This morning, when I’m walking past the borehole with my host mom, a two-year old comes running down the dirt path crying hysterically. I cringe. He had probably caught his fingers in the pump—I’d seen a child’s hand smashed and bloody last week from the same carelessness. But I’m confused—I don’t see any blood here.

“Is he okay?” I ask my host mom. “What’s wrong?”

She smiles, knowing there’s no gore involved.

“He’s running from you,” she says.

We both look at each other and laugh. I proceed to greet the group of children so they know I’m human.

“Mwabuka byepi.”

“Bulongo,” they reply, fidgeting and giggling.

My host mom and I continue down the path to our meeting.

While I’m sometimes keenly aware of my outsider status, I usually feel welcomed by the community of Mumbwa. For every woman who snubs me, there are two more who say, “Feel at home” and “Thank you for coming to Zambia.” For every man who tries to marry me after we meet on the road, there are two male coworkers who laugh at him and ask for invitations to my wedding. For every child who runs FROM me in fear, there are eight more who run WITH me down the road when I’m trying to exercise, thinking I’m a white pied piper who doubles as a cross country coach. So while I’ll always be the odd one in this town that doesn’t see many mizungus (white people), I don’t think I’ll always be the odd one OUT.

So now to business . . . you’re probably wondering what I do all day long apart from scare children. I walk four kilometers to an office every day to work for a non-profit called Community for Human Development. So far, I’ve mostly been figuring out what they do via conversations with coworkers, community/board meetings (outside under trees with chickens scratching around), and handshakes with partners like the Ministers of Health and Education and such.

The organization focuses on HIV/AIDS issues, women empowerment, and orphans/vulnerable children. Their initiatives include a home based care program and a youth AIDS education program, microenterprise loans to women, and the management of three community schools. I will focus on the schools—-in some classes, as many as half the students are single or double orphans. I’ll give workshops to the teachers (most teachers have completed grade 12, some only grade 9), be a curriculum hookup, and generally advocate for them and equip them however I can. I’ll probably start with advocating that the teachers get paid—they were supposed to get 80,000 kwacha ($20US) every month last year, but they received paychecks only twice.

But this week I’m focusing on the office. My three coworkers don’t know how to change fonts on the computer in the CHD office, let alone type properly, so I’m writing a basic computer course and training them. They are, as a trade, teaching me Kikaonde and then laughing at me.

And my supervisor just informed me that in two weeks I’m leading a workshop on psycho-social support for orphans. Alrighty then.

So while I’m not exactly running around every day (the pace of life here is much more like a tortoise than our beloved American hare), I am starting to find my feet.

I can’t do Internet much at all. It’s slow and ridiculously expensive—the hour I’ll spend here today will cost me 18,000 kwacha or $4.50 . . . which is a lot (see teachers’ salaries above). So you can call me—-totally free for me!—-or write letters if you’d like responses (see address in last blog). If you don’t mind, you can write e-mails and I’ll still read all about your life even if I can’t give you personal responses. Also, please don’t send large files because I can’t open them easily and the extra megabytes take forever to load.

Also also, here’s the ADDRESS FOR PACKAGES—-it’s different from my address for letters:

Amy Spaulding
c/o MCC
PO Box 33086
Lusaka, ZAMBIA

Oh and P.S. I moved into my new hut which is great AND my host family lets me eat dinner with them now, rather than in a separated place of honor at a table. Still working on breakfast . . . maybe it would help if I woke up earlier . . .