New Beginnings

48 hours of travel is more than enough for anybody. It makes me really glad that I am settled for the next six months - even if I am not fully unpacked yet. The travel was mostly uneventful; I met my wonderful new roommate (for the next 6 months at least) at Heathrow; even though we didn't manage to make contact until the end of the layover. I especially appreciated the view we had of northern Tanzania during the last leg of our journey, including a great view of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru peaking through the early morning clouds. In some ways, the travel was even longer than the two full days of airplane flights and layovers, with my baggage not arriving until this afternoon - though it did arrive fully intact. The wonderful admin assitants at work happily made the trip to the airport to pick it up for me, then deliver us safely back at our apartment together at the end of the work day today.

Travel aside, my first 24 hours in Zambia has been wonderful. On our arrival in Lusaka, we were taken to the most beautiful and luxurious apartment, where we met a few more staff from work. One wonderful colleague had taken charge of outfitting our apartment with all the necessities, so we walked in and found a living room with plush couches and chairs, and a large TV, a dining room table that very comfortably seats 8, a kitchen with oven, stove, a bright teal refridgerator, and all kinds of appliances - including a sandwich press (!), and two bedrooms, each with a queen sized bed and matching sets of leopard print sheets, pillows and comforters! Each room of the house has its own climate control with an air conditioner/heater, and today we recieved three very exciting additions - a microwave, cable TV, and INTERNET! Remember how I told you that living in Lusaka I would likely have access to more luxuries than in Richmond Indiana? Well it turns out I am living more luxuriously than any other apartment I have ever lived in (or will likely live in anytime soon).

In case our apartment doesn't sound nice enough already, it also has a pool! The sparkling blue water is extremely tempting, especially during the late afternoon when it is actually warm enough to consider taking clothes off, but the pool is unheated, and I think it might have to wait for a few months, an unseasonably warm day, or a day of temporary insanity to be used. Still, I hear that by October it is quite warm out, and I am looking forward to jumping right in!

It is easy to just talk about our living arangements since they are so nice, but we did get a chance to go into work for the first time this afternoon. Most of this week will likely be orientation, especially since our immediate supervisor will be in the Livingstone office until the end of next week. The office is a 15-20 minute walk from our apt, and today we chose our cubicals and met many of the 140 staff members, as well as recieving a breif orientation to the different projects currently being undertaken. Hopefully within the next few days we will get an opportunity to learn more about what we will be doing for the next 6 months. The general idea is that there is a job description with three tasks that must be accomplished, which between the two of us we will be responsible for doing, and then I will get a chance to do more technical work in quantification, while M. will be doing more technical work in monitoring & evaluation. The great part is, that since we will be living together and working next to eachother, we will also have the opportunity to learn about what eachother are doing! I am eager to get to work, and excited to get a chance to learn more about the current projects!

In Transit

I am currently parked on a stool along a busy thoroughfare of New York's JFK airport. The recent realization that my flight to London has been delayed by a little over an hour was mildly ameliorated by the fact that I found it out using a free wi-fi connection provided by a super-overpriced health food stall. And so, my now 6 hour layover can be spent writing a blog post for you, my dear reader.

It is hard to believe that I am actually on my way to Zambia. As I packed my daily planner today, I found the calendar I drew for myself back at the end of March. At the time, the three months until this departure date seemed an endlessly long time to wait. But over the course of the past few months, I crossed off squares with black "x' marks, one day at a time until I reached the first section highlighted in yellow - my trip to Uganda - with such a big trip and so many things to do, even then the second highlighted area seemed impossibly far off. And yet, it has snuck up on me. Despite my disbelief its actuality, June 20th arrived with the anxiety, excitement and tears that heralded the realization that I really and truely am leaving.

And despite the fact that I am going to miss home like crazy while I am gone, I am so excited for this new chapter and adventure. It is humbling to realize that there are many things that you don't know yet that you don't know, and really scary to decide you want to find out what some of them are. I have tried my best to prepare myself for that by packing the comforts that will get me through the hard and challenging moments; Ghiradelli chocolate chips, warm fuzzy slippers, and board games (Cranium party in Lusaka!). While I hope that these will lessen the moments of frustration, I know that they will never completely blunt the occassional (I hope) feeling of "what on earth am I doing here?" Of course, these are also the most important of moments, because when you recover, you know just a little more about who you are, why you are doing what you are doing, and what you still have to figure out. That is the adventure I am really excited for. The adventure of becoming me.

Home Again (Briefly)

It is 3am in Boston, and I have been awake for well over an hour. Travelling for 24 hours is never fun, but there is always something peaceful about the early morning hours that suddenly belong to you when you are seriously jetlagged. The next week and a half will be busy recovering, visiting, and planning to leave again. It seems somehow cruel to have such a short period of time at home, but I am happy to have it.

Back to Kampala

Yesterday we said our fond farewell to Nyabyeya. It has been a really wonderful three weeks, and a very successful conference. It is really strange to feel this all wrapping up after months of planning, including many days of anxiety, excitement and frustration. In the end, we had close to 80 participants earn certificates, and the feedback we have received is extremely positive regarding the impact the information and skills our participants have gained will have on their lives and communities.

In preparing my closing speech, I realized that the participants themselves are much like the seeds and plants that we have been teaching about for the past three weeks. Each one of them came with different roots; we had young and old participants, men and women, participants who are students or full time mothers and participants who are already large scale farmers or health care workers. Each one of them has a different goal, a different destination; like the seeds the agriculture class sowed which will grow to be maize, tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage and nakati (a green leafy vegetable), each one of our participants will take this training and implement it in a different way - teachers like Freda and Alex will go back to their schools and work with their students, government administrators like Robert will take the knowledge back to their work in planning and community development, farmers like Zed and Odongo will implement techniques to improve the output and sustainability of their crops, and young women and mothers like Josephine, Juliet and Gladys will implement changes in their homes that lead to healthier children.

The real change and effort comes on the part of each individual participant, and as conference organizers and facilitators, our role was little more than nurturing and fertilizing each seed as it begins to grow. We hope that as our participants continue to germinate their plans, CMU will be able to continue to support them through additional trainings, monitoring, and assistance in implementation. I look forward to following the progress of CMU and each one of our participants - I know that not every one will grow strong and tall, but I believe that some will really flourish, and have even already begun to plant their own seeds of change.