Fifteen things I learned at first site visit

1.  Never go on a long car ride without an ipod and a camera.

2.  Nshima is way better when your host mom makes it than when you eat it at the Barn Motel.

3.  Whenever someone greets you in Nyanja and you don't understand what they said, just say bwino and then repeat what they said.

4.  Babies generally do not like being weighed, but they can be tricked into getting deworming pills and vitamin A drops if their mom tells them it is a sweetie.

5.  Cooking on a brazier, doing laundry by hand, getting water from a borehole, and taking bucket baths are more time consuming than doing things the way I am used to,  but overall not bad.   (Although I'm sure I'll get tired of it soon.)

6.  A stick lying on the ground in the chimbuzi looks an awful lot like a snake when you go in there half asleep at night.

7.  If you are very lucky, your host dad will take you to see his garden and you will get to taste sugarcane and bring back some oranges and lemons.

8.  When you go visit the chief you are supposed to bring a white chicken as a gift,  but if you don't have a white chicken cookies from Shoprite are acceptable.

9.  People in the U.S. who have dogs train them to come when called, and in Zambia you spend most of your time telling dogs to go away.   You also constantly have to tell pigs, goats, and chickens to go away or they will eat your food or sometimes try to come into your house.

10.  Eggs don't have to be refrigerated in Zambia.  Apparently they only have to be refrigerated in the U.S. because they are pressure washed and it removes some membrane. Here they last up to a month at room temperature.

11.  There are at least 101 ways to use a chitenge.

12.  When you play the "I'm going to the chimbuzi and I'm bringing..." ABC game with health volunteers,  people bring iodine, sunscreen, and diabetes screening.

13.  You can put "Zam" in front of any word and it instantly becomes better.  Zamfriends,  Zambeef,  Zamtired,  Zamfries,  etc.

14. Peace Corps friends are unlike any other friends.  I'm having deep conversations about life and love and bodily functions and everything else with people I only met a week ago, and it's really great.

15.  Zambia is absolutely the most beautiful place in the world.