Trousers, work permits, and petrol

I’m wearing trousers right now. No skirt, no chitenge (okay, yes chitenge, but I’m wearing it as a shawl because there’s a lot of air-conditioning and I’m cold. Use #24 again), just a pair of jeans.

I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but it’s been over a year since I last went outside my house without a skirt.* In rural Zambia, women and trousers is . . . an interesting question. Women do wear them, especially young women, but I never saw an older woman in trousers, and even for young women it was usually pretty rare. No one would have said anything if I’d worn them, but it was optimally culturally correct to wear skirts, so I did.

When I got back from Zambia, I’d already gone almost 11 skirted months, and a year seemed a nice round number, and not that far away, so I went for it, just to be able to say I did. And now I have.

It was a bit odd, this morning, pulling my legs into a garment with legs, and then not putting anything over it (there were a few weeks where it was cold enough that I did wear trousers under a skirt, just for the warmth). Trousers fit and hug your legs in a way that skirts don’t, at least not the sort of skirts I wear. But perhaps what I found most surprising is how natural it feels to be back in trousers. I expected going out without a skirt to be like the end of the Spoon Assassins game I played in college, where it took an effort of will to walk outside my room without my spoon, because I felt naked without it. I guess absence of trousers is something I notice less than presence of spoon, and that even a year wearing skirts does not erase social norms formed over a lifetime, particularly since I wear a lot of skirts anyway.

But let me tell you, the pockets are really nice.

—————-

I had a request to tell about being threatened with arrest.

I’m fairly sure I mentioned our persistent work permit difficulties. The first instance of threatened-with-arrest is really Matt’s story, because he’s the one who rushed to the immigration office when we realized there was a problem, and took the heat and the arrest threats, so that when Chris and I came in a day or two later, no-one even batted an eye at our two-months-overdue visas. Matt said they threatened to arrest Chris and I, but since neither of us were there at the time, I don’t feel that that one really counts.

Fast-forward eight months, to the end of June. I had shown up at the immigration office in Choma every sixty days or so, to get my 90-day visa renewed for another 60 days, since my work permit was technically approved, I just didn’t have it. I was going down to Livingstone to see Mosi-oa-Tunya one last time, and also meet Chris’s family. My visa — I still did not have my work permit — needed to be renewed again.

What with one thing and another, I wound up waiting at the Choma bus station for several hours, because Matt hadn’t bought tickets beforehand, and I completely mis-read Chris’s next message, and . . . So I did a couple of errands for Matt in town. I did think about walking down to immigration (a bit of a hike) to get my visa renewed, but it was Friday, and the visa didn’t come due until Wednesday of the next week, and you’re not supposed to go too early, and I wasn’t sure when Matt was showing up, and my the time I realized that it would’ve been a good time to go, it was too late to. And after all, I would be coming back the other way on Monday and could do it then.

Only . . . Monday was Heroes’ Day. Tuesday was Unity Day. Neither of these were days upon which immigration was open. And this did not occur to me until later that weekend, partly because I’d been talking to someone who thought Thursday and Friday were the holidays in the upcoming week, not Monday and Tuesday (and by that point I wasn’t teaching anymore, so I was keeping a much less firm grasp upon schedules and holidays and things, since tutoring required less preparation and did not start as early in the morning).

On Tuesday, the other family got back from their own trip to Livingstone, also having failed to renew their visas (which all came due at the same time, since we’d all gone together the previous time, so I could show them the location of the Immigration Office). And they would be leaving for a workshop on the other side of Choma on Thursday, and did not feel that they needed to drive from Livingstone on Tuesday, go back to Choma on Wednesday, leave again on Thursday, and get back on Friday. Especially since there was a petrol shortage. Especially-especially since, as a result of the petrol shortage, they had not managed to get fuel on Tuesday, and, in fact, would need to dip into their reserve petrol in order to get to Choma at all.

So we were discussing this Tuesday afternoon. I’d been planning to take the minibus to town on Wednesday, which was an unfortunate waste of a day just to get a stamp on my passport, but seemed especially useless when there would definitely need to be an MCC vehicle traveling to Choma on Wednesday, somehow or other. Only the MCCers affiliated with said vehicle did not wish to go. Only the MCCers affiliated with said vehicle needed to go. It was a conundrum.

And THAT’s when I had my brilliant moment of inspiration. I turned to Natasha. “You have Mr. Robert Phiri’s telephone number.”

“What?”

“The Immigration official. You have his telephone number.”

I knew she had his telephone number, because the last time I’d been there, I’d poked my head back in the office, just as we were leaving, and asked what his name was, since it did not seem fitting that he’d been unfailingly nice to me for most of a year (visas are only supposed to be extended 30 days, but I’d never gotten fewer than 60), and I did not even know his name.

He told me, and asked for my telephone number, which I did not give him (“I’m afraid I don’t know what it is”), because there was no reason he needed my telephone number, and I don’t give my number out to people who have no reason to need it, especially not in Zambia. (The man is old enough to be my father, and I don’t think that was an Advance, just . . . the weird-usual friendliness when interacting with white people. But he didn’t need my phone number.) So he wrote down his, on a little slip of paper, along with his name, and gave it to me.

I gave it to Natasha, because I was almost done in Zambia, and she would still be there most of a year.

“You wrote it down in your notebook with the other Immigration information.”

“OH!”

Sure enough, there it was.

They made me call, because they were convinced that I have the Choma Immigration officials, like the Choma police, wrapped around my little finger, something that I am still dubious of (especially the police).

We were having cell network problems at the time, so it took about 20 tries before I got through, but eventually I did.

I’m not at all sure that he knew who I was (there are a lot of people in the Choma area who go to Immigration, you know?), but he was friendly and willing to be persuaded. When I suggested that we could perhaps not come in until the day after our visas came due, he threatened me (all three of us, actually) with arrest, but then asked if Thursday was when I could get transport, and I said yes, and he made me promise promise PROMISE to definitely come in on Thursday, and said it would be okay. (I am still not at all sure if he’s a nice guy and being extra-nice because I asked, or if they really just don’t care at all.)

So I felt pretty proud of myself, first for remembering that we had the number, and second for pulling it off, and Ingo and Natasha are even more convinced that I can bend all government officials in Choma to my will with a single word. (Are you folks still reading this? I bet they’re nice to you now that I’m gone, too.)

We arrived in town . . . not without adventures. With no more adventures than usual.

The usual culprits. That funnel is made from the top of a Zamanita Oil bottle, part of a bicycle inner tube, and some string.

Everything went just fine in the Immigration office. No one even commented on the day-late thing. We got to see a work permit, unfortunately not mine. (They look like little passports. I still WANT one, drat it!) I brought them biscuits as a thank-you/goodbye. (It was not a bribe. I gave it to them after, and I wasn’t going to interact with them probably ever, anyway.) I even found two new foods I hadn’t eaten on the way out.

Tuyumu (top) and freshis (bottom). Tuyumu are a sectioned . . . fruit/nut/thing, where you throw out the seeds and chew the woody divider inside the pod. It tastes very much like dates, and foams up into a sticky goo that makes them very difficult to spit out later. Tasty, but lots of work. Freshi are soft and squishy, with a small seed like a cherry pit inside (for scale, tuyumu are a little bigger than cherries. Maybe the size of limes). They taste like dried apricots. Wet and juicy dried apricots.

And, when we stopped to get petrol, we learned that a truck had just come through the night before to fill up several of the petrol stations, and that it was a good thing we hadn’t come the day before, because we didn’t have enough petrol to get the vehicle home again, and we wouldn’t have been able to get any in town. The lines at the petrol stations were only about six cars long, which was quite reasonable, considering.

Petrol shortage.

I took the minibus home, my last ride (to date) on a Zambian minibus.

This post brought to you by Mr. Robert Phiri, Lemon Creme biscuits, and the Puma station in Choma, on the Lusaka-Livingstone road.

————

*I have worn a bathing suit on perhaps three occasions. But mostly only while in the pool.

Not, in fact, melting my camera

This post was written some weeks ago, but for several reasons, I didn’t post it at the time.

Due to a fortuitous combination of a much-delayed graduation gift (thanks, Dee!) and opportunity knocking, I have a new camera. And not just any new camera, but a really, REALLY nice camera, the sort of camera that I used to sigh over in the back room of the computer labs and promise myself, Someday, I will get a camera like that.

One of the very nice things about really good cameras is that they take much better pictures than reasonably nice cameras.

We’re starting to get into the season for grassfires. Not the big, uncontrolled, terrifying grassfires (mostly not. There was one a few weeks ago that was a bit scary when the wind was blowing our direction; luckily it shifted), not yet, not until things dry out more, and people start burning the land to encourage new growth to feed the cows. But things are dry enough to burn, and there are fires, either accidental, or intentional — just a few days ago I looked out of my window and saw a wall of fire in the direction of the Wooden House.

Of course, I rushed outside to make sure that the Wooden House was not actually on fire, and discovered that they were burning the grass around it, so that they would have a firebreak, “for when the big fire comes.”

One of the things that fascinates me about these fires is that they usually don’t burn the whole way up the grass stems, but just clear out the undergrowth, leaving the stems standing, slightly scorched at the bottom, but mostly untouched at the top. These fires burn HOT, though. It’s a good thing the camera has a good zoom lens, because I often did not want to get any closer.

There was another fire about a month ago, too.

If some of these pictures lead you to doubt my sense, I assure you that no Miriams were harmed in the making of this post. The only lasting effect was a sooty smear of burnt grass on my skirt, which is easily remedied in my next load of laundry.

———————————

I fly out of Lusaka International Airport this afternoon, and arrive in Philadelphia tomorrow via Johannesburg and Heathrow. We’ll have a few days of Re-entry Retreat with all of the SALTers from various countries, and then disperse to our homes.

The physical travel is almost finished, but I intend to continue posting on things that catch my eye as I reintegrate into American culture. I’ve also promised several posts over the course of this year that I never got around to writing, and there are a number of other things that I could write about, like food and living in an officially Christian country and the Peace Clubs Fair I went to last weekend, not to mention posting more of the zillions of pictures I’ve taken. So my question to you is: are there things you would like to read? Either about Zambia or about returning to the US?

Never Had I Ever

I leave Macha on Friday, and Zambia in a week, which unsurprisingly has occasioned a good deal of reflection on my part. I’ve learned a lot, and probably changed in many ways I don’t even know yet. Zambia has been educational in all sorts of ways, and I’ve had any number of new experiences during my time here.

Before coming to Zambia, I had never:

– Ridden a motorbike (as a passenger)

– Broken a tooth (I’ve now broken two)

– Eaten any number of foods (this is about three blog posts in its own right, and hopefully I’ll get around to writing them eventually)

– Had lunch after 4pm in the local timezone

– Received an offer of marriage (I’ve now had twelve, and expect a few more before I leave)

– Handwashed sheets and a towel and a week’s worth of laundry, all in one go

– Lost a grandparent

– Chopped tomatoes without a cutting board

– Made yogurt

– Knit a shawl in a week

– Sat for hours on a hot, crowded minibus

– Paid for my own ticket to a movie

– Cooked with margarine (and given my druthers, never will I ever again)

– Carried 17 liters of water on my head

– Babysat infant twins

– Listened to the same song on repeat for over seven hours

– Worn out a pair of flip-flops

-Washed long hair in a bucket

– Sat through a three-hour-plus church service (that I recall) or listened to sermons for an entire day

– Danced at a wedding

– Funneled petrol into a car

– Washed and rinsed dishes in less than a cup of water.

– Taught a two-hour class

– Cleaned a water filter

– Baked without a recipe

– Listened to four consecutive sermons on First Corinthians

– Climbed an approximately 300-meter ladder

– Assisted in a starlit shower at an outside faucet (use #21 of a chitenge: impromptu shower stall)

– Provided eight hours of unrelieved child care

– Climbed a sand dune (larger than a minivan)

– Used text messages as a primary means of communication

– Really lived on my own

– Heated bathwater over a fire

– Killed a chicken (or any meal, for that matter)

– Ridden a bus for 20 hours

– Carried toilet paper in my bra

– Been a millionaire

– Embarrassed my translator

– Danced in front of a thousand people

– Been threatened with arrest by someone with both authority and cause

– Lived 70 kilometers from the nearest grocery store (perhaps only 50 as the Fish Eagle flies)

– Seen African animals in the wild

– Lived without running water for any significant length of time

– Been an illegal immigrant

– Dealt with wildly unreliable power

– Participated in a break-in

-Emptied a mousetrap

– Sweet-talked immigration officials (and many thanks to the excellent fellows in the Choma office, without whose good will I would not be here today)

– Seen a cotton plant

– Bathed in rainwater

– Lied so regularly or so frequently

– Blown up a battery charger

– Sifted weevils out of my food

They say that travel broadens the mind. It certainly broadens the experiences. It’s been an interesting year.

On being white in Zambia

I am in Livingstone, walking alone on the back way to the hostel where I am staying. This neighborhood is grittier than most of the other parts of Livingstone I’ve seen, and feels to me more like the rest of Zambia I have come to know.

I pass a man, and greet him, “Hello.”
“Hello. You are beautiful. Marry me.”
“No.” (Woe betide any American man who might ever wish to marry me. I have become incredibly blasé about turning down proposals.)
“You do not want?”
“No.”
“Okay. Next time!”

I will admit that I could not hide a smile at that last — AFTER I’d walked past him and he could no longer see my face. And this is definitely the Best Marriage Proposal I Have Received, although competition is stiff from things like “I have always wanted to marry a white woman like yourself; is this possible?”

These interactions are common. And I’ve gotten off lightly; Alison stopped counting after she reached 100 marriage proposals sometime in February.

What does this have to do with race? This doesn’t happen to Zambian women. In fact, Zambian women may not believe me when I talk about marriage proposals. This is not the way things are done here.

I would say that about 80% of the proposals I’ve received have occurred within the first five minutes of meeting the man in question (all within the first half-hour). I’m sure this percentage is even higher for Alison. (Piece of advice for hypothetical suitors: even if you do fall madly in love with me after one glance across a crowded room, it might be a good idea to wait until you actually know me to pop the question.)

“Would you marry a Zambian?” is a question I get even more frequently, from both women and men. I think that the least flippant answer I ever gave was, “I wouldn’t want to live here for the rest of my life, and I would not feel comfortable demanding that someone else undertake a relocation of the same scale for me.” (Not to say that all the cultural difficulties — which compose the rest of my answer — aren’t serious, but they invariably become a joke. “Oh, but I would not polish his shoes or wash his pants! I would want him to cook and clean. He would be very unhappy, and my in-laws would hate me.”)

That’s not just because I would miss the biting cold of winter, the sharp smell and vibrant color of new-fallen leaves, the modest, homey flowers of early spring, cheese and tree nuts and ice cream, friends and family and places, and a decent internet connection, because I would. I’d miss them terribly. But more than that, it’s just too hard to be white in Zambia.

It’s true that I have gotten used; it’s not as hard now as it was when I came, and perhaps, if I stayed here another year, another two years, another ten, it would continue to get easier.

But the first thing anyone sees about me is the color of my skin. I could speak Tonga perfectly, I could learn to balance 20 liters on my head, I could make nshima and relish the equal of any woman in Zambia — but I would STILL be white, and that would still be my most identifying feature. I am not my gender. I am not my age. I am not my religion. I am not my job or my education or my friends or my accomplishments. I am a white person. Anything else I might do or be is added as an afterthought to this most basic state of my being.

If you are white in the United States, it is possible to never think about race. There are places where awareness of your race will be pushed into stark relief, but most white people can chose not to go there. Most white people do choose not to go there. Race is not our problem, because we aren’t aware of it. We have to learn to see it and its influences, and whenever we’re tired of dealing with it, we can go back inside our safe, comfortable, homogeneously white bubble, and it’s not on our radar anymore.

On the whole, this is not the experience of people of color in the United States. There are areas where this acts in reverse, but there are many fewer of them, and they are much smaller, and the chances are much higher that the people who inhabit them will have to leave these spaces and become aware of race. How do you describe a friend or colleague or acquaintance who is a person of color? Black/African American man. Asian woman. Race first, anything else after.

That is what it is like to be white in Zambia. I am a mukuwa (Tonga), or perhaps a muzungu (Nyanja and many other Bantu languages); musimbi is an afterthought, if at all. If someone needs to describe me beyond that, it’s always “The mukuwa who . . .” I can’t forget about race here. Even if I could, someone walking past me on the path would remind me. I see racial lines much more clearly than I ever did in the United States, even when I was one of only two white children in my class. “Why don’t you move in with Gemmeke” because you are white and she is white and white people huddle together? The little rectangle of Canada, like embassy immunity, enclosed by the pilot’s fence. The areas of Lusaka or Livingstone filled with white people. Namibia, full of white people, all moving in neatly prescribed circles, seeming to interact with black Namibians only in carefully defined points of contact: at the craft market, or when talking to the househelp.

I get marriage proposals at a rate worthy of a celebrity. Children run out of their houses to shout “How are you?” and are not content until I have responded to each individually. People on the street call me “mukuwa” as if it were my name. People — colleagues, strangers — reach out to touch or finger-comb my hair. Street vendors materialize at my elbow: “Buy narchis, very nice, very sweet, you don’t want? They are good, very sweet, only ten pin, you can try one, buy narchis!” “Face cloth, talk time, Rub-On Vics, ma sweeties, I give you good price, madam! You don’t want to buy? Give me something, Madam. What will you give me? Give me five pin.” Drunk men sit down next to me to start long, rambling conversations. Children walk past a hundred Zambians to beg from me — adults do it, too, only the quantities are bigger. People may try to charge me more, especially in Lusaka, because of the color of my skin. Toddlers cry when I approach. Alison was subjected to a screaming diatribe after nearly being run over by a truck (while standing on the sidewalk).

It’s not all bad. I would even say that it’s mostly positive (aside from the endless, endless begging). I am courted for my custom on the minibus (the conductor will greet me as I step off the inter-town bus, and insist on carrying my bags to his vehicle), though I pay the same fare as any Zambian. People break into delighted laughter at an attempt to speak Tonga, or engage in any other culturally appropriate behavior. Complete strangers ask to have a picture taken with me. Before I came here, I had never in my life — never expected that I would — caused a room of a thousand women to scream with delight by climbing up on a stage to dance. Positive or not, it can be exhausting. Sometimes I just want to be a person, not a white person. I don’t know how to respond when people want to give me special treatment because of my race. Can I eat in the main food line instead of the VIP room, or is that refusing hospitality? And I like sitting in the front seat of the minibus (reserved for the most important people on the minibus); there’s more leg room, and you’re not as squished.

It’s as if cultural rules don’t apply to me. Zambians ask friends for money, rather than begging from strangers. Zambians men don’t propose marriage to women they’ve never met before. One of the Grade Twos I tutor played with my toes yesterday as I read them a story, because they’re white toes. It’s horribly rude not to greet someone when you enter a gathering, but when I was at a funeral, one woman came in and greeted every person in the room except for me — not to be rude, just because I was white. I can play pool, or wear trousers, or walk around with dusty, unpolished shoes, because I’m white. Sometimes I feel that being white means I’m not really a person.

I know that this experience has been good for me. It is valuable for me to be forced to live with knowledge of my race; for the rest of my life, I will have a much better understanding of the experience of visible minorities.

But no, I don’t want to live here.

Zambia in 160 characters

Texting is very cheap here, about four cents a text. It’s also convenient, since I have a QWERTY keyboard on my phone. Alison still has the annoying phone with the T20 keyboard, but we both sometimes find a need to share elements of our lives with SOMEONE, since we can’t necessarily say it to the people we’re with. Here’s a selection of the text message conversation I have stored on my current phone:

2 February 2012
A – This lady on the bus has a bag that says semire cat instead of siamese cat

7 February 2012
A – I just got locked into the office bathroom so I tried to climb onto the sink to get over the wall but the sink started to break off the wall… But luckily someone came and rescued me

14 February 2012
M – I feel very self-conscious when random kids I don’t know (who would not greet me) stare at me the ENTIRE time I’m washing my bras and pants. (underwear)

A – that’s awkward but not as awkward as listening to your host parents having valentines day sex

M – You win. Congrats. Despite thin walls, I NEVER hear my neighbors. Maybe b/c I go to bed earlier than they do. (College was worse. And these people are married.)

19 February 2012
A – I went to a club last night where they played la macarana and were dirty dancing to it. didn’t realize it was possible

M – My neighbor Moses, while washing his clothes this morning: “I wish Adam and Eve didn’t sin. We could just walk around naked and not have to wash clothes…”

5 March 2012
A – I just met this reallllly hot guy from sweden that I might need to make out with at some point.

M – Got home yesterday to discover that my neighbor Clare has left for good and gone back to Mazabuka. Trade you stories on Friday.

15 March 2012
M – I feel in need of absolution: today I taught my students the Windows pinball game. In my defense, they did ask.

18 March 2012
A – The sermon today was on evil angels who live among us. One characteristic is they can eat lots of food and still hve small bodies This is why I hate church here

3 April 2012
A – I bought the whole cabin (for train trip to Tanzania) so if you change your mind you can come 🙂 im just trying to tempt you to spend to much money like an evil angel! how’s life? Zesco?

M – Still no, evil temptress. Would miss 2wks work. Life pretty good. Teaching lots. ZESCO not gone off yet today. Turned down bigger place w/ nice Dutch roommate.

24 April 2012
M – Was walking to church last week w/ the U—-s. Natasha paused to survey the land and exclaimed, “This looks like Kansas!”

25 April 2012
A – Haha I told you so!you’ll be happy to know chris and matt had to listen to me say the same on the train. how’s work for you?

M – It’s been good. I’ve taught a lot and am tutoring three women (two in math and one in computers). The past 4 sermons have been on Colosians 3. You know, life.

26 April 2012
A – Haha thata change! Im going crazy right now with the 16, 11, 7, 4 and 2 year old living in our house right now especially since they’ve been forbidden from going outside for some unknown reason!

27 April 2012
M – You missed an interesting talk from Rev Soko on peach/conflict in home as microcosm for nation. Also a loud, complaining, inaudible talk on fruits of the spirit.

A – So does interesting mean good? Also s——- (Alison’s host brother) ended up throwing up on me! Gross!

M – Yes, it was good. So was Kathy’s talk on gender. And ew.

30 April 2012
A – I just put on some peach chap stick and now I crave peach cobbler

M – Oooh, peaches. Gemmeke had some last week but they weren’t very good.

4 May 2012
A – Im pretty sure I have a parasite.

M – Alas. Just one? I’m housesitting for a cat that has hot running water and a shower.

A – The cat does!? That sounds like the u.s. Also we have a training choma next week wed through sun. If you happen to be around. I miss seeing you:-(

M – The cat’s house does. I miss seeing you, too. Will see what can be arranged.

19 May 2012
A – I’m on the 6 bus. Also theyre playing bible o. Audio but at a part where they are just listing ancestry.

23 May 2012
A – This morning I sat on the bus by someone who smelled like sweet pickles and now im by someone who smells like german potatoe salad and its making me both hungry and disgusted

M – Currently looking at a recipe for chocolate chip peanut butter cookies: y/y? But the real question is if I should add hazelnuts, too.

10 June 2012
A – Church was only 2 and a half hours today I don’t even know what to do.

16 June 2012
M – Just emailed you a creepy story I wrote. How’s your Saturday going?

A – Great we have beautiful weather here! Ill look forward to reading monday! how’s your day?

M – Pretty good. Did laundry, wrote, visited, proofread stuff. You?

A – I was extremely lazy and then my scarf caught on fire but its okay.

28 June 2012
A – I just watched my mom pour a cup of oil onto beautifully steamed cauliflower… And while texting this she added more!!

M – We eat veggies tomorrow! BTW, can I put some of your texts on my blog?

A – Duh! I text you these things otherwise id go completely crazy!

————

Life here is okay. My roommates are adjusting, the pump has been broken for two days so there’s no water, and tomorrow I’m going to Livingstone for a much-needed break and hot shower.

Not, in fact, an unusual story.

My new roommates arrived today. Okay, techincally they’re housemates, since I still have my own room, and the three of them are all sharing the big bedroom.

I knew they were coming — or at least, knew that roommates were supposed to be coming. (Mind you, I also know that I have a next door neighbor who was coming last week this afternoon goodness knows when. So while I neatened up a bit and made sure there was plenty of water and enough food that I could feed four people if necessary, I’ve had an “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude towards their arrival.) But the neighbor who was supposed to come this afternoon was coming this afternoon, and anyone flying into Lusaka generally doesn’t get here until afternoon, so I just went about my morning routine as usual.

I was sitting over at the school, writing a letter, when Gil called, “Miriam?”

I came outside to find Gil with three (white) women I did not recognize.

“They’re supposed to be working with LinkNet . . .”
First I’d heard of it, and, so far as I can tell, first any LinkNet people have heard of it. But there were three of them, and I was expecting three women, so I asked their names, and sure enough, they were the expected roommates.

For various reasons, they’d flown into ABFA Airport (Macha) with a pilot other than the local pilot, one who was just turning around again and flying off. The airport is a piece of beaten earth in the middle of a grassy field, with a “reception lounge” made out of a modified shipping container (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it open), and a few buildings visible in the distance.

Wind sock at ABFA

Three women and a significant quantity of luggage flown into a nowhere-airstrip in a rural village in Zambia. No one expecting them.

In fact, there would not have been anyone there to see the plane arrive at all, except that Gil was getting a delivery of some paperwork from Lusaka, so he and a small bus of a Land Rover were there to act as an elderly knight in shining armor.

I would like to point out that they met up with me not because anyone was aware that they were my roommates, but because I’m the only representative of LinkNet Gil could find on short notice. (He’d called the fellow in charge of Hospitality, who was coming from the other side of Macha, hypothetically with keys. In reality, there are only two keys, one in my possession and one that the Hospitality cleaners used on the highly irregular schedule that perhaps made sense to them. Luckily I was aware of the existence of this key, because I’m not sure we would have more than one key between the four of us if I hadn’t known who to ask for the second.) But, in the it-all-works-out-in-the-end manner that seems to govern much of life in Zambia, or at least in Macha, I can not only give them a sense of what’s going on, but also let them into their house.

They seem like perfectly nice people; I think we’ll get along just fine. But they’ve had this trip planned for months, and no one bothered to inform them how crazy things have gotten in the meantime.

Welcome to Macha, my new friends. It’ll be an adventure.

Picking up the kids

This picture is from a while ago, back when I still lived in the Wooden House and everything was green green GREEN from the rains. It’s mostly brown again now, although not as brown as when I first came here. Some of the grass is still tall and brown, some has been slashed or burned or has just fallen over. Macha is beginning to once again look the way it did when I first came here. I suppose it’s appropriate: coming full circle.

(Since you’re probably wondering, if you don’t know already, I’ll just say it and relieve your misery: I fly back for reentry retreat in slightly less than a month, and will go home-home in late July.)

How’s my life these days? Settling into new patterns, but one day never quite the same as the next. I finished teaching a couple of weeks ago, and my students were officially done today — though they still have to write the exams, just as soon as they’re ready. I’m proud of how well they’re doing, though I will admit to some doubt, particularly regarding Module 5: Databases, and, to a lesser extent, Excel, because I’m not sure how math-heavy the exams are.

But I am not at loose ends! I’ve increased my work at MICS, doing remedial math with a Grade 7 who will be entering US 10th grade in September (If you’re confused, no, the numbering is not different. Hence the remedial math), and doing English/Reading/Phonics with Grade 2s, plus other assorted tutoring on the side. Right now mostly MICS, though.

So this picture is appropriate, because it’s a picture of afternoon dismissal.

In the morning, streams of kids come by on bicycles, some singly, most in clumps, frequently with two or three to a bicycle. First, somewhere between 7 and 7:15, comes E, a Dutch boy who lives over on the other side of the hospital, absolutely booking it down the path, legs pumping.

“E!” calls Chilala, or one of the other teachers staying at the wooden house, not a greeting but an alarm clock. “Hurry, you; we will be late!”

By the time the teachers are ready to go, the rest of the children are streaming in: E’s sister and her best friend, L who often leads Kid’s Choir in church, many others who I don’t know, or at least can’t identify at that distance.

The kids bike home again in the afternoon, too, but as we get close to dismissal time for the lower grades, a small crowd of men and bicycles collect under the scrubby trees at the edge of the schoolyard: the (I presume) dads waiting to pick up their kids. There are two or three parents who pick up their kids in cars, and one man on a motorbike, but mostly it’s bicycles. I like watching them.

A fraction of my recent adventures

I wrote this last week and thought I posted it (the power went out right after), but upon checking realized that it hadn’t.

I’ve been busy lately and haven’t had much time for my usual lengthy blog posts. At this point I’m so far behind on things I intended to say that if I’m going to get around to posting any of them, I need to just start typing somewhere. So:

A few weekends ago I went to a church National Women’s Conference. Conveniently enough, it was held in Choma. Something like 1,300 women attended. The conference was over a term break, so many of the women stayed in the dorm of a school. I, along with three other MCC women, stayed at a nearby guesthouse (which was very convenient, because we wound up cooking a large portion of our own food).

The conference started on Thursday, and those of us coming from Macha were taking local transport, catching a ride on the (large) minibus that the other Macha women were taking. There was a 10 hours bus and a 13 hours bus — we opted for the 10 hrs bus.

I did not expect the bus to leave on time. However, I’d never taken churchwomen transport before, and on the bare possibility that it *might* leave on time, I felt that I ought to be timely. We showed up to the meeting place, the church, at about 9:59, and no one was there.

Okay, I thought, usual Zambian transport.

Before Natasha could get worried, a Zambian woman in the church chitenge showed up and introduced herself as E—-. We introduced ourselves, and before we finished the greeting process, another woman showed up, carrying E—-‘s suitcase on her head. We greeted with her, too, and before we finished that round of greeting, Lisa appeared from around the building; she’d been taking pictures. Cue more greeting.

One of the next women to arrive was Grama, who I’d met before, when I went to the women’s Saturday afternoon bible study, and whose name, I have since discovered, is, in fact, Glamour.

Over the next hour or so, people arrived in a slow but steady trickle, bringing with them an ever-widening round of greetings — in Zambian society, you don’t greet the group as a whole, you greet each member of the group individually. While westerners may find it a bit odd to go “How are you — I’m fine” along a whole line of people (especially when you arrive in a group, so there are two lines moving in opposite directions, like optimal heat exchange between parallel pipes), Zambians consider it not only normal, but eminently proper.

There was still no sign of the bus.

One, or perhaps some, of the women had arrived with popwe, boiled maize, which was broken into chunks and shared out among the group. I attacked mine with the incisor-bite I’ve worked out for things like boiled maize that are harder than my front teeth are up to handling, and managed to decimate my four centimeters of cob with a minimum of mess.

On my way back from the trash pit to dispose of my empty cob, I realized that there was some great commotion going on back at the group of women, and arrived to find E—- wailing. While bits of her lament were in English, most of it was trial by fire for my fledgeling Tonga. I followed enough to figure out that her father had just died, and after a bit someone gave us a proper summary of the situation, in English.

Lisa knew E—- a little bit from work, but I had only met her that day, and stood around feeling an awkward intruder, but at the same time fascinated by the chance to observe cultural differences in the expression of grief. I have no word but ‘wail’ to describe E—-‘s outpouring of sound, heartfelt anguish vocalized in words.

Picture us there, a cluster of women in front of the church, E—- wandering and wailing, Lisa and some of the others drifting close in an attempt to offer sympathy or condolences, Natasha and I farther, but still trying to stand in solidarity. They were trying to get in touch with E—-‘s mother, but in typical Zambian fashion, no one had any talk time, and while Lisa wanted to lend her phone, the screen had broken a few days before, leaving it in that annoying place just this side of unusable, which is worse than true uselessness. Since I never use my talk time anyway, I persuaded them that Grama should use my phone, rather than fighting with Lisa’s, so she was bustling about, texting and calling and giving the phone back to me and then someone would call it and I’d hand it back to her and another three people arrived so we did subdued greetings around the edges of the wailing . . .

Presently a car showed up and discharged another wailing woman, who came and curled up in the dirt by where E—- had been persuaded to sit on the church steps. They made, sang — I can only describe it as the grief song. A particular sort of keening melody, high and sad and minorly off-key. It’s eerie and discommoding. And the new woman, who may or may not have been the mother, smeared dirt on her chitenge. Grief is much rawer here, and it made me realize that we’re terribly repressed, we Americans. All we know how to do is cry.

About this time the minibus arrived, and E—- and the other woman were helped back into the car to be driven home. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to bury a man, too.

To be continued. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Dance Dance Wedding

The promised description of the wedding is late for several reasons. One is that the internet has been down for three days. It was back briefly this afternoon, but then the power went out this evening, and while ZESCO is back, the internet still seems to be grumpy. Another is that the bee infestation of The Wooden House 3 got abruptly worse, to the extent that the buzzing kept me awake most of Tuesday night. It’s been fumigated, but now the main room (my room less so, thankfully) stinks of vile chemicals. But for one reason or another, I’ve been somewhat avoiding the house, lately.

But I did go to my boss’s wedding on Saturday — both the ceremony itself, in the church, and the reception that afternoon.

The actual ceremony was not terribly different from weddings in the States, except with extra dancing. I’m told that the wedding party (but not the bride; she’s still not supposed to smile) danced into the church, but I missed that part, because I was escorting the new MCC family, who’d just moved in the day before, and I’d forgotten the amount of time a family of four who have not yet settled into a new house requires to get going in the morning. We had the distinction of being late even by Zambian standards, and could hear the strains of “Here Comes the Bride” as we arrived. We snuck into the church just ahead of Patience and (I assume) her father.

For those who care about clothing things, I will mention that Patience’s dress was very nice: it had a nice quantity of fabric without putting her at risk of being confused with the wedding cake, classy, tasteful embroidery, and none of this strapless business that’s so popular in US wedding dresses these days. I found myself wondering how one keeps such a dress clean in an area with as much prevailing dust as Macha, and what Zambians do with wedding dresses after the wedding, but someone mentioned later that she thinks they’re usually rented.

The ceremony and the vows mostly followed my impression of how such things often go, although the version was slightly different than the one I’m used to (for example, the question about impediments to the match was worded something like ‘be silent from now on,’ and there were other bits where the sense was the same but the wording was not what I expected. On the topic of objections, they read the banns in Zambia. I was really surprised the first time it happened, but it’s become something of an expected oddity. This time, the pastor didn’t specify that it’s necessary to speak to the pastor in person, not just send him a text message, but that’s happened in the past, and makes me wonder if pastors frequently get text messages in response to wedding announcements). The vows didn’t say anything about obedience, which surprised me, considering that this is Zambia, but I’m not sure if that is typical, or if Elton and Patience chose to exclude it. There wasn’t any kissing of the bride, either — and do weddings in the US usually have the involved parties announce their intention to wed (“Do you intend to vow-clause-one, vow-clause-two, etc?” “I will.”) and then in fact say the vows later in the service? I think this was the first wedding I’ve been to since I was eight or so, so my memories are a bit foggy for proper comparison.

And then, of course, the wedding party danced out of the church. Patience still didn’t get to dance — she and Elton merely processed out in a slightly more rhythmic manner, and she was finally allowed to smile — but the bridesmaids, the best man, and the . . . second- and third-best men did a fun little partner thing the whole way back up the aisle, and the matron danced, too. But cutest of all were the flower girls and the ringbearers (I assume. The two little girls in white dresses and little boys in black suits), who danced up the aisle following the matron, in a very clearly memorized and measured walk together, turn out, walk to the edge, walk back in, kick together, kick together . . . No one threw rice — instead the entire party was surrounded by a semi-constant haze of camera flashes (when the internet comes back, I should look to see if someone else’s pictures made it online). And then the attendees half-walked, half-danced out of the church, too.

Of course there was the reception, too. I could hear the music as I walked back to my house to sit down for a bit and eat some bananas (I was sure that there would be plenty of food at the reception. I just wasn’t sure when it would materialize), and by the time I showed up perhaps an hour later, the hall was probably 5/6 full, and it was a BIG place. Children weren’t allowed at the reception, I think just for space concerns. Even without kids, I don’t think there was an empty seat in the place.

And — that was like no wedding reception I’ve ever seen or heard of. The matron danced in, the kids danced in (still adorable), the bridesmaids and groomsmen danced in — much more elaborately this time — Elton and Patience danced in — the bridesmaids and groomsmen danced in again (I guess they slipped out the side and came in the back again?), even more elaborately . . . It felt like a talent show/dance party. Elton and Patience were wearing their wedding clothes, but the bridesmaids were all in little green dresses, the groomsmen were in suits with green shirts, and the matron had changed to a lovely green chitenge-thing.

There were speeches, including one from Patience’s father that hit all of the “Wife obey your husband in everything and learn to apologize even when you’re right” points that I’d expected that morning, and one from the guest of honor (I would have thought that the guests of honor for a wedding reception would be the happy couple, but it seems not) that was a recap of that morning’s “Communication is essential to a good marriage” sermon. There was food, not as good, as plentiful, or as elaborate as the kitchen party, but still enough that I stuffed some in a ziplock bag to take home with me, and ate it the next day. I once again managed to sit at the very end of the line for food, but I’d had bananas to tide me over, so that was all right.

After the food, there was more dance party/presentation of gifts, and people got up and formed a line-cum-dance-mob. I’d brought my present to the kitchen party, so wasn’t sure if I shouldn’t get up, but one of the ladies sitting near me said that it was okay to get up and dance, so I did, to the usual crowd of thrilled onlookers. I have decided that Zambian weddings are like Christian youth camps: there comes a point where you get up and dance around the room and get hugged by random strangers. It’s not how you’d behave in real life, but it can be fun every now and again. Nobody tied chitenges around my waist at the Mennonite youth conference, though.

And presently everyone sat down again (rather less everyone than previously; a number of people had walked out during the dance mob), and then the wedding party danced out, followed/surrounded by a mob of people. I got dragged out by the lady in while who had hugged me, and left after disentangling myself, in order to get home while there was still a decent amount of light.

———-

I got the care package from church yesterday. Thanks to all of you, even the ones I can’t identify because your signatures are illegible!

And on the topic of parcels, if you were intending to send something, you should probably send it in the next week or so, to be sure it gets here. Letters are probably okay until the first week of May, since they don’t take quite as long as packages. After that, send letters to my mom’s address, and I’ll read and appreciate them when I get home.

PARTY!

I’ve been in Zambia for nearly eight months now, and have not yet managed to get to a Zambian wedding. Twenty-four hours ago, I had not gone to a kitchen party, either. Kitchen parties are the Zambian equivalent of bridal showers, and Alison has been telling me since October or so that I really ought to go to one, but the few that were held in Macha, rather than various locations out of town, were for one reason or another inconvenient to go to.

But my boss is getting married. And his future wife’s kitchen party was today. And, since I am not currently in Tanzania (this was a possibility. The other SALTers are in Tanzania right now), I found it perfectly convenient to go.

The party was scheduled to start at 13 hours, but the new MCC family was moving in today, and I was supposed to feed everyone lunch, and Macha Girls is a bit of a trek from here, so what with one thing and another it was close to three by the time I showed up.

Nothing had really started yet. The party was held in a big empty classroom (I mean BIG. Longer than the sanctuary at Germantown Mennonite, and probably 3/4 as wide, with five rows of benches on the long sides.) in, I assume, the home ec wing. There was a sort of dais at one end with a few pieces of kitchen furniture and a lot of plates and whatnot, which I never did decide whether it belonged to the kitchen party or the classroom (There were an awful lot of plates. And nobody needs 20 of the same size of pan, do they? But everything seemed shiny-new, with original stickers and packing materials . . .). When I got there, there was a music system set up and blaring the usual blend of Zambian (Tonga?) non-religious dance-y music, a number of people working industriously in the industrial-size kitchen one room over, and a few women sitting in clumps on the benches.

I was the only person in the room not wearing a chitenge or chitenge suit (outfit made from chitenge fabric. A really nice chitenge suit is the fanciest outfit most Zambian women own) — I’d known that I would want my chitenge for the wedding, but hadn’t realized I should bring it for the kitchen party, too — so I pulled my chitenge-fabric headscarf out of my purse and put it on, which had the dual benefits of keeping my hair off the back of my neck and making me feel marginally less underdressed.

After I’d been there a bit, a mattress and a bamboo mat were spread out on the floor just in front of the dais, and people seemed to be leaving gifts there, so I added mine (a small short but very wide shawl) to the collection and found myself a spot. A few more women arrived, and a woman I’d taken a minibus with one time demanded that I sit next to her, which I did not particularly object to (and it turned out to be a good thing. If I’d stayed back where I could use the wall as back support, I wouldn’t’ve been able to see anything). Before too long a bunch more people trickled in, among them the team of drummers, distinctive for their matching blue, orange, and yellow chitenge skirts, and heralded by ululation and jubilation.

After the drummers had set up — these drummers were unique, in that I think they’re the only female drummers I’ve seen here — there was another fuss and more ululation, and the woman who’d demanded that I sit next to her informed me, “The girl is coming! Let’s go!” So we all crowded to the door and formed a clump outside it, around, I realized after a bit, a woman with a double- or triple-length of the really high-quality chitenge fabric, the stuff they make the good chitenge suits out of, draped over her head and shoulders, and over another person behind her, and spreading out behind them as a train. By process of elimination, I decided that the person completely hidden by the fabric must be Patience, the bride-to-be.

Everyone tromped inside, cheering and clapping and ululating, and the group half-danced, half-walked over to the mattress, which was cleared of gifts so that Patience, still swaddled in fabric, and her guide could sit on it. Most people reclaimed their seats at this point, but there was enough of a crowd still standing that I couldn’t always see what was going on. Eventually people dispersed to reveal Patience, the guide sitting next to her, and the Mistress of Ceremonies.

Zambian weddings have a Matron, an older married woman or widow who’s in charge of everything, and also of properly instructing the bride in her duties and how she ought to behave to her husband. I’m pretty sure that the Matron was either the guide or the MC, but I’m not sure which.

I’m not managing to convey the sheer organized chaos of this event. Any group in chitenges or chitenge suits is a riot of color. The ceremony switched randomly between English and Tonga, with the crowd heckling or ululating as the mood took them. Either the music or the drums were going whenever no one was actively speaking, and sometimes over and behind whatever speech was happening. I didn’t take pictures, because my camera is shot, but I found a youtube video that conveys the scene on a much smaller scale, and a photograph that conveys a bit of the color of the occasion.

There was a prayer, then some talking, alternating with dancing. And, yes, Patience is still sitting on the mattress on the floor, covered in fabric. I should make a point about the dancing. To western eyes, Zambian dancing is EXTREMELY sexual. A good Zambian dancer can articulate muscles and ranges of motion that most American women don’t even know they have, almost all of them in the hip/abdomen region. And it’s not just perception: Zambian dancing is very sexual (also, I’m told, a preparation for childbirth). Hip bumps and circles and pelvic thrusts may not be as inherently sexual to a Zambian as they look to us dirty-minded westerners, but when dancers get close and the crowd whoops as those pelvic thrusts turn into crotch bumps, there’s no way you’re telling me that’s not sexual (and, I think, inherently heterosexual, never mind that both of the dancers are women). Use #14 of a chitenge: phallic object. #15, triangular sash. #16, long-ways sash, to emphasize the hips while dancing (the sashes are also a convenient place for someone to stick money while you’re dancing, if they feel so called). While I’m listing, #17, picnic blanket, #18, elaborate knotted headdress that I think used the entire 2 meters of fabric and didn’t look sewn. #19, to wave in the air if ululating does not sufficiently express your emotions.

But at the same time, it’s completely okay, by Zambian standards. Sex may be less taboo in Zambian society than in American, but it’s still somewhat taboo, and yet these extremely explicit dances are completely family-friendly, and it doesn’t even occur to anyone that this could be problematic in any way. Girls will dance like this in school (though I haven’t seen it in church); young girls will copy their elders while bathing naked in front of the house. It’s like the way a Zambian woman is completely unselfconscious about showing her breasts, but a proper Zambian woman would never show her legs, or even go about in trousers (at least for the older generation). And also, I think, like flirting in western society: flirting may sometimes get quite raunchy, but as long as it’s only flirting, it’s okay, and you may flirt extensively with someone you won’t have sex with.

After some more talking and dancing, my boss Elton showed up, accompanied by five or six guys, and they slowly danced their way towards the dais-and-mattress, surrounded by a whooping crowd of women. There was a good bit of stuff I couldn’t see, but somebody, presumably Elton, removed the fabric from Patience, and then he pulled her to her feet and led her to a row of chairs, where they sat for the next bit of the ceremony. This whole time she had her face expressionless, or even sad, and her gaze downcast, according to custom (something about offending the future mother-in-law, I think), and moved in an slow, oddly fluid way (this was clearly stylized, but may also have been just that her dress was so closely tailored as to be very difficult to move in). To my eye, the overall effect of the downcast face, fancy dress (which matched Elton’s outfit) and elaborate hairdo made her seem almost more like a wax doll than a person.

More speeches, more dancing, periodic rolling about on the floor, usually to great applause, a sermon that turned out to be more of a cutsey recipe for ‘how to cook a husband,’ featuring ingredients like ‘a handful of generosity’ and ‘a dash of laughter,’ ritual gift-giving to both Elton and two women (the mothers? Or perhaps her grandmothers? Or other signifiant members of the community?), and then the couple was danced back to the doorway, where he gave her a quick kiss before being spirited away by his attendants, leaving the room occupied only by women and children too small to be left at home.

The next while was occupied by dancing, either a few people dancing in the center, or large numbers of people getting up and milling about in the center of the room. At once point the lead dancer pulled me out onto the floor (I don’t know if my neighbor ladies tipped her off to the fact that I am capable of Zambian-style dancing, or if she just grabbed me because I’m white), and while I was very aware that I had nowhere near the skill of basically everyone else on the floor, the crowd loved it. I don’t think Zambians see bakuwa dancing very often, and even less frequently Zambian-style dancing. Patience was sitting on the mattress again for this part, eyes dutifully downcast.

After a while, a portion of “ba committee” came forward and started sorting through and opening the gifts. The MC would then call out the name of the giver, who would come forward and show the gift to Patience, still calm and downcast, and then dance a bit. It took me a bit to work this out, since the instructions where a hodgepodge of Tonga, English, and nonexistent, but I eventually figured out that this was what was going on, and that if you didn’t dance you could pay 5 pin (the cost of a butternut squash, if you buy it from a vendor in town) to not dance. I had not been aware that giving a gift signed me up to dance, but I have no shame, which is lucky, since at that point the lead dancer was manhandling a chitenge around my hips, and I don’t think she would’ve taken no for an answer. Conclusion: Zambians like bakuwa dancing even better than bakuwa speaking Tonga.

While the gifts were being gone through, eight or ten people at a time were given plates to go get food. I was at the end to be very last for food, which I did not mind, because this was supper, rather than lunch, and it meant that I didn’t have to juggle food in order to get up and do my obligatory gift-giving dance.

There was an enormous quantity of food. The rice was cooked in a pot — a cauldron — big enough to hide a body (I have no idea how they got it onto the table), and they probably dumped close to two cups of rice onto every plate. And chicken. And beef. And cabbage. And ‘soup’ (gravy-ish), chicken or beef. And potato. And potato salad. And cake. It was enough that even the ladies sitting next to me were wrapping plates in plastic bags to take home (and Zambians can put away a prodigious amount of food. I think eating nshima all the time really does stretch your stomach or something).

After the gifts and the food, there was more dancing while a group of ladies led Patience up onto the dais and showed her all the kitchen equipment, explaining what it was and how to use it, never mind that she’s been using all of this stuff for at least ten or fifteen years. That completed, there was another prayer, a bit more talking, and then people went home or danced more, as they wished. I could hear distant music and ululations for half my walk home.

And the wedding is tomorrow.