It's about 3:30 a.m. and I find myself still staring at the computer screen at the peace corps office in lusaka, still completely in awe of fast, free internet. I'm 'illegally' crashing here for the night not just to save a little money on lodging but to get through a looong list of things I need to accomplish on this computer in the 48 hours I'll be down in the big city.
I came down here from up north with my friend Joan to go to the Chinese Embassy and apply for our travel visas to China. We will be traveling over to that side of the world in a few weeks, visiting Liz, my roommate from college, who is working in Shanghai. Our trip is 2 weeks along, and the itinerary includes Shanghai, Beijing, and a few other places along the way. :) I am so excited to see what her life is like over there, and it is a part of the world where I have no idea what to expect. It promises to be another crazy adventure travel adventure! I've recently become convinced that Peace Corps is America's best kept secret with all of the traveling I have been able to do. And as far as the work I am doing in my village, I finally feel that I know where I fit into the whole 'system' of development work at the grassroots level, at least in my remote corner of Zambia. I've been working a lot with community groups, helping them with things such as group management, developing trainings, IGA formation (Income Generating Activities), action planning, proposal-writing, etc. I helped my clinical officer and 2 members of the anti-AIDS club/youth group facilitate a week-long Lifeskills training for the club. It was a TOT, or training of trainers, as we were teaching the youth (mostly 17-22 years of age) how to be effective peer educators in the community. We discussed relationship, communication, and leadership skills, as well as principles of behavior change and how to be effective role models to other youth in the community. There was a large HIV/AIDS education component as well. I think that as a whole the training went pretty well. I experienced a lot of frustration with the girls in the group who refused to participate and would only giggle when it came to talking about serious topics. One of the female teachers from the school in my community, Mrs. Chisanga, whom I really respect and admire as a community leader, joined us to facilitate a session on the importance of education in Zambia. She spoke about how students need to realize the opportunities that can open up to them if they can pass their grade 9 exams and go on to high school. I learned that only one student passed their grade 9 exam at the basic school in my community last term. ONE. The students aren't holding themselves accountable for their learning, yet they are also stuck in an education system that is failing them. Mrs. Chisanga said that she offers to work with kids outside of class and to help them study, but very few take her up on her offers. She finds herself especially frustrated with the girls in her grade 8 class, who refuse to participate or take anything seriously in front of the other boys in the class. Girls become pregnant at the age of 14 and drop out of school, while the boys who have helped to place them in that situation continue on with their schooling and thus have a chance to leave the village and further their studies. Mrs. Chisanga made a strong argument to the girls that taking their education seriously affords them options in life; opportunities unavailable to them in the village. If they want to become pregnant and continue to live on their family's compound for the rest of their life, that is ok, but at least have it be the life they consciously chose for themselves. Instead of looking up to Mrs. Chisanga as a strong, well-educated woman in the village, the girls seem to resent the fact that she pushes them to expect more from themselves. My hope is just that she continues to push, regardless of the resistance. Zambia could use a lot more women like her.
I recently finished reading the book, "The Invisible Cure" and believe that if you truly want to begin to understand the spread of HIV in Africa and what can possibly be done to combat it you must read this book. Its focus is on concurrent partnerships in Africa and how relationship patterns and networks in sub-saharan Africa create an ideal environment for the spread of the disease. It also speaks a lot to African-initiated groups and strategies, particularly in Uganda, that have been successful in significantly reducing HIV incidence. I thought the book was brilliant and highly recommend it. It's given me a lot of ideas with regards to working with HIV aids patients in the community, as I hope to aid in the creation of a support group as well as increase sensitisation throughout the community.
There has been a lot of drama in my village lately regarding the recent witch hunt and accompanying witch trials coordinated by a witch doctor brought all the way up from Mpika to rid the community of black magic. Following the funeral of my neighbor's child, whom was believed to have been 'bewitched' by a member of the community, my village headman defended someone who was accused of performing black magic. Shortly afterward, the accused person fled the village, apparently making my headman look guilty, and he was severely beaten at his home in the middle of the day. I saw him at the clinic and he looked horrible. He was sent to the hospital in Mpika to recover, but is an incredibly old man (in a country where the average life span is 34) and I'm not sure when he'll be able to return to the village. The police came to conduct an investigation, but I'm not sure of the results yet. I have talked to friends and people I work with in the village regarding my safety and chances of being accused, and they laugh it off and say that I'm ok. (knock on wood!) They talk about it as if it is no big deal, but clearly it is taken very seriously by many community members, and I hope the intensity of the situation fades with the rains.
I returned from the paradise that is Zanzibar about a month ago, and really enjoyed traveling by train to Tanzania! It was interesting to see the stark differences in the 'development' of the two countries. Tanzania seemed to be a lot more 'put together' than Zambia; it was noticably more organized not only in its economy but in the look and feel of its towns and cities. Zambia is a nation full of Christians, while Tanzania has a strong muslim influence. I loved hearing the call to prayer from the roof of our hostel on the island, and Zanzibar itself was an island rich with history and a mixture of influences. The music festival began at sundown each night, so we spent our days exploring stonetown, going on a spice tour, checking out the shops, and enjoying drinks on the picturesque, 'screensaver' beaches. Smoking sheesha is very popular there, and we enjoyed a variety of exotic flavors as we passed around the communal hookah. The last night of the festival, which featured east african music, was at Kendwa Rocks, along the north shore of the island. We relocated up there for a few nights, staying in a lovely hostel practically right on the beach. We attended the all-night festival finale on the water, and were able to arrange a sunset cruise on a dhow sail boat, as well as snorkeling. There were probably close to 60 Peace Corps volunteers from Zambia who attended the festival, and apparently over 200 Africa PC volunteers in all who travelled to the island for the week, and it was nice to meet people from other areas. There were around 30 of us traveling together on the train, which went through a game park along the journey so we were able to see giraffes, elephants, monkeys, impala, etc. from the windows of the train. Our train arrived too late into Dar for us to make the last ferry to the island, so about 15 of us managed to charter a flight on a small plane. We flew into Zanzibar just as the sun was setting, still in shock that we miraculously managed, as peace corps volunteers, to arrive in such style. The price was not much more than the ferry, and I think someone was looking out for us up in that African sky... :) But the universe quickly caught up with us on the train ride back to Zambia, when the engine seperated from the train cars, making us technically a runaway train until they were able to pull the emergency break on the cars, leading ultimately to our almost 10-hour delay getting back to Bembaland. Of course, I was taking a shower at the time and was hurled against the wall as the train screeched to a halt, splitting my chin open. Hmmm...it always seems like the closer in proximity I get to Zambia when returning from travel, the more things start to go wrong and the more delays there are. Such is life. :) This is how you make memories, right? ;) I've accumulated a variety of scars so far on this continent, each accompanied by a pretty ridiculous story...and I wouldn't trade them for the world. :)
It's now almost 5 a.m. in Lusaka and the sun is going to start rising soon...which means this girl needs to get some shut-eye before the long bus ride up north tonight. I hope you all are well, and I continue to miss you more than you know. Enjoy your spring breaks and hopefully the returning warm weather and sunshine! Much luv from the land of Zam!
.peace.
katie
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
It's funny how used to being alone one can become here. Living in a mud hut by yourself forces your independence and subsequently sharpens your ability to entertain yourself and have full-out conversations with yourself in your head. I do have friends in my village and am lucky to be surrounded by a very warm and welcoming community. I also have established good working relationships with counterparts. But at the end of the day, it's just me cooking dinner over my brazier, reading by candlelight, saying goodnight to pets, and crawling into bed around 8 or 9pm. I wake up in the morning by myself, again light up my brasier for coffee and oats, and am perfectly content spending the day reading in my hammock if there is no work to do. What started out as a feeling of intense loneliness has evolved into a comfort with being alone, and I have learned so much about myself in that process. And feeling more comfortable with myself in my village had lead to feeling more comfortable around Zambians, as I feel I've gained a quiet confidence that took me a year to build.
I just got back from Lusaka early this morning. I had to go down to the big city to pick up my work permit that FINALLY arrived in the country almost a year after my arrival here. I took the night bus down on Wednesday and came back to Mpika on the night bus last night. There were a couple of volunteers there on other business, so it was nice to go out to dinner and catch up with them. For the most part, though, I did a little shopping, took advantage of free internet at the Peace Corps office, and hung out with myself. I went to see a movie ('Yes Man', pretty cute!) and enjoyed eating subway and ice cream. :) I wanted to get back up to Mpika by today, as I am planning on visiting the orphanage here with Jeana. The lady who runs it is Zambian but spent a lot of time in the UK. She returned wanting to give something back to her country and she sounds like a smart, educated Zambian woman. She is of course always looking for assistance with all the children, so I'm hoping to volunteer 1-2 saturdays per month.
I am also planning to watch the superbowl tomorrow (at about 3am) with some other pcvs at a guest house in Mpika. I just hope I can stay awake!
As far as new updates from the village (because we all know how exciting life can be out in the bush...;) ) North Luangwa national park sent some scouts to my area to hunt the crocodiles. Someone was recently attacked while crossing a bridge that's pretty close to my part of the river. Yikes! Apparently Crocodile Hunter should have done a show in my village...
I attended my first funeral in the village. My neighbor's 3-month old baby passed away the other night. Know one knows the cause of death but some seem to be attributing it to witchcraft...not uncommon in these parts. It was an all-night affair but they just came and got me in the morning to pay my respects. I laid awake in my hut almost all night listening to singing, chanting, wailing, and drumming. It was an experience like no other I've ever had to sit among my entire village surrounding a tiny coffin while women paced around wailing and screaming and religious leaders read from the bible. It was a beautiful morning in Zambia, one to be spent harvesting in the fields; the community would morn yet another premature death, then return to life as they know it. That wasn't the first child's death in my community since I've been here, and it won't be the last. Death is by no means taken lightly here, and a woman who loses her baby here mourns just as much as any other mother across the world faced with such a loss. The difference is that death becomes a harsh reality here much sooner. People are forced to deal with it much more often, yet power and intensity of their mourning is unwavering with each funeral. I can't begin to describe the energy that morning at my neighbor's hut, but will always remember the stinging, desperate pain in not only my neighbor's eyes, but on the faces of the community as they gathered to feel that pain alongside her.
I miss you all so much and hope all is well back in the states. I'm sending you lots of love from Zamland, and am trying to keep up with this blog more often. Take care!
Katie
I just got back from Lusaka early this morning. I had to go down to the big city to pick up my work permit that FINALLY arrived in the country almost a year after my arrival here. I took the night bus down on Wednesday and came back to Mpika on the night bus last night. There were a couple of volunteers there on other business, so it was nice to go out to dinner and catch up with them. For the most part, though, I did a little shopping, took advantage of free internet at the Peace Corps office, and hung out with myself. I went to see a movie ('Yes Man', pretty cute!) and enjoyed eating subway and ice cream. :) I wanted to get back up to Mpika by today, as I am planning on visiting the orphanage here with Jeana. The lady who runs it is Zambian but spent a lot of time in the UK. She returned wanting to give something back to her country and she sounds like a smart, educated Zambian woman. She is of course always looking for assistance with all the children, so I'm hoping to volunteer 1-2 saturdays per month.
I am also planning to watch the superbowl tomorrow (at about 3am) with some other pcvs at a guest house in Mpika. I just hope I can stay awake!
As far as new updates from the village (because we all know how exciting life can be out in the bush...;) ) North Luangwa national park sent some scouts to my area to hunt the crocodiles. Someone was recently attacked while crossing a bridge that's pretty close to my part of the river. Yikes! Apparently Crocodile Hunter should have done a show in my village...
I attended my first funeral in the village. My neighbor's 3-month old baby passed away the other night. Know one knows the cause of death but some seem to be attributing it to witchcraft...not uncommon in these parts. It was an all-night affair but they just came and got me in the morning to pay my respects. I laid awake in my hut almost all night listening to singing, chanting, wailing, and drumming. It was an experience like no other I've ever had to sit among my entire village surrounding a tiny coffin while women paced around wailing and screaming and religious leaders read from the bible. It was a beautiful morning in Zambia, one to be spent harvesting in the fields; the community would morn yet another premature death, then return to life as they know it. That wasn't the first child's death in my community since I've been here, and it won't be the last. Death is by no means taken lightly here, and a woman who loses her baby here mourns just as much as any other mother across the world faced with such a loss. The difference is that death becomes a harsh reality here much sooner. People are forced to deal with it much more often, yet power and intensity of their mourning is unwavering with each funeral. I can't begin to describe the energy that morning at my neighbor's hut, but will always remember the stinging, desperate pain in not only my neighbor's eyes, but on the faces of the community as they gathered to feel that pain alongside her.
I miss you all so much and hope all is well back in the states. I'm sending you lots of love from Zamland, and am trying to keep up with this blog more often. Take care!
Katie
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Still Alive!
Wow, has it really been almost 3 months since my last post?! I am so sorry that I've failed to keep up with this blog lately. Honestly, I've been traveling around like crazy, hardly in one place longer than a week. And it doesn't look like I'll be settling down any time soon...
I guess the holiday season came and went since I last wrote. My closest friends in the Peace Corps, 4 other girls from my intake and also in northern province, came to visit me at my site about a week before Thanksgiving. I met them at my turn-off on the great north road and we biked from there to my hut, where we spent two nights before biking about 5 hours through the bush to Danielle's site in Katibunga. It was white people on parade through the ancient african bush! With our peace corps sanctioned helmets we were probably quite a spectacle. We spent 3 nights in Danielle's village before biking across the mountains back to the Great North Road. From there we hitched a ride to Mpika, then up to Kasama for Thanksgiving. Rainy season was just getting started in November so of course we got completely drenched as we rode from my site to Danielle's, arriving at her village a muddy mess. We then attempted to bathe in her river...which was also full of mud. Luckily we were all able to stink up Danielle's hut together. :) I have to say though, the image of the ominous, dark thunderheads we were riding into coming up over the mountains as we biked through the valley will always be frozen in my mind.
Our Peace Corps provincial meetings happened to fall the day before Thanksgiving, and the two staff who travelled up from Lusaka came bearing gifts: 2 turkeys and multiple bottles of wine. God bless america and its huge eating sprees...all 25 of us volunteers in Northern Province helped created a delicious Thanksgiving feast, which we shared with the guards at the house, our house keeper, and also the provincial general service officer and his family. (All Zambian). I'm pretty sure they enjoyed the food immensely, even if it definitely did not include nshima.
Danielle and I were voted onto VAC at the provincial meetings, the PC Volunteer Advisory Committee. It's comparable to a student council, but for the Peace Corps. Every 6 months we travel down to Lusaka and meet with 3 volunteers from every other province along with Lusaka staff and discuss a variety of issues ranging from bike problems to provincial house rules to changes in vacation forms...etc. It's a way for Lusaka staff and volunteers to connect, so volunteers can better understand what goes on in Lusaka and Peace Corps staff can remember what it's like to be a volunteer living in the bush.
In the beginning of December I traveled to Lusaka for a week to participate in a training development workshop for the new health project in Zambia. I am a part of the CAHP health project right now, and the other health project in Zambia is called HAP and deals mainly with HIV/AIDS. Peace Corps has decided to combine the two health projects into one, more comprehensive project, and they wanted input from volunteers in the field on what the training for that new project should look like. It was arduous and, at times, very tedious work, but it was a great opportunity to work with the training officer and other staff to develop a cohesive project that hopes to be more effective than the separate projects as they currently are.
While down in the big city, I decided to take advantage of access to the PC Medical officers and had my stomach checked out. Turns out I was harboring a bacteria in my stomach from my river water...the consequences of which I'll spare you the details. :) They gave me antibiotics, told me to boil my water from now on, and sent me on my way. I finished the antibiotics and now boil, chlorinate, and filter all of my drinking water...and it's made a world of difference. Turns out boiling your water isn't too tough. The hardest part is just waiting for it to cool....which I'd take any day over spending quality time in my pit latrine. :(
Christmas creeped up on me, and at that point I was so ready for a break from this country. I was so tired of biking to meetings and one person showing up, and the cultural differences were frustrating me more than ever. I knew that I would either come back from south africa with a much better outlook on life here, or I would have a tough decision to make come January. Fortunately for me it was the former. It's taken me almost a year to get to the point where I come into my village and feel the familiarity of arriving home. People in my village welcomed me back with smiles, wishing me a merry xmas and a happy new year. I stayed almost 2 weeks in my village before traveling down to Mpika yesterday to watch the presidential inauguration, and they were 2 weeks where I felt more comfortable and more happy in general while in my village than I have in a long time. I'm still attempting to teach one of my neighbor's English, and the other day we broke out into "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" in my hut. Crazy how children in a rural village in Zambia sing the same tune most Americans learn in Kindergarten. I really have no idea what I'm doing, flying by the seat of my pants and making up lessons as I go...but it's all about the small victories, and she is helping me with my Bemba at the same time.
I also am working right now with some of my clinic staff, developing a Life Skills training which we hope to do the first week of February. We are training the youth anti-AIDS club in facilitation on subjects such as HIV transmission, HIV/AIDS and human rights, early pregnancy, alcohol abuse, living Positively with AIDS, etc. It's great to see one of the younger clinic staff specifically take ownership of the sessions he will facilitate during the training, and I'm happy to have the opportunity to work with him and other leaders of the anti-AIDS club.
I am also trying to collaborate with an NGO in Mpika called NZP+ (Network of Zambians Living Positively). They advocate living positively with HIV/AIDS and do a lot of community health education relating to HIV/AIDS. Their staff is really helpful and they do some great work out in the bush, so I'm really hoping to develop a good working relationship with them and ultimately try to form a support group for people who are positive in my community.
Some other volunteers and I are hoping to organize and implement a week-long camp for the empowerment of girls sometime in 2009. It's called camp GLOW (girls leading our world) and has been successfully organized by PC volunteers in the past. We are just in the beginning planning stages, but if we can pull it off I think it will be one of the best things we will have contributed to this country in our 2-year service.
I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa for Christmas and New Year's and had way too much fun. :) It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and although the best way to spend the holidays is with family, I was lucky to be traveling with great company. Lots of wine, surf, sand, sun, mountain-climbing, shopping...we definitely took advantage of our time in a developed city. :) I'm off again to Zanzibar in February for the Sauti Za Busari music festival. It promises to be another crazy adventure!
So that's a 'brief' summary of my life for the past few months. Still Africa. Still a gong show. But I'm feeling more peace of mind about my role in all the craziness, and more mindful of the fact that I'm almost halfway done with my service. I promise to try and write again in the next 3 weeks! Until then: stay warm, be happy, love life. :)
Katie
p.s. YAY obama!
p.p.s. this is probably an unneccessary detail, but I haven't bathed in about 2 weeks. Crocodiles have been spotted in the river, and with the recent news that a villager was eaten by a croc while swiming 5 years ago, I'm staying away. Probably won't have a bathing shelter until March when the rains let up...thank God for wet wipes! :)
I guess the holiday season came and went since I last wrote. My closest friends in the Peace Corps, 4 other girls from my intake and also in northern province, came to visit me at my site about a week before Thanksgiving. I met them at my turn-off on the great north road and we biked from there to my hut, where we spent two nights before biking about 5 hours through the bush to Danielle's site in Katibunga. It was white people on parade through the ancient african bush! With our peace corps sanctioned helmets we were probably quite a spectacle. We spent 3 nights in Danielle's village before biking across the mountains back to the Great North Road. From there we hitched a ride to Mpika, then up to Kasama for Thanksgiving. Rainy season was just getting started in November so of course we got completely drenched as we rode from my site to Danielle's, arriving at her village a muddy mess. We then attempted to bathe in her river...which was also full of mud. Luckily we were all able to stink up Danielle's hut together. :) I have to say though, the image of the ominous, dark thunderheads we were riding into coming up over the mountains as we biked through the valley will always be frozen in my mind.
Our Peace Corps provincial meetings happened to fall the day before Thanksgiving, and the two staff who travelled up from Lusaka came bearing gifts: 2 turkeys and multiple bottles of wine. God bless america and its huge eating sprees...all 25 of us volunteers in Northern Province helped created a delicious Thanksgiving feast, which we shared with the guards at the house, our house keeper, and also the provincial general service officer and his family. (All Zambian). I'm pretty sure they enjoyed the food immensely, even if it definitely did not include nshima.
Danielle and I were voted onto VAC at the provincial meetings, the PC Volunteer Advisory Committee. It's comparable to a student council, but for the Peace Corps. Every 6 months we travel down to Lusaka and meet with 3 volunteers from every other province along with Lusaka staff and discuss a variety of issues ranging from bike problems to provincial house rules to changes in vacation forms...etc. It's a way for Lusaka staff and volunteers to connect, so volunteers can better understand what goes on in Lusaka and Peace Corps staff can remember what it's like to be a volunteer living in the bush.
In the beginning of December I traveled to Lusaka for a week to participate in a training development workshop for the new health project in Zambia. I am a part of the CAHP health project right now, and the other health project in Zambia is called HAP and deals mainly with HIV/AIDS. Peace Corps has decided to combine the two health projects into one, more comprehensive project, and they wanted input from volunteers in the field on what the training for that new project should look like. It was arduous and, at times, very tedious work, but it was a great opportunity to work with the training officer and other staff to develop a cohesive project that hopes to be more effective than the separate projects as they currently are.
While down in the big city, I decided to take advantage of access to the PC Medical officers and had my stomach checked out. Turns out I was harboring a bacteria in my stomach from my river water...the consequences of which I'll spare you the details. :) They gave me antibiotics, told me to boil my water from now on, and sent me on my way. I finished the antibiotics and now boil, chlorinate, and filter all of my drinking water...and it's made a world of difference. Turns out boiling your water isn't too tough. The hardest part is just waiting for it to cool....which I'd take any day over spending quality time in my pit latrine. :(
Christmas creeped up on me, and at that point I was so ready for a break from this country. I was so tired of biking to meetings and one person showing up, and the cultural differences were frustrating me more than ever. I knew that I would either come back from south africa with a much better outlook on life here, or I would have a tough decision to make come January. Fortunately for me it was the former. It's taken me almost a year to get to the point where I come into my village and feel the familiarity of arriving home. People in my village welcomed me back with smiles, wishing me a merry xmas and a happy new year. I stayed almost 2 weeks in my village before traveling down to Mpika yesterday to watch the presidential inauguration, and they were 2 weeks where I felt more comfortable and more happy in general while in my village than I have in a long time. I'm still attempting to teach one of my neighbor's English, and the other day we broke out into "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" in my hut. Crazy how children in a rural village in Zambia sing the same tune most Americans learn in Kindergarten. I really have no idea what I'm doing, flying by the seat of my pants and making up lessons as I go...but it's all about the small victories, and she is helping me with my Bemba at the same time.
I also am working right now with some of my clinic staff, developing a Life Skills training which we hope to do the first week of February. We are training the youth anti-AIDS club in facilitation on subjects such as HIV transmission, HIV/AIDS and human rights, early pregnancy, alcohol abuse, living Positively with AIDS, etc. It's great to see one of the younger clinic staff specifically take ownership of the sessions he will facilitate during the training, and I'm happy to have the opportunity to work with him and other leaders of the anti-AIDS club.
I am also trying to collaborate with an NGO in Mpika called NZP+ (Network of Zambians Living Positively). They advocate living positively with HIV/AIDS and do a lot of community health education relating to HIV/AIDS. Their staff is really helpful and they do some great work out in the bush, so I'm really hoping to develop a good working relationship with them and ultimately try to form a support group for people who are positive in my community.
Some other volunteers and I are hoping to organize and implement a week-long camp for the empowerment of girls sometime in 2009. It's called camp GLOW (girls leading our world) and has been successfully organized by PC volunteers in the past. We are just in the beginning planning stages, but if we can pull it off I think it will be one of the best things we will have contributed to this country in our 2-year service.
I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa for Christmas and New Year's and had way too much fun. :) It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and although the best way to spend the holidays is with family, I was lucky to be traveling with great company. Lots of wine, surf, sand, sun, mountain-climbing, shopping...we definitely took advantage of our time in a developed city. :) I'm off again to Zanzibar in February for the Sauti Za Busari music festival. It promises to be another crazy adventure!
So that's a 'brief' summary of my life for the past few months. Still Africa. Still a gong show. But I'm feeling more peace of mind about my role in all the craziness, and more mindful of the fact that I'm almost halfway done with my service. I promise to try and write again in the next 3 weeks! Until then: stay warm, be happy, love life. :)
Katie
p.s. YAY obama!
p.p.s. this is probably an unneccessary detail, but I haven't bathed in about 2 weeks. Crocodiles have been spotted in the river, and with the recent news that a villager was eaten by a croc while swiming 5 years ago, I'm staying away. Probably won't have a bathing shelter until March when the rains let up...thank God for wet wipes! :)
Sunday, November 2, 2008
I am a sweaty mess more and more often these days. The African sun feels like it's burning me from the inside out most of the time, and the fact that my malaria prophylaxis makes me more sensitive to the sun doesn't help. However, I just got back from a trip to Luapula province with some friends. We camped at Lake Bengweulu and Ntumbacushi falls, meeting up with some other volunteers in that province and enjoying being by water in this hot hot heat. We camped right on the beach in Samfya for 2 nights, then spent a night at the Peace Corps house in Mansa (and 4 hours doing karaoke :) ), then camped 2 nights at some amazing waterfalls up north. I've realized that Zambia is a country full of hidden treasures. Most of Zambia's tourism (not a very booming industry here) comes from its game parks and safaris, with most foreigners flying their private jets or driving in land cruisers straight to the parks while pretty much ignoring the rest of the country. Living here in Zambia has given me the opportunity to travel around this country and explore the undiscovered and untouched beauty here, albeit mostly on unsafe, uncomfortable, and ridiculously slow transport. Waterfalls in the middle of nowhere, marshy, green fields that seem to stretch on forever speckled with the silhouette of mango trees, rocky 'mountains' carved by fast-flowing rivers where hippos bathe. Once you arrive, the natural beauty is immediately worth the painful hitch in the back of a truck for 16 hours with 20 other Zambians, 2 of which are probably sitting on your lap. We got up at 5 a.m. a few days ago to try a 'shortcut' road from Mansa to Kasama. We arrived in Kasama around 10 p.m. on the same day caked in at least 3 layers of dirt and sweat, even after having been pelted with rain for about an hour. Almost the entire road was dirt, and at one point we were being passed by bikers. The truck we were in was carrying petrol, providing the fresh scent of gasoline to our luxurious hitch. In Luwingu, about 180km north of Kasama, we switched trucks and proceeded the rest of the way in a pickup that broke down about every 30km. 9 months ago I probably would have been more stressed out after such an experience with transport, but the 5 of us arrived late at night in kasama with weary smiles on our faces, able to chalk it all up experience. :) At least we know now never to try that specific 'shortcut' again.
I am looking forward to pulling an all-nighter and watching the U.S. elections in mpika on Tuesday. The Zambian presidential elections just occurred a few days ago here in Mpika, along with numerous charges of corruption against the victorious candidate. The candidate that lost is from mpika so I'm hoping there are no negative repercussions(sp?) in my area. If rioting or conflict occurs it will most likely take place in Lusaka, but hopefully the country remains peaceful.
The rains have started over here, but have mostly been in the late afternoon or at night. The rainy season will last for about 5 months, but I'm looking forward to the landscape becoming a lot more green and lush. Everything has been so dry with all the burning. I'm not looking forward, however, to how the rains will affect my work in the village. In October I scheduled meetings with my NHCs and only one was 'successful' (and by successful I mean at least half of the NHC showed up). Its incredibly frustrating to ride your bike for an hour or more in blistering heat just to find that one or two people have showed up to your meeting. Where can you go from there? If people won't even show up to meetings, won't even take the first step to work with you, what can you do? I'll be the most effective volunteer in my village if I work with those who want to work with me. I've established good relationships with a handful of community leaders so they are the ones of I will work with the most. I'm here to capacity-build and work with community members, not to be a cheerleader. Once I realized that working with those who are already motivated to improve health in their community and trying to get them to work with those who are unmotivated can keep me from going insane with frustration, I became better able to plan what I can realistically hope to accomplish in the next year and a half. I also hope to work more closely with the district health office in the future and attempt to initiate some improvements in their approach to rural health development. For example, all of the healthcare education material given to rural communities in Zambia is written in English. Yes, it's the official language of Zambia, but maybe 2% of villagers in my area can speak, read, or comprehend it. The information should be presented in Bemba until the ministry of education can effectively educate Zambians in their official language. The implementation of policy in the health and education sectors of the Zambian government is a mess, and I'm quickly realizing that every sector affects the other, and their improvement depends on cooperation between all sectors (health, education, agriculture, etc.) I have become so interested in public policy while I've been here, and have found myself wanting to learn more about why these policies were developed in the first place and what is preventing them from being implemented.
Well, it's about time to wrap up this post. I've been missing America a lot lately, especially as the holiday season approaches, but I did dress up as Jazzercize barbie for halloweeen, all the volunteers in northern province are planning to cook a big thanksgiving feast together (turkey and all!), and I am booking tickets to wine country for christmas and cape town for new years...all things that take my mind off of being so far away from family and friends. I also have made such great friends here, and I don't know what I would do without them in this country. I love my village and am definitely having the experience of a lifetime, yet all while realizing how lucky I am to have the best family and friends a girl could ask for back home. I just gotta keep on keepin' on. Sending you all my love from Zamland!
Katie
I am looking forward to pulling an all-nighter and watching the U.S. elections in mpika on Tuesday. The Zambian presidential elections just occurred a few days ago here in Mpika, along with numerous charges of corruption against the victorious candidate. The candidate that lost is from mpika so I'm hoping there are no negative repercussions(sp?) in my area. If rioting or conflict occurs it will most likely take place in Lusaka, but hopefully the country remains peaceful.
The rains have started over here, but have mostly been in the late afternoon or at night. The rainy season will last for about 5 months, but I'm looking forward to the landscape becoming a lot more green and lush. Everything has been so dry with all the burning. I'm not looking forward, however, to how the rains will affect my work in the village. In October I scheduled meetings with my NHCs and only one was 'successful' (and by successful I mean at least half of the NHC showed up). Its incredibly frustrating to ride your bike for an hour or more in blistering heat just to find that one or two people have showed up to your meeting. Where can you go from there? If people won't even show up to meetings, won't even take the first step to work with you, what can you do? I'll be the most effective volunteer in my village if I work with those who want to work with me. I've established good relationships with a handful of community leaders so they are the ones of I will work with the most. I'm here to capacity-build and work with community members, not to be a cheerleader. Once I realized that working with those who are already motivated to improve health in their community and trying to get them to work with those who are unmotivated can keep me from going insane with frustration, I became better able to plan what I can realistically hope to accomplish in the next year and a half. I also hope to work more closely with the district health office in the future and attempt to initiate some improvements in their approach to rural health development. For example, all of the healthcare education material given to rural communities in Zambia is written in English. Yes, it's the official language of Zambia, but maybe 2% of villagers in my area can speak, read, or comprehend it. The information should be presented in Bemba until the ministry of education can effectively educate Zambians in their official language. The implementation of policy in the health and education sectors of the Zambian government is a mess, and I'm quickly realizing that every sector affects the other, and their improvement depends on cooperation between all sectors (health, education, agriculture, etc.) I have become so interested in public policy while I've been here, and have found myself wanting to learn more about why these policies were developed in the first place and what is preventing them from being implemented.
Well, it's about time to wrap up this post. I've been missing America a lot lately, especially as the holiday season approaches, but I did dress up as Jazzercize barbie for halloweeen, all the volunteers in northern province are planning to cook a big thanksgiving feast together (turkey and all!), and I am booking tickets to wine country for christmas and cape town for new years...all things that take my mind off of being so far away from family and friends. I also have made such great friends here, and I don't know what I would do without them in this country. I love my village and am definitely having the experience of a lifetime, yet all while realizing how lucky I am to have the best family and friends a girl could ask for back home. I just gotta keep on keepin' on. Sending you all my love from Zamland!
Katie
Monday, October 6, 2008
I'm still here in Mpika trying to get some work done today in town and meet with an NGO this afternoon. I had a great birthday weekend with some other volunteers! On saturday we went to some waterfalls near mpika, swam in the nice cold water, and just hung out. On the downside, we found out that Kathy has decided to return home to the states. Luckily we were able to spend a great last weekend with her. She took the bus down to Lusaka last night and will be flying back to California in a few days. She is the third volunteer who has left Mpika in the span of a month, and when other volunteers are 99% of your support while living out in the bush it's really difficult to see them leave. As I mentioned before, there were certain safety and security issues that forced Becky and Hannah to leave, all stemming from one Zambian who lives in Mpika. What makes the situation even more frustrating is that one person can affect the services of 3 volunteers all in the same area. It makes me sick. It would be just me, Danielle, and Jeanna left in Mpika, but 2 new volunteers just got posted in the district and they seem pretty cool. Katy is another volunteer who will be finishing her service in about a month. I wish Kathy the best as she returns to Americaland, and I'm so grateful for having gotten the chance to know her. She is an amazing person and an invaluable volunteer. She will be greatly missed.
It's really been crazy the ups and downs I have gone through here. One week I'll be feeling great about life here, feel like I'm making headway with my project work, and will feel like I'm assimilating to the culture as best as I can. The next week I will be asking myself what the hell I'm still doing here, feel discouraged about work, and the culture makes me want to pull out my hair (which has been consistently falling out since I got here.) If I was truly out on my own in the bush for 2 years with very minimal contact with other Peace Corps volunteers I honestly don't know if I could make it here for 2 years. It is so hard to be living in a place where you will never fit in. People will always point at you and call you musungu, will always think that you have limitless amounts of money, and will always laugh at you no matter what you do. Of course I have learned to brush off most of it, but it's impossible not to let it affect you. You have to be true to yourself in order to survive here, and that includes being honest with yourself and knowing when you need to be around people who are feeling what you are feeling and who aren't from Zambia. Don't get me wrong, I have grown to love this country and the people of Zambia, but the fact remains that I will always be an outsider no matter what I do. I can still build strong relationships and make great connections with people, but due to the history of colonization and subsequent 'development' in Zambia I will always be viewed in a certain way here, and ultimately it is not the fault of Zambians. And I have to stay true to who I am no matter what circumstance I find myself in. For example, when I first got here I planned to attend many different church services just to get a feel for what religious experience is here in Zambia, but lately have felt that my attending services here is in a way supporting the christianization of this country, and I do not support the brainwashing it has affectively accomplished.
When I first came to Zambia I almost expected to develop a sense of negativity toward America. Yet after being here for 8 months I have found myself feeling the opposite. I really miss living in the U.S. and feel incredibly fortunate to be an American. America, of course, has it's problems, but I would not want be a female growing up anywhere else. I also miss the diversity of America. Some Zambians told me they thought that if they went to America they would be pointed at by white people and called, "black person" (much like they do to foreigners in Zambia), and I explained to them the diversity of America and that it just wouldn't happen. They seem completely baffled by the idea of black americans. I try to explain to them the civil rights movement as well as the emancipation of women in america. They mostly just look at me with blank stares, as if they have never heard of such things, and some of them are educated Zambians! They tell me they would like to have an American wife and I tell them they don't want an American wife because any self-respecting American woman will not cook and clean for you with your children on her back in the hot sun while you sit in the shade under a tree and get drunk. She will also not justify your beatings of her, and won't believe she deserves them because of your interpretation of the Bible. As I have written before, Zambia would change for the better if only the women here realized the power they hold and that the country would fall apart if they were to stop working for one day. I am incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to live in Zambia for 2 years and learn everything that I am learning here, but I think I will be ready to go home in a year and a half to values that I believe in, and to the respect of values different from one's own.
I do love this country though, despite my frustrations, and I am finding that some of the things that frustrate me most are also some of the reasons I choose to stay. My life is one crazy story after another, but I have learned to take one day at a time. And I've also learned that everything has a way of working out. You just have to be patient.
Miss you all! All my luv from Zamland.
Katie
It's really been crazy the ups and downs I have gone through here. One week I'll be feeling great about life here, feel like I'm making headway with my project work, and will feel like I'm assimilating to the culture as best as I can. The next week I will be asking myself what the hell I'm still doing here, feel discouraged about work, and the culture makes me want to pull out my hair (which has been consistently falling out since I got here.) If I was truly out on my own in the bush for 2 years with very minimal contact with other Peace Corps volunteers I honestly don't know if I could make it here for 2 years. It is so hard to be living in a place where you will never fit in. People will always point at you and call you musungu, will always think that you have limitless amounts of money, and will always laugh at you no matter what you do. Of course I have learned to brush off most of it, but it's impossible not to let it affect you. You have to be true to yourself in order to survive here, and that includes being honest with yourself and knowing when you need to be around people who are feeling what you are feeling and who aren't from Zambia. Don't get me wrong, I have grown to love this country and the people of Zambia, but the fact remains that I will always be an outsider no matter what I do. I can still build strong relationships and make great connections with people, but due to the history of colonization and subsequent 'development' in Zambia I will always be viewed in a certain way here, and ultimately it is not the fault of Zambians. And I have to stay true to who I am no matter what circumstance I find myself in. For example, when I first got here I planned to attend many different church services just to get a feel for what religious experience is here in Zambia, but lately have felt that my attending services here is in a way supporting the christianization of this country, and I do not support the brainwashing it has affectively accomplished.
When I first came to Zambia I almost expected to develop a sense of negativity toward America. Yet after being here for 8 months I have found myself feeling the opposite. I really miss living in the U.S. and feel incredibly fortunate to be an American. America, of course, has it's problems, but I would not want be a female growing up anywhere else. I also miss the diversity of America. Some Zambians told me they thought that if they went to America they would be pointed at by white people and called, "black person" (much like they do to foreigners in Zambia), and I explained to them the diversity of America and that it just wouldn't happen. They seem completely baffled by the idea of black americans. I try to explain to them the civil rights movement as well as the emancipation of women in america. They mostly just look at me with blank stares, as if they have never heard of such things, and some of them are educated Zambians! They tell me they would like to have an American wife and I tell them they don't want an American wife because any self-respecting American woman will not cook and clean for you with your children on her back in the hot sun while you sit in the shade under a tree and get drunk. She will also not justify your beatings of her, and won't believe she deserves them because of your interpretation of the Bible. As I have written before, Zambia would change for the better if only the women here realized the power they hold and that the country would fall apart if they were to stop working for one day. I am incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to live in Zambia for 2 years and learn everything that I am learning here, but I think I will be ready to go home in a year and a half to values that I believe in, and to the respect of values different from one's own.
I do love this country though, despite my frustrations, and I am finding that some of the things that frustrate me most are also some of the reasons I choose to stay. My life is one crazy story after another, but I have learned to take one day at a time. And I've also learned that everything has a way of working out. You just have to be patient.
Miss you all! All my luv from Zamland.
Katie
Friday, October 3, 2008
24, single, and no i do NOT have any children :)
Muli shani! I just got into Mpika this morning from Katibunga, Danielle's site. She is my "closest' Peace Corps Neighbor, and I spent my birthday biking about 80k to her place, then today we biked another 45k into town. Have I mentioned that her and I went to the same middle school and used to play soccer together? small, small world. :) I got to her place in the evening and we made velveeta shells and cheese (sent from America) for dinner, and apple strudel that she made for dessert. I would have to rank it up there on one of the best bday dinners ever. :) It's been a busy couple weeks back in the village. The heat has been brutal, but mud huts are an engineering feat! They actually stay pretty cool during the day...no need for an air conditioner here in Africa. Last week one of my friends in the village stopped by and said he was going to see some elephants in a couple days, so I asked if I could tag along. Last Friday we started off in the morning and biked about 4 hours through the bush to Chilanga Scout Camp. I'll write more about my experience there in another post, but they people living at the camp were extremely hospitable. They made my friend and I lunch, then 2 scouts, sporting huge (tranquilizer?) guns and heavy duty boots and camo gear led us into the thick bush, along the Lufila river. About an hour into the hike, we came upon hippos playing in the water. We were so close to them, and they were HUGE. They just looked right at us, then kept playing in the water. Apparently hippos are very territorial and will run after you, slash your achilles with their tusks, then stomp you to death if they feel threatened...good thing we had the scouts with us. We didn't see any elephants that day, but I'm sure I'll have the chance to see them again. I was more than satisfied with just seeing the hippos! By the time we hiked back to the scout camp it was too late to bike home, so the village made us dinner and set up a little bed in the camp office for me to sleep in. I was overwhelmed by their hospitality and extremely grateful for a bed to sleep on. :) Oh, and upon our return from seeing the hippos the scouts told me the village was ready to hear my speech...speech? what speech? I just came here to see hippos! I ended up giving a health talk that turned into a Q and A on hiv/aids. It was an experience I'll never forget. I don't have much time now to right about it, so hopefully in my next posting I can go into more detail.
So other events from the past couple weeks...my bathing shelter burned down. They are lighting all the bush in the country on fire right now and the fires themselves escalate pretty quickly. I went to bed thinking the fire in my yard had receded to the river, but came outside about an hour later and my bathing shelter was in flames. Of course my soap, shampoo, razors, basin, and some laundry I had done earlier that day were all inside. I can handle not having the bathing shelter for the SCORCHING month of october because I can just bathe in the river...who knows, maybe I'll just have to bathe down there for the rest of my service...When my neighbors came over that night to begin the burning, I thought to myself, what better time to make s'mores! I had bought the supplies in Kasama and was going to introduce the delicious treats to my neighbors sometime soon anyway, so I told all the kids to find a stick and we roasted marshmallows while my yard was on fire. They seemed baffled by the whole concept, but I think they liked the s'mores. They are kids, it's sugar, enough said. :)
Someone stole all the nuts and screws that attach my front wheel to my bike, so I was riding it around praying I wouldn't be doing a nosedive. Luckily a friend came and got it one day and said he would be back in the afternoon. Later that day, he brought it back almost completely fixed. Of course I can't find tomatoes or toilet paper in my village, but spare bike parts they have. Add it to the list of things here that don't make any sense. I'm starting to compile a list of things that I have yet to understand here in Zambia. For example, Zambians are the most patient people on earth but can't stand in a line to save their lives. Everyone budges! Just this morning at a restaurant about 5 people in a row reached handfuls of money over my head and shouted out what they wanted as the workers completely ignored me and served them first. Also, the pace of life here is pretty slow and everything takes an extremely long time from transport to meetings. However, people drive crazy fast down streets in their cars honking like crazy as if they have a million places to go and a million things to do. As a pedestrian, you are at the bottom of the food chain. Not only do you need to dodge cars, but bikes can creep up on you too. Most of the frustrations I had in my first few months here I am now able to laugh off. Maybe the fact that so many things don't make sense here and life is kind of a gong show is one reason why I also love Zambia.
I will try to write more soon. I am camping at the waterfalls in Mpika this weekend with some friends and will be staying in town probably until Tuesday to get some work done. I miss home and everyone, and I hope all is well back in the states. All I hear about on the BBC lately is how horrible the economy is over there right now. There's more talk about that than the election! I hope things get better soon. Stay well, much luv from Zambia.
Katie
So other events from the past couple weeks...my bathing shelter burned down. They are lighting all the bush in the country on fire right now and the fires themselves escalate pretty quickly. I went to bed thinking the fire in my yard had receded to the river, but came outside about an hour later and my bathing shelter was in flames. Of course my soap, shampoo, razors, basin, and some laundry I had done earlier that day were all inside. I can handle not having the bathing shelter for the SCORCHING month of october because I can just bathe in the river...who knows, maybe I'll just have to bathe down there for the rest of my service...When my neighbors came over that night to begin the burning, I thought to myself, what better time to make s'mores! I had bought the supplies in Kasama and was going to introduce the delicious treats to my neighbors sometime soon anyway, so I told all the kids to find a stick and we roasted marshmallows while my yard was on fire. They seemed baffled by the whole concept, but I think they liked the s'mores. They are kids, it's sugar, enough said. :)
Someone stole all the nuts and screws that attach my front wheel to my bike, so I was riding it around praying I wouldn't be doing a nosedive. Luckily a friend came and got it one day and said he would be back in the afternoon. Later that day, he brought it back almost completely fixed. Of course I can't find tomatoes or toilet paper in my village, but spare bike parts they have. Add it to the list of things here that don't make any sense. I'm starting to compile a list of things that I have yet to understand here in Zambia. For example, Zambians are the most patient people on earth but can't stand in a line to save their lives. Everyone budges! Just this morning at a restaurant about 5 people in a row reached handfuls of money over my head and shouted out what they wanted as the workers completely ignored me and served them first. Also, the pace of life here is pretty slow and everything takes an extremely long time from transport to meetings. However, people drive crazy fast down streets in their cars honking like crazy as if they have a million places to go and a million things to do. As a pedestrian, you are at the bottom of the food chain. Not only do you need to dodge cars, but bikes can creep up on you too. Most of the frustrations I had in my first few months here I am now able to laugh off. Maybe the fact that so many things don't make sense here and life is kind of a gong show is one reason why I also love Zambia.
I will try to write more soon. I am camping at the waterfalls in Mpika this weekend with some friends and will be staying in town probably until Tuesday to get some work done. I miss home and everyone, and I hope all is well back in the states. All I hear about on the BBC lately is how horrible the economy is over there right now. There's more talk about that than the election! I hope things get better soon. Stay well, much luv from Zambia.
Katie
Sunday, September 21, 2008
.a little slice of paradise.
We all packed up and left Nkhata Bay at 6 a.m. Monday morning, September 1st. I got back to my village Friday evening, September 5th. That's African transport for you in a nutshell. :)
Following a week of in-service traning in Lusaka, a group of us headed east to Lake Malawi. We all split up and basically said, 'meet ya there!'. It felt a little like rat race at times when we would see eachother on the road, knowing that the few you just passed on the side of the road had every chance of passing you up later in the day. But the Gods of hitch-hiking were smiling on Kai, Davy, and me because we ended up getting a sweet ride with a couple German World Bank guys who drove us all the way from a big bridge in the eastern province of Zambia to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. They had stayed in a Holiday Inn in the Lusaka the night before and even offered us pastries they had taken from the continental breakfast earlier that morning when we all stopped for a lunch break on the side of the road. They helped us to swiftly cross the border and dropped us off right outside the Lilongwe Peace Corps house before dark. And the best part is they wouldn't accept any money so we literally traveled halfway across Zambia and into Malawi for FREE. Another part of our group showed up in Lilongwe later that night and although they looked a little more frazzled from travel and had spent more money they definitely had some crazy stories from the day.
We got to know some Malawian Peace Corps volunteers who were also staying at the PC house in Lilongwe, and they seemed pretty friendly. They helped us out a lot with how to get from Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay and also told us approximate costs since we all know there would be some minibus price inflation for the 'musungus'. Malawi is a poorer country than Zambia and everything there is incredibly cheap. Traveling to Malawi for vacation is popular among Zambian PCVs for that reason. However, even though the Malawian PCVs can pretty much go to the lake whenever they want, they don't receive as high of a living allowance as we do so it's a lot more expensive for them to travel to Zambia than it is for us to travel to Malawi. Also, visas into Malawi are free while a visa into Zambia costs about $150.
The 7 of us set out early the next morning for the lake, hopping from minibus to minibus along the way. At our last minibus station before reaching our final destination, we loaded our final van carlsberg in hand to celebrate the last stretch of 2 loooong days of travel and our first time out of the country in 6 months.
Nkhata Bay is nestled into rolling, rocky foothills on the northern edge of Lake Malawi. The water is a mediterranean blue that fools you into thinking its an ocean. The faintest hint of a boundary is in the faded outline of the mountains of Tanzania and Mozambique in the distance on a clear day. Most days, however, the lake and sky blur out the horizon line and the dug-out canoes become distant specks suspended mid-air.
Our group of 12 stayed in a beach house right on the lake, complete with a big deck overlooking the water ideal for both sun-bathing and star-gazing. Actually, a few of us only slept in our rooms for one night. Every other night we pulled our mattresses out onto the deck and fell asleep under the stars. Seeing the lights of the canoes full of fishermen at night light up the lake made braving the gnats and mosquitoes worth it. I didn't even mind being woken up every morning around 4 to the singing and chattering Malawian fishermen hauling in their boats full of that night's catch.
Nkhata bay is intriguing in that the lodges for travellers are dotted throughout the bay among the homes of the villagers. A backpacker is likely to feel that they are experiencing the "true Malawi" in a sense, and the villagers are able to benefit directly from tourism. Yet after living for 6 months in a village I was struck by the difference between this Malawian village on a hill and my village in a remote Northern corner of Zambia. The rural community of which I have become a part in Lufila has remained virtually untouched by the tourist industry and direct foreign contact in general. I am a novelty as I stroll down the main street (or dirt road if you want to be technical) because I am probably one of the first if not the first white person who has ventured to their community, let alone living there as they do for 2 years. Although tourism has helped the indigenous community in Nkhata Bay to flourish, I found myself feeling eager to get back 'home' to my village, to Africans who remain untainted by tourism. Malawians in Nkhata Bay are very friendly, but you can tell they are used to 'pleasing' foreigners, always knowing the right jokes to tell or what to say to make the sale. I missed the genuine friendliness of Zambians; the pure eagerness to get to know you as well as teach you their culture. Their smile hasn't fallen on backpackers from around the world, but instead, teeth or no teeth, illustrates a simple happiness to greet you. And if you greet them in their tribal language? Then it's as if you just handed them a million kwacha. :)
So as I wrote before, I was planning to get SCUBA certified in Malawi, and to my own surprise I actually went through with it. If I had known how tough it was actually going to be I might not have shown up for class Monday morning. I started to conquer one fear while another was magnified. Turns out breathing from a tank underwater goes against all intuition; remembering to relax, breathe slowly, and not freak out is the hardest part of scuba diving. I was that girl who made the instructors check her respirator themselves before diving and who literally cut off the cirulation in the instructors hand while going through a semi panic attack on the floor of Lake Malawi. My fear of deep water and enclosed spaces collided and the first dives we did were 2 of the most unenjoyable experiences I've ever had. I was ready to throw in the towel after day 2 but my extreme stubborness came to the rescue and by the fifth dive on the last day I was loving seeing all the beautiful fishies and was learning to trick my mind into not thinking about the fact that my only source of air was a tank strapped to my back. My fear of fish began to fade, as they were a welcome distraction to thinking too hard about my breathing. As for our group, 8 hours of class and diving a day paid off when we all passed and receieved our certifications on day 4. Although our grace underwater could use some work (lots of whacking eachother in the head with flippers) we all stuck it out and are already planning to dive in places like Mozambique and Zanzibar. Throughout the week, our instructors kept tabs on what they referred to as 'beer points'. If someone forgot to lay their tank down on its side before walking away from it, and one of them noticed, that person earned 1 beer point and at the end of the week had to buy everyone a round of beer. Does it surprise you that yours truly paid for drinks on the last day after class? :) Although we were pumped about getting certified, the 5 of us were ready to spend our remaining 3 days in Malawi soaking up the sun with our already lobster-red friends. On Saturday we all rented a boat. We got to feed some Fish Eagles and do some cliff-jumping before heading to a sandy inlet where we snorkeled a little bit and tried our hand at paddling a dug-out wooden canoe. Needless to say it's way harder than it looks and we all looked absolutely ridiculous. After enjoying a home-cooked lunch on the beach we headed back to our house to get ready for the Nkhata Bay night life. We were a pretty big group and definitely brought the party wherever we went. The owner of a neighboring lodge told me the craziest people he's had stay at his lodge have been Peace Corps Zambia volunteers. Makes sense I guess....Zambia is one of the only remaining Peace Corps countries that is truly rural, and we tend to take advantage of our time out of the bush-bush. Even most Malawi PCVs have electricity and running water. Not a single Zam volunteer has either. Long story short, the 12 of us left Malawi early Monday morning looking and feeling pretty worse for the wear. Luckily we had a couple days to 'sleep' on transport. We departed in our minibus alrady planning to make it back sometime during the remainder of our service. It was a wonderful vacation in a breathtakingly beautiful part of Africa, but we were ready to get back home to village life and 10 hours of sleep a night. :)
Due to some safety and security issues in my district, my really good friend Becky had to leave Mpika and move to Luapula Province on Thursday. Danielle, Jeanna, and I helped her pack. It was a really sad day to see her go. She has been a huge support for me, especially during my struggles in the very beginning. And she's my fellow minnesota soccer girl. :) I am hopping to visit her at ther new site in Mansa district in a few weeks. Hannah, an amazing volunteer in Mpika who had been here for about a year and a half was forced to end her service and move back to America for the same security reasons. We will miss her tons but I hope everything works out for her back in the land where everything works...
So it's back to village life for me. I missed it. Becky brought me back some starbucks coffee grounds from America (she recently went back for a wedding in MN), and I spend a good 5 minutes every morning just inhaling the aroma of the grounds. :) Plus my mom sent me about a 2-year supply of peanut m&m's so I'm in heaven. I can officially start working now, so I'm gong to be busy working with the neighborhood health committees (and forming or reforming them in most cases) as well as continuing to work with community leaders. The in-charge/midwife at the clinic is my counterpart/colleague so I discuss most of what I plan to do with him. He is extremely knowledgeable about health care in Zambia and a big soccer fan so I enjoy stopping by the clinic to talk with him. While basically running the clinic by himself, he manages also to study for further courses he is taking in Kasama. He always watches out for me, too, and if I have any problems in my village, such as thievery, he is the first person I go to. One frustration I am beginning to have is that no one can give me a straight answer as to the activity ( or inactivity for that matter) of my neighborhood health committees. Ba Chikwaba, my counterparrt, tells me none have more than 4-5 members, but the chairperson of each committee tells me they have 15 members (the ideal number). hmmm.... So I wrote bush notes to each chairperson and even hand-delivered some by bike letting them know I'd like to meet with their NHC's as soon as possible. At this point I am waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully by next month I'll have had a chance to meet with all 7 NHCs and assess whether they need to hold community meetings to elect more/new members. I feel a little rushed to get the ball rolling with them as soon as possible because rainy season is fast approaching and the pace of life slows down even more come November.
At this point I should probably explain a little more clearly my job and role as a CAHP project volunteer in Lufila. I think I tried to explain it a few months ago but it has even become more clearly definied for me since I arrived in Zambia 7 months ago. Here's a metaphor: pricture me as the hand holding the back of the bike seat and the NHCs are learning to ride the bike. I teach and support them, even giving them a little motivational push until ultimately they are on their own. My job is all about education and empowerment of the NHCs. Their role is to address the healthcare needs of their respective villages and my role is to build their capacity to do so. In the Zambian Ministry of Health structure, the ministry itself is in charge of 9 provinces. Those 9 provincial health offices oversee 72 district health offices. Within each district there are about 25 rural health centers (or gov't. clinics), each of which serves a catchment area that ideally contains 3-20 active neighborhood health committees. Decentralization of health care in Zambia aims to allow this hierarchy to work from the ground up, with NHCs communicating needs and issues as well as reporting on healthcare activity to their RHC (rural health center), who then reports to the district, and on and on up the ladder. In a perfect Zambian world this system would empower villagers in rural areas to work within their communities to address health issues...but of course the system is flawed. Frustrations occur during frequent breakdowns in communication and many NHC members are left understandably feeling powerless and insignificant. Their membership on the NHC is completely voluntary yet still a status symbol within their community. Some members are extremely motivated to address the needs of their community while others view membership as a sort of popularity contest. As I stated before, I am currently experiencing some frustrations with the NHCs in my clinic's catchment area because the committees were supposed to be formed 5 years ago and they have gone through quite a bit of training, yet not all members are active and many NHC communities have not been sensitized to the role of the NHC. A training is useless unless there are enough NHC members to implement the skills they learned in the training in their communities. I am ultimately supposed to train the NHCs in the 6 major health thrusts in Zambia and consistently do follow-up trainings on project design and management, action planning, and budget-making, etc. I am supposed to constantly monitor and evaluate their progress throughout the next 2 years. Yet I am starting to believe that social mobilization, forming the foundation of the NHC, is still a work-in-progress in my area. Although the NHCs were apparently formed 5 years ago, I feel as if I'm starting from scratch. Its ok though, because as a first generation volunteer in my village my main focus is to build a solid foundation with my NHCs on which the 2 generations of volunteers that will follow me can build. Building the full capacity of the NHCs is a 6-year process, according to Peace Corps and the ministry of health in Zambia, and rushing my NHCs now will only hurt them in the end. So I am trying to build good relationships with them as well as other community leaders so that my 2-year service here is not full of frustrations and so that life is a little easier for the 2 volunteers who will live here after I leave. In America, we become so used to always seeing tangible results. You put a lot of work into something fully expecting a result that is both measurable and reflective of the hard work you put into it. I believe the main objective of Peace Corps as an organization, although they may not come right out and say it, is not so much direct, tangible development as it is the building of solid relationships, 'keeping the peace' if you will. Education, whether it be in health, agriculture, or the rural school system, forms the cornerstone of Peace Corps grassroots development aims in Zambia, but you can only educate sustainably if you form good relationships with those in your community. Not only America but other first-world countries tend to exploit the third world and although aid intentions aren't necessarily malicious, the desire to force our way of doing things on those of a poorer and more vulnerable country essentially is, in effect. Peace Corps is by no means a perfect organization. It's disorganized and lacks accountability in many areas, but I respect it in that it doesn't place tangible development on a pedestal as many NGOs and other foreign aid agencies seem to do. Actually Peace Corps discourages its volunteers from constructing building or using large sums of donation money to fund rural projects. As cliche as it sounds, Peace Corps is working in developing countries like Zambia to build relationships, not monuments. They are much more interested in teaching a group of community leaders in the bush how to write a proposal to fund something like the construction of a well than a Peace Corps volunteer moving into the village and building the well themselves. Although the constant focus on sustainability can be both frustrating and exhausting, it has forced me to rethink my views on foreign AID to Africa. There is a constant dialogue among PC volunteers regarding the answer to development and the correct way to go about it. And the truth is no one knows the answer. But I have to believe that if living in the heart of an African village for 2 years gets me no closer to an answer to development here, then at least I will have come closer to understanding the hearts of Africans themselves. And despite constant diarrhea, contracting malaria, hitching rides in the back of tomato trucks, or riding my bike 30k just to buy eggs that have mostly cracked by the time I bike home, it's still a desire to understand Zambia and the people here, as well as to begin to formulate my own answer to devlopment that gets me out of bed every morning. That and the African sky. :) .much luv.
-katie
"the movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside. For them the earth is not exploitable ground but the living mother."
"the criterion is how you treat the weak. The measure of civilized behavior is compassion."
Following a week of in-service traning in Lusaka, a group of us headed east to Lake Malawi. We all split up and basically said, 'meet ya there!'. It felt a little like rat race at times when we would see eachother on the road, knowing that the few you just passed on the side of the road had every chance of passing you up later in the day. But the Gods of hitch-hiking were smiling on Kai, Davy, and me because we ended up getting a sweet ride with a couple German World Bank guys who drove us all the way from a big bridge in the eastern province of Zambia to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. They had stayed in a Holiday Inn in the Lusaka the night before and even offered us pastries they had taken from the continental breakfast earlier that morning when we all stopped for a lunch break on the side of the road. They helped us to swiftly cross the border and dropped us off right outside the Lilongwe Peace Corps house before dark. And the best part is they wouldn't accept any money so we literally traveled halfway across Zambia and into Malawi for FREE. Another part of our group showed up in Lilongwe later that night and although they looked a little more frazzled from travel and had spent more money they definitely had some crazy stories from the day.
We got to know some Malawian Peace Corps volunteers who were also staying at the PC house in Lilongwe, and they seemed pretty friendly. They helped us out a lot with how to get from Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay and also told us approximate costs since we all know there would be some minibus price inflation for the 'musungus'. Malawi is a poorer country than Zambia and everything there is incredibly cheap. Traveling to Malawi for vacation is popular among Zambian PCVs for that reason. However, even though the Malawian PCVs can pretty much go to the lake whenever they want, they don't receive as high of a living allowance as we do so it's a lot more expensive for them to travel to Zambia than it is for us to travel to Malawi. Also, visas into Malawi are free while a visa into Zambia costs about $150.
The 7 of us set out early the next morning for the lake, hopping from minibus to minibus along the way. At our last minibus station before reaching our final destination, we loaded our final van carlsberg in hand to celebrate the last stretch of 2 loooong days of travel and our first time out of the country in 6 months.
Nkhata Bay is nestled into rolling, rocky foothills on the northern edge of Lake Malawi. The water is a mediterranean blue that fools you into thinking its an ocean. The faintest hint of a boundary is in the faded outline of the mountains of Tanzania and Mozambique in the distance on a clear day. Most days, however, the lake and sky blur out the horizon line and the dug-out canoes become distant specks suspended mid-air.
Our group of 12 stayed in a beach house right on the lake, complete with a big deck overlooking the water ideal for both sun-bathing and star-gazing. Actually, a few of us only slept in our rooms for one night. Every other night we pulled our mattresses out onto the deck and fell asleep under the stars. Seeing the lights of the canoes full of fishermen at night light up the lake made braving the gnats and mosquitoes worth it. I didn't even mind being woken up every morning around 4 to the singing and chattering Malawian fishermen hauling in their boats full of that night's catch.
Nkhata bay is intriguing in that the lodges for travellers are dotted throughout the bay among the homes of the villagers. A backpacker is likely to feel that they are experiencing the "true Malawi" in a sense, and the villagers are able to benefit directly from tourism. Yet after living for 6 months in a village I was struck by the difference between this Malawian village on a hill and my village in a remote Northern corner of Zambia. The rural community of which I have become a part in Lufila has remained virtually untouched by the tourist industry and direct foreign contact in general. I am a novelty as I stroll down the main street (or dirt road if you want to be technical) because I am probably one of the first if not the first white person who has ventured to their community, let alone living there as they do for 2 years. Although tourism has helped the indigenous community in Nkhata Bay to flourish, I found myself feeling eager to get back 'home' to my village, to Africans who remain untainted by tourism. Malawians in Nkhata Bay are very friendly, but you can tell they are used to 'pleasing' foreigners, always knowing the right jokes to tell or what to say to make the sale. I missed the genuine friendliness of Zambians; the pure eagerness to get to know you as well as teach you their culture. Their smile hasn't fallen on backpackers from around the world, but instead, teeth or no teeth, illustrates a simple happiness to greet you. And if you greet them in their tribal language? Then it's as if you just handed them a million kwacha. :)
So as I wrote before, I was planning to get SCUBA certified in Malawi, and to my own surprise I actually went through with it. If I had known how tough it was actually going to be I might not have shown up for class Monday morning. I started to conquer one fear while another was magnified. Turns out breathing from a tank underwater goes against all intuition; remembering to relax, breathe slowly, and not freak out is the hardest part of scuba diving. I was that girl who made the instructors check her respirator themselves before diving and who literally cut off the cirulation in the instructors hand while going through a semi panic attack on the floor of Lake Malawi. My fear of deep water and enclosed spaces collided and the first dives we did were 2 of the most unenjoyable experiences I've ever had. I was ready to throw in the towel after day 2 but my extreme stubborness came to the rescue and by the fifth dive on the last day I was loving seeing all the beautiful fishies and was learning to trick my mind into not thinking about the fact that my only source of air was a tank strapped to my back. My fear of fish began to fade, as they were a welcome distraction to thinking too hard about my breathing. As for our group, 8 hours of class and diving a day paid off when we all passed and receieved our certifications on day 4. Although our grace underwater could use some work (lots of whacking eachother in the head with flippers) we all stuck it out and are already planning to dive in places like Mozambique and Zanzibar. Throughout the week, our instructors kept tabs on what they referred to as 'beer points'. If someone forgot to lay their tank down on its side before walking away from it, and one of them noticed, that person earned 1 beer point and at the end of the week had to buy everyone a round of beer. Does it surprise you that yours truly paid for drinks on the last day after class? :) Although we were pumped about getting certified, the 5 of us were ready to spend our remaining 3 days in Malawi soaking up the sun with our already lobster-red friends. On Saturday we all rented a boat. We got to feed some Fish Eagles and do some cliff-jumping before heading to a sandy inlet where we snorkeled a little bit and tried our hand at paddling a dug-out wooden canoe. Needless to say it's way harder than it looks and we all looked absolutely ridiculous. After enjoying a home-cooked lunch on the beach we headed back to our house to get ready for the Nkhata Bay night life. We were a pretty big group and definitely brought the party wherever we went. The owner of a neighboring lodge told me the craziest people he's had stay at his lodge have been Peace Corps Zambia volunteers. Makes sense I guess....Zambia is one of the only remaining Peace Corps countries that is truly rural, and we tend to take advantage of our time out of the bush-bush. Even most Malawi PCVs have electricity and running water. Not a single Zam volunteer has either. Long story short, the 12 of us left Malawi early Monday morning looking and feeling pretty worse for the wear. Luckily we had a couple days to 'sleep' on transport. We departed in our minibus alrady planning to make it back sometime during the remainder of our service. It was a wonderful vacation in a breathtakingly beautiful part of Africa, but we were ready to get back home to village life and 10 hours of sleep a night. :)
Due to some safety and security issues in my district, my really good friend Becky had to leave Mpika and move to Luapula Province on Thursday. Danielle, Jeanna, and I helped her pack. It was a really sad day to see her go. She has been a huge support for me, especially during my struggles in the very beginning. And she's my fellow minnesota soccer girl. :) I am hopping to visit her at ther new site in Mansa district in a few weeks. Hannah, an amazing volunteer in Mpika who had been here for about a year and a half was forced to end her service and move back to America for the same security reasons. We will miss her tons but I hope everything works out for her back in the land where everything works...
So it's back to village life for me. I missed it. Becky brought me back some starbucks coffee grounds from America (she recently went back for a wedding in MN), and I spend a good 5 minutes every morning just inhaling the aroma of the grounds. :) Plus my mom sent me about a 2-year supply of peanut m&m's so I'm in heaven. I can officially start working now, so I'm gong to be busy working with the neighborhood health committees (and forming or reforming them in most cases) as well as continuing to work with community leaders. The in-charge/midwife at the clinic is my counterpart/colleague so I discuss most of what I plan to do with him. He is extremely knowledgeable about health care in Zambia and a big soccer fan so I enjoy stopping by the clinic to talk with him. While basically running the clinic by himself, he manages also to study for further courses he is taking in Kasama. He always watches out for me, too, and if I have any problems in my village, such as thievery, he is the first person I go to. One frustration I am beginning to have is that no one can give me a straight answer as to the activity ( or inactivity for that matter) of my neighborhood health committees. Ba Chikwaba, my counterparrt, tells me none have more than 4-5 members, but the chairperson of each committee tells me they have 15 members (the ideal number). hmmm.... So I wrote bush notes to each chairperson and even hand-delivered some by bike letting them know I'd like to meet with their NHC's as soon as possible. At this point I am waiting to hear back from them. Hopefully by next month I'll have had a chance to meet with all 7 NHCs and assess whether they need to hold community meetings to elect more/new members. I feel a little rushed to get the ball rolling with them as soon as possible because rainy season is fast approaching and the pace of life slows down even more come November.
At this point I should probably explain a little more clearly my job and role as a CAHP project volunteer in Lufila. I think I tried to explain it a few months ago but it has even become more clearly definied for me since I arrived in Zambia 7 months ago. Here's a metaphor: pricture me as the hand holding the back of the bike seat and the NHCs are learning to ride the bike. I teach and support them, even giving them a little motivational push until ultimately they are on their own. My job is all about education and empowerment of the NHCs. Their role is to address the healthcare needs of their respective villages and my role is to build their capacity to do so. In the Zambian Ministry of Health structure, the ministry itself is in charge of 9 provinces. Those 9 provincial health offices oversee 72 district health offices. Within each district there are about 25 rural health centers (or gov't. clinics), each of which serves a catchment area that ideally contains 3-20 active neighborhood health committees. Decentralization of health care in Zambia aims to allow this hierarchy to work from the ground up, with NHCs communicating needs and issues as well as reporting on healthcare activity to their RHC (rural health center), who then reports to the district, and on and on up the ladder. In a perfect Zambian world this system would empower villagers in rural areas to work within their communities to address health issues...but of course the system is flawed. Frustrations occur during frequent breakdowns in communication and many NHC members are left understandably feeling powerless and insignificant. Their membership on the NHC is completely voluntary yet still a status symbol within their community. Some members are extremely motivated to address the needs of their community while others view membership as a sort of popularity contest. As I stated before, I am currently experiencing some frustrations with the NHCs in my clinic's catchment area because the committees were supposed to be formed 5 years ago and they have gone through quite a bit of training, yet not all members are active and many NHC communities have not been sensitized to the role of the NHC. A training is useless unless there are enough NHC members to implement the skills they learned in the training in their communities. I am ultimately supposed to train the NHCs in the 6 major health thrusts in Zambia and consistently do follow-up trainings on project design and management, action planning, and budget-making, etc. I am supposed to constantly monitor and evaluate their progress throughout the next 2 years. Yet I am starting to believe that social mobilization, forming the foundation of the NHC, is still a work-in-progress in my area. Although the NHCs were apparently formed 5 years ago, I feel as if I'm starting from scratch. Its ok though, because as a first generation volunteer in my village my main focus is to build a solid foundation with my NHCs on which the 2 generations of volunteers that will follow me can build. Building the full capacity of the NHCs is a 6-year process, according to Peace Corps and the ministry of health in Zambia, and rushing my NHCs now will only hurt them in the end. So I am trying to build good relationships with them as well as other community leaders so that my 2-year service here is not full of frustrations and so that life is a little easier for the 2 volunteers who will live here after I leave. In America, we become so used to always seeing tangible results. You put a lot of work into something fully expecting a result that is both measurable and reflective of the hard work you put into it. I believe the main objective of Peace Corps as an organization, although they may not come right out and say it, is not so much direct, tangible development as it is the building of solid relationships, 'keeping the peace' if you will. Education, whether it be in health, agriculture, or the rural school system, forms the cornerstone of Peace Corps grassroots development aims in Zambia, but you can only educate sustainably if you form good relationships with those in your community. Not only America but other first-world countries tend to exploit the third world and although aid intentions aren't necessarily malicious, the desire to force our way of doing things on those of a poorer and more vulnerable country essentially is, in effect. Peace Corps is by no means a perfect organization. It's disorganized and lacks accountability in many areas, but I respect it in that it doesn't place tangible development on a pedestal as many NGOs and other foreign aid agencies seem to do. Actually Peace Corps discourages its volunteers from constructing building or using large sums of donation money to fund rural projects. As cliche as it sounds, Peace Corps is working in developing countries like Zambia to build relationships, not monuments. They are much more interested in teaching a group of community leaders in the bush how to write a proposal to fund something like the construction of a well than a Peace Corps volunteer moving into the village and building the well themselves. Although the constant focus on sustainability can be both frustrating and exhausting, it has forced me to rethink my views on foreign AID to Africa. There is a constant dialogue among PC volunteers regarding the answer to development and the correct way to go about it. And the truth is no one knows the answer. But I have to believe that if living in the heart of an African village for 2 years gets me no closer to an answer to development here, then at least I will have come closer to understanding the hearts of Africans themselves. And despite constant diarrhea, contracting malaria, hitching rides in the back of tomato trucks, or riding my bike 30k just to buy eggs that have mostly cracked by the time I bike home, it's still a desire to understand Zambia and the people here, as well as to begin to formulate my own answer to devlopment that gets me out of bed every morning. That and the African sky. :) .much luv.
-katie
"the movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside. For them the earth is not exploitable ground but the living mother."
"the criterion is how you treat the weak. The measure of civilized behavior is compassion."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)