Friday, April 6, 2012

Ku Mpanga

(written 4 April 2012)

"I'm feeling..." I struggled to find the right words as Claire and I walked along the path to my house.  "I'm feeling a lot of things."
Claire is an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who was here from 2008-2010, also an education volunteer in Northern Province.  Now earning a Master's degree in development sociology from a university in Amsterdam, she was back in Zambia for a few months, doing research on the Peace Corps and the communities that host volunteers.  While visiting my site, she asked me if I had been to a girls' initiation ceremony yet, and then asked a woman in the village to invite me to one.  The very next day, we were preparing to leave school when the woman told us to follow her.  Off we went, ku mpanga--into the woods.

As we stood on the perimeter, watching, Claire told me quietly, "The first one I went to was with another volunteer, and we were like, 'This is some National Geographic shit!'"  I nodded in agreement.  We were in the woods with a handful of teenage girls I recognized from school and some women from the community, but it felt as though we were in another place, another time.  The four girls undergoing the ceremony were unclothed except for a large piece of fabric wrapped around their waist and between their legs, almost as a large diaper.  We had missed part of the ceremony, but Claire explained that the dirt caked in a thin layer on their torsos was from a ritual in which they crawled and slid on the ground like snakes.  All of the rituals, it seemed, were metaphors for something in nature, or for emotions.  All were accompanied by drumming and/or singing, though I couldn't make out the words.  Some were instructional, such as the dance where girls pantomimed washing out the fabric they would use to manage their menstrual flows.  Many had an implied or even overt sexual context, requiring the girls to contort their bodies in unusual ways.  (One that sticks out had the girls in a bridge position, bending their head all the way backward to pick up small twigs from the ground, using only their teeth, and deposit them a few centimeters away.)

There were four girls undergoing the initiation, and four girls, clothed and presumably slightly older, clearly having undergone the initiation sometime previously, leading their peers.  A cluster of women, including the BanaCimbusa, who is in charge of such ceremonies in the village, formed a loose circle around them, singing, laughing, and occasionally arguing about how a certain ritual should be performed.  Sometimes they, too, participated as well.

"Some of the things we saw feel very--not O.K. to me," I told Claire afterward, "on a visceral level."  One ritual involved each girl fighting an initiator for a small twig, squat-hopping to a background of music while trying to wrestle the stick out of the other's grasp.  I can still see in my mind the tears that glistened in one's eyes as she fought, the aggression building inside her as she writhed and wrestled, bare-footed and mostly bare-skinned, struggling with all her might. In another exercise, the girls were slapped lightly on their faces and breasts.  Zambia women stretch their labia, and in a moment rife with embarrassment, each girl had to remove her waistcloth enough to show the assembly her progress in this endeavour.  Claire and I stayed on the periphery for that revealing.  The whole lot of dances and tasks had to be at least somewhat uncomfortable; the girls' bodies were scratched and dirty before they were through.  (We were, after all, in the woods; the only carpet beneath our feet was a rough one of grass, weeds, and other natural debris.)  And while the spectators and leaders were having a good time, I'm not sure the girls found the experience particularly pleasant.

I've never found the idea of initiation particularly appealing, especially when it involves intimidation, violence, embarrassment, or sexual elements.  I've never, to my recollection, initiated anyone, and my only experience as initiatee was in my senior year of college, when I was inducted in as part of the school newspaper's photography staff.  As I was on crutches at the time, I was graciously excused from the photo scavenger hunt that comprised half of the initiation process, and the other half was filled with silly activities and ceremony steeped in tradition.  My general philosophy has always been that people should be welcomed, guided, taught when entering a new role or group, rather than abused or humiliated merely as a forum for them to prove they can hack it.

I found myself surprised, though, at how intrigued I felt by the overall process.  Sure, parts of it went against what I felt the girls needed to know and be shown; isn't allowing them to realize their womanhood by being slapped just setting them up for a lifetime of tolerating domestic abuse?  And Claire said she once asked girls, "Is it confusing for you when the mothers in the village take you in the woods and essentially teach you how to have sex, then scold you when you become pregnant?" and the girls had responded that yes, it was confusing.  So while the rituals sent some mixed messages and some messages I don't agree with, I also realized that this gathering was the most empowered I had seen any women since coming to my village nearly a year ago.  Suddenly I realized that while I wrack my brains trying to figure out how to get 15-year-old girls (whose academic performance is generally far below the boys', whose is also quite low) to understand how to solve for x in math class, their minds are filled with thoughts and experiences I can't even fathom.

"I'm just trying to figure out how to describe what we just experienced," I said as we neared my house in the last light of dusk, "and the only words that come close are 'raw,' 'primal.'"

"But you know those words have very negative connotations," Claire warned me.

"I know, but I don't mean them negatively.  People at home won't get it, though; trying to describe this will just feed into the stereotypes and misconceptions of Africa that so many Americans have."

So I know, and yet I have tried.  Because being there, ku mpanga--in the forest--which seems the best title I can find for the whole event--was one of the most fascinating experiences I've had in this country.  There's so much I want girls to know about the world they are growing up in, and their role and rights in it.  But at the same time, it was amazing to be part of a ceremony, a ritual of womanhood, that was likely done hundreds of years ago in a similar fashion.  Parts of me wish that I, too, had had a rite of passage into womanhood--something to acknowledge the period of transition from child to adult.  Yes, encouragement and guidance must be there, but maybe it's not all bad to summon a range of emotions--rage, arousal, vulnerability--as part of a challenge, an experience that leaves its participants with a few battle wounds but a hard-won sense of endurance and achievement.  Isn't it good, perhaps, to connect--in a supported way--with the parts of us that are primal, that have existed always, and that transcend geography and culture?  Ancestral sex instruction must be accompanied (especially in a country with an HIV prevalence rate as high as Zambia's) by modern sex education, including thorough coverage of condoms and contraceptives.  (Religions can teach as they wish, but governments and communities themselves, I believe, have a responsibility to help prevent the spread of disease and unwanted pregnancies.)  The way to make this change is not necessarily by banishing the old, but by using it as a forum to incorporate the new.

These women were together, alone, away from the men that dominate their culture and country.  A small boy came in search of one of the women involved, and was allowed to stay, seated a fair distance away, as long as he kept a citenge covering his head for the entire duration.  Being able to be there for this sense of private community was incredible.  I was allowed entrance into a secret club, I felt, and while Claire and I were happy to take our leave after following the procession back to a house where elderly women waited and the girls entered to continue the initiation process, I can't imagine a better way to have spent two hours of the late afternoon.  Thereafter, I looked at the girls I had seen there in the forest with more respect, more admiration, more appreciation for the strength they have and the women they are becoming.

Making Stuff

(written 25 March 2012)

I was warned I might get bored in the village, life here being slower-paced and mostly devoid of the frenetic distractions that gobble up so much of our time in the U.S.--television and internet.  Almost a year in, I have yet to feel even one moment of boredom.  When I'm not working, enjoying a hobby-like activity, or doing general housework, I'm making home improvements.

A friend of mine is skilled and ambitious; he sawed down trees, dug into the thin cement floor of his house, and replanted the trunks inside, adding planks between the poles to serve as shelves and re-cementing the floor he'd disturbed.  With a few carpentry skills and some black lacquer, his house has been transformed into what looks like a spread in an Ikea Zambia catalog.

My skills are...fewer.  My tables, bookshelves, and benches were all made by hand by a local carpenter.  As a farmer's daughter and former wilderness camp counselor, however, I'm no stranger to tinkering and improvising, and as volunteers we constantly trade ideas on how to make things, both functional and decorative, for our homes.

My first few attempts didn't turn out quite as I had envisioned.  I wanted to make shelves out of pieces of bamboo.  A young guy, in a gesture of friendliness and an attempt to show off his manliness, found a bamboo pole and cut it down for me.  It sat in my yard until the weekend, when I cut off small sections and, with the assistance of several family members, bound them together with lengths of a thin nylon cord.  It wasn't altogether stable or flat, but it slightly resembled a shelf, and I suspended it with twine from the remaining long length of bamboo which rested diagonally atop two walls.  (The tiny shoots of bamboo stripped from the pole inspired me to try to weave a square basket of sorts, but it became obvious in about 3 minutes that I know nothing about basketweaving, even above water.)

Within two weeks--after my fingers recovered from the rawness caused by twisting the nylon cord--my shelf lost all shape.  Bamboo shrinks as it dries, so the pieces sat loosely in the string.  It couldn't hold much of anything other than a dishtowel and a few knives.

Around the same time, I decided to make a simple suspension shelf in my outhouse building.  Twine, wound around nails hammered into the baked mud bricks of the wall and pulled taut, would form a perfect resting place for toilet paper and feminine products, kept safe from the elements in ziploc bags.

Or so I thought.  The heads of the nails are small, and the twine kept slipping off.  Eventually I twisted and tied enough to make something resembling my mental image, and it worked well for a while until one of the Ziploc bags was reappropriated--probably by a small child, and probably to add to the makings of a plastic bag soccer ball.

Recently, I tried copying a friend's stovetop--nails hammered in a circle on a wooden base, to elevate a pot over a tuna can (or in his case, a fancy burner made from fused soda-can bottoms) filled with methylated spirits or another liquid fuel.  Only when I was done did I realize that my nails are shorter than the tuna can.

So I've figured out that home improvement may not work out as you plan, but generally there's another solution.  Innovation strikes at any time.  There's a plant here that, when the stem is plucked open, produces lengths of a fleshy fiber that becomes a stiff and strong cord once dry.  Two women in my host family used strips to bundle together some wood being carried home to be used as a traditional medicine.  When we reached home, I gathered up those scraps and wound thin strips along a thicker piece to form a circular ring.  Lengths of twine tied on provided a perfect place to rest a shallow sieving basket (not woven by me), which hangs from a beam in my living room and holds school supplies.

My cat, sourced after frustration with rodents reached its peak, soon figured out how to get out of my house (jumping up shelves to the top of the wall and escaping in the small space between the wall and the thatch roof) but not how to get in.  So I bought a hinge from the hardware store in town (about 22 kilometers away), borrowed a saw and plane from the carpenter, and set to work making a catflap.

Twine and long sticks, hung from roof beams, make great places to hang clothes, blankets, or anything off the ground (though my acrobatic mice still managed to chew a few holes).  My favorite family picture hangs in a frame made of fabric, cardboard, string, glue, tape, plastic from some packaging, and patience; an old pen wrapped in a ribbon whose ends are nailed into the wall with the aid of metal bottle tops stores necklaces; glass bottles covered in fabric scraps make beautiful candle holders.  And the world of citenge--the standard fabric here, sold in two-meter lengths and used for everything--has no limit.  Square foam cushions can be bought for roughly $6 in town; while making cushion covers, I figured out how to sew corners and made buttons out of sawed-off pieces of a shaved stick.  Pouches sewn and nailed to the wall can reduce clutter, and can be custom-made to hold anything from magazines to toiletries.  Rugs and doormats come to life from scraps of fabric, poked through grain sacks with a nail or wire needle.  And all manner of buckets and such can have small holes burned through with a smoldering piece of charcoal, outfitted with a piece of rope, and hung from a pole or roof beam by hooks cut from a long stretch of wire.  At school, where resources are few, the first grade teacher has taught me how to make glue by boiling cassava flour and water, and crayons with chunks of candle wax and pieces of colored chalk.  Flattened-out tissue rolls become flash cards, and soda flats organize books and papers.

Sometimes it takes a while to collect the elements necessary for a project; we use brooms made from all manner of plants, and I spent 2 hours with some sisters walking to a field to get just the right plant to make new brooms for sweeping the yard on a recent Sunday.  Not a trip I want to make every time I need to sweep, but the broom is certainly sustainable; the plants grow wildly.  I finally made a handwashing station out of an old wine box (spray-painted to look a bit more classy), duct tape, twine, and wood from a broken stool; I've waited so long because it took me five months to finish the wine.  Poking a hole through a bar of soap and suspending it from the water-box shelf by a string, I was as tickled as a small child at a water fountain to see my creation (hanging just under the eaves of my outhouse) functioning. 

That's the real joy--making stuff and seeing it work.  I could have bought a bucket with a spigot; picture frames, cushion covers, and shelves are all available here.  But in a place where so many have so little, it's great to see what I can craft with my own hands.  Because most people can't afford to buy these things, and I already have so much more than most people I know.  They know that I can afford to buy a handbag, but I hope I'm integrating myself into the culture a bit by sewing my own.

Additionally, since I'm still far off from settling into a home--this is almost the longest I've lived in any one space since high school--it's nice to watch my house evolve over time.  Years ago, I told a friend that I wanted to have a family home full of personal labors--woodwork, paintings, tile mosaics, clay pottery all made by me.  I also said I wanted to live in a hut in Africa one day.  While I meant these as two different dreams for different stages of life, he thought I meant them as one.  Turns out, he was right.  I haven't yet gotten to the tile mosaics (which here would substitute broken glass or colorful bottle tops for the tile) but my home is full of personal touches.  I have a beautiful, comfortable place to live, full of little hints of me, and untainted by the slightest hue of boredom.

No Day But Today

(written April 2, 2012)

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what is to come after Peace Corps.  Peace Corps offers non-competitive hiring status in government jobs for a year after completing service, and an RPCV friend told me when I was applying that those jobs would almost all be in Washington, D.C., unless I work as a PC recruiter somewhere else in the country.  Since 2010, then, I've sort of figured that the Capitol city is where I'll end up after August 2013 (being that I have a seat graciously saved at Harvard Summer School for the 2013 term).

And more and more, I think of D.C. not just as "the place I'll be most likely to get a job" but as the place I want to be, for a few years.  I've been there a handful of times; on my last visit, I was also beginning a job search and wrote down names of interesting leads as I meandered through the city streets.  I ended up on the beaches of San Diego that time around, with no regrets, but D.C. lingers as a place I've thought about living in since I was 17 and applying to Georgetown.  Come my return to the U.S., I'll be 29, still unmarried and childless, untethered, fresh from 2 years of grassroots development work in south central Africa.  Why not D.C.?  Why not now?  After two years of thinking about the U.S.A. as her child, looking back at her mother from a foreign telescope, why not plunge into the epicenter of her policy and activity?  As far as work goes, I'm not sure what I'll pursue, but much of what is there--government, think tank, nonprofit, academic--appeals to me, and I know from experience that it might be necessary to clock in some months with a temp agency and part-time or seasonal work, anyway.  (So much for paying off that Ivy League degree...)

Most of my daydreams' hazy focus isn't on the work, anyway.  Instead, I think about what D.C. will offer outside of work.  The Mall, museums (for frizzle!), universities (maybe G'town will forgive me for declining their offer of admission and let me enroll in a continuing education class or, better yet, hire me), restaurants to suit every palate, funky shops, coffee shops.  (I don't really like coffee, I just like the atmosphere.) Diversity--of people, language, economic status.  Public transport.  (G)old friends--in grad school or employed at the White House and in other branches of the government--and shiny new silver friends just waiting to be met.  Clubs and meet-up groups; an LGBT scene.  Hippie commune houses and shared apartments.  Opportunities.  Information.  Activism.  It plays across my mind like a wonderful parade.

It also sounds a bit stressful.  D.C. is lovely when the cherry blossoms paint the trees, but it's still a city, and in the winter/precipitation it can be a cold, wet, sloppy mess.  And those same people full of ideas and idealism and effort and skill can be a crowd of detachment, a throng of briefcases and blackberries and rushing to some Very Important Place To Be.

And right now, I have my own important place to be--a grade 9 classroom, teaching maths; walking along the tarmac with my counterpart, enrolling homes in a mosquito net research study; my own thatched home; cradling a porcelain mug of tea and listening to the radio or reading at nightfall.

I was asked recently--by new PCVs who'd arrived in-country 3 days prior--what I miss the most about America.  "Nothing," I responded, surprised a bit at my own answer.  After a few moments' reflection, I amended it: "Libraries.  A good public library system.  That's what I miss."  (There's another point for the District; hard to do better than the Library of Congress!)

But I have all the books I need; I've read at least four long novels since Christmas.  I give myself plenty of quiet time to devote to the books I find in the informal Peace Corps library, time I might not have in the U.S., even if a copy of every book ever published in America is at my fingertips.  So what do I mean, I miss libraries?

I've never really understood missing.  The concept, I mean.  I've always been a big believer in making your life what you want it to be, in taking action to change whatever is in your power to change to make yourself happy.  If "to miss" means to long for, ache over, wish to be near--well, why not make that happen?  Granted, P.O.W.s don't have such a choice, but many of us do.  But if "to miss" means to think fondly of, crave occasionally, have arise in your memory when triggered by a sound or sight or smell--well, then, certainly I know this well.  I've been too many places, known too many people, not to have them skip through my mind intermittently in a kaleidoscope of recollections and brief yearnings.

Overall, these mental visitors have been welcome and kind, uninhibiting of my current experience.  Do I miss my family?  It'd be poor form to say no.  Certainly I think of them, prioritize opportunities to see them over Skype, even let slide down my cheek a tear or two when I hear voices on the phone describe worries and situations I'm too far away to help (or accomplishments I"m too far to witness).  But do I wish I were with them?  No.  Because I could be--all I have to do is say the word, and Peace Corps will hand me a ticket and have me on a westbound plane within about 48 hours.  But this is where I've chosen to be, for now, and they are where they are supposed to be, as well.  Ipso facto, I'm happy where I am.

Then why am I thinking about Washington well over a year prior to a chance to be there?

I've been accused of wanderlust, a charge I reject if considered a malady but gladly accept if considered a particular brand of delight in the journey.  In the (almost) six years since college graduation, I've worked in 5 states + Zambia, not to mention my forsaken seabound quest.  My first grown-up job lasted 27 months--incidentally, the exact length of time I've committed here--and since then, Zambia holds the record for longest time in residence.  It feels like home here.  And I'm certain I'll miss it when I'm gone.

I want to eventually cultivate the ability to be fully present (Peaceful Warrior-style) in each moment.  To reminisce with affection and foresee with optimism, but to be totally content in the here and now, too.  So far, I've found that the best way to do that is to leave.  To enter each place knowing that my time is limited; to seize opportunities knowing that I may never have them again--because I'll be off seizing others.  When I think about hearing street musicians in lovely Cambridge in July '13, or going to a jazz club in Washington the following autumn, I become newly aware of the voices and drumbeats outside my window--the grade 8 and 9 pupils at the dorms, my siblings singing through the dreariness of a rainstorm, the calypso sound of the Catholic choir in rehearsal.  I look forward to the exhilarating variety of foods available in U.S. supermarkets, even while beaming with pride at my first from-scratch batch of tortillas and loaf of bread, and still tasting the airy lightness of a hot sugar-and-cinnamon crepe fresh from a Parisian street vendor.  I think about all the great theatrical productions I've seen (especially black box shows in the Ex with Stephen) and hope to eventually have the opportunity again to be part of such manifestations of creation and imagination, but I know that right now I have a captive audience--young siblings anxious to play, learn, and grow with me--as well as a front-row seat to a nonfiction drama, one of struggle and triumph and hope, just outside my door every day.

I've been lucky--blessed--to be where I've been.  I have so many hopes and feelings of excitement for wherever I'll go.  I only hope I can remember that at the end, there's no day but today.

Biking

(written late March/early April 2012)

A few of the schools in my zone are 20+km away, up bush paths which are rugged, to say the least.  Even during dry season, the rutted surfaces and rickety pole bridges have conjured images of imminent injury and my friend Huy.

Huy is a cleancut, straight-edge American of Vietnamese descent who likes to think he's edgy because he pursues extreme sports.  Specifically, if I'm not mistaken, he loves snowboarding, rock-climbing, and trail cycling.  He rides treacherous paths in national parks and recreation areas all over California because he likes, as far as I can tell, flirting with death.

I, however, prefer to avoid such intimacy with Death, at least for the time being.  More than once I've thought to myself while attempting to reach my destination, "You've got to be kidding me."  Yet I continue winding through the cornfield I've gotten myself lost in, or navigating the rutted-out road, or carrying my bike over the slippery branches that serve as a bridge. Still I set out, again and again.  Recently, I was visiting several volunteers while en route to a meeting in Serenje.  I left Mpumba, where Rae stays, despite a steady drizzle and a warning call from Joe--40 km south--that the roads were mucky from an all day rain.  Rae's bike--which she kindly lent me--is two sizes too small for my frame, and the brakes were minimally functional, but I was optimistic.

Off I set down the first stretch--30 km of tarmac.  The rain stopped after half an hour or so, and despite irritation in my knees due to the bike's small size, the ride was rather pleasant.

Joe had told me to call him when I reached the signpost for his school--his turnoff.  When he phoned to check in, I was just a few kilometers away, happy to be almost three-quarters through the ride after nearly two hours.

When I reached the turnoff, though, I lost all coverage, and remembered that Joe used another network for specifically that reason.  Feeling confident, I started off down the path.  I'd been to his house once before, a year prior, in a Peace Corps Land Cruiser, and in my memory it was a pretty straight shot from the road.

My memory was rose-tinted, however.  Bush paths seemed to spring up constantly, and at times it wasn't clear which way was straight (not that I was at all certain that I should be going straight).  Whenever I passed a house or people, I called out, asking if I was headed in the right way to find Ba Joe--the white man--the school.  But Kalonje is Bemba territory, and while Mambwe and Bemba are related, they're not the same, so at least one person responded to my muddled attempts at Bemba inquiries with a look of confusion.  Even more disheartening, there were several long stretches with no houses and no people.  I recognized some of the rock formations I passed, and I held on to the hope that eventually, all roads would lead to Joe.

Eventually, I crossed a short parade of women and children headed to the field.  Two young girls rushed over to escort me, so I dismounted and released my helmet strap.  We walked a short way, and they directed me to turn onto a path to the left.  Thanking them, I remounted and went on my way.

Despite the rain, the path was filled with sandy patches, and I thought, "It'd be just my luck that I'd hit a patch of sand, slam into a tree, and get hurt because my unstrapped helmet (which Peace Corps strictly requires us to wear) flies off."  Better to stop now and prevent such an occurrence, I figured, but the brakes were ineffective.  "No matter," I thought; "lots of Zambians' bikes have no brakes.  I'll do what they do," and I slid my left foot against the front tire.

Except it slid up into the bike frame, and in a split second, the bike did a 180, flipping quickly (aided by my cargo on the over-wheel rack--my personal bag and buns picked up from a roadside market) over my head.  Before I even knew what was happening, I was on the ground, still on my bike, which was now on me.

"Well, that's ironic," I thought, noting gratefully that my helmet was still on, and untangling myself to resume the ride.  Eventually I reached Joe's, but he was at the roadside, still awaiting me.  Luckily, Val, another volunteer who was visiting (with the proper cell phone network for the area) called him to inform him of my arrival.  When he made it back and I described parts of the paths I'd taken, he was bewildered.  "I think you've charted some new territory," he said.  Exploring the backroads of Kalonje: why not?

The path we took back to the tarmac the following day was, in fact, much less treacherous.  This time, I kept my helmet secured and my bike firmly beneath me.  Huy would be proud.

With Rae, just before leaving her house for the bike ride to Joe's

The day after my bike tumble, working with Joe and Val on Joe's World Map project

Biking adventures continue: Dec. 30. 2012