Monsterbearda tumblelog

9pm Monday, October 12 – 6th day - Who Love You, Baby?

Today I walked to the school that Ubumi runs, about a mile down the road from the orphanage.  I got to see their Hammer Mill, which empowers women by helping them grind their own grain instead of having to pay for it.  And their chicken coop, where the women in the program can raise chickens and then sell them off for profit to buy more chickens and continue the process.

Ubumi is quite a fantastic organization, really.  It’s much more than an orphanage, which is what I first thought.  It is an orphanage of 13 kids, a school of 380 kids, a women’s nutrition program, a land development program, and smaller ways of developing independent income.  It’s hard to grasp, and I feel incredibly small in my foolish thinking of it being a simple organization.

Ruth, the school manager and an Ubumi staff member, speaks a ton of languages.  She told me she speaks most of the main tribal languages of Zambia (of which there are 7) as well as understanding bits of Malawi, tonga, and oh yeah, she told me all this in English, so… right.

I bought chlorine today to clean my own water so I didn’t have to keep buying bottled water (only because of the hassle, not the cost, which is around 50 cents a bottle).  Except the chlorine has directions for 5 liters or 20 liters, not .5 liters.  So I gather ten of these water bottles and fill them with water and then try to put drops of chlorine in them except I get worried about whether it will work so I call my dad to find out if it’s worse to add too much and die of bleach poisoning or add too little and get cholera.  Inevitably I figure out I’m pretty safe but the water smells like pool water and isn’t that pleasant to drink, all in all.  But that’s ok, because there’s only about 9 more bottles to go through and I can buy bottled water again.  Oh well.

I met another Ubumi staff member today, Joel.  Joel is a bright smile of a man, very kind.  He spent 5 years in Rome in seminary and so speaks Italian, as well as French, English, Swahili, some Congo language, and a bit of Spanish.  He likes to say “Mamma-mia” as an exclamation.  In other words, he’s a pleasure to be around.  He asks me how Obama is, and plenty of questions about American culture.  It’s a difficult concept to express that American’s don’t have a staple food like they do here (Nshima), or a staple culture, really, since we’re an amalgamation of so many different places, that everyone in America (for the most part) came from somewhere else.

He takes me to the Central African Baptist College, because he knows there are Americans there.  I’m not kidding!  That’s how nice this guy is, that he does this for me right after I meet him.  So I end up getting to see white people.  And not just white people, but ones who are American, which is all I really care about, white, black, yellow, freaking green, I don’t care.

I meet Ben and Rachel, and Ben is from Cleveland, which we sort of bond over but not really, and it’s nice, just for a moment, to feel like I’m not so far away.  And it’s also nice because Ben and Rachel and I don’t have some instant connection.  Rachel’s already been here for over a year and will be for another one at least anyway, so she’s loving it here.  But it’s nice because it reminds me that being white or being from the same country (heck, the same damn cities, really) doesn’t make a relationship.  And the people who are excited for me to be here are the Zambians I know, not the Americans I don’t.

And isn’t it odd, how much I longed for Americans without knowing what that meant.  And what I really long for is what I have: love.  Because I was used to being loved by Americans, by my family and friends.  And here I am realizing I’m loved by Zambians too, and that makes it ok, being here.

And now my greatest worry is if I’ll ever catch up to all the things I’m learning here, because sometimes it’s like a steam-shovel of knowledge is being poured into my teacup of a brain.  But I am so grateful.  I am so grateful for this.

posted 3 years ago

8:45pm Sunday, October 11 – Fifth Day - The most important day I’ve had so far

So much happened today.  Let’s just go through from the beginning.

The cook here at my lodge, Dazi Lodge, her name is Nora, and she is very kind to me.  While I was eating breakfast this morning, Linda and the kids showed up ready to go to church.  Linda told me later that Nora had told her she felt bad for me, being lonely and staying mostly to my room, not drinking or anything (which, A. I don’t have the money to drink beer when I’m constantly buying more water.  And B. it’s not like I have people to hang out with, but the bar is definitely interesting each night.  Interesting in its familiarity.  Young people at a bar.  Seen it once.).  Anyway, just her expressing that made me feel warmed and loved.  Nora is very kind.

Anyway, so off to church we go, which is a walk down one of the roads, and we’re passing house after house and the street is relatively nice and some of the houses don’t have just walls but electric fence, so I can’t judge if this is a wealthy area of Riverside (which is the neighborhood of Kitwe we’re in) or just slightly nicer.  But we finally get to the church only it’s not one church.  It’s lots of churches.  I didn’t bring my camera but next time I will.  All the churches for the area are all in one place, all next to each other, in an area I would surely and uncreatively call “Churchland” if it was my job.  But it’s not.

I am learning some things here, about people.  Things that I will probably not fully appreciate for weeks or months after I return from Zambia.  Because the church is exactly like an American church.  Sure, there are concrete walls and a corrugated steel roof and cheap benches for pews, but… this is a church, and it works the same way, although it lasts for hours.

Zambians, or at least the Zambians I’ve met, pray all together all outloud.  Your prayers are a stream of praise and need and supplication and mix together with your neighbors and everyone else as they drift up to God.  I’ve seen it before, but it brought a realization this time.  I realized that I know nothing of the worship of God.  Or what is righteousness for you or how I can help you or anything of the sort.  I am nothing, and you are nothing, and we are all a bunch of nothings trying to make the best of it.  But the thought that I might know how to best help you (which we sometimes do know, better than the person themselves) is ridiculous.  I mean this as someone coming into this culture thinking my culture is somehow better.  It is not.  I know nothing of the worship of God.

Another thing about people:  We’re all the same, deep down.  If we strip away the layers and issues and circumstances, we are all cut from the same cloth.  Kids in Zambia behave exactly like kids anywhere I have ever seen, and what I can only assume was the youth group up in front at church had the same awkward way of singing as any other kid going through adolescence always have.  We are all the same, and that is more than a small comfort when you think about how fucked up the world is.

Later on after lunch I head back to the orphanage to hang out with everyone, because Sunday is a day of relaxing and that’s it after church, which is nice because I know what they mean.  Anyway, I go back and Linda is plaiting the hair of one girl, giving her cornrows.  And I sit down next to them and am taking pictures and hanging out when Linda asks if I have a girlfriend in America.  And then nonchalantly mentions that she had a fiancé who died about two weeks ago, and so she’s been in mourning.  Just like that.  And everything continues as usual and the kids keep playing except my whole world just dropped out inside of me because I can’t imagine having a fiancé who died just two weeks ago and being able to get out of bed, let alone look after kids and smile and have fun and then share it with someone just like that.

And that’s when I realize something else.  I realize that even though we’re all the same and all cut from the same cloth, I can never know the ordeals that these people go through, behind their friendliness and smiles and seeming happy comfortable lives.  And somehow life here gets more comfortable even as it gets more confusing, and I can’t make heads or tails of what it means to just HELP these people, let alone do something that will last.  I don’t know if I’ll ever make sense of it.  All these people living their lives and me thinking I know how their lives can be better, with nicer stuff and AC and shoes and whatnot.  Except their lives are just fine as they are, thank you very much.

Except their lives AREN’T fine, because kids get malaria and HIV and a woman’s fiancé dies just two weeks ago and maybe that is something they’d prefer didn’t happen anymore, the death of loved ones being so incredibly commonplace.  Zambians set all their chairs outside and sit all outside their house together for a funeral.  I know that because we passed one today.  And that is life here, and while it affects me greatly, it’s just another day for them.

The more I think I understand, the less I truly understand, about any of it.

posted 3 years ago

7:30pm Saturday October 10th – Fourth Day

Zambians tell time in military time. That is to say right now would not be 7:30 to them, but 19:30 hours. And if I were to ask what time breakfast would be served, they would tell me “eight hours”, which, if you’re not used to it, is easy to mistake for “eight hours from now.” I did not make that mistake, thankfully. It makes sense, even if it is a bit strange, all in all. And now I’ve set my phone for military time as well. Or 24hour time, if you prefer.

Today was really quite amazing. I spent a lot of time with the children, since they aren’t in school today, and they taught me some games, which are universal, I think. Hopscotch, which they called Eagle. And hide and seek, which they call ichidudo. Ichidudo looks Japanese, but I’m not sure on the actual spelling. And we did some dancing, because even when you rarely see white people, it is still funny to watch them dance.

That’s something. White people. I asked the hotel manager this morning if she got many Americans here and she said “well, a white person checked into a room yesterday” as if American and white were synonymous. But it gave me a faint hope that perhaps yes, there was another American here right now. And hopefully one in their 20s who could befriend me and make me feel like I know what’s going on in this world. But no. The guy looked Peruvian, maybe. Spanish? I don’t know. He wasn’t American and we didn’t talk. So far on this trip I’ve seen a handful of whites (are the terms “whites” and “blacks” offensive? Something to think about, I suppose). I’ve spoken to none of them, just seen them in cars or passing by. But I don’t really feel any comfort at the thought of meeting an Englishman or Frenchman. Really I want to meet an American. Is this silly? I mean, yes, it’s silly, but it’s a way of relating, I guess.

Anyway, so we played soccer today (football), barefoot, as the kids usually are and I am usually not. So now my feet are killing me! I have a giant blister covering the ball of each foot. Bad choices. That’s ok, it was fun. The kids are kids. Rambunctious like you’d expect.

So now I’m back in my room, laying in bed under my mosquito net (yes, they’re real! And yes, I’m probably overly paranoid, but whatever). And I’m watching the tv in here, which has three channels. Two of them are the same, and it seems to float back and forth between every sport coverage imaginable (cliff diving?) or an international music channel. The third channel doesn’t seem to work at all. So one thing I’ve learned is this: if a song is going to be on an international music channel, chances are I’m not going to like it. This includes Black Eyed Peas, Cobra Starship, and OMG Miley Cyrus just came on!!!!

Occasionally the tv will be set to My TV Africa, which has episodes of terrible African-produced shows.  Imagine the worst soap operas you have ever seen, and then keep going about 25 times past that and you’ll have some idea.  They are consistently about demons convincing people to commit adultery.  It isn’t much time before I’m desperately longing for the international music.

Another thing I was thinking about while watching African rappers imitate African-American rappers: the cultural legacy the US is leaving behind. Britain, the last empire, left the world with tea and cricket. And soccer fits in there somewhere, I think. The US, on the other hand, is leaving behind Coca-Cola and McDonalds. I mean, I’m not saying we haven’t done good things, I’m just referring to the pervasive things. And I wonder where we’ll end this ride. More tomorrow. I’m going to church with everyone.

posted 3 years ago

6:30am Saturday October 10th – Fourth Day

Each day gets better.  I worry about coming off too whiny here, constantly repeating the same things.  To be honest, it’s hard to keep track of what I’ve said and what I haven’t.  Yesterday went well, overall.  The mornings are the hardest, waking up at 6am and… that’s it.  My day will start.  There’s no hopping on the internet to check my email or making a quick call to someone.  Never in all my life have I been so longing to call my parents.  I mean, really!

Calling my parents, however, is exhausting.  It feels like touching the glass as they visit me in prison.  I feel so warmed and strengthened by their calls, but then I’m overwhelmed by loneliness and sadness.  I’m being a bit overdramatic, but it’s true.  I’m only here for 2 more weeks and I can barely handle that?  It’s ridiculous.  How someone, ANYone could go and be on their own, alone, in a different culture for a year or two is beyond me.

I finally ate three meals yesterday.  On the first day I arrived, I had eaten plenty on the plane rides and quickly went to bed.  On my second day, I ordered breakfast but was in such discomfort over being here I could barely eat half of it.  I didn’t eat for the rest of the day, which was a terrible idea.  So yesterday, my third day, I had three meals and I was even hungry for them!  A marked improvement.

Linda is the caretaker at the orphanage and she is a delight.  Mostly she speaks Bemba with the children, but she will have them speak English with me.  Those who can, anyway.  Some children are just starting to learn.  Still, their English is much better than my Bemba.  Anyway, Linda’s father and grandfather were over yesterday and at one point her father was speaking English and saying “One Zambia, one nation” as if to illustrate the point that they are united.  I asked her about it later and it seems like there is a great effort here to give the various tribes a sense of unity.  They are Zambians, even though British colonization and occupation made them Zambians accidentally.

Today I’ll be developing a schedule to teach both the staff and the children on how to use the video camera I have brought for them.  It’s very strange.  I see myself as mostly visiting to record their lives and they see me as mostly visiting to teach them about the camera.  So it is very important that I do a good job because I will not be here later if they have questions.  I hope that at the very least, this will give them something.

The problem is internet.  Currently their internet is a mobile device that connects to a computer and must be paid as you go.  So you buy a certain number of minutes and then once they are used up, you have to buy more minutes.  From what I could understand from Masautso, they could put in a more stable internet connection for the computers, but they really don’t have the money for it.  Right now they barely have enough money to pay the staff.

Ubumi is not just an orphanage.  It is a much larger organization.  It runs the orphanage, as well as a school.  The school has around 380 kids, while the orphanage has 13, so clearly it is not just an orphanage.  There is also a Hammer Mill, where people can come and grind their own grain, so that they save money and are empowered to be self-sufficient.  A nutrition class for women helps them understand how to keep themselves healthy as well as their children, many of whom are orphans they look over.  A handful of women in the nutrition class are about to start working on some land that Ubumi has so they can grow their own crops.  Those crops can then be used for food, or sold.  If they are sold, a portion goes to Ubumi to help all the women.  Either way, the community is strengthened.

And that is what Ubumi is doing, really.  Strengthening the community.  It isn’t about putting kids into medical school, or building a fancy hospital.  Those things are too big, too far removed.  Which is not to say that they can’t happen, or shouldn’t happen.  Not at all, but Ubumi is more about directly affecting the community to provide healthier lives, more security and stability, and hopefully, a way out of this cycle of orphaned children.  Hopefully I will learn more as time goes on.

Oh, another thing that happened yesterday.  A man named Sam came to the orphanage for their computer lessons.  So all of these kids are gathered around these computers and Sam is trying to get them to explain to him “what is the desktop” or “what are we doing when we click the mouse” and those ideas are such simple ideas that I don’t think anyone would really follow it.  The kids KNOW what they’re doing when they click the mouse, but it’s difficult to verbalize that into “pushing the button on the mouse.”

Some of them are more interested in it than others.  I don’t mean to suggest that clicking the mouse or the desktop aren’t important to know.  It’s just that they’re so very intangible.  They’re such simple answers that you always look past them while you search for the answer.  It’s interesting though.  Maybe you’d laugh at such primitive computer instruction, but just 10-15 years ago we were going through the same thing.  It’s easy to forget we didn’t grow up in a world of computers.

posted 3 years ago

6am, Friday October 9th – Third Day

Is it getting better?  It’s hard to say.  Yes and no.  I have no appetite, which worries me.  And you are never quite as thirsty as you are when suddenly you can only drink bottled water.

I daydream of my return to the US, which pulls me out of where I am.  I try to correct it by telling myself that I live here now, that Kitwe is my home.  Surprisingly, it has a calming effect, as if, yes, everything will be ok because now I belong here.

Zambia is a rich and vibrant country.  The landscape is a mix of deep greens and rich reds, the earth used to the tread of bare feet.  And right now, it is hot!  It’s not exceptionally hot.  Nothing I’m not used to during a summer somewhere, but the difference is that there is no AC anywhere, at least nowhere that I’ve seen.

The world is alive with activity even now.  The children, I am told, get up around 5:20 every day to get ready for school, when the sun is barely beginning to show sign.  It seems as though this is the way of things.  And why not, when it can cost more than it’s worth to keep the lights on late into the night.  Of course, I haven’t seen Zambian nightlife, so I could be wrong.  I probably won’t though, without a buddy to back me up.

I don’t believe that everyone here is happy all the time.  It seems more that they are just like you and me.  They can be sad, get tired, laugh, cry.  But the singing is there, yes.  And the singing is marvelous to hear.  Not because it is perfect, but because it is completely unashamed.  Imagine ten large voices pouring forth in song, without hesitation or self-consciousness.

Part of the singing is prayer, to be true.  But I think another part is entertainment.  After all, there are fewer distractions here, as far as I can tell.  You might as well pass the time with someone by singing.  I’m not sure I have all that figured out yet.

I stopped into an Internet café yesterday, the computer running Windows XP but the internet ridiculously slow, something I am far from used to.  I was able to write some emails before it froze up, luckily.  As I went to pay, there were two young boys at another computer playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.  I couldn’t help but smile.  Here, where I thought nothing was familiar: something familiar.

The children at the orphanage play after school.  There are matchbox cars and sticks, and a homemade soccer ball.  They are exactly as children should be.  The laugh and play together, brag to each other, nervously come to shake my hand.  They ask me questions about my favorite foods, my favorite color.  They want me to be there, and so in return, I am trying my best to eagerly mirror the enthusiasm.

This orphanage could use our money, that is true.  We can provide them with food, and much needed supplies.  But Zambia?  It’s almost as if all of Africa is caught between two worlds: the one they are comfortable with and the one we have forced upon them.

Their lives seem fine enough.  There is power, there is commerce.  Who am I to say that they need the internet, or need to dress certain ways or live certain ways.  I know nothing of how they live, but I can’t see much wrong with it.  We took this land and divided it up arbitrarily, to where tribes got split up or lumped with other tribes, to where they had to work together even though they had no desire to do so.  The legacy of colonization, I suppose.

Residences here are walled.  Tall walls of cinder blocks to keep out robbers.  There aren’t enough police to keep people feeling safe.  Plenty of the walls are topped with barbed wire or bits of broken glass.  It is not what I am used to, at least.

During breakfast yesterday, two men talked to me.  One spent time to talk about George Bush and the vision for the world he had.  He talked about the importance of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and about the importance of capturing Osama Bin Laden.  This is the world I am in, where he does not see America’s actions as political views, but as right and wrong.

The second man was named Humphrey.  His English was excellent and he was going to school near Lusaka, the capital.  He was here studying environmental science.  He was very kind and polite, and made me feel comfortable being the ignorant tourist.

I am trying very hard to be comfortable here.  I am.  But I still miss home.  Today we’ll try for more.

posted 3 years ago

6am, Thursday October 8th – Second Day

The first day was difficult, to say the least.  Mostly, I think it was fatigue after 24 hours of travel.  No sleep on an airplane is exactly restful.

Upon my arrival in Ndola, I had to slowly make my way through customs, purchasing my visa, and meeting my hosts Dorcas and Masautso.  We made the drive from Ndola to Kitwe and I saw how similar and how different Zambia can be.

The highway had pockets of street vendors, selling art, doors, baskets of charcoal.  School children walked on the edge of the road, cars flying past at 40 mph.  Taverns of a couple walls and a thatched roof dot the landscape, inviting patrons to stop in for a drink.

Power lines arced across the land in places, just like we have.  There are good drivers and bad drivers.  My hosts laugh at having almost picked up another Chris who happened to come through customs before me.

We arrived at Ubumi, the orphanage, and I was introduced around to the handful of kids still there, hearing names and immediately losing them.  The caretaker, Linda, tries to teach me a bit of Bemba, the local language, which also falls out of my head just as quickly.

It is the fatigue, I hope.  People here switch so quickly from Bemba to English that with their accents it can be hard to follow exactly when I am being talked to or just talked about.  When I ask for water, I am almost given wine.

Zambia is a conservative Christian country where I am discouraged from bringing alcohol to the orphanage (uh, no duh?).  It is a place where your neighbors will make sure to mind your business, and a girl who goes about too scantily dressed with find herself the victim of angry men tearing at her clothes, ready to stone her.

I settled in to my hotel around 4pm, everyone understanding I was most likely very tired, which I was.  This was, by far, the hardest part.  My exhaustion gave way to intense loneliness, the result of finally realizing how alone I am in this strange land.  And it is almost funny how I have never been this disconnected for as long as I can remember.

Disconnected in that calling home costs $3.49 a minute, and there is no internet, and even more than that, there is no one else in this same situation I am in, that I can sit with and discuss with, that I can take company in.  It is incredibly oppressive to be so completely cut off.

Dawn is breaking after my 14 hours alone, and my only hope is that today will bring a little bit of comfort, or at the least, acceptance.

posted 3 years ago

In Flight – October 6th

I realized yesterday that I can bring my laptop to the internet café (right, of course), so I’ll be updating from my journal, starting with this entry, while flying over the Atlantic.  That way you’re only a few days behind.  Oh, and things are better now, but you’ll see.

I am, by nature, a worrier.  I worry about all the possibilities and impossibilities of things I have no control over whatsoever.  And so even on this flight, after everything is all set in motion and I lack complete control, I worry.

I go back and forth between worry and unbelievable excitement at the fact that I’m traveling to Zambia, and doing it alone at that.  It boggles my mind in many ways.

The flight is unusually cold.  It’s –45F outside, which perhaps adds to the discomfort, but I’m used to my own blower overhead and there is none here.  Fortunately, it’s far from a full flight, so I have two seats to enjoy to myself.  South African Airlines handed me a package as we prepped for take-off.  It contains: one sleeping mask, one travel toothbrush and toothpaste (THANK YOU) and a pair of socks.  I don’t get the socks thing, but the likely theory is that it’s to keep your feet warm.  Or prevent trench foot.  How likely that is on an airplane I’m not aware.

I’m excited at the prospect of going to this place I know nothing about.  More than anything, I am preparing myself to learn how much of it isn’t about me.  To be in a place where I don’t know the customs, the culture, or the circumstances.  I hope to return to the US with a better understanding of our world and the people in it.

I am hopeful that my eyes will be opened in one way or another.

I’m not being particularly eloquent here, and I don’t know why that is.  I suspect it’s the underlying fear I’m trying to ignore, but FUCK, I’m going to fucking Africa, to a country that the AT&T reps didn’t even know EXISTED.  THIS is it.  THIS is the point right here, that there are people in the world who don’t even know these people exist or their troubles or “why should I even care about their troubles” but I will see there and will look upon a different world with my own eyes and you’re damn right I’m going to consider that a point of pride.

It’s not about the pride, but I will be proud.  I am proud.  But it’s about the knowing.  Like when you have a big, meaningful life change and you try to describe it to people and they are happy for you but they don’t get it because how can they get it?  And how could you get it if they told it to you, unless you’d been there.  And there is a part of me, hopefully a big part, that after this will KNOW, will know about things I didn’t understand before.  Or will realize all the things I thought I knew were wrong in one way or another.  Like seeing a color for the first time and having had no idea it existed at all.

More later.  Dinner just arrived.  Flight Attendant recommended the beef, so I went with it.  He seems cool.  It smells good.

…

There is only so much room on an airplane.  You can only walk so far.  And no matter how many leg exercises you try in your seat, nothing feels as good as having your numb ass up and moving around, even if just for a moment.  And we’re only through about 8 hours of the flight.

Ugh.  All the way back too?  I’ll just stay in Africa.

posted 3 years ago

And who knew I could keep finding things to do that are the hardest things I’ve ever done

Good Lord this is hard.

So, my only internet access for the next two and a half weeks is an internet cafe here in Kitwe, so posts will be rare.  I’m keeping a journal, which I’ll be sure to share with you when I get back to the States, but until then its just me and bunch of people who speak such an accented and unpracticed English that I couldn’t feel more alone.

Yup, so far (the past 2 days) that’s the theme: unbearable loneliness.  You wouldn’t believe how lonely you can feel until you’re really and truly cut off from everyone you know.  Thank God for this little internet access I have.  I’d be going nuts without it.

Also, thank God for safe water.  Another thing you wouldn’t believe is how thirsty you can suddenly become when you can only safely drink bottled water.

Although I did have coffee this morning, which was a revelation, because the first day I didn’t understand that I was supposed to mix the brown powder with the hot water.  I just thought they were serving hot water.  Right.  Can anyone say culture shock?

Missing you, from however many miles away I am.

posted 3 years ago