New Address & Explanation of time spent here...

I have a new home, and a new address!
Henceforth, dear friends, you can send your love letters to:  Andrea Mayrose/Peace Corps Volunteer, P.O. Box 420083, Mbala, Zambia, Africa.  (One might think the continent unnecessary, but current volunteers advise including "Africa" since Mbala is not as well known as Lusaka and some mail tends to make its way elsewhere...like to India.)
I don't actually live in Mbala, but I live in a village less than 50km away, and I imagine I'll be able to collect the post every two weeks or so.  The old address (listed in an old post) is still accurate, but will be very delayed.  Once mail gets to country, it will sit at the Lusaka office for a while, then make its way to the Provincial House in Kasama.  It's unlikely I'll be at the house more than once or twice a month, so that could be quite delayed.

I've also realized that most people have no idea what I've been doing. Here's a breakdown, a bit, then time to eat a delicious group dinner again. (Another 6 or so people showed up at the house, returning from vacation at Lake Tanganyika, so if you can only imagine...there are almost 20 of us.)

I left Salem, SD on January 28, 2011, spending a few days in Philadelphia with my mom.
"Staging," i.e., getting all the people for a particular training class together in one U.S. city so they can turn in some paperwork and fly out together, took place January 31st & Feb. 1st, in Philly.  We departed for Zambia on February 2nd, and arrived Thursday, February 4th.  Our training progressed thus:
Fly-In--Feb. 4 through 7--this was initial meetings, paperwork, a new "Ring-In" ceremony, and trainings of a very general nature.  We stayed at a hostel/guest house at/near the National Resource Development College (NRDC).
First Site Visit--February 8 through 11--we left Monday morning in small groups of 3 or 4 (there were 29 in the original training class) to stay with current volunteers at their sites.  "Site" means the village/area where they stay and work.  This was to allow us to see, almost immediately after arriving in-country, how volunteers live and work.
Training--February 12 through 20--We returned to NRDC on Thurs, Feb. 11--a week after our arrival.  We learned our language groups (there are over 72 languages in Zambia, 6 were taught in our training class...what you learn depends on where you'll be living) on Friday, Feb. 12, and transitioned from the dorm-like accomodations there (where we spent Thursday night) to individual host families in the Chongwe area.  We began training (cross-cultural, medical, security, technical--for our project as educators--and language) at the Farmer's Training Institute on February 13.
Second Site Visit--late March--this was embedded into training. We were dropped off at our actual sites to stay for about 5 days.  (I lived in my actual house, with a sleeping bag and a few borrowed buckets and dishes.)  The idea is to meet the community so that we know a few more specifics about our situation (sites vary enormously) so that the remaining training can help address site-specific concerns.  We then met at current volunteer sites in language clusters--so I and my fellow "Mambwe Mama" (Mambwe is spoken only in a small area of Northern Province, and a bit of Tanzania, so there are only two of us learning that language) met at the home of a current Mambwe-speaking volunteer.  Our language trainer also came to this part of second site visit, which lasted about 4 days and included language and cultural training activities.
Cultural Day--February 19--This was our graduation ceremony to thank our host families, the teachers who helped us in our technical training, and others.  We cooked a big "American" meal, had a Zambia dance troupe as guest performers, and said goodbye to the families with whom we'd lived for 11 weeks.
Swear-In--February 21--This was our official induction as Peace Corps Volunteers (rather than Trainees, as we were previously).  This took place at the Ambassador's residence in Lusaka and was pretty formal, even a bit more so than Cultural Day.
Posting--this is my current stage.  We're all in our Provincial capitals buying necessary groceries and household goods so we can "nest."  This is a bit longer this time around, due to the Easter weekend holiday--shops aren't open as they otherwise might be.  By the end of this week, we'll all be in our sites.

Then begins Community Entry--the 3-month period where we don't have vacation or Provincial House privileges.  The idea is that we are to remain in our district (not necessarily our village, but the surrounding area) for three months so that we integrate into the community slowly but well.  It's also a unique facet of Peace Corps in that the work we do is primarily observation and relationship-building.  Our goal is to assess the needs of the community.  The RED (Rural Education Development) project of which I am part is more highly structured than some Peace Corps programs, but even so we are meant to assess the needs of the schools in our zone.  I won't show up and start teaching or training teachers.  I'll show up and observe teachers, observe students, get a sense for what the community is and what it wants and needs.  After settling in, collecting a lot of baseline data, and becoming members of our respective communities, our training class will reconvene near Lusaka for a two-week In-Service Training in mid-August.

Hope that helps a bit.  Every Peace Corps program is a bit different, so this may not translate to other Volunteers in other countries.  In fact, the logistical details of this training differ even from the last training, and from the next, so it's an active beast.  Things are great--Peace Corps/Zambia is a great fit for me, and I'm excited to get to my village.  Love to all!