After a long and tedious (though only for me and the poor flight attendants who had me on their service) journey from Newark I landed in sweltering Lusaka. After a little snafu at the airport, where I got taken to a hotel clearly too fancy for moi, I was taken to my (ironically named) Lodge Serenity. After coming to terms/surrendering to the challenging plumbing situation, I am feeling quite at home there, especially since they have intact bed nets! It should also be mentioned that there have been a total of 9 hours of sleep logged under the aforementioned bed net in week one. I don't think I have ever experienced the jet lag of these proportions!
The lodge staff are all super friendly and I made friends with one of the front desk girls. She was outraged by my lack of middle name, promptly gave me a Bemba name: Bupe (she said it means "gift", and no, I did not detect a not of sarcasm in her voice!) She was also disappointed in my lacking high heels, but that is an entirely different issue. I am barely able to navigate the dirt path that runs along side the road (a sidewalk, of sorts) in my very sturdy, flat shoes. This is especially fun in the dark as any semblance of street lights (on my walking route) is overshadowed by the blinding light from the on-coming cars.
The first week was busy and confusing on the work front. This is because my first week in Zambia coincided with a fascinating training program Helping Babies Breathe http://www.helpingbabiesbreathe.org/. (definitely worth checking out, by the way!) Since most of the staff was involved in facilitating the training I was left on my own, which gave me plenty of time to "study" my new, soon to be area of expertise. At the end of the week, I got the opportunity to go over next years wok plan. To say that it will be an intense year would be an understatement...travel, qualitative and quantitative research, data analysis, management and report writing-oh my!
The staff in the Lusaka office have also been amazing. I am sure I have pulled them away from their work more than they would have liked, but they remained super patient and helpful (even with elementary things like putting money on my sim card, a simple task I have not yet managed to do all by myself-don't ask). I am going to miss them-but planning a tentative ice cream outing over Christmas break.
On the social life front-I have been very lucky to have been introduced to friends of friends who have lived in Lusaka for more than 6 years. They have been an amazing, from letting me shower at their house (read challenging plumbing situation above) to feeding me to giving me all sorts of great life and work advice.
Stay tuned for week 2...
