the language training is first priority. Jena was pleased that she'd been able to understand an entire sentence that her host mother said to her that very morning. In Tonga the morning greeting translates as "Have you slept well?" and the afternoon greeting is "Have you worked well?"
The family is thrilled to have these American visitors and have made their guests feel very welcome. Ryan and Jena said they were going to have to insist that the family refrain from rounding out the starchy meals with meat so often -- for fear the entire chicken flock will soon be gone. The kids call them "free range chickens" which have only about a third as much meat on each bird as ours do here.
As we talked Ryan noted that he was standing next to a 15-foot high termite mound, and that a gray parrot had just flown overhead. A different world for sure!
They've learned a little more about the village where they'll be living after their swearing-in August 4th. It's just a 2-hour bus ride from the city of Livingstone over the best roadway in Zambia, making it even easier for their friends to come and visit than they'd thought would be the case. The postal delivery does take about a month from the U.S., and they ask friends to keep those cards and letters coming!
Anne and Jack
- Created:
- Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 12:23 PM