To the next set of students...

Dear Future Cohort, 

I'm not sure if I just got lucky, or if a summer in Zambia will be the best summer you've ever had. If you are open to trying new things, eager to soak up new friendships, and willing to put yourself out there, I think you'll find it hard to leave once the end of July comes. That's not to say it will always be easy, but being able to adapt to your new community and take the hiccups as they come will greatly help things. Here's a list of things important to know: 

1) Zambians really are the friendliest people you'll ever meet. Sometimes this will annoy you because you're not really interested in engaging with someone shouting at you down the street and other times you'll meet great people through these chance encounters. I know that by the time many of us left, we had become friends with the staff at the Deli (great cafe in Kabulonga mall), the guys who sold us our airtime, and with just random strangers we'd pass regularly on our way to work. Open yourself up (when you feel comfortable) to striking up conversations with people when you're sitting on the minibus or things like that and you'd be surprised what wonderful things can come out of it. 

2) Your host family experience will really set the tone of the first month of your time in Zambia, so make sure to dive into it. You eat dinner every night together (which is awesome and was totally different from my own family), do things on the weekends together, and generally are always around each other. When I first arrived, I felt overwhelmed because I'm used to having alone time and not having any siblings; having three all of a sudden was exciting but also tiring and I often felt socially exhausted when I went to bed at night. That being said, once I moved out of the house I missed my family a lot. When you get home at night, always try to spend time with your parents and siblings. We only had 3 weeks really with our host family because we had the peace corps trip so put yourself out there and really make an effort to get close to them.

3) Try to engage thoughtfully with Christianity in Zambia. This was probably the hardest one for me because I’m not Christian and also really didn’t like how many Zambians’ devotion to religion involved the subjugation of women. It was helpful, however, for my roommate and I to actually go to church with our family, engage in conversations with many different people, and to see how it affects daily life. There are both good and bad parts to something that structures daily life in Zambia so much, but it is important to gain a nuanced understanding so you can avoid the generalizations and understand where it comes from.

5) When you get home from Zambia, people are going to ask you "how was Africa?" and express a some of the stereotypes that people from the West hold about "Third World countries" (I got this one a lot). It is your personal duty to set people straight, ("I don't know how the rest of Africa is doing, but Zambia was amazing!") and also relay your experience in Zambia parallel to anyone's experience in any country. Zambia was incredibly safe, people were incredibly kind, and yes there are some issues but there's plenty in America too. It's important that little by little, you help break some of those outdated notions because you will see when you're in Zambia that Lusaka and the other parts that you visit are so much more than that, and the people you meet deserve a lot more than being condensed down into stereotypes. 

There’s more to your time in Zambia which will be discussed during the pre-departure seminar and things you could only get from being in country, but this is just some stuff I thought was worth mentioning. Being in Zambia was such a joy and I think you’ll really love it if you dive in head first!