My New Village

So I've been in my new village for about two weeks now and I just want to say how happy I am there. It is very different from my old village. Fisheni is home to about 200 households and over 1000 people. My headman is great and I've already had my community entry meeting and I've begun work with my fish farmers. They are very motivated here and I'm excited about all the potential this area may have. The only downside is that water is an issue in this community which could cause us some problems with the fish ponds. I'll cross that bridge when I need to.

The view above is walking towards my house. The village is right on the tarmak which is great. It only takes me about an hour to get to town as apposed to the three hour journey before and I'm actually 25km from Chipata. My family is wonderful. They've helped me so much in the past two weeks from building my drying rack to clearing my yard and fixing my latrine. My Ambuya makes me Mteteke (porridge with ground nuts) almost every day. She's a great cook. My families dog just had puppies so I'm hoping to adopt one. Its about time I have a puppy.

To the left is my house and my kids dancing around. I love this house. Its big, the roof doesn't leak and I don't have any mice!!!!

I've already met one of the three women's groups in the area and I'm going to be working with them soon. I'm also heading to the school, Chinghala next week to introduce myself and see if I can start teaching English there once a week. Many things planned. I'm starting over, but its definitely for the better. However I just ran into an old farmer of mine from Kapatamoyo as I was walking to the Internet Cafe today and I'm planning on going there the end of March to continue teaching about fish farming. He said many people are upset that I had to leave but its okay since I'll be able to continue some work there.

So thats whats going on in a nutshell. March 16th we'll be saying good-bye to five wonderful pcv's in my province. I'm sad to see them go home, but after two years of service they've all done a fabulous job here and I wish them all the best.