I just returned from second site visit, where we all got to spend a few days in groups with a current volunteer in our province, then a few days alone at our future sites. I've been looking forward to second site visit for ages now, and it was so great to finally get to see what Northern Province is like, what my future home is like, meet some people in my village, and meet some other volunteers in Northern at the prov house.
For the first part of my second site visit I went to Chikakala, which is in Mpika district. Ginny and I stayed with Genevieve, a health volubteer who is COSing in a few weeks. Ginny is replacing Genevieve, so she got to spend her entire second site visit at her future site. Genevieve's catchment area is really spread out so we rode bikes around a lot to other villages in the area. We went to an under 5 clinic one day, which is where mothers bring their children to get weighed and track their growth progress, get vaccines, and get vitamin A and dewormed. We got to give a talk to some of the mothers about nutrition in Bemba, which was really intimidating at first but it was great practice and it got a lot easier as we went. On a different day we did a village inspection for mosquito nets with the headman and some NHC (neighborhood health committee) members. They had a net distribution about two weeks before we were there, so we went house to house to ask if people had hung their nets yet. If they had, we asked to see so we could make sure they were hung correctly. If they hadn't, we asked if we could help hang it for them. It was a really good way to meet a lot of people and see the village, plus we talked to people at every house about how to care for their nets so I got another chance to practice speaking Bemba. People were very patient with my slow and not-that-confident attempts at Bemba, which I really appreciated.
Aside from getting a taste for what types of things a health volunteer might do, we also spent a lot of time talking to Genevieve's neighbors, playing with her adorable cat Kasha, cooking, and having Bemba classes with ba Lombe in preparation for our big language exam coming up. It's always nice to get out of training for a little while and experience something a little more similar to what our lives will actually be like for the next two years, and I had a really good time.
After five days at Genevieve's site, I headed off to my future site. It's about 20km south of Kasama, the provincial capital. I got to see the house I'll be living in, meet my neighbors, get water from the borehole at the school, and practice cooking for myself on a brazier, and that was just the first day. Each of us has a host in our village to help facilitate our introductions in the community and show us around, and mine is Mr. Lewis Chilongo, the chairperson of the Musa NHC. He's really great and I feel very lucky to have a host who is so well respected and involved in the community. Every day he would stop by a few times just to check in and see how things were going or to take me to meet people. I went with him to meet the headman, the teachers at the school, the clinic workers, and the principal of the farm training institute nearby. I also went to church and introduced myself after the service, so I met a ton of people that way. I watched a soccer game at the field behind the school as well, and that was fun except I couldn't help but cringe every time someone kicked the ball because most of them weren't wearing shoes. Ouch.
I was so so excited to finally see my house and my village, and now I'm even more looking forward to moving there. I can already see some potential challenges in my community, but there are even more opportunities and resources and great people so overall I'm super pleased with everything and anxious to get started. Now only a few weeks of training are left before we swear in and become official volunteers!
