In this interview, you’ll hear from Malina Montgomery, a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Zambia. Malina shares what daily life looks like, the work being done, and how service has shaped their personal and professional growth. You’ll learn about housing, cultural differences, project work, language learning, and what it’s like to live and work in a new country. This interview offers a real look into Peace Corps service and what future volunteers can expect.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
- Surprises and Challenges
- Advice and Support
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Social Identity
- Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. What do you do as a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Zambia?
My day-to-day looked different since the health program in Zambia is pretty unstructured.
I was placed in Southern Province, Zambia, an economy fueled by agriculture. So, we combined agriculture and health by creating gardens, nutrition education, and teaching income-generating activities, such as beekeeping, to People Living with HIV/AIDs. (PLHIV)
The PLHIV groups met weekly. Meanwhile, the other projects were sporadic and only done upon the community’s request. On Wednesdays, I attended an outreach program, biking to villages over 5km from the clinic.
An Open Daily Scehdule
With that being said, I had an open schedule most days. I’d wake up around 7 am, eat a small snack for breakfast, and then leave the house if I had a project or meeting to attend. Otherwise, I would relax indoors, tend to my chickens, crochet, or clean and decorate.
During the rainy season, the adults would be attending to their crops while the children played outside. The kids would drag me out of the house to play with them or teach them English. Together, we would color, draw with chalk, and sing songs.
Though my schedule changed day to day, one constant remained. Every single day, without fail, the neighborhood kids would knock on my door and say, “Kondipa sweetie” (give me a sweet).
Often, there were events to attend- weddings, funerals, sporting events, and cultural ceremonies. The whole community would show up, and we’d spend the entire day dancing and singing. These events were one of the rare times meat was available to eat.
2. Why did you decide to join the Peace Corps and serve in Zambia?
I decided to join the Peace Corps because I always dreamed of stepping outside of my American bubble and becoming immersed in a new culture.
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. What is your housing like in Zambia?
Housing is very rural in Zambia. We are placed with host families but have our own homes on their compounds. There is no electricity or running water in the village. You have to fetch your water from a well or a hand pump. I fetched water every other day, strapping two 20-liter buckets to my Peace Corps-issued bike.
The bathroom and shower are located outside. The toilet is called a ‘chim,’ which is essentially a hole in the ground that you squat over.
Though living conditions do not mirror the convenience that Americans are used to, adjusting to the living standards is easier than you may think.
Zambians are some of the friendliest, most welcoming people you will ever meet. It is easy to forget about material things when you are rich in community.
4. What moments or interactions stand out during your service?
This is a difficult question because so many instances left an impact.
I cannot share a singular moment, however, I can talk about a person with whom I always had the best interactions: My host mother.
My Host Mother
She did not speak any English and my local language skills were lacking. Despite the language barrier, she was my favorite person in the village. Sometimes we would just sit in silence, cracking peanuts or harvesting maize. She would bring me cooked food and invite me to dinner if I hadn’t eaten nshima in a while. During dinner, we would swap stories we could barely decipher. Somehow, we understood each other anyway.
She would often talk about how she was married in seventh grade. She didn’t finish school. Everything she did was to give her children the life she couldn’t live. So, when my host sister got pregnant at 15 years old, she happily raised that child as her own. Her daughter just finished school this year- a rare opportunity for a teenage mom in Zambia.
My host mom has the kindest heart, even for animals. I never saw her hit her pets. She had a particular soft spot for her cat. She fed him well, feeding him heaps of nshima from the palm of her hand as we all ate dinner together. If you live in Zambia, then you know how big of a deal that is.
She taught me that bonds can transcend culture and language.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about living or working in Zambia?
I was surprised by the lack of seasoning and spice in Zambia. There’s a stereotype of Africans eating spicy food, we forget that Africa is a big continent with thousands of cultures and customs.
6. What challenges have you faced in your Health work, and how did you respond?
The biggest challenge I faced in my health work was during my second year of service at the start of 2025.
The Peace Corps went through a lot of changes. We had to learn an entirely new curriculum due to the current administration limiting our ability to teach HIV prevention and utilize grants.
I had to adapt while maintaining my moral integrity. I believe prevention is the best treatment. So it was a balancing act to do what was right while adhering to the order.
That entire situation really tested me and my community. I lost a lot of motivation. Community members lost a lot of their faith in me as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
In the end, we found a way to work with what we had. However, my community still feels the weight of our administration’s decision to withdraw international aid and development efforts. Many Zambians, including NGO workers, clinicians, and Peace Corps, staff lost their jobs. HIV medications are becoming more scarce. Knowing that the people I worked alongside and built a relationship with may struggle to afford life saving mediation due to my home country’s actions, is heartbreaking.
Unfortunately, this situation is out of our control as volunteers. Structural injustice, political corruption, and rigid bureaucracy are the most difficult aspects of Peace Corps service.
7. What secondary projects have you worked on during your service?
I taught an English club for the first year. I attended DOGAS mothers’ meetings, a charity group formed under the SDA church.
Advice and Support
8. What advice would you give to future Health volunteers in Zambia?
Often in my service, I felt overly responsible for the well-being of others. Although the intentions are good, you could end up becoming the American Savior pushing your ideals onto people who; frankly- don’t want them. So it’s best to just suggest a project during a community meeting, and if the community wants to go forward with that project, they will seek you out.
In Zambia, it’s really common to plan meetings that no one shows up to. This can be frustrating. However, if your meeting consistently fails, that’s a sign that the project is not community-led, thus likely unsustainable.
Simply put, don’t stress so much if your projects aren’t taking off. Keep putting ideas out there. Those who like it will show up. Those who don’t won’t.
9. How did Peace Corps training prepare you for service?
Each village is so different, with different needs, that there is no way they truly prepare us during PST (Pre-Service Training). Learning how to learn and how to listen to your community is the best that they can do for us. You won’t know what job you’ll be doing as a CHEP in Zambia until you integrate and assess the community’s needs.
I really like workshops that occur outside of the typical milestone training (PST, MST, etc.) Those workshops are typically topic-based, which is great because you can attend based on your community’s needs. For example, you may learn that your community would really benefit from Beekeeping. So you attend a beekeeping/agricultural workshop. I think we need more workshops like that.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
10. What would you tell future volunteers to pack—or leave behind?
As someone who is fashion-minded, I would say bring better clothing to Zambia.
Staff tells you to bring business casual clothing but Zambians do not dress business casual on an average day. That’s just for PST.
If you are in the city, people tend to dress very nicely- what we would consider ‘going out’ clothing. I would say the style is 2010s urban fashion. In the village people dress leisurely- t-shirts and jeans, chitenge for women.
Don’t bring too many clothes though, because there are cheap clothes you can just buy in Zambia. I would say to start, maybe 5 business casual outfits, 3 going out outfits, and 3 leisure outfits. (And bring a swimsuit!)
If you are tall, bring extra clothes and shoes because you will struggle to find your size.
Bring a USB fan. Reusable cold towels (you can find them on Amazon).
11. How has language learning been for you in Zambia?
I studied Chittonga. There are 72 spoken languages in Zambia. You will not know which language your community speaks until you get there.
Learning the local language was difficult for me, but I could get by.
Social Identity
12. How has your personal identity shaped your service experience?
I blended in by being a black person in Zambia. I could go into town without people stopping and staring or getting harassed like my non-black counterparts. It felt nice not be a minority.
With that being said, other black volunteers feel differently. Some of my peers expressed frustrations when Zambians didn’t believe that they were American or expected them to integrate with ease.
You do have to constantly explain slavery and practically convince them that you’re really American. I personally did not mind explaining the history of slavery. Sometimes I found it annoying when someone would deny that I was American. People have called me Chinese, even though I am clearly not Asian. But this is simply a byproduct of a lack of education on geography and world history. So, I never took it personally.
13. Did your identity lead to specific challenges or situations?
I remember one time, I was in a Yango (similar to Uber) with other volunteers. We started talking to the driver about being American Peace Corps volunteers. (I was the only black person in the car).
Then, the driver turned around to look at me. He said, “This one is Zambian.” We kept telling him otherwise, but he would not believe us. So, I thought of a celebrity who was a black American who was popular enough for Zambians to know.
I brought up Barack Obama first. The driver said “But his dad is Kenyan and his mom is white.”
True. So I thought of Michael Jackson.
The driver replied “But Michael Jackson had the surgery” (referencing vitiligo and skin bleaching allegations).
All I could do was laugh. It didn’t make me upset because he was simply uninformed. Many around the world are unaware of the history of transatlantic slavery
14. What advice do you have for volunteers who share your identity?
My advice would be not take it too personally as a black American in a majority-black country. It’s okay to be frustrated, but try to remember that this is your chance to educate and engage in cultural exchange. Try to focus on the positives and enjoy being a part of the majority group for once. Blend in.
Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
15. If you share content online, how has that shaped your service?
I do have social media accounts, but I don’t use any of them to showcase my journey in Zambia. I often wonder about the blurred lines between cultural exchange and exploitation. There is something unethical about making content centered around the ‘exoticness’ of a non-American culture. Something about building a platform centered around a culture that is not yours, for the purpose of getting likes, views, or even financial gain, feels reminiscent of the Western legacy of extracting resources from non-Western countries to profit.
I think volunteers should be careful and consider whether their posts are exploitative.
16. What final advice or thoughts would you share with future volunteers?
A lot of things are out of our control. You likely won’t change anything on a systemic level. However, your work is still valuable. Accept what you can’t change, and change what you can. Don’t stress too much. Enjoy service while it lasts.
Are you thinking about joining the Peace Corps? If you’re curious about service and ready for something new, apply today. Like Malina, you can live abroad, work with communities, and grow in ways you didn’t expect. Apply to the Peace Corps and take the next step.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Zambia Government.
