We're Here!

Well, we have made it safe and sound to our host family in Zambia, where we're stationed for our preservice training period of 8 weeks. It was a very, very long flight from D.C. to Johannesburg, South Africa..16 hours nonstop! But it was as comfortable as it could possibly be, we had our own movie screens in front of us and were free to walk around the cabin every few hours. Ty slept most of the time. :)

We are adjusting pretty well to life here, our host family is great and we are loving the training we're recieving for the LIFE program. We are also learning to speak Bemba, so that's been rigorous but a fun challenge. Zambia is a beautiful country, we are just east of Lusaka for the time being and there's rolling hills with many flowering trees and bushes scattered about. It's the end of the rainy season, so we have enjoyed the greenery since we've arrived, but it's starting to turn yellow as the dry season is quickly approaching.

We do not have very regular access to the internet...this is the first opportunity we've had since arriving at our home stay post. We stay very busy, waking most days at 6 am, riding our bikes about 10 minutes for our 4 hours of language training, then back to our home stay for lunch, and technical training from 2-5. We've been visiting local farms in the area, and learning about various conservation farming techniques that we'll be demonstrating as LIFE volunteers..it's all very interesting and exciting!

We bathe under the sky every day, so dad you should get that shower up and running. The nshima or ubwali in bemba is good, especially with ciwawa ifisashi (pumpkin leaves with peanuts). The other phone is up and going will send you the number later today, can surf the net but it will be limited. Our bikes rock even though they aren't 29's rod. Miss everyone and look forward to all your questions and responses.