Today I moved into my hut for real. This is the first day of my next two years of indepent service.
I'm homesick. When I first came to Zambia my host mom spoiled me with a lovely little hut, great food, personal space, and taking care of all my real needs. Shit just got real out here. I expected to find a bed frame in my hut, like my counterpart said I would, which I didn't. I did laundry and because the well is already starting to run dry, I didn't really have enough water to wash my clothes well. Moving is stressful anytime but its real hard when u get dropped off an hour from anything that resembles a city and hardly anyone speaks English. I'm sure once I'm settled in ill feel better but for today I miss the statesand my family, shoot I even miss my host mom. although I have to remind myself this is a job and its bound to be challenging. I think its especially hard because I've been enjoying just being around Americans and living with electricity and running water for over a week. I felt overwhelmed by all the nyanja and like I didn't understand or remember much of anything.
When I arrived there was literally 30 people here to great me. They helped unload the cruiser and then grandma grabbed my hand and led me to eat nsima. Afterwards I did laundry and tried to settle in. I even managed (after a few tries) to build a shelf to put my clothes on.
Later on I bathed and then went with 4 of my teenage sisters to a celebration of a. Young woman getting her period the first time. They took her shirt off and tied a chitenge around her hips and had her follow one of my sisters in dancing as they sang and played drums. Man can they move those hips!! After a few songs they deemed it appropriate to also teach me how to be a woman and please a man by having my also imitate the dancing. I was terrible. After a while the younger woman sat down and it was just me imitating. I had fun with it but it wasn't my favorite experience. There's dances of moving ur hips while ur in all different positions as well as one where I pretended to smell my pits and crotch. Haha its how zambian culture teaches women so I do feel lucky to be included and very grateful only women and kids were there. I'm on my way to being a real Zambian woman, I carried 20 liters of water on my head today, and afterward went back to get another bucketful which I also carried back on my head. I'm so afraid of the well drying up.
After the puberty party my sisters and I walked home singing songs and dancing which was fun. We had dinner, the same as lunch, nsima, pork (with the rind), and green veggies. I'm looking forward to being able to cook for myself and feeling at home, right now I just feel scattered. People are all very nice and excited to see me and work with me.
Tomorrow I might start building my couch or bedframe. I can't lie, I was feeling a little down, and then I looked at facebook and saw other people complaining and it gave me comfort. Hey misery loves company. I'm really happy I have movies on my kindle which I'm going to cuddle up with right now. Goodnight, and I'm looking forward to a better tomorrow. Only 726 days of my service left.
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