Things we have learned in Zambia: Part 1

by Kevin and Arianna

In no particular order...

1. You cannot say "hello" to a group of people. You need to greet each person individually even if there are 3o people. We've tried many a time to say "hello everyone" when we meet a group of people. They look embarrassed for us and then each individually come up to say hello and ask about our day. Every single one of them.

2. You can indeed sweep a dirt yard and make it a "cleaner dirt" but it's still dirt. Likewise, a house made of mud, is inherently dirty. But dirt can get dirty. And dirty dirt is the worst.

3. Thunder and lightning don't necessarily mean rain. At times there can be deafening thunder and no rain. At other times there are blue skies above and then it starts pouring. It's always when you don't bring your raincoat with you (after toting it about on your bike everyday for months) that is really starts to rain. It's always when you say, "well looks like rainy season is over!"

4. Always bring toilet paper with you. Everywhere.

5. "Now Now" or "Very Soon" really means "in the next couple of hours." But "Anytime from now" means possibly today....or in the next few months. As in, " I will have the report ready for you anytime from now." It always keeps us pleasantly surprised when things actually happen on time.

6. Humility. We've learned to ask for help on the simple day-to-day actions of how to keep house, how to communicate, and how to navigate a culture very different from out own. We've made mistakes, we've been embarrassed, we've been humbled by kindness, nature, and human compassion. We've been at our sickest, our very most disgusting state and we've been challenged in physical and mental ways we never before imagined.

7. Bravery. After every humility instilling experience (and there have been so many) we have had to bounce back. We've tried again. Speaking Nyanja publicly, washing sheets wet with malaria fever, trying the new skills we were taught the day before, catching ourselves before making the same mistakes...we've learned to try again and again. Thank goodness for humility because it leads to good-humored bravery. And with bravery we've learned that in the face of something scary or daunting, the hardest thing to do is just to START doing, to take the first step towards something difficult or challenging. But once you do, the rewards can be great and the cycle starts again.

8. Bugs taste GOOD. But fried in enough cooking oil we suppose almost anything can taste good...

9. There is really nothing more amazing then living with the person you love. After almost a year and a half of hitchhiking across Eastern Province to see eachother, living together has been the greatest reward. And you certainly save on prepaid talk time.

10. We really are limited with our creativity on baby naming in America. In Zambia, one of the most common boys name's is "Bornface" (no joke). Other favorites we've come across include "SimCard," "Cloudy Skies on a Breezy Day," and "Mavuto" which literally means "Trouble"

11. We've learned about sadness and we've learned about acceptance. We've become close to many people living with HIV/AIDS and we've seen friends and neighbors pass away from the disease. We've seen children weak with malnutrition and we've seen countless families mourning the loss of a child to malaria. And, as community members, we've experienced so much sadness, so consistently and so personally. We've learned alot about the human ability to cope and the power of a community to support its' members. We've dealt with our own feelings of guilt and frustration at having so much (medicine, food, mobility, etc.) while so many people that we care about don't. We've learned about cultural impacts on sadness and acceptance and our experiences in these areas will affect us for the rest of our lives, undoubtedly impacting our future careers as health professionals.

12. If you really want to gross Zambians out, describe American food. If you want to totally shock them, show them pictures of what Americans wear: " Americans wear their underwear out in the streets?!?!"

13. You can stuff yourself with sweet potato, pumpkin, fresh maize, and boiled groundnuts but you haven't eaten, and you can't possibly be "satisfied", until you've eaten nsima.

14. How to kill and prepare a chicken. (And, inherently, how to stop naming your chickens and their chicks. It's just too weird to say "oh Clucky Lucky tastes way better than Mr. Feathers doesn't he...")

15. It takes at least a good 6"-10" layer of grass to thatch a roof well. Any less and you will be wet. This was NOT a fun lesson to learn.

16. Butchering a cow is a political act: ribs for the headmen, a leg for the chief, bowels for the other VIPs. Your cut of meat depends on your role in the community. Food is not just about nourishment here, there are strict hierarchies and etiquette that have to be respected in every realm of food, from washing hands to salting food.

17. "Cold Season" is relative.

18. Hot Season is NOT.

19. Protein is important. Children burn acres of bush just to catch a few field mice for supper.

20. There is always room for one more person in transport. Nine passengers can fit in a small sedan. It's not comfortable and it certainly doesn't smell great but it is possible. You usually just end up holding someone's chicken or baby (or both).

21. People always talk about the "key to development" but there is no quick fix or easy answer to development. The BEST kind of development though is development focused on justice: health justice, economic justice, academic justice, gender justice, and so forth. Development is complicated and messy. And ensuring equitable development is tricky and time-consuming. But it IS possible.




More coming soon