The Finer Points of Life

I feel like my previous entries have focused mostly on my major events/problems/accomplishments here in Zambia, at the expense of describing all the little everyday adjustments that we PCVs have had to make in order to adapt to a Zambian lifestyle. Thus I've started to compile a list of little tips, tricks, and cultural observations that hopefully will help round out the picture of how everyday life gets along here in Zambia:

• When trying to light your charcoal cooking braizure in the rainy season, a little kerosene goes a long ways. Sometimes you can also find dried grass and twigs underneath big trees. If you want to get really creative you can put mashed up peanut shells and melted candle wax into an old egg carton. Or you can just buy fire starters from Shop-Rite.
  
  
• After getting the braizure started, you have to swing it around to give it air and really get it burning. Just be sure to wear flip flops when you do so. Wnen the inevitable happens and a small coal falls down your footwear, if they take you longer than 0.3 seconds to remove, then you're gonna be in for a major ouchie.
  
  
• Trying to keep a white t-shirt white when you're washing by hand in a bucket is one of the more difficult and time-intensive chores you will ever attempt. Thus the key to hand-washing clothes is just to never get them dirty in the first place. Corollary to this rule: there is a BIG difference between what IS dirty and what LOOKS dirty - hence the reason why olive and khaki are such amazing clothing colors here.
  
  
• If you have a problem with bats squatting in your house for the night, just use a candle - works like a charm! Put it in the middle of the floor to avoid any fire hazard, and let it burn all night for two consecutive nights. They hate the light, so they'll find another place to roost!
  
  
• When hunting mice, rats, and kasekeseke in your house, DON'T reach for just any wooden spoon. As eight such rodents have already discovered, the umwiinko (the flat-sided wooden spoon used for stirring nshima, among other things) is 21.5" and 3/4 lb of dexterity, accuracy, and pure annhiliation for all things squeaky and four-legged. It's SAD for those mice - singularly assured destruction.
  
  
• When biking in the village there are no posted speed limits. But if you pass by someone's house before you can say "Mwashibuka shani na imwe?", you are probably going too fast, and people will begin to wonder what's so important that you don't have time to greet them properly, which is bad for your precious reputation. Bike at such speeds only in times of emergency (or in your neighboring PCV's village :-) ).
  
  
• At church, there are MAJOR brownie points to be earned by dancing to the music. Everyone expects people to dance, though few actually dance themselves (yay double standard!), but since you're already the weirdest person in town, you have nothing to lose by sticking your neck out!
  
  
• On funeral days, you should greet everyone "Mwacuuleni mukwai" - "how are you suffering?" Doesn't matter how far away they live or now close they were to the person who passed away
  
  
• When someone asks where you're going, it's considered a perfectly acceptable answer to point in the direction you're heading and say "There!".
  
  
• BaMaayo Magic I: How village mothers manage to clean the bottoms of their pots, how they cook two-gallon pots full of perfectly lumpless nshima, how they carry 40L of water on their heads, and how they manage to find people selling tomato/onion/cabbage are mysteries I have no hope of cracking.
  
  
• BaMaayo Magic II: The speed of information travel increases significantly when the airwaves are unencumbered by cell phones, radios, broadband, and other newfangled electronic wizardry. If something noteworthy happens 25km away, every mother in the village will know within the hour, guaranteed, without even leaving the comfort of their front porch.
  
  
• Any of your parent's siblings are considered to be your parents as well, and thus are free to punish you, admonish you, and dish out chores as they see fit.
  
  
• Do remember what your Chieftainess looks like, so that you aren't always the last one to kneel down when you meet her on the street (By the way, Chieftainship succession rules are pretty neat: the "crown prince" so to speak is not the Chief's eldest son as with Western Cultures, but rather the eldest son of the Chief's eldest sister).

Rockin the Village Life (cont.)

I'm also really beginning to enjoy all the biking I'm doing. Since I'm 50km from the nearest paved road (there are none in my district), 20km from the nearest vehicle, and since the train only comes on Saturdays, I pretty much rely on my Peace Corps-issued Trek 3700 to get me everywhere. Which is amazing, since biking on all the bumpy, windy bush paths is way more exhilarating than biking the streets of Ann Arbor. I've also been out on some longer trips: to Kasama (85km), and to my nearest PCV neighbors, Jocelyn (20km) and Christine (90km). Saturdays are my exploring days (ukushinguluka in Bemba - "Just circling around"), where I pick a small mountain off in the distance, or a village on the map, and try to go find it. Haven't really been that successful, but it's been a great time explaining the concept of exploring to the bewildered locals.

My village "roads"- either impossible narrow or muddy from the rains, but always fun to bike!

Not all's rosy in Chandaweyaya, though. Besides the lack of mechanized transportation, the food's pretty hit or miss as well. The hits include making peanut butter (its incredibly simple - I don't know why people don't do it back home!), giant bundles of bananas, and the mangoes that are about to come into season. The misses include things like whole fish (*eaten* whole, not just served whole), caterpillars (the little ones are actually alright, but do we have to eat the big black spiky ones too???), and pretty much anything made from dried cassava flour. And in addition to spotty food, I'm fighting off an invasion of bad-mannered, give-an-inch-take-a-mile little kids. They don't ever leave my house. They constantly and repeatedly ask me for everything I own. Every time I do something nice like take their picture, play soccer, cook fritters, or make paper airplanes for them, they all really enjoy it, but i just end up fueling the "Gimme Gimme Gimme" and the "Let's go crowd around Ba Michael while he cooks his meal because we're bored and maybe he'll give us something" fires".

Photographing the kids - don't be fooled by their innocent and fun-loving appearance

But somewhere amidst all this socializing, biking, eating, and chasing away little kids, I'm actually doing some work as well. I've done a bunch of "Community Entry" activities like community mapping, daily activities schedules, and needs assessments, all designed to help me get to know the community members and drive out their strengths, goals, and desires. From these activities I've found a project trying to research methods of making peanut oil (since everyone grows groundnuts, nobody can sell them; but everyone does buy lots of cooking oil). I've also started to teach fish farming lessons to several local farmers. Most of the farmers speak no English, so I've been teaching primarily in Bemba. This is where Ba Elias, my neighbor and Peace Corps - assigned work counterpart, has really begun to shine. We have spent enough time together that he really understands how I speak Bemba. Even when the other farmers are confused by my Bemba wording, Ba Elias usually understands what I was trying to say and is able to re-explain it ("What he's really trying to say in Bemba is ____").

My counterpart, Ba Elias, and footballer friend Ba Isaac, dodging crocs on the Chambeshi


Finishing the Community Mapping activity in my nsaka

The fish ponds of Ba Elias

Ba Elias is also displaying an ever-increasing flair for sarcasm. One day, when I returned from a Chandaweyaya Agricultural Committee meeting, I wanted to confirm that his name was on the all-important Farmer's Register. When I ask him he simply laughs and replies in nearly perfect English "Are you kidding me? I MADE the Farmer's Register! I'm the first name on the list!" (turns out he was the former Chairman of the C.A.C., but I don't know where he learned to say "Are you kidding me?"). I'm fairly certain that after two years, Ba Elias will be not only the most knowledgeable fish farmer in the land, but also the best user of sarcastic English slang expressions. Now that's what I call development!

Rockin the Village Life

Life in Chandaweyaya continues much as it has for generations: People gather at the local watering holes to wash clothes and chit chat, the men head out into the fields to get their maize and groundnut crops planted before the drenching rains arrive, and everyone gathers in the nsaka in the evenings for dinner and merriment. Except lately there's been this funky white kid set up shop over that side, he dresses really oddly, makes lumpy nshima, looks like he's wearing a wig, and he's running around all over the place telling people they should start farming fish. Worst part is he says he isn't leaving for two years...

Grand Central Station - abandoned but surrounded by well-manicured flowering bushes

The funky white kid with a wig that hasn't been trimmed since late June

Just kidding - it isn't like that at all over here (though some people still do believe I'm wearing a wig)! I'm two months into my three-month community entry, and things are going extremely welll. My village is like a giant, 5000 person family - everyone knows everyone, everyone lives nearby each other, nobody has any qualms about walking through someone's yard or lending out their belongings. We are a very close-knit village, even by Zambian standards. When I go to the market and pass by 30 households along the way, I'm greeted by name by no less than 30 households' worth of people! And when they all pass by my house on their way to the fields (which they do en masse - I can meet most everyone in the village just sitting on my porch), we greet each other again just for kicks!

The view of Chandaweyaya from atop Keyaya Hill

I've also fit in some enlightening conversations about America and American cultural holidays with my neighbors. For example, my neighbors all know now that Obama does NOT rule over the entirety of North and South America, that not everyone is a farmer in the U.S., and that people still feel full even when they don't eat nshima for dinner. They can point out Michigan on the map, and some can even use their hand to point out Kalamazoo! They have a particular interest in holidays: I've told them how kids dress up, run around and collect sweeties for Halloween, and how Thanksgiving is our big harvest celebration (their eyes lit up when I described a turkey as being like a 7kg chicken, and they promptly inquired as to how they could obtain them here in Chandaweyaya).

My neighbors

My favorite place to chat, though, is the house of Ba Emmanuel and Ba Rosemary. They are two of the most accepting and witty people I've met in the village; instead of concentrating on all my stuff like most people, they are more interested in learning about our holidays and traditions, which is a welcome relief. To give you an idea of their fun-loving nature: when I first met them I accidentally called the wife "Ba Rosie" as I couldn't quite remember her name. She immediately burst out laughing, and ever since has been calling me "Ba Mikey". So of course Ba Emmanuel jumped into the action, and we are now "Ba Manny, Ba Rosie, and Ba Mikey!" And just to ice the cake, I show up one day in a nice fish-themed citenge shirt, only to find that Ba Rosie is wearing the exact same citenge wrapped around her head! Even in Africa people still have wardrobe coordination issues!

Ba Rosie and our matching outfits!! Though teaching kids to use a camera is really hard here.