Alum captures time in Peace Corps with stunning images

Peace Corps volunteer and ASU alumnus Deanna Dent paints faces of children in Katuyola village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Dent worked as a rural education development specialist in a small village in the Lunda tribal area of northwestern Zambia, teaching math and English to grade eight and nine students. Dent also focused on girls education clubs that promoted HIV/AIDS, STI and reproductive education, as well as assertiveness and family planning for teenage girls.

Dent graduated from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication with degrees in photography and journalism. The following images tell the story of her time spent volunteering with the Peace Corps in Zambia.

A young girl carries her younger brother on her back in a chitenge – a two meter length of cloth – while her mother works in the fields in Katuyola village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia.

A group of girls plays the local version of jumping rope in front of their family's house in Mapun'ga village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Most houses are made of molded mud bricks and thatch roofs; some families with more income can afford tin sheet roofs.

Two girls from Girls Club in Samuteba village run down the path to their bean field, five kilometers away in Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Most farmers walk an average of ten kilometers daily to get to and from their fields that are set back behind villages to reduce theft and livestock damage.

The Samuteba Girls Club poses in front of their half-acre field in Samuteba village area, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The funds the girls generate from the small field will help them with future activities and programs.

Lycia drops beans into a raised bed in the Girls Club's bean field in Samuteba village area, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The Lunda tribe traditionally plants two beans in each hole to increase fertility.

A young mother balances a bowl filled with cassava, the local staple crop, on her head while crossing a community-made bridge over the Nyangombe river to reach her fields in Matavu village area, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Most women work daily to cultivate cassava, greens, potatoes and other crops in their family fields while caring for their smaller children and cooking meals at home.

A young girl pounds dried and treated cassava in a mortar and pestle in Nyambanza village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Women, and especially young girls, spend their days cultivating cassava, soaking it to remove residual cyanide for three days. Then they pound it into a paste and dry it in the sun for storage. Each evening after returning from school, girls spend at least an hour pounding the dried cassava cakes into powder to make the local cassava nshima, a large doughy ball, to eat their supper with.

An Ankaka, or grandmother, holds out a handful of caterpillars near Seventeen village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The caterpillars, which arrive towards the end of the rains during March to late April, are a highly nutritious treat. Often, entire families leave their fields to go and collect bowls of the small caterpillars from the bush or forested areas surrounding their villages. The small caterpillars even produce income for the families when sold to passing truck drivers and government workers.

Amaama Mpoyo collects water from a shallow-dug well in a water holding plain - known as a dambo - outside of Nyambanza village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. It is common for women to spend hours transporting the 60-120 liters required by their family daily for washing clothes and dishes, cooking and bathing. Even children as young as nine can carry the 20 liter cooking oil containers that weigh in at nearly forty pounds.

Men work to mold bricks during the dry season, lasting from May until September, in Samuteba village area, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. To make the bricks, women draw water, which is mixed with soil from termite mounds and then scooped and placed into a mold on flat, cleared ground. After a few days, the dried bricks are transported and can either be fired for extra strength or used immediately for construction.

Men work together to scrape up soil from termite mounds to mold bricks with in Nyambanza village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia.

Madam Malichi, the grade three teacher, lines her pupils up outside to administer a literacy test. On any given day her class consists of nearly sixty students that come from as far as 10km away to Samuteba Middle Basic School in Samuteba village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia.

A 9-year-old boy, most likely suffering from malaria, rests in the head teacher's office as he waits for his brother to finish his classes at Samuteba Middle Basic School, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The local clinic is nearly nine kilometers away by bush path and, because his parents will not return from their fields until the late afternoon, he is hopeful his 15-year-old brother can take him by borrowed bicycle.

A grade two student grimaces as she receives a measles vaccine along with all other children from grades five and below, in Samuteba village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The Ministry of Health sent a clinic officer to vaccinate all children in the village because of its close proximity to Democratic Republic of Congo, which had been suffering a measles outbreak in its areas bordering Zambia.

Traditional birthing assistant Margaret sits outside her small home in Kabwita village area, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Margaret and nearly 15 other women from the area serve as local midwives, assisting women giving birth or helping transport them to the local clinic. Many, never having finished school, are trained by the Ministry of Health in how to deliver children safely. They are admired and respected in the village.

A woman cooks bush meat on her three-log fire inside her chinsambu, or kitchen hut, in Nyambanza village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The smokiness in the hut burns visitors eyes but prevents mosquitoes from bothering those sitting inside.

Frida, who is participating in the annual Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) camp, writes her dream of becoming a doctor onto a paper lantern at Mwinilunga Trades Institute, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The camp brings girls from the entire province together to learn about being young leaders in their community and within their local Girls Clubs. They are taught by Peace Corps volunteers and mentors from participating NGOs.

Eric, a 9-year-old boy, helps to beat out flames engulfing the area surrounding his neighbor and Peace Corps volunteer Deanna Dent's home in Samuteba village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Children routinely set bush fires in hopes of catching small field mice to eat, as well as to clear land of tall dry grass which prevents bush paths from being used. It is not uncommon for at least one to two houses to catch fire during the burn season, which lasts from May to July.

Children play in a culvert near Chimwishi village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. The culvert usually remains for the month of April, after rains have finished. It is common to find children swimming, bathing and washing clothes in the area. Unlike rivers and streams, it is less likely to find water monitors, snakes and crocodiles in the culvert because it is not connected to any local streams.

Mr. Chizengu gives a heartfelt piece of advice about marriage and the importance of communication with one's spouse in Mundwiji village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Many gathered to celebrate the local wedding and elders, like Mr. Chizengu, were invited to come and give advice to both the husband and wife about how to maintain a strong and healthy relationship.

Left photo: Given Luvuwa (left) and Cliven Kabwita (right) pose for a photograph near their home in Kabwita village, Mwinilunga District, Northwestern Province in Zambia. Both boys helped Peace Corps volunteer Deanna Dent take care of her house while there. Right photo: The boys pose together again, only a few days before Dent left Samuteba, in April 2013. Cliven Kabwita (left) and Given Luvuwa (right).