Saturday, March 12, 2011

LIFE brings mvula

Before we came to Lusaka province over 3 weeks ago, there had been about 3-4 weeks of drought. Zambia is right in the middle of rainy season, so there should be some rain almost every day. The day after the LIFE trainees arrived, the rain came. Mvula is the Chilunda word for rain. I have been living in Chalimbana in the Chongwe district for 2 weeks with a family of Lundas. My post in May will be to the Northwestern Province near Ikelenge and Mwinilunga at the source of the Zambezi river. The Lunda tribe traditionally lives in this area, so I have been learning the Lunda language, one of the 7 major languages in Zambia. Mwinilunga is famous as a pineapple producing region, which is funny because Chilunda sounds alot like a Polynesian language. It also one of the wettest places in Zambia (about 55 inches annually). I don't know much about it other than that right now.
I know everyone is anxious to see pictures. I will probably not be able to post pictures until May when I arrive in my province and can use the computers at my provincial house. Right now, I have to make do with the Internet cafes in Lusaka. It feels pretty weird to be using the Internet right now actually. I'm sleeping in a small mud house with a thatch roof and no electricity, eating nshima every day, and trying to teach my host family as many card games as possible. It has been a pretty amazing experience so far. We have a lot of people passing though our compound on their way to the borehole. My host grandmother has 8 kids and my host dad (her son) has two little daughters. Gloria, the youngest, cries at just about everything, but she is slowly getting used to me. Every day is very, very long, in a good way. Some days are fantastic, and some days not so much. Two days ago, we got flu shots and I felt like a corpse the next day. We spend half of our days in language, and the other half in technical training learning how to grow things in Zambia. We planted our first garden yesterday of cabbage, rape, and onions. I am surprising myself and am actually really enjoying learning this language. We had a game of football last weekend against the Education trainees. Sunday is my day off! We have our first language test on Monday, so I need to do some practice, but I'm going birding tomorrow morning. Birding is tough here now because the vegetation is so thick this time of year, but I'm seeing new birds every day. This week I saw some African Yellow White-eyes and a Common Fiscal. The ants here are incredible. I can't stop watching them. They rule over absolutely anything. They had a giant battle with the cockroaches in our toilet this week. I watched them shuttle cockroach parts out of the toilet one by one.
It looks like I will have some internet access pretty regularly, so you can send me an email if you like. I'm thinking of all of you back in the states. I really miss beer. I think I'm having withdrawls symptoms. So drink a good beer for me and for you. To your health! Much love, Larry.