Work

(written 9 December 2011)

Today I walked away from two old women in the road.  I had been greeting both, one coming from the field.  She asked if I “dug”—farmed—and I responded simply, “Ntakweti vyaalo”—“I don’t have a field.”  “Londa!”—“Find/borrow one!”—was her response.

Now sometimes I explain that I came from a farm, that I’ve been out to harvest (not yet to plant, though I’m sure I will go eventually) with various villagers, that I have a little garden at my house and make my own organic compost, etc.  But this time I kept it simple:  “Madame, nene mwalimu”—“Madam, I’m a teacher.”  

            “Mwemwe mwalimu, musiomba!”—“You’re a teacher, you don’t work!” she said, in a manner that felt accusatory.  I tried in vain to remember how to say “You’re insulting me” in Mambwe, so I just said it in English and walked away.  I was annoyed, and though my tone was still polite, I knew that my turned back would communicate the message I was failing to translate into the vernacular.  They laughed good-naturedly, the common response to awkward situations, and l continued walking along the road to the home of a local carpenter.

            Of course, I know where they’re coming from.  Everyone here is a farmer.  Teachers farm—even if it means they go to their field only once a week, on the non-Sabbath half of the weekend, or even if they contract out most of the actual labor to “piece” workers.  Farming is not always a livelihood here; it’s sustenance, or a little extra cash, or a continuation of a fundamental component of life as it has been lived for generations, as much for the sake of tradition as anything else.

            But it’s also a fallback, the ever-reliable Plan B.  I’ve asked what someone does when he or she finishes school, or drops out, or doesn’t pass the requisite exams to enter Grade 8 and Grade 10, and the response is almost always, “Yakalima sile.”  The “sile” means “just” or “only”—they just farm.  The mentality is this: anyone can farm, and most people do, but when you have no other options, you just farm.

            But I don’t.  So I’m an oddity.  With my family, colleagues, and friends here in Zambia, I can explain the difference in the agricultural systems of our two countries, and the various jobs I’ve had in my short career, but with a random stranger on the street, I’m seen as just lazy.  I don’t work.

            Please pardon the interruption while I mount my high horse. 

            I have a degree from one of the most respected universities in the world.  (Unlike most of my classmates, I do not yet have a master’s or higher degree, mostly because I’ve been working in the 5.5 years since graduation.)  I spent the greater part of my college years consistently sleep-deprived; I took a heavy classload and was active in extracurriculars.  I did independent research and wrote a 100+ page thesis—coincidentally, about farming.  I’ve held enough jobs and volunteer positions in and since college that I’ve lost count; in 2009 I worked in four different states in four distinct parts of the U.S.  (Which, by the way, tends to complicate one’s taxes.)  In the less-than-ideal economy of the U.S. in the time before I left, I swallowed my debt-ridden, degree-holding pride and worked temp, seasonal, and part-time jobs, some of them mind-numbingly boring.  I sometimes went weeks with no more than three or four hours of sleep at a snatch so that I could balance two different part-time jobs with screwy hours in order to make ends meet.

            And, to descend from my horse and return back to the tarmac where the women and I crossed paths, my hands were sore and blistered from spending the morning and the day before slashing and raking my yard into a semblance of order, and I was on my way to the home of the carpenter to learn woodworking by helping on the bench he’s building for me.

            So, Madame, with all due respect, don’t dare tell me I don’t work, just because my work may look different from yours.  As a Midwestern farm girl, it’s one of the worst insults you could give me.  And while I respect your work—and am loving the opportunity to learn how to garden, something I hope to continue back in the States—I’ve worked very hard, even in the land of opportunity, to give myself options.  Because while I respect you and the dignity in your way of life, being a farmer is not my vocation.  And I’m trying my damndest to educate a few of your children so they, too, can have options.

            But this is hard to explain.  How do I convey to someone who is illiterate---not, mind you, unintelligent, but illiterate—that reading and writing and thinking are work?  You can’t eat a book and certainly not an abstract thesis statement.   How do I justify my work as a “Volunteer”—a euphemism that works well in American parlance but might as well be in Chinese for all the sense it makes here—that provides me with a living allowance sufficient to live in more comfort (and certainly with less distress) than the majority of people in my community, even if on the whole my living standards are still relatively simple?  How do I explain to someone who has completed only a few grades of primary school that teaching requires more than standing in front of a classroom for 7 hours a day—that the more I feed my mind, on content or pedagogical technique or language study—the better teacher I will be, and those things all take time and are my work?

            People think it might be hard here because I have no electricity and use a hole for a toilet.  Those things are child’s play.  The bigger questions—the ones that have no answers, that don’t go away—they’re what make this experience challenging.  Cultural exchange is more than sharing different kinds of foods.  It is trying to understand the core elements of what give us each meaning in our lives, what shapes the very people we are.  And sometimes, it’s hard work, but it’s worth it.