Nick and Audrey in Zambia

We Are Not Mountains

2010-02-04T23:00:00.001+02:00

This will be the last entry of this blog. We have enjoyed writing it, and we thank you for reading.

We left Lusaka at 7:25pm on February 1, 2010. In the days preceding our departure, we said a lot of goodbyes and gave and received a lot of remembrances. Remembrances are things (anything) that you give to someone when you part to remember you by. People always ask for these, and, while we hesitate to give things to people so as not to give the impression of unfairness, we did have quite a lot of things we were not bringing back to the States, so we distributed them as fairly and equitably as possible. This mostly involved splitting up our clothes among the students and our staff and their families. In turn, we received a couple shirts and a necklace. People also like to send greetings, so our family and friends in Zambia send greetings to you, our family and friends in America, even if they don’t know you.

All of the goodbyes culminated in the goodbyes we said to the eight FEF-U students who we have lived with for the past eighteen months. These are the people who we have been closest to. We have become family, so it was incredibly difficult to part. We had a farewell dinner at the house the day before we left and everyone exchanged kind words. A few students even thanked our families for allowing us to come, recognizing how difficult it must have been. In the end, we all agreed that this was not goodbye, but see you later.

In dealing with all these partings, we keep coming back to a sentiment that one of the Sudanese students expressed upon the departure of one of the other students who was resettled to America over a year ago. He brought it up again in the past week in relation to us because he said it helps him deal with goodbyes. The sentiment is that people are not mountains. We move. If there are two mountains separated by some distance, they will never meet, no matter how many decades pass, but people can meet. So, as we leave Africa, we leave with the knowledge that we are not mountains.

What I Learned

2010-02-04T22:04:00.002+02:00

I have had more experiences over the past eighteen months than ever before where I have thought, “People are really good”. I have also had more experiences over this period of time than ever before where I have thought “People are absolutely terrible”. Sometimes those experiences happen in the same day or even almost simultaneously. Never before have I lived that close to the edge where the highs are so high and the lows are so low and they can change in an instant. I think constantly hearing about and witnessing incredibly bad things and incredibly good things makes you think about this question of whether people are inherently good or bad.

For the past eighteen months, I have known some of the best people in the world. They have every reason to be bitter, cynical, distrustful, pessimistic and fearful. They have every right to feel owed something, to bemoan the fact that life has dealt them a bad hand. But they are not these things. They are positive, unselfish, good humored, incredibly caring, bold and understanding. This always leads me to believe that deep down, people are inherently good. But then I think about why they are in the position they are in, why I know them in the first place. It is because people have done unspeakably horrible and evil things. This leads me to think that deep down people are evil because how else do you explain landmines that look like toys, killing your neighbor with a machete, slow roasting people over a fire, raping a child?

Though I know amazing, honest and forgiving refugees, I also have met conniving, dishonest and small refugees. For every refugee who tries to promote peace and harmony in the face of what is undoubtedly a bad situation, there is another who sews division and clings to old hatreds. For every official who really cares and tries to do right, there is at least one who is corrupt and selfish. For every person who treats people well, there is someone who treats others poorly. The human capacity to love seems equaled by the capacity to hate, and the capacity to forgive seems equaled by the capacity to hold a grudge. I don't know which comes out ahead. The scale seems balanced.

Here is what I do know. I know a young man who, when he was eight years old, walked across Angola fleeing a seemingly endless war. He grew up in a refugee camp. Now he is a year away from completing a university degree and has the prospect of returning to a peaceful and increasingly prosperous country. I know a young woman who was disowned by her parents when she refused to marry the man they had selected for her because she wanted to finish high school first. She was cast out, but she managed to get a scholarship to school. Between terms, when all boarders were sent home, she lived on the floor of a church. A few months ago she completed high school. Now she teaches preschool and is in the position to influence other girls to follow her path. I know a young man who knows twenty languages because every time he hears his parents might be in a certain country, he goes there and picks up the languages on the way. Despite being insecure in his community, manifested by several instances where he was targeted for death or threatened with the same, he serves as the deputy headmaster at his community school and recently reported his superior for stealing. When asked if this is going to make his position even more difficult, he says, “Yes, definitely.” I know another young man who returned to Angola after fleeing as a child. He lost his mother in the refugee camp to a medical condition, leaving him alone and with the responsibility to help support a young half brother. Back in Angola, he was able to find a job with an organization that removes landmines. He is well paid and is helping to reclaim his country. I know a whole community who took a chance on their country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and, to the mantra “Home is home”, returned to the place they fled with the intention to rebuild what was destroyed.

Things do change. Wars do end. Wounds do heal. The human spirit is impossibly resilient. For me, that tips the scale. That, and maybe that alone, is why there is hope for the future.

-Nick

Theory and Practice

2010-02-04T17:54:00.002+02:00

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
– attributed to a bunch of different people including Yogi Berra

I can understand now why most jobs in international development require some experience “in the field”. The past eighteen months have taught me a lot about how things really play out with projects designed using the best or newest development theories. Basically, things rarely go as they are supposed to, and often you realize that your brilliant ideas aren’t so brilliant. Trying to force things to work out the way you want them to or the way they are “supposed to” doesn’t really work. If you don’t take into account that the people who are supposed to benefit from a particular project are people and that people are complex things, you run into trouble. That is why you have to involve them in the planning and implementation of a project. Of course, that itself is a theory in development that is well regarded and popular. It is also really hard to do. (How is that for a bunch of scatter shot ideas on the topic?)

I had an experience recently which made me think about this issue. We were at the remote location of the Mwangaza Learning Centres, one of FORGE’s preschools. I have written about this project before, but the location of this preschool is about as remote as you can get in Meheba. Unfortunately, the structure in which the school is house, a mud brick church, fell down due to the rains. We were meeting with the community to discuss how to proceed. There are two villages, villages 74 and 75, that feed into the school, and there was some talk about moving the school. It is currently located in village 74, but more students actually come from village 75. Since the school at 74 fell down, this seemed like an ideal time to put forward the idea of possibly moving the school. Village 75 was supposedly willing to construct a new structure in their village, and village 74 was already reconstructing the damaged structure in their village. There was much discussion back and forth, and while it proceeded in Luvale, I had an excellent idea. Why not switch the location of the school every term or every month or even every week? Then the burden of walking to school could be more evenly distributed between the students of 74 and 75. The teacher is from a different part of the camp, so he could just as easily go to 74 as he could to 75. You could just set up a rotation. This week class is held at 74, next week at 75. I was assured by the coordinator of the project and the teacher that this was, indeed, an excellent idea. They pitched it to those gathered at the meeting. It was met with unanimous laughter from parents of both villages. It would never work, apparently. The school remained at 74. And that is why we ask people before implementing anything.

One of my favorite illustrations of the theory/practice question came from one of our colleagues. She was talking to an intern who spent some time working at one of the field offices for one of the camps. He was a Westerner and was enrolled in graduate school at an American university. She asked him how he liked his academic program and he replied that he loved it. She asked him how he was enjoying his time in Zambia. He said he felt like he was wasting his time. When she asked him why, he replied that he should be in Geneva (where UNHCR, the UN refugee agency is located) making policy. His reasoning was, “I know all these theories, but they don’t apply here.”

-Nick

Witchcraft

2010-02-04T17:50:00.000+02:00

One thing that surprised me over the course of our time here is how big of a role witchcraft plays in the way people view the world. It’s something I feel like I should have been prepared for and probably would have been if I had thought about it, but we pay so little serious attention to this topic and find it so silly that I never thought much about it when preparing to leave for Zambia. As the months progressed, though, the issue kept coming up. Here are just a few examples:

• Back when I was managing the Refugee Advocacy Initiative (RAI) in Meheba, I had one of my staff relay a story to me. A man died suddenly (I believe I was told something along the lines of “He died too quickly”) and the unanimous conclusion of the village was that witchcraft was involved. In order to find out who had committed said witchcraft, a traditional healer sprinkled herbs on the coffin and then the pallbearers lifted the coffin and everyone gathered round and the coffin guided them all to a house where they found three people who they accused of being the witches. The three people agreed to pay for the funeral. One paid “two goats, five chickens, 250 money …”. As I sat there trying to wrap my mind around this (these three people essentially said “Yep, you caught us”), the staff member paused and said “Maybe you want to write this down? Two goats, five chickens…”. I found out later that the three witches went to the police afterward and explained they felt intimidated by the mob. The police did arrest the accusers. It is illegal to accuse someone of being a witch in Zambia. There is actually a full set of witchcraft laws in Zambia.

• In Meheba, one of our staff members was having a dispute with an old man over a loan. Another of our staff members, who is one of the most level headed people we work with and a pastor on top of that, told me that this was very serious. He very delicately and diplomatically explained why in the self-aware way everyone who knows our views on witchcraft approaches the topic. “I know sometimes you guys don’t believe in juju,” he started. He said this in the way you might start an awkward conversation that starts, “I know sometimes you guys don’t believe in bathing…”. He went on to explain that this man is well known to be powerful in “that area”, meaning witchcraft or juju.

• I wrote in an earlier post about how some people blamed witchcraft for the death of someone we knew and respected.

• We know someone in Lusaka who beat his wife because she had bought some potions that were supposed to make him love her more. He was shouting that she goes to church on Sunday and then comes home and tries to use magic.

The first example involved Angolans, the second Congolese, the third Rwandese and the fourth Zambians. My favorite quote regarding witchcraft came from one of our former staff members in Meheba, a trained and certified nurse. When we were discussing the topic, he said “I don’t believe in witchcraft. But sometimes it’s true.”

While these folkloric anecdotes are the kind of thing that might fall under the “Crazy Stories From Africa That I Tell Family And Friends” category, I think there is an important issue here that deserves attention. I rarely see much written seriously about witchcraft in development literature or news. There have been a few things here and there, even with regards to refugee situations, but it’s not much. Maybe I am not looking hard enough, but I suspect this is not seen as a topic that serious people spend their time on. It’s too bad because it figures more prominently into people’s lives and the actions they take than we like to admit, and if development seeks to improve lives, it seems detrimental to the goal to leave this aspect out of the calculations.

Finishing Up

2010-02-04T17:36:00.000+02:00

We said we would write some posts reflecting on our time in Zambia, but when we returned from Zanzibar we had three days left in Lusaka and so much to do. Those days were very busy, hectic and draining, both physically and emotionally. They were also largely internet-less, powerless and waterless. Fortunately or unfortunately, our flight was delayed coming out of Lusaka, so we missed our connection in Johannesburg. We were put up in a hotel and well fed, but we wound up losing exactly one day. The upside is that this gave us time to finish up the posts we wanted to write, so we are putting them all up right now in quick succession. Thanks for reading!

At the Beach

2010-01-29T23:32:00.003+02:00

We left Stone Town on Monday for the northern beaches. We wound up in Kendwa at a place called Kendwa Rocks, which is where some of our colleagues had stayed a few weeks prior. Zanzibar has phenomenal beaches. Words can’t really do them justice, but we have never seen some of the shades of blue we saw there. Also, our camera can’t really do them justice, but here is an attempt.

In addition to relaxing and swimming near the hotel, we decided to go on a snorkeling trip to Mwemba reef on our second day. In our group were also some first time scuba divers. The open water between the shore and the reef was pretty rough that day, so Audrey was a little worried about sea sickness. That worry proved unfounded. There were, however, other problems…

We jumped into the water while the scuba divers were getting briefed. There were a lot of boats around and it was choppy, and Audrey immediately did not like it. During that first dive she spent a lot of the time in an orange doughnut lifesaver tied to the waist of the Tanzanian guide who spoke no English (not her proudest moment). Unfortunately, this meant that her face was not in the water most of the time but rather right above it where it absorbed all of the reflected sunlight. Despite having on SPF 70, she got pretty burned. Then Nick swam through a jellyfish. First his ankle felt pain so his hand darted down to see what the problem was and the thing got him on the forearm. He caught a glimpse of the tiny blob that had a hint of blue in it. He thought he was free, but a few seconds later he felt a stinging sensation on the side of his face and down his jaw line. A tentacle was tangled in his mask and around his snorkel. First Audrey tried to get it off but it started stinging her hand and she couldn’t get it off. Finally Nick ripped off the mask/jellyfish and gave them to the guide. A few minutes later the guide got stung and then Audrey got stung a few times by a different jellyfish. We headed back to the boat where we found one of the scuba divers who had been stung the minute he entered the water and got out just to be safe. It was not the greatest experience.

During lunch on the boat, we saw in the water this guy from our hotel who we had previously dubbed “The Lurker”. He had long hair and apparently only one pair of clothes, a white linen tunic and white linen pants. We kept seeing him around the beach and the grounds of the hotel with his camera in hand. He was never doing anything. Just lurking. There he would be standing next to a tree. There he would be in the restaurant, not eating anything. There he would be just standing on the beach. Acting weird. Lurking. That’s exactly what he was doing in the water, too. The captain of our boat even asked him if he was okay, at one point. He had a mask and snorkel on, but he didn’t have his head in the water. He was just kind of floating there, lurking. He will probably get really sunburned too.

Luckily, after lunch we went out snorkeling again and both decided to give it another go. We had a great time and saw lots of fish.

The upshot of all this is that Audrey’s face hurts, but it actually doesn’t look that bad. The part that looks funny is her bottom lip, which has swelled up every morning since getting the burn making it look like she got collagen injections during the night.

Bashir, Ghost King Of Stone Town

2010-01-28T16:00:00.000+02:00

The ferry from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar docks in Stone Town, a labyrinthine tangle of narrow streets and alleys dotted with old forts and former sultans’ palaces. It is really old and still maintains an aura of mystery and the exotic. Upon arriving, we took a taxi to a guest house, secured our stuff and went out exploring. In trying to find our way to the sea, we were approached by an Indian man who started a conversation with us and asked us where we were staying. Having spent so long in Zambia, we have our guard up in these types of situations, but we had already noticed in Dar that people are different in Tanzania. At the market in Dar, shopkeepers very easily let us leave their shops without buying anything. They would just mumble “Hakuna Matata” and let us go, unlike the desperation a lot of merchants show in Zambia where by glancing at their products you have entered into a contract that obligates you to buy. So we humored this Indian man as he told us how he was going to the sea to swim because he was having trouble with his eyes. He told us some Swahili phrases and directed us to our guesthouse. We told him we weren’t going there and he shrugged and walked off in another direction.

We decided to spend an extra day in Stone Town to do a spice tour, a popular tourist thing to do. We were taken in a group to a demonstration spice plantation in the interior of the island and shown all these spices and fruit growing. We got to smell and taste them. Then we were taken to the ruins of some sultan’s wife’s Persian baths near the plantation. We had lunch and were then taken to the coast. We had the option to go down in a cave where they used to hide slaves after the trade was abolished on the island. Zanzibar was the transit point for much of the slave trade from east and southern Africa. It was also the departure point for much of the European exploration of the continent, including Stanley’s voyage down the Congo. After seeing the cave, we went to the beach, our first experience with Zanzibar’s incredible beaches and our first time swimming in the Indian Ocean.

When we got back to Stone Town, we went looking for inhalers for Audrey. The ones she brought were getting low. We found one of the types she uses at the first pharmacy we went to and were told to try Fahoud’s Pharmacy for the other one. Unfortunately, Fahoud only had expired inhalers of the type we needed, so they recommended another pharmacy that was in walking distance but was better to reach by taxi. We decided to walk. Shortly after we started walking, who should appear next to us but the same Indian guy we had talked to the previous day. He asked us where we were going and we told him the story. Then he made it his personal mission to find the correct inhaler. So for the next hour and a half we followed him to every pharmacy and clinic in and just outside of Stone Town looking for the inhaler. We made quite a spectacle. He had asked for the sample inhaler we carried, so he marched along with the inhaler in one hand, a cigarette in the other and Audrey and me trailing behind him. He walked quite fast but languidly, which I didn’t think was possible but apparently is. It was Sunday and getting late, so things were closing. He would set his cigarette on the stoop outside the pharmacy or clinic, barge in, be told they didn’t have the correct inhaler, and we would walk on to the next one. He even found one pharmacist in the street because the shop was closed. He seemed to know everyone. In our ramblings, he greeted his “sister”, who may have been his niece if I understood correctly, pointed out the hospital where he was born, and almost got into a fight when he slapped a speeding car tearing through the narrow streets. We ultimately wound up back at Fahoud’s where Audrey planned on begging them to give her the expired inhaler, something they were absolutely not inclined to do the first time we went there. Our Indian friend went into the pharmacy and somehow came out with an unexpired inhaler of the right variety. We paid him some money for his efforts, though less than the inhaler would have cost. He told us his name is Bashir and to ask for him if we are ever back in Stone Town. He would be easy to find since everyone knows him. We don’t doubt that at all, but he will probably find us first.

Dazed, we went to a rooftop restaurant where we had reservations. We spent most of the dinner listening to half of a lesbian couple recount to the other half the entire plot of a sci-fi/new age book or movie. It involved earth worship, many different planets, a character named Quinn Dexter, who is a Satan worshiper, and something about people morphing into hippopotamuses. Again dazed, we called it a night.

-Nick

24 Hours In Dar Es Salaam

2010-01-27T21:09:00.002+02:00

We arrived in Dar Es Salaam last Friday for our Zanzibar vacation. Audrey’s friend (a former UNHCR Protection Officer who we met in Zambia) lives in Dar, and she and her driver picked us up at the airport. She had reserved a hotel for us and paid for it herself. It was incredible and the nicest thing someone we really don’t know that well has ever done for us. The room was on the 11th floor and overlooked the harbor. She took us out to lunch at a fast food restaurant, which was strangely exactly what we wanted, and showed us around town. She dropped us at a market while the driver took her home and then she sent the driver back to pick us up and take us back to the harbor to buy our ferry tickets for Zanzibar. Then the driver brought us back to her house for dinner. We met her three children, including the baby who she left Zambia to have, and her husband. We enjoyed dinner outside under the stars. The house is still under construction, so they moved some sofas and a coffee table onto the open air roof of the garage, which is at the same level as the rest of the house. The area is very hilly and across a small valley from the house is a church that had choir practice just after we had finished eating. It was all very unexpected and excellent.

In the morning, the hotel had an amazing buffet breakfast. After that we went to the ferry. In the waiting room they offered complimentary ice cream, juice and small pastries. The eating vacation had begun.

The ferry was about an hour late departing, making it such that we spent exactly 24 hours in Dar. During the trip over, we watched Audrey’s favorite movie, Mr. Bones, and part of one of the Gods Must Be Crazy movies. Pretty soon we reached Zanzibar and were deposited in Stone Town.

Last Trip to Meheba

2010-01-20T23:57:00.003+02:00

We just got back from our last trip to Meheba. It was actually our last trip to any of the camps, as we are almost finished with our work. Audrey has already technically finished working, and Nick’s last day is tomorrow. We travel to Tanzania for a week starting on Friday and then fly home on February 1. That is official now, confirmed right before we left for Meheba.

The Meheba trip was fairly eventful and there were a lot of “lasts”. We had our last long bus ride in Zambia, witnessed our last Meheba kitten births, went to the Road 36 market for the last time, etc, etc.

The kitten births were not completely unexpected because, as possibly mentioned previously on this blog, we have a cat factory in Meheba. On our last day there we know for sure that Mwane, the older female, gave birth to two or three kittens because we saw them. Sana, the daughter of Mwane, also probably had a litter that same day, but she disappeared into a hole in the ceiling to do her business. We think we heard some kittens up there, though.

Also on our last day in Meheba (and more important than cat babies, which are a dime a dozen), we had a party for the FORGE staff and friends so Nick could say goodbye. It was the first time we had had so many people together in a long time, so we took a group picture. This isn’t everyone, as some people were late, but it is a significant number of the staff and friends.

After the difficult goodbyes, in the last minutes of daylight that we would see in Meheba, a full rainbow arched over the compound. I guess it was time to leave. (I’m not making this up. See:

)

In the next two weeks, we will post some final reflections on a couple things, as well as pictures from our vacation in Zanzibar.

Chobe

2010-01-12T22:55:00.003+02:00

We left Livingstone early yesterday morning for a two day/one night trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. Our group consisted of three women from Argentina, two guys from Spain, two guys from Poland, one of whom lives in Madrid and speaks Spanish, and us. Suzy felt right at home. We’re not sure how we got such a Spanish speaking group in a part of Africa that doesn’t see many Spanish speakers, but they were great company and it was nice for Nick to hear the language again and practice listening.

We saw a ton of animals. Chobe is known for elephants, and we certainly saw plenty. We also saw a surprising number of lions. And lots of other animals, too...

Etosha, Windhoek and Victoria Falls

2010-01-10T19:52:00.007+02:00

We are back in Zambia now after a 22 hour bus ride from Windhoek to Livingstone. We had a great time in Namibia and enjoyed having the freedom of a car, despite the fact that it cost us more than we hoped. (Note: When you return a car in Namibia, the rental place checks to see if you have used the spare and asks you point blank if you have had a flat tire. Company policy says the renter is responsible for buying a brand new tire if they get a flat. We are pretty sure they get suspicious if you say “No” because it seems impossible for someone not to get a flat if they drive on the gravel roads. 2nd Note: We are not good liars. 3rd Note: Our kayak guide, Francois, told us that car rental places in Namibia never buy new tires. Their customers do. Francois is a smart man.) We saw a lot of interesting road signs in our travels, but this one perhaps best summed up our experience navigating gravel roads in a wild, foreign country.

We spent some of our last few days in Namibia in Etosha National Park before heading back to Windhoek for a day in the city. In Etosha we camped in two of the three resorts inside the camp and took advantage of their nice swimming pools. We drove ourselves around the park, and Nick realized he missed his calling as a guide when he spotted a rhino in the bush. We tracked it awhile with our car. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a good picture because it was always hiding in the bush. We did get pictures of other animals.

In Windhoek, Audrey found her street.

This morning, we went to Victoria Falls again. This time was much tamer. We just looked at the falls. We didn’t swim on top of them.

We did have close encounters with baboons, which is an everyday occurrence at the falls.

We are off to Botswana tomorrow for two days in Chobe National Park, the final leg of our trip before we head back to Lusaka on Wednesday.

Merry belated Christmas from Namibia

2010-01-05T11:36:00.005+02:00

We spent the last few days in Swakopmund and Walvis Bay on the coast of Namibia. This area has recently become the adventure capital of the country so, in addition to eating good food, walking along the beach, and exploring the towns (especially Swakopmund, with its German-influenced architecture), we took advantage of some of the activities that were offered.

We went on a Quad Bike (ATV) ride through the dunes, which was both exciting and offered spectacular views of the dunes and ocean.

Yesterday we went kayaking with Francois, our personal guide who is from the area and clearly loves what he does. The trip was around a point where there is a Cape Fur seal colony and, in addition to the seals, we were lucky enough to also see Heaviside dolphins and a whale (which was either a Pilot or young Humpback).

After kayaking and shopping, we started the drive toward Etosha National Park, our destination for the next few days. It was a good paved road, and with our newly patched tire we made excellent time. (Getting the tire patched was the first time since entering Namibia that we really felt like we were in Africa.) We did run into some rain on the way, which created an awesome rainbow which we viewed from various angles as the road curved. We eventually pulled off at a picnic area to take pictures and discovered what is really at the end of a rainbow - three pieces of cake. (They were not ours. They were just lying there on the picnic table. Eerie.)

We are currently in Omaruru, a small artist town between Swakopmund and Etosha. We came in last night without a reservation and found most places closed for the week. We ended up in a luxurious family chalet at a hotel. It was a little more than we were looking for or wanted to pay, but it was a nice break before we head back to camping.

Happy New Year from Africa

2010-01-02T19:49:00.003+02:00

Happy New Year everyone. We have started what will be a month of travel for us. We have just about finished our work with FORGE, and we are trying to squeeze in as much of Africa as we can for the next four weeks. Nick’s sister, Suzy, came for a visit and we are currently traveling with her. When she leaves, we will make one more trip up to Meheba. Then, we will spend about a week in Tanzania, return to Lusaka for a couple days and then return to the States.

We are currently in Swakopmund, Namibia.

We spent December 30 traveling to Livingstone and going on top of the falls again.

The water level was much higher than it was six weeks ago, and a couple people in our group had a close call. They lost their footing and started to get swept down toward the falls (there were plenty of barriers in their path before they would have gone over), but luckily the guides arrested their progress. It took a good three hours to get to the Devil’s Pool, and our feet were wrecked by then. Only Nick, Audrey and Suzy went into the pool. Getting to it involved swimming across a couple strong currents a little too close to the edge for comfort. When we finally got there it was much scarier than six weeks ago. We were told that we were pretty much at the end of when it is possible to do this. It was an exciting first full day in Africa for Suzy.

The next day we took the Intercape bus to Windhoek, Namibia. It took about 21 hours, which was a little longer than planned, because of an accident that blocked the road. We were impressed with Windhoek. It felt closer to Cape Town than to Lusaka. After picking up the rental car and eating our first real meal in a day, we stocked up at the grocery store and drove to Sesriem, gateway to Sossussvlei and some amazing sand dunes. Most of it is on gravel roads and we ran into some heavy rains in the mountains, delaying us a bit. Luckily we arrived in time to secure our campsite and enjoy a spectacular sunset. On New Years Day we spent time on the dunes.

Today, we got a flat tire in the middle of the desert, but we still made it to Walvis Bay and then Swakopmund. Pictures of these hopefully in the next blog.

An Epic in Eight Words

2009-12-28T23:02:00.001+02:00

One of my favorite stories of the year is eight words long, half of them the same word, and comes from a ten year old kid from Kalabwe, the village where the Project Manager for Mwange lived. Being young and from a Bemba speaking region, he speaks limited English, but he can convey an incredible amount of information with one of the most unique communication styles I have heard. He is very animated, really only uses nouns and verbs and thinks almost every English word is preceded by the word “to”. Having conversations with him is awesome. This is the story he told the Mwange Project Manager one day when her cat got in a fight with a snake. (Note that “push” is my approximation of the variation on “puss” that people use here, and “bush” is the forest/woods.) Here is the story:

To push. To bush. To snake. To fighting.

I'm convinced he's the Bemba Homer.

Wedding in Zambia

2009-12-27T23:12:00.003+02:00

We went to a wedding the day after Christmas. It was our first Zambian Christian wedding, so we looked forward to the cultural experience. We have also been here long enough that we braced for the inevitable cultural frustrations.

We should note here that we didn't know the couple getting married (but we were invited). We were going to the function with our former neighbors, a husband and wife. We arrived at their house to pick them up, and they were not there. However, the wife’s sister and two of the couple’s children were there, so we took them to the church. The other child was a flower girl and was already there. We were a half an hour late and to our shock, the service had already started.

In many ways, this was the most familiar wedding service we have been to here. We went to a Zambian Muslim wedding, and Nick went to a Congolese Christian wedding Meheba, both of which felt very different from the American weddings we are used to. The ceremony for this one was very familiar. (It probably helped that it was a Catholic mass, so it was pretty standardized.) If you took away the young man wearing the Confederate flag t-shirt with “The South Shall Rise Again” across the front, it almost felt normal.

The ceremony ended around 12:30, and the reception did not start until 15:00, so we killed some time buying snacks for our upcoming trip with Nick’s sister to Namibia. Nick also got a haircut. We found his barber asleep on two chairs. We asked if he had partied too much on Christmas, but he said no. He was on medication. Nick still let him cut his hair.

We went back to our former neighbor’s house to pick them up for the reception. The wife was ready, but the husband decided not to go. The wife’s brother took his place. The wife’s sister also came. We’re pretty sure neither she nor the brother were invited, but our neighbor talked/pushed her way through the bouncers at the reception venue. We arrived at the reception at around 15:30 and waited a good two hours for it to start because the bridal party and the bride and groom were not there. They finally did arrive in a few cars with people sitting out the windows and a lot of honking. The bridal party proceeded to dance up and down the aisle a few times provocatively to much enthusiasm from the crowd. Everything much be danced. The knife must be very slowly danced in to cut the cake. The cakes must then be danced out to be cut and served. Most of the reception seemed to involve things being danced up and down the aisle. The food was good, though, and luckily did not have to be danced anywhere. In fact, it was very orderly distributed. There was a line, people respected it, and it moved fast.

Finally, it was time for the speeches. Each side of the family had a representative give a speech. One of the groom’s relatives spoke for his side of the family. He was about our age (30ish), and he started off by saying that he knew many people were wondering how someone so young can speak for the family. He said he would explain. His explanation dealt with his relationship to the groom and was as follows: “Not only is he my brother, he is also my grandson.” This did not clarify a thing. In fact, it raised many more questions in my mind. But, alas, these went unanswered. He did not elaborate further.

We left a little early because it was getting dark, but a lot of people were also leaving. We drove away as the fireworks that explode all over the city these festive days began their nightly assault. Ahh, Christmas time in Zambia.

Gilbert Part II

2009-12-25T13:08:00.002+02:00

...Continued from the previous post

When the car came to a stop there was a brief second where everyone kind of sat there, but it didn't last long. We were all okay, and I got out of the car. The whole village had already gathered around. They seemed angry at Gilbert, and I was a little worried some of that anger would be projected onto me. I took out my phone immediately and saw that I had no service. I usually carry other SIM cards with me, but I had lost my MTN card earlier in the trip. All I had was Zain, which is the company that usually has the most widespread coverage. I asked the children who were pressing in if there was any coverage. “Zain?” They all shook their heads. “Only MTN.” Visions of spending the night by the road or in this village danced in my head. Then a man tapped me on the shoulder and said there was an anthill nearby. We climbed to the top and I started looking for service.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Turned the phone off and on again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then, miraculously (maybe you wondered why I'm writing this on Christmas), bars of reception. I immediately called Stan and told him to send his driver. He couldn't really understand me. The call ended. He called back and asked where I was. I told him right outside town, still on the tarmac. The call ended.

When I got back down to the car, it was clear that all the anger of the villagers was directed at Gilbert. He still looked dazed, like he was shocked that this could have happened. He came up to me and said, “I have a problem.” No shit, Gilbert! Your car is in a ditch, your steering column is locked up and the whole village, especially the owner of that tomato stand, is sending bad juju your way. He wanted money to help him get out of his problem, and I told him absolutely not. I told him that he owed me money. The older Zambian woman who had been his passenger voiced her solidarity with that statement. I felt emboldened, so I started pushing him to give me my money back. On some level I knew it was a lost cause.

Just then, Stan's driver drove up fast and stopped hard in a solid, fully functioning vehicle. Gilbert and I argued for awhile more. He didn't have money to refund me (it was in the gas tank). He wanted to refund it to Stan's driver once he had it. That way I wouldn't pay Stan's driver for gas. Intelligently, Stan's driver refused. Finally I made Gilbert sign a receipt for the fuel and also sign a scrap of paper promising to pay the money to the Kala Project Manager on my behalf. When I got home, I stamped it with the FORGE stamp to make it official.

The older Zambian woman and I got into Stan's driver's car, and we sped off. We left Gilbert in the dust with that dazed expression still on his face. It was getting late. If everything went perfectly we would reach Mwange just as the sun was going down. I wasn't sure how long Audrey and Laura would wait.

The older Zambian woman spent half the ride praying her rosary and the other half with her hands in a devotional pose, palms open to the sky. I think it kind of freaked the driver out. He kept looking over at her, but I guess she was just thanking God that she had survived Gilbert. When our driver deftly navigated the famous Bweupe bad spot, I started to believe that we actually might make it. I watched the sun and my watch the entire journey.

We pulled into the Mwange police station during that period after the sun has set but there is still some light in the sky. Audrey and Laura were just about to go home after arranging with the police for me to spend the night there if I arrived. The older Zambian woman got out of the car and hugged Audrey like she was a long lost relative. She was traveling on to Mporokoso, so she and the driver left pretty much right away, she praising Jesus the whole way.

Every time I passed through Kawambwa after that (which was often), I looked for Gilbert. I never found him.

Epilogue
On my last trip to Mwange and Kala, I found myself again looking for a ride from Kawambwa to Mwange. Someone at UNHCR recommended that I call Kwame. I called him and he said he would come. I assumed Kwame was a driver, but it turns out he is just a guy who arranges rides. He arrived and called me to tell me he was outside of the UNHCR offices. I grabbed my bag and went outside.

There sat Gilbert. He was with another man who turned out to be Kwame. They were in a car that looked only semi-crappy. Gilbert pretended not to remember me. I reminded him. We argued for awhile. I actually put my bag in his trunk before I was like “What am I doing?” I demanded my money back. He told me the fuel was still in his old car which was still in the shop. I told him to go get it. Realizing he wasn't going to get this fare, he said okay, gave me what I assume is a fake phone number (I never even tried it), and told me to call him in 15 minutes. Realizing I wasn't going to get my money back, I said okay and walked away.

Gilbert Part I

2009-12-24T18:47:00.002+02:00

In the last post I wrote, I alluded to a minor car crash I was involved in earlier this year. There's a longer story there, and I was not going to write about it because it felt like the time had passed, but on my last trip to Kala and Mwange part of it came back around. So, in the interest of reflecting back on the year that is coming to an end, here is one of the more ridiculous episodes I have experienced in the past twelve months...

This was all back in May. I was in Kawambwa, where I often found myself in those days, trying to find a ride to Mwange to meet up with Audrey, who was there doing a training, and Laura, our Project Manager in the camp. I was with the most talkative person in the world, a refugee from Kala who is a good friend. (I one time saw him literally talk Audrey under a table.) He was trying to help me find transport, but we were failing, and he was lamenting the lack of trade between Kawambwa and Mporokoso, which he saw as the root cause of our inability to find me a ride. Out of cheap options, we started asking around for taxi drivers. Stan, our usual go to guy, couldn't do it himself. (He was probably thinking about the last time he took me that direction. Also, this was before we had really established him as our go to guy.) He did have a friend who could take me. Unfortunately, the price was higher than I was willing to pay. We wandered over to another nice looking car. Some kids hanging around it told us the driver could take us for less. We asked to talk to him.

That's when I met Gilbert. He had what I took as a friendly smile. I was wrong. It was the smile of a jackass, someone who is a moron and tickled to death about it. He said he could take me for the lower price, but he had to find one more passenger. We waited and waited, and I really had no time because it was starting to get late. Finally, I told him I would pay for the other passenger's fare if we could leave right away. Right away is a much broader concept in Zambia than it is in America. There's “just now,” which means no time soon. There's “now now,” which can mean sooner but still nowhere near what we understand as right away. After he screwed around for what I took to be too long, I told Gilbert we needed to leave “now now now now now”.

He led me to a very crappy car, not the relatively nice one we had negotiated in front of. He had to open the trunk with a screw driver. This should have been the end of it. I should have walked away. Stan was there with his friend and looked skeptical. I mentioned that I could go with him instead, but he said no – I think some kind of taxi driver's code of honor about not stealing customers. I asked if he thought the car could make it, and he said yes. My friend from Kala also said it should be okay, but he too looked skeptical. I got in the car and, as always, had to pay for the fuel up front. In Kawambwa, at the time, there was no gas station, so you just had guys with containers of gas that they siphoned into your tank. No taxi in town ever has enough gas in it for a long journey when you get in, so you have to give the driver part of your fare for fuel. So I forked over a good portion of my fare, and then in my mind there was no turning back.

Gilbert had one older Zambian woman as a passenger, and she sat in the front. He had a friend who sat next to me. Then there was this kid who I am not sure what his deal was who sat in the back seat with us as well. Gilbert and the friend had to stop and buy cigarettes and packets (small plastic pouches of alcohol) as “supplies” for the journey. They were wasting a lot of time, and I was getting angrier. Then we stopped at Gilbert's village. He had to pick up a bicycle pump because “no one can help us out there.” It is true that the Kawambwa-Mporokoso road is remote. It is false that a bike pump would do you any good.

Finally, we got on our way. Gilbert's friend had already started drinking packets and wanted to show me his driver's license. I did not care because he was not driving and would not be driving because of the packets issue. Also, if Gilbert tried to start drinking packets, I would have to forbid it. It never came to that, though.

We had been driving about five minutes. We were still on tarmac, which doesn't last very far outside of Kawambwa. Ahead, there was a bend in the road. The road turned. Gilbert did not.

As we went flying off the road toward the ditch where we would finally come to rest, I thought about how stupid I was and about the utter impossibility that this journey could have ended well. I paused to take note of the tomato stand we destroyed on our way to the ditch. It was little more than a bunch of sticks precariously balanced on top of each other, a typical roadside stand here. I took a mental picture when the sticks were suspended in the air for a split second, framed by the front windshield. I realized I was not at all surprised that this was happening, and I didn't really feel engaged in the action. I think the woman was screaming, but I felt like I was watching this happen to some other group of people. Maybe it was because anyone could have called this ending from the moment he opened that trunk with a screw driver. There has to be a lesson here somewhere.

(To be continued in the next post...)

Happy Hannukah from Lusaka

2009-12-13T09:40:00.004+02:00

Last Kala/Mwange Trip

2009-12-09T22:04:00.004+02:00

I have been to all three camps in the past two weeks. I left the day after Thanksgiving for Mwange and Kala to finish up FORGE's phase out there, and I continued on to Meheba after two short days in Lusaka.

The Mwange and Kala trip was hectic and in keeping with how these trips normally go, only more so. It featured one day in which I biked 40 miles from Mwange to Mporokoso, the nearest town, and back on very little food. The same day, our life saving taxi driver Stan drove me from Mwange to Kala after all other transport options fell through. During each trip up this direction, Stan has stepped up and saved the day. He is the one who drove us on our adventure to the waterfalls back in March. He sent a rescue car for me when the one I was in crashed a couple months later (more on that in the next blog). This latest and last trip with him involved some very difficult driving. We got stuck in the mud once but managed to push our way out. Then he ran out of gas on a desolate stretch of the desolate Mporokoso/Kawambwa road. He had more gas in the trunk, but, after he put it in, the car wouldn't start and we had to push again. We did eventually get to Kala pretty late and pretty hungry, and we left a bike seat in the trunk (we later got it back). But one last adventure with Stan fishtailing around on a muddy road brought things full circle.

The next day we loaded a Canter truck with all of FORGE Kala and Mwange's remaining possessions, drove into Kawambwa and spent the night. We left the next morning for Lusaka at 5:00. At about 7:30, I heard what sounded like a muffled backfire and glanced at the driver's side mirror to see smoke pouring out of the bottom of the truck. We spent the next two hours on the side of the road trying to find the proper replacement piece and, when that failed, trying to fashion a solution that would hold until we reached the next town. At one point, some men built a fire and tried to “stretch out” an iron pipe using heat and a big stick. Finally a solution was arrived at, but it only lasted about one kilometer before failing. We bussed into the next town and hung around for four hours until the driver bought the correct part, returned to the broken Canter, fixed it, and drove back into town to pick us up. We got to Lusaka at 8:00 the next morning after stopping a few times to pour water on the overheating engine and perform various other tasks that would allow us to reach the destination. When all was said and done, the trip lasted 27 hours.

So that was my last trip to Kala and Mwange. It couldn't have ended any other way.

Here's the view out the back of the Canter as we left the infamous Kala kids behind forever...

Honesty

2009-12-05T18:13:00.002+02:00

People here are brutally honest. I don't appreciate this when people say, "You look fat today" or "What's wrong with your face?" (both have happened) but today it worked in my favor.

I was out walking around our new neighborhood and the sky looked ominous. I wanted to make a few stops before it rained. First I went into an internet cafe to ask if their connection is fast enough for Skype. The woman working there flat out told me that it is not fast without beating around the bush. I am happy that I didn't waste time or money trying it out.

I then stopped to buy some veggies at a roadside stand. The tomatoes I first spotted didn't look fresh so I asked the vendor if he had better ones. He told me that he didn't, again with no sales pitch or excuses. I moved on without wasting any time and made it home before it rained.

-Audrey

Another Opportunity to Vote for FORGE

2009-11-26T12:07:00.004+02:00

FORGE is one of twelve finalists for a competition, of which the three organizations with the most votes will each win $5,000! Voting ends December 9, so please vote for FORGE (you can only vote once) and spread the word. Simply:

Go to: http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/node/53889/finalists
Click on "sign in or register to vote"
Sign in or register if you have not done so previously
Vote for FORGE's People Powered Development and 2 other entries you find deserving

New house

2009-11-24T12:31:00.008+02:00

In preparation for our rapidly approaching departure, FORGE Lusaka is moving into a smaller brand new house (both new to us and actually new) this coming weekend.

We decided on a December 1 move in date because the students are on break at the beginning of January and we will be traveling for most of the month. Then we're leaving Zambia at the beginning of February - crazy.

We are packing up and disassembling our card wall, so wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for reminding us that we are loved!

What's Mine is Yours

2009-11-23T21:45:00.005+02:00

You may remember that we spent mid-June to early July 2008 in Oakland, CA in order to prepare (as much as it's possible to prepare) for our work with refugees in Zambia. A good portion of this training involved reading and discussing books. Most were focused on the conflicts from which the populations we were going to be working with fled. However, the final book was more practical.

African Friends and Money Matters is basically a guide for Westerners who are planning to spend time in Africa. To paraphrase from Amazon.com, the book discusses the different ways Westerners and Africans use and manage resources, which can create misunderstandings and friction. Reading this book hasn't saved me from frustration, but at least I understand why I'm getting frustrated and try to remind myself that I am a visitor in a different culture.

One of the biggest areas of difference that I have encountered over and over relates to personal property. African culture is much more communal which translates into the idea that something is up for grabs if it isn't being used at that moment. At home this behavior would probably be considered stealing, but here it's totally acceptable to borrow something without asking.

There has been a fuel shortage here, and one Sunday last month I came home on my bike and immediately got a phone call from a friend that a nearby gas station had fuel and no line. I quickly got in the car and left the bike out instead of taking the time to put it in the shed where I usually keep it. I came back to find the bike gone, which was unsettling. One of the students returned riding it soon after and laughed when I got a little annoyed that he had taken it. It was there and it's faster to bike than walk to the store.

Rainy season started again in earnest here about two weeks ago. I have been keeping my flip flops outside of the main house while I am inside working to avoid tracking in mud. Last week I came outside and couldn't find the shoes...only to see them on someone else's feet! Two of the students were standing outside talking and our only female student was wearing them. Again, they laughed when I seemed frustrated and said something to the effect of, "They're for women and she's a woman."

After looking all over for my flip flops again today I went to ask Tamala, the woman who cleans our house and washes our clothes and is like family to us, and (I think you know where this is going) found her wearing them. This time I had to laugh.

Then the kicker...I had loaned her an umbrella on Friday afternoon and she brought it back today so I put it away. When I told her that I was going out she reminded me to leave her HER umbrella. I laughed even harder, got the umbrella, and told her that she can use it but it's MY umbrella. I'm never getting it back.

-Audrey

Top of the Falls

2009-11-18T00:04:00.005+02:00

This past weekend we went to Livingstone again. After a four hour delay because the luxury bus we took broke down (after taking how many less respected bus lines and never suffering a breakdown?), we finally arrived. The next month is going to be really busy, so it was one of our last opportunities to swim on top of Victoria Falls. When the water level is low, there is a natural pool right on the edge of the falls that is safe to swim in. There are plenty of illegal guides that can take you there, but we decided to do it legit and not worry about dealing with the police or falling off into the gorge. It was worth it. We went with the breakfast option where a boat takes you out to Livingstone Island, you swim at the top of the falls and then you have breakfast. You can also walk out to the island from near the entrance to the national park, something we hope to try before we leave Zambia. Here are some pictures from our time out there.

For the breakfast and other meal options you leave from and return to the Royal Livingstone, a fancy hotel which connects to the grounds of another fancy hotel which connects to the national park where you can view the falls. We wanted to catch a minibus back to town, and the station is near the falls entrance, so we walked through the secluded grounds of these hotels. While we were walking, we came upon some zebras grazing in the grass. We've never been that close to zebras, and it was one of those nice unexpected sublime moments.

Convoy

2009-11-15T20:38:00.003+02:00

To wrap up the posts about my most recent trip to the camps and to reflect once more on repatriation, I want to describe a little about the repatriation convoy I witnessed. I left off my last post (two posts ago) with the buses starting to roll...

The convoy left just about on time and was the most organized thing I have seen in awhile. It was actually a very impressive display of international coordination and concern. The lead vehicle (which was the one we were in), was occupied by the Refugee Officer (RO) from the Ministry of Home Affairs, representative of the Zambian government. Behind us was a UNHCR Landcruiser followed by the three buses, driven by Zambians and emblazoned all over with American and European Union flags (because they provide the money for this operation). The buses carried the Congolese returnees. Also on the buses were staff members from IOM (International Organization for Migration). The three buses were followed by the empty spare bus, carrying our equipment on top. An ambulance with lights flashing brought up the rear. All I could see most of the time when I looked back was the white UNHCR Landcruiser, emerging like a ghost from the cloud of dust that engulfed it, its ten foot antennae protruding upwards from the front bumper.

Every now and then, we would gain some elevation on the rest of the convoy and you could see it spread out behind us for a couple kilometers. And we could hear the radio communication, all in military code (a lot of tango yankees and kilo romeos, probably not entirely necessary), as the RO warned the rest of the convoy of curves, bad spots, goats, vehicles, and children in the road ahead. The road is not heavily traveled, but when an oncoming vehicle did appear, the driver would drive directly at it while the RO would motion out the window for it to pull over, forcing it to the side of the road. In spite of myself, I found myself thinking without irony, "Wow, this is the full weight of the international community". When the UN General Assembly often seems like a forum for attention starved world leaders, when the international community can't get it together to address an issue like climate change that everyone acknowledges is serious, when we can't stop even a slow motion genocide, solving international problems can seem hopeless. At the field level, I have gone back and forth as to how much possibility there is to get things right. I have been frustrated and disheartened by some of the things I have seen. Seeing something done well was rejuvenating. I was really thankful to have witnessed it.

As our cloud of dust rolled unheralded along the dirt road through a forgotten corner of the continent, I was also thankful to have seen a part of Africa that is rarely seen or talked about. The chaotic misery and horrors of African conflicts, including the one that ultimately produced this convoy, make front page headlines. War, refugees, disease, poverty, famine. The orderly return of refugees might make UNHCR's website, and Zambians helping Congolese tie their livestock to the top of repatriation buses won't be mentioned anywhere. But this is how wars end and things return to normal. There is good news coming out of Africa.

Crocodiles

2009-11-08T18:39:00.005+02:00

Yesterday we went to Kalimba Reptile Park, which is just north of Lusaka. One of our friends works with a number of health centers on the outskirts of Lusaka and one happens to be near the reptile park. He mentioned before that we could tag along the next time he goes on a Saturday and, true to his word, he e-mailed us on Friday to let us know that he would be stopping by the clinic to remind them about his visit on Monday.

We spent a few hours yesterday afternoon checking out their snakes (behind glass), tortoises, and crocodiles (behind fences and walls). Nick even ate a crocodile burger for lunch, which tasted sort of like a cross between chicken and fish.

Some of the small crocodiles...

And a big one (we were surprised that his hand looks like it belongs to a fat baby)...

And an even bigger one who was lounging under a bridge...

Departure Centre

2009-11-07T21:57:00.000+02:00

In my last post, I wrote about having the opportunity to witness the first leg of a repatriation convoy. We were catching a ride from Mwange to Kala and were allowed to transport solar panels and some other luggage on top of the spare bus that always accompanies each convoy in case one of the buses transporting the returnees breaks down. Once we secured our stuff on top, I was able to breathe a little easier and take in the sights and sounds of the departure centre as everyone was making final preparations.

I was actually still on top of the bus when one of those sounds assaulted my ears. Someone was taking a very large pig with them back to Congo, and the pig was not happy. Livestock and most other things are more expensive in Congo, so people want to bring things they can sell once they arrive in order to get some money to help them start getting back on their feet. I imagine this particular pig would be worth a lot. It was probably 50 or 60 kgs, and it was screaming. Its legs were tied together and its owner and some helpers were trying to secure it in a basket. The basket was smaller than the pig, but a hole had been cut out of the side for the pig's head to fit through, and a head rest had been attached jutting off the basket for support. The problem was that the pig's head had to be forced into the hole, which was toward the bottom of the basket. There was a lip of basket it had to duck under, and it was in no mood to duck. As it was screaming and showing off its teeth, I noticed its owner lighting a match. He reached over with the lit match and burned the pig's ear. The pig recoiled its head, ducking it under the basket lip and popping it out the hole. Then it was just a matter of tying him in.

The next big hurdle was getting him on top of the bus. The accomplishment of this task was one of the most amazing feats of human strength that I have seen recently. The driver of the bus, a fairly skinny Zambian man wearing fatigue pants, a knit hat and a “Canada Loves Bob Barker” t-shirt complete with maple leaf, balanced the basket with the pig in it on his shoulders and the back of his neck. Someone set out a jerrycan which he used as a step to get onto the ladder that led to the roof of the bus. Then he proceeded to climb the ladder while balancing the 50 kg pig on his shoulders. He used both hands to climb and no hands to keep the pig secured on his back. Once he deposited the pig on top of the bus, other people passed up goats and he carried one in each hand, including a pregnant one, across the top of the bus to where they would be tied down next to some chickens. The top of the bus made a lot of noise.

Amid the chaos, I watched a lone older man wearing a golf cap gently waving at one of the buses with both hands. From the window, a little girl's arm emerged. The man approached the bus and tried to reach up for the girl's hand, but they kept missing each other. Eventually, he gave up and stepped back. Soon, the buses were rolling.

-Nick

If you'd like to leave a comment, you are free to do so.

2009-11-03T13:11:00.002+02:00

Hi readers,

I am writing to let you know that I just edited the comment section so that anyone can comment on our blog. I don't know why it was set to registered users only, but now you can just give your name or even comment anonymously. Hopefully this will increase the number of comments that we receive, as we would love to hear from you! As we near the end of our time in Zambia, we are making an effort to post more frequently.

Please note that we will still moderate the comments, so there will be a short delay from the time you write to the time that the comment posts. The reason for the moderation is to keep creepy strangers from posting, which happened when I put up a picture of myself in a post about first haircut in Lusaka.

The title of this post in an homage to the preacher who gets on the Marks Motorways bus in Lusaka to bless the journey to Solwezi. He ends his sermon saying that some people may want to give donations to him and his church and uses the line, "You are free to do so." Nick and I have turned this into a running joke to be used at times when we want the other person to do something slightly unpleasant. For example, "If you want to do the dishes, you are free to do so." It's much funnier if you have heard this guy talk, as it needs to be said in his manner of speaking. Maybe Nick will do the impression the next time he sees you.

All the best,
Audrey

Mwange/Kala Trip

2009-11-02T10:21:00.000+02:00

I am sending this from Mporokoso, the second time on my Kala/Mwange trip that I have been in the Mwange area. I am traveling between the two camps more frequently than expected due to some changing circumstances. FORGE was scheduled to leave Mwange at the end of November due to the continued repatriation of Congolese refugees from the camp. However, our Project Manager in Mwange is leaving slightly ahead of schedule, so we unexpectedly had to shut down the Mwange computer lab a few weeks early. The other projects will keep going, but because there will be no Project Manager permanently in the camp and the lab equipment is so valuable, we had to move up our time table on ending the computer classes. This meant that we had to move all of the computers and solar equipment to Kala camp. Luckily, this is repatriation season, and there was a convoy leaving from Mwange that would pass through Kala. Our friends at IOM graciously allowed us to transport our items on that convoy. We were also fortunate enough to be able to travel with the convoy to Kala.

So it was that the Mwange PM and I found ourselves leaving the village of Kalabwe by bicycle at 5:00 AM under all the stars in the African sky, watching the sun rise as we made our way to the camp to collect all the computers (the panels had been dealt with the previous day) and bike them a few kilometers to the departure center. The computers are Panasonic Toughbooks and are really heavy. We had other things to bring as well, so we made two trips. A little before 7:00 we finally finished transporting everything to the departure center where almost 200 refugees were assembled waiting to board buses. They would travel first to Kala, where they would spend the night before continuing on to the port of Mpulungu, Zambia on Lake Tanganyika. In Mpulungu, they would board a boat that would take them to Moba, DRC. This is one way refugees from Kala and Mwange are repatriated. The other is completely by road.

After securing our luggage on the top of a bus, I had some time to take in the spectacle of this first leg of repatriation. It was a fascinating, entertaining and even inspiring few hours. Over my next couple posts I will write about it, but I have to end here because I have limited internet...

-Nick

Paul's Repatriation

2009-11-01T15:00:00.001+02:00

Friday was a big day...our first FORGE sponsored university student returned home! Paul left Sudan about ten years ago and was living in Meheba Refugee Settlement when FORGE first began working there. He was among the first FORGE employees and was the first student to be given sponsorship to college here in Lusaka. As Paul finished his coursework he felt the grass growing under his feet decided that he needed to go home as soon as possible.

The other students and I hosted a going away party for him at the house last Sunday and, with the help of UNHCR, he left Zambia by airplane on Friday. He should have arrived in his home village yesterday and I can't wait to hear from him about his reunion with his parents and everything else!

Here are a few pictures from Paul's last few hours in Zambia, where he will be sorely missed...

Paul is one of the most charismatic people on the planet and I know that he will promote peace and work tirelessly to rebuild his country. I have learned so much from him and my life is better because of the time that we have spent together.

-Audrey

Soccer Match and Chimpanzees

2009-10-31T21:53:00.009+02:00

Earlier this month we took an awesome road trip with some friends. Nick had been in Meheba the week before so he and the project managers who are currently based there took the bus to Chingola (the next big town after Solwezi on your way back to Lusaka) and we met up there on a Saturday afternoon.

After stopping for lunch (where both cars left while Audrey was in the bathroom and had to come back for her after she called to alert everyone that she was not in the other car!) we headed to Konkola Stadium. The stadium is almost to the border of DR Congo and is not the most likely place for an international soccer match, but apparently it's the only stadium in the country in good condition.

We were there to watch the Zambian national soccer team play Egypt. Zambia lost (which we were expecting) but played well (especially in the first half) and it was a really cool experience to be there...

After the match we parted ways with the Meheba PMs and drove to Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage to spend the night in their education center. The facilities were great and we enjoyed making Smores by the campfire. However, the main purpose of our visit was the next morning when we did a chimpanzee walk. Before seeing the chimps we met some of the other residents of the orphanage. This included peacocks...

and a crazy Vervet monkey named Jacko who jumped into our friend's car and didn't want to get out. This is before we realized how mischievous he is...

After suiting up we were given instructions and then got to take some of the chimpanzee residents on a walk. These pictures should give you a sense of what it was like. It was a once in a lifetime experience. It's amazing how smart the chimps were; they climbed all over us, untied our shoes, and searched for the cakes that they knew our guide Dominic had on him. One even kicked Audrey in the head because she was giving too much attention to another chimp (sitting under a tree was not the best idea)!

It's probably worth mentioning that chimpanzees are not native to Zambia and that these five chimpanzees have been acclimated to people. It's not advisable to let a chimp you meet in the wild climb all over you. Consider yourself warned. You can learn more about Chimfunshi by visiting their website.

We don't have a ton of pictures because the group was only allowed to bring in two cameras to keep the chimps from taking them. Dominic said that one chimp even knows how to take the memory card out! In addition to our friend's camera, where the above pictures are from, we brought in a small video camera. Our internet connection is too slow to get them up here, so please ask us to see the video clips when you see us; Nick is working on an edited video montage to a certain Barenaked Ladies song.

The Appointed Time

2009-10-16T13:53:00.003+02:00

Our former long time assistant in Kala camp repatriated last month. Yesterday, I received this goodbye letter/reflection he wrote upon his departure. He gave me permission to put it up on the blog. It speaks for itself, so here it is untranslated and unedited through the end of this post...

The Appointed Time
Augustine Kamizo Kubikonse

To all dear friends in and out of FORGE at Kala Refugee Camp, Mwange Refugee Camp, Meheba Refugee Settlement and worldwide, allow me to say these few words of acknowledgement.

For everything, there is an appointed time; a time to plant and a time to uproot what we planted, a time to embrace and a time to keep from embracing. This has happened time and again throughout the four years FORGE has spent in Kala, Mwange and Meheba Refugee Camps in Zambia. There is a time for war and a time for peace. As you may know, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been in crisis for about one decade, and now the peace in Congo is in progress. Therefore, after spending eight years in Zambia, particularly Kala Refugee Camp / Kawambwa, Zambia, the appointed time for your good friend Augustine-Kamy-Kubikonse to be repatriated has come. “Time to separate.”

The appointed time for this cheerful person to make friends with the following people began when the first team of nine American students, with Bradon Cohen as team leader, stepped onto the soil of Kala Camp. This was on 15 May 2005 at 10am. Augustine K-K (A double Ks) was hired as one of their three interpreters. Together we shared our attitudes and learned different cultures. “Time to laugh.” The appointed time for the team to leave arrived, and the two months in which the interpreters, myself, and the Kala community exchanged attitudes went past like a truck leaving a rut in the ground or like a wind that blows from dawn to dusk.

The 2006 FORGE facilitators team was composed by nine American students once more, with Holly Hickling as their team leader. As the appointed time for Augustine K was still standing firm, he was sought out and again exchanged attitudes and culture. “Time to embrace and laugh.” With many more contributing to Kala Refugee Community, the library of Kala was baptized under the name of Kala Peace Library, Bibliotheque de la Paix.” Eric Joseph Veprauskus, Katenku, Elli – do you remember this?

The appointed time for Augustine to take the lead as the head interpreter came just as the 2006 FORGE facilitators' team leader, Holly, together with Augustine, selected five more interpreters to work together with the 2007 FORGE Project Facilitators. It was the appointed time for Augustine to be promoted as the IGA Coordinator and FORGE Central Office Manager. March 2008 was the time for one of two Project Managers, Ivory Rose Parnell to leave Kala Camp and then AKK was appointed as the Project Manager Assistant to assist the PM Carol Maambo.

It's time for FORGE to make it happen: yes we can.

Dear friends, it is my pleasure to let you know my recognition of all of the wonderful things you have contributed to my life (ie. computer skills). On one hand, I am so sad to leave some of my mates at work - as you may know we have made it happen to become one family - and on the other, so happy to go and see the my forefather's land once again. My acknowledgements go to the following friends: First, the Executive Director, Kjerstin Erickson, Nick Talarico, Annelisa P, Abby, Mama Karen, Broden Cohen with his team, Holly Hickling with the whole team, Diana E. with the entire team, the driver Robson Lungu, the COC Alyssa, and Nick Reese with your team – you have made it happen once more.

It was so great to meet different people of different ages in FORGE. For instance, Grandpa Graham Cooke, Grandma Karen and the youngest Ben Moore, just to name a few. Johhn Mulrow, Vepauskus and others you are being thought here in Kala Camp.

Dear friends, let me thank the US government and his people for supporting this small organization whose mission is to Facilitate Opportunities for Refugee Growth and to Empower them. I would like to thank the government of Zambia that has allowed FORGE to stay and operate in its territories. Also my thanks go to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for accepting FORGE to be one of its Operating Partners.

Dear friends, my appointed time to go has knocked on the door. I would wish all of you the best and long life.

For more information about Augustine, you can contact the FORGE Executive Director, Kjerstin Erickson, FORGE Kala Project Managers (Ivory Rose Parnel, Caroline Maambo, Andrew Fernandez, Lauren Groth, Heather Falenski, Stephanie Puccetti, Sara Wasserteil), or you can read about him in the newsletter Share our Attitude from November 2007, published on the FORGE website.

For more information about FORGE, please visit www.forgenow.org.

GUYS, LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN

Another Week in Meheba

2009-10-14T17:30:00.002+02:00

On Sunday I got back from a week in Meheba and a weekend with Audrey and friends at the Zambia/Egypt soccer game and Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage. More on the weekend in a future post.

I had not been back to Meheba since dropping off the new Project Managers three months ago, so there was some catching up to do. The new team is doing well and working towards making our projects sustainable in preparation for an eventual departure of FORGE from the settlement. Over the course of the week we managed to visit all twelve projects. As usual, things were interesting.

Towards the beginning of the trip, I was with the Project Manager for the Refugee Health Services project in Block G. We were observing the coordinator of the project as she did a sensitization in the market about STIs. One of our favorite non-employees did an awesome job translating from Kinyarwanda for us as the coordinator demonstrated to a motley group of semi-interested women and drunk men how to use a female condom. After the sensitization wrapped up, we hurried home. The rains have already started in Meheba (early this year) and it looked menacing. On the way back, we biked through a plague of locusts. I think people refer to them here as flying ants. They have transparent wings and they were everywhere. We thought we would be riding through them all the way home, but then it started to rain and hail. It wasn't a terrible hail storm, but there were definitely ice chunks in the raindrops enough to sting when they hit bare skin. We were quickly drenched. Then, just before we reached home, the rain stopped and it got hot and humid. All in a day's work.

Later in the week, we heard the cats go crazy around dusk. (There are now eight cats in Meheba; they keep reproducing. We have a cat factory there now.) The source of their excitement was a dog that had decided to lay down in one of our storage closets. Dogs doing out of the ordinary things are scary in Meheba. You never know if they are mad. We called our guards to help out. They were also nervous. Luckily, the dog was positioned directly under a window and facing the exit. We opened our chain link gate to give it a straight shot out into the bush, and then one of the guards took out his slingshot. He aimed through the window, no more than a few feet from the dog. Then he pulled back the slingshot as far as his arm could stretch to get full extension and let go a rock. The dog screamed and I have never seen an animal move that fast with its tail between its legs. After he had followed the dog into the bush to make sure it was safely away, the guard returned and held up the slingshot, saying, “This is a gun.” Meheba: where the humane thing to do, as one of the Project Managers pointed out, is to shoot a rock at a dog from point blank range.

-Nick

Half Marathon (or how I really need to learn to pick my feet up while running)

2009-09-26T16:37:00.004+02:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Nick and I were considering running a half marathon. We were training for a race that I thought was going to take place on October 10. We had just run eight miles when I found out that the race was going to be in two weekends, so we decided to push up our longest training run (ten miles) to the following weekend to see if we would be ready for 13.1 miles on September 26.

It was during the week before the ten mile run that I met Annabelle, one of the organizers of a new race, during the unfortunate roadside incident that I would prefer not to rehash. She sent me some information about her race, which was all off-road on a nature reserve. Our ten mile run last weekend went well (except that I tripped over a rock about half way through and my left knee and shoulder were pretty bruised and cut up) so we decided that we were ready to race. We selected the off-road route partly because I felt indebted to Annabelle; partly because getting away from the traffic, pollution, and shouts of "mzungu" was very appealing; and partly because it seemed like a better organized race.

We participated in the first Leopards Hill Half Marathon this morning and it was great! Nick ran a cross country race once in high school, but this was my first (despite coaching middle school cross country at Denver Academy for two years!). This was also both of our first half-marathons (although we have run full marathons and shorter distances like 5 kilometers), too.

The course was beautiful and reminded us of Colorado. The only problem is that I fell down twice! Yes, that's right - I have hit the ground while running three times in one week! The first time was only a few miles into the race and I scraped my right knee, giving me a matching pair of scrapes! I fell in ash, so I had black soot on the right side of my body. The second time was much later in the race and that time I fell on my left side, which didn't feel very good since I reopened my old cut. This time I got brown dirt on the left side of my body, leaving me filthy and very funny looking. I composed myself and kept going; and thankfully we weren't the last ones to finish the race!

I assumed that other people fell on the rugged terrain, but we got to the finish area and it appears that I was the only one; it's too bad that they didn't give a prize to the clumsiest runner on the course! I think I'm going to take it easy this week and then I'll try to modify my running form so that I pick my feet up more! Wish me luck!

-Audrey

Calmer Town and The Kindness of Strangers

2009-09-18T12:18:00.004+02:00

This week has been full of surprises...

1. As usual I took a mini-bus to downtown Lusaka (known as Town) on Tuesday for some meetings and to run errands. When I started walking around I noticed a huge change: all of the street vendors were gone! In addition to the markets (like the one I went to with Queen before my birthday party) one used to be able to buy fruit, vegetables, peanuts, movies, clothing, household goods, and a plethora of other stuff on the street. These vendors were illegal, took up most sidewalks, and caused a lot of congestion and garbage. It seems that the city had enough and decided to crack down. I have been asking around and was told that the vendors were informed three weeks ago and police began enforcing the law at the beginning of this week by patrolling and fining (and possibly arresting) those caught vending. The vendors were apparently advised to move to the markets or to their own neighborhoods. Those I talked to seem happy about the change (although they aren't vendors), but the consensus seems to be that once the police stop enforcing in a few months things will slowly go back to the way they were before. I'll keep you posted.

2. You may remember that a stranger drove me home after my bike accident in February. I got another ride home yesterday after getting sick while running. I am so appreciative of how kind and helpful people have been when I needed them, but I am going to do my best not to rely on the kindness of strangers any more. Here's what happened yesterday…

I had a bit of a stomachache yesterday evening, but decided to go running anyway (partly because Nick and I are thinking about running a half marathon later this month). I was also sort of itchy, but didn't think anything of it. After running for about 30 minutes my stomach was feeling really bad and I had to stop on a grassy area on the side of the road. The following few minutes were not my proudest – I proceeded to vomit a few times while trying to hide behind a tree so that people walking and driving by couldn't see me!

I emerged feeling faint and still nauseous and didn't know how I would get home. A man and a woman were walking by and I asked them to borrow a phone to call Nick. Our car isn't working, so I'm not really sure what I expected him to do, but the only phone numbers I have memorized are mine and his. At the same time someone else came walking up to see if he could help and a woman who was driving by stopped and offered to drive me home. She seemed really nice and I was in no position to decline, so she called Nick and told him that she would bring me home. She gave me a cold bottle of water (who keeps unopened water in their car?!) and we talked a little (although I apologized for not being my usual bubbly self). It turns out that she is also organizing a race (including a half marathon) on September 26, so I think we'll do her race if we decide to do one.

When I got home I saw that I had a red sunburn-like rash on my arms and stomach, so I thought that it might be an allergic reaction. I thought back to what I had eaten and think that I might suddenly be allergic to macadamia nuts. I felt much better within minutes of being home, so I think that my body just needed to get rid of the offending food.

-Audrey

If you have a couple days to kill in Lusaka...

2009-09-13T14:13:00.004+02:00

Last week we hosted two short-term American volunteers in Lusaka. They arrived while we were on vacation and spent the month in Meheba with our NGO. They were on their way back home and we were planning to take them to Livingstone for one full day as a fun end to their time in Zambia. We were also looking forward to swimming at the top of Victoria Falls, which we were unable to do when we were there last month. (Obviously you can't swim on top of a large waterfall when the water level is too high and we were a few days too early.)

Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding with the timing, and the volunteers were flying back to the U.S. a day earlier than expected. Therefore, we didn't have enough time to travel to Livingstone (a 6-7 hour bus ride), do something fun, and travel back. We had to improvise and planned two days of "vacation" in Lusaka.

This might not sound too difficult but, to quote from our Lonely Planet guidebook, "Lusaka will never be a highlight for tourists." Nevertheless, "If you have to be in Lusaka for a few days, you'll have no trouble passing the time pleasantly enough."

We went to an animal sanctuary called Munda Wanga on the first day where we saw a lot of animals (including monkeys, lions, ostrich, and crocodiles) and walked through their botanical gardens. We also went out for a nice dinner at Rhapsody's, which we call the African Cheesecake Factory because they have the most extensive and eclectic menu here. On the second day we went to Adventure City, the water park that Audrey went to last year, and then out to Mahak, our favorite Indian restaurant, at night. There was hardly anyone at the water park, as it was a Wednesday afternoon, but we still managed to entertain a group of school children. This was partly because there don't seem to be any rules at Adventure City, so Nick and one of the volunteers tried every way possible to go down a large slide.

Overall, we think these few days in Lusaka were spent "pleasantly enough" and hope that the volunteers had fun, despite not being able to go to Livingstone. Hopefully we'll get back to Livingstone next month to swim at the top of the falls!

Cape Town and Livingstone Vacation

2009-08-23T16:26:00.008+02:00

We got back from our vacation with Audrey's parents a couple days ago. It was great and much needed. Here are a few pictures to show what we were up to (in addition to eating delicious food and taking hot showers)...

Our first full day in Cape Town, we drove out to the Cape of Good Hope, stopping along the way at Boulders Beach to see the penguins.

We continued on to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point where we did a little hiking in extremely windy conditions.

The next day, we drove to Hermanus, southeast of Cape Town. It is renowned as the best place in the world to do land based whale watching. We saw quite a few Southern Right Whales, which come to calf in Walker Bay during this time of year. With no real telephoto lens, we couldn't get a good picture, but the waves and the coastline were also pretty impressive.

The following day was kind of rainy, and we hung around Cape Town. We walked through Company's Gardens and went to the District Six Museum, highly recommended. We walked down Long Street, and in the late afternoon went to Kirstenbosch Botanincal Gardens.

We discovered earlier in the week that the cable car to the top of Table Mountain was closed all week for repairs, so on our fourth day in Cape Town, we woke up at the crack of dawn...

...and climbed Table Mountain. We were a little afraid we wouldn't be able to see anything, but once we got to the top we had a pretty good view.

During the week, we also spent some time at the V & A Waterfront, which has great views of Table Mountain (and great shops and food).

On our last day in South Africa, we went back down south towards the cape to Muizenberg and some of the other little beach towns along the way.

From Cape Town, we flew to Livingstone back in Zambia. Livingstone, the jumping off point for Victoria Falls, is probably Zambia's most visited town, and it only took us a year to get there! The first evening we were there we went on a sunset cruise up the Zambezi.

The next day we went to Victoria Falls. The view is supposedly better from the Zimbabwe side. In Zambia, you are kind of on top of them. Plus this is dry season so the water flow isn't as great. However, there are tons of baboons in the park to keep things interesting.

The following day we went on a one day safari to Chobe National Park in Botswana where we saw a good number of animals from both a boat and vehicle.

Those are elephants behind us.

We ended up back in Lusaka where we had a delicious and fun meal with Audrey's parents, the FEF-U students and company.

While it was great to be away, it's also nice to be back here with everyone.

July 2009

2009-07-31T10:25:00.014+02:00

As of July 12 we have been in Zambia for one year! This month has been very busy and included the arrival of three new camp-based project managers and all of the current camp staff passing through Lusaka. While the month was filled with fun stuff, the past 96 hours have been crazy.

We have been, and now are even more so, really looking forward to our vacation in August with Audrey's parents. We're going to Cape Town, South Africa and on a quick safari in Chobe National Park in Botswana. We'll also finally visit Victoria Falls (it's the most popular tourist spot in Zambia and we haven't been there yet!) and do some activities in Livingstone, Zambia. Check back for pictures in late August.

Since there was not much time for blogging this month, here are some July highlights.

Mariyam's Kitchen Party

Audrey attended her first kitchen party on July 11. The kitchen party can be likened to an American wedding shower, but the traditions were different. We have been told that there are two types of kitchen parties. The one that Audrey attended was calm. The other style apparently lasts all night and involves teaching the bride how to please her husband.

The ladies of the house before leaving for the party...

When we arrived, the party hadn't started. It turns out that the groom was supposed to be there to kick things off. He is not Zambian either and was not aware of the tradition. He was actually told by Mariyam's aunt that the party was just for women and that he shouldn't come. She may have thought that they were having the wild type of kitchen party. Regardless of the reason, everyone was upset when we got there and I ended up driving all around Lusaka to pick him up (he had been at the library where he was enjoying a nice quiet Saturday), buy flowers that we were told he had to present to Mariyam, and get him back to the party with his bike stuffed into the back seat of the car and him wearing clothes that he borrowed from a friend). I don't have any pictures of this mad rush, but it was frantic, frustrating, and ultimately funny.

Once the groom was there, the bride's family was able to escort her in. Mariyam is wearing a black dress and is covered...

After she was seated, the groom was brought in. He was told to ceremoniously give money to the bride's family (in addition to the dowry) to show that he was serious about marrying her. At first her family didn't accept his offering, saying that it wasn't enough money! His friends fought for him because he wasn't expecting to come and didn't have any more on him. They must have realized that he was serious by virtue of making it there at the last minute and they accepted it. He was allowed to roll back the chitenge to reveal his bride and present her with flowers...

Then the guests presented their gifts to the bride...

As with any Zambian function, there was also food and dancing...

Kwase and Mariyam's Wedding

A week after the kitchen party, we attended the wedding. Here is a picture of our "smart" looking group before leaving the house...

It was a Muslim wedding, so men and women were seated separately...

The ceremony...

The Past 96 Hours

Without getting into it too much, in the past 96 hours we have dealt with an international incident, red soldier ants invading the Meheba compound and, to top it all off, our front gate fell down...

Fire

2009-07-11T13:56:00.004+02:00

I have spent a good deal of the past month in Meheba. It's dry season now, which means it's fire season. Every day you see a fire somewhere. In late June, a huge one got really close to our compound. I came home to see giant flames shooting up over the bush in the direction of our living quarters. Over the course of the next hour, the fire moved in a semi-circle around the compound. It would swell and then die down and then flare up again, over and over. When it swelled, it was intense, shooting burned brush into the air like a tornado.

It's times like these that highlight how awesome people are here, especially our staff. Whatever diagreements, misunderstandings and frustrations that come out of working together every day across culture and circumstance always take a back seat to looking out for each other. And because this is their turf, our staff are much better at looking out for us than we are for them when it comes to fire, ants, and other natural wonders of rural Africa. Sometimes I'm amazed at how boldly people confront these things. It seems almost futile to try to stand against nature sometimes, but that rarely stops them.

Here is an unedited video of some of the fire and of our houselady literally walking up to the inferno with nothing but a bucket of water. Not sure if the video captures the wind and the noise and all the debris in the air, but there was much sound and fury.

-Nick

Pictures from Lake Kariba and World Refugee Day

2009-06-29T23:36:00.011+02:00

As promised in the last post, here are some pictures from our weekend at Lake Kariba and World Refugee Day in Meheba...

This is Lake Kariba. The land you see faintly in the distance is Zimbabwe.

These are the tents we stayed in.

Here are the boats we raced.

This is our guide preparing the boats. After this, he did some stretching and warming up. No one else was doing anything. I think Audrey mentioned he really wanted to win.

Shipwrecked Audrey, post race. We didn't take any pictures while racing because we were too busy paddling.

The ride back to Lusaka was much nicer than the ride there. We were able to appreciate the scenery and stopped when we saw something cool. There were lots of baobob trees like this one.

I was in Meheba for World Refugee Day, and there was a big celebration in Block B. This picture says it all.

There were a lot of dances, but this was probably the most surprising and exciting. (There was a traditional Rwandese dance that was a close competitor, but the sequence below involves fire, so it wins.) In the middle of the dance, this guy lights something on fire on the ground...

It's a bicycle wheel, and he starts spinning it on his hand...

Then he starts spinning it on his head...

After this, he took a flaming torch and started rubbing it over his arms, then his legs, then his chest. Then he swallowed the fire and danced back to his friends.

-Nick

Week of Firsts

2009-06-21T23:28:00.000+02:00

In the past two weekends I went camping for the first time in Zambia to participate in my first canoe race ever. I attended my first rugby match and celebrated my first World Refugee Day, which involved my first experience decorating a statue of the Virgin Mary. Finally, I went to my first church service in Zambia. Read on for more details…

On Friday, June 12 we left Lusaka for the town of Siavonga, which is on Lake Kariba (a large man-made lake on the Zambia/Zimbabwe boarder) in order to participate in the Siavonga Canoe Challenge. The event was a fundraiser for the Wildlife and Environmental Society of Zambia and an orphanage, with the bulk of the money coming from corporate sponsors. It actually only cost each participant the equivalent of about $20 for transportation, food, and a campsite with a tent and mattresses!

The chartered bus ride down on Friday afternoon was interesting. There were paddlers and members of the Zambia media on board and a group of media people drank three bottles of whiskey and countless beers during the less than four hour trip! It would have taken less time if the partying group hadn't made the driver stop the bus eight times to use the bathroom.

The actual race was the next morning. While it was called a canoe race, the boats were more like canoe-shaped rafts. Nick and I were on a team with a local man named Patrick who really wanted to win; I'm sorry that he got stuck with us! The race involved paddling the canoe to different hotels on the lake and solving clues to figure out the location of bottle caps. There were only two oars for the three of us and I didn't do much rowing, but I did most of the running around outside of the boat to collect bottle caps. At one point I jumped out of the canoe at what I thought were steps up to the shore. I got out too soon and had to swim in water over my head; I'm glad I was wearing a life jacket!

We finished in the middle of the pack and had all (or at least most) of our bottle caps. The lake was beautiful and there were a lot of nice people there (including the winner of an Apprentice style Zambian reality television show who we got to talk to a lot). We even got certificates of completion, t-shirts, and hats!

We knew a bunch of the other participants from Lusaka and most had driven down in their own cars, but didn't have room to take all four of us (we were with two short-term volunteers that had arrived in Zambia the day before). We weren't really looking forward to another bus trip and were lucky to get a ride with someone we had just met the day before! He is really nice and it was a great ride back. Along the way he invited us to go to a rugby tournament with him back in Lusaka before dropping us off at home and we agreed. We got there towards the end of an all-day tournament, but we still had time to get some lessons in the rules of rugby, for me to hold a rugby (I'm not sure if I'm supposed to call it a ball), and to eat some cotton candy!

N.B. Nick left Lusaka for Meheba early Monday morning with the volunteers and has our camera with him. We'll post pictures of the weekend at the lake and rugby match when he gets back.

Yesterday (June 20) was the 9th annual World Refugee Day, but the first one that I have celebrated. The Peace Center, Lusaka's urban refugee project, hosted an event with speakers, performances, and food to commemorate the day. The festivities hadn’t started yet when I arrived, so I asked if there was anything I could do to help. I was handed neon pink and yellow ribbon and told to decorate the table for honored guests. I guess I did an okay job because I was then asked to move on to a statue of the Virgin Mary. I should probably mention that the center is run by the Archdioceses of Lusaka and affiliated with the Catholic Church, so it's not surprising that they have the statue in a glass case. I just didn't expect to be asked to cover her with neon ribbon! After the decorating was done I enjoyed performances by choirs, dancers, drummers, actors, and students from a school whose student body is made up of both Zambians and refugees.

Today I went to church with Queen, another first for me and a very interesting (and somewhat uncomfortable) experience. I have been to churches before, but this was my first experience with a Pentecostal Church and with a service part in English and part in Nyanja (which I still don't speak or understand). Despite being Father's Day, it was "Woman's Day" which meant that the women in the congregation ran the service (Queen was the Master of Ceremonies and did a really good job).

We got there at about 9:45am and I asked her if the service will start at 10. She said, "We start exactly at 9:30." This clearly wasn't true because we entered to find a few congregants cleaning and setting up the room (which is a classroom at a local school). The service started around 10:15 with a bible study about the ways the devil offers temptations and how to overcome them. It was led by the wife of the church elder who was an excellent speaker. The testimonials and songs of praise and worship started around 11. By this time there were about thirty people there.

Congregants got up and shared Bible passages, told stories about how they have been healed (I'm refraining from commenting), and sang songs. There were some really talented singers and a keyboardist to accompany them. The last song lasted about half an hour and ended with a number of people on the ground in a devotional pose and almost everyone mumbling incoherently to themselves. To be honest, I was a little bit freaked out.

The church is called Faith Alive Celebration Center and they certainly take the celebration part seriously. After the congregation pulled themselves together there was a song/rap with the chorus, "We're gonna party!" and a lot of dancing. Somewhere in there I was also introduced as a guest which involved the women of the church hugging me and everyone clapping for me.

During the sermon I was asked to read some New Testament passages aloud and then the guest pastor interpreted them. She urged the congregants to go out and spread the word of Jesus and get people into the Church. I was afraid they would heed the advice immediately and try to convert the Jewish girl in the front row, but they moved on to collect the offering.

It was about 12:45 when the "last song" was finished. Queen took the microphone and asked the pastor if he wanted to say anything. He is a really energetic young man who loves to dance (with moves that look like he's at an aerobics class in the '80's) and sing, so the service didn't actually end for another forty-five minutes. In addition to the singing and dancing, the pastor took the opportunity to call additional unwanted attention to me.

At the end of the four hour long service I was able to get away without having to commit to joining, although it was strongly suggested. Everyone was really nice and I appreciate how welcoming they were, but I don't think that I'll be returning anytime soon.

Audrey’s first haircut in Zambia (and a very belated bike accident story)

2009-06-08T17:50:00.000+02:00

We have been in Zambia for eleven months and I finally got a haircut here (if you don’t count the hair that was shaved when I got stitches on Valentine’s Day*)! Usually when my hair is long I wish that it were short and when it’s short I wish that it were long, so I go through cycles of cutting and re-growing my hair all the time. I cut it pretty short at the end of May last year before leaving Denver, and then let it grow until our holiday trip home. In December I got a haircut while in NY, but it was shorter than I had planned on cutting it. Once again I continued to let it grow until yesterday, when I decided that I really needed a haircut.

I have been unsure about getting a haircut here, since my hair is so different from African hair. In Nick’s experience with haircuts in Zambia, the barber tells him that they know how to cut his hair and then admit that they have never cut his texture of hair before after they have already taken the electric clipper to his head and started cutting. I didn’t want to experience something similar, so I wanted to go to someone who wouldn’t be experimenting on me. My former roommate gave me a business card for a stylist who she hadn’t used herself, but who was recommended by a friend. The salon is at the upscale shopping center that hosts the Sunday Market and I needed to pick something up there for a coworker, so I decided to stop in yesterday. Not only were they open on a Sunday afternoon, but they were busy. It’s a nice place, but the décor and music made me feel like I had been transported back to the 1980’s.

The price was good (about $12), but the woman whose name I had wasn’t working. I asked if there was someone there who could cut my type of hair and I was directed to Dorothy. After a great shampoo/conditioning treatment/scalp massage at the sink, I was directed to Dorothy’s station. She was just finishing with another client, who was also white. The haircut looked fine and she was just finishing styling her hair. Dorothy asked if she liked the style, which looked straight out of the 1970’s, and the client said that it was fine and that she wasn’t going out anywhere. When Dorothy stepped away the client said something under her breath/to me about her retro look, but didn’t seem to mind.

Then it was my turn and we talked about how she should cut my hair. Dorothy knew all of the right words, like layer and angle, so I felt fine telling her to do what she wanted to my hair. She was cutting very expertly and I asked about her training while she was cutting. She told me that her former boss was from the Netherlands and that she started cutting white kid’s hair before moving on to “big people.” I asked her if the kids stayed still, which of course they didn’t. We also talked about her own five daughters who are in their 20’s and 30’s and her four grandkids (3 girls and 1 boy) who all live in Ndola, three and a half hours north of Lusaka.

Overall it was a good haircut experience and I will probably go back again! I didn’t think to take a true “before” photo, so here are a few pictures from Queen’s birthday lunch the last weekend of May…

And some “after” shots from today…

* I realize that I didn’t write a blog entry about my bike accident and stitches because I didn’t want to worry people, but here’s what happened…

It was still rainy season and I was riding my bike home from a supermarket across town. I was on a narrow but busy road, so I went on the dirt shoulder. There was a large hole that was filled with water and I mistakenly chose to ride through it. It must have been deep with rocks at the bottom, because one moment I was riding along and the next I was in the road with my bike on top of me! I am so lucky that the approaching car saw me and stopped and I got up and out of the street quickly.

During the fall, my backpack, which was full of groceries, hit me in the back of the head and broke apart. A can of tomato paste hit my helmet in such a way that it took a chunk out of the helmet and put a gash in the back of my head. A woman who had been driving by stopped and drove me and my bike home. She even took my phone number and called me later that night to make sure that I was okay! Nick was on his way back from his first trip to Kala and Mwange, but my students were home and they took good care of me. I went to a nearby clinic with two of my students and got a tetanus shot and three stitches in the back of my head. My neck was sore, I was pretty bruised up where I hit the ground, and my right elbow started hurting a few days later, but it definitely could have been worse. I am thankful for everyone’s help and happy to report that I am totally healed!

Crazy Things Seem Normal, Normal Things Seem Crazy

2009-05-31T11:49:00.003+02:00

The title of this post comes from an essay by Chuck Klosterman we've both read recently, Nick during his most recent trip to Kala and Mwange. It has nothing to do with Zambia or refugees or anything that we are doing, but the title sums up how life sometimes appears to us here.

Crazy Things Seem Normal
Earlier this year, we were coming back from running when we happened upon someone we know well. He told us how he used to go running but that he got a hernia at some point. His left testicle swelled up VERY big and then shrunk back up inside, so he decided it would be best to stop running. This was told to us as if we were having a conversation about the weather.

The other day, Audrey was driving and stopped at a traffic light. As previously mentioned, there is always a lot of activity at traffic lights. People sell stuff. People ask for money. This is normal. At this particular traffic light, a man approached the car and showed Audrey a box of suppositories. He proceeded to tell her that he was raising money (specifically 27,000 kwacha) to buy another box and then went into great, explicit detail about his bathroom woes, as if he were explaining a business proposal.

Nick's predecessor at the Camp Operations Coordinator job went to the post office to pick up a package addressed to her. She was told she needed a letter of authorization to receive the package. From who? The person in charge. Which was her. So she wrote a letter for herself authorizing herself to pick up packages at the post office. Signed by her. And that did the trick. She also stamped it with an "official" stamp for our organization, which she got someone at a market to make. Nick is enternally grateful for this stamp, as it has come in handy on a number of occassions where putting some ink on a document or a packing slip is the difference between getting something done and not.

Normal Things Seem Crazy
On his most recent trip, Nick had to fire someone for not doing her job. Unfortunately, she stole some things on her way out. When Nick explained the situation to some of the people we work with, he would start by talking about the months of verbal and written warnings given to the employee regarding major accounting errors, absence from important meetings, failure to submit reports, and other things that we think of as normal grounds for firing someone. He was met with blank stares. Then he would say "And she stole some things when she left". That would elicit an "Ahh" and some tsk tsking. Then the person would say something along the lines of "If only she hadn't stolen those things, you could have written her a letter of recommendation" or "What kind of severance package did she receive?".

We recently let someone borrow a combination lock, so he could lock up a bike. He had never seen one before and when we thought about it we realized we've never seen one here. It was really interesting teaching him how to use it. Every American gets this lesson at middle school orientation and we take it for granted that you spin one way, then spin back the other way past the number you were just at to the next number, then spin back the other way. And you can't go past the number or it will mess everything up. That's just the normal way the lock works. It's really not that inuitive, though, when you start trying to explain it. Nevertheless, after some practice, he mastered the Master lock and proceeded to trick another friend of ours with it. He locked the lock on his bike and then said "Oh, no. I don't have the key for this lock." A lock with no key. Now that's crazy.

Vote for FORGE

2009-05-15T12:00:00.002+02:00

FORGE is in the running to receive a social media makeover valued at $25,000! Simply click on the "vote" bubble below to link to the site where you can cast your vote for FORGE. Thank you!

Audrey, Daniel, and Peter's birthday party

2009-05-01T12:08:00.007+02:00

My birthday was last week and friends and family back home have asked me if I celebrated in a traditional Zambian fashion. It seems like most Zambians (and Africans, as far as I can tell from my Angolan, Congolese, and Sudanese students) don't celebrate their birthdays. My Sudanese students don't even know their date of birth (year or day/month) and have made them up. I think that it comes from traditional African culture being more collective than individualistic. My neighbor, Queen, recently told me that she forgot her six year old daughter's birthday entirely last month! Someone else told me that if you want to go out for dinner or drinks for your birthday here you are expected to pay for everyone you invited to celebrate with you! If we did that at home it would certainly be the end of tables of 25 college students at Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen!

A few months ago (before I knew that birthday celebrations were so uncommon) I found out that Queen's son, Daniel, was born last year on April 22. I said in passing that we should do something for both of us since my birthday is April 24. I was thinking a small lunch for the people who live in our compound, but it turned out to be more like a traditional Zambian wedding!

We started planning and Queen asked me to make invitations on the computer to invite a few neighbors. We also included one of the Sudanese students, Peter, as an honoree because he thinks that he was born in April. In response to inviting the neighbors, I decided to invite a few friends, and the guest list grew to about 25 adults and too many children to count. Schools are on break here (they have year-round school with month-long breaks after each term), so the neighborhood girls started practicing their dancing full time about two weeks before the party.

I didn't know anything about throwing a Zambian party, so I let Queen take the lead. We bought two crates of sodas (glass bottles) and paper products ahead of time and borrowed catering stuff (chafing dishes, plastic chairs, etc.) from a neighbor. The day before the party (my actual birthday) we went to a market in town to buy the food with a shopping list. It's not a market that is frequented by white people, so I was quite a spectacle and it was an interesting experience for me. Despite the shopping list, Queen tried to get me to buy additional items. I was expecting this and felt that it was my duty to try to keep costs low while still having enough food. I know that presentation is important here, but I was trying to focus on the necessities. She said things like, "Paprika to make the rice red would be nice" which is a common way of asking for things without coming out and asking. We did not get paprika. The other funny thing that happened all day was instead of asking me if I like something, she would ask if I love it. Just a difference in American English and Zambian English, but funny to me none the less.

We bought a giant bag of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, beans, green beans, carrots, green peppers, and cabbage in the market. We couldn't carry everything, so also had to buy a giant bag with a zipper on the top. We loaded everything in and each carried one handle. The bag probably weighed 75 lbs. We left the bag with a friend who works as a tailor near the market (who made the dress that I wore to the party) and went to a wholesaler to buy rice, oil, mayonnaise, ketchup, and seasoning packets. We retrieved the market goods and struggled to get all of our purchases on the bus. At home, Nick was busy baking two vanilla cakes for the occasion!

The next day we got together at 7am to start the beans, peel potatoes, etc. The party was scheduled for 2pm and preparations took the whole time, even with our wonderful house lady (that's what her job is called here - it's not my favorite term) Tamala and a number of 10 year-olds helping! Nick made the icing (thanks to Kathy for the delicious and easy recipe!) and the Zambian women laughed at him because men here don't cook. Peter made chapatti, a delicious flat bread that is eaten in Sudan. We made fried potatoes, potato salad, coleslaw, beans, rice, green beans and carrots, and a tomato-based sauce to pour over the beans and rice (known as soup here). There was also chicken, which I didn't help make. Queen and her family bought two chickens and another was donated (live) for the occasion. I walked over to Tamala to ask her a question while she was plucking feathers out of a chicken. I shrieked and she laughed at me.

The preparations went well, but there were a few cultural differences. People here don't seem to like to tell me what to do, but they want things done a certain way. For example, a while ago I asked if I should bring a gift to a Zambian friend's house who had invited me over and if so, what would an appropriate gift be. I got the sense that there was a correct answer, but the only reply that I could get out of people was to do what I thought was right. In the case of the party, I knew that there was a certain type of bean that we should buy and a certain way that things should be cooked, but nobody would tell me flat out. I kept turning the tables back on them and finally got answers. In the end, I think that we found a good balance. I know that I cook with a lot less salt and oil than Zambians, but I think that they let me get away with it since it was my birthday! The most interesting thing to me was the preparation of the cold salads, both which required mayonnaise. At about 1:45 the potatoes were cooked and the cabbage shredded, so I went to get dressed while Queen finished the salads. I came out to the kitchen a few minutes later to see that she had used an entire jar of mayo on just the coleslaw! A longer explanation is probably needed here about cultural differences in resource management and taste in food, but hopefully it will suffice to say that I was not happy and refused to buy more mayo.

The actual party was a ton of fun! As previously stated, it was more like a wedding complete with a DJ. The DJ was Queen's younger brother (referred to here as "young brother") who happened to be wearing my sunglasses that I had thrown out about a month before. I thought they were bent beyond repair, but they looked so good on him that I sort of wanted them back. In addition to the food, there was dancing, including a "knife dance" where a young child (Queen's oldest daugher) danced a large knife over to me to cut the cake. Gifts were opened in a traditional way. Queen, as the host of the party, opened the gifts and said who they were from and who they were for. It was very interesting and different from the way we do things in the U.S. The party is better explained through pictures and videos, which Nick took. I'm sorry that he isn't in any of them!

The knife dance: A small child with a large knife - what a combo...

Nick got some trick candles, so all of the kids had fun helping me try to blow them out...

Cutting the delicious cake that Nick made....

One of the choreographed dances...

Dancing with Daniel...

I don't remember what I was confused about here, but I probably make this face a lot...

Nick and I went out to meet a friend six hours after the party started and there were still people dancing on the lawn, so I deem the party a success! I don't think that we'll host another party like this one before we leave, but maybe I'll change my mind in the next nine months!

Seder in Lusaka

2009-04-19T13:57:00.002+02:00

Zambia is a very religious country and I am often asked what church I attend. I answer by explaining that I am Jewish and that there aren't regular temple services here in Lusaka. While this is true, I leave out the fact that I have not been a member of a temple since graduating from high school. It's interesting to live in a country where people are so devoted to their faith (a friend of a friend spent a long time telling me about her personal relationship with Jesus and how it's not to late for me to have one of my own). While these conversion attempts can be somewhat uncomfortable, the focus on religion has made me think.

Nick and I recently had the opportunity to attend a Passover Seder with about forty other people. The ex-pat community in Lusaka really is a small world. There were some people who we know from Frisbee in attendance. The British doctor who treated Nick back in December [see previous post about his Putsi Fly removal] was actually the leader of the Seder. Perhaps the strangest connection of all was a girl who was visiting Zambia from Boston on a work trip for a few weeks and learned about the Seder from a friend. She told us that she went to BU and said that I looked familiar. After racking our brains for the connection (BU is a huge school, after all) it turns out that we were at the same brunch in Washington, D.C. a few years ago!

We enjoyed meeting new people, including two ninth graders at the American International School and a family from Washington, D.C. The crowd also consisted of a number of people from Israel and some people in their 70's who have lived in Zambia for all or most of their lives.

Nick has been to quite a few Seders, so it was interesting for both of us to take part in this tradition in Zambia. Apart from the large number of people there, it wasn't too different from other Seders we have participated in. This might be the most interesting part of all.

-Audrey

Mukambi

2009-04-13T18:30:00.000+02:00

We finally saw some animals (other than goats, chickens, cats, and dogs) at the end of March. We spent a weekend at Mukambi Safari Lodge in Kafue National Park. We took some pictures and videos, which should give you a sense of the experience.

The lodge is beautiful and very relaxing. It's inside the park and right on a river. We slept in a "tent" but it was nothing like our previous camping experiences...

There aren't any fences around the grounds, so animals can come and go as they please. There is a hippo named Basil who lives at the lodge. He's still wild and very dangerous, so we kept our distance, even when he climbed the stairs and took cover outside of the dining room...

Audrey got to touch a warthog and we woke up to baboons all over the camp. Some looked like they had moved in to a neighboring tent...

We did three activities while we were there: a driving safari...

Fishing...

And a sunset boat cruise...

Refugee No More

2009-04-10T19:40:00.004+02:00

I mentioned in a previous post that our assistant from Meheba, who we were very close to, was seriously thinking about repatriating. He left yesterday.

With everything moving quickly in the repatriation direction in all the camps, it was an opportunity to reflect on this most preferred resolution to a refugee situation. UNHCR recognizes three "durable solutions" for refugees - repatriation, local integration in the first country of asylum, and resettlement to a third country. Repatriation strikes me as the most hopeful. Resettlement is a crap shoot in which some people "luck out", but it is a tacit admission that home is too horrible to return to, and the option is out of the hands of the refugee. It only comes after a series of interviews, the results of which can seem arbitrary, by a host of people in a more powerful position than the refugee. Local integration is not an option in many settings, especially in developing countries where the governments are strapped for cash and are sensitive to be seen as favoring foreigners over their own people. And local integration, too, is an admission that you can't go home. Repatriation is a choice in the hands of the refugee. (Yes, sometimes that choice is strongly encouraged by powerful people, but rarely is it completely forced). There is something courageous and powerful about returning to the place that cast you out. It is asserting your claim to the future of your country and defying those who tore it apart. It is taking a bet on your homeland, even if you have never seen it or don't remember it.

Our assistant left Angola on someone else's terms, a boy, running for his life. He is returning on his own terms, a man, flying for the first time in his life. A few days before he left, he bought his ticket and arranged all the legal considerations. He cast away his official status as a refugee. He bought himself a blue blazer in town, which he wore over his soccer jersey on the day of his departure. He looked sharp. I have noticed a desire among many refugees, those who are resettled, those who stay in the camps and those who return home, to look good. They will buy nice things, even as they struggle economically on a day to day basis. I don't see it as something vain or superficial anymore, but rather as an assertion of dignity.

We all went and saw him off at the airport. He had two bags, one of which he hoped to bring as hand luggage. Both bags were huge and seemed like they might be over the weight limit. We spent the time waiting for the flight to be called advising him on how to negotiate with the check-in person to be allowed the two bags. (In the Lusaka airport, you go through security before checking into the flight.) When the Luanda flight was opened for check in, only he and another of our friends from Meheba also repatriating made their way to the security line. There were goodbyes said among the chaos of moving the bags through the line. The security guard took his ticket and got a puzzled look on his face, then looked up at the board as if to confirm that there really was such a place as Luanda and let him through. We all walked up a set of stairs from which you have a clear view of the check-in line and watched as he approached the counters. We were like nervous parents watching a kid go away to college, just praying that they would let him take the two bags. The conversation with the check-in lady was too long, but when she finally tagged both of his bags, we let out a collective sigh of relief. He made his way back across the open floor toward the escalators, looked up, gave us a big smile, a wave, a thumbs up. Then he disappeared. Good luck, Roy!

Up North and Waterfalls

2009-04-01T18:38:00.013+02:00

As mentioned in the previous post, a few weeks ago we had the opportunity to spend a week and a half in Kala Refugee Camp in Luapula Province (northeastern Zambia). Nick went to work with the new Project Manager in Kala on some of the projects there. Audrey got to take her teaching show on the road and offered five professional development workshops for our refugee staff. While we were touring the camp, Audrey also had a chance to see first hand how the neighborhood kids swarm the FORGE office even on a Sunday.

This was the first time Audrey worked extensively with the camp staff and she was really impressed with everyone's dedication and enthusiasm.

Before enduring the fourteen-plus hour bus ride back to Lusaka, we spent a day and a half exploring waterfalls in the area, using Kawambwa as our base. First, we went to Ntumbachushi Falls, not far from town. We arrived fairly late in the day, so we just spent a short time viewing the falls from different angles. There are two viewpoints at the bottom of the falls. This video was taken at the first one:

You can also hike up to the top of the main falls and follow the river back to more falls and natural swimming pools. We did this, but we didn't nearly see everything there is to see. Here is a picture at the top of the falls,

and one that shows the river that feeds them.

The Conservation Assistants, a couple, were really nice and urged us to come back, camp and swim in the pools. They also solicited our advice on how to make the site better and how to attract more visitors. They are very serious about and committed to their jobs. By the time we left, the falls were closing, so they rode in our taxi back to their home. They usually ride their bikes to work, and, when Audrey commented on this, the male Conservation Assistant said his female companion could beat Audrey in a bike race any day. It was probably true, but not the response we expected!

The next day, we started early because we wanted to go to Lumangwe Falls, which is a long way down the awful Mporokoso road, closer to Mwange Refugee Camp than to Kawambwa. All the taxi drivers we talked to assured us that a sedan could make it to the falls, but Nick had been down that road three weeks prior and both of us had seen recent pictures of it. We were skeptical. Nevertheless, we went with a guy recommended by our normal taxi driver in Kawambwa. This guy was from Lusaka and we are pretty sure he had no idea what he was getting into. After we left the paved portion of the road, the sky threatened rain off and on for most of the rest of the ride, and there were a few sprinkles. When we spun out going at a low speed, we seriously thought about calling the whole thing off. Then, when we reached the turn off for the falls and the sign said we had to travel 10 km down another bad road that was only wide enough for one car to fit through, we thought again about turning back. But we had already come so far that we pushed on. We made it to the front gate relatively easily. The Conservation Assistant jumped in the taxi with us, and we rode the rest of the way to falls. Or almost the rest of the way. We got stuck about 100 meters from the viewpoint. We were able to push the car out of the mud, back in the direction we came, but we thought it best to walk the rest of the way. So we left the car there.

Lumangwe Falls is impressive.

It is Zambia's second largest waterfall (first if you only count falls that are completely within Zambia's borders). If it were in the States, it would be overrun with visitors, but our friends from Kala visited a few weeks before we did, and, when we signed the guestbook, there were only two parties between ours. We viewed the falls from the top, then climbed down to the bottom, then climbed back to the top and waded in the river that plunges over the edge a few meters downstream.

On our way in, we had noticed a sign by the front gate for another set of falls 5 km down a different road. We asked the Conservation Assistant, who by this time had become our guide because it seemed likely no one else was visiting the falls that day, about them and he said the car would only make it 2.5 km down the road. We could walk the rest of the way, though. So we all piled back in the car. It only made it about 1 km down the road. We walked the rest of the way, which wasn't bad for a few kilometers, but, when we got to the end, we were hacking through bush. When we got close to the falls, we had to cross two streams. The first was rather calm.

The second was more like a river, with a strong current that one can only assume swept over some unseen falls downstream. Our guide and our taxi driver fashioned an underwater handrail out of a large tree branch. It also served the purpose of keeping us from getting swept away by the current, something we didn't fully grasp until Audrey tried to step on the downstream side of it. Our guide frantically corrected her. We wish we had pictures of the ordeal, but by this time the camera was safely in Nick's backpack and the water was to our waists. Once we crossed this stream, it was a few more meters of bushwhacking and a scramble down some steep terrain, but the jungle eventually opened up

and we saw the falls.

Video may do it more justice.

When we finally got back to the car, it was getting late. Again, we took the Conservation Assistant home, but not before having more adventures. Soon after we left the front gate, we got badly stuck in the mud on the tiny road leading between the falls and the main road. After a few attempts to push the car out and a few mud showers caused by spinning wheels, the Conservation Assistant and Nick went in different directions looking for something to wedge under the tires. Just at this moment, some villagers with screaming pigs tied to the racks of their bikes passed by and helped us. There were maybe six or seven of us pushing, and we just barely got the car free. We thought we might be spending the night in the bush. Once we got going again, it wasn't very long before we got stuck again. This time, it was easy to push the car free. Once we got back on the main road and dropped the Conservation Assistant off, we got stuck again. Luckily, more villagers helped us out. When we finally returned to pavement, Audrey let out a whoop of joy/relief. We got back to Kwambwa as the sun was going down. Our taxi driver's car was in bad shape, Nick was caked in mud, and Audrey was shivering from being wet all day, but all three of us were satisfied with our adventurous day.

-Nick and Audrey

Kawambwa shops

2009-03-25T23:53:00.001+02:00

Audrey and I just got back from a trip to Kala Refugee Camp. We were gone almost two weeks and a lot happened, so we will be writing a couple of entries about our experiences over the next few days. I figured a good place to start would be Kawambwa, the nearest town to Kala, and the destination of our excruciatingly long and delayed bus ride from Lusaka.

There isn't much in Kawambwa, but I challenge you to find a town with a higher percentage of awesomely named shops. Here are our favorites:

Wasted Days

None Is Good Store
(I guess "All Our Shit Sucks Mart" was already taken.)

Keep On Moving Grocery

Peace Soldier
(A regional bus line.)

Kenny Space Center
(A little bit outside of the town proper, but we have to include it. I think there is an episode of South Park that takes place here.)

It is important to note that all of these shops are painted with the purple, pink and green lettering and logo of Zain, the biggest cell phone carrier in Zambia.

In Zambia, shops either seem to be named something completely nondescript like Nawako Enterprises Investments Ltd. or something totally crazy like the shops listed above. One shop in Kawambwa manages to have it both ways. I forget the name of it because the name is utterly forgettable, but running the entire length of the very long awning directly over the shop in much more prominent lettering than the actual name of the establishment is written this:

I Had A Vision In Which God Seemed To Appear Before Me

Meheba Again

2009-03-25T09:54:00.003+02:00

It has been a few busy weeks since my last trip to Meheba, and before we start posting about our latest adventure, I wanted to write about it.

I went back to Meheba at the end of February in my first official trip in my new position. As always, there was a lot going on. It might be just the result of having been gone for awhile or having been around long enough to have a more long term perspective, but this time life in the settlement seemed to be moving forward to some unknown future rather than just standing still as it always had before.

While I was there, a friend of ours passed away under mysterious circumstances. He was a prominent member of the Rwandese community and head of an agricultural cooperative. He had helped and advised us on our agricultural loan program and gave us bananas and banana beer every now and then. Overall, he was just a good man. Plenty of rumors were going around about his death. Most seemed to accept that he was poisoned since he was fine the day before and even the day of his death. Two competing theories circulated about the circumstances of the poisoning. One held that it was the result of a long running feud between him and another cooperative head and that witchcraft was involved. The other held that he was eliminated by agents of the Rwandese government. There have been a couple recent murders of Rwandese by Rwandese in Lusaka, and everyone in the Rwandese community takes it as fact that Rwandese agents are spread all over Africa taking out people who pose a potential threats to the government. Whatever happened, it was sad, upsetting and tragic.

It seems almost too poetic to be true, but at the exact moment he was dying, our house lady was giving birth to a healthy baby boy. That was on Thursday. I went to see the family on Sunday and got to hold the first of two babies during that trip. (I visited the Women’s Centre Coordinator the day before I left and met her new baby girl.) Our houselady’s eldest son led me to their home, which I had never been to before. As always, we cycled. The house was way back in the bush, and it was tough to keep up with him as vegetation whipped me in the face and closed in on all sides. I am always surprised at how small newborn babies are and how white African babies can be in their first couple days. Practically the minute I sat down, I was handed the heavily swaddled child. I think that’s why kids seem really well adjusted here; they get passed around a lot and used to different people.

Shortly after I arrived at the house, our PM Assistant showed up. I had found out earlier in my trip that he is serious about repatriating to Angola very soon. We had a long talk about it. He is going to fly straight to Luanda where he has a friend who knows about jobs available with an American oil company. It’s kind of bittersweet. While it’s great that he is moving on and will have all the freedoms of a citizen when he returns to Angola, we will be sad to see him go. He has been a huge part of FORGE in Meheba. He is also our neighbor and we see him almost every day. I think he also has apprehensions about leaving. He basically grew up in Meheba. He has fled here twice, went to school here, made friends here. But it is time to go. One of those life moments has arrived, like going away to college and he has to start the next chapter.

My own experience on this trip was kind of in that vein. I had officially left the settlement, moved on and didn’t live there anymore. But I couldn’t really move anywhere without being stopped and greeted when I was there. I went to the market and saw so many people I know. Every time I turned around, there was someone else calling my name. I cycled along Road 36 and had to stop every couple feet. I spent an extra day on the trip because there were certain people I couldn’t leave without seeing. You slowly realize how much a part of you this place becomes. As with every other place I have lived, a part of me will always feel like Meheba is home. If I feel that way after living here for five months, someone who lived here their whole life has to have mixed feelings about leaving. But more than that, the bittersweetness comes from the knowledge that this place won’t exist as it has existed. It seems strange to say about a refugee settlement, but there has always been a sense of permanence about this place for me. But for the first time, I could see that, like everything else, especially refugee camps, it isn’t permanent. Following our PM Assistant back through the maze of trails toward home with the breeze rustling the vegetation, I could imagine the bush engulfing the tiny path we rode along. It is really nothing more than a line of dirt, and when people stop traveling along it, the African scrub will take it back and return it quickly to what it was before the settlement existed, before the wars were waged that uprooted people and tossed them together in this imperfect expanse of nowhere. And someday - not anytime soon but someday - we will look back and say “Once there was a place called Meheba…" I am grateful that I was there and that I can attest to the fact that people lived there, and life happened there, and that there were sorrows and joys, setbacks and small victories, tragedies and miracles.

Top 10 Random Recent Zambia Observations

2009-03-04T15:18:00.009+02:00

10. People carrying heavy things in interesting ways

A woman was walking down the street while balancing a pretty large night table on her head. She wasn't using her hands and didn't look uncomfortable. It is very common to see very loaded-down bicycles. Here is an example of one of the least laden bicycles around. It's not uncommon to see a bike with four bags of charcoal.

9. "Concerned Truth Carriers"

There is a place in town where this group puts up banners to "educate" people. A few weeks ago they wrote about how HIV was manufactured in a lab in New York to kill Africans. The last time Audrey checked, their banner was about how all wars and other evils are perpetrated by people who eat junk food.

8. Saddam Hussein

When you start paying attention, he is everywhere. Nick first noticed this phenomenon in Kala or Mwange when he saw a man playing chess in a Saddam Hussein chitenge shirt. (Chitenge is a material that is used as clothing. It has colorful designs on it and sometimes pictures of political figures.) Then Nick noticed a different Saddam Hussein chitenge shirt in
Meheba. That means there are at least two different chitenge designs featuring Saddam Hussein. Finally, when he was sitting on the bus in Solwezi, Nick observed someone seriously consider buying a poster with Saddam Hussein on it that said "War Heroes Never Die". (The next poster in the stack featured Barack Obama and his cabinet.)

7. Interesting clothing choices

Most of them involve donated clothes. (An interesting article written by George Packer called How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama's Back explains how donated clothing gets to Africa.) We often see people wearing t-shirts that they probably don't know the meaning of, but we do and think it's funny. Audrey once saw a shirt with the Hebrew alphabet and one with the logo for the show "The L Word." Nick saw a young boy wearing a shirt that says "Girls Kick Butt". We always see shirts with the name of an American camp, school, or sports teams.

Audrey once saw a teenager wearing a necktie meant for a toddler. Recently, there was girl in the supermarket wearing a dance recital costume top (picture lots of sequins) with jeans as her outfit.

6. This tree in town

5. A man carrying a large umbrella over his head while riding a bicycle

4. Cats aren't so bad

Even though they poop on your bag or pee on your clothes, cats are useful and cute. On the first point, there was a large bat flying around someone's room in Meheba. We didn't know what to do. Then Sana, one of the cats, walked into the room and in less than a minute bones were being crunched under one of the beds and little bat wings were poking out the sides of her mouth. On the second point, this is Jambo, Meheba's new kitten:

3. This store, also in town

2. Misspelled, grammatically incorrect, or nonsensical signs advertising businesses

Some favorites are, "We sale…," "Hair Saloon," "Babar Shop," and a Bureau de Change advertising "WE KNOW SEE AND FAT WHAT OTHERS DO NOT."

1. This scary mural outside of a daycare center

Movin' on up

2009-03-01T16:34:00.010+02:00

Our roommate left Zambia a few days ago, which means that we got to move into the master bedroom of our house! Our old room (which didn't have enough room for both of us so Nick was never able to unpack) has become the guest room, although the only furniture in it is a bed. We removed the mattress on the floor from the old (and even tinier) spare room and turned it into a yoga and workout room. These two rooms aren't too exciting, but here are some pictures of our new room...

Audrey has an accessory wall on the right when you first walk in.

Beyond that there are built in closets. We each have our own bar to hang clothes and shelves.

Note the sitting area with classy plastic furniture for reading and watching movies on our laptop. The window covering is temporary until our curtain is made.

Our bed in on the left side of the room (the white around it is a mosquito net, in case you haven't seen one before) and Audrey's old clothing storage shelves are now night tables/bookcases. We even have a hamper for dirty clothes!

There are a few greeting cards as decoration on one wall,

but more would be greatly appreciated and can be mailed to us at:

P.O. Box 38568
Lusaka, Zambia

Kala and Mwange

2009-02-23T21:01:00.009+02:00

I have been back from Kala and Mwange for about a week and have been settling into my new job and life in Lusaka. The trip was quick, but I got a good sense of the other two camps, which are much more similar to each other and different from Meheba. Kala and Mwange are in the northeastern part of Zambia and are populated exclusively by Congolese refugees. They are both much newer than Meheba, having been established in the last 1990s/early 2000s. They are more remote, and to get to them is more difficult but prettier.

Two new PMs, Stephanie and Graham, are now staying in Kala and Mwange respectively, and part of the point of this trip was to bring them to the camps and get them introduced and settled. It was also my first time in both of these camps, so, for me, learning how to get there was important. So here is what the journey looked like…

We took a bus that left Lusaka at 5:00am and reached Kawambwa around 7:00pm, passing small villages, rivers and lots of green. At one point we hugged a river that I think forms the border with Congo DR. It was dark when we arrived in Kawambwa, but we had already contacted Alfred, a taxi driver who we use to get us to Kala camp. The dirt road from Kawambwa to Kala is bad, especially since it is rainy season and we were lucky he would even take us. We had to get out once right at the beginning so the vehicle could make it over a depression, but we sailed along at a pretty good clip until we got a flat tire. Luckily, Alfred carries a spare, so we had to unpack the trunk, which meant untying the bags held into the open mouth of the trunk by thick bands of rubber which we call 'rubbers' here, to get at the spare. It was surprisingly quick to fix the problem. Maybe the four mzungus standing around with headlights trained on the tire actually helped. We rolled into Kala after 8:00pm, maybe closer to 9:00.

We walked into the main part of the camp the next day (Sunday) after doing some accounting. Soon we had a parade of children around us. The kids in Kala are not shy. In Meheba, you sail by them on a bike and in Mwange they aren't as ubiquitous, but in Kala they are everywhere and always amusing.

We saw all of the projects over the next couple days. Everything is all in the same general area, very close together. A lot of the programs focus on repatriation, as they do in Mwange also. That's probably the most jarring change from Meheba. People seem ready to go home or, at least, they don't seem as dead set on not going home.

Getting from Kala to Mwange is usually more difficult than getting from Lusaka to Kala. Luckily we were able to get a ride with a World Food Program (WFP) vehicle. We met up with it back in Kawambwa early in the morning and we made it to Mwange in less than two hours. The road is supposedly really bad, but luckily it hadn't rained and the driver really only needed the four wheel drive once or twice. They dropped us off right at the FORGE office in the camp.

It was very nice of them, but Mwange is the only location where we don't stay in the camp. The FORGE PMs live in Kalabwe, a village just outside the camp. It's about a fifteen to twenty minute bike ride, so Laura, the Mwange PM, and I biked out a bunch of heavy suitcases that day, which was challenging but good practice.

We spent our time in Mwange visiting projects. Again, there is a strong repatriation focus. I was shocked to hear refugees tell me that the camp is closing soon without any fatalism in their tone.

Living in the village is a different atmosphere than living in the camps. The Mwange house is not far from the village headman's house, and he and his family stop by and say hi everyday. The headman's grandkids are awesome. The Mwange PMs, as a result of this setup, have more interactions with Zambians and have more of a village lifestyle complete with long drop toilets, washing in furrows:

...and bathing under the stars surrounded by reed walls. In some ways, we were pretty spoiled in Meheba.

Getting from Kalabwe to Lusaka is even more difficult than getting from Kala to Mwange. We started off from the house on bikes around 6:00am with our luggage rubbered on the racks. My rack wasn't on that tight and kind of swung left to right, affecting my balance and making it so I couldn't make sudden moves to either side. We rode about two hours to the town of Mporokoso where the UN and all the organizations are based. From here, we took a minibus for three to four hours to Kasama, a medium sized city that has bus service to Lusaka. Then it was a twelve or thirteen hour bus ride back to Lusaka. Unfortunately, we were forced to watch the feature film length advertisement for the bus company on the ride back. I had seen it before, it's in Nyanja or Bemba and it's not nearly as hilariously entertaining as the Nigerian movies they sometimes play. Of course, it was cranked to top volume, and, much to my dismay, there was something wrong with the movie that made it skip back to the beginning every time it got three quarters of the way through. I'm pretty sure I was being tested. All in all though, it was a good trip. Next stop Meheba.

-Nick

An Albino at the End of the Rainbow

2009-02-15T16:11:00.000+02:00

Due to the rains and the dirt roads in our neighborhood, I get covered in mud almost instantly when I ride my bike. I was lucky to get some high-quality mud guards for free because they didn't work for their originally intended purpose. They will be a huge help and I wanted to install them ASAP. I couldn't figure out how to do them myself, so yesterday one of my students helped (read: installed them for me while I watched).

The student, who is from Southern Sudan, and I were chatting while he worked. It was sunny and started drizzling. I wondered aloud if we would see a rainbow and then asked him if he had ever heard about a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He hadn't, so I proceeded to give him the rundown of the whole leprechaun story (likening him to an elf, since I explained Santa's helpers a few months ago). It's so interesting to tell these crazy stories that I grew up with to people who look at me like I am absolutely crazy.

He then told me about the end of the rainbow legend where he is from. There is said to be a river at the end of a rainbow. If you find yourself there you have to bleat like a goat to avoid being turned into an albino by a creature who lives there. As an interesting aside, everyone says "al-bean-o" here. I am a little fuzzy on the details of the albino story, but I don't fully grasp the idea of a pot of gold and a small man in green either.

I thought about the story for the rest of the day and wonder if it's a way to explain why some people are albinos, which could be something that the community didn't understand. There seem to be more people who are albino here than at home, but it may just seem that way because they are easier to spot. Someone told me that there are more albinos in places where people who are related have children, which is probably the case in small villages. I would love anyone with knowledge on this topic to comment on this posting.

My student also told me told other interesting legends. One involved gold, a German man, an African man, and a giant snake with horns. One was about a mermaid and another involved invisible river people who beat you up if you are there at night. I find this sort of cultural exchange fascinating, so I will pass on more stories when they come my way.

-Audrey

Mwangaza

2009-01-27T21:25:00.007+02:00

I'm back from Meheba and in Lusaka for awhile. During this last trip to Meheba I got to visit Mwangaza Education Centres, which I think I have mentioned before. This is a new preschool/adult education initiative that came out of a participatory process in which the community chose a project and a community member was elected to start it up. It's been a long time in the making, but the centres opened on January 12. Patrick, the community member who led the project and who I wrote about in a previous blog, is now the coordinator and a teacher. There are two centres. One is in the heart of Block F where Patrick teaches. The other is in a remote area of Block F. Both centres offer preschool in the morning and adult English and literacy classes in the afternoon.

My big adventure this time was visiting the remote site. Patrick had taken me there once before to show me the building:

The remote site is at Road 74 in deep Block F. The community is exclusively Angolan, whereas the main part of F is predominantly Congolese. Road 74 (or village 74 as it is sometimes called) is about a half an hour to 45 minute bike ride from the main part of F. Along the way, there is nothing. You pass some huts shortly after you leave the main population center, but after that there is no sign of human habitation until you arrive at the water pump close to the preschool about half an hour later. There used to be people who lived all along the way when the settlement was more populous, but they have moved away to other parts of Block F, other Blocks or back home. For various reasons, the people of villages 74 and 75 stay on.

When I went before, it was the dry season, but it is most definitely the wet season now. The difference was incredible. There was effectively no path. Everything was overgrown. I was riding through grass as tall as me for most of the trip, following a wisp of a trail that I could barely see. Somehow, I got to Mwangaza without getting lost. I am sure that was an accident because at one point I was pretty much bushwhacking my way forward, and then all of a sudden I met up with a real trail.

I got to the centre when the preschool was still in session. It was really pretty amazing and inspiring. This is one of the most neglected communities in a settlement of vulnerable people surrounded by rural African poverty. No children make the journey to the school in the main part of Block F, at least not on a regular basis. After my ride, I can see why. As a result, there were some pretty old kids in the "preschool". We are going to have to address this; there will be a class for preschoolers in the morning and a class for older children later in the day. But, scheduling issues aside, it was hopeful to see all the children there. We have had great response from the community. Many children are attending, demonstrating that the community really values education. The teacher is one of my former employees from RAI, which we closed. It was interesting to see him in a completely different role. I got to see a much softer edge to him and he seemed to really enjoy teaching. It was clear that he is good at it, as well.

I stayed for some head-shoulders-knees-and-toes and then headed back. I wasn't as lucky going back. When I got to the water pump, I noticed that there were five or six trails leading away from it and I couldn't properly remember which one I had taken. I took what I thought was the right one. It turned out to be wrong. I wound up in village 75 asking some kid how to get back to Road 68 in the main part of F. Greetings don't get you far. (Me in Luvale: How are you? Kid in Luvale: Fine, how are you. Me in Luvale: Fine...Me in English: 68?) He eventually pointed me in the right direction. Then it started to rain. I got back to the water pump and chose a different path. After riding for about five minutes, I convinced myself that it too was the wrong path. I found my way back the preschool, and the teacher thankfully escorted me back to the main "road" using the second path I had taken. Somehow, it looked completely different when he was leading me. I got off my bike to say goodbye and that I would see him in a month or so, and, while standing on the ground, large black ants began biting my exposed ankle. I was assured that they contained no poison and quickly made my way back through the jungle to the relative civilization of the populated corners of Meheba Refugee Settlement.

Here's a picture from along the way back. This is one of the few inhabited areas before you get back to the main population center. You can kind of see how overgrown things are.

All in all, it was a great morning that bled unexpectedly into the afternoon. I returned home covered in grass and vegetation particles. But I was really happy to see us serving a community that is pretty much forgotten. It's a good example of meeting people where they're at and starting to build the foundation that will allow them to go where they want.

Another short random observation

2009-01-27T21:18:00.002+02:00

To add to Audrey's list of random observations last week: The shop in Solwezi where we buy bike parts is called "Try Your Luck". Truth in advertising is alive and well.

(Actually, the owners are maybe the nicest people in the world and if you ever need bike parts in Solwezi, it really is probably your best bet. Another random observation: The sign for the shop says "Try Your Lucky".)

-Nick

I couldn't make this up

2009-01-22T15:51:00.003+02:00

This morning I was on a mini-bus. It was playing the mid-90's smash hit "Return of the Mack." Another bus passed us. It had "95%" written on the back as the name of the bus. Are they trying to convey that it's a pretty good bus?

-Audrey

Adventures in Cross Training

2009-01-21T21:58:00.003+02:00

On Monday I started training for a Half Marathon that I haven't registered for and may or may not actually run because…

1. It's in Cape Town, which means that a flight, place to stay, and other expenses are involved
2. I have had a mysterious pain in my right hip since early November
3. Nick isn't sure that he wants to run it and I would like to do it together

Despite the uncertainty, I decided to begin a twelve week long training program. I want to be prepared if we actually do run. I like to have a schedule to follow and it's not nearly as rigorous as the training for the marathons that I have run. In fact, it's not all that different from my usual workout schedule. The program involves running (duh!), stretching (I already practice yoga), strength training (as previously mentioned, I go to a gym), and two days a week of cross training. Cross training seems to be anything that's not running for miles at a time, so I will continue playing Ultimate Frisbee on Saturday as cross training. I also decided that I will bike on Wednesdays, my other cross training day.

We may not have mentioned that we brought our bikes back from New York a few weeks ago. Nick reassembled them and we have enjoyed riding around Lusaka. This brings me to today, when I set out to ride to the Immigration Office.

I left after it stopped raining and after I ate lunch (in hindsight, my timing probably could have been better). Due to the rains, the unpaved roads of my neighborhood look like the surface of the moon. I splashed through the craters and made my way to Independence Avenue, a main road with a footpath in the middle. I walked down this road about a month ago, but had forgotten that it's not great for biking. A lot of it is dirt, which has turned the mud. Since I was last there a ditch was dug (possibly for drainage) that makes it almost impossible to ride on it. Plus, there are curbs at every intersection that I couldn't ride over. I guess it was true cross training because I would bike for a minute and then stop, pick up my bike, and run with it. While you're picturing this, don't forget that I was covered in mud. It was a pretty funny sight. Somewhere along the way my brakes stopped working, which isn't really funny, but I made it home safely.

In case you were wondering, it took me twice as long as I expected to get to the office and they were closed when I arrived. However, I went in and they actually answered my question! This was by far the best customer service that I have received since I have been in Zambia. They probably felt sorry for me. I looked pretty pathetic!

Needless to say, I am looking into other cross training activities for Wednesdays during the rainy season. Any ideas?

-Audrey

Rainbow Cookie Baking

2009-01-12T16:39:00.005+02:00

This past weekend, thanks our friend Jacque, we were able to bake Audrey's favorite cookie...the rainbow cookie! Audrey started talking about rainbow cookies with her friend Sarah, who also grew up in New York, a few months ago. They were trying to explain this strange cookie that really isn't a cookie to some friends from Canada and decided they wanted to try to bake them. Audrey looked up the recipe and realized that a lot of the ingredients are not available in Lusaka. Once the specialty ingredients arrived from the U.S. (thanks again Jacque!), we were ready to bake!

We went to Sarah's house on Saturday and the cookies turned out amazingly well. It took a long time and there was some improvising involved, but the results were great. We might be the first people to ever bake rainbow cookies in Zambia!

Below is the recipe we used and some photos...

Rainbow Cookies

Ingredients
• 8 ounces almond paste (not marzipan)
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup superfine sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (bleached or unbleached)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2-4 drops yellow food coloring paste
• 2-4 drops red food coloring paste
• 2-4 drops green food coloring paste
• 12 ounces seedless raspberry jam
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate or dark chocolate, chopped
• 2 teaspoons shortening (not butter flavored)

Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl beat together the butter, eggs, almond extract. Add the almond paste broken up into smaller pieces and blend until creamy. Fold in the flour, sugar, and salt.
3. Split the dough evenly into three smaller bowls. Combine 2-4 drops of yellow paste into the first bowl; repeating with the red and green paste for the second and third bowls.
4. Using a spatula, spread the dough into three 9 by 13 inch pans. Each layer should be about 1/8 inch thick. Disposable pans do not work. Bake for 12 minutes until done. Remove from oven and let cool.
5. Once cool remove the first layer from the pan and spread the top with half the raspberry preserves. Warming it a bit may make it easier to spread. Place the middle layer on the top. Add another layer of preserves and the top layer.
6. Trim the browned edges and cut the layered sheet into logs about 1 to 1/14 inch wide.
7. Melt the chocolate and the shortening together over a double boiler.
8. Place the logs onto a large cooling rack with a layer or two of waxed or parchment paper underneath.
9. Gently pour the chocolate over the logs allowing chocolate to pour down the sides and encase the cookies in a *thin* layer. You don't need to cover the short sides of the log but you can. Reserve about 1/4 of the chocolate for the bottom layer. Allow the cookies to fully set and the chocolate to become hard and shiny. (You can return the drippings caught by the paper back to the double boiler.) This may take hours depending on the temperature of your home. Remember to remove the chocolate from the heat.
10. Once the chocolate shell is firm carefully turn the logs upside down. Reheat the chocolate in the double boiler and using a spatula cover the bottom with a thin layer of chocolate sealing the edges. Allow to cool and set again.
11. Take the logs and slice with a smooth sharp knife about 1/2 inch thick. You do not want to crush or squish the cookie.
12. Place on trays and serve.

WITCHDOCTOR TURNS SEXY

2009-01-11T15:48:00.003+02:00

Even though we are well into January, we wanted to point out the most overlooked news story of 2008. It didn't appear in any of the year end "best of"s, but it clearly deserves recognition. So here is the story exactly as it appeared in New Vision, a Lusaka paper (though not one of the main ones), in early December. Please keep in mind that this was the front page story and the headline font was of a size that might indicate your country's entry into a world war...

WITCHDOCTOR TURNS SEXY
…clobbered for allegedly failing to pay a full amount

IN A dramatic event a traditional healer experience a rude shock of his life when a suspected sex-worker severely punched him for allegedly failing to pay service fees.

The tussle which scooped the onlookers saw the traditional doctor entangled in a fierce fight with the irate woman who demanded the require amount.

The incident took place at Mukupa near Soweto Market on December 2, 2008.

New Vision staffer who was at the scene was equally manhandled by the security guard at the premises where the woman involved was given refuge. This was after the reporter was seen capturing pictures.

Onlookers at the scene shouted in chorus that the traditional healer usually frequented the place, but on that day he was unlucky.

And source only identified as Fred said that the two agreed on K70, 000, but the ‘doctor’ allegedly produced K50, 000 causing the woman’s fury.

“Aba benze banvelana pa seventy thousand kwacha koma after babaza ba doctor beve nochosa fifty thousand kwacha so chigelo chazanda…(These two agreed on K70,000 ,but the doctor only produced K50,000 which annoyed the woman who eventually started the fight,” claimed Fred.

However, when interviewed at the scene, the traditional healer, Musangu Munkondia expressed ignorance of ever knowing the woman, later on having canal knowledge of her.

Munkondia insisted the woman had intentions of pick pocketing.

The named doctor said that he went to Mukupa to buy two bottles of Castle and two soft drinks for his clients when he was approached by a friend of the woman who asked him for a K1,000.

Munkondia said that he instead gave the woman K500 before the involved woman begun pick pocketing and consequently got away with K25,000.

“I don’t know this woman I went to buy two Castle and two soft drinks for my clients then her friend asked me for a K1,000 but instead I gave her a K500 that’s when this woman started pick pocketing me and started fighting me,” Munkondia said.

He said the woman took advantage of him because she knew he was well known in the area by virtue of being a traditional healer.

The news crew could not have a chance to talk to the woman as she was whisked away after noticing that she was being captured on camera.

First Week Back (and Lusaka House Photos)

2009-01-09T15:15:00.012+02:00

Happy 2009! We are back in Zambia from a great holiday trip home and are getting over our jet lag and getting back into the swing of life here. We brought our bicycles back in boxes and Nick put them back together. We have used them a few times already and they haven't fallen apart, so he must have done a good job!

Audrey's three new students arrived on Monday and she has been helping them get their Study Permits this week (which involved eight hours at the hospital yesterday obtaining chest x-rays!). Nick spent the week in Lusaka and will be traveling back to Meheba on Monday for a week. He will then be back briefly before taking a trip to the other two camps where FORGE works (Kala and Mwange) with the current Camp Operations Coordinator (COC).

Audrey's parents are interested in seeing the inside of the small house where we live. We figured that maybe some other people are too, so here are a few photos...

When you come into the house, you see our kitchen on the right...

Around the corner is the table...

The table is in a large living room, which also has a sitting area...

There is a hallway that comes off to the left of the living room with two bedrooms on the right and one on the left. There is a bathroom at the end of the hall. There is a toilet to the left of the tub that you can't see in this photo. As previously mentioned, there is no shower!

We'll post photos of the three bedrooms next month.

Why we iron our underwear

2008-12-22T05:10:00.004+02:00

I never thought I would be squeezing bugs out of my skin in a bathroom in the Johannesburg airport, but that's exactly what I found myself doing two weeks ago as Audrey and I made our way back to the States for our visit. Since we've been back, I have told this story to many people, but I thought I would let everyone in on it.

The saga began a couple days before I left Meheba. I started getting these red bumps around my waist area. They looked like large zits, and they were really uncomfortable. I thought the band of my undershorts rubbing against them was causing most of this discomfort, so I tried to adjust it so it wasn't touching the bumps. No matter what I did, including hiking my undershorts Urkel-like to my chest, I couldn't find relief. I was especially uncomfortable at night. During the day it wasn't so bad and I was busy enough that I could forget about it, but I didn't get a lot of sleep those last few days in Meheba. Given the sensitive area where the bumps were located and the fact that I had no idea what they were, I refrained from telling anyone about my problem. I did tell Audrey and she said I might be able to go to the clinic where she volunteers when I got back to Lusaka. We figured I could at least go somewhere in New York when we returned to the States.

I endured the 10 hour bus ride from Solwezi to Lusaka on December 15. We were scheduled to leave Lusaka in the early afternoon of the 16th, and the car was broken, so we couldn't use it. Audrey had some errands to run on the way to the airport, and we debated about whether or not we could add one more (a trip to the clinic). Eventually we decided we could, so we had the cab driver drop me off at the clinic and then take Audrey to run her errands.

I was seen almost right away. I told the doctor I had a rash on my lower stomach. He said let's take a look, and when I showed him, he said, "That's not a rash. That's putzi fly." Somewhat relieved that I at least had a diagnosis, I asked what that was and more importantly how it could be treated. The doctor explained that the putzi fly lays eggs in wet clothes and these eggs hatch and burrow into the wearer of said clothes. Then I remembered that they told us the reason our houselady irons our clothes, including and especially our underwear, is because of this fly that lays eggs in wet clothes, etc.

The doctor took me to the nurse station to confirm the diagnosis. The nurse apparently is an expert and sees putzi flies all the time, although I claimed the dubious distinction of being the first case she had seen this season. I lifted my shirt, and she immediately said, "putzi fly." The doctor left as she began to treat me.

The nurse put Vaseline on the largest bump, and we watched as something under the skin seemed to start moving. It was almost imperceptible, but you could definitely see that there was something under there. Then, she squeezed it like a zit and out popped a larvae. The first one was fairly easy - it was the biggest. The next nine to ten were smaller, more difficult and a lot more painful. A male nurse came over to assist, and together they squeezed out about ten of these things and put them on a gauze pad. By the time they were done brutalizing my skin, the little maggots had already started burrowing into the gauze.

A couple people have asked me if I watched them come out. Yes, definitely. It was painful, but I was enthralled and it kept my mind off the pain. I figured if all goes well for me, this would be the only time in my life when I would have the opportunity to see live maggots squeezed out of my pelvic area. The experience had the added benefit of teaching me how to handle this situation in the unlikely chance that it should arise again or happen to someone else. I have to say that the relief was almost instant. The pain, especially at night, that I had been experiencing was probably the larvae burrowing into my skin, so once they were out I felt fine just in time for the plane ride home.

Which brings me back to Johannesburg. The nurses weren't able to get all the putzi flies out in Lusaka. Some were dead and would be absorbed into my body, and some were too small, too far in or too stubborn to come out then and there. The nurses did put Vaseline on all the bumps, however, which suffocates the bugs and brings them to the surface. By the time we got to the Lusaka airport, I could tell one was ready to come out, so I went into the bathroom and took care of it. During the flight to Johannesburg, I could feel another one getting ready to come out, so when we landed I went to the bathroom and popped him out as well. When we arrived in New York, I thought there were some more, but after a few attempts by Audrey to squeeze them out, we concluded that I had left the last one in Africa. I have been slowly healing ever since.

And that's why we iron our underwear.

Tiny Tim and Friends (and where to find us)

2008-12-10T19:31:00.005+02:00

I accidentally started volunteering at a clinic for orphans, vulnerable children, and women with HIV last week. You may wonder how this could happen, especially to someone who is actually volunteering for a living. Let me explain...

My roommate, Alyssa, went to Corpmed Medical Center a few weeks ago. She met Dr. Tim Meade, the Medical Director, and told him about FORGE. He told her that he has been interested in providing medical care to children in refugee camps and they arranged a meeting.

Last week, I was looking for a free or very inexpensive doctor to examine one of my students who has been sick. I called Dr. Meade on Wednesday and he told me to come in with my student the following day and that he would meet with him. He mentioned the clinic, but I didn't think much of it.

The next day we arrived at Corpmed and were directed to the Tiny Tim and Friends room. We were immediately put to work signing people in and dispensing medicine (with supervision, of course). While there I learned about the amazing work done at the clinic and was really glad that I stumbled upon it. More information can be found at www.tinytimandfriends.org.

My student met with the doctor, the initial reason for our visit. The added benefit is that he decided that he wants to continue volunteering. He is studying NGO Management and has always wanted to work for an organization that provides healthcare, so this will be great experience. Dr. Meade already offered to write him a reference letter! I volunteered again yesterday and would like to continue to help when I can.
____________________________________________________________

Now seems like a good time to update our readers about where we can be found in the near future. Nick is finishing his Project Manager responsibilities in Meheba this week and will be traveling to Lusaka on Monday. We will fly to New York on Tuesday (arriving on Wednesday) and will spend two and a half weeks in the States, mostly in New York and Maryland/Washington D.C. It will be busy and much colder than we are used to, but we are looking forward to visiting with family and friends. We are also excited about the food we plan to eat and to drive our own car on paved roads.

We will be back in Zambia on January 3 and Nick will begin training for the Camp Operations Coordinator position at that time. In that role he will be based in Lusaka, but will travel to the three camps where FORGE operates. Stay tuned for postings about Mwange and Kala in the New Year.

In case we're too busy to blog, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year in advance!

Patrick Kasenge

2008-12-06T09:29:00.001+02:00

With the renewed fighting in eastern Congo around Goma, I [Nick] thought it would be an appropriate time to share the story of one of the refugees we work with who fled the area over ten years ago. I have been working with him for the past couple months as he leads the effort to establish the Mwangaza Learning Centres, which will teach preschool and adult English classes in Block F. The centers will open in January. He agreed to let me put his story up on the blog. In his own words…

Patrick Paul Kasenge are my names. I was born on 26 January 1985 in the eastern town of Kalemie in DR Congo. My father was a primary school teacher and my mother owned a very small bakery which was fetching high to support the family financially. We were six of us in the family and I'm the fourth child. At the age of six I entered in grade one (1). Every thing seemed to be going very well, until when in 1996, there arose a rebellion to overthrow the late Congolese dictator Mobutu and this rebellion was led by the late President Kabila. This civil war greatly affected the eastern region of DR Congo. Many people fled the war. We fled the war as a divided family because four (4) of my siblings went differently and we have not heard from them since. We fled and covered a distance of about 400 miles to the southern city of Lumbumbashi where we were welcomed and sent to the camp of displaced people. Life in these camps was not easy. People lived with no hope for the future. There, our family with many other families sought asylum in Zambia. We moved in a very big group to the Zambian border and after a long inspection, we were allowed in and taken to Meheba refugee camp were I am right now. We arrived in 1999 and I started school right away at one of the basic schools in the camp. I completed school (grade 12) in 2005 at Meheba high school and I have been doing nothing ever since I left school. It is for this reason that I decided to join FORGE so that I can help my community visualize and realise their dreams and live as happy people at the end of the day. Working for the community through FORGE will enable me gain knowledge and some experience especially through Mwangaza Learning Centres which will be offering pre-school and adult literacy classes. I really wanted to be part of this to offer my services to my community.

Rainy season relish

2008-11-27T10:07:00.000+02:00

Before I begin I want to congratulate avid "Nick and Audrey in Zambia" readers and dear friends Jill and Matt on their engagement! Congratulations!

In honor of this day of food (and family, thanks, football, parades, etc.), I wanted to share a rainy season delicacy with you…white ant relish!

Since the rains began in Lusaka, seemingly out of nowhere, a strange insect has taken over. Someone told me that they are called white ants, but I don't see any resemblance to other ants. Anyway, the first day that I spotted these insects there were about fifty of them on the floor in the kitchen of the main house. For some reason they weren't using their giant wings, but rather were on the floor spinning like tops. It was the strangest thing I have seen in a while, so I called my students in to have a look. They were not at all surprised by them. One guy even picked on up, pulled off the wings and ate it! I thought that he was only pretending to eat it and had hidden it in his hand or dropped it on the floor. I was convinced that he had tricked me…until he ate about five more and I actually heard him the crunching!

Since that time, which I am still trying to erase from my memory, I have been told by a number of people what a delicious relish these white ants make. Relishes, as I previously mentioned, are the dishes that are eaten with nshima. By the way, I have not seen one made of chopped up pickles, which is what I previously referred to as relish. Not that I plan to do this, but I learned that you should go out around midnight and catch the flying white ants in a bucket filled with water. Then you cook them (no oil needed) and lightly salt them. I will try to take a photo of these insects (not in relish form) when Nick is in Lusaka with the camera.

In the spirit of the day, Nick and I are thankful for our wonderful and supportive family and friends. Thank you for caring enough to read about our experiences in Zambia! Enjoy your Tofurky (or real turkey, I guess). Happy Thanksgiving!

Nick's haircut experience

2008-11-17T09:30:00.000+02:00

I got my hair cut a couple weeks ago. It was my first real African haircut. Last time I got one of my colleagues to do the job with clippers that Tristan left. This time I got a guy who needs some work to cut it. He says he’s a barber, and I believe him because it came out looking like every other haircut I’ve ever had. The difference was that it took about an hour and a half. First, he used a pair of scissors with round blades that children might use to cut construction paper. Soon after starting, he ran to a neighbor’s and came back with a pair of rusty blades, one of which was cut off halfway down.

I wasn’t as much of a spectacle as I had feared – my audience only included his three children and a friend of his. Being that the haircut took so long, there was a lot of time to talk in broken English about life, the state of affairs in Africa, America, how they want to go to America, how they would eat so much food in America, etc. As with many conversations here, there were humorous parts punctuated by things that break your heart. The bent of the conversation was toward the latter, but there were some amusing celebrity talk at the beginning to keep things light.

First, a word about celebrities. You might think the most famous American celebrity in Zambia would be Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or maybe Michael Jackson or, if you have faith in the values and culture we export, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or even George Bush. But, even though some of those names came up in the conversation (and the latter half of the list even), it has been apparent from the day we arrived that none of those people is the most famous American in Zambia. The most famous American in Zambia is John Cena. John Cena is a professional wrestler who apparently bears some resemblance to me. In fact, the top three names I’m called by strangers here are: chindele (“white person” in Luvale), mazungu (“white person” in Swahili and seemingly every other African language) and John Cena. (On a side note, with increasingly alarming frequency, I am being referred to as Mr. Nike by people who have at least some idea who I am.) (On another side note, if you are wondering who the most famous Canadian in Zambia is, it’s Céline Dion. By a mile.)

So, during the haircut, I heard a lot about how great John Cena is, and I was instructed to greet him when I return to the States. I also learned that Jean Claude Van Dam was born in Congo and that his father was a miner. I’m not sure if this is really true, but I can’t Wikepedia it, so I will just accept it. I was also willing to accept that Van Dam is great. Same with Bill Clinton. I had to put my foot down on George W, though. Since we were on the subject of presidents, I told them that America will have a new president soon (this was before the election). They didn’t seem interested. I said that one of the contenders was Barack Obama and that he is black. Earlier in the conversation they had already expressed their disbelief that there are black people in America, and I think they were skeptical of my credibility by this point. They weren’t willing to accept that Barack Obama is black, but I pushed the point. Finally, they concluded that if he really was black, he would make a bad president. This is where the conversation started to get really uncomfortable. I argued against this conclusion, but they had already hinted in the conversation that they had a negative view of African leaders, which probably isn’t surprising based on what they have lived through. What I hadn’t anticipated was the depth to which they had linked skin color and quality of governance and how vigorously they would cling to it. They informed me that black leaders are corrupt. Look at Robert Mugabe. I countered with Nelson Mandela, but they kind of glossed over that one and went on with their list that didn’t really support their assertion. Laurent Kabila was okay, but not Joseph. Zambia hadn’t had a good president except Chiluba (there had only been three at the time of this conversation, so those don’t really seem like terrible odds). They concluded that we should turn Congo over to white people for at least the next 20 to 30 years. They will straighten it out.

I was pretty taken aback by all this. Then they informed me that they had learned in school that they came from monkeys and asked me if this was true. Not really knowing how to explain the theory of evolution in the limited words we shared, I said that white people and black people came from the same place, that all humans came from the place. They didn’t really believe this either. They conceded, “Maybe the black people in America are different because they have been with you for so long, but we come from monkeys.” That was about the time the conversation went from being really uncomfortable to heartbreaking. The final nail was when the friend of my barber touched the back of his forearm and said, “This color is garbage.”

This isn’t by any means a typical conversation here, and I don’t pretend to understand where this all came from. I am not sure if they were just feeling particularly down that day, if they really believed what they were saying or if they were putting on a show for my benefit. I suspect a little of all three. I completely understand feeling down. Really believing what was said is sad. But I think the conversation disturbed me and made me feel uncomfortable because there was this sense that they were maybe trying to flatter me. I am not so sure they would have said those things or maybe even thought those things were they among their African friends. I had thought I was sort of been a passive observer to the conversation until it took this turn, but my presence actually dictated where the conversation went. And it went to places I didn't want it to and it went places I didn't agree with. I think I felt stained by the ideas they were airing because I had the distinct sense that I was responsible for the conversation taking that direction. Even if I didn't agree or approve, at that point and to them, maybe subconsciously, I represented something other than what I think I am. I stood at the end of a long and complex history of colonialism, racism, power, etc. and that influences how people respond to me. Clearly, I don't think that role fits me and I don't really feel a part of that history, and that's partly why it was so uncomfortable.

Of course, it's probably not all about me. Maybe that's how they really felt. If so, it says something about self loathing and hopelessness that I'm not equipped to write about. Either way, the conversation was eye opening. So I sat and listened and felt uncomfortable.

Audrey Reese, Master Chef

2008-11-14T15:18:00.005+02:00

Back home I was a fan of products that made cooking fast and easy, such as Bisquick and Boboli Pizza Crust. Those products haven't found their way to Lusaka yet, so I looked up recipes online recently to make pancakes and pizza crust from scratch. They didn't seem too difficult so I bought the ingredients the other day, which included walking a mile or two with a 2.5kg (5.5 lb) bag of flour in my backpack.

I made pancakes for breakfast today and they were easy and delicious. The recipe made enough for about ten people, so I'm going to be eating pancakes for a while! Here are the ingredients in case you want to be a master chef too...

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
1/4 cup oil

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl (or in my case a pot, since I don' t have a large bowl) and the eggs, milk, and oil in a small bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix. From there, you probably know how to cook them.

Believe it or not, I also made pizza dough today! One of my students is being resettled to Anchorage, Alaska (a slightly different climate than Zambia, right?!) on Monday, so we are having a going away party for him tomorrow. I decided that I want to serve pizza, so I figured I would try out the recipe today. Other than having to wait a few hours for the dough to rise, it also wasn't too hard and turned out well (at least my ten taste testers and I thought so). Here is the pizza dough recipe...

Ingredients
1 cup of warm water (105F)
3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of honey
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of yeast

Procedure
1. Put warm water (80 to 110°F) into a bowl. Add salt and honey and mix with a spoon. Add yeast, mix and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

2. Gradually add flour and olive oil and start mixing.

3. When the mixture gets too heavy to mix, start kneading the dough with your hands.

4. Knead the dough until you have a smooth ball. If the dough cracks it is too dry. Add water bit by bit until if forms a nice coherent ball. If your dough feels more like batter, it is too wet and you need to add flour bit by bit. If you need to add water or flour, do it by small amounts.

5. Coat the dough with olive oil, place it in a large bowl and cover it with kitchen wrap or a grocery bag. Let the dough rise for about an hour at room temperature, then push it down again so it deflates. Let it sit for about another hour. If you want to use it the next day, put it in a refrigerator.

6. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface, put a bit of flour on top and make it into the shape of a pie by stretching it out from the center outwards. Use a rolling pin until the dough is about 1/4" thick. Punch some holes in the dough with a fork to let the air escape while the pizza is in the oven

7. Put on your pizza sauce, cheese, and other toppings.

8. Bake the pizza in you oven at 400 - 450° F (220°C) for about 20 to 25 minutes until the crust is light brown.

I would cite my sources for these recipes, but I forget the websites where I got them. Please don't report me! I am writing about cooking while taking a break from cooking. It's scary how domestic living in Zambia is making me. I'm off to make two more batches of pizza dough for the party tomorrow. Let me know if you try either of these recipes out. Happy cooking!

The week everything changed

2008-11-13T11:34:00.000+02:00

This actually isn't about the election. I wrote it a couple weeks ago and tried to post it from Solwezi when we went in for election day and to pick up Audrey. So it's a little dated, but everything here is a bit delayed…

This past week, two things happened, one on Monday and one on Tuesday, that will change a lot here in Meheba. Both were radical and sudden, and we are still adjusting.

The first was that we had to make cuts in our programming due to the difficult financial situation in which FORGE currently finds itself. This is partly due to the financial crisis in the U.S., which has caused donors to give less, partly due to a couple grants that didn’t come through, and partly due to a change in our programming and fundraising model. If you want to know what the U.S. financial crisis looks like in Meheba, it’s sitting in a thatch roofed room approaching the leanest months of the year and telling good employees that they have lost their jobs due to circumstances beyond their control. That was Monday. It wasn’t fun, and I won’t dwell on it. In the long run, it may help us focus more intently on key initiatives that work especially well. In the short run, we march on with our programming.

A few days later, we were running a PECT workshop in Block G, and the impact of the second big thing that happened last week hit me. The day after we announced the programming cuts, the new cell tower we have been watching go up right outside the settlement on our trips to Solwezi was turned on. Tuesday was the day Meheba got network. All of a sudden, cell phones bloomed everywhere you turned. Employees started calling us just to say hello and to check if we had reception in our compound. Literally overnight, communication changed. It’s hard to grasp. There is no longer a need to go to the anthill. Never again will we have to stick our arm through the broken window at the basic school in order to maneuver our handset into the cone of full reception. This new reality really came into focus for me during that first day of the workshop in G. There, in one of the farthest reaches of one of the oldest refugee camps filled with some of the most forgotten people in the world, I sat in a tiny room on wooden benches designed for preschoolers while the PECT guys presented a workshop on conflict analysis to about 15 Rwandans. The air, filled with Swahili being translated into Kinyarwanda, was punctuated by the electronic beeps from the phone of one of our facilitators, signaling connection with the outside world. More than once, I heard the distinctive Nokia ring, and someone who had just come from the rice paddies would step out to take the call. It’s hard to express the dissonance, but at the same time the whole thing felt completely normal. It's as if the settlement has always had reception.

Everything changed and nobody blinked.

Nick and Audrey in Meheba

2008-11-11T11:11:00.004+02:00

Audrey has just returned from visiting Meheba. She arrived in Solwezi on November 4th, and Nick and the other Project Managers came in to pick her up and to watch the election results. While Sherie, Sabah and many of the current Peace Corps volunteers stayed up all night to watch the results at the Royal Solwezi, we opted for a guest house where we got a few hours of sleep and hot showers. We hung out at the Royal for awhile, at least until the second set of polls closed (by which point nothing had been resolved). The restaurant manager, a young South African, kept the restaurant and bar open and even put some American food on the menu. We had mac and cheese – it was called something like "McCain and Cheese" on the menu, but we ate it anyway and it was good. We came back in the morning just after Obama's acceptance speech, and then we put the final touches on our monthly reports. We attempted to post a blog while we were at the Royal, but we encountered a bit of trouble somehow. Sorry for those who received an e-mail with a blank blog entry. Before we left, we were served an awesome free breakfast by our South African friend, which included an egg served on what was basically a bagel. After leaving the luxury of the Royal, we ran some errands in Solwezi, including Nick buying lace, and then we headed back to the bush.

We spent the next few days in Meheba traveling around to Nick's projects together. Nick got sick toward the end of a very eventful Friday (story to be told in person), but he powered through and rested on Saturday. While he recuperated, Audrey went to visit one of his projects for him to deliver and retrieve some material, and she also went to the market to buy food, braving a Meheba thunderstorm.

Saturday evening, Father Kim, one of the priests at the Catholic Mission, came over for dinner with his friend Father Young who is visiting from Korea for a couple months.

Father Young and Father Kim cooking

(Please note that this is actually how they posed.)

They brought beef and all sorts of good food, so Nick quickly cured himself of his stomach problem and joined the feast. (Especially since we decided not to use this):

Nick sent Audrey back with a few blog entries that he has not been able to send, so she will be posting them over the next few days. They go back in time about a month. We are looking forward to our whirlwind trip back to the east coast in mid-December.

Audrey's End of October-Early November Update

2008-11-02T21:05:00.003+02:00

Nick wasn't able to send a blog entry back from Meheba, so you're stuck with me again. However, I have news from Meheba…a cell phone tower was just switched on this past Tuesday so Nick now gets reception (only on the number on the side of the blog) without having to bike and climb hills!

I hope that everyone had a good Halloween! I celebrated by teaching eight amazing people from DRC, Southern Sudan, and Angola about the history of the holiday and explaining Trick-or-Treating and costumes in the U.S. We enjoyed Skittles, Nestle Crunch, Mini Hershey Bars, and other delicious treats from the United States.

I started using a gym that opened up in my neighborhood earlier in October. I am so happy to be back at a gym, especially one that costs less than $5 a visit! They have a lot of machine and free weights and the family who owns it is great. I worked out with a "trainer" named Jonathan during my first visit. He doesn't have any personal training certifications, but he was knowledgeable and really nice. I was really sore after my first visit and am looking forward to going a few times a week for the rest of my time here!

Zambia held Presidential elections on Thursday to choose a leader to carry out the rest of the deceased President's term (until 2011). It was a tight race between Banda and Sata, with Sata threatening to cause problems if he didn't win. The results were announced and Banda was inaugurated today. So far there haven't been any issues that I know of and I hope that things remain calm and peaceful.

My fame continues as my picture was apparently in the newspaper following the graduation ceremony. I am yet to get my hands on a copy, but I'm working on it!

I drove my coworkers to the bus station at 4am yesterday and saw a man running through the street with no pants or shoes on my way home (it was about 4:30 in the morning). I came around a curve in the road and there he was. He had a t-shirt on, so I'm not traumatized for life. Needless to say, I didn’t stop to get more information on the whereabouts of his trousers!

This weekend I went to Adventure City after Frisbee with my friend Kim. She is only in Lusaka for a few months and her husband stayed in the U.S., so she wants to do all kinds of fun stuff and is always looking for someone to do those things with. Adventure City has pools, water slides, fields to play soccer and volleyball, and places to picnic. It is a really fun place and we had a great time! Kim took some photos and will email them to me, so I'll post them ASAP.

I attended a burrito eating party today at Holly and Matthew's house. Holly is from PA and first came to Zambia with FORGE and Matthew is Zambian. The dinner party was a nice mix of Zambians and Ex-Pats from the UK, US, and Canada. Holly made her own refried beans and the burritos were delicious!

One of my students is getting resettled to Denmark with his wife and their infant daughter. We have known that their departure would be soon and I found out today that they are leaving on Tuesday! The other students and I are sad to see him go, but are excited for the opportunities that he will have there. I am looking forward to hearing from him once he gets settled and Nick and I hope to go visit him in Denmark in the next few years. It will be bizarre to hear the family speaking Danish the next time I see them, especially the baby!

We don't "Fall Back" here so I missed my favorite holiday of the year today! We are going to be seven hours ahead of the East Coast until March 8 when you "Spring Ahead" and I don’t lose an hour of sleep. It all evens out in the end.

I'm traveling north on Tuesday and will stay in Solwezi with Nick, Sherie, and Sabah to watch the American election results come in. I will go to Meheba with them on Wednesday and stay there until Monday morning. I'm looking forward to visiting the projects, riding an American bike, and of course seeing Nick. I guess I'll have phone reception, so feel free to call me while I'm away! I definitely won't have email access, though. I'll be back online with a posting from Meheba around November 11. Have a good week!

Almost Famous

2008-10-25T23:02:00.001+02:00

As most of you know, reading gossip magazines was my guilty pleasure back home. My co-worker from our Oakland office arrived in Zambia earlier this week and, per my request, brought along the latest editions of People and US Weekly. They didn't bring me the joy that I thought they would and I have been trying to figure out why.

I have always known that there are much more important things going on in the world than which celebrities are dating/cheating/divorcing/getting fat/getting skinny/having babies/etc., but I would still look through the magazines each week. I wonder if living here is giving me a better understanding of what it might be like to be hounded by the paparazzi. Maybe I want to respect musicians' and actors' privacy because I know that it's not always fun to stand out and have random people talk to you or try to kiss you or ask you to marry them or buy them things. It's much easier to go through daily life unnoticed, which seems to be difficult when you're famous in the U.S. or a Muzungu in Zambia.

This makes me think of an interesting interaction I had yesterday while walking home from the supermarket. It was Independence Day here which, like back home, seems to be an excuse to drink for many people. I walked past this man who was holding his two-year-old son and a carton of Shake Shake. (It's a locally brewed "beer" that comes in a milk carton. The alcohol content isn't regulated, so it can be pretty strong. I don't know what it tastes like, but I have heard the word "lumpy" used to describe it. Yum!) Anyway, the man called out to me as we were passing and asked me to "greet" his son. It was random but the kid was cute and it wasn’t his fault that his dad was drunk, so I stopped and said hello. A motorcycle went buy which caught the kid's attention much more than I did, so I'm hopeful that he will continue to be interested in things other than skin color when he grows up.

It's interesting that I have been feeling famous because I was actually on television today! I attended the graduation ceremony for the university where most of my students are enrolled. There were only about 300 graduates, so it was a fairly small audience. There were cameras panning the crowd during the ceremony, so I wasn’t all that surprised when one of my students told me that I was on the news tonight. I didn't see myself on T.V., but he said that they were showing Kenneth Kaunda's speech (my good buddy, the first President of Zambia) and showed me a few times!

While I'm on the topic, I might as well write a bit about graduation. Overall it wasn't all that different from graduations that I have been to back home (speakers, awards, diplomas). There were, however, a few differences. For example, it started an hour and a half late. I expected this, but got there on-time anyway. I was one of the only people there at the 8am start time, but I bring a book everywhere I go (after learning my lesson when I waited at the bus station for four hours with no entertainment) so I wasn't too upset.

The other interesting differences were the dance troupe and the focus on HIV/AIDS. There was a performance group from the University of Zambia. They wore traditional dress and costumes and entered with the graduates playing drums, dancing, and singing. They performed a few times during the ceremony, mostly drumming/dancing/singing, but once they performed a skit. The theme of the skit was the power of knowledge and it was both funny and serious (mentioning HIV/AIDS).

Dr. Kaunda led the group in the same "fight AIDS" song as the last time I saw him. He also addressed the students about the importance of being tested and preventing the spread of the disease. This may seem strange at a graduation, but in a country where more than 15% of the adult population is estimated to have HIV/AIDS, it seems important that the educated population take action.

That's it for now. Check back towards the end of next week for a posting from Nick. I am planning to visit him the following week, so we'll try to write a joint posting after that. I can't believe it's almost November! -Audrey

Dear Nick...

2008-10-23T17:22:00.000+02:00

Note from Audrey: Nick has finally emerged from the bush and sent this entry! He is doing well and promises another one in about a week. A coworker from the U.S. is with him in Meheba now and will return to Lusaka next Wednesday with a blog entry from him on her computer!

I get a lot of letters, or rather hand written notes. Here are two of my favorite from the last week or so:

Hi Nick,
I’m so happy to meet you as a friend.
Back to me I’m doing fine as you know the life I’m going through.
Today I was busy with the kids, that why I did not manage to talk to you. But if it’s impossible I want you on Sunday for discussions. My house number is, ______.
See you!!!

We see each other in the couple of days.

Yours
friend {heart} _______

Dear Nick,
I just received the proposal this morning. I went through it. It is very marvelous. So perfect. It will real be a fantastic move if you submitted it right away.
I did talk to the people I proposed to help us in the selection of teachers but unfortunately nobody has offered to help except ________ hence I thought it will be just cool to organize some of the forge staffs.
Im very sorry for the late arrival of my letter this has been mainly due to the late reception of the proposal.
Im looking forward to the outcome of your meeting with the UNHCR.

______________

Lessons Learned

2008-10-17T12:13:00.002+02:00

I have decided to consider this week's frustrations and disgusting observations lessons. Keep in mind that I met some very nice and helpful people this week and had plenty of positive experiences. However:

1. I learned that flies can eat an entire dead chicken in a day.
2. I learned that an electrician who was called to fix your refrigerator may show up without any tools and have to return the next day to even diagnose the issue. Upon his return, the refrigerator will be working again. However, your cheese will spoil in the process.
3. I learned that a living chicken can catch a lizard and hold it in her beak, run around with it, and smash it against the ground until a house lady throws a flip-flop at said chicken. At that point the chicken will drop the lizard, which will still be breathing.
4. I learned that an Internet provider doesn't actually mean that they will come to fix your Internet on Monday or Tuesday when they say that they will come on Monday or Tuesday. They will, however, come on Wednesday when you are at their office and not have the new modem that is needed. The good news is that they came today (only and hour and a half later than scheduled) and I am posting this from home.
5. I learned that a car tire explodes when you come too close to the edge of the curb around your house.
6. I learned that having photocopies made at least once a week for three months at the same place does not mean that they will remember that I need a receipt or know how to generate said receipt.

It's raining in Lusaka, baby (everything else is the same)

2008-10-11T19:02:00.000+02:00

I have asked people who have lived in or currently live in Lusaka about the weather since I found out that I was moving here. I have talked to at least twenty five ex-pats, refugees, and Zambians about the seasons and almost everyone has told me the same thing. They report that "October is the hottest month and the rainy season will begin on October 24." I couldn't believe that the rain would begin exactly on the 24th, but I was waiting patiently to find out.

Mother Nature must have lost her calendar this year because it rained here yesterday! I knew that it had been raining in Northeastern Province earlier this month and that it even rained in Meheba and Solwezi this week (where Nick is attending an SGBV workshop), so it wasn't out of the question that it would rain here. However, I still wasn't convinced that it would actually rain this early, even as the sky grew darker and darker and the thunder and lightening began. How could so many people who were so sure of the date be wrong? Well they were.

It started slowly around 3pm, with a few giant drops. Pretty soon, the rain became a torrential downpour. We had already lost power for a few hours earlier in the day and it went out again as the rain began, so I wasn't getting any computer work done. The rain was so loud that I couldn't think. The only option seemed to be to go for a run.

As some of you know, I love running in summer rain. Not just a light drizzle, but serious soak-your-clothes-the-minute-you-step-outside rain. The last downpour that I ran in was probably seven or eight years ago. I remember feeling blissfully happy as I ran through the streets of Boston and Brookline in the pouring rain. It's humbling to be overtaken by the elements, to feel so small and powerless in a powerful storm. I can't explain why, but I find great joy in the experience. I think that it puts things in perspective for me. I couldn't pass up this chance to run in such an amazing storm.

I hadn't exercised yet yesterday when the rain began due to a headache from the previous day's Yom Kippur fast and a trip to the bus station at 7am that took a lot longer than expected. Nick's coworkers were in from Meheba for a day and a half to go to the immigration office and take a quick break from bush life, so I was driving them to the Lusaka bus station for their return trip. By the time I got home it was already getting hot outside and I was really hungry for breakfast, so I skipped my run and made some French toast.

I didn't care about the lingering headache once the rain started. I didn't care about the cookie I had just eaten (actually, I forgot about the cookie but thankfully it didn't have any adverse side effects once I got out there!). I just wanted to get outside and experience the rain. I changed into my running clothes and tied my sneakers as quickly as I could because I didn’t know how long the rain would last. I decided not to bring my I-Pod because it's already on the fritz and I didn't think that it would hold up to being essentially submerged in water.

I ran out of my door and was immediately drenched. The rain drops hurt a bit as they hit my skin, but it was exhilarating. I ran down the dirt road on the side of my house and dodged puddles that were already forming. I also ran straight through some puddles, since my shoes were already soaked. It was the first run that I have been on in Lusaka without music and for once I didn't care about the people shouting and laughing at me.

There weren't many people out, but people called out "ewe!" (pronounced e-way, it means "hey you") to me from their shops (small wooden shack on the side of the road) where they sell vegetables or talk time. I waved to them. Mini-bus drivers and conductors shouted to me and I smiled back. Children laughed hysterically at me and I laughed with them. I couldn't understand what was being said in Nyanja as I ran past, but I imagine it was along the lines of, "Look at that crazy muzungu!" or "What is that muzungu doing out here?!" or "That muzungu must have some mental problems!" I didn't mind at all.

The loop that I chose only takes about half an hour, but the rain changed from downpour to drizzle and back to downpour over the course of my journey. I ran through some puddles that were up to my knees. I actually laughed out loud for no reason at all.

On my way home, I passed my roommate Alyssa. Somehow I knew that I would see her. She had been out with our car and turned right onto our street just as I was coming from the left. We were about a kilometer from our house and she motioned for me to get in, but I waved her on. A minute or two later George, our neighbor who we use as a taxi driver, pulled up next to me. I said hello, told him how much I love the rain, and kept on running.

I arrived home safely and took a bath, even though I had just had my first shower in three months! Before I went inside, I asked Alyssa to snap a picture of me to commemorate my first rain experience in Zambia. There will be a lot more rain to come, as the rainy season should last until March, and I promise not to write about every storm!

I hope that the weather in your part of the world is treating you well, too! -Audrey

Audrey's week

2008-10-05T15:49:00.001+02:00

Last weekend, Alyssa and I had three guests staying in Lusaka. Margot was in from Kala Refugee Camp, Laura was in from Mwange Refugee Camp, and Tristan was passing through on his way back to the U.S. after his year with FORGE in Meheba and vacation around Africa, culminating in climbing Kilimanjaro. Having visitors from rural areas is a great excuse to spend money in Lusaka, so I went out to eat a few times and even saw a movie (Taken with Liam Neeson – it wasn't good, but I was happy to be in a movie theater!).

By Tuesday morning everyone was gone, even Alyssa who went with Margot to visit Kala. I had a busy week with work, including end of the month reports and meetings at my students' school, in addition to my usual classes and individual sessions. As a brief aside, I saw a building on fire on Friday while I was in town for some meetings. The University that six of my students attend has parts of three different buildings in town for classes and offices. Two are around the corner from each other and I was in both before stopping into a restaurant that is between them to have lunch. It's a place where you order at the counter and they bring you your food. I was reading and waiting for my fried rice when everyone started running into the parking lot outside. It turns out that one of the buildings that I had just been to was on fire! It's about thirteen stories tall with a radio station on the top, which is what had caught fire. The school occupies the second floor, so it wasn't damaged. It sounds like nobody was hurt, but I don't know for sure. I joined everyone outside and talked to some staff members and one of my students while we watched the radio station burn. It was very strange and I felt powerless. I left as a fire truck arrived, but people were saying that it wouldn't have enough water or the correct equipment to put out the fire!

On top of my work, I also undertook the task of obtaining a Zambian Driver's License this past week. It took two days and involved visiting two different offices, standing in about ten different lines, and a total of about eight hours of my time. I now have a temporary license and will return in a month to stand in another line to (hopefully) obtain the permanent one.

After a virtually American-free week, I went to play Ultimate Frisbee yesterday morning with the usual group of mostly British, Canadian, and American Ex-Pats. After Frisbee, I was invited to a friends' house to swim in their pool and eat Mexican food for dinner. Daily life here can be more challenging than back home, so it was a nice change of pace to relax by the pool and eat a burrito with other Americans!

Meeting Kenneth Kaunda!

2008-09-25T17:09:00.000+02:00

I was invited to a luncheon for Cavendish University, where most of my students go to school. I didn't know, until the luncheon today, that Kenneth Kaunda (the first President of Zambia) is the Chancellor of the University. He was at the luncheon and gave a speech to the 50 or so people in attendance. He is over 80 years old and ran up to the stage, wearing bright and fun shirt (everyone else was in a suit). He then led the group in a song before giving his speech. As if this wasn't cool enough, the highlight was when I met him and shook his hand outside as he was getting into his car to leave! His energy and enthusiasm were contagious. I learned after that, in addition to the nickname KK that I have heard him referred to by, he is also known as Super Kenny! I can see why!

Lost in Lusaka

2008-09-25T16:20:00.000+02:00

When learning to live in a new place, one can expect to get lost at first. I am no exception and actually think that I have a particularly bad sense of direction. However, I feel that things may not improve during my time in Lusaka for a few major reasons. I am more amused than concerned about this and am dedicating this post to illuminating these reasons.

Alison and Rhianon, my coworkers from the summer, left me with a map of Lusaka. To be more specific, it's a book of maps where each page points you to four more maps on four other pages if you want to continue traveling in the same direction. It was nice of them to leave it, but it's honestly the most confusing map ever and is no help at all.

I didn't mind not having a good map at first, as I figured that I would just ask people for help. To date, this seemingly simple tactic has not worked. Here are some of the reasons…

1. "That side," which I previously referred to in the context of people who have not been to America saying that they have never been to "that side," is used in a plethora of situations and actually means nothing at all. When giving directions, people have told me to go to "that side" when there are no sides to speak of. I think that any directions with "that side" are useless.

2. Useless directions also frequently include "just there" when there is no way to glean where "there" is from the context. Some sentences have been known to include both "that side" and "just there." These are clearly my favorite.

3. Another stellar direction-giving tactic is making things complicated that are actually really simple. For example, I had to drive to the airport and asked a few different people, "Is the airport off of Great East Road?" To me, this is a yes or no question. To the people I asked, a long answer that I didn't understand followed. I learned on my own that yes, the airport is off of Great East Road.

I had a similar experience when trying to locate the post office where packages can be picked up. I don't remember exactly what was said by the stationary store shop employee I asked, but I don't think that she told me which direction or where to turn (even though I knew a turn was involved) and made it sound very far away. Regardless, I remember being shocked when I arrived at the post office and realized how simple it was to get there and how nearby to the store.

4. My favorite confusion-inducing tactic is giving specific directions that are incorrect. It may be that when someone is asked for directions they don't want to let you down or appear ignorant for not knowing. Whatever the reason, I have been given very precise directions when the person giving them clearly had no idea how to get where I wanted to go. It is obvious to me now that I was led astray, but as the saying goes, hind site is 20/20. This is how Nick and I ended up in the animal head store whose photo was included in my last post. The friendly employee of "True Value" hardware (which I'm pretty sure is in no way related to the U.S. chain) told us that the bike shop was four doors down from his own store. He even told us which direction after I asked (why wouldn't this information be offered up?), but there are no bicycles in the animal head store!

While on the hardware store aside, I recently saw a "Home Depot" being built in town. They are even using the same logo as our famous home improvement warehouse. I'm fairly certain that this is being done without permission and breaking some U.S. patent laws. I am considering reporting this and wonder if it will earn me free light bulbs for life or something.

"Muzungu," means "white person" in many of the local languages in Zambia and neighboring countries (although the spelling varies depending on the language) and is widely used. The term was first used to describe European traders and meant "one who moves around." Describing their movement became synonymous with their color and the term was born. It seems that the original word that muzungu is based on actually means "to go round and round." It's interesting that I am doing just that when lost and am left to wonder if bad directions are causing so many foreigners to wander around in circles.

Lusaka Update and Photos

2008-09-21T13:24:00.019+02:00

Greetings readers! It has been a while since I have posted and things are still going really well in Lusaka. Nick was just here for almost a week and he brought the camera, so I have included some photos at the end of this entry. It took a really long time to upload them and I won't have access to the camera again for a few months, so I hope that you enjoy them!

Winter is over and the weather here is starting to get hot, with the temperature getting into the 90's most days. I looked at the forecast for the coming week and it's supposed to reach 98° on Wednesday! It cools down a lot at night (to the high 50's or low 60's), so sleeping has been comfortable. It's still sunny every day, as the rainy season won't begin until November. It will still be hot, but the rain may make it feel cooler. I'll have to wait and see.

I have been meeting a lot of new people recently, mostly other ex-pats. I attended a BBQ hosted by the Embassy at the U.S. Marine's house on Friday. I had no idea that there were so many Americans living here and was especially surprised by the number of children. I recently started playing Ultimate Frisbee each Saturday with a group of about thirty people who are mostly from the U.S., Canada, and England. It's a great workout and way to meet people. I haven't sprinted this much since high school sports! I was really sore after the first week, but yesterday was my second week and I feel good today. Distance running and sprinting clearly utilize different muscles!

Speaking of running, I took Nick to the bus station around 5am on Wednesday and saw at least 30 people out running! This clearly disproves my theory about people not running here, which I devised because I have seen a total of one other runner while I have been out for a run and have driven past two other runners in the past few months. I guess that I just had the time of day wrong and that dawn is the time to run! October is supposed to be the hottest month of the year, so I may have to join them soon!

PHOTOS

Nick and I returned to Mr. Banda's community for a delicious lunch:

and went into town (where we were looking for a bike shop and were sent into a hunting store instead):

Finally, here are some pictures that were taken in and around the compound:

Savings Circles

2008-09-02T20:53:00.001+02:00

Last week, I attended a meeting for one of the savings circles facilitated by our Women’s Center. I think it’s one of the most beneficial and cost effective things we do, so I wanted to devote this post to explaining it.

The idea is simple. A savings circle is just a group of women. Once a week they meet, and every woman puts 1,000 kwacha into the cash box. That’s about 30 cents US. There are around 25 to 30 women in a circle, so each week the circle gains about 25,000 to 30,000 kwacha. Each week, this money is loaned out on a rotating basis. At the meeting I attended, two women received loans, each of 30,000 kwacha. When a woman gets a loan, she takes the money and uses it for some sort of business that turns a profit. Maybe this is buying vegetables and selling them in nearby towns or villages. The woman usually has one month to pay back the loan with a little interest. She can use the profit however she sees fit – feeding her family, paying school fees, reinvesting it, etc. If she can’t repay at the end of the month, more interest accrues until she can. If a woman misses a meeting or doesn’t have 1,000 kwacha to save, she has to make it up next time.

By pooling resources, women are able to gain access to amounts of money they wouldn’t be able to on their own. We are not talking about a lot of money, but it’s enough that it is out of the reach of most women in the settlement. It is also enough to do something with. These women know how to make money, but the truism is that you need money to make money. The savings circle simply gives the women the money they need to make money. The repayment rate on loans is excellent. The social pressure to pay back keeps it that way. If a woman fails to repay, she is letting the whole group down. She also won’t get another loan until she repays outstanding loans. The circle doesn’t force women to take a loan, of course. If a woman just wants to save, she can keep coming and putting in her 1,000 kwacha every week knowing that that 1,000 kwacha is growing as interest is paid by the more entrepreneurial members of the group. At the end of one year of saving, the money is split up evenly among the group and the women walk away with more money than they have ever had. Basically, the women have created a bank that they own and control in a place where there are no financial institutions, especially for people like them.

Micro-lending is very hot now in international development, but it relies on an outside entity giving loans. The savings circle does not. The women run it on their own with their own money. One woman is the president, one woman is the secretary, one woman keeps the cash box, another woman keeps the key. FORGE doesn’t do anything except start the group and monitor it. One of our Women’s Center staff is a member of each group, attends every meeting and saves every week with the group to build trust. This was especially important at the beginning when the concept was a little scary for the women, but now the idea and its benefits are concrete and the groups pretty much run on their own. Not relying on an outside entity makes the circle sustainable and empowering. This is something the women can continue to do without our or any other organization being here. They don’t need us. They can also take the concept back to their home country and start their own circles.

We have three savings circles in Meheba. In the beginning, the Women’s Center identified one community that was interested. Anyone who agreed to the rules could join. Our staff presented a workshop that lasted a few weeks and which presented the idea and taught financial planning. During the last week of the workshop, the women started to save. As they became more comfortable and the circle progressed, our staff member would start teaching about health or gender based violence during the meetings. She told me the women come for the money but that part of our purpose is to educate them on topics that affect their lives. Now that a year has passed, the money was ready to be divided among the members of the first circle. They divided it last week. The group wants to continue saving, however, so they will start again, this time saving 2,000 kwacha a week. Meanwhile, two more circles were started in the past year and are doing well.

The savings circle that I attended was the most recent one created. The coordinator of the Women’s Center told me that the women were talking about how the circle has done so much for them. Most members of this circle are single mothers. They said that FORGE “has given us a husband”. They don’t have anyone to “provide” for them, and now they can provide for themselves. And all it costs FORGE is the cost of the Coordinator’s salary.

The idea is popular, and now the knitting and sewing class that takes place in the vulnerable community wants to start a savings circle. So soon we will have four circles.

Shortcuts in Meheba

2008-08-27T11:50:00.000+02:00

I described in a previous post the general layout of Meheba. In addition to the main roads and side roads, there are a number of “short cuts”, smaller trails that sometimes can get you from place to place faster. I take a short cut most days to Block D where the market and the offices are located. There are some dangers with the short cuts, however, so I wanted to write briefly about them. Besides being narrow and bumpy, we have identified several main hazards.

1. Dogs. Dogs here are not like American dogs. I like dogs in America. I do not like them in Zambia. Sometimes they chase you and you always worry that maybe they have rabies. When a dog is walking ahead of you and going in the same direction as you are traveling, you have to make a decision. We ran into such a case a week ago, although we weren’t on a short cut. I was riding in front and slowed down to pass him, but he noticed me and jogged over. So I sped up. And then Sherie passed him and he started chasing her and biting at her back wheels, like a dog chasing a car. I turned around and yelled at him, and he stopped, but I think I will carry a rock from now on. People stone dogs here, so unfortunately if you don’t you are seen as weak and they might come after you. Alternatively, I might just speed past next time.

2. Snakes. I have not seen one yet, but supposedly they do exist. Just last week, two of our staff saw a big one that caused them to jump into the bush. We know there are cobras and black mambas. There is also a mythical white mamba that lives at road eleven. Everyone agrees that it attacks you from above and that it killed two little children a month or so ago. Depending on who you talk to, it also can fly or it has a nail attached to the end of its tail that it uses to “hammer” you. You can also stone snakes.

3. Circumcision camp. In some traditions here, but not all, boys are circumcised around the age of something like nine or ten. When this happens, they go into the bush for a month or so and have circumcision camp where they are instructed by men on how to be a man. I’m not sure what all takes place, but I have heard masks may be involved in some of them. It’s kind of the point that I don’t know what goes on because it is a secret. And therein lies the problem. If you stumble across one, it could be unpleasant. If you are a circumcised male, you will have to prove it. Then you are let go because you are in the club. If you are an uncircumcised male, they will circumcise you and you have to stay for the rest of camp. If you are a woman, “you will pay”. This is ominous, and it is somewhat unclear if in today’s time this is just a monetary payment or something more. I think it is best to stay away from circumcision camp. Apparently on many of the shortcuts you may run into one because August is high season for circumcision camps. You can tell when you are approaching one because there is usually a sign. If the people in charge do not know how to write, there is supposedly a red flag. You should turn around at this point and go a different way. However, the one near us is not marked yet. Some mentally ill guy from a tribe that wasn’t circumcised wandered in there a couple weeks ago. The people running the camp used the following logic: Yes, he is mentally ill, but some day he might get better and reveal the secrets. So they circumcised him.

Did I just say that?!

2008-08-21T16:42:00.003+02:00

Zambia is an English speaking country, but there are also many other local languages that people here speak. At least once a day I can't understand things that are said to me in English. Other people have a hard time understanding me too, despite my best efforts to speak slowly. Some words and phrases are not part of American English (or even British English, which should be more alike because Zambia was a British colony) and word order can be different. I am still getting used to peoples' accents, so all of this can lead to some confusion. It also doesn't help that I work with refugees who are not native English speakers who speak about ten languages each!

Without meaning to, I seem to be picking up some new vocabulary and a different way of speaking. I am not alone in this. Nick has mentioned to me that he has been saying things that he wouldn't have said back home. Jessica, who was in Meheba for a little over a year, told me that she recently asked her mom back home to "greet" someone for her instead of saying something like "say hi to them for me."

Let this serve as a warning that I might say something strange to you the next time we speak. Some of these things are said by Zambians and others may be particular to the people who I live with (who are from Sudan, Congo, and Angola). At this point I'm not sure. Regardless, here a few examples of what I see and hear (and sometimes say)…

I have been talking about "geysers" for the past few weeks. This used to mean "a hot spring that intermittently sends up fountain like jets of water and steam into the air" to me, but that's not the kind of geyser that I am talking about. The British meaning seems to be "a hot-water heater" and that is the way it is used here. I was confused about the meaning of the word and also what was being said at first. The groundskeeper for my house was talking about the "geez" which sounded almost like "geese," but was showing me a plumbing part. I guess that's just the way it's pronounced here. My geyser was broken and is finally fixed, so I am excited about both warm baths and not talking about geysers for a while!

I passed a mini-bus that had "Talk to father nicely" written on the back. It's not bad advice; I was just surprised to see it on the bus. I also saw one with "Shabbat Shalom" on the front (Hebrew for "Welcome Sabbath"), but I have met Zambians who told me that I am the first Jewish person they have ever met. Curious. The strangest bus of all might be the one that reads "Thank U Don King" on the front. People seem to be boxing fans here, but it's still odd.

I am often asked "How has been the day?" when I see my students in the evening. An appropriate response seems to be "very much OK" or "very fine" or "just OK." All of these seem to mean about the same thing.

People talk about going to America as going to "that side." I have heard this over and over. My thought is that it means side of the Atlantic Ocean, but I'm not sure.

Something else that is said a lot is "just there" in response to a question of where something is. I like this and have started saying it.

Some of my students ask rhetorical questions when they are talking. They'll say something like, "He is a bit what? (Short pause for emphasis) fat." I really like this, but haven't tried it yet.

As Nick mentioned and you may have heard in the news, the President of Zambia passed away. This is a very sad time for the country and, as Nick wrote, there is a period of National mourning which has been extended to 21 days. I received an email that an event I was invited to had been postponed "due to the demise of the President." I also heard something on the radio referencing his "demise." I am not making fun of his death or the seriousness which people are taking it. I am just surprised by the word choice.

The funniest language misunderstanding so far happened to me this past week, which is what prompted me to write this whole entry. I am learning to drive stick shift and navigate the streets Lusaka (and avoid crazy drivers and cars that look like they are about to break down at any second). It's going quite well, in case you are wondering. Anyway, I was learning how to drive to the bus station and Mr. Banda was teaching me. He was directing me and told me to turn after (what I heard as) the "row boat." I asked him to repeat the word a few times and eventually figured out where he wanted me to turn, even though there were no boats in sight. Needless to say, I was confused. The next day I was talking to one of my students and he said something about a "row boat." I asked him to write the word and it was "robot," which apparently means traffic light here!

Meheba after a month

2008-08-20T17:12:00.000+02:00

The past two weeks have been busy, and we have been getting into the rhythm of life here. People are starting to know our names, which I guess isn’t hard since we are basically the only white people in the settlement. Strangers sometimes greet me by my correct name while I am biking. The first time that happened it was weird, but I try to pretend like I know them now. Unfortunately, not everyone knows our correct names. The girls sometimes get called Jessica, the previous project manager. Also, our head guard and now his son think my name is Mick. And the other day I got a letter addressed to Mr. Nice Reese.

Two Sundays ago, we got invited to our first wedding. We got the invitation on Saturday afternoon. When we showed up for the event on Sunday at 1:00pm, we found a pastor yell-preaching in French to his congregation, which is not uncommon here. But we were confused because the groom, one of our staff members, was in jeans and was videotaping everything. We asked the guy who invited us, also a staff member, if we had misunderstood, but he assured us the groom was getting married. That is, after the yell-preaching and after someone else got married. So apparently, there were three things on the program – preaching and then two weddings. First, we sat through the hour of yell-preaching. They were kind enough to get a guy to translate, so he stood directly in front of me and translated into yell-preached English. Then the first wedding started. It was interesting and not too different in structure from your typical Protestant wedding in the U.S. The church was founded by some American (I assume), who the pastor referred to liberally. They really took the vows seriously, though. When they got to the “in sickness and in health part,” the bride was asked if she would take the groom in sickness “even to the point where he is shitting in his pants”. The pastor informed us that the second ceremony would be shorter since we already saw the first one and had an idea of what was going to happen. And plus the brides were sisters. When it started we were happy. In part, that was because the interlude involved the pastor lecturing about respecting your woman in bed, which involved an animated discussion of sexual positions. Luckily, with three translators shouting, no one really noticed us unable to refrain from laughing. When the second ceremony started we were also happy to see our groom at the back of the chapel in a suit. Someone else was videoing everything. And I mean everything. When the camera fell on you, the cameraman would point the camera at your feet and then move up your body slowly. The second ceremony was, in fact, faster than the first, and I was anticipating a replay of the “sickness and health” part, but they switched it up this time. They asked the bride if she would take her husband even if he got into an accident and his legs were cut off and he couldn’t walk. After the ceremony, we went to the reception where they had good food – goat and nshima and beans and biscuits. Unfortunately, it was after 5:00 when we got there, so we couldn’t stay too long because we had to get home before dark.

Yesterday, we attended our first funeral. The brother of one of our staff members passed away a few days ago. We didn’t actually go to the burial – that’s today. The tradition here is that you go and sit with the family for a few days surrounding the burial. Everyone sits and eats and sleeps at the family’s house and mourns. We only stayed for about an hour, talking with our employee and one of the Women’s Center staff who came with us. We traveled pretty far into the bush and, again, we had to leave to get back before dark. All the family and friends will sleep outside tonight and will stay with the family probably until Friday. While we were there, someone received a text message that the president of Zambia died. We didn’t think much of it at the time because he has been in a coma for awhile, and we just assumed he had been dead and they were just releasing the information. Upon returning home, we found out that the country will shut down for ten days of mourning, which means I might have trouble getting this entry off. Mourning is taken seriously here.

The same day we found out about the funeral, we also got good news. One of the Women’s Center staff had her baby. I didn’t even realize she was pregnant until a couple weeks ago. She worked on Friday, walked over a mile home, and had the baby that night. She was up and carrying big wooden chairs when we visited her on Monday. The baby is her fourth girl, and she’s so tiny. Her mom was just saying in our staff meeting on Friday that she wanted as much time off after the baby is born as she can get, so she timed it just right.

So, in the past week and a half, we have attended a wedding, a funeral and seen a new baby. That’s a pretty good summary of what we have experienced so far. I keep getting asked, “How is Meheba?” I was just asked it again on Saturday by a refugee friend, and I never know how to respond. My first instinct is to say “good” or “fine” because so far I haven’t had any problems and it has been really interesting and rewarding. But life is so difficult for most people here that “good” seems an inappropriate and, I get the sense, unexpected response to that question, especially if a refugee is asking. How is Meheba? It’s hard to come up with an appropriate answer that captures the ups and downs and balances our day to day experiences with the realities of the day to day experiences of the people who live here. The best I can do at this moment came to me on Saturday night - Meheba is walking outside at night under a full moon and noticing that a lunar eclipse is occurring and that even with the moon’s light you can still see the Milky Way unaided, and while you’re watching the moon, a shooting star streaks across the sky against the silhouettes of papaya trees gently swaying in the breeze, and then you realize that not a half a kilometer away people you know and have come to love didn’t eat enough today and maybe they didn’t eat anything at all and that a woman might be raped tonight, a child is dying of second degree burns in the clinic and a man might wake up to the news that his relative died in Angola or just down the road and that there are a lot of people out there beyond the darkness in pain, nursing untreated physical or emotional wounds and that for the vast majority of people for miles in all directions this place, where babies are born, young people get married and everyone greets you with a smile and a wave, is a prison. That’s how it is.

Do adults pick their noses this much in the United States?

2008-08-15T19:13:00.000+02:00

Some days in Lusaka I almost forget that I am not in the United States. Today was not one of those days. Here are the things that happened or that I saw today that are normal parts of my life here but that still surprise me. I want to write about them now, while I still have an American perspective.

I took a mini-bus by myself for the first time. They pack over twenty people on a bus that should probably seat about thirteen, so all of the buses end up looking like clown cars. Despite being close to my neighbors, things seemed to be going fine until the bus ran out of gas and had to be pushed a short distance into the gas station. At the station, there was a discussion amount the attendant and the mini-bus conductor that there was no gas (which I have heard is going to happen here). The passengers started to get off and demand a refund. As I was trying to figure out where to catch another bus to town, there miraculously was gas to purchase and within a moment the bus worked fine. Crisis averted. We continued on to town and pulled over to let passengers off and pick more up. At a routine stop, the driver was arrested. That's right, arrested. I don't know why. My guesses are that he stopped in an illegal place, didn't have the correct license or the vehicle hadn't passed inspection. Everyone else on the bus seemed to think that this was normal and we got out and on to another bus, where we didn't have to pay again. I am actually shocked over the fairness.

We got to the chaotic, disorganized mini-bus station in town and I walked to the University for a meeting. I arrived at the office and the power went out while I was waiting for the meeting to begin. There must have been a back-up generator because a few lights came on and things proceeded as if nothing had happened. There isn’t a lot of power in Lusaka, so this is a regular occurrence. The behavior of other attendees and their coworkers were actually more interesting than the fact that the meeting was happening without power. My student and I were meeting with two administrators. They both answered their cell phones while my student was explaining his issue. The phone calls began a few seconds apart, so it ended up that they were both on the phone at the same time. I actually didn’t realize that they were on the phone at first because I was looking at my student. It was strange. The other interesting thing about the meeting is that people kept walking in and out of the room without knocking to borrow things, such as a permanent marker, that could have waited for a few minutes until we were finished. I guess the idea of privacy is different here. Maybe because people practically sit on each others laps on buses!

After the meeting I walked around in town to get a snack and to look for a book for one of my students and a box of cards to write thank you notes. I observed that…

People here have no problem picking their nose in public.
You may be told that an item is stale, but there won't be a discount for it if you still want it. I guess it's nice that they told me at all that it wasn't fresh!
Bookstores here don't have many books and they aren't organized in a logical way.
Stationary stores sell a surprisingly small number of cards, which all seem to have a lot of glitter on them.
Lusaka is polluted and there is a lot of garbage in the streets. I notice this everyday, but I haven't mentioned it. Most cars emit nasty smoke and it doesn’t help that most sidewalks are sand, which blows around and gets in your eyes. I hear that the most polluted place on the planet is in Zambia, in a town between Lusaka and Solwezi. We stopped there on the bus when we first went to Meheba.
One thing that I love here is that male friends walk down the street holding hands. Their affection is refreshing. Unfortunately, I hear that this doesn't translate to acceptance of same-sex couples. I don't think that I'll meet any out gay people here, as I don't think that there are any. I obviously think that this is terrible.
There is beautiful handcrafted wood furniture sold on the side of the road between my house and town for very reasonable prices. It's too bad that it would cost so much to send it back to the U.S. Now I will always think about these pieces when I am forced to pay too much for a chair or table back home. Maybe I'll have to learn to make them myself!

I returned home and made myself cabbage for lunch, something else that I would not have considered back home. Everything here is cooked with tomato, onion, salt and oil (which is ironically called salad). Cabbage cooked this way is delicious and made up for the fact that the bakery item that I tried to purchase was stale!

Have a good weekend, everyone! Nick will be back in Solwezi on Wednesday and will try to send me a blog to post at that time. I'll write in another week or two. Nick will probably come to Lusaka on August 30, so maybe I'll wait to post again until we are both here and can attach some photos of the places that I have been talking about. Good luck to those of you who are going back to school soon at DA, AU, etc.!