The content of this blog is the creator's own thoughts and does not represent the views or opinions of the Peace Corps or the United States Government. I would also like to apologize for all my spelling and grammatical errors... there will be a lot.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Helping Zambian Girls GLOW (You can help too!)






Man this past week has been all GLOW related. Myself and another volunteer thought it would be a good idea to have our girls clubs celebrate women’s day together. After a lot of planning and a few minor heart attacks later it actually happened. The event consisted of my girls club (120+ girls), her club (15+ girls), a group of interested girls from another of my schools (9 girls + mentor), 4 Peace Corps volunteers and whoever else wanted to show up. The girls were fantastic; they sang, danced, said poems, and had a debate. I was lucky and managed to wrangle up 3 guest speakers and enough nshima and beans to feed everyone.


Our GLOW 2012 camp is now officially booked for November. We start official planning soon. Which means I’m going to be asking for… DONATIONS! I’ll post more about our needs and the official link to donate to the project after my grant gets approved. GLOW is a fantastic project; it has been the single most rewarding aspect of my Peace Corps service. Girls in Zambia face so many challenges and GLOW helps the rise above it, so they can have a fighting chance to improve their own lives. While we work out the details, have your hearts (and maybe your wallets) open to helping us this year. In the mean time enjoy my video about the fantastic women/girls in my village Lumpampa.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Safari at my House!

Despite what the lion king would have you believe there are not zebra, lions and giraffes running around my house in the bush. I do however get some pretty interesting wildlife.

Black Mamba (The HOLY SHIT snake)

To be fair I get plenty of non death inducing snakes (currently snakes sightings at my house are 12). But I will never forget being cornered in my house by this jerk. I was minding my own business in the middle of a bright sunny day, going in and out of my house cooking when all the sudden right in front of my doorway was this HUGE snake just staring me down. Now I’ve become used to seeing snakes near my house, until recently I had a snake family living under the bricks near my house. I’ve even killed snakes before. But this thing was a beast, I screamed like a little girl, grabbed my hissing cat, slammed my door shut, and hid in my house until I was sure it was gone. I’m convinced it’s somewhere in my yard still…

Seki-Seki (Demon mice)

I’m not sure what they are called in English, but try to imagine a chinchilla and a mouse fused together. This thing is adorable; it also has the capacity to fill me with nightmares. They crawl around my roof at night and make surprisingly loud scratching noised. This isn’t an issue I’m used to that, however they laugh at you. I’m serious they don’t squeak they laugh, it sounds like in the horror movie when evil children laugh at you.

Scorpion Spiders (Kill it with fire!)

There are some big spiders in Africa, but none freak me out more than this guy. Despite not being poisonous they are super aggressive. These guys show up out of nowhere and run at speeds you cannot imagine and if you don’t see them they snap at you! I don’t know what is about them that I hate, but they are the reason I have declared a war against spiders…

Impashi (Not again…)

My house is plagued but these. Imapshi are also known as flesh eating ants. They appear from nowhere and come in the hundred to the thousand and invade. The ants actually march and war on other ants/termites. So every few days, I get thousands of biting ants appearing to attack the termites that live in my trees. The thing about Imapshi is that they don’t care what is in their way. Oh you have a house? That’s nice they will just walk up the walls and continue to go straight through. You have to arm yourself against them and try to deter their path. Your weapons: fire, ash, soapy water, boiling water, or a stick to pound the living crap out of them.

Widow Birds (OMG a dragon!)


I don’t know anything else about these bird other than they are so cool to look at. The first time I saw one I seriously thought it was a little dragon. They have beautiful long tail feathers, and the fly in this really graceful motion that you can help but notice. Supposedly they only look like this when they are in mating season, the rest of the time they look like sparrows.

Other Creatures:

I have plenty of other creatures near my house; I get chickens, goats, cows, dogs, my cat and Iwes (children).