Market

One of the objectives for a PCV is to integrate into your community. For many reasons, but it's important to try and belong in your community. One of the ways of doing that is establishing relationships with the people you meet frequently in town. It's sort of a daunting task to begin, since we live in a such a large community, who do you befriend first? And when we go to market, how do we know which lady to buy from first, who will give us the best deal?

So JB and I have tried to go everyday to the little market to buy one or two things. This way people start to know us and us them. So far I think it's working quite nicely. We already have an onion seller, a bread boy, a coke lady, soap lady, and a garlic guy. We try to say hello to each one everyday. Yesterday we didn't go into the market because we just didn't need anything, so that today when we went some of our market ladies commented on how we were gone for a day. It may not seem like a lot or a big accomplishment, but it truly. The ladies are starting to know us, call out to us hellos (by our actual names!), and wonder where we are if we don't show up. It was a pretty nice feeling today. Also the coke lady now lets us take home coke bottles since she knows we'll bring them back! It's the small victories that count. :)

Making a Home

Well, JB and I are in Zabzugu for the long haul now. Our trip up from training was long. I don' think we'll be traveling down south more than a few times. It takes about 14-20 hours for the trip and needs to be at least 2 days, but possibly 3 depending on what fun things come our way. So that's a major turn off for long distance traveling. However we are close to Tamale which pretty much has everything we'd need, and that's only 3 hours away. Our town of Zabzugu also it fairly large as far as Peace Corps placements.

As we've been going out looking for things for our new home, we've discovered that Zabzugu has pretty much everything we need. The permanent shops have a lot of the basics, such as sugar, eggs, powder milk, and random household needs. And the market is very large, so every 6 days we'll be able to do major shopping. However, things are very similar that are for sale. When it's tomato season, most stalls will have tomatos, and then for the rest of the year they will be hard to come by. So there's always at least one veggie that will be available I believe, it just might be what we eat everyday for a month..haha...should be fun.

One thing that's been an interesting development is how myself and fellow PCV's have evolved our tastes. While I was a picky eater as a child, in recent times I feel like I have definitely expanded my tastes. However, now that's to a whole new level. It's amazing how the body craves certain nutrients. I wasn't a huge egg eater back in the US, but now they're quite tasty, mainly because they're a major source of protein for me. JB and I will always eat what small veggies make it into our meals first and if we get meat to eat, we'll eat it all. Also some volunteers eat the bones of the chicken, which I still can't do, but they enjoy it.

No food here goes to waste, if you're not going to finish your meal, which is kind of unlikely, then there will be another volunteer or neighbor who will eat the rest. But there are no garbage disposals in the sinks here (there are very few sinks for that matter) and there isn't a readily available place to throw out your rubbish. So everything is used to the full extent. Quite an amazing contrast to the US.

We wanted to thank everyone for the packages. They truly are wonderful to get! The food is wonderful to eat and really brings home here to us. And the random assortment of goodies are great just to have around, use, and entertain. I now have many a puzzles to complete, books to read, and comforts from home. So thank you very much!!! Even the bags that things are mailed in are being put to use! (see there is no wasting here)

I hope that everyone's summer has been enjoyable! Hopefully everyone has soaked up enough sun and are ready for the fall. Oohh, another random tid-bit, is that we're not tanning here! Kind of strange considering the amount of sun we've been exposed to, but the malaria meds we take are preventing tanning...so I'll be pale in two years when you see me, even though I've been living in Africa. Anyways, enough of my ramblings. We miss you and love you guys!