Confession

(written 7 August 2011)
I'm not particularly noble.  I'm not selflessly giving of myself or making a big sacrifice to be here.

At first, my biggest struggle in Zambia was fitting in with other Americans.  I felt like everyone I arrived with came loaded with gadgetry: Kindles, iPods, computers, solar chargers.  I was excited to live in an African village, and I didn't want to live an American existence in the village.  Don't get me wrong: all of those items are useful, and I have a great appreciation for the sharing mentality that Peace Corps Volunteers have; I love being able to use their computers to Skype and having dance parties to their American music.  But I don't consider those things necessary to my survival here, or even to my happiness.

Sometimes I feel a little strange when other Volunteers talk about "this crazy thing we're doing" by living here in rural villages.  It has never seemed crazy or daunting or even that unorthodox to me.  The vast majority of the world's population live without gadgets, without running water or electricity.  A big chunk of those live in poverty as well.  (Note that I don't consider a lack of electricity or taps to be, in itself, a mark of poverty.)  When I joined the Peace Corps, I made a commitment to serve where they sent me, "under conditions of hardship, if necessary," but I don't consider myself to have much in the way of hardship.  My thatched-roof hut formerly housed a family, so it's very big by Peace Corps standards.  The thatch is lined with plastic sheeting to cut down on falling dust, the mud brick walls are smeared with lime to ward off termites, the floors are cemented to ease sweeping and keep away pests, and my doors and windows are constructed of sturdy wood with locks.  Basically, I live in a palace.

That's not to say, however, that I gave no consideration to the trappings I would bring along (and I did bring a number, albethey non-electronic).  A few weeks before I left, I was discussing the possible purchase of an iPod--something I've never owned--or a radio, and the pros and cons of bringing a computer, with a high school classmate who spent time after college in Kenya.  "I want to live the way they [the country's citizens] do," I explained.  She responded, "You do, to an extent, but you never really do," and she was right.  Partly because everyone's different; there's no one way to live in Zambia just as there's no one way to live in the States.  Over the past nine years, there have been big differences in how I spent time at my home in my various sejours in the Midwest and on either coast.  But looking at the average lifestyle of my Zambian peers and family, I live differently.  I have a bed, a supply of supermarket-sold nonperishables, and a variety of novelties: a hammock, a flute, watercolor paints.  But the difference isn't in the stuff as much as it is in how I occupy my time.  I have 15-20 books on loan from our Peace Corps Provincial library, and I spend hours each week reading them (plus all the manuals and technical information I have for my job as an educator).  I go through notebooks like lightning; I've written dozens of letters and started a screen adaptation.  I think, I ponder, I muse, I plan.  I haven't changed who I am in almost any way.  In fact, I came here in large part to nourish who I am, who I want to be.

I breathe clean air.  I buy produce from the people who grew it, and I primarily eat food that is wholesome and minimally processed.  I use the amount of water it reasonably takes, and no more, to wash myself, my clothes, my dishes, and my floor.  I've made my first organic compost pile.  I wake when the sun does and cook on a natural charcoal fire.  My job is learning and sharing, and helping others to learn and share.

I get places using foot and pedal power or shared transportation.  I occasionally get news from http://www.nytimes.com/ (I do have the advantage of an Internet phone, which is pretty wild, though the Internet access is unpredictable and unreliable), but in general, my mind is unoccupied by thoughts of debt crises in the industrialized world, or of wars and civil unrest in Africa and the Middle East, or of celebrity scandals and gossip.  My mind is occupied instead with ideas for teacher trainings, multiplication facts for quizzing my host family siblings, and how I might improve relationships with my fellow teachers and community members.  It's a pretty blissful existence.

I live alone, but I'm not lonely.  I have other PCVs near enough for American conversation if I need it, colleagues who are interested in my presence, and community members who have worked hard to support Peace Corps bringing a Volunteer here long before I knew I was coming.  I have a family that enjoys my presence, including lots of siblings/cousins who claim me as their own, greeting me excitedly with "Ya Rosie, iyawela!" (Rose, she has returned!) even if I've only been away a few hours.  I've lived in a Parisian foyer with hundreds of other women, in a luxurious, shared San Diego apartment, in a shared employee house with other North Carolina wilderness camp counselors, and I'm pretty sure that despite being surrounded by people, I had more moments of feeling alone in those places than I have ever felt in my modest earthen home in Mambweland.

I'm told that, more and more, village life is a remnant of Peace Corps past.  Fifty years ago, PCVs were essentially dropped in the bush and picked up two years later.  That's no longer the case; the network of material and emotional support is fantastic.  My particular project, or program, is well-suited to me.  I work in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, and teachers are among the cadre of professionals in Zambia.  So I live a bit like a villager but am regarded a bit as a member of the intelligentsia, the skilled.  My particular site is cushy; I have a market, little shops, a school, a clinic, and churches all within short walking distance.  My water source is a well, a basketball court's distance from my door, which provides clean agua.  I reach tarmac--and some form of transport--in less than 5 minutes on foot.  But that said, several of the schools in my zone are 20+ kilometers further "in the bush."  The residents' living situations aren't much different from my own, other than they have to bike 20km up or down a mountain to get anywhere.

I do believe I have an intimate perspective on life in rural Zambia, but it's a fallacy to say that I can truly understand what it means to be a rural Zambian.  By virtue only of being born when and where and to whom I was, I have a huge network of resources and supports that is impossible to release, even if I wanted to.  I don't know what it is like to go hungry, to have nothing, to lack a basic education.  I am immeasurably fortunate, and so are most of my neighbors, whose lifestyle--while different from my own--isn't, to my observation, altogether unpleasant in the least.   So it's a little amazing to me that I'm considered to be living  "in the bush."  Living in rural Africa isn't so different from living in rural America, and for now, there's no place I'd rather be calling home.