Sunday, November 27, 2011

Hut Sweet Hut

I live in a mansion.

It's true--my four-room house with a hallway, a small area that was formerly an indoor bathing space but is now a storage closet, five windows and two doors, would be large for a typical family, and I live alone with a 3-month-old kitten.  Another PCV asked me once, "What do you do with four rooms?"  Had I been quick-witted, I would've replied, "A lot of cleaning."

The house was not built for me; it was vacant when the community was preparing for a PCV--months before I knew I was coming to Zambia--and the families who live on this compound (really just a cluster of houses behind the soccer and netball fields) were willing to have me as neighbor, daughter, sister, friend.  Nonetheless, a lot of work was done in preparation for my arrival.  The dirt floor was covered with concrete; the walls were smeared with white limestone to ward off termites (and spread light into what can otherwise be a very dark space), the thatch roof was lined with black plastic (like that used for trash bags in the U.S.) to minimize dust and termite waste descending inside.  The open-air windows have wooden shutters that lock securely, as do both the front and back doors.

An insaka, which resembles a gazebo but has a thatch roof, was built outside so I can host visitors.  (It's not culturally appropriate for visitors to enter in some cases; as a single woman it would be untoward of me to have a male guest in the house.)  Though I assisted, two of my host family members--a married couple in their 30s--built my grass bathing shelter within a few days of my arrival.

When we were nearing the time to move in to our new homes, one of my friends exclaimed, "I'm a homeowner for the first time!"  It's true--though some may see (from American views tainted by the extreme frivolity projected by Entourage and Sex and the City and, let's be honest, any of our myriad television shows and films) our accomodations as simple, a lot of work has gone into them, and as Peace Corps volunteers our houses are still nicer than those of at least 50% of our community.  I recently sat out part of a rainstorm in a two-room house where the matron said she has raised 10 children.  Ten children over the years, growing up in a two-room house, without so much as a curtain dividing the sitting room from the bedroom, the family's few dishes displayed on a shelf made from a split log.  Indeed--I live in a mansion.









Signed, Katito

(written 20 November 2011)
I saw him in the market--my old friend.  I greeted him, then beckoned for him to come, to follow me.  He trusted; he came.  At my house he politely sat on the small stoop when I entered, after I finger-spelled "Kalibu"--Welcome.

His face lit up with knowing recognition when I brought out the two books that had come in a package I'd been awaiting for almost three months: introductory sign language texts with lots of pictures and photos of vocabulary.  For over an hour we sat, going through the books, him demonstrating the signs or signing "same," and showing me the sign he had learned for the word depicted in the book.  Many signs sprang forth from deep within my memory, as I remembered my youngest sister learning to sign as a toddler.  How I wished she could be here with me and my friend, teaching and translating!  I brought a family picture to point her out to him and communicated that she knows sign.  He asked if she is deaf; I said no, but didn't know how to explain Down Syndrome.  It didn't matter.  We sat there, as the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, learning fast and slow and work and monkey.  I laughed out loud more than I had collectively over the past month.  Dipping into this language--even just at the water's edge--was so invigorating!  And Katito--I've written about him before.  I've said his smile could make the world go round, and I'm still convinced of that.  I sat there thinking, "I don't know why, but it feels like this teenage boy is my best friend here."  Watching his hands speak, I was struck by the sheer beauty--of the language, alternatingly amusing and profound, and of his execution.  We could communicate on only a primitive level, though we've had written conversations before.  When there's no paper, he uses a finger or a rock to scratch letters into the darkness of his forearm, briefly leaving faint spellings on the skin.  We had once, in the market, "sung" the national anthem together, as he signed the written lyrics as I pointed to them.  And we'd had a long, fairly confused written conversation during Term 2 about the possibility of him attending school in Term 3, since his family can't currently afford the boarding expenses of the school for the deaf in Kasama.  That conversation, involving a lot of coaxing, was followed by one with his older sister, and weeks later, one with his mother at their home.  My school head, once a special education teacher, had agreed that he should come and that he would be sponsored by the school--meaning he wouldn't need to pay the K80,000 (roughly $16) school fees for the term.  I had been thrilled when he showed up, a week late notwithstanding, in Term 3, and I bustled him into the classroom, asking for a pupil to be his helper, negotiating arguments between the handful of boys who jumped up, eager to help communicate the teacher's spoken words into his notes.  When new Peace Corps Volunteers on a mid-training visit chanced by and introduced themselves to the class in their sparkly new Mambwe, the pupils were in awe as I fumbled through finger-spelling their names for Katito.

"I helped get this boy into this classroom," I though.  "I have done something here."

And when I learned, the next day, he'd been sent away by another administrator unaware of the previous arrangement, I was crushed--and furious.  But I kept my cool, letting another teacher address the administrative dissonance, and accepting that I couldn't force the school to admit him.  And, too, as personally defeated as I felt, I reminded myself that the mentality of inclusivity, of every child's potential despite obvious deficits in teaching--it's true that none of the teachers sign, and this school is not the ideal school for him--of the importance of the social aspect of school--these ideas are cultural, and personal, and I can't expect everyone, particularly those with such different backgrounds, to share my views on them.

Now here he was, as the term drew near to a close, sitting on my stoop.  And I felt that if he were my brother, my son, my heart could not be more overflowing with love than it already was.  Something about him--his heart seems so pure, his mind quick, his smile so ready.

"I can't leave this place," I felt sure.  Oh, not that I've been wanting to leave; but the past few weeks have seen a few bouts of melancholy, of ambivalence, of burn-out with the term that had so many obstacles to what I wanted to do--things beyond my control.  Not wanting to go, but not at every moment wanting to be here.

Katito brought me back.  I can't wait to see where our language and friendship goes.  Oh, and Mom--he said to tell you thank you for sending me the books.

Katito with me in April 2013, just days before my departure from the village

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Eat, Pray, Love, Repeat.

(written 5 November 2011)
Today, for the first time in 9 months, I started reading a book that is not new to me.  I did so with a bit of...not guilt, per se, but a sense of wasting time.  There's a vast Peace Corps library of books here; I recently started Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier and need to finish it, since it's been on my shelf for 6 months and others may want it.  And Heart of Darkness--shouldn't I focus on that, so that I can finish before Thanksgiving, since it's on my 17-year-old sister's AP Lit reading list and it would be cool to be able to discuss it with her over our next Skype date?   But I had grabbed The Shack and Eat Pray Love off our shelves in Kasama to share with a teacher who'd asked me to pick a book for her.  Both I have read and enjoyed immensely; I thought she, as a devout Jehovah's Witness, would find the former either beautifully heart-wrenching or blasphemous, and I'm curious as to which, and the latter would share a female voice very different from those here.  Neither book was brought for my own benefit; I've read them, and I have dozens of purely-for-pleasure books, not to mention a deep stack of professional manuals and guides, vying for my attention each day.

But I plucked Eat Pray Love from the shelf, thinking I'd just glance over a few favorite parts while drinking Milo (a cocoa-like powdered concoction) and eating Petit Beurre cookies dipped in peanut butter and honey as thunder rolled overhead.

It is every bit as good as I remember.  And dipping your feet back into the waters of an old literary love takes you back not only into the world within its covers but your own past life and the person you were when you first discovered it.  Back on my bed in North Carolina, on the phone with Kevin, who recommended it to me, right around the time (if I remember it correctly) I was considering a drastic move to NYC, a switch from the wooded wilderness to the concrete jungle, from an "office" of rocks and split-log-benches and open air and wood-fire-heated tents to a tiny closet of a cubicle in a slim doctor's office (that more closely resembled a corridor) in Manhattan.

Those of us in the still-single-but-not-actively-looking-but-not-ruling-out-the-possibility-of-stumbling-upon-someone category may think of past romantic encounters as those who have shaped us and our current picture of what the perfect forever partner might look like.  Interestingly enough, several of the people who've most influenced what I'm looking for (though don't read me wrong--it's much more of a "if you see cookie dough ice cream at the store while you're there, grab a container" kind of looking than an actively fueled pursuit) don't make it on the list of Jacobs-have-I-loved.  Nary a kiss was shared, and while in some cases there may have been romantic interest on the part of one of us, it never came to fruition in any official or physical sense.  But there are rendez-vous of the soul, and such is what I shared with Kevin--a brilliantly lit spirit, the kind of wanderer who is never lost, who resists sturdy stability and lives, instead, with a kind of never-ending wonder and appreciation for each new day.  No wonder, then, that he so enjoyed a book about seeking--in the world and in oneself.  It is a compliment to me that he knew I'd like it, too, though of course it was a bestseller (and later made into a film) so I'm not all that special. 

So, my feet well-softened by the swirling waters of these memories, I re-encounter the story, now with 3.5 more years of life behind me.  And I understand better the heartbreak of her divorce and failed new love, having been witness to my parents' own bitter parting over the past 18 months.  (Though I might add that my mother and her co-worker, with whom I saw the film--neither had read the book--last winter while both were in the throes of ugly divorces, lamented that not everyone having such a crisis can jet off, all expenses paid, to find themselves in a year of living abroad.)  And being almost 28 now, I'm closer to Liz's age at the beginning of her book--so while our lives are very, very different, I can get a better feel for the stage of life in which the book is set. 

So while at first I was hesitant about re-relishing a favorite rather than forging ahead and lengthening my list of new written influences, I've decided that I'm not wasting time.  I'm revisiting an old love, but she looks different because I have changed.  Her description of her faith is, though simultaneously more crisply catch and eloquent, almost identical my own.  Did I feel that way three years ago?  Did this book plant a seed, or nourish a change already germinating?  What more in the story will spark something in me in a new or different way this time around?  So I'll savor every bite of this delightfully decadent, rich but tangy book again.  Then I'll get back to my list.