In this interview, we hear from Angelina Liu. Angelina is working as a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Zambia. What Angelina shares gives us a better understanding of the work volunteers do. We learn about the challenges, rewards, and personal growth that happens from volunteering in a new place. Angelina talks about living in a different country, working with local people, and dealing with surprise situations. Join us as we learn about Angelina’s journey and see how volunteering with Peace Corps can change lives.
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 during Service
- Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. Can you tell us more about serving as a Health volunteer in Zambia?
Mornings at the clinic
A typical day for me depends on my plans to visit the local health post/clinic. When visiting the clinic, I’d wake, boil water for a cup of coffee, eat breakfast, feed my cat, and then change and ready myself to walk to the clinic just under a mile from my house. With the clinic opening at 8 AM, I’d plan to reach there with the rest of the clinic staff and community-based volunteers scheduled to assist that day.
Then, for the next 2-3 hours, I’d assist with record-keeping and prescription packing, and handover for the patients coming through the clinic that morning. In Zambia, most clinics have a structured weekly schedule that assigns specific patient needs to different days, such as providing family planning services to women on Wednesdays and holding Antenatal classes for pregnant women on Fridays. However, my clinic would begin the day by first assisting the morning wave of patients seeking general medical services, which could range from snake bites to being tested for syphilis.
Since my role as a Community Health Empowerment Volunteer in Zambia is not meant to serve the community clinically, but rather in a public health and community mobilization function, my being at the clinic is to foster my connection to the community and presence in the community’s health space. Therefore, once that day’s scheduled services began, if there were areas I could assist in, I would remain, but if not, I would head home to get lunch started for myself.
Afternoons at home
Lunch for me usually consists of pasta or white rice with some vegetables, adding eggs or soya pieces for protein. As a volunteer with a gas stove, I am able to prepare meals for myself more conveniently, an aspect of my lifestyle in Zambia that I am very grateful for. Around now, I would rest with some crocheting, chores, and/or reading while lounging around the house with my cat.
Most afternoons, children like to drop by my house. Together, the children and I will go draw water or play some games outside my house. Then, before I begin heating up water for my evening bath, I’d try to take a short walk around the village to get some more exercise in my day and also to feel more present and connected to my neighbors, greeting people as I pass their homes. Upon returning, I’d bathe, have a snack if I’m feeling hungry, and then start to get ready for bed with the sunset and turn in for the night.
2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose Zambia?
I had first learned about the Peace Corps in a social studies class in high school. As a first-generation American, my parents had never heard of the Peace Corps, and neither had I. However, I was immediately impressed and drawn to the idea of being able to serve as a volunteer and American representative in a foreign country with a need. Service is something I have always valued and been passionate about, as well as being able to serve in a medical capacity.
I carried this curiosity with me throughout my undergraduate, but didn’t begin to seriously consider serving in the Peace Corps until I had finished my undergraduate degree a year early and was taking a gap year to decide my next career steps. I have always been set on applying for and attending medical school to become a physician one day, so at first, the 2-year service commitment was daunting to me, but as I proceeded with my gap year, I became more and more convinced that this was the perfect time for me to join the Peace Corps.
With this drive, I was excited to be able to leave within the year I was applying and serve in a healthcare capacity. Zambia met these conditions as I looked into the available Peace Corps positions at the time, and so I applied directly to serve in Zambia and was accepted!
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. Tell us more about your home situation
A typical volunteer home
In Zambia, all volunteers live in a home on their own but are in close proximity to a designated “resource-family” or “host-family.” In Peace Corps Zambia, this family is selected by the community itself, and is often the family of a traditional leader or a relation of the traditional leader of that village. The standard for Peace Corps Zambia is also that the houses contain 2 rooms with a latrine, a bathing area, and an outdoor, roofed structure intended for cooking called an “insaka.” For some, the latrine and bathing area are connected to their home’s 2 main rooms, but in my circumstances, they were a separate structure about a 30 pace walk from my home’s front door.
Living in a rural village
All volunteers in Zambia are placed in rural villages, with a bit of range in the development of their surrounding area. For me, my village was about 40 km from the district center and 20km from the main paved road. It would take me about 2 hours by car to drive, while making stops to pick up other passengers along the way, from my house to the district center, where I could make purchases like produce and food staples that I would eat in a week.
In my village, running water and electricity are not available, and the phone network is semi-reliable. My neighbors and I received all our water from a hand-pump operated borehole that was about a 10-minute walk from my house. My closest neighbors were my host parents and their children’s families, while our village was on the smaller side of about 20 households.
My host parents were over 60 years old, having had 10 children in their lifetime and living with/around 4 of them when I arrived. They are extremely generous and welcoming people, and I enjoy sharing the occasional meal with them or being able to enlist their help for questions about the village, gathering the village people, and/or borrowing tools. My host dad was the headman of our village, which is called Mponda.
Exercise and food
Being in the Eastern Province of Zambia, the terrain is more mountainous in my area, and I enjoy being able to walk different footpaths around my village and through surrounding villages, which is how I often exercise.
For food, the staple food of Zambia is a maize-based starch called nshima, which is made by combining maize meal and water and mixing it as it boils and begins to take shape together, but is still soft. It’s then spooned out in lump shapes and eaten with your hands by breaking off pieces from a lump and rolling it in your hand to form a ball, and eating that with meat and vegetable relishes. It is very similar to fufu, which is eaten in Nigeria, or poi, which is eaten in Hawaii, but is usually white or light brown in color.
Something unique to my area is that people also enjoy eating field mice, which are abundant in harvest months and are killed since they are considered pests to the community’s crops. Other popular snacks are caterpillars and flying termites, locally known as “inswa,” which are both fried and salted.
4. Any memorable experiences you’ve had?
One really memorable experience I had in my village was my first visit to my site. My village had been expecting its first-ever volunteer to arrive in 2019, right when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Peace Corps to evacuate all volunteers and stall their plans to continue placing new volunteers at the time. Therefore, my arrival was an equally exciting time for me as it was for them, and I was welcomed with dancing, singing, and drumming.
Children and adults from neighboring villages all poured into my small front yard to welcome me and perform traditional dances that were significant for their tribe’s culture. Additionally, a traditional song was sung for me by the adult women in the village that speaks of them thanking God for bringing them a traveler to come meet and see them.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about challenges in Zambia?
Something that surprised me the most about the challenges faced in Zambia was the history of Zambia’s relationships with foreign aid and various foreign aid/development agencies. Since its independence in 1964, Zambia has had many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. With its plentiful natural reserves of copper and more, many countries around the world took an interest in having a stake in Zambia.
Unfortunately, I saw that this made Zambia’s challenges in growing its health and education systems very complex and convoluted. Specifically in my sphere of work, one of the Ministry of Health’s focuses was on ending the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs, as well as decreasing the high prevalence of teenage pregnancies. However, in conflict with this mission was the Ministry of Education’s sexual health curriculum that only spoke of abstinence and anatomy, rather than the risks of and protective measures to take against STIs and STDs.
While the Ministry of Education’s messaging was not in direct contradiction with the Ministry of Health’s mission, the devout Christian nature of the country prevents many Zambians from being able to admit that their children may be engaging in pre-marital sex and be at risk of pregnancy and disease. As a result, strict laws and stigmas are in place in the country that prevent minors from obtaining birth control and condoms, while teenage pregnancy and HIV infection rates remain rampant.
6. What challenges did you face while working on Health projects?
One of the greatest challenges I faced while working on health projects was collaborating with passionate but untrained community-based volunteers, as our clinic lacked both proximity to the district health office and the funding needed to host training events. In the rural environment where I served, the local clinic had very limited resources and staff capacity, making it difficult to provide consistent, quality care and medical records.
However, I saw this challenge as an opportunity to strengthen the system by applying for a grant that funded a Ministry of Health–approved training for volunteers. This training equipped them with essential skills to address maternal health and the needs of children under five, while still leveraging their trusted role within the community. By combining their influence and dedication with formal knowledge, we were able to create a more sustainable link between the clinic and the community’s most pressing health concerns.
7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?
In addition to my primary health projects, I was involved in several secondary initiatives that focused on community agricultural development and youth engagement. I worked with my counterparts to introduce sustainable farming techniques and income-generating projects, such as planting glyricidia trees to improve soil nitrogen levels and teaching mushroom propagation. These efforts included attending workshops, leading lessons, and organizing tree planting events in the village.
I also collaborated on youth leadership camps for both boys and girls, where we emphasized confidence building, early goal-setting, and open discussions about sexual and reproductive health. These projects allowed me to address broader community needs while fostering long-term skills and empowerment.
Advice and Support
8. What advice would you give to someone considering serving as an Health volunteer in Zambia?
I would advise anyone considering serving as a Health volunteer in Zambia to enter with an open heart and mind. Zambia is a beautiful and welcoming country with a rich history, vibrant culture, and incredibly kind people. At the same time, serving in one of the Peace Corps’ last remaining rural posts can be very challenging, isolating, and at times disheartening as you witness the ongoing struggles in development.
Going in with few expectations beyond learning and giving will help you stay grounded, and remembering that “comparison is the thief of joy” will keep you from measuring your experience against others. Most importantly, trust yourself, lean on fellow volunteers, and know that the Peace Corps Zambia community, both current and returned volunteers, is strong, supportive, and always ready to help you succeed.
9. How has the Peace Corps training helped you during your service?
Peace Corps Zambia’s training is designed to give volunteers a realistic preview of what life at the site will look like, though in a much more intensive and fast-paced way. Learning to adjust to daily tasks like handwashing clothes and interacting with host country nationals early on made the eventual transition to independent village life much smoother.
The language trainers were also phenomenal, providing not only strong instruction but also ongoing support that I continued to rely on throughout service. While language proficiency during training doesn’t perfectly reflect how you will communicate in the village, it provided me with a solid foundation that was essential for integration.
Overall, the training prepared me both practically and mentally to adapt, learn, and thrive during my two years of service. My recommendations for those going into any of the Peace Corps-organized training functions would be to take the opportunity to learn from fellow volunteers’ experiences, make friends, and stay open-minded to the experience. Not everything goes as expected, as what you think the Peace Corps will be, but learning to be adaptable early on could never hurt you!
Practical Tips and Language Learning
10. Anything that you packed or didn’t pack that you’d like to tell future Zambia volunteers?
Definitely pack more clothes that you feel comfortable wearing already, or that you would consider your personal style. While the packing guidelines for Peace Corps Zambia recommend many business casual items, I would say it was much more realistic for volunteers to be wearing basic tees, tanks, pants, and long skirts rather than slacks and button-ups.
As for something I wish I hadn’t packed, I bought my first pair of hiking boots in preparation for the dirt and dust of the Zambian Bush. However, I never wore them in my entire 2 years there, so I would say that only if you already consider hiking boots to be a comfortable shoe for yourself should you bring them. Soon after landing in Zambia, I realized I much preferred my open-toed sandals to running shoes, sneakers, or hiking boots–plus washing socks constantly gets annoying real fast.
I also recommend packing your favorite snacks from home! For me personally, getting a bag of Hot Cheetos or Twizzlers in a care package from home always hit the spot when I was missing home and/or going through a rough time.
11. How has learning the language been?
I learned the Chinyanja language in the Chewa dialect, which is commonly spoken in Zambia’s Eastern Province and parts of Malawi. Chinanyan itself is also widely spoken in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city. While there are resources online one could use to start familiarizing themselves with the language if they wanted to use it in Lusaka (such as Google Translate ‘Nyanja’), I personally don’t think it’s necessary.
During training, you’ll get about 10 weeks of pretty intensive language lessons. Being able to hear it spoken and the specific inflections that correlate with the language is extremely vital to Bantu Languages, and so I think it would be easiest to pick up once you arrive in the country.
In addition to that, Zambia has over 80 tribal vernaculars that are spoken, and Peace Corps Zambia teaches nearly 10 of them. You’ll get your language assignment within your first couple of days in country, and while many of the languages may share similarities, they can also differ quite a lot.
My advice would be not to stress! If you’re committed to being a language learner, then I think you’ll definitely get it, and if not, then you can still be a very successful volunteer despite your limited language skills! At the end of the day, every site is different, and every volunteer’s experience is different, so there’s no need to be frightened or disheartened by language learning.
Social Identity during Service
12. How has your personal identity shaped your service experience?
As an Asian American woman serving in Zambia, my social identity shaped both how I was perceived and how I approached community engagement. Often, I did not fit the immediate expectations of what a “typical” American volunteer might look like, which opened conversations about diversity and allowed me to challenge assumptions while also building trust through humility and openness. At times, standing out in this way meant I had to navigate extra layers of curiosity or misunderstanding, but it also pushed me to approach interactions with greater patience, cultural sensitivity, and self-awareness.
My experience helped me recognize the importance of representation and gave me a deeper empathy for those who feel “different” in their own communities. Ultimately, my identity became a strength, as it encouraged me to engage more intentionally, listen more deeply, and build connections grounded in mutual respect and shared humanity.
13. Did your identity lead to specific challenges or situations?
As for challenges I faced being an Asian American in Zambia, the biggest was navigating the constant visibility of being different in a rural setting where few people had interacted with someone of my background before. I often faced questions or assumptions about where I was “really” from, or surprise that I represented the U.S., which sometimes made me feel like I had to prove my belonging twice, as an American and as a volunteer.
At first, this was isolating, but I learned to reframe these moments as opportunities for dialogue, using them to share my story while also listening to theirs. Over time, I realized that leaning into curiosity with patience and humor helped break down barriers and turn initial skepticism into connection. Ultimately, these experiences strengthened my resilience, deepened my cultural humility, and reinforced the importance of showing up authentically in spaces where difference can become a bridge instead of a divide.
14. What advice do you have for volunteers who share your identity?
To other Asian American volunteers considering the Peace Corps, I would say embrace your identity as both a strength and a lens for learning. There will be moments when being visibly different draws extra attention or questions, but this can open doors for meaningful dialogue, cultural exchange, and building trust in unexpected ways.
Go in with confidence in who you are, while staying humble and curious about the community you will serve. Lean on fellow volunteers and the broader Peace Corps network for support, and don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself when challenges arise–it is ok to set personal boundaries with those around you. Most importantly, recognize that your perspective and experiences can enrich your service, helping you connect more deeply and make a lasting impact.
Final Thoughts
15. Any last comments you’d like to pass on to future Zambia volunteers?
For future Zambia volunteers, I would say to embrace every part of the journey, both the highs and the lows. Life in a rural village can feel isolating at times, but those same challenges often lead to the most meaningful growth and connections.
Take time to learn from your community—they are your greatest teachers and partners in making an impact. In the rapidly changing global development environment, stand firm in who you are and in your goals, and don’t let bureaucracy get in the way of your truth or your peace.
Remember that it is never wrong to protect your well-being and advocate for yourself, as doing so will ultimately help you serve your community with greater clarity and strength.
What are you waiting for? Opportunities like this don’t come often. If you have a passion for service and an adventurous spirit like Angelina’s, apply to the Peace Corps today. Expand your horizons, push your limits, and create positive impact as a volunteer. You never know how serving as a Peace Corps volunteer could change your life.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Zambia Government.
