4 May 2008

Andy and Ashlee have had a great first week in their village. When I spoke with them yesterday they had just returned home from playing volleyball with their village at the church and were experiencing their first big thunder storm. They gave a speech that they wrote in their new language to the village. There is one local man who speaks very good English and he reviewed their speech for them before they gave it and they only had one word wrong so they were very excited about that. After their speech they had the village tell them what they would like to learn from they while they are there. Ashlee said that she was a bit surprised to hear that they wanted to learn how to do a household budget and learn about business planning. They also wanted to learn more about raising chickens, what to do with bananas and how to do karate. I went to the book store yesterday and got a book and set of flashcard for them to learn the basics about karate and Aundre mailed it out this morning. Andy said that he would try to teach them some basic stuff, even though he does not know much about karate. If there is anyone who knows anything about it and would like to mail or email them some additional information that would be great. I picked the book that was the easiest to understand and had a lot of pictures.

Ashlee said that everyone in the village has been great so far. They are respectful of their privacy and they had been warned that the children would hang around and stare at them, but so far the kids have helped pitch in with work when needed, but have not been bothering them. She said the previous couple had the children over to color each day and so they have been keeping that up. She said that she tells them words or points to things and the kids all draw it and then help her with the words. So far they have really enjoyed that time. If you ever send a packaged she asked that you include a couple of dollar store boxes of crayons as she said it looks like they will go through them pretty fast. I sent a couple of boxes in my package. They are going to work with the village school to start an art club as there is not art program in the school which she said will be great experience for them as they both plan to go into teaching when they return to the States.

They saw an Adventist church in Kasempa and decided to go to services on Sabbath. There is an Adventist church in almost every little town. Ashlee said that they were shocked to see her boss, the school principal, head mistress, language teacher and several others they had come in contact with at the church. Her boss asked them if they had come to town to look for him and when they told him no, they were Adventists and were coming to church, he was thrilled. She said that the sermons are in English and are then translated into the local language so that will be a good learning tool for them. The language teacher for the private school was there and it sounds like she may help in tutoring them which they were excited about. They can get Bibles and hymnals in their language so they are also planning on order each of those to help them learn. They were very excited to meet so many Adventists so far from home. Ashlee said that most of the people in church were educated professionals and they all spoke good English for the most part. She said they will plan to go every week.

They also made a stop at the market and bought a delicious pineapple which is very expensive ($1 US) for the locals, but Ashlee said is was very good. She said they can get a head of cabbage for $.50 and tomatoes for $.25. Fruit this time of year is pretty limited so she said if we send packages to add dried fruit. As soon as mango season hits they will have fruit coming out of their ears but for now it is pretty limited. I sent them some dried apricots, fruit leather and some Vitamin C drink mixes. She said that they have a great BOMA, nearby town (6K), that has everything they need so they are very excited about that. Some other volunteers have a 50-60K trek to the closest BOMA.

They are very happy and getting settled in. They should have their solar charger soon and will have their phone on all the time. More later…

1 May 2008

Yesterday I had a nice visit with Ashlee. 26 min. for $5.00 and that is money well spent. They were resting in the gazebo, that has a hatch roof, and they said it was very cool. They were resting from a long hard day in their new home. They have a small brick house with a cement floor. They were able to get a new bed mattress and have gotten the netting up around it to help with the bugs. She said her kitchen right now is buckets with tight lids. They had a welcoming party of 5 boys that came to check them out. They offered to help so she put them to work scrubbing the floor etc. One of the Boys decided he would rather help Andy catch mice.

A dog they have named Tosh came with the house. He is friendly and helps with the other rodents that are around. A cat may be in the future since I guess they are better at doing this job than dogs. But Andy loves the dog.

They were tired cause it is a 10 min. walk to get water and they had used a lot that day. They could hire someone to get water for them but think they will do it them selves to try and fit in. Ashlee says Andy needs to find smaller buckets cause she lost over half on the way home, but got a nice foot washing out of the deal.

They should have phone coverage where they are now when their phone is charged. Till the solar charger gets there, they will have to go to the closest town and they have permission at the Forestry office to charge their phone. It is about 15 K, so distance on their bikes.

Their yard has 6 mango trees and banana trees. There were ripe bananas last week when they were there but gone now, so some one else must have needed them. The garden has gone up into weeds so they will have a good job getting that ready, Ashlee took a lot of seeds with her in hopes to plant many things. Her project right now is to use the plastic bags they have by cutting them up and knitting them into what I think she said was a rug.

She mentioned that she has heard from some of you by E mail and says thanks. They are getting them even though it says they are out of the country. They only have 10 min each on the computer before they have to pay so keep sending them your e mails even thought they can't respond.

27 April 2008

Well it's official we are Peace Corps Volunteers. We were sworn in two days ago and in two days we will be dropped off at out village. We are really excited. Training was not very fun, and very hard, but we both passed our language proficiency test at higher levels then what was required(I was surprised with how well I did.) We also did very well on our tech tests for environmental Ed. and agriculture. We had a big ceremony at the Peace Corps head quarters with the ambassador and ministers from the Zambian government, it was pretty cool. For the next few days we will be shopping in Solwezi, which should be interesting since the only grocery store recently burned down, but we stopped at another city on the way here to get the things that we will no be able to find. I think it will be pretty fun, I love the market, it is so much better then the mall. The Peace Coprs gave us a bunch of money to get our house set up, but since Andy and I are moving into a site that other volunteers have been living at for 4 years we really do not need anything. So we are going to Zanzibar!!! ( One of the original spice islands.)

Andy and I also became Auntie and Uncle again a couple o days ago. Andy's sister had her baby and far as we know it is happy and healthy. Super excited!!!

Mom and Dad, we finally got our package. Thank you.

Andrea, remind me to talk to you about t-shirts next time we talk.

Aimee and Aundre, I am glad to hear that Linda is doing well, she is in our prayers.

Vimie, I sent you a letter let me know if you get it.

Christi, I sent you another letter, I do not think you will get the first I put the wrong postage on it, but Andrea got hers so let me know if you get two.

Marti and Warren, Email pictures of Henry when you get them I would love to see him.

We will be at the Peace Corps house for a couple of days so you can send email if you want. Love you guys.

Ashlee

13 April 2008

I just thought I would right a quick note to say hello to everyone.
Everything is going well here in Zambia and we are still having a
wonderful time. We have two more weeks of training and then we will
be off to our new home. Which we got to see last week and it is
wonderful. We are super excited. I do not have much else to tell
everyone, because Aimee and mom have been doing such an awesome job of
sending out all of our information to everyone every time we talk,
thanks guys. I hope everything is well with everyone back in the
states.
Love,
Ashlee
PS Andy borrowed a GPS unit from another volunteer so once we are at
our new home we will get the exact GPS location and you should be able
to put them into google earth and see exactly where we live.

23 March 2008

We talked with the kids this morning. They continue to do well. They go to language school and also are now doing Agricultural classes to help in their project. They thought they would be starting bee keeping this week and were excited about it. Their ag projects are sustainable projects, compost, gardening, preservation, etc. They are meeting the couple they are replacing this week but have apparently talked with them. They will have a 4 room house of brick with a metal roof and a toilet with a seat. They are in a compound with a family but will have the ability to cook for themselves. Mango trees are on their property. Their village is 8-9 km from Kasempa in the northwest providence. Apparently there are many good English speakers in their area, a good hospital in Kasempa with lots of European health care people rotating thru. I think Ashlee said they may be going to their site this week, not sure. They are happy and very busy. Andy is doing better at picking up the language and Ashlee is grateful for his help.

16 March 2008

Muji Byeppi,

Or hello in our new launguage. As you all know we have been in Zambia for over 3 weeks now, and everyhting is going good. We are in PST which is pre service training, and that kind of sucks, because it is 8 hours of school everyday. It will all be worth it when wer get to our village. We talked to the couple that has been living in our future home and they told us all kinds of great things about our village. We will be living 7 K out side of a town called Kasempa (look it up on Google earth.) The other couple did education, but they said that there was a lot of interest in the agriculture programs that we will be doing. We are super excited. They started some projects which I hope to keep going. One of which is teaching the women to can and preserve food, Which helps both with food security and income generation. So if you have any canning recipies that use tropical fruit send them my way. Also they grow a lot of okra and I would love to teach them to pickle that so somebody do some reasearch and send it to me( if you have time,) I would greatly appreciate it. Mom,.If you have any resources on can that could be easily mailed could you send them. There are no books that I know of that the PC provides.

So much is going on, but I only have a few miniutes. So that is all I will write now. We should have email access every few weeks so you can email. Also we do have a phone that we turn on on sundays if any one would like to call the # is 0976614162 (you will have to look up the country code)

Peace,

Ashlee

PS Tina say hello to Katie for me I do not have her email address with me, and let her know that I am trying to find her a monkey.

28 February 2008

We just heard this morning from Ashlee and Andy. They called at 6:00 a.m. They are 8 hours earlier than we are here in Mo. They were so excited!!! They were in their village where they will be going after their 3 month language training. Ashlee told me there is a 4 room, tin roof house with a great garden alread there, that another Peace Corp couple are now living, in that they will be inheriting. They will be in the North West Providane boarding Congo and Angola and will have an address for us for there later. Their address right now is Andrew and Ashlee Fritz PCV, Peace Corps/ Zampia Box 50707, Lusaka, Zambia. This is for letters not packages so if you have a package e mail and I will give you that address. (i sent a heavy letter yesterday and it cost me $10.)

We had a little trouble with contact as the number we had was not working. But the kids will have cell phone coverage but it is very expensive for them to call out but at least we can call them. They will also have internet about 15 miles from them so will beable to check it once in awhile.

Ashlee was walking to or from the garden area that she will be working with as we were speaking.(she said I am very dirty) she said she would have a 45 min walk every day to the garden. and that they were going today to see the project that Andy would be working with today as well. It was so good to hear her voice. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated and I will keep you posted as I hear.