A Soundscape of a Rural Zambian Village

Roosters crowing

Goats bleating

Cassava being pounded in mortar and pestle

Children babbling in play

Hoes being hammered back into shape

Mothers yelling for children to come

Scuffs of plastic slippers on sandy soils

Bees droning

Flies buzzing

Doves cooing

Pans and pots being scrubbed with dirt

Conversations drifting through the air

Children wailing

Mothers harangueing children

Young men belting the moment’s popular song

Motorcycles whirring through the bush

A slaughtered goat screaming

A radio blaring gospel music

Brooms swooshing across dirt

Wind bristling through the trees

A passing choir singing hymns

The rumble of a truck, far-off

People greeting each other, always

9 June 2018

P.S. My notes and catharsis about life have been taking list forms lately

Relativism

Relativism (n)- the doctrine that knowledge and truth are relative to contexts

I was in a thoroughly negative, angry headspace two days ago but couldn’t bear the thought of my new pretty journal (thanks, Ava!) starting with such negativity. Thankfully, time has cooled by head.

That day, I walked to a meeting where women fought over the few supplies I brought them, struggled profusely to communicate, was harassed in both directions along my walk (“my wife, my wife, I will marry you”), was grabbed in a hugely inappropriate way by a child who knew exactly what he was doing, and came home to unwind and clean up only to find my bathing soap had been stolen.

 All-in-all, I was filled with rage. Not the gloomy, pessimistic displeasure with surroundings typical of my bad days here but a burning hot, outwardly focused RAGE. I felt this community/culture had no respect for women, for personal property, or for my giving of my time and energy to be here.

With a bit of temporal distance, only the issue of respect for women is still eating away at me. This is the second time my soap has been stolen so I probably should have known better than to leave it in my chisasa (bathing shelter). If someone needs soap that badly, fine. Be clean. 

On the fighting over materials, it occurred to me how very little most people have. If most of what you own is geared toward basic survival (eating and keeping warm), I can see how you would eagerly grab for an extra tool (sewing needles, scissors) or something to beautify a very modest dwelling. I brought chitenge cloth, needles, thread, and scissors for women to sew along the bottoms of their mosquito nets. The fabric helps prevent rips in the net, encourages people to take the nets out of their packaging and actually use them, and also serves as a little extra decoration.

My friends here and I were talking about how surprised we are that the promise of free things doesn’t always entice people here, especially compared to in America. What does it say about our American culture that people who have so much need only the suggestion of more to become engaged? I guess the surprising thing here is what works and what doesn’t. Free education, experience, even seeds and jewelry have not worked at all in my rural village setting. Clothes, fabrics, and food are sure successes.

The other overwhelming feeling is an awareness of what an anomaly I am…I have no ground to stand on criticizing folks for acting a bit overzealous in some areas but having no motivation in others. I don’t have to farm my own food; I don’t have children to raise; and money for incidentals isn’t really an issue here. I’m loath to bring up any complaints about my work with neighbors and counterparts because I’m so overwhelmingly fortunate and still can’t find a way to be happy.

All in all, it’s me who has the problems, not the community I’m working with. Between three different villages, about 36 women (and one man) beautified their mosquito nets and had a refresher on critical information on malaria.

Here is my amaama Judith, on the left, and amaama Sylvia, on the right, working on their mosquito nets inside my house because the rain picked up.

Here are some of the ladies of KuMukaala village working on their nets as well. 

9 June 2018

Rhodesia

Rhodesia (n)- region of southern Africa, named after British colonial administrator Cecil Rhodes, administered by the British South African Company in the 19th century and exploited for its gold, copper, and coal deposits.

If I was feeling my privilege in my village before, I am absolutely aware of it after having visited Livingstone, even as a Zambian resident, even on a Peace Corps budget. Everything seemed so startlingly NICE there, from sidewalks to landscaping to lodge options to building construction and infrastructure. I honestly cannot say how much of the town’s development is due to a lingering colonial presence (the ghosts of David Livingstone and Cecil Rhodes’ dreams) or maintenance inclined to encourage international tourism. Either way, it felt like an entirely different country. Even Lusaka, with its sparkling shopping malls and bustling traffic circles still feels distinctly Zambian. More than once I asked myself, “How did I get to be here?” I signed up to be a volunteer in a developing country, living and working at the same level as the community to which I am assigned. How is it I seem to be constantly trekking across the country for meetings or trainings, and properly gallivanting about the continent for work and vacation alike? Even in my village, I spend so much time idling while everyone around me is in a constant state of the labor cycle. As I write this, my amaama is insisting on sweeping outside my house, even though I did not ask her to and protested that I would do it later in the day. It rained all night and I thought the mud was  not worth sweeping this morning. In my lazy defense, the yard needs to be swept to rid it of chicken, goat, pig, and duck droppings, none of which are my responsibility.

Anyways, setting my lazy misgivings and animal husbandry grumbles aside, it seemed so remarkably unfair to me that I was able to visit and enjoy what is unarguably the nicest part of Zambia simply because I have the money to do so. I came from across the world, am here temporarily, and have no natural claim to the beautiful Victoria Falls. Why then, should I and other wealthy international tourists sit on the deck of the Royal Livingstone sipping beverages and gazing out at the river that is Zambia’s namesake? It doesn’t feel right. The lifestyles and livelihoods of the rural Zambian communities simply doesn’t allow for the extra time and money it would require to make such a trip. I understand entirely why a former volunteer in my district funded a trip for her host family to visit Livingstone. I was thinking about a similar undertaking and wondering…would it help right that wrong, in any small way? Even if I could fill a bus and take my entire village to Livingstone, what would they have gained upon our return? Exposure to the beauty and wonder of their homeland, surely. I think some resentment at their own lot in life would be present, too. Why should tourists, ex-patriots, and heirs of colonial wealth be afforded such luxury while the nation’s people eke out their livings? I have no idea if that sort of resentment is common in Zambia, though I have seen it in South Africa. According to the exhibits at the Livingstone museum, it’s not uncommon at all, along the entire rural/urban exodus.

The most troubling thing of me is that is all comes down to lots drawn in some cosmic game of a weighted die. Just because I was born into the family I was, in the country I was, with the skin colour and body I inhabit, I am afforded a whole host of privileges completely unavailable to anyone different from me. It is unjust. And it also just is, without any graspable means of an individual correcting the balance on a broad scale. The very idea that I can “give” two years of my privileged life to serve a developing community is indicative of the disparity in wealth. Let alone the millions who don’t particularly make any effort to correct this global wrong, or even recognize it. I’m also incensed by the collective admiration development/aid/relief workers are awarded by their friends and families at home, as if it takes a selfless and altruistic individual to want to do what is, if not right, at least steps in the right direction. As a dose of reality lest I stand too high and mighty, my being here hasn’t necessarily done anything for the wealth disparity in this village, this country, or the world.

The other thing that strikes me as an unfair result of drawing lots is the wealthy Zambians that are born/live in Lusaka and Livingstone. We ran into several school groups from wealthy Lusaka private schools while visiting the falls. While it’s marvelous these children have the chance to explore their country’s best, what about the rest of the nation’s children? It’s not just that rural children don’t get to visit tourist destinations on school trips, these other children don’t have school buildings to learn in, clothes without holes, or enough food to eat at home. It’s one thing to compare nation against distant nation.  For certain communities in the same partitioned country to be facing radically different struggles astounds me.

 I guess it kind of surprises me that so much of Zambian development is from foreign investors or contractors when there is obviously a certain degree of wealth in Zambia itself. Maybe the majority of wealth is exported as payment for these investments, I don’t know. I do know that in both rural and urban environments here, people expect foreign aid to stimulate development. Government is occasionally expected to provide stable personnel but never the funds or project management/initiative/follow-through that just might be enforced by tradition; I can’t claim to know this either.

What I do know is this unfairness of birth does not sit easily with me. It pops into my mind nearly every time I buy something not absolutely essential, every time I deny a request of goods from someone, and every time I think about my bank account here. I can’t quite imagine how these feelings will transform when I’m back ku Amerika.

6 May 2018

Sciatheric

Sciatheric (adj)- relating to the measuring of time by shadows

There are so many ways to think about time. New ones surface almost every day.

In a three week period, I had 1) a kidney infection stemming from an untreated UTI, 2) schistosomiasis, which probably made me more likely to have UTIs, 3) a second UTI, and 4) dysentery (!). I was a sick puppy, particularly with the kidney infection. 

 There were certainly a handful of moments where I had proper conception of how sick I was and the though arose often, “Okay. I give up. I need to go home.” It being either the dead middle of the night or without network access, or both, there wasn’t anything to do but wait, trying to sleep until the morning came. 

With sleep or with sunlight, my conviction to flee vanished, each time. In the wee hours awake, I planned out my homecoming, or what the next six months or so until Stephen finishes his PhD might look like. There being a path, a home to return to, a tentative plan for the proximate future was so very comforting. Even if I don’t need to act on this plan, its existence is a salve to anxiety and fears. 

I know I am lucky to have two homes, two families (or possibly more, if the Clarkes and extended family are included). Here in Zambia, in Ikelenge, in Chinyaji, my other families often feel so incredibly far away. I’m realizing though, after being here a year and with another year to come, the monumental planetary gap between this world and my other one is slowly being bridged, I suppose by virtue of me. Even if my other families will not truly know this once and former home of mine, I will have intimate, true knowledge of this place and its people and so it will cease to be foreign or far.

                                                                                                                        

One year from today, I will no longer be a Peace Corps Volunteer and I will have completed my service to the very best of my capability. While twenty-seven months seemed an interminable sentence, twelve months or even 365 days seems a conquerable challenge, dotted with milestones to mark the passage of this experience.

Yes, I will undoubtedly be wracked with pain and discomfort again, thanks to some unseen denizen of “a fecalized environment”.
Yes, I will certainly feel the urgent need to run away, run home, run to Stephen, run to comfort again. Yes, I know I am strong enough to hold on, fighting both disease and those urges, asking for help when needed and rebuilding strength to return to my community and be as good a Volunteer as possible.

Easier said than done, perhaps? I was given a motivational boost by two women in KuMukaala who greeted me yesterday saying, “A sista, shikenu mwani!” The added respect, especially in contrast to the usually informal language here made me feel both appreciated and integrated, in a way I haven’t felt before. I still awkwardly gesticulated through the program I had planned, but it certainly felt as though I was wanted and welcomed.

Now if only I could elicit the same sentiment from the ladies in my closer village, Nyilamba. I need to figure out how best to engage them while meeting their expressed needs. Three flops so far. ;)

4 May 2018