Homestay, Tech Training, and Second Site Visit

I am in Lusaka today on an impromptu visit. I was hoping to practice my hitch hiking skills and come to Lusaka tomorrow, but I got a ride from a Peace Corps vehicle. I was excited to save a bunch of time on travel and upload some pics to Facebook and I even brought my camera USB connector but, of course, I forgot my stinking camera! So I thought I'd just give you a few updates.

MY HOMESTAY
I have been very blessed with a great homestay family east of Lusaka for Peace Corps Training. While my host father is from Luapula Province, he was still excited to hear that I, his sixth Peace Corps Trainee (PCT), will be stationed in Central Province less than what appears to be 20km from Serenje in Central Province, where the PC has a provincial house! I'll be talking more about my new site later. At my host family's residence, there are five detached structures where ten people live, including me. I feel very privilged because I get my own thatched roof mud hut, whereas the other nine family members share two not particularly large structures for sleeping. My host parents and four of their children (two are under two years old) are sharing the main building that is maybe 300 square feet and triples as a kitchen, the parents' bedroom, and a living room (which is only accessible from outside and adds 150 sq ft to that structure). The other three boys (one of whom is my host mother's nephew who lives with us because, so they tell me, schooling is cheaper out here...but he's not in school this trimester), live in a 200 sq ft structure. My hut is not more than 150 sq ft and probably more like 100 sq ft. All the same, I'm really enjoying my time here. I have many roommates, albeit in the form of wall spiders, thousands of termites, and a few sporadic cocroaches that come "home" whenever they feel like it (I fortunately only see them every couple days). I don't have mice or rats or ants (inside my hut at least) or snakes as roommates, thank God. I've become quite a fan of burning termites alive when they so choose to show themselves by building cool structures on my wall. The cocroaches are basically blind and thus pretty easy to kill if you use a folder to squish them. Wall spiders are much more elusive because they move SO fast. Fortunately they leave me alone and aren't poisonous. Zambia does have some wicked looking spiders, only a few of which are poisonous. Luckily I haven't seen any of the poisonous buggers.

I should clarify that I'm not complaining; some of the other 47 volunteers (yes, not 49...one made the decision to go home to America after a miserable upset stomach, and another got engaged two weeks before leaving for Zambia and quit to be with her lover) have bats and mice as roommates. Also, some of my fellow PCTs (Peace Corps Trainee) have host families who are so worrisome of them that they don't hang out with the rest of us much nor do these PCTs drink even one beer at the bar for fear of their host moms smelling beer on their breath. Alcoholism is a problem here in Zambia, and I don't admit to drinking because I've been told that when people ask you if you drink they really mean do you get drunk, and I do not drink to get drunk.

At my host family's residence they grow corn, sweet potatoes, peanuts, a few bananas and papayas, pumpkins, a bit of sugarcane, and squash among a couple other items. I generally eat freshly grilled corn every day, which is great! Corn meal porride, called nshima (or ubwali in the language I'm learning, Bemba) is the staple food here, and Zambians find it perplexing that we Americans do not have a staple food. So I just end up telling them our staple food(s) are starch based. In addition to nshima as their staple food, Zambians are well known for their abuse of salt and vegetable oil for cooking. For those of you who know me well, you won't find it weird that I thank anyone who cooks me a meal with little to no oil or salt, and, when a meal is prepared with a lot of oil I definitely do my best to squeeze out the oil (like eggs, or soya pieces which are similar to tofu).

TECHNICAL TRAINING
I have to downgrade my technical training rating from a B+ to at least a B-. We are not maximizing the time we are together in sessions, nor are we going into enough depth on the material we do cover. I'm really working on being more respectfully vocal about my concerns and suggestions, because my job for the next two years will be centered around giving feedback and promoting behavioral change. So yesterday we had meetings with all of the important PC Zambia officials, and I expressed all of my concerns and told them exactly how I could better thrive in PST (Pre Service Training).

Specifically, we do WAY too much group work. Yesterday for example, we had a session on providing feedback to our Zambian teacher counterparts and we began the session with random pairings of us PCTs to demostrate positive, negative, and constructive feedback. But for the savvy reader, you would notice we did not first go over HOW we should be giving Zambians feedback. Does it not make sense to first present to us the material we should be getting out of the session, and THEN have us demonstrate what we've learned? I coined the term "sink or swim" as the type of instruction we PCTs are receiving: either you swim because you already have knowledge or past experience with the material, or, alternatively, you sink because you are being thrown into group work and you have now knowledge or past experience with the material we cover. So as a mostly true generalization, we are sick of group work! And yet group work is one of the very tools we as upcoming Zambian coteachers must demonstrate in the classroom to help move the Zambian classroom toward the Learner Centered Model. So it's frustrating that our trainers can't even get it right (right as in using the learner centered tools in a constructive and meaninful manner).

Another part of my frustration comes from the fact that I thrive on receiving instruction from experts, yet the supposed experts in the field of education and development generally are sitting on the sidlines of our sessions and allowing a currently serving PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) to facilitate the class! What the heck??!! I understand that the PCV has a lot of valuable information to share with us, but I would rather be instructed by a very well educated Zambian than a PCV.

Moving along--and away from venting--I get to coteach in a Zambian classroom twice this upcoming week. Three weeks ago or so I had the opportunity to coteach, and it went very well! There were three instructors in total for a fifth grade lesson on suffocation. The Zambian teacher was very accommodating and let us facilitate the lesson, and the other PCT who cotaught with me was a teacher in the States. This was good practice at the ultimate in classroom coteaching. This upcoming week I anticipate the Zambian teacher to take a greater role in the delivery of the instruction, whereas the last time I cotaught the Zambian teacher only translated into Nyanja as necessary.

SECOND SITE VISIT
I returned to Chongwe on Thursday from what will soon be my permanent home for the next two years. I will be stationed in Central Province, 20km from the boma (aka, large town) of Serenje. My supervisor is the head teacher at the zonal center school. His name is Mr. Chungu and he is very friendly and flexible, qualities I am really pleased to have in a counterpart. The zonal center school, which is about 1.5km from my home, is great! There are just over 500 pupils, and I was happy when I saw that this school had "talking walls," that is, they hung educational material on the walls instead of leaving the walls bare.

In my zone there are nine active schools, the farthest of which is 16km from my home. I am supposed to be working four days a week in the classroom for a full day. For each of the three terms of the year I am expected to work with 2-4 teachers and I can work at two schools during one term. However, I cannot work at any one school for more than two terms.

Some areas where I know the community can use my assistance is in addressing the following issues: pupil absenteeism (some pupils walk upwards of 15km to school daily, and when it rains classes are reduced to half of enrolled students); HIV/AIDS outreach and education (there is a community drama group that does performances on the topic, among others--so cool!); women empowerment; on the part of teachers, implementing more learner centered methods of instruction in the classroom; and, among other areas, health and nutrition (including basic hygene).

My brand new thatched grass roof mud brick hut is about 400sq ft with three rooms! I'm so excited, and I can't wait to upload pics!

SENDING MAIL
My mailing address is as follows:

Marcus Kendrick/PCV
P.O. Box 850010
Serenje, Central
Zambia

I would love to receive letters from you!! :-)

For those of you who would like to send me (or other PCVs) books, the best method seems to be purchasing books on http://www.betterworldbooks.com/ because they ship anywhere in the world for only $3.97!!!!! I just bought "Why Evolution Is True" and with shipping it was less than $13!!! Woo hoo!

Well, I have to go. Take care. More updates to come!