Monday, June 18, 2012

ciMambwe festival

(written as part of a quarterly Peace Corps project report, hence the slightly different style from my typical posts)
On June 8, I was asked to accompany pupils from the zone to a Mambwe festival/competition.  While several staff members were the official chaperones of this overnight trip, only two of us actually stayed at the venue with the pupils (others stayed with family in town).  I had accompanied the same teacher as a group of staff and students to the zonal sports tournament in May 2011, we had been co-teachers together in Term 3 2011, and I had stayed with her at her parents' home in Mbala when we attended a co-worker's wedding in September.  Needless to say, we are sufficiently comfortable working and traveling together.  The evening included "girl talk" with her and another teacher in the district, where they offered to pray for  my marriage possibilities so that I could be sure to marry before leaving Zambia.  In the morning we helped the children prepare and watched the competition, which involved representations from school zones within the district presenting sketches, poems, songs, and dances in ciMambwe.  I even had the privilege of meeting Father Andrzeja Halembe, the Polish Catholic priest who has spearheaded the translation of the Bible, a dictionary, a collection of Mambwe folktales, Catholic missals, and a variety of other literature into the Mambwe language.

The best part of the trip, however, was the return, which was (like the ride there) in the back of a teacher's Toyota pickup.  We sang and laughed the whole way, including a song I definitely want to take back with me, which translates roughly to "Are you there, [fill in the blank]? We're coming/we've returned" and has a wonderfully adventurous feeling to it, both coming and going.  We reached Masamba at 18:00, and several of the children (from other schools in the zone) had a 2-4 hour walk home from there, clearly much too far to be started that evening.  Several of the teachers and I decided to split the students needing accomodation among us, with me hosting two teenage boys and two girls.  Since I generally eat nshima with my family, I don't have mealie meal, but another teacher sent some and some relish (having arrived too late to get anything from the market) along with the girls to my house.  My family allowed us to use their cooking fire to speed up the cooking process; the girls cooked nshima and one relish while the boys cooked another.  Meanwhile, I set up my spare room with a mosquito net, reed mat, and cushions.
 
The girls slept in my room and the boys in the spare room while I slept in my sitting room.  (I have an abnormally large house for a PCV.)  In the morning, I bought fresh fritters from the market and made tea and roasted groundnuts.  The children, meanwhile, were as self-sufficient as Zambian children always are, helping wash the dishes and sweeping my yard.  A few pupils who'd slept elsewhere joined us, and I escorted them all down my path a bit as they embarked on their hours-long walk home.

This experience was both enjoyable and affirming, because I felt very comfortable assuming the role as host.  My house has American qualities (e.g. books!), but ultimately it's constructed of the same basic materials theirs are, and I think it's comfortable without being ostentatious.  Had I been asked to host a year ago, I may have tried to provide a fancy American spaghetti meal or something, and not known how to entertain the children.  This time, I felt comfortable knowing they would expect--and probably prefer--nshima, that they would want lots of sugar in tea (or no tea at all) in the morning, that they would be delighted just sitting and talking together.  I have hosted a sleepover before, of little host sisters, which was also enjoyable.  That, however, was purely for fun--their homes are, after all, next door.  This situation was an opportunity to act not just as a big sister but as host in my professional role as a member of staff at Masamba.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Alone in my Home

(written 7 June 2012)

I really like being alone.  A lot.  Maybe too much.  I’ve written before that I like hearing the sounds of Masamba—of life around me, wherever I am, really—from the perimeter, without always taking part directly.  I think this is a good thing, in general, but I wonder why I choose to be on the perimeter.  For one thing, I love my house.
It’s my sanctuary, and though there’s nothing fancy about it, I’ve poured hours of work into personal touches here and there (including a spare room curtain that took six or more hours of hand-sewing today).  One imagines an African mud-and-thatch hut to be simple, uninviting even—a place used for shelter when necessary, to be protected from the rain and the darkness of night.  For many Zambians, that’s fairly accurate.  Homes are often shockingly sparsely furnished, and life is lived out of doors.  Vegetables are chopped, dinner is eaten, clothes
are washed, time is frittered away—all outdoors.  It’s not uncommon to visit someone, even a good friend, and never enter his or her home.  Houses are a necessity, but sometimes not much more.

My house would probably seen by most Americans as “improved” over village standards: windows with locking shutters, cement floor, limed walls, plastic lining the roof to minimize the dust.  And it has far more stuff than the average home.  Partly because I’m not as financially strapped as some, partly because I’m a packrat, and partly
because as an American I take both pride and refuge in my home.  I want it to be comfortable, warm, personal.  Many of the decorations and things that I (and other Peace Corps Volunteers) have made are not spendy.  Any Zambian could use scraps of fabric and other such locally available materials as well as I.  But in a village setting, my desire to decorate sometimes seems almost singular.

So I wonder if it isn’t a bit negative, this desire I have to be alone.  I wonder if it’s a problem that the person I most enjoy being with is…myself.  Of course, when I’m out I’m always on display.  Even if I’ve been around for a year, I’m still the fairest-skinned person most of my neighbors know, and anything I do invites observation.  A task as simple as getting produce from the market less than ¼ kilometer away can take more than half an hour with countless greetings and exchanges.  Home for me—unlike for my neighbors—is the only place I can settle in and be fully, truly myself.  And of course, home isn’t synonymous with solitude; more often than not I have siblings or a crew of small children over, be it for studying or conversation or simply to play in my yard because it is an extension of their own.  People ask me, “Don’t you feel scared living alone?”  On the contrary, I love it.  A fair number of Peace Corps Volunteers have someone—generally a teenager—live with them, and they find the
experience very enriching.  If the opportunity presents itself, I may do the same in my last 6-9 months, after my biological sister leaves from her summer visit.  In the meanwhile, I’m very grateful for the solitude provided by the haven of my home, even if--and perhaps indeed because--being there sometimes means being alone.

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.