Tracey Graves
From February 2018 to September 2019, I had the most magnificent opportunity to serve as a volunteer for the United States Peace Corps, living and working in two villages the Nation of Zambia. The members of each village, as well as our local Zambian training staff welcomed me with such warmth and welcoming arms. As a city girl, it's hard to believe that strangers could bestow as much love on me, from day one, as the Zambian community had. But experience after experience taught me that it's ingrained in their blood. Sharing and giving is a way of life. Even if there was never much to share or give.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my Zambian brothers and sisters from the city! The ones who simultaneously scoffed and saluted my living in a village with no electricity or running water when you couldn’t pay them to do the same. They introduced me to fast streets and towns in the capital of Lusaka just as wholeheartedly as my village counterparts introduced me to the dirt roads connecting village to village.
Whether on the hillside washing clothes by hand at the nearby stream, or in town partying it up for New Years Eve at Victoria Falls, one thing remains the same, the love Zambia and its people have to offer, will live with me forever more.
Please enjoy this slideshow of select photos from my service!
Lesa a mi pale… God bless you!
For our first three months of service, myself, along with 34 other volunteers from around the country, trained in Aquaculture (Fish farming), 5 different local languages in accordance to where we would be stationed, (mine was Bemba), and we also learned cross cultural tips to best serve the community that on the surface, was vastly different from our own. Once I spent enough time loving, working, laughing, and learning from my Zambian brothers and sisters, it's not hard to realize that we're more alike than not and in too many ways to count. I will forever be grateful for my time in Chasaya Village and Chakulwa Village. I was sent there to teach them, and they all wound up teaching me exceedingly more than I could have ever imagined.
