Finding a home

It's been almost 9 months since I've been in Zambia and I'm feeling at home more and more.  One of my grade 6 pupils, Iness, invited me over for lunch the other day and I fell in love.  Her family is wonderful and I have finally found a place to go and relax/vent/hang out in my village.  Iness has an older sister, Hope, who just had a baby a week ago and Hope and I get along really well. She speaks fluent English and we can even use sarcasm with each other.  I spend an afternoon or two over there every week just hanging out and eating lunch.  It's about a 45 minute walk down a beautiful path.  I love that I have somewhere to go that I feel completely comfortable in the silence that often comes when sitting around with Zambians.  Iness also comes over to visit a couple times a week.  Last week we started cooking together.  I showed her and a few others that were over how to make stir-fry.  They loved it and I loved being able to share my cooking again.  I've really been missing being able to cook and share meals with people, so this has been a wonderful addition to my village life.  Hope also really enjoys baking so we are going to start cooking/baking together once the baby is a bit older.  I'm feeling really blessed to have such wonderful people to spend time with in the village.  And the two youngest sisters are great too.  Blessing is 6 and starting grade 1 in January and Agape is 4 and full of spunk.  The whole family is just wonderful!

I'm at the year and a half mark and for some reason its making my outlook on my time here seem much different.  A year and 7 months sounded SO long until I would be home, but a year and a half sounds not only do-able, but fast.  The next 6 months are packed full of activities so I know it will fly, and then I only have a year left.  Crazyness!  But I am, for the most part, really enjoying my time here in Zambia.  I still have my days where I wonder what in the world I'm doing here.  But my women's group, adult literacy, grade 6 english class, english club and the every day activities of the village are keeping me nice and busy.  And then there's the time out of the village with other volunteers that is always a good time.

I still miss you all like crazy and am really looking forward to being back in America-land in a year and a half.  But for now, I'm embracing each day I have here and sending my love across the ocean.