its official, i'm a peace corps volunteer.

yes i have made it thru training in one piece and with a lot more knowledge and stories than i came to zambia with. last monday was our swearing in ceremony which was very cool. there were speeches by all sorts of important people from the zambian gov't, american embasy & peace corps. also some of the trainees gave speeches in local languages and my language class sang a traditional zambian song which was thouroughly enjoyed by the audience. that nite was a lot of fun, very kumbaya-ish with all 52 of us new volunteers and our training staff having a huge bonfire and singing and what-not.

after a morining of tearful goodbyes we headed to solwezi, our provincial capitol to buy all of the stuff we'll need at our houses in the village. it's been a very busy few days and i'm anxious to get posted at my site tomorow, to begin the work i've come here to do.

a little bit about my province...northwest province has about 30 volunteers currently from all five peace corps zambia projects: rural aquaculture promotion, linking food, environment & income, hiv/aids project, learing at toanga market and community action health plan (for more info see the peace corps site). our new intake of volunteers is 12 people: myself, dan, kit, jeremy (rap), toper, tim doug (life), amy, beth, tess, bob & paul (hap). its a real interesting mix of people from new jersey to california and all over in between, so i'm really excited to spend some time with all them over the next two years.

well i guess thats all for now, it will be a while till i can post again but by then i will have some fish farming and village stories to tell. wish me luck!