A Lifetime in a Few Weeks in Zambia

Here is my attempt to recapture a lifetime of feelings and experiences since arriving in Zambia on 6 November.  There are times I feel words seem so inadequate to describe life here for rural Zambians; it is rich and tragic at the same time.  The Zambian people are a proud, hospitable, friendly people despite the fact most face daunting socio-economic challenges and widespread HIV/AIDS infection rates that threatens every aspect of life here.

My flight arrived on time in Lusaka after making stops in Nairobi and Lilongwe (Malawi).  I had been up since 0200 and had only slept a few hours before rising.  I felt wrecked.  I cleared customs and located a man holding a sign that said "Pact Zambia".  I approached him and introduced myself.  His name was Owen and was the driver for Pact.  "How nice I thought" someone here to greet me and take me where I need to be.

We walked out of the airport and the weather was hot and the sun bright; I could feel the intensity of the sun on my skin.  Oddly, I also felt this sense of relief and security.  It was a good feeling and a good vibe.  I was where I should be.  It was about a 40 minute drive from the airport but Owen made it in much less.  He knows how to drive.

I was met at the office by Jeannie Zielinksi, Chief of Party, for Pact Zambia.  I was given a big stack of manuals and an equally large stack of Kwacha (the currency used in Zambia).  The manuals were to bring me up to speed on the program Pact operates in Zambia and the Kwacha would fund my trip to Luapula Province in two days' time.

I spent a couple of hours at the office before telling Jeannie I needed to get to where I would be staying thinking it was 1600 hours (4:00PM) when I had forgotten to reset my watch and it was really 1500 (3:00PM).  She could sense I was wrecked and told me to head out.  We agreed that Jeannie would pick me up the next morning (Saturday) so I could join her to "the mall" to do some shopping for our road trip together on Sunday.

I checked into the "Marble Inn" just down the road from the Pact Office.  I had a well deserved and needed shower and set out for a walk to find water and food for dinner.  On my walk I noticed how different the feel was in Lusaka from Arusha.  Though it is a capital city, the feeling of Lusaka was not as kinetic and frenzied as that of Arusha.  There were certainly a lot of people moving about, traffic snarled, horns honking, but it felt less intense and threatening.  I welcomed the new feeling.  I walked to Cairo Road and found a Shop Rite store in the midst of a busy Friday afternoon when people were just "knocking off" from work.  There were long lines in the store but I found what I needed and set out to get back to the Marble Inn by dark.

I spent the evening reading and trying to bring myself up to speed on the work of Pact with their local partners throughout Zambia between watching some pretty hysterical local Zambian TV mixed with MTV a la Zambia and the craziest revivalist-voodoo-snake worship-TBN-like show that I had such a good laugh over.

Jeannie did get me at 0800 on Saturday and we went to Manda Hill Mall.  The mall is going through a makeover to add new shops and parking.  Otherwise it really resembles a strip mall by the big American mall standard.  I got some cash, bought some food for the drive and purchased a Zain Zambian SIM card for my phone.  Jeannie dropped me back at the inn and I spent most of the daytime hours reading.

I took a walk to scope out permanent accommodation for myself for when I returned to Lusaka.  I had communicated with a place called Nena Guest House so this was my first stop.  I arrived and immediately ran into this guy who was also walking toward the guest house office.  I asked him "are you staying here"? "Yeah, I am" he replied.  We started talking.  I wanted to know how the place was, how much they charged, etc.  We got to talking further.  Roger, from Ireland, was/is in Zambia working for an Irish health care NGO.  I told him I had just come from Tanzania where I had a good friend--also Irish--working in health care for an FBO (faith based organization) thinking, as I always do, about networking and trying to put people together in the pursuit of their endeavors.   "Where were you in Tanzania?", Roger asked.  "In Arusha", I replied.  "Paul Doran", Roger exclaimed!  "Is that your friend in Arusha"?  We both started to laugh at how unlikely it would be for such a coincidence to happen.  The world is a small place when you travel; I don't even think it is a matter of six degrees of separation anymore for me.  Maybe it is down to four degrees.  Roger and I made plans to get together when we are both in Lusaka at the same time.  I returned to the Marble Inn via a stop at the Backpackers Hostel to check on their accommodation.  By-the-way, I won't be staying at hostel; been there done that.  I need something a little bit more comfortable.

On Sunday, Charles, another driver for Pact, was around at 0615 to pick me up and take me to the office to meet the others, pack the car and get underway for our 14 hour journey northwest to Luapula Province.  Jeannie's car had broken down just down the road from the office and Charles and I went to assist her.  By the time we arrived there, Jeannie's husband Mike and his golfing buddy were there as well.  Four of us pushed the car about 150 yards to the office compound.  Nice way to start the day before getting into a car for 14 hours.

Mbuwa Kabwe, a finance officer with Pact also joined us for the trip to Luapula.  It was a journey indeed.  We were on the road by 0700 and did not reach the town of Nchelenge until nearly 2100 (9:00PM).  We made a few stops along the way for breakfast in Kabwe and for lunch in Sarenje where I met an old Peace Corps volunteer by the name of Steve from California sitting on a porch, drinking a beer and reading a book as it rained outside.  He married a local woman who owns the restaurant.

We drove through pouring rain that required Charles to slow the car to a crawl and drove passed a rolled over truck on the side of the road were those riding in it had taken all of what could be salvaged from the wreck and stacked it neatly next to the ruined vehicle.  The driver (or perhaps another involved in the crash) laid inside the wreckage looking a bit unwell.  Charles assured me help was on the way for these poor stranded people.  It is also amazing to see the number of people on the two lane highway walking--in the middle of nowhere.  I continued to wonder from where they were coming and going many of them barefoot, some on bicycles, women with infants and small children wrapped to their backs with brightly colored fabrics and some carrying heavy loads of wood or coal or other goods.  The roads were treacherous in some areas with deep pot holes sometimes stretching from one side of the road to the other requiring shoulder driving to avoid them all together.  Night driving would be out of the question on these roads.  Running into a pot hole a foot deep would be ruinous to any vehicle.

Nchelenge was dark by the time we arrived.  We found our guest house (loosely speaking) with a little help from the locals.  I have to admit after checking in I longed for the comfort of a layover hotel while on the road flying at home.  Well, needless to say I made the best of it.  There was water, that was good.  It was dirty and fouled and the pressure was not adequate enough to allow it to flow through the hand-held shower fixture.  I had to result to filling a plastic tub and dump it over me.  The smell and taste of the water was disgusting but better, perhaps, than the alternative. There was a ceiling fan, that was good but the light bulb attached to it had to be unscrewed as the pull string was not working.  The was a refrigerator, that was good and there was nothing bad about it.  The mosquitoes and other bugs were present in great numbers and most effective at night.  Morning did not come soon enough.

We arrived early at the office of Nchelenge Inter-Denominational (the acronym is NIDSLYG and for the life of me I cannot get past the first three letters!).  The office was housed in a district government office complex.  The office measured about 8'x8' and into this space was crammed two desks, a large safe, file cabinet and wall shelving that held volumes of binders "box files as they are known and a high bar like counter at the entrance.  In this same space worked 3 to 5 NID representatives and now we added 4 more bodies to that mix.  The weather was hot and humid as Nchelenge sits on the shores of Lake Mweru.  Added to the heat was my perspiration of not knowing exactly what my role was going to be and the effects of the 14 hour journey the day before.  Jeannie conducted an entry meeting outlining our objectives of the compliance visit and it was then I found out more about my role.  It didn't seem out of my reach.

I worked on reviewing data from the binders ensuring that it was complete and accurate.  I had a template of sorts from which to work and put the data I found into an excel worksheet that I labored through to figure out on my mac.  Years of being a flight attendant have given me little reason to develop my excel skills and I was horribly aware of the fact I might need to say "I'm not sure I can do this in excel".  The emperor had no clothes!  I was going along pretty well when things went wrong.  I recovered.

We went for lunch at a local place where we all ordered  the fish.  How could we not when we were situated on the shores of this great lake? I had my first exposure to nshima and eating with my hands.  Nshima is a maize flour that when added to boiling water produces something of a mass of stiff, sticky carbohydrate dough that is heaped high on the plate.  There is enough of it on each plate to feed a family of four.  This is the staple for Zambians and is eaten with just about every meal.  It is the filler in the diet and everything served with it is considered "relish".  The relish could be a steak, chicken, fish, whatever.  At the meal and on the plate nshima is central.  I knew this was going to be an omen for my diet.

We finished the day back at the office in the heat doing more of the same.  I documented any irregularities I found in the data I reviewed and waited or something else to go wrong with my computing skills.

That night I have to admit I laid in bed and wondered how I could change my ticket to go home  I felt defeated and it was all I could do to just fall asleep.  Was I doing the right thing being here?  Was the work beyond my capabilities?  Should I just be satisfied with going home and continue my flying career?  It was a heavy and hard night for me.  Of course I was being my own worst enemy.  I wish I could get that while I drag myself through the mud!

The next day we were back at the office and set out for our Nchelenge site visits to the schools and communities that have implemented the Y-CHOICES program.  We visited a Catholic Church and interviewed the young peer educators (P/Es) and the adult mentors who help them in reaching their peers in the community with abstinence and being faithful (A/B) message sessions.  The group was mostly shy, timid and quiet.  There was an exception though.  A young man seemed to take on the role of "spokesperson" for his peers in saying the shirts they were provided to identify them as P/Es were not of good quality and that being a P/E was taking its toll as it was planting time in the fields and the responsibility of being a p/e was taking an economic toll when they could otherwise be working in the fields.  He also wanted an umbrella since the rainy season was set to begin.  I was proud of him.

The next day we visited Nchelenge High School where we were greeted by a couple of teacher mentors.  We were made to wait for, what I learned that day would follow on each school site visit, an obligatory meet and greet with the headmaster of the school, before any other business could happen.  The headmaster's office, like most to follow, was filled with clutter.  The walls were lined with poster paper on which was neatly written school statistics like passing rate, teachers names and home rooms and of course the picture of his excellency Rupiah (something-or-other) Banda, the president of the Republic of Zambia.  I hope I can find a picture of him to bring home.  What a laugh and what a pity someone didn't ask him to take more than one picture in order to choose the best one.  Th room was crammed with over sized-70's-style-worn through couches and matching broken down chairs.

We were taken on a tour of the school which included classrooms, the cafeteria and kitchen and the dormitories that would make any university student in the US think twice about complaining about their housing.  Broken windows, overcrowded conditions, and clothing strewn from top-to-bottom and of course the stench that comes with that number of young men and women living in such close quarters.  Unlike the dorm room you can envision, this is an open room-like hostel with bunks and absolutely no privacy.

We met with a small group of P/Es and the 2 mentors where we had a frank discussion about sex, HIV/AIDS and how these young people have done with their jobs as P/Es.  One girl, when asked about where young people learn about sex, she replied, "from movies, TV and books".  Parents were absent from the equation.  It made me think of my generation and how, in my experience, little was mentioned about sex, sexuality, etc.  While I think things are different today in the US it is culturally taboo for parents to have any kind of discussion with their children in Zambia on something as innocuous as courtship let alone sex, sexuality, pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases (STIs), etc.  This could be why the rates of HIV/AIDS and other diseases are so widespread.  Further, Zambian culture encourages young men to become men as soon as possible in their adolescence.

We carried on to Kashikishi Basic School where school children ran amuck around the playground with the particular focus on the merry-go-round that is acutally part of a system that pumps water from the ground below the merry-go-round to a large tank high above ground.  It is known as the "play pump". Again we were escorted into the headmaster's office and I was happy to see a robust headmisstress behind her lace covered desk and walls covered floor to ceiling with eye numbing figures, charts and names.

We met with a large group of young people, wise for their young years, in a bare concrete-floored classroom with broken windows and desks and chairs in various stages of disrepair.  We conducted our interview with these young people and their mentor Mr. Banda (a popular surname in Zambia).  He was fantastic and so committed to the program and the education of these young people.  Unfortunately, the lack of understanding of the subject matter and using their second language (English) to discuss it lended itself to many errors in the messaging we were hoping for.  At one point, a really bubbly, out going girl said it was OK to have premarital sex!  Mr. Banda shot her stink eye and the poor headmisstress sitting in back bowed her head.  A small, bald young boy, clearly a victim of poor nutrition, sat in the front row and raised his hand to speak with every question asked.  He became the spokesman for the other quiet ones in the group.  We encouraged him and the others to speak in their native Bemba language and he railed off how he had been ridiculed by his peers for being a P/E and accused of benefitting from doing so.  It broke my heart.  As we walked out toward the playground I stopped to shake his hand and thank him for having the courage he showed us and to be a P/E in the face of adversity.

We were up early the next day for our 2 hour drive to Kawambwa.

Lusaka, Zambia Here I Come

Just got in from an amazing get together of the friends I have met the last 2 months of being here in Arusha.  Why is it when it comes time to say goodbye you realize just what you have?  How fortunate to meet the people I have and to call them friends.  We met at Via-Via for dinner and a drink and some good chatter.

I have to leave for Kilimanjaro Airport at 0300 and it is already 2300 here.  Sleep is not something I will have a lot of tonight.  And when I arrive, it is straight to the office for introductions.  Friday night in a hotel bed is going to feel mighty good.

I am over the shock of the $968 round trip airfare to Lusaka from Kili via Nairobi.  Ouch.  Volunteering while looking for work costs money.  Having said that I have gone round and round with myself about whether or not I am doing the right thing and tonight I now know it is just the thing for me.  My friends agreed and one has been in development work for 15 years and has lived and worked in Lusaka.

Zambia has an HIV infection rate of over 25%.  That is 1 in 4.  I will be working on an HIV education program of children and youth through our local partners in the rural areas of the country.  On Sunday I leave for a one week tour of the northern part of the country where I will be mentoring local partners and encouraging family discourse on HIV.  All of the work will be framed in the course material I received through the Monterey Institute class in DC back in June.  Time to put classwork into practice.

I am thankful for the lessons--some bloody difficult--I have learned while in Arusha.  I know there was a reason I started here--to get my feet wet in Africa and to know the saying "that's Africa, baby".  The lessons won't stop here.

On to Lusaka.

More later.....