I'll start with the story this post is titled after: insoka in the insaka. Insoka is snake in Bemba, and an insaka is a semi-open round structure with a roof and low walls but no doors. Most of the training sessions we have at the training center take place in a big insaka, and on one of the first days we were all sitting there having a session on something when suddenly there was a commotion at the back of the room. People started screaming and running away and it turned out a brownish gray maybe 4 foot long snake had wandered in. Chairs were overturned and bags were scattered as we all ran to the other side of the insaka, and some of the Zambian trainers went outside and grabbed some big rocks and threw them at the snake and killed it. It was all over very quickly, and once the dead snake had been disposed of we all picked up our stuff and went back to the session. Of course given my feelings about snakes I was not too pleased, but I did learn two important things. One is that snakes generally are not aggressive (although apparently mambas are an exception). This one seemed sort of confused by all the commotion, like it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The second is that if you see a snake, Zambians are very quick to take care of it for you. I had heard that this was the case from other volunteers and I am relieved to learn that it is quite true.
Most days I bike to language class in the morning, bike home for lunch, bike to the training center for afternoon tech sessions, and then bike home in the evening. I am not a super confident biker, but I'm lucky enough to live pretty close to the training center. My ride is only about 10 minutes, and most of it is on the tarmac. The tarmac was only paved a month ago, so my short ride is even easier than it was for previous training groups. The thing I don't like so much about the bike ride is all the kids I have to pass on my way. The young ones were cute at first because whenever you pass you get a chorus of "How are you! How are you!"s. I usually greet everyone in Bemba, which the kids think is funny. But as they got more used to seeing us every day the kids got bolder and decided they wanted to grab onto our bikes as we pass. I'm not a fan of that because I'm afraid they'll break their fingers by sticking them in the gears, or they'll knock me over into traffic. We were taught how to tell them to go away in our language classes, so one afternoon when they came over to grab my bike I said in my meanest voice, "Iwe! Fuma apa!" They retreated and now they usually just giggle at me from afar. Our newest bike annoyance is the maybe 13 year old boys who shout "Hey sweetie!" when we bike past. Sigh.
Another important thing I have learned recently is the importance of staying hydrated. The water from my filter at home is clean and safe to drink, but it tastes terrible. Kind of like charcoal. It's gross. I usually fill multiple water bottles with the nice water at the training center whenever we're there and it works fine, except for when we're not there from Friday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. Rather than being a responsible adult and tolerating the gross water, I just didn't drink very much over the weekend and on Monday. I was already slightly dehydrated because I was sick on Saturday, so not drinking enough water for a few days made it way worse. I was super tired and not feeling well at all, plus I was in a terrible mood. I was complaining to Aubrey on Tuesday and she said, "How's your poop?" When I told her it was fine she commented that at least I wasn't losing water that way. I realized I had forgotten to be thankful that I didn't have diarrhea, so I drank a ton of water that afternoon and I felt 1000% better. Apparently all I needed was some water and an attitude adjustment.
Training is going well so far, but it's very busy and tiring. I have pretty decent internet access on my phone, as long as I can keep it charged. Keep an eye out for future blog posts on my host family and learning Bemba.
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