i was in the peace corps landcruiser the other day and there was luggage in front and 3 people behind me on the seat. this isn't that unusual as the seat is supposed to fit four people. what was unusual is that before i looked behind me and consciously saw the 3 other people i sat there thinking "gosh, i have so much space here today!"
i wonder if, when, and how those perspectives are going to change. will i eventually go back to thinking that that is squished and that i want my personal space? will i eventually go back to thinking that my house is small? i mean, i have a bed, a table, a chair, space to cook, space for my bike... what more do i need? it's HUGE for one person by zambian standards. and my yard would make all those suburban americans with kids sooooo jealous! will i ever think that spending 1 MILLION zambian kwacha on the GMAT makes sense? that's more than most of my neighbors will ever see at any given time in their entire lives? (it's $250).
the money is one thing that i think may never change. relativity around prices may always confuse me. as for space... i wonder.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
finally, some pictures!
yay, i'm finally get pictures up!!! hope you all enjoy. i made them small so that i could get them up faster and there's a bit of graininess (sp?). but i hope you like. i'd love comments now that you have some visuals on my world! :-)
toga party at provincials
me and lyndsey
me and lisa at her site
a community school in mpika (about 30 km from the town)
girls dancing as they prepare for independence day celebrations
kids on a road near mwamfushi school
lala!
lala!
stream marking the scout camp from the game management area near north luangwa national park
sunset from my house
mountains along the great north road
great north road - major road to tanzania, dar es salaam, and a port out... so lots and lots of shipping goes through here. the last truck i got in was carrying vodaphone cell phones from durban to dar! :-)
lake at shiwa n'gandu
mountains around the great north road
my crazy tan lines!
bags of caterpillars. apparently these sell for about 1,000,000 kwacha (or $250)
a girl with a handful of caterpillars on our field trip
me and prince outside my house when we got back to no roof one night (it was taken off... not blew off, in case you were worried)
roof in progress
finished roof
toga party at provincials
me and lyndsey
me and lisa at her site
a community school in mpika (about 30 km from the town)
girls dancing as they prepare for independence day celebrations
kids on a road near mwamfushi school
lala!
lala!
stream marking the scout camp from the game management area near north luangwa national park
sunset from my house
mountains along the great north road
great north road - major road to tanzania, dar es salaam, and a port out... so lots and lots of shipping goes through here. the last truck i got in was carrying vodaphone cell phones from durban to dar! :-)
lake at shiwa n'gandu
mountains around the great north road
my crazy tan lines!
bags of caterpillars. apparently these sell for about 1,000,000 kwacha (or $250)
a girl with a handful of caterpillars on our field trip
me and prince outside my house when we got back to no roof one night (it was taken off... not blew off, in case you were worried)
roof in progress
finished roof
Friday, November 23, 2007
pics
ah, i'm trying to upload pictures and this internet doesn't seem to be working. it keeps ALMOST finishing and then not going through... i'm going to try again. but, if not, they're coming. i promise!
thanksgiving
Ok, I’m writing this at the peace corps house and hoping that when I get into town I can upload a bunch of pictures. There should be brief descriptions beneath them all…
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I find Thanksgiving to be one of the hardest holidays to replicate. There’s nothing like being at home all day in Chicago, with the weather cold (I heard snowy!!) outside, and my family bustling around me to prepare way way way too much food. And even as a hectically prepared volunteer meal doesn’t quite compare to my mom and my sister’s various gourmet spreads each year, I feel I have so much to be thankful for here… both in terms of the experience I’m getting here and the people I’m meeting and who are caring for me, but also in terms of what I have at home – people who love me and who I love, my health, my education, my experiences…
My mom wrote a note when I left that said “Embrace this part of your life as joyfully and wisely as you’ve done so far… And remember that scattered all around the world are hundreds of people who love you and are here for you if you need them.” At the time that felt daunting and scary. I would, most definitely, need them, I thought.
I carry that note with me everywhere because at the airport in America, almost one year ago, the only safe place to put it was in my passport carrier, and that’s where it has stayed. This year in particular, being far away, I often get a strange reminder of that. There are so many people I’m so far away from and who often feel very distant. And yet, in this country where there is both so much suffering and so much joy, I am constantly reminded of where I’ve come from, the experiences that have helped to shape me, and, most importantly, of the people who shaped those experiences. Whether through letters or text messages or e-mails or phone calls and random (sometimes I think divinely intervened) thoughts I often remember how many people I love because of how they’ve played a role in my life and how I’ve leaned on them or continue to lean on them. And, I am thankful for that. Very thankful.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I find Thanksgiving to be one of the hardest holidays to replicate. There’s nothing like being at home all day in Chicago, with the weather cold (I heard snowy!!) outside, and my family bustling around me to prepare way way way too much food. And even as a hectically prepared volunteer meal doesn’t quite compare to my mom and my sister’s various gourmet spreads each year, I feel I have so much to be thankful for here… both in terms of the experience I’m getting here and the people I’m meeting and who are caring for me, but also in terms of what I have at home – people who love me and who I love, my health, my education, my experiences…
My mom wrote a note when I left that said “Embrace this part of your life as joyfully and wisely as you’ve done so far… And remember that scattered all around the world are hundreds of people who love you and are here for you if you need them.” At the time that felt daunting and scary. I would, most definitely, need them, I thought.
I carry that note with me everywhere because at the airport in America, almost one year ago, the only safe place to put it was in my passport carrier, and that’s where it has stayed. This year in particular, being far away, I often get a strange reminder of that. There are so many people I’m so far away from and who often feel very distant. And yet, in this country where there is both so much suffering and so much joy, I am constantly reminded of where I’ve come from, the experiences that have helped to shape me, and, most importantly, of the people who shaped those experiences. Whether through letters or text messages or e-mails or phone calls and random (sometimes I think divinely intervened) thoughts I often remember how many people I love because of how they’ve played a role in my life and how I’ve leaned on them or continue to lean on them. And, I am thankful for that. Very thankful.
moments to capture
I wish that I could capture moments here and put them in my mind forever and in your minds, the people who are reading this…
Like, the other day as Prince, a friend of mine here, and I walked down the hill at my house to one of my little itty bitty neighbors standing at the top with his little head tilted against his arm that was, for some reason, raised up in the air saying “Bye ba Anna! Bye! Bye!”
Or, one of the kids who a wildlife officer and I took out into the bush to learn about caterpillars (a HUGE delicacy here) asking “Ba Moses, you said that insects have 6 legs when you were talking about butterflies, but if insects only have 6 legs, is a spider not an insect?” Oh, I love the inquiry, I love the honesty of the question, I love the creativity and I LOVED watching these kids, who never get to go on field trips or do hands on learning, running through the bush and finding caterpillars and then asking questions, being curious, and having a teacher responding so positively and constructively to that curiosity.
Or, the kids diving and chasing after the bubbles my mom sent. Or asking for the marshmallows that I taught them to roast by saying “Ba Anna, give me a marsh, a marsh?”
Or, a friend of mine and I standing, laughing, wearing raincoats, and eating egg salad sandwiches in my house in the one dry spot, because everywhere else the rain is pouring through the thatch. Or, the next day, when I’m in the house by myself and the rain starts to drip through the rain tarp, the reed mat, AND the plastic sheet I have above my bed to keep it dry I think “Why, oh why, did I think moving to a thatch hut in the middle of an African village was a good idea?” (luckily, I think the roof is pretty much fixed. A couple issues still to go, but I’m much drier!)
Or, the random bamaayo (mom) on my path home who notices I’m not on my bicycle today and says “but, ba Anna, where is your bicycle?!” How does she know? Why does she know? Why does she care? Sometimes the response to that is an utter frustration that I’m always watched, but increasingly it’s a realization that people notice other people and ask them about their lives. When something’s different you greet, you ask, you comment. You interact in a way that we’ve distanced ourselves from in our fast-paced American craziness.
Or, the minibus driver in Lusaka who gave us a price of one pin (25 cents), then switched with his friend who tried to charge us two, and when we starting fighting and yelling at the guy about ripping us off and that we wouldn’t pay more than it was supposed to be, the other Zambians who were squished in the bus with us said “but it’s supposed to be one and half, why will you only pay one?” Oh, the constant struggle to not be taken advantage of. We paid one because that’s what we agreed to when we got in, but I got off feeling both taken advantage of and, as always, the recipient of somewhat bizarrely preferential treatment simply for the color of my skin. We paid less than we should have because that’s what he told us first but only after yelling, being yelled at, AND realizing that Zambians DO pay more than that…
Or, my little neighbor kid, who doesn’t even really speak, but when he sees my bicycle in town (not necessarily with me even ON it!) says “ba Anna! Ba Anna!” in a slight crescendo.
Or, the kids who are my house running around with the dog yelling “Lala! Lala! Lala!” Which quickly becomes “Lalalalalalalala!” ah.
Maybe I’ll stop there today. I think I’m ABOUT to figure out a way to ship books here and I’ll keep people updated in the next couple weeks about where to send books so that you can get them into FIVE peace corps volunteer libraries in Northern Province. I miss you all, and as always I would LOVE to hear from you… letters, texts, e-mails, phone calls… any or all of the above are truly a gift.
Like, the other day as Prince, a friend of mine here, and I walked down the hill at my house to one of my little itty bitty neighbors standing at the top with his little head tilted against his arm that was, for some reason, raised up in the air saying “Bye ba Anna! Bye! Bye!”
Or, one of the kids who a wildlife officer and I took out into the bush to learn about caterpillars (a HUGE delicacy here) asking “Ba Moses, you said that insects have 6 legs when you were talking about butterflies, but if insects only have 6 legs, is a spider not an insect?” Oh, I love the inquiry, I love the honesty of the question, I love the creativity and I LOVED watching these kids, who never get to go on field trips or do hands on learning, running through the bush and finding caterpillars and then asking questions, being curious, and having a teacher responding so positively and constructively to that curiosity.
Or, the kids diving and chasing after the bubbles my mom sent. Or asking for the marshmallows that I taught them to roast by saying “Ba Anna, give me a marsh, a marsh?”
Or, a friend of mine and I standing, laughing, wearing raincoats, and eating egg salad sandwiches in my house in the one dry spot, because everywhere else the rain is pouring through the thatch. Or, the next day, when I’m in the house by myself and the rain starts to drip through the rain tarp, the reed mat, AND the plastic sheet I have above my bed to keep it dry I think “Why, oh why, did I think moving to a thatch hut in the middle of an African village was a good idea?” (luckily, I think the roof is pretty much fixed. A couple issues still to go, but I’m much drier!)
Or, the random bamaayo (mom) on my path home who notices I’m not on my bicycle today and says “but, ba Anna, where is your bicycle?!” How does she know? Why does she know? Why does she care? Sometimes the response to that is an utter frustration that I’m always watched, but increasingly it’s a realization that people notice other people and ask them about their lives. When something’s different you greet, you ask, you comment. You interact in a way that we’ve distanced ourselves from in our fast-paced American craziness.
Or, the minibus driver in Lusaka who gave us a price of one pin (25 cents), then switched with his friend who tried to charge us two, and when we starting fighting and yelling at the guy about ripping us off and that we wouldn’t pay more than it was supposed to be, the other Zambians who were squished in the bus with us said “but it’s supposed to be one and half, why will you only pay one?” Oh, the constant struggle to not be taken advantage of. We paid one because that’s what we agreed to when we got in, but I got off feeling both taken advantage of and, as always, the recipient of somewhat bizarrely preferential treatment simply for the color of my skin. We paid less than we should have because that’s what he told us first but only after yelling, being yelled at, AND realizing that Zambians DO pay more than that…
Or, my little neighbor kid, who doesn’t even really speak, but when he sees my bicycle in town (not necessarily with me even ON it!) says “ba Anna! Ba Anna!” in a slight crescendo.
Or, the kids who are my house running around with the dog yelling “Lala! Lala! Lala!” Which quickly becomes “Lalalalalalalala!” ah.
Maybe I’ll stop there today. I think I’m ABOUT to figure out a way to ship books here and I’ll keep people updated in the next couple weeks about where to send books so that you can get them into FIVE peace corps volunteer libraries in Northern Province. I miss you all, and as always I would LOVE to hear from you… letters, texts, e-mails, phone calls… any or all of the above are truly a gift.
Friday, November 09, 2007
witchcraft
(trying to work in the shorter blogs, it's easier to write, and hopefully, easier to read).
a couple days ago at a ministry meeting one of the standards officers mentioned a meeting at a school in the district where they had had to meet with the head teacher and the deputy head and the PTA over allegations of witchcraft against the head teacher. apparently a married woman was accusing the head teacher of inhabiting her dreams. he was a wizard and was coming to her at night. the response of some of the office was "now, if she wanted him enough, she could make those visions come to her!" which is, of course according to me, true. but suddenly i started to think. yes witchcraft seems absurd and it also can be a very destructive part of society here as accusation and jealousies fly... but is it just one of our human ways to explain our pysches and our unexplainable illnesses?
there is more pain and suffering and though much of it can be explained my mosquitoes, unsafe sex, not washing hands or any other sanitary issues... much of it is also tied into systems on inequality and random unfairness and maybe witches can help to make you feel better about all of that. to feel less out of control. that said, a head teacher shouldn't be fired because some woman dreams about him. please.
a couple days ago at a ministry meeting one of the standards officers mentioned a meeting at a school in the district where they had had to meet with the head teacher and the deputy head and the PTA over allegations of witchcraft against the head teacher. apparently a married woman was accusing the head teacher of inhabiting her dreams. he was a wizard and was coming to her at night. the response of some of the office was "now, if she wanted him enough, she could make those visions come to her!" which is, of course according to me, true. but suddenly i started to think. yes witchcraft seems absurd and it also can be a very destructive part of society here as accusation and jealousies fly... but is it just one of our human ways to explain our pysches and our unexplainable illnesses?
there is more pain and suffering and though much of it can be explained my mosquitoes, unsafe sex, not washing hands or any other sanitary issues... much of it is also tied into systems on inequality and random unfairness and maybe witches can help to make you feel better about all of that. to feel less out of control. that said, a head teacher shouldn't be fired because some woman dreams about him. please.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
women at the bus
on my way down to lusaka two days ago we stopped at a turn off north. a couple people got off and as soon as we stopped we were, of course, surrounded by women selling all sorts of things: fruit, tomatoes, dried fish, potatoes... one woman came up to my window and as i looked at her i started, unconsciously, to feel sorry. there she was so dependent on these random whims of bus drivers. she worked all day standing in the hot sun or, as the case may be now, the rain with a heavy baby tied to her back. "i should buy something" i thought. then as she counted the change that the man behind me had given her she broke out in this huge, incredibly beautiful smile. he had given her the wrong change and they started joking with each other. i realized i didn't really want any of the fruit she was selling. yes, her life is difficult, yes there is pain in her life that i wouldn't want in mine (and don't want to be in hers!) but, i also so that incredible smile and realized how judgemental i was being... she doesn't need pity.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
puppies
i just got a puppy. her name is lala. one of my favorite images so far was when she came up quietly behind rex, one of my cats (who currently hates her), so that rex didn't know she was there. rex is starting to let her get a little closer but this was pushing it. lala put her little paw out and touched rex's back. rex jumped around and looked at lala for about 3 seconds. lala was so surprised that rex wasn't hissing that she started to jump and bark. at which point rex, clearly thinking "what IS this thing?!" started to hiss. and promptly ran away to go back into the house. why lala thinks the best way to be friends with the cats is to bark at them and try to jump on them i think is just a difference between cats and dogs.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
time
i got a little package yesterday from an old family friend which made me think about two things. (first, thank you annie! it was wonderful).
first, in some ways i'm so far away and then in other ways this distance allows for this unique kind of connection... i get notes and packages and pictures from people who, in the states, i see and talk to rarely. and here because we're so far away that connection needs to be made to feel like we care about each other. so, letters, text messages, phone calls, packages are these amazing gifts which remind you of specific people in specific moments and which seem so natural to the person and which i hold and cherish as these little reminders of the people i love. whether it's a dr. seuss book or earrings or prayers or a book about american teachers abroad i see them all and think of someone specific. it's kind of amazing.
second, annie wrote about writing and sending in "haste" and how she does everything these days in haste and that the only time that wasn't true was when she was travelling. i have so much time here. time to fill with pets and people and meetings and which sometimes feels productive and sometimes feels incredibly empty. and yet, i fear the time when i get back to america and CAN'T read because i don't have time or don't watch the sunset or greet people as i pass them. it's frustrating here but isn't the opposite just as frustrating?
first, in some ways i'm so far away and then in other ways this distance allows for this unique kind of connection... i get notes and packages and pictures from people who, in the states, i see and talk to rarely. and here because we're so far away that connection needs to be made to feel like we care about each other. so, letters, text messages, phone calls, packages are these amazing gifts which remind you of specific people in specific moments and which seem so natural to the person and which i hold and cherish as these little reminders of the people i love. whether it's a dr. seuss book or earrings or prayers or a book about american teachers abroad i see them all and think of someone specific. it's kind of amazing.
second, annie wrote about writing and sending in "haste" and how she does everything these days in haste and that the only time that wasn't true was when she was travelling. i have so much time here. time to fill with pets and people and meetings and which sometimes feels productive and sometimes feels incredibly empty. and yet, i fear the time when i get back to america and CAN'T read because i don't have time or don't watch the sunset or greet people as i pass them. it's frustrating here but isn't the opposite just as frustrating?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
muzungu
the little shriek of joy as i ride my bike past some little kid who yells out "ba muzungu!" (a white person!).
it makes me smile and cringe. that i can be labeled so easily seems to contradict my universal american sensibilities. and yet, it's true. and her excitement at my passing can't help but make me want to be nice to her. do i challenge her stereotypes or do i just exist in her world of friendly white people? does it really matter?
it makes me smile and cringe. that i can be labeled so easily seems to contradict my universal american sensibilities. and yet, it's true. and her excitement at my passing can't help but make me want to be nice to her. do i challenge her stereotypes or do i just exist in her world of friendly white people? does it really matter?
Friday, October 12, 2007
update
first, happy birthday dad! it's today, so i'll get it up for all to see!
wow, it's been a while since i put an update on here. i guess it's because things have been pretty hectic this month. i've been up at the kasama house three times for various meetings: a youth career week, a general peace corps meetings with formal updates and info, and a training with counterparts from our villages on HIV and AIDS. they've all been pretty interesting in their own ways, though it's meant that i've been in and out of my house and my village A LOT.
the youth career week was interesting because we brought two kids from schools from each of our villages or areas. in years past we've brought just girls and done a girls career week but this year decided to bring one boy and one girl because gender isn't just about girls, it's also about discussing and understanding masculinity and the interaction between boys and girls or men and women.
i took one of the activities from that week back to my village and did it with my youth group. it was an activity where the boys and girls divide up into separate groups and make lists of: the good things about being a girl, the bad things about being a girl, the good things about being a boy, and the bad things about being a boy. both groups make all four lists. it was interesting to watch both times because both times the girls had a pretty hard time coming up with positives that weren't superficial. they all had "women are beautiful" or "women have beautiful bodies" or "women don't have to propose" or "women don't have to make as much money." but, when it came to things that were more complicated, they struggled. giving birth and breastfeeding showed up on both the good and bad list eventually, which is, i guess, understandable!
in both groups the boys also put on their negative list that "boys have more responsibility." i was interested to see what they meant when they wrote that because in many ways i'm constantly in awe of the many many many things that women do here: get water, cook, farm, watch after children, shop, sell things in the market and make money, knit and sew clothes, act as nurses and caregivers and traditional birth attendants and initiation ceremony leaders... sometimes it feels like there are just so few men around. but, both the girls and the boys seemed to agree that the men have more "responsibility" in some way. i questioned why and the boys said "well, if we get a girl pregnant we have to make sure that we are giving her money for food." i almost started to laugh: what about the girl who is pregnant and now has a CHILD to care for? i pointed to the two other leaders of the youth group, one man and one woman, and said "hmm, interesting point, though which one of these two seems to have a more constant responsibility for the child?" they smiled a little because even as she sat in that youth group session, beauty had her beautiful baby boy tied to her back. oy, gender, HOW do we start?
on that note, in our provincial meetings, i ran for our national gender committee. so, i'll probably be in charge of next year's youth career week and then also in charge of trying to get other peace corps volunteers interested and connected to the gender aspect of what we're all doing here. though, i write that and then sit here kind of thinking "what on earth do i mean by that?!" it's going to be a challenge since we're all all over the place and all doing such different things, and don't have any money to do things on a peace corps volunteer-wide basis. much of our funding opportunities focus on community initiated projects and not things that might bring other, more random groups of peace corps volunteers or counterparts together.
this last meeting, however, was a meeting with 16 peace corps volunteers and 16 counterparts from our villages about HIV and AIDs and it was really interesting in some of the things we brought up for each other. at one point we divided into our own groups to talk about our expectations of the other (what WE expect from our community to be effective and what THEY expect from us) in order to be successful in approaching HIV and AIDS in our community. Many of our various expectations were so difficult, that we really want to push each other. it was sooooo nice to see that of each other because often i feel this general "oh we're so lucky to have you, help us in any way you can, just tell us what to do" sentiment, which is so hard to process. i want to scream "tell me what YOU want and what YOU can do!" or, maybe better, "tell me what you don't want!"
one of the conversations with that led to a conversation where they started saying that they see us as a link to other organizations that can get them resources. many of us responded with the usual fear that we have when people start asking us for THINGS, and started saying "you know, it's hard for us to give things because we don't have much and to trust that people will actually use them." but finally i started also realizing how much i also feel that sentiment, that i DO want to help my counterparts access resources: computers, software, books, transport (if only i could do that!), medicines, testing services, bicycles, art supplies... and there's this hesitation on our part because SO many people ask us for things that it's exhausting to try to figure what we really CAN find and offer and who really WILL use what we find outside of themselves... but, that we really should all think of ourselves as those links, and that, in many ways, the volunteers like myself who live near towns need to start being the link to those resources. one problem with that is that the systems to distribute resources are so random, uneven, even unfair... they are unannounced, done by several different NGOs or government agencies at different times and places and with different resources and amounts. how are people supposed to know how to access any of that?!
another conversation was divided by gender and we talked about ways to talk to women and youth about sex and sexuality. it's so hard here because there are such hesitations and such a strong belief that if you talk to kids about sex they'll just start having it. we were meeting with one NGO leader who distributes birth control here and asking what the policy is to giving birth control to teenage girls. he said they don't, to which a friend of mine and i said "do you SEE the 13 year old girls who are pregnant?!" it ended up being a pretty hilarious conversation as we kept pushing his buttons. it ended with him telling us we should be abstinent and us asking him (after a comment of HIS about the cultural acceptability of married men with girlfriends) if HE had one. it was pretty funny and we got some chitenges (the wrap skirts that all zambian women wear all the time) with prints from their mosquito net campaign on them. they're pretty hilarious and i can't wait to get it back to my village! yay for insecticide treated nets (though, i have to admit we were hoping for the condom chitenges! ha!). so few of those conversations happen so frankly in the village. maybe people don't speak english well enough, or maybe we're trying to more appropriate and culturally accepted... but we don't ask those kinds of questions to many people. so, the opportunity to push some of those buttons, ask some hard questions, and be challenged myself was this welcome and cherished chance. it reminded me of what i so loved about seeds of peace: this chance to truly push people to defend their positions and challenge them on things that seem, in many ways, to be integral parts of their cultural identities. "WHY do you do things this way?!" i wish we had more opportunities like that and i wish we had the chance to also create more spaces like that. it's hard.
hmm, what else? next week we're doing a training in my village with peace corps volunteers from all over the country who live in or near the BOMA (district capital) and work with the ministry of education offices. it should be fun to see everyone and i think it will be really interesting to start some conversations amongst ourselves about what we're all doing and also with our ministry counterparts about the role they see us as playing ideally.
and then, i think, i'll head up to lake tanganyika for three days before i head down to lusaka for a training with some of the leaders from my youth group around youth center management, information management, and peer education. i'm excited and i think the money for that JUST came through. it links into my eventual wish to build a youth center in my village. i really want to create a space that youth can hang out, learn from each other, study, get information about HIV, and just BE that's safe... there are so few outlets for kids that it's no wonder they turn to other elsewhere! they are bored, full of energy, interested in each other and ready to explore, both sexually and also just out into the fields and mountains and lakes.
also, on a project note, i've been really disconnected from some of the things i was working on this month, but i'm definitely still trying to start a book campaign and if you're interested in sending books, getting involved with getting me books, that would be AMAZING. i'm starting to think about whether or not it's something that could last beyond when i'm here and people can just send books over that would get divvied up between the several libraries that peace corps volunteers, even just in northern province, are all starting. send me books!
ok, i think this is long enough and rambling enough. i'm sorry if today it wasn't making as much sense or felt a little more ADD, that's kind of what I feel like today! also, i just decided that i'll be in israel over christmas. a friend from college is getting married and i'm going with two friends from here... so please if you'll be anywhere nearby, i'd love to see you and catch up. i'm so excited to be back in the middle east, have a chance to go to shabbat services, speak arabic, bring a sheesha back with me, see friends... i can't wait!
i miss you all so much and, as always, i'll put in a plea for mail. i LOVE it. it's slowing down and I'M slowing down at responding, but letters are truly this wonderful gift. keep them coming!
wow, it's been a while since i put an update on here. i guess it's because things have been pretty hectic this month. i've been up at the kasama house three times for various meetings: a youth career week, a general peace corps meetings with formal updates and info, and a training with counterparts from our villages on HIV and AIDS. they've all been pretty interesting in their own ways, though it's meant that i've been in and out of my house and my village A LOT.
the youth career week was interesting because we brought two kids from schools from each of our villages or areas. in years past we've brought just girls and done a girls career week but this year decided to bring one boy and one girl because gender isn't just about girls, it's also about discussing and understanding masculinity and the interaction between boys and girls or men and women.
i took one of the activities from that week back to my village and did it with my youth group. it was an activity where the boys and girls divide up into separate groups and make lists of: the good things about being a girl, the bad things about being a girl, the good things about being a boy, and the bad things about being a boy. both groups make all four lists. it was interesting to watch both times because both times the girls had a pretty hard time coming up with positives that weren't superficial. they all had "women are beautiful" or "women have beautiful bodies" or "women don't have to propose" or "women don't have to make as much money." but, when it came to things that were more complicated, they struggled. giving birth and breastfeeding showed up on both the good and bad list eventually, which is, i guess, understandable!
in both groups the boys also put on their negative list that "boys have more responsibility." i was interested to see what they meant when they wrote that because in many ways i'm constantly in awe of the many many many things that women do here: get water, cook, farm, watch after children, shop, sell things in the market and make money, knit and sew clothes, act as nurses and caregivers and traditional birth attendants and initiation ceremony leaders... sometimes it feels like there are just so few men around. but, both the girls and the boys seemed to agree that the men have more "responsibility" in some way. i questioned why and the boys said "well, if we get a girl pregnant we have to make sure that we are giving her money for food." i almost started to laugh: what about the girl who is pregnant and now has a CHILD to care for? i pointed to the two other leaders of the youth group, one man and one woman, and said "hmm, interesting point, though which one of these two seems to have a more constant responsibility for the child?" they smiled a little because even as she sat in that youth group session, beauty had her beautiful baby boy tied to her back. oy, gender, HOW do we start?
on that note, in our provincial meetings, i ran for our national gender committee. so, i'll probably be in charge of next year's youth career week and then also in charge of trying to get other peace corps volunteers interested and connected to the gender aspect of what we're all doing here. though, i write that and then sit here kind of thinking "what on earth do i mean by that?!" it's going to be a challenge since we're all all over the place and all doing such different things, and don't have any money to do things on a peace corps volunteer-wide basis. much of our funding opportunities focus on community initiated projects and not things that might bring other, more random groups of peace corps volunteers or counterparts together.
this last meeting, however, was a meeting with 16 peace corps volunteers and 16 counterparts from our villages about HIV and AIDs and it was really interesting in some of the things we brought up for each other. at one point we divided into our own groups to talk about our expectations of the other (what WE expect from our community to be effective and what THEY expect from us) in order to be successful in approaching HIV and AIDS in our community. Many of our various expectations were so difficult, that we really want to push each other. it was sooooo nice to see that of each other because often i feel this general "oh we're so lucky to have you, help us in any way you can, just tell us what to do" sentiment, which is so hard to process. i want to scream "tell me what YOU want and what YOU can do!" or, maybe better, "tell me what you don't want!"
one of the conversations with that led to a conversation where they started saying that they see us as a link to other organizations that can get them resources. many of us responded with the usual fear that we have when people start asking us for THINGS, and started saying "you know, it's hard for us to give things because we don't have much and to trust that people will actually use them." but finally i started also realizing how much i also feel that sentiment, that i DO want to help my counterparts access resources: computers, software, books, transport (if only i could do that!), medicines, testing services, bicycles, art supplies... and there's this hesitation on our part because SO many people ask us for things that it's exhausting to try to figure what we really CAN find and offer and who really WILL use what we find outside of themselves... but, that we really should all think of ourselves as those links, and that, in many ways, the volunteers like myself who live near towns need to start being the link to those resources. one problem with that is that the systems to distribute resources are so random, uneven, even unfair... they are unannounced, done by several different NGOs or government agencies at different times and places and with different resources and amounts. how are people supposed to know how to access any of that?!
another conversation was divided by gender and we talked about ways to talk to women and youth about sex and sexuality. it's so hard here because there are such hesitations and such a strong belief that if you talk to kids about sex they'll just start having it. we were meeting with one NGO leader who distributes birth control here and asking what the policy is to giving birth control to teenage girls. he said they don't, to which a friend of mine and i said "do you SEE the 13 year old girls who are pregnant?!" it ended up being a pretty hilarious conversation as we kept pushing his buttons. it ended with him telling us we should be abstinent and us asking him (after a comment of HIS about the cultural acceptability of married men with girlfriends) if HE had one. it was pretty funny and we got some chitenges (the wrap skirts that all zambian women wear all the time) with prints from their mosquito net campaign on them. they're pretty hilarious and i can't wait to get it back to my village! yay for insecticide treated nets (though, i have to admit we were hoping for the condom chitenges! ha!). so few of those conversations happen so frankly in the village. maybe people don't speak english well enough, or maybe we're trying to more appropriate and culturally accepted... but we don't ask those kinds of questions to many people. so, the opportunity to push some of those buttons, ask some hard questions, and be challenged myself was this welcome and cherished chance. it reminded me of what i so loved about seeds of peace: this chance to truly push people to defend their positions and challenge them on things that seem, in many ways, to be integral parts of their cultural identities. "WHY do you do things this way?!" i wish we had more opportunities like that and i wish we had the chance to also create more spaces like that. it's hard.
hmm, what else? next week we're doing a training in my village with peace corps volunteers from all over the country who live in or near the BOMA (district capital) and work with the ministry of education offices. it should be fun to see everyone and i think it will be really interesting to start some conversations amongst ourselves about what we're all doing and also with our ministry counterparts about the role they see us as playing ideally.
and then, i think, i'll head up to lake tanganyika for three days before i head down to lusaka for a training with some of the leaders from my youth group around youth center management, information management, and peer education. i'm excited and i think the money for that JUST came through. it links into my eventual wish to build a youth center in my village. i really want to create a space that youth can hang out, learn from each other, study, get information about HIV, and just BE that's safe... there are so few outlets for kids that it's no wonder they turn to other elsewhere! they are bored, full of energy, interested in each other and ready to explore, both sexually and also just out into the fields and mountains and lakes.
also, on a project note, i've been really disconnected from some of the things i was working on this month, but i'm definitely still trying to start a book campaign and if you're interested in sending books, getting involved with getting me books, that would be AMAZING. i'm starting to think about whether or not it's something that could last beyond when i'm here and people can just send books over that would get divvied up between the several libraries that peace corps volunteers, even just in northern province, are all starting. send me books!
ok, i think this is long enough and rambling enough. i'm sorry if today it wasn't making as much sense or felt a little more ADD, that's kind of what I feel like today! also, i just decided that i'll be in israel over christmas. a friend from college is getting married and i'm going with two friends from here... so please if you'll be anywhere nearby, i'd love to see you and catch up. i'm so excited to be back in the middle east, have a chance to go to shabbat services, speak arabic, bring a sheesha back with me, see friends... i can't wait!
i miss you all so much and, as always, i'll put in a plea for mail. i LOVE it. it's slowing down and I'M slowing down at responding, but letters are truly this wonderful gift. keep them coming!
Friday, September 07, 2007
behavior change and getting busy
Moments to remember:
- the sound of the little feet chasing my bicycle after I pass some kids on my way home
- my neighbors baby STILL crying every time she sees me
- my taxi driver telling me he loves me and even though I’m “dating” someone in America, we could date because that’s “far away!” Thanks, but no thanks
- my neighbor’s 1 year old son kicking my punctured football that’s the size of his head
- my cats figuring out how to jump through the hole in my grass thatched roof so that they can sit in the sun up there away from the iwes (little kids) who inhabit my yard during daylight hours
- all of iwes running, shrieking, and diving after the bubbles that my mom sent in her last package
- two people asking, when I mentioned that my dad was getting married, if he was going to have two wives
I’m feeling more and more like my life is here. At times it still feels crazy, to try to make a life here and to try to be productive in some ways… but, increasingly, I have routines here and, whether or not I have lots of people who I would really call friends, I have lots of people who are friendly and who make me smile and feel happy with my life: neighbors, kids, counterparts at the ministry or NGOs… it’s hard to make real friends who I feel like our relationships are even and symmetrical because I’m busy, or I can’t communicate, or I want time to myself, or we can communicate through language but our cultural differences are still being communicated.
My work is taking off. I’m trying to start a library at one of my schools (if anyone wants to hold a book drive for me, e-mail me please!!!!), get computers for some of my schools (if anyone has creative ideas for how to shop computers, let me know!), start an environmental education pilot project with the Zambian Wildlife Authority, take some of the leaders from my youth group to Lusaka for training at another youth center, teach computer skills at the ministry and I’m still trying to do work with my women’s groups. I think we’re going to try to make paper next week. I found a recipe to make paper out of corn husks on the internet, what could be better here?! Though it’s not that season… but maybe in the spring?
Some of the work is moving fast and quickly. When I have good counterparts it can be incredible. It’s people like that that make me feel like there’s so much possibility in this country. In other places, it’s frustrating. Often not because of counterparts at all, but because of my inability to communicate fluently. I left a women’s group meeting last week wondering why on earth I think my coming in with condoms and explaining in ENGLISH without much of a translator will translate to ANY kind of behavior change? I mean, why should it? And, even if I could speak Bemba fluently, why would these older women, mothers who teach ME how to lights fires and cook and paint my walls and wax my floors, listen to me? It made me question my ability to ever be culturally fluent or competent and truly made me question the effectiveness of outside NGOs ever. Why do we think we can come in and change things?
Yet, then this week, I had a meeting with the same group. We were doing a lesson on HIV and AIDS that I call “myths and facts.” I read statements and the women were supposed to raise their hands if they thought it was “chishinka” (true) and keep their hands down if they thought it was a “bufi” (lie). The women got a lot of the answers right and a lot of the women just followed the other ones, but they asked questions and took notes. And then at the end I passed out pieces of paper so they could write their questions down and not put their names on them. It worked, though in a funny way. Women wrote down some great questions, questions that were about them, how to care for neighbors, how to care for children… but a lot of them were somewhat illegible so we’d have to go to the person and clarify what they said anyway. So even as I attempted to make it not obvious who was asking it become obvious, but women didn’t stop asking. So, even in this group with many illiterate women writing questions was easier than asking EVEN if people knew who asked. Anyway, I left that meeting feeling the opposite from the week before… that I was useful, that AS an outsider I could address things they maybe couldn’t, that they were interested.
Yet, it didn’t have much to do with “behavior change” which is increasingly becoming a word I’m a little uncomfortable with. Who gets to define behavior change’s benefits? When do you cross the line of changing someone’s behavior because they want to with forcing people to change their traditions and cultures?
I just read an incredible book about HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa: The Invisible Cure by Helen Epstein. She writes a lot about the failures of massive international campaigns: to use condoms, to get tested, to abstain… for various reasons their impersonal natures were unable to massively change behavior…. That really, the places where you SEE the changes are in small-scale projects that teach people to care for each other and themselves. Women’s groups that talk about sexual or physical abuse for the first time in their lives, kids who are given the opportunity to cry for their dead parents, communities who feed, clothe, and bathe their dying neighbors, women who can take out loans… the places were HIV and AIDS are talked about as personal pain get their numbers down; whereas, big campaigns don’t have much effect in the long run. Not so surprising when you think about it… but as someone coming from the outside, white, a young woman, how can I possibly create that safe space that is so needed? I’d REALLY recommend the book, it’s incredibly interesting and an easy read.
In some ways, I feel I can’t create that space, so instead I need to help people in the other ways that I, as an outside, can: build libraries, talk about education and sex and AIDS, teach computer skills, teach about the environment, go with people to get tested if their willing, give people a vision of a bigger world and be a caregiver in the best way I can… to kids, colleagues, neighbors, friends. It’s almost about leading by example in some way, that that’s what I can give and some of the rest HAS to come from powerfully motivated Zambians. They are the people who know how to communicate and know where the boundaries are that need to be pushed and they exist! All over. All these incredible people who have ideas that never get acknowledged or realized and who don’t have the resources to start projects, even ones that might fail but from which they would learn. So, I’m trying to find them.
Otherwise, things are mostly good… moving forward, less homesick, though letters from home are such gifts that I still get teary when I read them, less sick in general, and much more able to envision what two years here may look like. My roof is supposed to be fixed tomorrow (so the cats won’t be able to climb out my hole!) and maybe by the time it gets hot I’ll have an insaka (an outdoor hut/cooking shelter) to sit in the shade under… my library, my computer projects, my youth group, and my women’s groups might take off in some way soon…
So, in honor of 5 months at site and 7 ½ in country and 20 to go I’ll close with yet another invitation to come visit… see the “real Africa” (as Zambia advertises itself), my iwes, my women and neighbors and the beautiful savannah and incredible sunsets that make you feel that this country just deserves more: more time, more money, more faith from the outside, more training, more opportunity, more schools, more books… and maybe less wind and fewer kids.
And lastly, I love hearing from you. If that’s by real letter (a lost art, I’m telling you!), by e-mail, by text message whatever… I just got a great e-mail from a brown friend who was reading this and just wanted to say hi. Don’t hold back! They make me smile. And, I’ll write back, eventually, I promise!
- the sound of the little feet chasing my bicycle after I pass some kids on my way home
- my neighbors baby STILL crying every time she sees me
- my taxi driver telling me he loves me and even though I’m “dating” someone in America, we could date because that’s “far away!” Thanks, but no thanks
- my neighbor’s 1 year old son kicking my punctured football that’s the size of his head
- my cats figuring out how to jump through the hole in my grass thatched roof so that they can sit in the sun up there away from the iwes (little kids) who inhabit my yard during daylight hours
- all of iwes running, shrieking, and diving after the bubbles that my mom sent in her last package
- two people asking, when I mentioned that my dad was getting married, if he was going to have two wives
I’m feeling more and more like my life is here. At times it still feels crazy, to try to make a life here and to try to be productive in some ways… but, increasingly, I have routines here and, whether or not I have lots of people who I would really call friends, I have lots of people who are friendly and who make me smile and feel happy with my life: neighbors, kids, counterparts at the ministry or NGOs… it’s hard to make real friends who I feel like our relationships are even and symmetrical because I’m busy, or I can’t communicate, or I want time to myself, or we can communicate through language but our cultural differences are still being communicated.
My work is taking off. I’m trying to start a library at one of my schools (if anyone wants to hold a book drive for me, e-mail me please!!!!), get computers for some of my schools (if anyone has creative ideas for how to shop computers, let me know!), start an environmental education pilot project with the Zambian Wildlife Authority, take some of the leaders from my youth group to Lusaka for training at another youth center, teach computer skills at the ministry and I’m still trying to do work with my women’s groups. I think we’re going to try to make paper next week. I found a recipe to make paper out of corn husks on the internet, what could be better here?! Though it’s not that season… but maybe in the spring?
Some of the work is moving fast and quickly. When I have good counterparts it can be incredible. It’s people like that that make me feel like there’s so much possibility in this country. In other places, it’s frustrating. Often not because of counterparts at all, but because of my inability to communicate fluently. I left a women’s group meeting last week wondering why on earth I think my coming in with condoms and explaining in ENGLISH without much of a translator will translate to ANY kind of behavior change? I mean, why should it? And, even if I could speak Bemba fluently, why would these older women, mothers who teach ME how to lights fires and cook and paint my walls and wax my floors, listen to me? It made me question my ability to ever be culturally fluent or competent and truly made me question the effectiveness of outside NGOs ever. Why do we think we can come in and change things?
Yet, then this week, I had a meeting with the same group. We were doing a lesson on HIV and AIDS that I call “myths and facts.” I read statements and the women were supposed to raise their hands if they thought it was “chishinka” (true) and keep their hands down if they thought it was a “bufi” (lie). The women got a lot of the answers right and a lot of the women just followed the other ones, but they asked questions and took notes. And then at the end I passed out pieces of paper so they could write their questions down and not put their names on them. It worked, though in a funny way. Women wrote down some great questions, questions that were about them, how to care for neighbors, how to care for children… but a lot of them were somewhat illegible so we’d have to go to the person and clarify what they said anyway. So even as I attempted to make it not obvious who was asking it become obvious, but women didn’t stop asking. So, even in this group with many illiterate women writing questions was easier than asking EVEN if people knew who asked. Anyway, I left that meeting feeling the opposite from the week before… that I was useful, that AS an outsider I could address things they maybe couldn’t, that they were interested.
Yet, it didn’t have much to do with “behavior change” which is increasingly becoming a word I’m a little uncomfortable with. Who gets to define behavior change’s benefits? When do you cross the line of changing someone’s behavior because they want to with forcing people to change their traditions and cultures?
I just read an incredible book about HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa: The Invisible Cure by Helen Epstein. She writes a lot about the failures of massive international campaigns: to use condoms, to get tested, to abstain… for various reasons their impersonal natures were unable to massively change behavior…. That really, the places where you SEE the changes are in small-scale projects that teach people to care for each other and themselves. Women’s groups that talk about sexual or physical abuse for the first time in their lives, kids who are given the opportunity to cry for their dead parents, communities who feed, clothe, and bathe their dying neighbors, women who can take out loans… the places were HIV and AIDS are talked about as personal pain get their numbers down; whereas, big campaigns don’t have much effect in the long run. Not so surprising when you think about it… but as someone coming from the outside, white, a young woman, how can I possibly create that safe space that is so needed? I’d REALLY recommend the book, it’s incredibly interesting and an easy read.
In some ways, I feel I can’t create that space, so instead I need to help people in the other ways that I, as an outside, can: build libraries, talk about education and sex and AIDS, teach computer skills, teach about the environment, go with people to get tested if their willing, give people a vision of a bigger world and be a caregiver in the best way I can… to kids, colleagues, neighbors, friends. It’s almost about leading by example in some way, that that’s what I can give and some of the rest HAS to come from powerfully motivated Zambians. They are the people who know how to communicate and know where the boundaries are that need to be pushed and they exist! All over. All these incredible people who have ideas that never get acknowledged or realized and who don’t have the resources to start projects, even ones that might fail but from which they would learn. So, I’m trying to find them.
Otherwise, things are mostly good… moving forward, less homesick, though letters from home are such gifts that I still get teary when I read them, less sick in general, and much more able to envision what two years here may look like. My roof is supposed to be fixed tomorrow (so the cats won’t be able to climb out my hole!) and maybe by the time it gets hot I’ll have an insaka (an outdoor hut/cooking shelter) to sit in the shade under… my library, my computer projects, my youth group, and my women’s groups might take off in some way soon…
So, in honor of 5 months at site and 7 ½ in country and 20 to go I’ll close with yet another invitation to come visit… see the “real Africa” (as Zambia advertises itself), my iwes, my women and neighbors and the beautiful savannah and incredible sunsets that make you feel that this country just deserves more: more time, more money, more faith from the outside, more training, more opportunity, more schools, more books… and maybe less wind and fewer kids.
And lastly, I love hearing from you. If that’s by real letter (a lost art, I’m telling you!), by e-mail, by text message whatever… I just got a great e-mail from a brown friend who was reading this and just wanted to say hi. Don’t hold back! They make me smile. And, I’ll write back, eventually, I promise!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
call your rep
I've copied and pasted an e-mail that i just got from AJWS about the new bill in congress to support ending the restrictions on US funding for HIV/AIDS projects. this may be one of the most political things i ever write on this blog since mostly it seems to be about my own musings. BUT i think this is a pretty critical issue. right now, PEPFAR funding in Africa (which is an amazing resource and is putting tons of people on meds) basically puts huge restrictions on organizations talking about condoms and/or abortions. in africa, when an organization that works with HIGH SCHOOL students can't talk about condoms that funding is doing those kids a HUGE disservice. they are having sex and though abstinence is definitely the only way to protect yourself fully, most kids don't decide to do that and many many women don't really HAVE the choice. we need to give them the most possible information about ways in which they can protect themselves and condoms are an obvious, easy, cheap way to do that!
don't get me too wrong. i think PEPFAR is an amazing initiative, but to put restrictions on it in these ways minimizes its impact, which at a time like this is a unjustice to those it is attempting to serve.
please read the letter below (an e-mail from American Jewish World Service), read up on the bill yourself, and call your reps to get them involved in making our AIDS work that much more effective.
Dear Hannah,
Today, roughly 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. As you might already know, AJWS is a strong supporter of increased U.S. global funding for HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
We are deeply concerned, however, about restrictions in U.S. funding that are undermining efforts to prevent the greatest number of new infections possible. Each year, there are well over four million new infections, and the highest rates of new infections are among women and youth ages 15 to 24. Unfortunately, a large share of U.S. global AIDS funding for prevention currently goes to abstinence-only-until marriage programs that have been discredited by experts in the United States and abroad.
As Congress approaches its August recess, we need YOUR help to change these policies.
Please call and urge your Representative to cosponsor the PATHWAY Act (Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth Act) of 2007, HR 1713. The PATHWAY Act would eliminate funding restrictions on prevention programs, and require the President to develop a plan to strengthen prevention strategies aimed at women and youth.
Making the call is easy. Here is the number and a sample script:
Call Representative Kennedy at (202) 225-4911
My name is __________ and I'm from __________. I'm calling to ask [insert your Representative's name here] to cosponsor the PATHWAY Act of 2007(HR 1713), which would remove the 33% abstinence-until-marriage earmark on global HIV prevention funding. As a constituent, it is important to me that U.S. funding goes toward providing effective, comprehensive HIV prevention programs. Thank you.
So please, pick up the phone today and make your voice heard. And remember to click here after you complete your call, so we can track our progress.
Thank you for taking action to fight this global pandemic.
AJWS Action Team
don't get me too wrong. i think PEPFAR is an amazing initiative, but to put restrictions on it in these ways minimizes its impact, which at a time like this is a unjustice to those it is attempting to serve.
please read the letter below (an e-mail from American Jewish World Service), read up on the bill yourself, and call your reps to get them involved in making our AIDS work that much more effective.
Dear Hannah,
Today, roughly 40 million people worldwide are infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS. As you might already know, AJWS is a strong supporter of increased U.S. global funding for HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
We are deeply concerned, however, about restrictions in U.S. funding that are undermining efforts to prevent the greatest number of new infections possible. Each year, there are well over four million new infections, and the highest rates of new infections are among women and youth ages 15 to 24. Unfortunately, a large share of U.S. global AIDS funding for prevention currently goes to abstinence-only-until marriage programs that have been discredited by experts in the United States and abroad.
As Congress approaches its August recess, we need YOUR help to change these policies.
Please call and urge your Representative to cosponsor the PATHWAY Act (Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth Act) of 2007, HR 1713. The PATHWAY Act would eliminate funding restrictions on prevention programs, and require the President to develop a plan to strengthen prevention strategies aimed at women and youth.
Making the call is easy. Here is the number and a sample script:
Call Representative Kennedy at (202) 225-4911
My name is __________ and I'm from __________. I'm calling to ask [insert your Representative's name here] to cosponsor the PATHWAY Act of 2007(HR 1713), which would remove the 33% abstinence-until-marriage earmark on global HIV prevention funding. As a constituent, it is important to me that U.S. funding goes toward providing effective, comprehensive HIV prevention programs. Thank you.
So please, pick up the phone today and make your voice heard. And remember to click here after you complete your call, so we can track our progress.
Thank you for taking action to fight this global pandemic.
AJWS Action Team
the last month
Wow, it’s been a long time since I last wrote. And it’s been an up and down time. We’ll start with the down, but I promise that because this is really long, that if you read further you’ll get to the up part!
Starting about a month ago I had a very challenging two weeks at site. It started with thinking that maybe someone got into my house. This wasn’t really that big a deal because the only thing that seemed to be missing were biscuits (cookies, sorry for the British speak!). But it just made me feel violated in a similar way to when my ipod was taken… that my house is my one safe space in some ways, when I want to ignore people, when I need to listen to music or write, when I cook, it’s my space and the only person that really comes in is Christen, the girl who gets my water and takes care of the house and cats when I’m gone… so when it seemed like someone had gotten in I just felt like I didn’t have a space in quite the same way. It didn’t happen again so I’ve tried to stop worrying.
That was followed by a pretty crazy bike accident. I was fine and it happened because me and another guy collided (I don’t really know whose fault it was… there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the side of the road you ride your bike on here, so who knows?!). I was fine, he was fine, but my bike was bent. Luckily for me I was getting a site visit from one of my supervisors in Lusaka and one in Kasama and the guy from Kasama was able to fix my bike the next day!
But, before they came and the bike was fixed I had a crazy man come to my house and scream and threaten me. This, Peace Corps decided, was serious enough that I should take it to the police. So, along with fixing my bike, my two supervisors and I spent a day at the police station arresting the guy. It seems that he was crazy and possibly also high, not sure. He was very crazy at my house, very crazy at the police station, and then on day 2 at the police station he was much more sane and apologetic and, seemingly, aware. So, I decided not to prosecute and not to go to court if he signed a statement saying he wouldn’t come back to my house and that he understood if he did I would go back to the police. I also haven’t seen him again and am, again, trying not to worry! The whole thing was kind of scary but also really encouraging. So many of my neighbors came to me to say that they hoped I was ok and that he was crazy and that they wanted me to stay and that they knew he shouldn’t come back and would keep him away if he tried to! So, women in the market and the man who runs a guesthouse on the other side of town and my neighbors and teachers all told me I shouldn’t worry and they would keep me safe, which is nice to know.
The two weeks culminated with a fire at my house. This is particularly scary because I have thatch roofing on my hut, so hypothetically it could just all go up in flames, which happens fairly frequently, especially while they burn the bush. Luckily the kids, who are always at my house, saw smoke coming from the house and quickly got my neighbors who literally broke down my door and put the fire out. It seems that the fire started from left over coals that the cats knocked a bag of charcoal onto. Everything was fine but this may have been the scariest part of the two weeks… just feeling like in some many ways I am incompetent and that I can loose that one safe space I have. It was the first time that feeling here just felt soooo out of control. I had several tearful conversations with my mom and the phone about feeling helpless. I also had three of the women who I’m closest to in my village come into my house and hug me as I cried just about being scared right as I ran into the house after the fire had been put out. It was scary to let them in like that in some ways, but also good, to let myself be loved by them I think. Good to realize that there are people who are getting to the point that they can also take care of me emotionally, which is so hard to do when you’re just getting to know each other and have, at times, a lot of difficulty communicating.
But, in some ways, if I was going to feel unsettled and lonely and in need of other volunteers it couldn’t have been better timed because I got to leave right after that. Two days later I headed down to Lusaka for the next set of our PC trainings. It’s called In Service Training (or IST) and it’s the people from your group (for me the health and education volunteers who came in January) and then the same programs from the year before (health and ed from 2006). I came down a day early on a bus where I spent a third of the ride on a box in the aisle and then the next third squished into the back corner with all of the luggage people STUFFED onto the bus and then, finally, the last third I got some space and some sleep.
Then, when I finally got to Lusaka, I went to visit my host family from training. It was really fun to see them and I gave them some of the pics I took when I was with them… of my mom and dad and of my sisters dancing and my adorable little nephew. They loved them and just passed them around and around. We got to meet a bunch of the new trainees which was also fun. It’s crazy to think how much I’ve learned and how comfortable I feel with even just 4 more months than them… language, ability to negotiate, ability to get places by myself on transport, images and ideas I have about my job and my routine and life… I spent the night at the training site and then headed into Lusaka the next day.
IST was really pretty good. I was anticipating being frustrated by it; but mostly, I think, it was good to see people again and now that we have a much better idea of what we’re doing and what we WANT to do we can look at each other as resources in a new and more constructive way. So even though the week was overwhelming and I finished it feeling like I still have A LOT of organizing to do before I can get anything done with any of my projects I felt more excited about actually getting some of that work done.
So, some of the projects I’m working on, both limited to my head and already going with Zambian counterparts, are a zonal resource center at my head school, a library at another school, a writing contest to help open the library another volunteer is starting, linking up with micro-loan programs to get some of my women’s groups loans, a tree-planting project (people at Hillels or synagogues, I’d LOVE to hear from you!), continued IGA trainings with schools in my area, and a youth group. It seems like A LOT and I might go nuts, but, we’ll see!
Finally, after that week in Lusaka several other volunteers and I headed to Malawi for a few days. We went to Nkata Bay, which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Lake Malawi is one of the Rift Valley lakes and so the mountains of the escarpment just come shooting straight down into the lake. Apparently the deepest part of the lake is near where we were and does down 700 meters! We stayed at this beautiful little place called Myoka Village which is just chalets built on to the cliffs. They serve food and you can swim (schisto here I come!) and just sit in the sun or hammock and look out at the beautiful lake. I miss water and I miss swimming and it was warm and just sooooo incredibly beautiful. I felt so at peace being there.
Mostly my friend Keli and I did our planning together even though we were there with other people. SO, we went back together while other people stayed for a bit longer and our ride back was pretty eventful. We tried to hitch for a couple hours and right when we finally decided to give up and go pay for a slow, crowded mini-bus another muzungu (white person) pulled over. He was going to Lilongwe and would, of course, take us! We were super excited, got in the car, chatted with him. He’s a visiting American professor teaching at a Malawian university about computer security and his brother was a PCVolunteer in Latin America. Amazing! Unfortunately about half an hour into our ride, his car broke down. He hitched a ride back to town while we decided to stay there and try to catch another ride at least heading in the direction of Lilongwe. Someone pulled over pretty quickly but in the process of the 6 hour drive south said he had a quick “20 minute” stop at a bank. It turned into half an hour there and half an hour back and an hour at the bank and then he forgot something and had to go back.
So we left Nkata Bay at 6:30 and arrived in Lilongwe around 7 at night with a lot of waiting, some riding in the back of a truck, and some being squished in the cab together as part of those 12 hours. Our plan had been to make it back to Zambia but we couldn’t really after it got dark and so we stayed at the Lilongwe Peace Corps house instead, which ended up being really nice. It was really interesting to meet some of the Malawi volunteers and we got to meet some of the new ones who swore in two days ago and were posted today!
I feel like since so much has happened in the last month I’m skimming over a lot… so maybe I’ll put some of the undeveloped thoughts that have come up in that month here and let you let your minds wander over them. Send e-mails or letters for more depth or questions!
As we were heading to the Malawi border it was a gray day and the clouds were floating in between the mountains at the border. It was Sunday so traffic was quiet but there were still a lot of people riding their bikes into town… the quiet peacefulness of these men riding their bicycles up and down the hills made me feel calm and that I life in a beautiful place. Bikes are so important here. They are a symbol of some wealth since they aren’t cheap and they are literal means of connection. People ride them miles and miles with all sorts of things on them. My favorite of the last two weeks was a door frame. But it’s wood and goal and people and food. One of the girls in my training group commented during training about how the US is full of cars that only one person drives while bikes in Zambia transport whole families and livelihoods.
When we were in Malawi I started to realize how much I’ve started to notice little things about Zambia. My first response to the houses on the side of the road in Malawi was that they seemed to be better structures than in Zambia. One might think this means bigger or not huts or something but for me it meant that I noticed there were more tin roofs and that often the thatch was done different or what looked like better or that there were many many more structures made out of brick (as opposed to mud) and that many more people seemed to have real doors and glass windows. Glass windows, tin roofs, and bricks now seem to be my categorization of a much better living structure… something I probably wouldn’t have even noticed 6 months ago when I first got here.
When we got back to the Zambia-Malawi border there were a couple other Americans who were having trouble with some of the border officials. They weren’t communicating well with each other and the fact that it now costs Americans $100 to get Zambian visas was surprising to them… Keli and I quickly became the in-betweens. All I had to do was start my conversation with a bit of Bemba and then ask about the problem and suddenly people were happy. This feeling that I could effectively communicate with the Zambian officials (mostly in English) because of how I’ve learned to speak “Zambian” kind of, felt very empowering… The immigration officer noticed that I bowed a bit at the knees when another Zambian handed me something and he laughed and said “We will have to give you honorary Zambian citizenship! You even know to bow when you give and receive! You are becoming a Zambian!” Since much of the time I feel that all I do here is stand out and act as the receiving end to people wanting to ask me for money joking with him and some of the police officers felt amazing.
One of the other volunteers here has her sister visiting and she’s been able to be here for a couple months, which seems so wonderful. But, she and I were talking about writing home and how her images from her sister’s letters and e-mails and conversations were SO different than what she’s seeing here, now… so I can only imagine the pictures I am creating in all of your minds. I feel I do some of it justice and then just misrepresent, or maybe just incompletely represent, so much… the invitation is open to anyone to come and visit. This country is so vibrant and beautiful and also lacking so much that is so hard to describe as opposed to just see and soak in. The same goes for Malawi… but even if you can’t come visit I hope anyone reading this feels welcome to push me to answer specifics. Ask me what you want and I’ll try to be as fair and direct as possible!
Starting about a month ago I had a very challenging two weeks at site. It started with thinking that maybe someone got into my house. This wasn’t really that big a deal because the only thing that seemed to be missing were biscuits (cookies, sorry for the British speak!). But it just made me feel violated in a similar way to when my ipod was taken… that my house is my one safe space in some ways, when I want to ignore people, when I need to listen to music or write, when I cook, it’s my space and the only person that really comes in is Christen, the girl who gets my water and takes care of the house and cats when I’m gone… so when it seemed like someone had gotten in I just felt like I didn’t have a space in quite the same way. It didn’t happen again so I’ve tried to stop worrying.
That was followed by a pretty crazy bike accident. I was fine and it happened because me and another guy collided (I don’t really know whose fault it was… there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the side of the road you ride your bike on here, so who knows?!). I was fine, he was fine, but my bike was bent. Luckily for me I was getting a site visit from one of my supervisors in Lusaka and one in Kasama and the guy from Kasama was able to fix my bike the next day!
But, before they came and the bike was fixed I had a crazy man come to my house and scream and threaten me. This, Peace Corps decided, was serious enough that I should take it to the police. So, along with fixing my bike, my two supervisors and I spent a day at the police station arresting the guy. It seems that he was crazy and possibly also high, not sure. He was very crazy at my house, very crazy at the police station, and then on day 2 at the police station he was much more sane and apologetic and, seemingly, aware. So, I decided not to prosecute and not to go to court if he signed a statement saying he wouldn’t come back to my house and that he understood if he did I would go back to the police. I also haven’t seen him again and am, again, trying not to worry! The whole thing was kind of scary but also really encouraging. So many of my neighbors came to me to say that they hoped I was ok and that he was crazy and that they wanted me to stay and that they knew he shouldn’t come back and would keep him away if he tried to! So, women in the market and the man who runs a guesthouse on the other side of town and my neighbors and teachers all told me I shouldn’t worry and they would keep me safe, which is nice to know.
The two weeks culminated with a fire at my house. This is particularly scary because I have thatch roofing on my hut, so hypothetically it could just all go up in flames, which happens fairly frequently, especially while they burn the bush. Luckily the kids, who are always at my house, saw smoke coming from the house and quickly got my neighbors who literally broke down my door and put the fire out. It seems that the fire started from left over coals that the cats knocked a bag of charcoal onto. Everything was fine but this may have been the scariest part of the two weeks… just feeling like in some many ways I am incompetent and that I can loose that one safe space I have. It was the first time that feeling here just felt soooo out of control. I had several tearful conversations with my mom and the phone about feeling helpless. I also had three of the women who I’m closest to in my village come into my house and hug me as I cried just about being scared right as I ran into the house after the fire had been put out. It was scary to let them in like that in some ways, but also good, to let myself be loved by them I think. Good to realize that there are people who are getting to the point that they can also take care of me emotionally, which is so hard to do when you’re just getting to know each other and have, at times, a lot of difficulty communicating.
But, in some ways, if I was going to feel unsettled and lonely and in need of other volunteers it couldn’t have been better timed because I got to leave right after that. Two days later I headed down to Lusaka for the next set of our PC trainings. It’s called In Service Training (or IST) and it’s the people from your group (for me the health and education volunteers who came in January) and then the same programs from the year before (health and ed from 2006). I came down a day early on a bus where I spent a third of the ride on a box in the aisle and then the next third squished into the back corner with all of the luggage people STUFFED onto the bus and then, finally, the last third I got some space and some sleep.
Then, when I finally got to Lusaka, I went to visit my host family from training. It was really fun to see them and I gave them some of the pics I took when I was with them… of my mom and dad and of my sisters dancing and my adorable little nephew. They loved them and just passed them around and around. We got to meet a bunch of the new trainees which was also fun. It’s crazy to think how much I’ve learned and how comfortable I feel with even just 4 more months than them… language, ability to negotiate, ability to get places by myself on transport, images and ideas I have about my job and my routine and life… I spent the night at the training site and then headed into Lusaka the next day.
IST was really pretty good. I was anticipating being frustrated by it; but mostly, I think, it was good to see people again and now that we have a much better idea of what we’re doing and what we WANT to do we can look at each other as resources in a new and more constructive way. So even though the week was overwhelming and I finished it feeling like I still have A LOT of organizing to do before I can get anything done with any of my projects I felt more excited about actually getting some of that work done.
So, some of the projects I’m working on, both limited to my head and already going with Zambian counterparts, are a zonal resource center at my head school, a library at another school, a writing contest to help open the library another volunteer is starting, linking up with micro-loan programs to get some of my women’s groups loans, a tree-planting project (people at Hillels or synagogues, I’d LOVE to hear from you!), continued IGA trainings with schools in my area, and a youth group. It seems like A LOT and I might go nuts, but, we’ll see!
Finally, after that week in Lusaka several other volunteers and I headed to Malawi for a few days. We went to Nkata Bay, which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Lake Malawi is one of the Rift Valley lakes and so the mountains of the escarpment just come shooting straight down into the lake. Apparently the deepest part of the lake is near where we were and does down 700 meters! We stayed at this beautiful little place called Myoka Village which is just chalets built on to the cliffs. They serve food and you can swim (schisto here I come!) and just sit in the sun or hammock and look out at the beautiful lake. I miss water and I miss swimming and it was warm and just sooooo incredibly beautiful. I felt so at peace being there.
Mostly my friend Keli and I did our planning together even though we were there with other people. SO, we went back together while other people stayed for a bit longer and our ride back was pretty eventful. We tried to hitch for a couple hours and right when we finally decided to give up and go pay for a slow, crowded mini-bus another muzungu (white person) pulled over. He was going to Lilongwe and would, of course, take us! We were super excited, got in the car, chatted with him. He’s a visiting American professor teaching at a Malawian university about computer security and his brother was a PCVolunteer in Latin America. Amazing! Unfortunately about half an hour into our ride, his car broke down. He hitched a ride back to town while we decided to stay there and try to catch another ride at least heading in the direction of Lilongwe. Someone pulled over pretty quickly but in the process of the 6 hour drive south said he had a quick “20 minute” stop at a bank. It turned into half an hour there and half an hour back and an hour at the bank and then he forgot something and had to go back.
So we left Nkata Bay at 6:30 and arrived in Lilongwe around 7 at night with a lot of waiting, some riding in the back of a truck, and some being squished in the cab together as part of those 12 hours. Our plan had been to make it back to Zambia but we couldn’t really after it got dark and so we stayed at the Lilongwe Peace Corps house instead, which ended up being really nice. It was really interesting to meet some of the Malawi volunteers and we got to meet some of the new ones who swore in two days ago and were posted today!
I feel like since so much has happened in the last month I’m skimming over a lot… so maybe I’ll put some of the undeveloped thoughts that have come up in that month here and let you let your minds wander over them. Send e-mails or letters for more depth or questions!
As we were heading to the Malawi border it was a gray day and the clouds were floating in between the mountains at the border. It was Sunday so traffic was quiet but there were still a lot of people riding their bikes into town… the quiet peacefulness of these men riding their bicycles up and down the hills made me feel calm and that I life in a beautiful place. Bikes are so important here. They are a symbol of some wealth since they aren’t cheap and they are literal means of connection. People ride them miles and miles with all sorts of things on them. My favorite of the last two weeks was a door frame. But it’s wood and goal and people and food. One of the girls in my training group commented during training about how the US is full of cars that only one person drives while bikes in Zambia transport whole families and livelihoods.
When we were in Malawi I started to realize how much I’ve started to notice little things about Zambia. My first response to the houses on the side of the road in Malawi was that they seemed to be better structures than in Zambia. One might think this means bigger or not huts or something but for me it meant that I noticed there were more tin roofs and that often the thatch was done different or what looked like better or that there were many many more structures made out of brick (as opposed to mud) and that many more people seemed to have real doors and glass windows. Glass windows, tin roofs, and bricks now seem to be my categorization of a much better living structure… something I probably wouldn’t have even noticed 6 months ago when I first got here.
When we got back to the Zambia-Malawi border there were a couple other Americans who were having trouble with some of the border officials. They weren’t communicating well with each other and the fact that it now costs Americans $100 to get Zambian visas was surprising to them… Keli and I quickly became the in-betweens. All I had to do was start my conversation with a bit of Bemba and then ask about the problem and suddenly people were happy. This feeling that I could effectively communicate with the Zambian officials (mostly in English) because of how I’ve learned to speak “Zambian” kind of, felt very empowering… The immigration officer noticed that I bowed a bit at the knees when another Zambian handed me something and he laughed and said “We will have to give you honorary Zambian citizenship! You even know to bow when you give and receive! You are becoming a Zambian!” Since much of the time I feel that all I do here is stand out and act as the receiving end to people wanting to ask me for money joking with him and some of the police officers felt amazing.
One of the other volunteers here has her sister visiting and she’s been able to be here for a couple months, which seems so wonderful. But, she and I were talking about writing home and how her images from her sister’s letters and e-mails and conversations were SO different than what she’s seeing here, now… so I can only imagine the pictures I am creating in all of your minds. I feel I do some of it justice and then just misrepresent, or maybe just incompletely represent, so much… the invitation is open to anyone to come and visit. This country is so vibrant and beautiful and also lacking so much that is so hard to describe as opposed to just see and soak in. The same goes for Malawi… but even if you can’t come visit I hope anyone reading this feels welcome to push me to answer specifics. Ask me what you want and I’ll try to be as fair and direct as possible!
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
creating routine
Things I miss:
-showerheads
-hot showers
-change in stores
-paved roads
Moments to remember:
- the fact that a complaint by the teachers at a school nearby were complaining of being “haunted” at night in their houses was taken seriously at the weekly staff meeting at the ministry of education
- I’m better at keeping up with “The New Yorker” here than I was when I was commuting in DC!
- I’ve started taking a survey each morning of how many people greet me: kids, adults, people I know, people I don’t know, in Bemba, in English, because I greet them first, because they greet me first. Haven’t gotten any numbers yet but let’s just say I’m never ignored. The last time I went to Kasama, where the PC house is, I got back and someone in town (not my village, the town, which is also the district capital) said “Oh, Ba Anna, you are back from Kasama!” oy.
ok, what i'm up too...
I find myself struggling with some of these blog entries. I know I’ve already written this, but I feel it’s hard to capture this reality in a way that will make any sense or be real. How do I capture what’s beautiful and what’s awful in a way that does justice to the people here and to my experience and my observations?
How do I capture the little kids screaming my name as I ride by on my bike? Or my neighbor waving to me in the morning with the traditional greeting “Oh, you’ve woken!”? (to which you reply, “yes, I have!” as if to just be grateful for that very fact). Or the sunsets that I get to watch from my house everyday? Or the teachers who ride over 20 km just to tell me they want me to come out to their schools and to set up a meeting? Or my neighbors who bring me food or teach me how to make Zambian food when they hardly have enough?
And then how do I capture the ironies and the pain… that the bank I go to doesn’t have a phone (let alone a computer or internet)? That the school one of my friends works with has 25 teachers for 1500 students? That one of the high schools near me had a 28% passing rate on last year’s grade 12 exams? That the women in one of my women’s groups estimated that their families live on an average of about $1000/year? I could easily pay that in rent per month when I come back to America and their entire families live on that in a year… That people want desperately to protect themselves against HIV but 1 in 5 people here is HIV+ and yet I haven’t met one person willing to say that they are in my village. 1 in 5 and I haven’t met one.
I think one of the most difficult things about being here is the up and down of each day. That I can have such successes: a neighbor asks for lit charcoal because I’ve successfully lit my fire, a meeting goes well, I say something correctly in Bemba. And they are also full of such questions and unknowns or struggles: how do I say something? Why won’t the kids listen to me? What can I teach a group of women who have nothing to start of with in terms of resources? Will a plan I have for a meeting work?
A friend a couple days ago said that the way she was looking at what we’re doing here is that it’s a learning process for everyone involved. That we’re learning: how to teach, how to organize, how to plan, how to communicate, what it means to develop or, I guess, fail in development. So, we’re coming in as educated individuals ready to work hard and that worst comes to worst we learn what doesn’t work and if nothing else our villages are no worse off then when we came, but we’re more equipped to move our projects/work further when we’re done here. That makes it sound like it’s all about me, us, the Peace Corps volunteers… which I don’t think is quite fair. We all fit ourselves into the “next step” in some way, shape, or form. The skills at facilitating, asking question, evaluating and adjusting seem to be things that we will just improve on, both throughout our time here and for wherever we head to next.
In other project news, the women’s group in my village came to a meeting and was huge! So, we’ve now divided them into 4 groups and are starting at the beginning… what they want to change about their community, what they want to learn in order to start that change, what they need in order to do it. I’m organizing a 3 hour business training workshop in two weeks. I often find myself asking if I really know enough to do these trainings, but then I often realize that I do; that what I come with in terms of skills and training and understanding of business just from living in the states is often more than the women in my village have the opportunity to experience. So, we’ll start with the basics and see where it goes.
Another project idea that recently came up was thinking about the deforestation here and the lack of big trees. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this idea… do you think we could partner up with hillels and synagogues to do a Tu B’Shevat campaign that would plant trees HERE? My idea is that we could plant fruit trees, so that people wouldn’t cut them down, in and around schools. The fruit could either be given to the kids or sold by the school as a form of income generation and they would combat the problem of shade and deforestation in the long run. It could also be combined with a series of lessons on environmentalism… Thoughts? Send them to me!
ok, i have to run. internet is getting expensive and i have to run to the grocery store before it closes. so i have lots more to say but it will have to wait. until then i LOVE personal e-mails, letters, questions, concerns, so send them on! and i even usually respond to them!! kisses to everyone.
-showerheads
-hot showers
-change in stores
-paved roads
Moments to remember:
- the fact that a complaint by the teachers at a school nearby were complaining of being “haunted” at night in their houses was taken seriously at the weekly staff meeting at the ministry of education
- I’m better at keeping up with “The New Yorker” here than I was when I was commuting in DC!
- I’ve started taking a survey each morning of how many people greet me: kids, adults, people I know, people I don’t know, in Bemba, in English, because I greet them first, because they greet me first. Haven’t gotten any numbers yet but let’s just say I’m never ignored. The last time I went to Kasama, where the PC house is, I got back and someone in town (not my village, the town, which is also the district capital) said “Oh, Ba Anna, you are back from Kasama!” oy.
ok, what i'm up too...
I find myself struggling with some of these blog entries. I know I’ve already written this, but I feel it’s hard to capture this reality in a way that will make any sense or be real. How do I capture what’s beautiful and what’s awful in a way that does justice to the people here and to my experience and my observations?
How do I capture the little kids screaming my name as I ride by on my bike? Or my neighbor waving to me in the morning with the traditional greeting “Oh, you’ve woken!”? (to which you reply, “yes, I have!” as if to just be grateful for that very fact). Or the sunsets that I get to watch from my house everyday? Or the teachers who ride over 20 km just to tell me they want me to come out to their schools and to set up a meeting? Or my neighbors who bring me food or teach me how to make Zambian food when they hardly have enough?
And then how do I capture the ironies and the pain… that the bank I go to doesn’t have a phone (let alone a computer or internet)? That the school one of my friends works with has 25 teachers for 1500 students? That one of the high schools near me had a 28% passing rate on last year’s grade 12 exams? That the women in one of my women’s groups estimated that their families live on an average of about $1000/year? I could easily pay that in rent per month when I come back to America and their entire families live on that in a year… That people want desperately to protect themselves against HIV but 1 in 5 people here is HIV+ and yet I haven’t met one person willing to say that they are in my village. 1 in 5 and I haven’t met one.
I think one of the most difficult things about being here is the up and down of each day. That I can have such successes: a neighbor asks for lit charcoal because I’ve successfully lit my fire, a meeting goes well, I say something correctly in Bemba. And they are also full of such questions and unknowns or struggles: how do I say something? Why won’t the kids listen to me? What can I teach a group of women who have nothing to start of with in terms of resources? Will a plan I have for a meeting work?
A friend a couple days ago said that the way she was looking at what we’re doing here is that it’s a learning process for everyone involved. That we’re learning: how to teach, how to organize, how to plan, how to communicate, what it means to develop or, I guess, fail in development. So, we’re coming in as educated individuals ready to work hard and that worst comes to worst we learn what doesn’t work and if nothing else our villages are no worse off then when we came, but we’re more equipped to move our projects/work further when we’re done here. That makes it sound like it’s all about me, us, the Peace Corps volunteers… which I don’t think is quite fair. We all fit ourselves into the “next step” in some way, shape, or form. The skills at facilitating, asking question, evaluating and adjusting seem to be things that we will just improve on, both throughout our time here and for wherever we head to next.
In other project news, the women’s group in my village came to a meeting and was huge! So, we’ve now divided them into 4 groups and are starting at the beginning… what they want to change about their community, what they want to learn in order to start that change, what they need in order to do it. I’m organizing a 3 hour business training workshop in two weeks. I often find myself asking if I really know enough to do these trainings, but then I often realize that I do; that what I come with in terms of skills and training and understanding of business just from living in the states is often more than the women in my village have the opportunity to experience. So, we’ll start with the basics and see where it goes.
Another project idea that recently came up was thinking about the deforestation here and the lack of big trees. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this idea… do you think we could partner up with hillels and synagogues to do a Tu B’Shevat campaign that would plant trees HERE? My idea is that we could plant fruit trees, so that people wouldn’t cut them down, in and around schools. The fruit could either be given to the kids or sold by the school as a form of income generation and they would combat the problem of shade and deforestation in the long run. It could also be combined with a series of lessons on environmentalism… Thoughts? Send them to me!
ok, i have to run. internet is getting expensive and i have to run to the grocery store before it closes. so i have lots more to say but it will have to wait. until then i LOVE personal e-mails, letters, questions, concerns, so send them on! and i even usually respond to them!! kisses to everyone.
Friday, June 08, 2007
starting to figure out what i'm doing here
So, it’s been a while since I wrote… I think partly it’s because internet is expensive and I try to be quick, but partly it’s a hesitation on my part to try to capture this world. That no matter what I write I won’t quite get it “right.” Partly I want to explain the good parts but feel that that won’t quite capture the complexity of being here. And then partly I want to explain the frustrations, but I fear a misunderstanding of what I write… a simplification, an image that this place and these people are something that they aren’t… but, I’ll try.
Each day here seems to have so many ups and downs. Greeting my neighbors, having successful meetings, understanding Bemba better, learning how to cook new foods, watching the beautiful sunsets from my house, playing with my kitties, are combined with feeling lonely or that I still don’t know what I’m doing here, with my cats waking me up early, still not understanding complicated conversations, meetings not happening or being cancelled after sitting somewhere for two hours… I know that I don’t need to know what I’m doing here exactly. Several people have told me to have patience and faith and those are both things to work on and to develop and to learn. Yet, my brain desires some clarity at times and maybe to my dismay, I also desire a feeling of productivity.
That said, things here continue to settle more and more and the ups happen more often. I am starting to have lots of meetings in the next month, with schools, with women’s groups, and with kids. I’m working mostly on trying to get some of the schools to start Income Generating Activities (IGAs). In Peace Corps lingo we seem to not want to just call it “business.” Not sure why! Maybe it’s the development system’s fear of admitting that business is a key component to development and empowerment.
Anyway, I’m working with schools on IGAs and also starting to work with some women’s groups to start action plans and to think about how to generate money for the group and their communities. I had a meeting yesterday with women but it was cancelled because a man from the disaster management office in Lusaka had come up to do an evaluation and wanted to meet with the women. So, there were probably about 40 women there! Which is really exciting! And we’ve re-scheduled for tomorrow.
I’ve also started working with a group of 9th grade prefects at the school in town. We are doing a “leadership” class, which is something I struggle with a bit. What does it mean to teach these kids to be leaders? What are leaders in their community? And how do you teach kids, who have SO rarely been taught and encouraged to think creatively and outside the box, to do so?
My Bemba is getting better, though it’s still pretty limited to everyday usage. I can talk with my neighbors, I can communicate with the kids on a basic level. Though as soon as it gets more complicated, I get a bit lost. Also, the kids will come and sit on my porch and say something. I won’t understand and will say “nshumfwile” (I don’t understand). Instead of trying to explain themselves the kids will almost inevitably just repeat themselves louder a second, third, or fourth time. Oy, it’s frustrating. I have to spell out the specific word that I don’t understand and then SOMETIMES the kids will get it and try to explain or show me.
I’m starting to think about other projects… starting a micro-loan project on my own is a possibility. It’s a little scary to try to think about all the different parts, but I think giving people some initial capital to start projects is so necessary. So maybe we’ll start business-training classes and then tie it into either my own lending or the local micro-credit bank. I’m also interested in how to encourage people to start officially saving. All the banks here have a minimum to open an account and a minimum balance to maintain the account. Would it be possible to open a “bank” somehow that wouldn’t require that?
I’m also thinking of trying to teach a digital photography class, in order to both teach photography and a form of art, and also to teach computer skills. Right now I don’t have computers or cameras though, so it’s more in the long-run. Some of the teachers at the high school in town want to create an art exhibit with local art in the states. Anyone with any ideas about galleries that might be interested, I’d love to know!
I still feel this intense missing of people in a way that I never quite have before. Being here during Brown graduation was hard. I spent the entire day calculating the time difference to try to figure out what was happening on the east coast, when people were marching, graduating, getting diplomas. It was hard to not be there on Tess’ big day and it was also really hard to know how many people I love were there that day while I was in my hut.
Along those lines the letters and care packages are amazing. They feel, at times extravagant. As I go to the post office every other day, the postmen know my name. But, they allow me to feel a connection to people and to home, to make me feel like I’m not doing this so much on my own, and also to give me a time and a space to process what I am doing here as I write back. I think I’ve been pretty good about getting back to people, though I’m a bit behind now! People’s thoughts and questions and love mean so much to me. I can hardly begin to describe it. In some ways being let’s me be in touch with people and connected in ways that I’m sure would be impossibly or just unlikely were I still in the states. And, in other ways it’s so hard to be so far away, feeling that I’m missing events (like graduations and weddings) along with everyday life.
I also have been struggling with what exactly it means to be doing work here… that partly we’re here to work within a Zambian framework and help push projects that people here want to start or have already started. In contrast, partly Peace Corps works because we, as American westerners, are coming in with a supposed understand of what “development” looks like. Therefore, it’s understood that just because I went to a functioning school I can have an idea, an image of what schools here could do to improve. How is that sustainable? How is it not a western imposition? Yet, how can I argue with the fact that I DO have a better idea of a functioning school than most schools here! Also, how do I really think about sustainability when if it weren’t for outside aid this country would collapse, probably quite literally?
It’s made me start to think that I really want to go to business school. I’m not sure how that will eventually play itself out, but increasingly I feel that project management, entrepreneurship, marketing, problem-solving, and creativity are really what needs to happen here. People need skills in order to create resources and in order to do that they need to push limits and boundaries and be creative, independent thinkers. The development system as it exists now does much good to take care of people in the situation that they are in, but not much to change the status quo. People need care and food in the short term, but in the long-term there NEED to be changes to the system that allow people to feel empowerment in some real way, some ability to change their own lives. I know I sound like the Ashoka website, but maybe that’s a good thing!! (check out their website if you haven’t already: www.ashoka.org).
Ok, this is long, so I think I’m going to close here. I miss you all so very much and am getting a bit better at e-mails. So, if you’re feeling lazy to write a real letter, I have sometime on the internet and now have a flash so I can write up letters on other people’s computers and send them more quickly (which is what I’m doing now!). So, let me know where you are, what you’re doing, I love hearing it all! And critiques or suggestions for my ideas are ALWAYS welcome!! Much love and many kisses!
Each day here seems to have so many ups and downs. Greeting my neighbors, having successful meetings, understanding Bemba better, learning how to cook new foods, watching the beautiful sunsets from my house, playing with my kitties, are combined with feeling lonely or that I still don’t know what I’m doing here, with my cats waking me up early, still not understanding complicated conversations, meetings not happening or being cancelled after sitting somewhere for two hours… I know that I don’t need to know what I’m doing here exactly. Several people have told me to have patience and faith and those are both things to work on and to develop and to learn. Yet, my brain desires some clarity at times and maybe to my dismay, I also desire a feeling of productivity.
That said, things here continue to settle more and more and the ups happen more often. I am starting to have lots of meetings in the next month, with schools, with women’s groups, and with kids. I’m working mostly on trying to get some of the schools to start Income Generating Activities (IGAs). In Peace Corps lingo we seem to not want to just call it “business.” Not sure why! Maybe it’s the development system’s fear of admitting that business is a key component to development and empowerment.
Anyway, I’m working with schools on IGAs and also starting to work with some women’s groups to start action plans and to think about how to generate money for the group and their communities. I had a meeting yesterday with women but it was cancelled because a man from the disaster management office in Lusaka had come up to do an evaluation and wanted to meet with the women. So, there were probably about 40 women there! Which is really exciting! And we’ve re-scheduled for tomorrow.
I’ve also started working with a group of 9th grade prefects at the school in town. We are doing a “leadership” class, which is something I struggle with a bit. What does it mean to teach these kids to be leaders? What are leaders in their community? And how do you teach kids, who have SO rarely been taught and encouraged to think creatively and outside the box, to do so?
My Bemba is getting better, though it’s still pretty limited to everyday usage. I can talk with my neighbors, I can communicate with the kids on a basic level. Though as soon as it gets more complicated, I get a bit lost. Also, the kids will come and sit on my porch and say something. I won’t understand and will say “nshumfwile” (I don’t understand). Instead of trying to explain themselves the kids will almost inevitably just repeat themselves louder a second, third, or fourth time. Oy, it’s frustrating. I have to spell out the specific word that I don’t understand and then SOMETIMES the kids will get it and try to explain or show me.
I’m starting to think about other projects… starting a micro-loan project on my own is a possibility. It’s a little scary to try to think about all the different parts, but I think giving people some initial capital to start projects is so necessary. So maybe we’ll start business-training classes and then tie it into either my own lending or the local micro-credit bank. I’m also interested in how to encourage people to start officially saving. All the banks here have a minimum to open an account and a minimum balance to maintain the account. Would it be possible to open a “bank” somehow that wouldn’t require that?
I’m also thinking of trying to teach a digital photography class, in order to both teach photography and a form of art, and also to teach computer skills. Right now I don’t have computers or cameras though, so it’s more in the long-run. Some of the teachers at the high school in town want to create an art exhibit with local art in the states. Anyone with any ideas about galleries that might be interested, I’d love to know!
I still feel this intense missing of people in a way that I never quite have before. Being here during Brown graduation was hard. I spent the entire day calculating the time difference to try to figure out what was happening on the east coast, when people were marching, graduating, getting diplomas. It was hard to not be there on Tess’ big day and it was also really hard to know how many people I love were there that day while I was in my hut.
Along those lines the letters and care packages are amazing. They feel, at times extravagant. As I go to the post office every other day, the postmen know my name. But, they allow me to feel a connection to people and to home, to make me feel like I’m not doing this so much on my own, and also to give me a time and a space to process what I am doing here as I write back. I think I’ve been pretty good about getting back to people, though I’m a bit behind now! People’s thoughts and questions and love mean so much to me. I can hardly begin to describe it. In some ways being let’s me be in touch with people and connected in ways that I’m sure would be impossibly or just unlikely were I still in the states. And, in other ways it’s so hard to be so far away, feeling that I’m missing events (like graduations and weddings) along with everyday life.
I also have been struggling with what exactly it means to be doing work here… that partly we’re here to work within a Zambian framework and help push projects that people here want to start or have already started. In contrast, partly Peace Corps works because we, as American westerners, are coming in with a supposed understand of what “development” looks like. Therefore, it’s understood that just because I went to a functioning school I can have an idea, an image of what schools here could do to improve. How is that sustainable? How is it not a western imposition? Yet, how can I argue with the fact that I DO have a better idea of a functioning school than most schools here! Also, how do I really think about sustainability when if it weren’t for outside aid this country would collapse, probably quite literally?
It’s made me start to think that I really want to go to business school. I’m not sure how that will eventually play itself out, but increasingly I feel that project management, entrepreneurship, marketing, problem-solving, and creativity are really what needs to happen here. People need skills in order to create resources and in order to do that they need to push limits and boundaries and be creative, independent thinkers. The development system as it exists now does much good to take care of people in the situation that they are in, but not much to change the status quo. People need care and food in the short term, but in the long-term there NEED to be changes to the system that allow people to feel empowerment in some real way, some ability to change their own lives. I know I sound like the Ashoka website, but maybe that’s a good thing!! (check out their website if you haven’t already: www.ashoka.org).
Ok, this is long, so I think I’m going to close here. I miss you all so very much and am getting a bit better at e-mails. So, if you’re feeling lazy to write a real letter, I have sometime on the internet and now have a flash so I can write up letters on other people’s computers and send them more quickly (which is what I’m doing now!). So, let me know where you are, what you’re doing, I love hearing it all! And critiques or suggestions for my ideas are ALWAYS welcome!! Much love and many kisses!
Friday, May 18, 2007
pics from mpika
and, some more pics of kids in mpika. these are some of the kids that are at my house pretty much whenever i'm there. i've tried to set up SOME boundaries... for example, they can't play soccer before 8 am, and they have to leave by 18. and then some of these kids are just kids who were there that day. but they're cuties.
also, i've put a bunch of these up on snapfish now. if you want to see more, e-mail me and i'll forward you the link. kisses!
also, i've put a bunch of these up on snapfish now. if you want to see more, e-mail me and i'll forward you the link. kisses!
yay, so i've finally figured out how to get my pics up a bit more quickly. here are some of my favorites.
the sunset from my house in mpika. doesn't it make you want to come visit?! :-)
me and my sisters, chola and peggy, and christina's sister, erica
my little nephew, isn't he the cutest thing in the world?
me and my sister chola
peggy and my cousin
my mom and cousin
my sister getting her hair done
me and my mom
my sisters and their friends dancing outside my hut
me and my sister peggy
the sunset at my homestay family in chongwe
me and keli at swearing in
lindsay, lisa, and me at chishimba falls
chishimba falls
Rex
cibwabwa
the sunset from my house in mpika. doesn't it make you want to come visit?! :-)
me and my sisters, chola and peggy, and christina's sister, erica
my little nephew, isn't he the cutest thing in the world?
me and my sister chola
peggy and my cousin
my mom and cousin
my sister getting her hair done
me and my mom
my sisters and their friends dancing outside my hut
me and my sister peggy
the sunset at my homestay family in chongwe
me and keli at swearing in
lindsay, lisa, and me at chishimba falls
chishimba falls
Rex
cibwabwa
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