Zambia, Not Zimbabwe!!

With little less than three weeks left, I broke down today and cried.   It’s finally starting to sink in.  I’m getting ready to pack up and make this biggest move of my life thus far.   I wonder what it will look like?  I wonder how the people will sound and the food will taste.  What’s so special about this place?  I know I told the Peace Corps I was willing to go anywhere on the African continent, but Zambia really?  Half the people I tell where I’m going don’t know where it is, and the other half get it confused with its neighbor to the south Zimbabwe.  I’m moving to Zambia people, not Zimbabwe!!  With the exception of my international (AISJ) friends who travel this world like it’s nobody’s business and for those who have been to Zambia many times, I can only sit back and hear stories and memories that they have created with this foreign place.  Soon, I hope to do the same.  Ever since I got my invitation letter back in April, and officially accepted the role of a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have done everything in my power to read and research information about this foreign country.  Tightly land locked in Sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia is a country rich in natural resources and culture.  After gaining their independence from the United Kingdom in October 1964, Zambia has continued to remain a rather peaceful and quiet country.  However this country has been plagued with the terrible challenge of poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  With two-thirds of its population living under the poverty line and an estimated one million people living with HIV/AIDS, the world factbook ranks Zambia 12^th in the world of countries affected with this disease.  In 1994, the Peace Corps began service relations with Zambia and now 17 years later, over 1,300 volunteers have successfully completed a 27 month commitment of service.

I begin my service as a Peace Crops Volunteer July 18, 2011 and from there, I really have no idea what to expect.  And I can’t wait.  I will join about 35 other individuals and married couples in Philly as we collectively set of on a once in a lifetime adventure.  We will all be serving in part of the Community Health Improvement Project (CHIP) educating people in HIV/AIDS education, water sanitation, and malaria while in Zambia.  From Philly, we leave out of JFK airport for a 15hour 20minute flight to Johannesburg and from there continue on 2 hours from Johannesburg to Lusaka, in which I’m sure I’ll arrive slightly hung over, exhausted, funky and hungry.  Our first three months in Zambia will be spent just outside Lusaka with a host family doing intense language, job, and cultural training so that will be able to adequately serve our new community.  After our three months of training, my group will be dispersed throughout the country, living in rural villages with no running water or electricity.  I will live in a mud brick hut with a grass roof.  I am provided with a mosquito net, a bike and a helmet, and a water jug.  Sounds crazy right?  It’s like camping for two years!!!

With all that said, you would think that I would have freaked out or backed out by now.  But I’m still going.  I Gmail chatted with my buddy earlier this week who left for Tanzania in early June to see how her experience was going and after starting the conversation with, “Oh, Tanzania is so beautiful and the people are so nice!”  She ended the conversation with, “I washed an entire load of clothes today in a bucket and YES, I have bedbugs, roaches, spiders, mosquitoes and mice so be prepared for anything!”  Well, okay!!!  Thanks girl for the heads up.  At times I sit back and really try to imagine what my experience is going to be like.  I have heard some stories and witnessed other people’s volunteer experience through facebook and youtube, but what will MY experience be like.  What will Zambia offer to me?  How will these people and this place change my life?  Trust me; I’m not one of those people who plan on doing this experience in hopes of “saving the world”.  Jesus already proclaimed to have done that.  If anything, I want the world to change me.  Further open my eyes and my heart to something so special and powerful I will be able to hold onto it forever.  Yes, in my 27 month time commitment, I do hope that I will have positively affected someone’s life while in Zambia.  But I think the greatest gift in the end will be what Zambia has done for me, not what I have done for it. 

People constantly ask me why I have decided to do something so “crazy” as being a Peace Corps Volunteer.  It’s simple.  This is God’s decision, not mine.  When I got back from Kenya last fall, something inside of me was different.  The way I viewed life and love and relationships had all changed.  I wanted more of that experience.  I wanted to hear more stories of people’s testimony of struggle and success.   I wanted to learn and teach and just simply share my story with others.  God had put me in Kenya for a reason.  I am meant to truly serve others.   I also had come to the conclusion that I was very unhappy with my job at the hospital and that the field of nursing had turned into a political hierarchy of bullshit and corruption.  I’m also not in the business of killing people and if I had to witness one more of my patients go off to another unnecessary invasive procedure and die, I was going to go crazy.  So, with that said, I knew it was time for me to make a change.

I have no doubt in my mind that I’ll be okay during my 27 months of service.  My family and friends support and love me way too much for me to be scared or insecure about my decision.  I really hope to be open and at times vulnerable to the lessons and experience Zambia has to offer.  I hope that I can use this blog to creatively share with you all what I am experiencing while in Zambia.  I pray that some of you find the opportunity to come and visit me while serving and if so, please bring me some toilet paper and a Mr. Goodbar, and a Stella if you can get it pass customs.  I’ll drink it warm if I have to.  I love you all and I will keep in touch as often as I can.  Peace and Love!!

Nia “baby” Cheers