Well, I guess its about time I got my blog on huh?
A ton of updates coming this week. Especially regarding the fact that I am now, officially and Peace Corps Volunteer! Let me Bold that, I am now, Officially, a Peace Corps Volunteer!!!! haha. Training is completed. Our eleven weeks of intensive language, technical training, cultural interchange, home stay and acclimation to Zambian village life is complete…. well, wait a minute. Not quite. I think all those things continue, and in fact get a little bit more intensive in the two years to come.
Group Funny training photo time!!
Where did I last leave you? These last few weeks have been a blur of action, it feels like yesterday I was just getting off a plane, hours ago I was meeting my host family, just a few minutes ago it was my birthday, and now I’m a PCV in CHIP headed to my village for three months of intensive community entry. There’s going to be a lot of that word… Intensive, that’s my word for today. Well, after our final language proficiency interview, we got a couple photo’s of the group, and started preparing for our last week as trainees, to top it off, we got a couple more days of afternoon showers and a cold spell that’s making this “hot” season feel like winter.
Monday and Tuesday were spent finishing up our final medical and admin sessions, then Wednesday we prepared a cultural presentation for our host families. We cooked a HUGE meal, of Burgers, Bean patty’s and sausage, soya, salsa, fruit salads, deviled eggs, pasta, mac n cheese, guacamole, brownies, cookies, pies… it was a delight to say the least. Then we had a wonderful presentation of cultural dances and of gifts from our host families. I built two Corn hole (bean bag toss) boards and Susanna, another PCV (Yep! PCV!!!!) made the bean bags, and we taught our hosts how to play. Then we shared speeches from PCV’s about home stay and how thankful we are for our hosts and their generosity (In local languages of course). After, we had another cultural dance performance, and Lindsay and I were asked to do a quick salsa. I hope someone has it on tape but it was great fun.
The cultural presentation done, we loaded up and headed over to ISTT (In Service Training Trust). We enjoyed hot showers and warm beds and relaxed for the evening. We spent Thursday at the office again, finishing up our final Admin session. Then we received our Language Test scores, I lucked out and managed an Advanced Low Proficiency in Bemba. Not bad for eleven weeks huh? The language system goes Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior, and then there are three levels to each… so Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High.
Thursday done, we headed back to ISTT and I prepared my final remarks for Swearing in…. but that’s for another post.
Tukamonana (we’ll see each other soon!)
Another Group photo!
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