Fall Asleep Smiling

(written 6 June 2012)

There are few things I enjoy more than being snug in my bed listening to the sounds of Masamba.  The zonal children, here for a sports tournament, are singing, drumming, and dancing around a bonfire.  I went earlier but they’ve just now started, and I’m freshly bathed and under the covers.  This afternoon I afforded myself the rare luxury of a nap while the sounds of sports competition and revelry filtered in with the sunlight through my netted windows.  I enjoy being out on the field, watching the kids, but it is also nice to hear them from my house (and yard), to be alone while still reminded of the goings-on in the community by the soundtrack all around.

Back in September, the election results took several days to count.  One night I woke up to sounds of jubilation and thought to myself, “The results are out, and Sata has won.”  I knew the opposition party had emerged victorious because of the excitement I could hear.  Had the president in office, Rupiah Banda, been re-elected, many would have been happy, but their celebration would have been more subdued—much as if McCain had won, rather than Obama, in 2008.  On that night, I argued with myself momentarily in my half-sleep: should I go out and experience the election joy of a country that has only had a handful of presidential elections since gaining independence?  Or curl back into slumber? Sleep won out, but in moments like these, part of me still wonders if I shouldn’t be out there, experiencing every moment more fully—I only get two years, after all, and half of that time has transpired.  But the truth is, I am enjoying it.  It reminds me of the old joke about Canada being a loft apartment over a really great party.  It’s meant as an insult, but I wonder if the loft apartment isn’t the place to
be—enjoying vicariously the merriment below, all the while comfortable in PJs and slippers.

Not that I should be a hermit.  “Being seen” is important here.  Not like the L.A. “seen” of status and privilege, but the presence, the partaking of the communal consciousness of the environs.  The simple state of being with others and letting them know--by my presence--that I enjoy being with them.

Regardless of what transpires in the day, it’s an incredible luxury to have at its close a warm, safe, comfortable resting place.  Having seen many Zambian bedrooms as part of the mosquito net longevity study, I am very much aware of just how privileged I am to have a soft bed, pillows, and blankets, as well as a pretty bedroom and candles to cast a soft glow over it all.  Knowing that outside, things are growing, nocturnal animals engage in their business, and the moon rises steadily, I feel at once integrated into my natural settings and protected from them. Occasions like this, when the air is filled with youthful energy of music and laughter, I feel not annoyed by the noise but gently included in the party, and I fall asleep smiling.