(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.
Monday, June 18, 2012
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
You'll get malaria...
"Mwazula insapato?!?" men and women exclaimed as they saw me make my way through the mud, flip-flops in hand, imploring why I'd removed my shoes, adding, "you'll get malaria!" Laughing and pointing, they scolded me for what was apparently appalling behavior. It was Munada, our festive monthly market day, and a torrential downpour had made parts of the path all but impassable, at least for me. Rendered immobile by the muck's grip on my flimsy sandals, I decided to remove them and walk about more freely as I perused the selection of clothes, foods, and household items spread out on plastic sacks and makeshift pole displays. Considering that children wander barefoot all the time, I didn't think this would raise too much concern. I was wrong.
I tried to respond to the insistent demands that I put my shoes back on by holding out my mud-covered sandals, by miming myself stuck, by explaining that I couldn't walk in them. My frustration grew, and at least once I replied to someone with a Mambwe rebuttal of, "I'm 28 years old, and if I want to remove my shoes, I can do so!" I know people were concerned about me, though. First, amused; second, concerned. I'll get malaria.
Malaria comes from mosquitoes, I tried to explain. Not mud. Of course, walking barefoot isn't advisable in general, for other health concerns--cuts, germs, tapeworm. But not malaria. In the past, my host father also admonished me for bathing with cold water on a day where time was too short or willpower too sparse to heat a saucepan full first. "You'll get sick with malaria," he said. No, I won't. Malaria has nothing to do with cold water. Certainly I could catch a cold from bathing in the breezy outdoors in cold water. But not malaria.
In Zambia, however, as in much of subtropical Africa, malaria is shorthand for sick. So when I say you can't get malaria from this or that, I know that I'm confusing people--possibly detrimentally so. Because you can get sick from this or that. Just a different kind of sick.
Peace Corps, in conjunction with local counterparts, NGOs, and the President's Malaria Initiative, is currently running an initiative called "Stomp Out Malaria," a campaign to raise awareness of the illness and focus efforts to eradicate it across the continent of Africa. In Zambia, we've kicked off a research study on the longevity of Long-Life Insecticide-treated Nets--LLINs. In March and April, 40 volunteers in Northern and Luapula provinces, along with their counterparts, have each enrolled 25 homes in a two-year study. As one of the government's malaria prevention measures, rural clinics, neighborhood health committees, and local head(wo)men facilitated a mass distribution of two brands of LLINs last year. Using their distribution lists and random sampling, we signed up houses that have the nets in use, collecting data about how the net is used and by whom. We also examined the nets physically, recorded the number and size of holes, burns, and tears, and noted the type of sleeping space in which the net was hung. It was a fascinating process; a bedroom is a very private space in Zambia, and there was a certain element of cultural exchange in being allowed into these bedrooms while implementing the initial phase of this study. We'll make four more visits to each of the homes, every six months, monitoring the wear-and-tear of the nets and submitting one for several tests of the integrity of the insecticide by the CDC each time. Ultimately, the study--which is being conducted through the collaboration of Society for Family Health, a non-profit organization in Zambia which does a lot of HIV and malaria prevention work, the Malaria Control Center, and Peace Corps--hopes to inform Ministry of Health policy, letting them know how often nets should be redistributed.
The training for the study was as fascinating as the process of enrolling homes was, because I realized how much I didn't know about malaria. Mosquitoes are vectors; this I knew. This I didn't know: malaria is transmitted only by the anopheles mosquito, though, and only the female of that species, and they typically tend to bite at night. While people are sleeping. Mosquito nets, then, are shown to be highly effective in reducing the transmission of malaria. And here's the catch: mosquitoes don't create malaria, or carry it from stagnant water or someplace. They are merely messengers from one person to another. You have malaria (whether symptomatic or not), mosquito bites you, then bites healthy me. I have malaria. Mosquito #2 bites me, carries malaria off to a new friend. This is incredibly important to understand because the way to reduce malaria is to get a lot of people treated and the prevalence below a certain threshold. That is, if we could reduce--through mosquito nets, insect repellant, insecticide spraying, or treatment--the number of people in a given place who have malaria for even a short period of time, we could make a big step toward wiping malaria out of that area completely. Mosquitoes bite people who aren't sick, and then bite other people without making them sick.
This lends a big hint as to why malaria is almost nonexistent in the U.S. The rise of air-conditioning, window screens, and DDT in the American south helped to knock malaria out because over the course of a few years, the number of malaria cases dropped significantly. The fewer people who have malaria, the harder it is to spread. Seems obvious, right?
It's actually pretty exciting, though. The implication of this is that when I sleep under an insecticide-treated mosquito net, I'm not just reducing my own chances of contracting malaria. I'm reducing the chance of everyone around me contracting it, too. If everyone within a 10-kilometer radius (or even less) used a net, indoor spraying, and/or insect repellant, it could be possible for malaria to become a much smaller threat to our area.
And yet we found, as we went through the study, that things aren't so simple. Nets are often used improperly or not at all. Several people asked us why we weren't distributing more nets, and then showed me the nets they had already received--wadded up in a suitcase or still in the unopened packaging. My very own host family told me over dinner one night that they don't sleep under nets because they don't have any, that they weren't given them. Despite the fact that every household on my family's compound received at least one in the mass distribution, and I've seen their signatures on the list to confirm it.
I've lived in Zambia for over fifteen months now. I've even taken Coartem, just to be safe, when I had a high fever which could have been due to malaria or to an infection on my leg. And yet I am still painfully unaware in my everyday life of how treacherous malaria is. Because so many people say they are suffering from malaria but don't go to the clinic to have RDT (rapid diagnostic testing) done to confirm their self-diagnosis, and thus they don't get the treatment. Because malaria seems so commonplace that we've become desensitized to it. Because malaria just means sick. And all too often, sick can mean, all too soon, deceased. They are unnecessary, these deaths from malaria, this suffering. It really is time to put malaria in our past. I'll be tucking in my net as I lie in bed each night, trying to figure out what role I can play in doing just that.
I tried to respond to the insistent demands that I put my shoes back on by holding out my mud-covered sandals, by miming myself stuck, by explaining that I couldn't walk in them. My frustration grew, and at least once I replied to someone with a Mambwe rebuttal of, "I'm 28 years old, and if I want to remove my shoes, I can do so!" I know people were concerned about me, though. First, amused; second, concerned. I'll get malaria.
Malaria comes from mosquitoes, I tried to explain. Not mud. Of course, walking barefoot isn't advisable in general, for other health concerns--cuts, germs, tapeworm. But not malaria. In the past, my host father also admonished me for bathing with cold water on a day where time was too short or willpower too sparse to heat a saucepan full first. "You'll get sick with malaria," he said. No, I won't. Malaria has nothing to do with cold water. Certainly I could catch a cold from bathing in the breezy outdoors in cold water. But not malaria.
In Zambia, however, as in much of subtropical Africa, malaria is shorthand for sick. So when I say you can't get malaria from this or that, I know that I'm confusing people--possibly detrimentally so. Because you can get sick from this or that. Just a different kind of sick.
Peace Corps, in conjunction with local counterparts, NGOs, and the President's Malaria Initiative, is currently running an initiative called "Stomp Out Malaria," a campaign to raise awareness of the illness and focus efforts to eradicate it across the continent of Africa. In Zambia, we've kicked off a research study on the longevity of Long-Life Insecticide-treated Nets--LLINs. In March and April, 40 volunteers in Northern and Luapula provinces, along with their counterparts, have each enrolled 25 homes in a two-year study. As one of the government's malaria prevention measures, rural clinics, neighborhood health committees, and local head(wo)men facilitated a mass distribution of two brands of LLINs last year. Using their distribution lists and random sampling, we signed up houses that have the nets in use, collecting data about how the net is used and by whom. We also examined the nets physically, recorded the number and size of holes, burns, and tears, and noted the type of sleeping space in which the net was hung. It was a fascinating process; a bedroom is a very private space in Zambia, and there was a certain element of cultural exchange in being allowed into these bedrooms while implementing the initial phase of this study. We'll make four more visits to each of the homes, every six months, monitoring the wear-and-tear of the nets and submitting one for several tests of the integrity of the insecticide by the CDC each time. Ultimately, the study--which is being conducted through the collaboration of Society for Family Health, a non-profit organization in Zambia which does a lot of HIV and malaria prevention work, the Malaria Control Center, and Peace Corps--hopes to inform Ministry of Health policy, letting them know how often nets should be redistributed.
The training for the study was as fascinating as the process of enrolling homes was, because I realized how much I didn't know about malaria. Mosquitoes are vectors; this I knew. This I didn't know: malaria is transmitted only by the anopheles mosquito, though, and only the female of that species, and they typically tend to bite at night. While people are sleeping. Mosquito nets, then, are shown to be highly effective in reducing the transmission of malaria. And here's the catch: mosquitoes don't create malaria, or carry it from stagnant water or someplace. They are merely messengers from one person to another. You have malaria (whether symptomatic or not), mosquito bites you, then bites healthy me. I have malaria. Mosquito #2 bites me, carries malaria off to a new friend. This is incredibly important to understand because the way to reduce malaria is to get a lot of people treated and the prevalence below a certain threshold. That is, if we could reduce--through mosquito nets, insect repellant, insecticide spraying, or treatment--the number of people in a given place who have malaria for even a short period of time, we could make a big step toward wiping malaria out of that area completely. Mosquitoes bite people who aren't sick, and then bite other people without making them sick.
This lends a big hint as to why malaria is almost nonexistent in the U.S. The rise of air-conditioning, window screens, and DDT in the American south helped to knock malaria out because over the course of a few years, the number of malaria cases dropped significantly. The fewer people who have malaria, the harder it is to spread. Seems obvious, right?
It's actually pretty exciting, though. The implication of this is that when I sleep under an insecticide-treated mosquito net, I'm not just reducing my own chances of contracting malaria. I'm reducing the chance of everyone around me contracting it, too. If everyone within a 10-kilometer radius (or even less) used a net, indoor spraying, and/or insect repellant, it could be possible for malaria to become a much smaller threat to our area.
And yet we found, as we went through the study, that things aren't so simple. Nets are often used improperly or not at all. Several people asked us why we weren't distributing more nets, and then showed me the nets they had already received--wadded up in a suitcase or still in the unopened packaging. My very own host family told me over dinner one night that they don't sleep under nets because they don't have any, that they weren't given them. Despite the fact that every household on my family's compound received at least one in the mass distribution, and I've seen their signatures on the list to confirm it.
I've lived in Zambia for over fifteen months now. I've even taken Coartem, just to be safe, when I had a high fever which could have been due to malaria or to an infection on my leg. And yet I am still painfully unaware in my everyday life of how treacherous malaria is. Because so many people say they are suffering from malaria but don't go to the clinic to have RDT (rapid diagnostic testing) done to confirm their self-diagnosis, and thus they don't get the treatment. Because malaria seems so commonplace that we've become desensitized to it. Because malaria just means sick. And all too often, sick can mean, all too soon, deceased. They are unnecessary, these deaths from malaria, this suffering. It really is time to put malaria in our past. I'll be tucking in my net as I lie in bed each night, trying to figure out what role I can play in doing just that.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
How Strange and Glorious
(written 6 May 2012)
I've been snippety. For the past three weeks, I'd say. My mom paid several thousand dollars to come visit me in the African bush, and by day 4 my apprehensions were realized--we started driving each other a bit crazy. It wasn't continual, but at various points throughout her eleven days in Zambia, I was rude. Snarky comments, minimal eye contact. I knew it and yet I felt almost powerless, or at least unwilling, to stop it. I'd say something, unneeded or in a rude tone, and my bewildered conscience would probe, bewildered, saying, "Why did you say that?" But I failed to apologize when I knew I should, when I know that apologizing is not that hard.
But Mom went home, and arrived there safely, and seems to have had a good time despite her unappreciative daughter.
I also returned home, up north to where I live, though it took me longer to traverse the country than for her to cross the ocean. Transport from Lusaka to Kasama wasn't particularly pleasant, compounded by logistical incongruencies within Peace Corps. It took me two days to reach the provincial house in Kasama where I had a restorative (if not restful) night with a few good friends and new members of the NoPro family getting ready to go to their villages. The next morning, I reached my village and was in my house for less than an hour, exchanging a few things in the suitcase and passing almost cursory greetings to my family. Then off to Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), after a 4.5 hour wait at the roadside for a ride, complicated by me dropping my phone as we boarded and then needing to get off, run back to retrieve it, get a new ride, and meet back with the others. However, I found the phone and we arrived not too much later than the rest of the PCVs, counterparts, and campers.
The week went well--11 PCVs, 6 counterparts (mine went home due to a family urgency), 14 girls. But I was in a funk. Again, rude comments and a general poor demeanor surfaced without much explanation. Not the whole time, of course; I think I did well when working with the camp participants. But with my friends, at moments at least, I was bitchy, just as I'd been with my mom.
And I hated it. I was in a funk and couldn't get out. Not fully, anyway. I tried writing, reading, artwork, alone time. It soothed a bit but not fully. I made a list of possible reasons why I was cranky (everything from cigarette smoke to needing attention). And while I couldn't figure it out exactly, I did realize that--contrary to the experience of many others--when I am with other volunteers is often when I feel the most isolated.
And today I reached home, and it was amazing. My equilibrium was restored. My zen settled in on the sofa of my psyche. I felt like myself again--the self that I like, the self that, lately, I only seem to find here, in my house, in my village. There's something wonderful about a troupe of cheering children running to greet you when you return (though they had staged a dramatic mock-cry when I left for camp and refused to leave the plastic tea set out for them to play with in my absence). There's something lovely about being home, and being wanted there. Being missed.
As I watched the football (soccer) game this evening, I felt so much more at peace. So much joy in the air--and with a few differences, I could have been at a hometown American football game on an early autumn Friday evening. So many things feel the same: the chill in the air sneaking in through my hoodie; the children playing, the meandering of spectators along the sidelines, the community seeing and being seen. The breeze was nice, the air crisp, the sky so big and blue (reminding me, as always, of Montana). I thought of the song we used to sing in Ku'umba, "I weep," (lyrics at bottom for the unitiated), and looked up from the game to see a rainbow arced cross the sky.
"It could not be more perfect," I thought. And tears rolled down.
How strange and glorious. That I feel happiest in all the world at Masamba.
*******
(lyrics approximated from memory)
I Weep
I weep
Not from the hurt
Nor from my pain
But from the power in Your name
And the unfathomable love You've shown to me
Lord I cry
Not tears of doubt
Nor of distress
But from the joy of Sabbath rest
I feel no alarm, I'm a child in Your arms
Though I'm unworthy to be
So I weep
On bended knee
My arms stretched wide
This joy I have, so deep inside
I try to keep my cool
But tears they flow
You love me so
Oh I weep
I've been snippety. For the past three weeks, I'd say. My mom paid several thousand dollars to come visit me in the African bush, and by day 4 my apprehensions were realized--we started driving each other a bit crazy. It wasn't continual, but at various points throughout her eleven days in Zambia, I was rude. Snarky comments, minimal eye contact. I knew it and yet I felt almost powerless, or at least unwilling, to stop it. I'd say something, unneeded or in a rude tone, and my bewildered conscience would probe, bewildered, saying, "Why did you say that?" But I failed to apologize when I knew I should, when I know that apologizing is not that hard.
But Mom went home, and arrived there safely, and seems to have had a good time despite her unappreciative daughter.
I also returned home, up north to where I live, though it took me longer to traverse the country than for her to cross the ocean. Transport from Lusaka to Kasama wasn't particularly pleasant, compounded by logistical incongruencies within Peace Corps. It took me two days to reach the provincial house in Kasama where I had a restorative (if not restful) night with a few good friends and new members of the NoPro family getting ready to go to their villages. The next morning, I reached my village and was in my house for less than an hour, exchanging a few things in the suitcase and passing almost cursory greetings to my family. Then off to Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), after a 4.5 hour wait at the roadside for a ride, complicated by me dropping my phone as we boarded and then needing to get off, run back to retrieve it, get a new ride, and meet back with the others. However, I found the phone and we arrived not too much later than the rest of the PCVs, counterparts, and campers.
The week went well--11 PCVs, 6 counterparts (mine went home due to a family urgency), 14 girls. But I was in a funk. Again, rude comments and a general poor demeanor surfaced without much explanation. Not the whole time, of course; I think I did well when working with the camp participants. But with my friends, at moments at least, I was bitchy, just as I'd been with my mom.
And I hated it. I was in a funk and couldn't get out. Not fully, anyway. I tried writing, reading, artwork, alone time. It soothed a bit but not fully. I made a list of possible reasons why I was cranky (everything from cigarette smoke to needing attention). And while I couldn't figure it out exactly, I did realize that--contrary to the experience of many others--when I am with other volunteers is often when I feel the most isolated.
And today I reached home, and it was amazing. My equilibrium was restored. My zen settled in on the sofa of my psyche. I felt like myself again--the self that I like, the self that, lately, I only seem to find here, in my house, in my village. There's something wonderful about a troupe of cheering children running to greet you when you return (though they had staged a dramatic mock-cry when I left for camp and refused to leave the plastic tea set out for them to play with in my absence). There's something lovely about being home, and being wanted there. Being missed.
As I watched the football (soccer) game this evening, I felt so much more at peace. So much joy in the air--and with a few differences, I could have been at a hometown American football game on an early autumn Friday evening. So many things feel the same: the chill in the air sneaking in through my hoodie; the children playing, the meandering of spectators along the sidelines, the community seeing and being seen. The breeze was nice, the air crisp, the sky so big and blue (reminding me, as always, of Montana). I thought of the song we used to sing in Ku'umba, "I weep," (lyrics at bottom for the unitiated), and looked up from the game to see a rainbow arced cross the sky.
"It could not be more perfect," I thought. And tears rolled down.
How strange and glorious. That I feel happiest in all the world at Masamba.
*******
(lyrics approximated from memory)
I Weep
I weep
Not from the hurt
Nor from my pain
But from the power in Your name
And the unfathomable love You've shown to me
Lord I cry
Not tears of doubt
Nor of distress
But from the joy of Sabbath rest
I feel no alarm, I'm a child in Your arms
Though I'm unworthy to be
So I weep
On bended knee
My arms stretched wide
This joy I have, so deep inside
I try to keep my cool
But tears they flow
You love me so
Oh I weep
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.
"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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)