To the new volunteers coming in in July

Well, you're all in for a life changing experience; you will almost certainly experience vicissitudes in your emotions, spirituality, relationships, and perceptions of your own professional capacity. That said, I warmly welcome you to Zambia!

If you're at all like me, you've probably already joined the PC Zambia Facebook group and the discussion board for your intake. You're also obviously keeping up with blogs on www.peacecorpsjournals.com.

Take the recommended packing list in the Welcome Book as a guide and not the gospel. In my earlier blogs from February and before I included a list of items I brought to Zambia (also called Zam, or Zed. Zed being the British pronunciation of Z), and why I bought them.

I'm happy to report that all volunteers purchase, with their own money, cell phones from either Zain or MTN. If you buy an internet ready phone you can also easily keep in touch with friends and family online, and for really cheap (about $0.25 per mb or less, which on your phone takes a long time to use)!

Bring your laptop! You can leave it at the Provincial house or secretly keep it in your hut. The PC Provincial houses are getting wireless high speed satellite internet accessible by the volunteers! A friend leaving this week for Zambia is bringing me mine.

Get friends now to agree to be your pen pal. A letter from home is a great break from the stresses of training and any loneliness you might have after placement. Large care packages are even better! USPS ships flat rate boxes to Zambia so check their website.

New health and fisheries volunteers arrive in July and new education and agriculture volunteers arrive in February. With the exception of the high expectations of the education program, there is a lot of flexibility in your daily schedule after training.

That being the case, your success and satisfaction are highly correlated with, among other things, the effort you put in to your work. A PCV friend in the LIFE program finds him/herself at another volunteer's site half of the week because of difficulties s/he faces at site working with the community. A healthy dose of initiative could make this PCV's service more productive and enjoyable. Have you actually read the Welcome Book cover to cover?

Be sure to tell your family not to expect to hear from you for three days after leaving the States.

Another helpful tip worth sharing is that books can be shipped to you in Zambia for $3.97 when you buy them from www.betterworldbooks.com. A book I bought took seven weeks to arrive.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, buy, read and bring Ekhart Tolle's "A New Earth!"

I likely won't meet most of you except for those who will be placed in Central Province....the BEST province, haha. But we welcome you to Zed! Take care and happy packing!