My Dear Friends and Family:
I hope this letter finds that you are all in great
happiness, health and spirits for this Holiday Season. The year 2011 has rolled by so fast for me
with so many events, issues and situations that I am truly grateful to be able
to write this letter to you right now.
I had skipped my yearly report for 2010 for I was in Zambia
for Peace Corps volunteer service, and I did not have the luxury of power,
internet, etc…..and all other excuses….although I kept my blog up to date as
much as possible.
Year 2011, my volunteer work was moving quite fine in my
village – Yasakwa, Luapula Province, Zambia, mainly on fish pond farming,
vegetable gardens and raising poultries for fish food and food security, plus
helping a village – Lukali for a community school, connecting villagers to Bee
Keeping, helping villagers on Children’s Nutrition and the awareness of
HIV/AIDS’s care and prevention.
Unfortunately on July 18th, I was involved in a
bush taxi accident on my way back from the Children’s Nutrition workshop in
Northern Province and extended two day trip visited Lake Tanganyika. It was a trip of over 1,000 Km but the
accident happened only 45 Km before I made it back to my post home.
It was an 8 seater
vehicle but there were more than 10 people in it and three were found dead at
the scene. I had blood vein cut off by
the edge of the windshield after the car turned side up and window blown out
when my left leg went out to scrape the pavement. I lost a large amount of blood, left calf
skin and a little of muscle, but I did not have any bone or tendons
damaged.
I am truly thankful that Peace Corps dispatched an aircraft
at once with Dr. Harry in it, to pick me up from Mansa, Luapula, Zambia, flew
me to Pretoria, South Africa. There I
had intensive skin grafts, and four weeks later flew me back to Seattle on
August 20th for further recovery and reconstruction surgery. All my friends and former clients are all
supportive and have treated me as a returned Princess, assisting me with
everything and helping me to deal with my temporary handicapped situation.
All my Zambian
contacts and friends are still keeping me in contact with the continuance of my
projects there. It tested out that the
Peace Corps’ way of teaching us was correct, and that when the Peace Corps
volunteer left the village the villagers are able to stand up with what skill
and knowledge have been passed on to them. I am proud of being one of the Peace
Corp volunteers that have made this progress.
Thanks to Bob that he opened his home to me and managed for
me to have gained fourteen pounds weight in the first four weeks, which pleased
all the doctors and nurses here, only tough out on my rapidly changing sizes in
clothing. I was out of my post home with
only 5 days clothes in my backpack to come back to Seattle.
Now all wounds are
sealed up and I still have the prescription to do physiotherapy and all
exercises that I would like to do. On
November 10th my last visit to the reconstruction surgeon, he was
happy to see my recovery but had to wait for another couple months to have my
wound progressed strong enough to consider for reconstructive surgery; he will
see me again on January 19th and he released the restriction of traveling
aboard. I did not waste any time to have
booked the first available ticket to Taiwan and Indonesia from November 26th
to December 21st. I was just
got back to Bob’s home last night.
I have had a wonderful time in both Taiwan and Indonesia.
All my friends and relatives are doing very well and they treated me as a lost
baby with all the goodies they can find and think to make up for my losses from
the accident, and my year in Zambia with no conveniences most of time on power
and running water.
A friend said, “Friends are like candles, you need them when
in the dark.” This has been my brightest year!!! I know it and I sincerely appreciate how
fortunate I am to have all my candles lighting up for me from all around the
world!!! I wish you all have been as
lucky as I am and wish that we will continue counting our blessings together
year after year. Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year to you all.
Love, Cheng 12/23/2011
