Well, Dan is  now at his  permanent site at a village outside of Serenje in the Central Province of Zambia.

 

I am writing an update for Dan. (This is his Mom).  We have not received an email or talked to Dan for 3 weeks.  He has described his new and permanent hut as quite comfortable.  It has 2 rooms and a front porch, an outside shower and a fenced in back yard.  He is the fourth Peace Corps Volunteer to leave in this hut.  Dan is thrilled. It is much nicer than he expected.  The down side to his new assignment is that he is quite a distance from his province house.  The province house is for the regional peace corps staff to go to meet up with each other.  His province house has electricity, but does not have email, DVD etc. 

 

 

 

We have received several letters from Dan.  He has been sick a few times, but seems to be accepting this in stride.  He has always loved to cook and has continued his interest in Zambia.  He loves the bread there. It is somewhat like french bread, but more filling.  He is eating a lot of corn, ground nuts and chicken. He bought some Lipton tea and has been drinking iced tea without the ice!  He has also had the opportunity to taste Impala a few times.  I believe it is something like a small deer.

 

He has had an opportunity to travel locally with other peace corps volunteers.  Hitch hiking can be quite interesting.  They could be in a landrover, the back of a flat bed truck or picked up by an Olympic athelete.  Dan met Samuel Matete.  He was a silver medalist in the Atlanta games.  Samuel lived in America for 15 years, but he wanted to return to Zambia and help his country. 

 

Dan just finished his third book. "Me talk pretty one day".  He was wondering why people are getting so hurt by the fact the the author of "a million little pieces" lied in his book.  How many drug addicts do you know that tell the truth....honestly.

 

I will now give you a rough description  of his assignment.  Dan has 27 schools, varying in size from 10-300 students.  The structures could be simply a radio under a tree to an actual school.  All this in a 30 km radius.  There is also an encampment for people with disabilities.  There is a clinic 3km from Dan's house.  To get to Serenje he will have to bike 54 km.  There are a total of 7 peace corps volunteers in the Serenje province.  There are 3 fish farming volunteers, 1 HIV education volunteer and a total of 3 involved with the Tanga market education program.

 

I would like to share one funny story. Dan and a friend received a gift of pumpkins.  They cooked pumpkin bread, seeds, boiled pumpkin and pumpkin bisque.  It took 7 hours. They had a lot of pumpkin......He has also brewed lemon grass from his back yard and made lemon tea.

 

He enjoys his new family in Zambia.