Michelle's First Hand Account

Well hello there everyone!! Or should I say, kolane mwani! (a local greeting which means be strong) It has been two months now since I have left the good ole US of A and this is the first time I have at a) access to the Internet/ a real computer, and b) more importantly time to sit down and tell you tales from Zambia! This morning, I also with 50 others bid farewell to our home stay families and came to Lusaka for our official swearing-in which will take place tomorrow.

It seems that these two months have flown by! During this time I have learned how to eat all meals with my hands (the staple food in inshima, a corn-meal dough like starch, share my bed on 3 separate accounts with mice/rats (the last one nested in my hair in the middle of the night), how to bathe out of a bucket and relieve myself in a pit latrine (definitely miss American toilets and running water, but am now thankful whenever I am fortunate to have either!) and received many compliments on my dancing, where I have been told that I dance like a Zambian and yesterday was the only white person who danced in front of a crowd of 200 Zambians at our farewell program, which could quite possibly be on of the most embarrassing moments in Zambia to date, not to mention in my life!

I am excited and nervous to begin this next chapter of my Peace Corps journey! I have much work to do and my community has a long list and high hopes for what I am to accomplish over the next two years. As the last post by my dear sister Jennifer indicates, I am in a very awesome village/community which is in the far reaches of the Northwestern Provence. I am one of the furthest volunteers away from what is know as our provincial house, a home base of sorts for all of the Peace Corps volunteers in a given region. I am approximately 360km away (224 miles) but I am only 12k from my town of Ikelenge! As indicated I do have a post office box and would love any form of mail from home. (letters, postcards, care packages, etc.)

I have really enjoyed getting to know my fellow volunteers and am sad to leave them so soon, alas there is fish farming to promote! I am excited to settle into what will be my permanent home for the next two years and reestablish a routine (like running, which I have not done since the half marathon Jennifer and I did in June..its a little difficult to do that in a country where exercise is a foreign activity, and women cannot expose their thighs, i.e. wear shorts). It is beginning to get quite warm and soon the rainy season will be here! I am excited to start my garden and for everything to be in bloom, because it is currently the dry season and its quite arid.

Well that is all I have for now, I will try to keep the updates coming as I have more stories and adventures to rely!

This has been a long time coming!

Main Street in Ikelenge (courtesy of Travelpod.com)

Greetings everyone!
First my apologies for not posting updates sooner...life has gotten in the way of my best intentions of relaying my correspondence with Michelle. Her training is almost done and she has her final language test tomorrow. She is feeling really confident about her language skills! She visited her soon to be post and discovered that she will have cell/Internet access for the duration of her duty in Zambia...she has really lucked out with her location! We are trying to figure out how she can maintain this blog through her phone. My hope is that she is successful so everyone can hear from her firsthand about her experiences. I am forwarding the most recent email from her and if you feel inclined to send her a package her wish list and new address is below. So now to the post :)

Hello!!!

So I have returned from visiting my site and I can report that it is great! I am fairly close to a game reserve/farm which is run by a white family, and there is wild game, a dairy, and other commodities available nearby. I really like my host family, which is a single mother who is about 40 and works for the farm as a housekeeper. She and her family speak English very well and the village reminds me more of the 1950's suburbs than of an African village. I have full cell coverage so you'll be able to get in touch with me whenever I am not off visiting fish farmers in the 'bush'. There are lots of white people (oddly enough) in my community as it is heavily influenced by missionaries and white farmers. Jen mentioned sending me a package soon and here is a list of stuff that would be great to receive: powdered Gatorade or something similar, pictures from home and of family, tea- its my favorite hot beverage and there is a limited selection here (there are no chai or green teas here), banjo tabs, crafty things like knitting, crochet, sewing patterns, embroidery, etc. there is plenty of great fabric here, but little to no yarn and I didn't bring how-to guides on that stuff. Treats are always good, but I can't think of what kinds of things to send, sorry! I'm about to move into my new hut/house if that may help/give you ideas! And letters or emails from home!

By the way you can send all packages from here on out to the following address: Michelle Christensen, PCV c/o Peace Corps PO Box 13 Ikelenge, Zambia. I have heard putting Sister in front of my name may help packages to not get stolen as this is a very religious society.

I love you very much and hope all is well!! Two and a half more weeks until I am done with training and officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!

First outing to the bush...

Hello dearest family and friends,

I have gotten to another computer on my way to see what life is like in the bush. After cramming 8 people in the back of a land rover for a 14 hour ride we made it to a stopping point at the local peace corp chapter house. Today we set off again in the land rover to delve further into the bush to see what life consists of for a peace corps volunteer....should be exciting, or at least enlightening! After a few days of that, we return "down country" to begin our training and host family stay!

I've heard my province is one of the most remote, but has a very good peace corps social network (including monthly bike-camping excursions) and the volunteers from the other provinces speak highly of it.

In case you did not hear, my cell phone has email access which will be the cheapest way to stay in touch with me! It is connected to this email account, so pop me a message and I will respond!

That's all for now,
Love
Michelle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For those of you who would like to write, send packages, or keep in touch with Michelle her contact information is listed below:

Michelle Christensen, PCV
Peace Corps
P.O. Box 50707
Lusaka
Zambia

chelle.christensen@gmail.com

First e-mail from Michelle....

This came today...

Greetings everyone!

After being delayed for 24hrs in Johannesburg airport, I've finally arrived in Zambia! I am loving this country, the people, and the culture and am super excited to begin this journey! There is a group of 60 of us and the people are all very diverse and interesting people. Monday we head out to the bush to see what life is going to be like for the next 2 years! I am very excited and have learned that I will be living in the northwest province.

I love and miss you all! I will be getting a cellphone tonight and let you know the contact information.

I have not stopped smiling since we landed in Africa, as this is a truly amazing place and I am filled with nothing but joy and happiness- wish you all could experience this place also!

Michelle

Offically on the otherside of the world...

I talked to Michelle this afternoon. After 4 attempts and 20 minutes later we finally got a good connection! She has arrived safely in Johannesburg with plans to stay there for at least a night because they (58 of them) missed their connecting flight to Zambia. They had to get immunizations in Atlanta yesterday and just hardly made their flight to South Africa. They arrived in South Africa this morning (their time) and its basically a mess :) The airline that they flew over on won't fly them to Zambia because they were supposed to take another airline and the other airline won't fly them to Zambia now because they missed their flight...so hopefully the Johannesburg airport is comfortable! It sounded like this will be good bonding time for everyone :)There are 4 flights to Zambia tomorrow so she'll probably make it there tomorrow. She is really excited about the adventure that lies in front of her!

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Greetings!
This blog has been started for Michelle while she is away in Zambia with the Peace Corps for the next two years. The idea is to keep family and friends updated with her adventures and help people learn about a new place and culture through her experiences. For those of you who don't know me, I am Jennifer, Michelle's sister. I am going to be publishing the letters, pictures, and other updates that she sends me. It takes 3-6 weeks for letters and packages to arrive so everything that is posted will be about a month behind but in the mean time I am going to post things about Zambia so people can gain knowledge about where she is going to be living for awhile :)

The first update:
Michelle is leaving today, July 21th, from Atlanta to fly to Johannesburg, South Africa. Is will arrive on the 22th and the fly to Lusaka, Zambia, which is the capital city. She'll be in Lusaka for awhile during training and such. She has yet to find out where she is going will officially land but will know soon. She left with a backpack full of clothes, a backpack full of books, a bag of camping gear, and her banjo. If she hasn't let you know her address already send me an email and I can get it to you!

So, thanks for following her on this...she's super excited for what is to come in the next two years and is thankful for everyone's support! If you have any feedback on the blog let me know- this is the first time I have done this. Peace and Blessings.