Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Order of blogs
By the way, make sure you read the blogs further down on the page first and move up. The most recent is the top one [this one at the moment]. The first three blogs are in reverse order than they should be, but it is not important for those ones and is a tad important for the latest ones.
Much Love from Zambia!
Much Love from Zambia!
The Spiritual Side of Life
Disclaimer: This one is a happy-go-lucky ramble about life is like, for me, in Zambia, and has very little to do with development and everything to do with life. It is more personal, and less professional.
I love my little room dearly. It has almost nothing in it. The bed is just 5 inches of foam covered with a couple blankets and my bundle of clothes as a pillow. My rucksack sits in the corner, empty save for the dirty clothes I put in it waiting to be hand washed in the yard on the weekend. My dress shoes sit under my bed next to my hiking shoes for trips to the field, which are in turn next to my Birkenstocks, and only my tropicals [rainbow coloured flip flops… the most common non-formal Zambian footwear] are not there as they are on my feet. All my possessions, save for the couple sets of clothes for work hanging on 5 hangers in the open closet, sit on my little table. My little collection of books, more than half of which are the Baha'i books I brought thinking they would be harder for Zambian Baha'is to get than me [it turns out they are all readily available in Lusaka]. My nalgene bottle full of water, and my nalgene with the nalgene tea/coffee press that my friend Pam gave me for my birthday. Zambians love sugar-milk-tea, which is how I refer to the way they drink their tea, being the list of ingredients from most abundant to least in your cup. I’ve fallen in with the Zambians on sugar-milk-tea. It is quite delightful. Especially because all the milk here is full cream, and if you are in a town smaller than Livingstone or Lusaka you get it in little bags straight from the dairy farmers. Here in Livingstone I get the milk satchels that get shipped from Lusaka after being processed. They are 500ml and totally sealed in plastic, which is very convenient for brewing the milk in an electric kettle [Zambians make tea by heating up milk, diluted only slightly with a bit of water, and adding the tea leaves to milk] as surprisingly the heating coils do not melt the plastic and you can pull the piping hot satchel of full cream milk goodness out of the water and make yourself tea at the office [right there is how my mornings at the office start… gloriously]. I guess this would be a convenient point to share something I have learned about myself: I can live on pretty much any kind of food, no matter if it is unappealing to me, so long as I have some sort of hot beverage to look forward to during my day. They told us Zambians don’t drink coffee, but Katalausha loves coffee. So I bought the family a big bag of Zambian coffee, ground, espresso roast because Katalausha says he likes it strong. He usually has instant coffee, but I wanted to see how Zambian coffee tastes anyway. When we made it, and despite it being night and my reminders of how it will keep them up at night, the entire family wanted coffee except for Lidia and me who enjoyed our less caffeinated tea. As we sat outside under the clear sky showing off the amazing array of stars and I poured the hot milk into cups while the family anxiously awaited their respective teas or coffees, I had a moment [which I hope you sometimes experience to because they feel great] where I was so happy to be me for my eccentricities. It seems wherever I go I ended up making those hot tea or coffee based drinks for people. There is magic in beverages I swear, they are the great undervalued parts of our diet.
My little table also bears my Leatherman multitool… perhaps the best investment ever [shout out to Duncan], and my little container of spices I got at Mountain Equipment Co-op [another great investment for the traveler]. I may have mentioned Zambians only know about one spice, salt, which to be fair I love more than most people do also [my little container has garlic salt in it… some of you know my love for salt… you haven’t seen me with garlic salt. Thanks Geoffrey, for getting me hooked on garlic this year.]. Katalausha is also an avid lover of spices like black pepper and chili flakes [I don’t have chili flakes but I do have cayenne]. Beside my mini-library sits my pile of Moleskin notebooks. I got some skeptical looks when I brought a pile of those Moleskins, but I am using everyone of them. One, the sketchbook, I gave to my sister before I left for her to use during her first year outside of high school, whether she be in university or taking a year to work and travel like I did. The one Clare decorated so eloquently for me is filled with all sorts of things that I have needed to write down as I am on this crazy journey. I am not so good at writing for my own sake, but I do write down things I am trying to work out, such as using the problem tree technique that is common in development to figure out how to tackle the changes I want to make in my life back in Vancouver [I feel it is a novel, but useful application of development theory]. I also write quite easily when I am coming up with things to say to people. So a few blogs have been written down in there, while I hope that getting them out of my head and on paper will let me sleep! My undecorated moleskin is filled with quotes from the Baha’i books as I am studying this [for me] new faith which I feel I can’t help but become apart of. Also it has random bits of other things like ideas and little poems. The little moleskin the chapter gave me never leaves my side, even when my passport does. Beside being filled with all your messages, it now also contains a list of contacts, a calendar, hand drawn maps of Zambia, Lusaka, Livingstone, and the Southern Province, lists of emails to write, or blog ideas, and everything else that comes across my path. I am hoping if I get pick-pocketed they won’t grab that little book, as I also use the little folder in the back as an emergency stash of money. And the moleskin folder keeps my photocopies of important documents, postcards, and other assorted odds and ends neatly organized.
The table is covered by a brightly coloured, beautiful chitenge [traditional Zambian cloth wrapped around the waste to be a skirt], which now has wax stains from where my reading candle has over spilled its holder.
Life in that little room, lit by my lone candle, is a glorious thing. I do yoga on average once a day [sometimes twice a day, sometimes not at all, but mostly once a day]. I do other exercises like pushups and sit-ups, or I go out to the mango tree in the back yard [sadly mangos aren’t in season till December, but when mango season comes Zambians are drawn in mangos… how I envy them!] and do chin-ups on the branches.
Happy little nights in Zambia, belly full of warm sugar-milk-tea,
dancing around to a funky Metric song in between yoga poses.
Perhaps I should listen to different music while I do yoga.
Perhaps Not.
I think I easily enjoy these living conditions more than most people. I’ve always admired monks and sadhus and other spiritual aspirants who turn their back on worldly pleasures in favour of the inward journey. And that is just how I view this temporary life of mine, like the lives of my spiritual heroes except I am also surrounded by a wonderful Zambian family which has taken me in like a brother and uncle.
At night I curl over that little candle to read books like The Tipping Point, which makes me go crazy with ideas for EWB in Canada, or When the Rivers Run Dry which makes me go crazy with ideas for EWB in Zambia, or just Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums which makes me see everything as a merry, poetic, and above all transcendental journey. My favourite definitely has turned out to be the Kerouac book. How it has inspired me for life back in Canada. I marvel at how perfect the books I chose at random before coming to Zambia all have turned out. I couldn’t have picked better.
Last night I chased Dorris around the house, had a hearty Zambian meal with my family, did some yoga, meditated, and prayed in my room, then made tea and coffee for the family before slipping back into my room containing my little foam and blanket bed, rucksack, and little table of books and moleskins and my lone candle. The cement walls are bare and dirty, their plainness only broken by random divots [by which I mean little pot holes only an inch or less deep. The only decoration is the patterned fabric that is draped over the window and serves as oversized blinds as it runs wild on the floor for a foot or two. I’ve added a bit of colour by using that chitenge for a table cloth on my little table but somehow, last night, that small extravagant addition almost seemed too much. I was tempted to remove it, and probably would have if the table underneath wasn’t in such a miserable condition. There seems to me a great wealth in living with the barest supplies. All those material things truly are a burden that you only realize when you are free of them… and how free that feels!
Yet I can picture my room in Vancouver, bare as this room here in Zambia, and I can’t stand it. Why!? Is it the ungodly bright white walls under the glare of the fluorescent lights? I think what it truly comes down to is the lighting. Even my bare little room is not the paradise during the day that it is illumined by my lone candle during the cool nights. The candles flickering lights barely reaching any of the walls except the ones in front of my as I curl over it, trying to get as much light on my book or moleskin as possible so I do not strain my eyes. Or maybe, and probably, it is just all in my head. Maybe my bare Zambian room is so perfect because that’s what the idea was: to live in a bare room while I am in Zambia. While the ide of a room in Canada is that it is only as good as the amount and quality of stuff we fill it with. Maybe it all comes down to how we construct expectations about a room. Regardless, in that bare Zambian room I am overcome with the question: What more could a person want?
[the answer, by the way, is one of those back packing espresso machines and milk steamers for camping stoves that they sell in Mountain Equipment Co-op, high speed internet, Chai [there is none here, but I can get my hands on some spices…], and all of you wonderful people back in Canada]
But until the day I return and we start living like Zen Lunatics like Kerouac, having transcendental evenings, reading poetry, and meditating on the absurdity of life while we drink Chai and smoke hookah… I will continue on in my happy-go-luck adventure here in Africa. Down dusty trails with a spring in my step and smirk on my face [which I think is more common than a big smile for me… just my way I guess]. I hope those people in Vancouver are taking advantage of the summer weather by going swimming naked in the pacific ocean, cooking on the beach, and getting in plenty of adventures.
Much Love from Zambia.
Stayed tuned for more stories from Zambia including…
nshima what?
and
The Sounds and Smells of Zambia
And if you are particularly unlikely, a scandalous photo of me taking a bath [just kidding, I will save that for facebook].
I love my little room dearly. It has almost nothing in it. The bed is just 5 inches of foam covered with a couple blankets and my bundle of clothes as a pillow. My rucksack sits in the corner, empty save for the dirty clothes I put in it waiting to be hand washed in the yard on the weekend. My dress shoes sit under my bed next to my hiking shoes for trips to the field, which are in turn next to my Birkenstocks, and only my tropicals [rainbow coloured flip flops… the most common non-formal Zambian footwear] are not there as they are on my feet. All my possessions, save for the couple sets of clothes for work hanging on 5 hangers in the open closet, sit on my little table. My little collection of books, more than half of which are the Baha'i books I brought thinking they would be harder for Zambian Baha'is to get than me [it turns out they are all readily available in Lusaka]. My nalgene bottle full of water, and my nalgene with the nalgene tea/coffee press that my friend Pam gave me for my birthday. Zambians love sugar-milk-tea, which is how I refer to the way they drink their tea, being the list of ingredients from most abundant to least in your cup. I’ve fallen in with the Zambians on sugar-milk-tea. It is quite delightful. Especially because all the milk here is full cream, and if you are in a town smaller than Livingstone or Lusaka you get it in little bags straight from the dairy farmers. Here in Livingstone I get the milk satchels that get shipped from Lusaka after being processed. They are 500ml and totally sealed in plastic, which is very convenient for brewing the milk in an electric kettle [Zambians make tea by heating up milk, diluted only slightly with a bit of water, and adding the tea leaves to milk] as surprisingly the heating coils do not melt the plastic and you can pull the piping hot satchel of full cream milk goodness out of the water and make yourself tea at the office [right there is how my mornings at the office start… gloriously]. I guess this would be a convenient point to share something I have learned about myself: I can live on pretty much any kind of food, no matter if it is unappealing to me, so long as I have some sort of hot beverage to look forward to during my day. They told us Zambians don’t drink coffee, but Katalausha loves coffee. So I bought the family a big bag of Zambian coffee, ground, espresso roast because Katalausha says he likes it strong. He usually has instant coffee, but I wanted to see how Zambian coffee tastes anyway. When we made it, and despite it being night and my reminders of how it will keep them up at night, the entire family wanted coffee except for Lidia and me who enjoyed our less caffeinated tea. As we sat outside under the clear sky showing off the amazing array of stars and I poured the hot milk into cups while the family anxiously awaited their respective teas or coffees, I had a moment [which I hope you sometimes experience to because they feel great] where I was so happy to be me for my eccentricities. It seems wherever I go I ended up making those hot tea or coffee based drinks for people. There is magic in beverages I swear, they are the great undervalued parts of our diet.
My little table also bears my Leatherman multitool… perhaps the best investment ever [shout out to Duncan], and my little container of spices I got at Mountain Equipment Co-op [another great investment for the traveler]. I may have mentioned Zambians only know about one spice, salt, which to be fair I love more than most people do also [my little container has garlic salt in it… some of you know my love for salt… you haven’t seen me with garlic salt. Thanks Geoffrey, for getting me hooked on garlic this year.]. Katalausha is also an avid lover of spices like black pepper and chili flakes [I don’t have chili flakes but I do have cayenne]. Beside my mini-library sits my pile of Moleskin notebooks. I got some skeptical looks when I brought a pile of those Moleskins, but I am using everyone of them. One, the sketchbook, I gave to my sister before I left for her to use during her first year outside of high school, whether she be in university or taking a year to work and travel like I did. The one Clare decorated so eloquently for me is filled with all sorts of things that I have needed to write down as I am on this crazy journey. I am not so good at writing for my own sake, but I do write down things I am trying to work out, such as using the problem tree technique that is common in development to figure out how to tackle the changes I want to make in my life back in Vancouver [I feel it is a novel, but useful application of development theory]. I also write quite easily when I am coming up with things to say to people. So a few blogs have been written down in there, while I hope that getting them out of my head and on paper will let me sleep! My undecorated moleskin is filled with quotes from the Baha’i books as I am studying this [for me] new faith which I feel I can’t help but become apart of. Also it has random bits of other things like ideas and little poems. The little moleskin the chapter gave me never leaves my side, even when my passport does. Beside being filled with all your messages, it now also contains a list of contacts, a calendar, hand drawn maps of Zambia, Lusaka, Livingstone, and the Southern Province, lists of emails to write, or blog ideas, and everything else that comes across my path. I am hoping if I get pick-pocketed they won’t grab that little book, as I also use the little folder in the back as an emergency stash of money. And the moleskin folder keeps my photocopies of important documents, postcards, and other assorted odds and ends neatly organized.
The table is covered by a brightly coloured, beautiful chitenge [traditional Zambian cloth wrapped around the waste to be a skirt], which now has wax stains from where my reading candle has over spilled its holder.
Life in that little room, lit by my lone candle, is a glorious thing. I do yoga on average once a day [sometimes twice a day, sometimes not at all, but mostly once a day]. I do other exercises like pushups and sit-ups, or I go out to the mango tree in the back yard [sadly mangos aren’t in season till December, but when mango season comes Zambians are drawn in mangos… how I envy them!] and do chin-ups on the branches.
Happy little nights in Zambia, belly full of warm sugar-milk-tea,
dancing around to a funky Metric song in between yoga poses.
Perhaps I should listen to different music while I do yoga.
Perhaps Not.
I think I easily enjoy these living conditions more than most people. I’ve always admired monks and sadhus and other spiritual aspirants who turn their back on worldly pleasures in favour of the inward journey. And that is just how I view this temporary life of mine, like the lives of my spiritual heroes except I am also surrounded by a wonderful Zambian family which has taken me in like a brother and uncle.
At night I curl over that little candle to read books like The Tipping Point, which makes me go crazy with ideas for EWB in Canada, or When the Rivers Run Dry which makes me go crazy with ideas for EWB in Zambia, or just Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums which makes me see everything as a merry, poetic, and above all transcendental journey. My favourite definitely has turned out to be the Kerouac book. How it has inspired me for life back in Canada. I marvel at how perfect the books I chose at random before coming to Zambia all have turned out. I couldn’t have picked better.
Last night I chased Dorris around the house, had a hearty Zambian meal with my family, did some yoga, meditated, and prayed in my room, then made tea and coffee for the family before slipping back into my room containing my little foam and blanket bed, rucksack, and little table of books and moleskins and my lone candle. The cement walls are bare and dirty, their plainness only broken by random divots [by which I mean little pot holes only an inch or less deep. The only decoration is the patterned fabric that is draped over the window and serves as oversized blinds as it runs wild on the floor for a foot or two. I’ve added a bit of colour by using that chitenge for a table cloth on my little table but somehow, last night, that small extravagant addition almost seemed too much. I was tempted to remove it, and probably would have if the table underneath wasn’t in such a miserable condition. There seems to me a great wealth in living with the barest supplies. All those material things truly are a burden that you only realize when you are free of them… and how free that feels!
Yet I can picture my room in Vancouver, bare as this room here in Zambia, and I can’t stand it. Why!? Is it the ungodly bright white walls under the glare of the fluorescent lights? I think what it truly comes down to is the lighting. Even my bare little room is not the paradise during the day that it is illumined by my lone candle during the cool nights. The candles flickering lights barely reaching any of the walls except the ones in front of my as I curl over it, trying to get as much light on my book or moleskin as possible so I do not strain my eyes. Or maybe, and probably, it is just all in my head. Maybe my bare Zambian room is so perfect because that’s what the idea was: to live in a bare room while I am in Zambia. While the ide of a room in Canada is that it is only as good as the amount and quality of stuff we fill it with. Maybe it all comes down to how we construct expectations about a room. Regardless, in that bare Zambian room I am overcome with the question: What more could a person want?
[the answer, by the way, is one of those back packing espresso machines and milk steamers for camping stoves that they sell in Mountain Equipment Co-op, high speed internet, Chai [there is none here, but I can get my hands on some spices…], and all of you wonderful people back in Canada]
But until the day I return and we start living like Zen Lunatics like Kerouac, having transcendental evenings, reading poetry, and meditating on the absurdity of life while we drink Chai and smoke hookah… I will continue on in my happy-go-luck adventure here in Africa. Down dusty trails with a spring in my step and smirk on my face [which I think is more common than a big smile for me… just my way I guess]. I hope those people in Vancouver are taking advantage of the summer weather by going swimming naked in the pacific ocean, cooking on the beach, and getting in plenty of adventures.
Much Love from Zambia.
Stayed tuned for more stories from Zambia including…
nshima what?
and
The Sounds and Smells of Zambia
And if you are particularly unlikely, a scandalous photo of me taking a bath [just kidding, I will save that for facebook].
Katalausha's Jazz
When you travel to a country of a very different economic situation than your home country… you feel embarrassed by your wealth [I am generalizing completely based on my personal experience here in Zambia]. For me, this wealth was my iPod. I hid it entirely for the first while here in Zambia, mostly because I didn’t want it to be a barrier between me and Zambians, but there was also the bonus of the less people who knew I had something valuable, the less likely they would try to rob me. But I couldn’t keep it hidden forever, being that I am living in a house without electricity I charge it, and my cell phone [thank you all who send me text messages], at the office. Consequently, I have had to explain it to each of my inquisitive co-workers. Once the iPod was out of the bag, so to speak, I stopped worrying about it so much. I let my family see me with it… and I am so glad I did. The ensuing discussion with Katalausha revealed his passion for Jazz, and his love for the bass guitar he can’t effectively play in his house sans electricity.
I must go on a tangent here on the culture barrier [at first I was going to call it the language barrier, but the language barrier is just the tip of the iceberg that is the culture barrier]. People think differently in different cultures. All those wonderful, deep, meaningful conversations you have with your friends… they are made possible by the level to which you are identical in culture that person. You may have different backgrounds and opinions, but you exist in the same world… speak not only the same language but most of the same slang and idioms. Your thought process is similar. Your values are similar. The vast, complex array of unspoken rules of interactions are fluidly navigated by both of you making each interaction, in a way, a sort of elegant dance. And all that is lost when you leave that extremely narrow place that is your cultural home.
As a Junior Fellow, you want to explore the painfully difficult issues pervading development… and yet how do you even begin when you realize how insecure you are about using the word “development” or even “poverty” to your co-workers. Meanwhile you are busy walking on eggshells trying not to break any of those unspoken rules that absolutely everyone around you understands as completely as you are oblivious, hoping the ones you do break don’t cost you trust with your partner organization, or that visa you need to stay in the country. Cultures are different worlds…
But all those barriers and hindrances can be shattered in an instant by something so small as Katalausha’s passion for Jazz. I like Jazz. I am not passionate connoisseur, but I very much enjoy it. To what extent that passion is common ground between me and him does not matter though, because suddenly Katalausha is a real person who makes sense to me. He is no longer another Zambian that I make pleasant small talk with , that little passion has showed me a window into who he is. He goes from being a person from another world…
…to becoming a brother and dear friend.
I must go on a tangent here on the culture barrier [at first I was going to call it the language barrier, but the language barrier is just the tip of the iceberg that is the culture barrier]. People think differently in different cultures. All those wonderful, deep, meaningful conversations you have with your friends… they are made possible by the level to which you are identical in culture that person. You may have different backgrounds and opinions, but you exist in the same world… speak not only the same language but most of the same slang and idioms. Your thought process is similar. Your values are similar. The vast, complex array of unspoken rules of interactions are fluidly navigated by both of you making each interaction, in a way, a sort of elegant dance. And all that is lost when you leave that extremely narrow place that is your cultural home.
As a Junior Fellow, you want to explore the painfully difficult issues pervading development… and yet how do you even begin when you realize how insecure you are about using the word “development” or even “poverty” to your co-workers. Meanwhile you are busy walking on eggshells trying not to break any of those unspoken rules that absolutely everyone around you understands as completely as you are oblivious, hoping the ones you do break don’t cost you trust with your partner organization, or that visa you need to stay in the country. Cultures are different worlds…
But all those barriers and hindrances can be shattered in an instant by something so small as Katalausha’s passion for Jazz. I like Jazz. I am not passionate connoisseur, but I very much enjoy it. To what extent that passion is common ground between me and him does not matter though, because suddenly Katalausha is a real person who makes sense to me. He is no longer another Zambian that I make pleasant small talk with , that little passion has showed me a window into who he is. He goes from being a person from another world…
…to becoming a brother and dear friend.
My friend Besta
I went out this Saturday night with two Zambian girls who are of a similar age to me [a refreshing change from the adults and toddlers I am normally surrounded by]. They both live in my neighbourhood, and I know them through my family. One’s name is Lweendo, and the other is Besta, and it’s Besta who this story is mostly about.
We went to one of their favourite hang-outs: The Livingstone Safari Lodge. It’s a lodge [hotel/hostel] and campground for tourists but it has a very nice, open air bar/resteraunt under the high thatched roof which characterizes lodges in Zambia. We see an old classmate of Besta’s, with her little girl, talking with Besta and the girl’s old teacher. Despite the presence of the child, the encounter seems to be romantic. Besta tells us how he broke her arm once in class because he was drunk, though I get the impression it wasn’t more than a strain. She didn’t have him arrested, she chose to forgive and forget.
Lweendo and Besta drink sparkling white South African wine while I sip a coke from the glass bottles that you aren’t allowed to take from the places you bought the coke and thus have to carry an empty bottle to trade if you want to take it to go. I was continuing my abstinence from alcohol which I later relented and drank a glass of red wine. After the initial giddiness had passed as the alcohol went straight to my head from not drinking for a while, it made me just feel sick and reaffirmed my decision to stop drinking.
We played pool (seemingly the most popular activity in Zambia, bar football (proper football, as in soccer, not American football)] or just sat and talked. Somehow we got on the subject of her planned trip to the UK, which made me ask Why the UK? This brought out the very sensitive subject, which underlay the rest of the evening, of how her British boyfriend/fiancée had dumped her this last week over something so trivial that I am convinced he lost interest for one reason or another and just needed an excuse. On her hand I can see the band of surprisingly pale skin where the ring used to be. The issue of westerners engaging in frivolous relationships with Africans while traveling, only to have the twp perceptions of how serious the relationship is grossly distant apart, becomes an awful reality watching a beautiful, sweet Zambian girl blink away tears as you listen to her choked words. I don’t even know if my idea of a broken heart comes close to what she is dealing with as I hear how devoted she was to him, how much she gave, and how little was returned. I am faced with the awe inspiring ability of a Zambian women to be devoted to a man even when getting nothing in return. She tells me she thought white men didn’t fling relationships aside so easily, that she thought it was a behavior exclusive to black men. I assure her it is a universal human capacity to hurt, though I a not sure that it is in any way “assuring”. She would be attending college here in Livingstone this year except her ex-boyfriend convinced her not to with promises that his family was going to bring her to the UK to study there.
During the periods of happier small talk, I cope with hearing about her situation by trying to come to a conclusion on whether these thatched lodges are really “Zambian” or, like so much of the “Zambian” carvings for sale, not rooted in the culture but in what tourists think African culture is. The thatched roof is what all the poor villages use. Ironically, while all Zambians are striving for the corrugated metal roof which the British brought as it is a sign of wealth despite turning the house into an oven, tourists, most of which sound British to compound the irony, are paying top dollar to stay in safari lodges with thatched roofs. In the villages I have seen women binding and cleaning the thatch which they sell to lodge owners at a small price which I don’t know if it’s reasonable or not given the work involved. I wonder if tourists appreciate the level of authenticity when they stay in these lodges.
We go back to Besta’s place for dinner and tea. And despite her being roughly my age the place is hers, both her parents have passed away years before. I am afraid to ask from what because the answer might be aids. She has an array of DVDs and we watch the movie “Honey” with Jessica Alba. In Canada I had head this movie referred to as a “Dick Flick” [being the cleverly named reciprocal of a “chick flick”, with not much substance and lots of “T & A”]. But to Besta it’s a lot more. She has an enormous passion for dancing, and even teaches dancing [the main theme of the movie. She has watched this DVD so many times I am convinced most of the skips are not from scratches but from simply being worn out. This film is filled with, what in Canada I would consider, a cheesy uplifting story about inner city, troubled youth finding salvation in their love for Hip Hop dance but which here in Zambia is something else entirely. It means the world to her, and its uplifting story I am sure contributes to that incredible strength I see in her which holds together her fragile life. She cries at the feel-good ending every time. Besta’s daughter from the boyfriend before the British one ones around the house, even happier and more full of energy than my DoDo. I’d guess her to be between one and two years old. Besta assures me, without my solicitation for assurance, that her daughter is an incredible blessing for her. I wonder if both, or either, will actually get to go to school. But I am looking forward to going out with them again next weekend, and being taught how to dance by someone who actually teaches dance. We’ll be celebrating Besta’s 20th birthday. A fact which makes me wonder if those adults I mentioned spending my time with are really that old…
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I warned you that was a dark one. I’ve written this after I had gone home from Besta’s, and after I lay in bed a while, failing to not construct these lines. Having written them down, I’ve been tossing and turning in bed, ironically just as sleepless as before. [while I type the words up, somehow they don’t seem to capture the emotion which kept me up last night, and has weighed on my chest all day]. Desperate for sleep I will make myself a cup of NeoCitran to help me sleep with cold water from my nalgene water bottle sitting on my little table by my books. For me this was a haunting experience, made all the more so by how much light I see in Besta. I can’t imagine how you are feeling reading gthis in Canada. Perhaps you’re at your office or on a laptop, perhaps sipping a three and a half dollar starbucks concoction [a scenario which problem comes to mind because if our roles were reversed I would be sitting in Wicked Café, Vancouver, sipping on of Arthur’s cappuccinos which are so good I readily liken them to liquid crack]. I’m not trying to depress you with this story, though I may have. I debated sharing this experience on so public a medium as a blog, and considered it may be more appropriate for an email to a select few who don’t mind shouldering the darker experiences. But as you can see I have decided otherwise. That’s because I wanted to remind you I am not traveling in a place of sunshine, rainbows and kittens [well actually I have seen all three, but you know what I mean]. Because I want to remind you of why members of Engineers Without Borders (perhaps you are among them) are working so hard for change.
We went to one of their favourite hang-outs: The Livingstone Safari Lodge. It’s a lodge [hotel/hostel] and campground for tourists but it has a very nice, open air bar/resteraunt under the high thatched roof which characterizes lodges in Zambia. We see an old classmate of Besta’s, with her little girl, talking with Besta and the girl’s old teacher. Despite the presence of the child, the encounter seems to be romantic. Besta tells us how he broke her arm once in class because he was drunk, though I get the impression it wasn’t more than a strain. She didn’t have him arrested, she chose to forgive and forget.
Lweendo and Besta drink sparkling white South African wine while I sip a coke from the glass bottles that you aren’t allowed to take from the places you bought the coke and thus have to carry an empty bottle to trade if you want to take it to go. I was continuing my abstinence from alcohol which I later relented and drank a glass of red wine. After the initial giddiness had passed as the alcohol went straight to my head from not drinking for a while, it made me just feel sick and reaffirmed my decision to stop drinking.
We played pool (seemingly the most popular activity in Zambia, bar football (proper football, as in soccer, not American football)] or just sat and talked. Somehow we got on the subject of her planned trip to the UK, which made me ask Why the UK? This brought out the very sensitive subject, which underlay the rest of the evening, of how her British boyfriend/fiancée had dumped her this last week over something so trivial that I am convinced he lost interest for one reason or another and just needed an excuse. On her hand I can see the band of surprisingly pale skin where the ring used to be. The issue of westerners engaging in frivolous relationships with Africans while traveling, only to have the twp perceptions of how serious the relationship is grossly distant apart, becomes an awful reality watching a beautiful, sweet Zambian girl blink away tears as you listen to her choked words. I don’t even know if my idea of a broken heart comes close to what she is dealing with as I hear how devoted she was to him, how much she gave, and how little was returned. I am faced with the awe inspiring ability of a Zambian women to be devoted to a man even when getting nothing in return. She tells me she thought white men didn’t fling relationships aside so easily, that she thought it was a behavior exclusive to black men. I assure her it is a universal human capacity to hurt, though I a not sure that it is in any way “assuring”. She would be attending college here in Livingstone this year except her ex-boyfriend convinced her not to with promises that his family was going to bring her to the UK to study there.
During the periods of happier small talk, I cope with hearing about her situation by trying to come to a conclusion on whether these thatched lodges are really “Zambian” or, like so much of the “Zambian” carvings for sale, not rooted in the culture but in what tourists think African culture is. The thatched roof is what all the poor villages use. Ironically, while all Zambians are striving for the corrugated metal roof which the British brought as it is a sign of wealth despite turning the house into an oven, tourists, most of which sound British to compound the irony, are paying top dollar to stay in safari lodges with thatched roofs. In the villages I have seen women binding and cleaning the thatch which they sell to lodge owners at a small price which I don’t know if it’s reasonable or not given the work involved. I wonder if tourists appreciate the level of authenticity when they stay in these lodges.
We go back to Besta’s place for dinner and tea. And despite her being roughly my age the place is hers, both her parents have passed away years before. I am afraid to ask from what because the answer might be aids. She has an array of DVDs and we watch the movie “Honey” with Jessica Alba. In Canada I had head this movie referred to as a “Dick Flick” [being the cleverly named reciprocal of a “chick flick”, with not much substance and lots of “T & A”]. But to Besta it’s a lot more. She has an enormous passion for dancing, and even teaches dancing [the main theme of the movie. She has watched this DVD so many times I am convinced most of the skips are not from scratches but from simply being worn out. This film is filled with, what in Canada I would consider, a cheesy uplifting story about inner city, troubled youth finding salvation in their love for Hip Hop dance but which here in Zambia is something else entirely. It means the world to her, and its uplifting story I am sure contributes to that incredible strength I see in her which holds together her fragile life. She cries at the feel-good ending every time. Besta’s daughter from the boyfriend before the British one ones around the house, even happier and more full of energy than my DoDo. I’d guess her to be between one and two years old. Besta assures me, without my solicitation for assurance, that her daughter is an incredible blessing for her. I wonder if both, or either, will actually get to go to school. But I am looking forward to going out with them again next weekend, and being taught how to dance by someone who actually teaches dance. We’ll be celebrating Besta’s 20th birthday. A fact which makes me wonder if those adults I mentioned spending my time with are really that old…
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I warned you that was a dark one. I’ve written this after I had gone home from Besta’s, and after I lay in bed a while, failing to not construct these lines. Having written them down, I’ve been tossing and turning in bed, ironically just as sleepless as before. [while I type the words up, somehow they don’t seem to capture the emotion which kept me up last night, and has weighed on my chest all day]. Desperate for sleep I will make myself a cup of NeoCitran to help me sleep with cold water from my nalgene water bottle sitting on my little table by my books. For me this was a haunting experience, made all the more so by how much light I see in Besta. I can’t imagine how you are feeling reading gthis in Canada. Perhaps you’re at your office or on a laptop, perhaps sipping a three and a half dollar starbucks concoction [a scenario which problem comes to mind because if our roles were reversed I would be sitting in Wicked Café, Vancouver, sipping on of Arthur’s cappuccinos which are so good I readily liken them to liquid crack]. I’m not trying to depress you with this story, though I may have. I debated sharing this experience on so public a medium as a blog, and considered it may be more appropriate for an email to a select few who don’t mind shouldering the darker experiences. But as you can see I have decided otherwise. That’s because I wanted to remind you I am not traveling in a place of sunshine, rainbows and kittens [well actually I have seen all three, but you know what I mean]. Because I want to remind you of why members of Engineers Without Borders (perhaps you are among them) are working so hard for change.
Disclaimer
I am not sure what the people reading this expect from my blog. If you expect to always read an uplifting story of overcoming extreme poverty or a story about how the girls in my family laugh as they teach me a Zambian dance… I’m afraid you are going to be disappointed. I think you deserve more, I think you deserve a more complete picture of the experience of a Junior Fellow. So I am warning you know, some blogs may be a bit troubling, even haunting, but I will try to warn you before those ones as best as I can.
I’m warning you now… this next one isn’t happy.
I’m warning you now… this next one isn’t happy.
DoDo
Dorris is one of my favourite people in the world. To remind you, she is the two year old daughter to Katalausha and Lidia, and is more commonly referred to as DoDo [pronounced dough-dough or doe-doe].
We first bonded over the simplest game ever: we both were wearing clothes with hoods, and I would imitate her in regards to having her hood on or off her head. That simple little game endeared us fiercely to one another. She refers to me as Uncle, [one of the few audible words she can speak, and one of the even fewer ones that are in English]. From the moment I arrive home after knocking off [which is what they call leaving work here in Zambia] she is shouting “UNCLE!” unless I am paying attention to her.
Kids are like rubber, and so one of DoDo’s favourite games is to have me toss her around the big comfy couches. Grabbing her by the legs and flipping her over her onto her stomach or back. Or simply picking her up and tossing her up into the air and catching her. She laughs and giggles like a crazy person. In between flipping her around, I tickle her. And she giggles in the way only a child can which makes me totally loose control and giggle likewise. Seriously, I can’t not giggle like a 2 year old when she is giggling.
She also likes to play games where we scare each other. She will hide around the corner and poke her head out at me and squeal and giggle because she sees me. Or I will come around the corner and grab her. Or she will simply crouch behind the armrest of the coach and I will lunch my arm over and tickle her… and she giggles and giggles.
She really likes my iPod, she loves music just like her father [foreshadowing of a blog to come]. And she loves to dance, moving her clumsy two year old body in her best imitation of the older girls in the family. What I would give to know what is going through the mind of a two year old Zambian child’s mind as she listen to music on an iPod. I get up and dance with her, a headphone in each of ears playing a funky Modest Mouse song.
The trouble with having a two year old that fond of you is they boss you around! The number of times she has repeated “tia” [“come” in Tonga or Nyanja…. I’m not sure]. She yelled at me to pray one time before we had dinner because we hadn’t prayed yet, her little hands already clasped together, her eyes continually peaking up at me to make sure I am praying to while she mumbles a totally incoherent slew of syllables that is her prayer. After she gets worn out a bit she will pat the couch and say “beppi” which means “sit” but she has confused to for “sleep”. Apparently DoDo likes to get up out of bed at night, so Katalausha and Lidia will blow out their candle and make noises which DoDo knows are coming from her parents but she plays to be scared and runs back into the safety of their bed. They explained this to me one time after DoDo had said “beppi” till I lay down on the couch beside her, and then began making funny hushing noises… she was imitating what her parents do to scare her into bed to play scare me to go to sleep also.
DoDo is the most wonderful child I know. The apple of my heart. The kind of child you can see the light that sustains the world in her gleaming eyes. But suddenly I am scared by a nagging question… will she be able to go to school? Of course the intention is that she will, but maybe there will be two many funerals within the family, which are an enormous financial burden, and they won’t be able to afford it. I know adult Zambians who haven’t done passed grade 7 because of this, and I’ve listen to how they struggle to overcome that limitation. Can you imagine being a grown up and having to go back to do grade 8 through 12? And this is the Southern Province, with an HIV rate of 18% or almost 1 in 5, which means plenty of funerals. I often see big trucks, that would normally be hauling gravel or some other material in Canada, which are filled with people, and when I ask people around me what they are doing the tell me it’s a funeral.
I fall asleep at night, snug under a couple warm blankets [the nights in Livingstone are cold] and a mosquito net, with my little bundle of non-work clothes wrapped in my hoodie for a pillow, cosy in the naïve self delusion that it couldn’t happen to her. That it couldn’t happen to my DoDo…
…still…
…but at least that delusion means I can sleep at night.
We first bonded over the simplest game ever: we both were wearing clothes with hoods, and I would imitate her in regards to having her hood on or off her head. That simple little game endeared us fiercely to one another. She refers to me as Uncle, [one of the few audible words she can speak, and one of the even fewer ones that are in English]. From the moment I arrive home after knocking off [which is what they call leaving work here in Zambia] she is shouting “UNCLE!” unless I am paying attention to her.
Kids are like rubber, and so one of DoDo’s favourite games is to have me toss her around the big comfy couches. Grabbing her by the legs and flipping her over her onto her stomach or back. Or simply picking her up and tossing her up into the air and catching her. She laughs and giggles like a crazy person. In between flipping her around, I tickle her. And she giggles in the way only a child can which makes me totally loose control and giggle likewise. Seriously, I can’t not giggle like a 2 year old when she is giggling.
She also likes to play games where we scare each other. She will hide around the corner and poke her head out at me and squeal and giggle because she sees me. Or I will come around the corner and grab her. Or she will simply crouch behind the armrest of the coach and I will lunch my arm over and tickle her… and she giggles and giggles.
She really likes my iPod, she loves music just like her father [foreshadowing of a blog to come]. And she loves to dance, moving her clumsy two year old body in her best imitation of the older girls in the family. What I would give to know what is going through the mind of a two year old Zambian child’s mind as she listen to music on an iPod. I get up and dance with her, a headphone in each of ears playing a funky Modest Mouse song.
The trouble with having a two year old that fond of you is they boss you around! The number of times she has repeated “tia” [“come” in Tonga or Nyanja…. I’m not sure]. She yelled at me to pray one time before we had dinner because we hadn’t prayed yet, her little hands already clasped together, her eyes continually peaking up at me to make sure I am praying to while she mumbles a totally incoherent slew of syllables that is her prayer. After she gets worn out a bit she will pat the couch and say “beppi” which means “sit” but she has confused to for “sleep”. Apparently DoDo likes to get up out of bed at night, so Katalausha and Lidia will blow out their candle and make noises which DoDo knows are coming from her parents but she plays to be scared and runs back into the safety of their bed. They explained this to me one time after DoDo had said “beppi” till I lay down on the couch beside her, and then began making funny hushing noises… she was imitating what her parents do to scare her into bed to play scare me to go to sleep also.
DoDo is the most wonderful child I know. The apple of my heart. The kind of child you can see the light that sustains the world in her gleaming eyes. But suddenly I am scared by a nagging question… will she be able to go to school? Of course the intention is that she will, but maybe there will be two many funerals within the family, which are an enormous financial burden, and they won’t be able to afford it. I know adult Zambians who haven’t done passed grade 7 because of this, and I’ve listen to how they struggle to overcome that limitation. Can you imagine being a grown up and having to go back to do grade 8 through 12? And this is the Southern Province, with an HIV rate of 18% or almost 1 in 5, which means plenty of funerals. I often see big trucks, that would normally be hauling gravel or some other material in Canada, which are filled with people, and when I ask people around me what they are doing the tell me it’s a funeral.
I fall asleep at night, snug under a couple warm blankets [the nights in Livingstone are cold] and a mosquito net, with my little bundle of non-work clothes wrapped in my hoodie for a pillow, cosy in the naïve self delusion that it couldn’t happen to her. That it couldn’t happen to my DoDo…
…still…
…but at least that delusion means I can sleep at night.
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