Fail. Fail. Fail.

As the class matron for Grade 8A, it was my duty to write a comment on each pupil's report form at the end of Term 3 in December.  I had seen unclaimed report forms from previous terms and was saddened by how generic, oversimplified, and even condescending they seemed: "Very poor results.  Simply try harder."  I hoped I could offer a sensible and more uplifting alternative.

Two weeks after the term's end, I found myself alone in the school head's office, flipping through the file that held each pupil's form.  Most of the end-of-term grades were written in, and I had the attendance register at my side so I could reference it.  My hope was to make each comment balanced, encouraging, and personal.  Unfortunately, my main focus that term--co-teaching grade 1--meant my attention was focused on learning the names and personalities of the 100 pupils in that grade.  Additionally, the teacher with whom I had to agreed to co-teach maths for grades 8 and 9 had left unexpectedly early in the term, and it was never entirely clear who was assigned to take his position.  (Needless to say, maths were taught infrequently at best for the next eight weeks.)

So I found myself looking at a list of names, only a handful of which I knew.  Having not taught any of them, I didn't know their classroom comportment or behavioral idiosyncracies.  Nonetheless, I was determined to improve on "simply try harder."

Grades in Zambia are rather different in composition from those in the U.S.  A teacher in any subject there can point out a breakdown of every assignment and its value, and students can and often do focus their energies on certain projects based on how much weight they bear on the final grade.  Not so here.  Pupils are many, teachers are few, and (as any teacher anywhere can confirm) the time it takes marking papers is extraordinary.  Assignments are most commonly short exercises, following a few examples, and written in a bound exercise book (so pupils can't hand individual papers in) and corrected in class.  This Example-Exercise-Mark protocol is embedded in school culture, interrupted only by mid-term and final exams, which for some inexplicable reason are given in a unique timetable outside of the normal class schedule, so that two weeks (or more) out of every term are devoted completely to exams, and not to learning.  The class grades are then compiled exclusively from these exam scores.  The exercises give practice to the pupils and vital feedback to the teacher on whether or not they've understood the lesson just taught, but the scores stay on the page of the pupil's book, in the all-important red ink, and come end of term time it is an exam (or two) alone that determines their success or failure.

As I saw flipping through the pages, one for each pupil, the balance was comfortably in the hands of Failure.  There were a few 1s and 2s (the highest marks--no A, B, C, or Ds here) and a smattering of 3s and 4s, but the overwhelming presence on the pages was F--fail.  Fail.  Fail. 

I could have predicted as much.  (In fact, when the deaf pupil was sent away because an administrator felt the school was ill-equipped to teach him--or at least that's the light I cast the decision in to make it more palatable to me--I said to a friend, "Yes, it's true, he probably would fail.  But most of the class will fail.  At least he would have learned something and made some friends!"  So I wasn't altogether surprised to see the poor results.  I was disheartened, though, because even though I didn't know most of the pupils individually, I had been to "prep"--night study time at the school--and watched them studying.  I know the effort it takes to come to school--scrounging up the K80,000-100,000 (US $16-20) school fee and uniform components each term, walking or biking far every day or living in the dorm (single-sex buildings with two empty rooms of concrete walls and floors, where students sleep on shared reedmats and blankets and do all their cooking, cleaning, and otherwise caring for themselves).  One of my brothers is not related to my host family at all, but rater bikes 50km down a dirt path at the term's start and lives with my family, away from his, for the next 13 weeks, because this school is the closest one (offering grade 8 and 9) to his home.

So the effort made just to show up every day at school is a significant one.  The children--or rather pupils; children is a bit of a misnomer as a number are 18 or older--are not, of course, always "serious"--they're teenagers and have a lot of other goals in their day beyond learning the past continuous verb form of English--but they do, fundamentally, want to learn.  And while I have plenty of beef with Zambian teachers, who can frequently find a plethora of reasons not to show up at school (ranging from rain to, no joke, "a dog ate one of the chicken's eggs"), as well as with the Zambian system that allows these absences to go on while the teachers still collect their civil servant paychecks, most of the teachers do, fundamentally, want the pupils to learn.  In this case, two volunteers--teachers untrained and unemployed by the Ministry of Education but recruited, hired, and paid by the school/community had carried the bulk of the Grade 8 and 9 subject load.  I had observed them all term showing up and teaching and I could see their dedication.

And yet--despite pupils who want to learn, and teachers who want to teach--failure almost across the board.  What are we doing wrong?

And now these pupils, though encouraged to repeat grade 8, would advance to grade 9.  The fact that they made it to grade 8 marked one hurdle leveled already; places are offered only to those who pass a standardized grade 7 exam.  But it's multiple choice, so by luck many students enter grade 8 despite being illiterate.  The grade 9 exam is different.  There's little multiple choice, and while the exams are sometimes frustratingly riddled with errors, they are difficult and written in English, the official national language but one that continually overwhelms and intimidates the pupils, who take notes (copied verbatim from the board) in it daily but generally haven't a clue as to what the words they're writing means.

The grade 9 exam marks, for many Zambians, the ending ritual to their education.  Students must pass (with a score of 40% or higher) at least 6 subjects to advance to grade 10.  A few will repeat grade 9 if they're unsuccessful, but most will just go home and work the fields (or in the case of many young men, hang out and drink away the day), marry, and have children.  At least three girls in grade 9 were already pregnant.  Another generation will be born to parents who can't read and understand a newspaper article.

My comments to the grade 8 pupils were, in the end, still fairly generic: "You have great potential, but it's essential you come to school every day,"  "Try sitting near the front of the classroom and don't be afraid to ask questions,"  "You have a great attitude and you work hard; let's find ways to improve your English in grade 9 as it will help your performance in all subjects."  And now many of them are in grade 9, where I'm co-teaching math with one of our superbly motivated volunteer teachers, mixing it up by piling on homework (two assignments in the second week alone, a large departure from the norm) and otherwise fiddling a bit with the system.  I've been in my village for 9 months now.  I have 15 remaining; this class is the only one I'll accompany through an entire school year.  My hope is that somehow, there will be fewer Fs on report forms in the coming December.

The first day of school

(written 9 January 2012)

The first day of school, 6:50 AM.  School begins at 7:00 AM.  The timekeeper--a mystery still unknown to me--rang the old tire rim at 5:45 this morning, and again at 6:30, but the schoolyard is deserted now.  The first grade teacher came to open her classroom and then went to the roadside to pick up her son's school uniform, which will be delivered shortly by a passing vehicle.  The acting head teacher's daughter scurried out from her home moments ago, but has gone to play somewhere solitarily while awaiting her friends.  A little boy in school uniform greens is standing under a mango tree.

Nothing is wrong--and yet everything is.

It's the first day of school, but the opening staff meeting (scheduled for three days ago) hasn't taken place.  The teachers think they know what classes they're teaching, but they aren't sure.  The time table for the upper grades hasn't been set yet; we're rumored to be getting two new teachers, but who knows.  One teacher went unexpectedly on leave last term and administrators aren't sure if or when he will be back.

The first day of school, and there's nothing doing.

The opening of a new school term is always anticlimactic.  There's no janitorial staff here, so the first day--even up to the first week--is spent on cleaning and maintenance.  Pupils sweep away spiderwebs, termite residue, rats' nests, and dust that have accumulated during the monthlong term break.  They slash the grass, grown high in this rainy season; sweep the schoolyard with brooms of ferns and branches; organize the books.  They move desks and, on their hands and knees, rag-mop floors with water pumped from the borehole.  When all this is prepared, they might start lessons.

Always an adventure...

(written 17 December 2011, in a letter to my mother)
Well getting here-my friend Eric's--was an adventure!  I was waiting for a truck going this way, and I don't know the lay of the land.  So if they say, "We're going to Mwamba"--is that before Kaka, where he lives?  After?  Different direction?  Anyway, I asked, "Can you get me to Kaka, or not?"  But a guy running the store where I was waiting (along with many others waiting for transport) said he'd talk to the driver.  He did, and then they said, "Let's go," so I assumed I'd get here--maybe pay a bit extra to get taken farther or slightly out of their route. 

We all loaded into bed of the Canter--bags of fertilizer, 5 bikes (I left mine in Mbala because I already had a backpack, a big hobo-sack of vegetables, and two big packages of Eric's I was bringing him from the post office), 26 people or so, and all their belongings.  We stopped to unload and reload everything in another part of town, stopped again to get fuel, and got on the way probably by around 14:00 or 15:00.  My hobo sack got stepped on so what started as veg appeared to be becoming V8 based on the wetness of the cloth.  The road passed through several villages--where other Peace Corps Volunteers live, in two cases--and at one point, after dropping a bunch of people, one of the lorry boys threw out a pink plastic bucket, assuming it was forgotten by one of the people who'd dismounted.  Within seconds, it was clarified that the owner was still riding, and would very much like his bucket back.  So the truck stopped and the man who'd been so hasty to toss it over ran back down the road to retrieve it.  The drive continued, on and on; beautiful scenery, an endless drive.  Along the way, I saw the most incredible rainbow I've ever witnessed: an enormous arc of color (both sides visible, something I've almost never seen) over the gorgeous African savannah.  

Then the truck stopped, me the last passenger other than lorry boys, and I was told to get on another Canter that happened to be there.  15,000 kwacha ($3) paid, I transferred over to the truck that carried fewer people but lots of stuff.   The people were drunk (or many of the men--passengers, that is, not driver) and amused by me; I was annoyed: the first ride had been peaceful.  At one point, it started to pour, but we quickly pulled a tarp over everything in the truck bed, including ourselves, and kept tooling down the road.  The downpour was brief.  I tried not to worry as the sun was going down and the people kept saying, "Kaka's still far--and we're not going there."  Several proposed I sleep at their houses (which I have done before; see previous entry "Mumalala kuno") but part of the Mambwe conversation to each other included a man having "a taste of me," an obvious sexual reference.  I refused that adamantly and everyone was amused, again, that I had understood.  We stopped to unload fertilizer, and there was an argument (and numerous recountings) about how much was supposed to be left at this stop, of which variety, etc.  Shortly thereafter, I was dropped at a fork in the road.  Me, my backpack, 2 annihilated packages disintegrating by the minute, and a dripping V8 bag.  Lots of drunk guys at the little junction informing me that Kaka remained 10 km down the road not taken by the truck, which had forked to the left.  Ten kilometers--roughly 6 miles.  And it's 18:00.  Losing sunlight super rapidly.  We broker a plan for bike transport: 1 bicycle for the junk, 1 for me and my backpack, K30,000 ($6).  So that's how I ended up spending the next hour and 20 minutes on the over-the-back-wheel carrier rack of a skinny but strong, sober, teenage Zambian boy who had just written his Grade 12 exams a few weeks prior.

Now, balancing on the back of a bicycle is not easy and demands core strength I do not possess.  Side saddle and straddling (we tried both) require you don't tip the bike over, keep your feet off the ground and away from tires/pedals, and ignore the metal rods sticking in your backside.  And it can't be much better for the cyclist, trying to haul my not-so-skinny self down a dirt path, avoiding puddles and such.  Half the ride was in almost complete darkness, the sky illuminated intermittently by flashes of lightning far in the distance.  I had tried calling Eric at the junction but couldn't get through then or when we finally reached the Kaka school signpost.  I knew only that he lived on the headman's compound, so we walked to the nearest house, where the resident assured me that Eric and the headman lived nearby, and appointed two of his children to escort me there.  I thanked my bike taxi drivers, paying K40,000 and telling them to figure out how to divide it between themselves (I personally being of the opinion that the young man who biked me should get a larger share than the one who took boxes, of significantly less burden).    Partly I was eager to "tip" because it was not an easy task, and I would have been in a jam without their help; partly I didn't have proper change for the K30,000 we'd agreed upon, and I knew it was unlikely they'd have K10,000 worth of change on them, so two K20,000 it was. 

Then I reached the place, and it was all so easy.  Just over an hour earlier--stranded 10km away, with too much to carry, night falling, and a significant distance to go.  Now--just here, visiting a friend, joking with his family and eating nshima.  One thing I'm constantly reminded of here is that all things come to pass--no matter how soaked/tired/dirty/etc. you may be in an unpleasant, but temporary, situation.  For indeed, every situation is just that: temporary.  And in Zambia, those temporary situations have a tendency to be, in addition, adventurous.

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.

Sorry, I left my flock of doves at home today.

At a training in August, we were discussing the harassment that occasionally happens when you're a foreigner in a strange country, and one of the Volunteers who had come in my intake said, "When it comes down to fight or flight, flight is always gonna be the better option, because you don't want to be that Peace Corps Volunteer who doesn't really have the peace part down."  We laughed, but it was true.

And it's true in a lot of ways.  Most of us joined the Peace Corps, I think, because somewhere in our core (no pun intended) we believe in the basic tenets of the organization: that countries are friends when their citizens are friends.  That we have a responsibility, indeed, a privilege, to share our skills in working not only for a better country and a better financial future but also for a better world.  That the roots of war and hatred might flourish in soil rife with poverty and misunderstanding, and that by nourishing the soil with something a bit different we might grow a better future for ourselves and others.

And all that sounds lofty and noble and idealistic, which is great in the big picture.  Not so easy in the small picture. 

Because believe it or not, even the most dedicated, most effective Peace Corps Volunteers are not surrounded, Cinderella and Snow-White style, by a flock of doves.  I get just as cranky here as I do anywhere else.  When--while painting a map of the world, no less--my teenage brother dipped a paintbrush still dripping with orange paint straight into the tin of bright blue, I called him out in not such nice terms, including an English profanity, followed up by, "Musi mano!"--"No brain in your head!"  He said nothing, but walked away.  When he came back, I pulled him aside and apologized for embarrassing him in front of his friends; luckily, we have a close relationship and he knows that (a) overall, I adore him and (b) it was pretty dumb to contaminate the paint.  I wish I could say it was a one-time loss of control, but when a young girl--one of the few with enough interest/curiousity/self-esteem/all of the above to come and participate in the project--was painting Antarctica, I didn't watch closely enough.  It seemed simple enough--another pupil had covered the pencil outline in white paint; she merely needed to fill in the continent with more white.  Unfortunately, she painted above the line.  With the white paint that was, already, not enough to provide adequate coverage for the real Antarctica, below the line.  I was not thrilled, and she learned that quite quickly. 

Sometimes there's not even a real explanation for where my little flashes of temper come out.  One of my teen brothers loves to come and sit outside my house in the evenings while I go about my routine.  Sometimes we chat in Mambwe or English; sometimes he asks questions.  Most of the time--I think he's in the midst of an adolescent identity crisis of sorts--he just likes to sit silently.  While this is a cultural thing that is disarming at first, I don't mind.  In general, I enjoy his company and go about my business, granting him leave to sit or go, to talk or to remain in his thoughts.  One day, however, things were not going right.  Lots of little things, so minor I don't even remember them: I may have burned a finger or dropped some things; I know that I tipped over my water filter while trying to fill it, etc. etc.  Nothing serious.  But one thing too many happened, and I said, "You know, it's a little frustrating having you just watch me while I stumble all over everything."  Walking back in the house, I added, "Just go away!" and threw my cutting board into my hallway.  Then I went into my room, collected myself, and came back out.  I'm not sure that Davie understood every word I said in my American English, but he got the meaning; he had, indeed, gone away.  I felt bad.  I wasn't mad at him; I was just mad, as we all are sometimes, and it was awkward to have a witness to that.  So I pulled myself together and joined his family, as usual, at supper a while later, hoping that my new attitude would show him I wasn't angry any longer.  When he didn't come visit for a few days, I spoke with him directly, apologizing for losing my temper and letting him know it had nothing to do with him personally.

But that was a few months ago, and I still get less-than-cheery on a fairly frequent basis.  When teachers don't show up, when the teaching and learning aids in our first gtade classroom are pulled down for Grade 9 exams (it's a rule you can't have any kind of poster or aid in the classroom during these all-important high school qualifying exams) the week we're trying to review with our still-not-literate first-graders, when my kitten knocks over a lit candle into my lap while I'm trying to read, when someone who doesn't even know my name asks me why I can't donate money or "find a sponsor" in the U.S. to fund whatever project s/he has in mind...I am less than peaceful.  I am not a model of friendship and cooperation.  I'm cranky and snippety and sometimes downright mean.  Which, of course, is not really the point of Peace Corps.  But at the same time--this isn't a poster.  It's not a slogan, it's not a soundbite.  This is my life, and I'm here for two years, interacting with a lot of other people right smack dab in the middle of their lives.  I might really believe in all the goals of Peace Corps--but I'm still figuring out my own stuff, too.  Peace begins inside.  There's a wonderful quote: "Peace.  It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work.  It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart." (Unknown)  I guess no matter how much we believe in it, we can't create peace outside of ourselves unless we can find it within ourselves. 

I love my community.  And despite the noise, trouble, and hard work I might find here, it's a pretty good place to work on the calm in my heart.  Once I find it, I'll work on those doves.

Birth Announcement

On October 23, 2011, at approximately 4:00 a.m., my youngest sister was born.

I say approximately for two reasons: (1) I was not present at the time. (2)  The clock on the wall of the clinic ward reads, permanently, 10:42. 

The story of Mirabi (also pronounced Meleby--it's pretty much the same thing, and spellings are malleable here) begins somewhere around last July.  My host parents, whose field is a few kilometers away, had been spending all their time harvesting, even sleeping in a makeshift thatch shelter in the field to protect their crops.  Although I had gone a few times to help harvest, I hadn't really seen much of them for at least six weeks.  When the maize and beans and groundnuts were all in, they returned to their home, and I noticed for the first time that my host mother seemed a bit more rotund than she had previously.  Not long after that, she was busy crocheting, and when I asked what she was making she responded, "A baby blanket," but offered no more.

As the eldest of seven, I have vague recollections of my mother's numerous pregnancies, and I know that inquiring about one's gestational status requires delicacy and tact.  In general, if someone wants you to know, she'll tell you.  No word was mentioned, but fter a few more weeks, it seemed obvious to me that she was expecting, so I casually asked, "Kwashyala imyezi inga?" = "How many months remaining?"  She laughed and said, "For what?"

Quickly, I backpedaled, just as I would have done in the U.S.  "To go back into the fields," I said.  Planting.  Whether she bought it or not, I'm not sure, but the topic never came up again.

In October, I spent a week visiting a community school about 20 kilometers away.  I cycled back early Saturday morning, got my house in order, and went to the Seventh Day Adventist church where my host family are members.  I saw my siblings but not my host mother.  Afterward, a young woman named Jane, from whom I often buy paraffin, pencils, and the like in one of the small shops that line the business area of our village, told me that my mother was in the clinic.  "Yalkulwala?" I asked; "is she sick?"  Jane tilted her head and raised her eyebrows suggestively.  "It's time?" I ventured as a second guess.  She nodded in affirmation.  It's time.  So I gathered up my little siblings/cousins (it's all the same) and headed to the clinic near our house. 

When we arrived, I found my mother resting on one of the thin clinic mattresses.  Several other women, including her grandmother and sister-in-law, where seated on the other mattress and the floor of the small room.  I took a spot on the floor and chatted with the women.  Soon, one of them broke out lunch--nshima, the staple food, and vegetables to eat with it.  We ate communally and talked until I needed to leave for a meeting with a teacher, promising to return.  In the evening, I returned and sat until dark, when I decided it'd probably be best to go home.

In the morning, my family compound was quiet.  The children old enough to work were in the field; there weren't many others around.  I spent a few hours digging in my garden, washing laundry by hand, and building the beginnings of a thatch fence for the garden, accompanied by the two little sisters whose mother had gone to the clinic a bit earlier.  A bit after 9:00 a.m., the girls and I set off for the clinic.  "Yalwala," they said, explaining that their aunt was sick.  "Awe," I replied.  "Tumakwata baby!" = No, we're going to have a baby.  Clearly, it seemed, I had not been the only one left in the dark about the forthcoming child.

When we arrived, the clinic was calm.  My mother, noticeably slimmer, was stretched out on a mattress in the delivery ward.  Her grandmother was holding the new baby girl, who had silky hair and pale skin.  Having lived this scene many times before as a proud big sister, I was struck by the clean but bare room.  There were no monitors, no IVs.  No television, no balloons, no flowers.  Just a suitcase with some personal belongings, a mother, a baby, and some family members who'd come to help.   We had only been sitting and admiring the baby for a few minutes when the other women in the room gathered up the belongings they had brought--dishes, blankets, and the like--and made sure the room was tidy.  Then we set off together--even the exhausted mother, who'd given birth only hours before--simply walking out of the clinic and crossing through a small field and a soccer pitch that separates the clinic compound from our houses.

The day continued much as usual, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  The older siblings returned from the field in no rush, hoes over their shoulders.  They did not rush to meet the new baby or show any excitement; though I could see that they were excited, it was subdued.  There was  a strange hush of calm permeating the area. 

The father, unfortunately, was not there to greet his baby, nor would he be for another two weeks.  He was tending to another cycle of life; his twin sister had passed away just days before in Lusaka, the country's capital.  It made me wonder: was this lack of celebration, this business-as-usual approach to this precious new child a safeguard on emotion?  After all, death is not uncommon here, and the first few days of an infant's life can be a precarious time, particularly since they are not monitored and tested and coddled in a newborn ward, tended to by doctors.  A colleague told me that the birth of a new baby is a time of giving thanks to God because the mother has survived the dangerous ordeal of childbirth.  I saw Mirabi's entrance into the world as a parallel to my own entrance to Zambia, as she had to have been conceived right around the time my plane touched African tarmac.  It will be exciting to watch her grow...even if it's a sort of subdued excitement.

Meleby at 18 months, in April 2013

  

On Cats & Rats

I have a pet.  My first ever, really, which is quite an experience.  Her name is Lila ("Lee-lah"), which I chose for Mambwe reasons; most specifically, the verb "ukulila" means to cry or to make noise, and the first two days I had her, she whimpered consistently, meow-ing softly every 1.5 seconds.  Thankfully, she now spends a lot more of her time purring than crying.

As a farm girl, I had some affection for childhood pets, but I was never particularly close to any of them because they lived outdoors.  As an adult, I haven't gotten pets because my jobs/living situations haven't been very conducive.  And, as I explained once to a friend, "I don't want to be beholden to a dog."  I like being able to change plans, to leave for a few days, to pick up and move, and having a pet can complicate those things.

In Masamba, though, my pet serves two very useful purposes.  First, she's (as my PCV neighbor Tony would say) an assassin.  My rodent problem had reached an all-time high.  Twice on weekends I had called in my hardy teenage brothers to kill a rat I'd seen scurry across the floor.  After waking up many nights feeling vibrations on my bed, I was vindicated when I woke to the familiar sensation and discovered a mouse/rat (they're all the same to me) clinging, upside down, to the top corner of my mosquito net, not so many feet from my head.  One of the mice killed by the teenage brothers (through repeated attempts to whack it with a big stick while it raced around my spare room) had three tiny mice still suckling; they threw the whole little family into my trash pit in lieu of a funeral.  When I went back to look later, two of the babies were not dead and were trying to ascend the sod sides of the pit to escape.  Apparently there were other babies left unattended, and they do not understand mousey protocol, because about a week later I was disturbed all night by incessant seke-seke mice noises.  (A certain type of mice is called seke-seke because, I believe, "ukuseka" means "to laugh" in Mambwe, and they taunt you with their ridiculous high-pitched laughing noise.)  I also kept hearing sliding along the black plastic lining of my roof, and I finally became so paranoid that there might be a snake up there that I woke up my three teen brothers around 3:00 a.m. to come check.  Three short-clad, bare-chested teenage boys in the bedroom of a schoolteacher is not highly culturally appropriate, either here or in the U.S., but they're my brothers, and family take care of each other.  Armed with a stick, they beat at the ceiling above my bed until one little baby mouse fell out, dead, but the noise continued.  "Ali aingi," they said--"there are many."  Reassured that there were only mice and no snakes, I thanked them and went back to sleep, but in the morning I was so fed up that I took the stick myself and beat at the roof until two baby mice tumbled out and I could scoop them up with a piece of cardboard and throw them in the pit.  And all that's not to mention the rat I found dead on my stoop one day, cause unknown. 

I have a mousetrap that has proven utterly worthless, but then again I haven't made much effort to bait it.  I've avoided using poison because in some places, people eat rats, and I can't stomach the idea of possibly poisoning a person by accident.  Additionally, as annoying as it is to have live rodents in your house, I think I'd be even more troubled by a rodent that ate poison and then crawled up in the thatch and died, perfuming my house for weeks with ceremonial decomposition.

As luck would have it, I told a friend about my ongoing rodent problem, and his fiancee happened to have new kittens for sale.  A week or so and 10,000 kwacha (about $2) later, I found myself with a new companion.  Which brings me to the second purpose of my pet.  I didn't think I was lonely, but I have to say having a cat in the house made me realize the pleasure of company, even that of the feline persuasion.  I talk with her (usually in Mambwe) when I enter or leave the house; she's slowly learning to sleep on my stomach or at my side and not on my neck; occasionally I berate her for nearly burning down my house due to her carelessness around candles; in general, we interact as many roommates might.  It's delightful.

And since she came, I have heard a seke-seke in the roof only once.  I looked at her and said, "Hear that? Go get it."  I haven't heard or seen sign of a rodent since.  And hence the second phonetic implication of Lila's name: Nalyla sana.  (I am enjoying!)