Letting go of family

12 April 2015

My family is shrinking by the day. Two of my Mfuba siblings have now gone to live elsewhere – and this time I didn’t even get to say good-bye.

At dinner with the Mutales last night, 10-year-old Joyci was absent. It’s common for kids to eat with grandparents, aunts, uncles, or older siblings rather than with their parents, and Joyci in particular likes to wander. I assumed she was just eating elsewhere.

But when I enquired about her whereabouts, Ba Agatha told me Joyci had gone this morning to Kabila, 60 kilometers of rutted dirt road away, to stay with relatives for a while.

Joyci, helping me strip the stringy bits off pumpkin leaves.

This is common. During my time in Mfuba, three kids I know well have just disappeared one day, only to return months later – or never. Sometimes their parents don’t even know they’ve left until they’re already gone. Two different kids have showed up in Mfuba, seemingly out of nowhere, stayed for several months, then gone back to wherever it was they came from.

No one seems to miss them terribly. I’m told that staying with distant relatives is exactly the same as staying with your parents.

The same word – bamunyina – applies to both siblings and cousins (even second or third cousins). Your aunt is also your mother; your uncle is the same as your father. If your father or mother dies and another family takes you in, you will automatically call the man of the house your father, and the woman your mother.

Just as Bembas share and change homes, they share and exchange children with the flexibility of one giant, extended family.

My little brother, 15-year-old Stephen, came to live with the Mutales more than three years ago, when his father died and his mother couldn’t take care of all their children. Stephen adopted a new last name and began calling Agatha and Bernardi “mom” and “dad.”

Steven, aka Bwalya, posing with a lizard you can JUST make out in the twisted trunk of the tree at left.

Then about six months ago he and Agatha had a falling-out. She accused him of eating extra groundnuts that she was trying to save, and of not doing enough work around the house. He told me he felt Agatha had never wanted him there. So Stephen stomped out and went to live with another family less than a kilometer away.

Even this small move had a huge impact on my day-to-day life. Stephen used to be at my house every day, whether to study English, help me with some yard project, or just to return some pot or dish I’d left at the Mutales. Strange to say about a teenage boy, but he was my best friend in Mfuba.

Stephen and me, with his little cousin/brother Ino.

These days Stephen walks to school by a different path, hangs out with a different group of kids, and rarely comes by just to hang out. His life is irrevocably different. And so is mine.

Now Joyci is gone, too.

I love that girl like crazy. Her outrageous stories; her all-out, arm-flailing dancing; even her ridiculous temper tantrums. Every time I returned to Mfuba after an absence of a couple weeks – or even just a few days – Joyci was the first one to come running, throwing her arms around me and declaring, “I missed you so much!”

The ever-outrageous Joyci.

So it was with some trepidation that I asked Ba Agatha: “When’s she coming back?”

“When school starts again.”

That’s May 11. I leave Mfuba for good on April 20.

I burst into tears.

I’ve been emotional enough lately over my impending departure from Mfuba. But this is different. With only one week left, I simply don’t have time to visit Joyci so far away. I don’t even know how to get to Kabila.

How can I leave without saying good-bye to my little sister? Without giving her one last hug?

The reality is, this is probably a lot harder on me than it is on Joyci. Maybe she’s used to this sort of thing and doesn’t think much of it.

This is what I’m trying to tell myself, even though I’m crying again just writing this.

That, and one other thing: the night before Joyci left, she and I danced together in the Mutales’ nsaka. Just the two of us, flailing our arms and legs, twirling each other around, and laughing like crazy.

So instead of a tearful good-bye, I get to remember Joyci like this, in all her outrageous glory.

And maybe that’s exactly as it should be.

A wet Christmas

I dreamed of snow for Christmas, but the only white thing in Mfuba was me.

I spent the holiday in the vil’ this year, soaking up a lot of ubwali and our first decent rains in two weeks.

Nothing too exciting happened. Gift-giving isn’t big, since no one has much money, especially this time of year. Ditto big holiday feasts.

A small minority of my neighbors went to the Catholic church midmorning. Some of them stopped by my place on their way to or from church, including some young girls who wanted to drum and dance.

Christmas music on my front porch. Kessia’s drumming on the left, but I don’t know the others too well.

The rest split about evenly into two camps: those who went and worked in their fields all day, just as they do every day this time of year, and those who got themselves stumbling drunk.

The latter started last night. As I was sitting in the cozy bubble of the Mutales’ nsaka, eating a Christmas Eve dinner of ubwali, beans, caterpillars, and wild mushrooms, the partying was just beginning. Men and women alike stayed up ’til all hours, drumming and dancing and drinking. They woke me up twice in the night, singing-shouting-stumbling their way home on the path that runs past my yard.

All we did in our small corner of Mfuba was help Boyd begin studying for his Grade 7 exams, tell stories, and debate the relative importance of Christmas, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve. (In my American family, Christmas Eve reigns supreme.)

I learned that many Bembas, Ba Bernardi and Ba Allan included, consider New Year’s to be a bigger, more exciting holiday than Christmas. Neither of their families killed a chicken for Christmas, but both plan to for New Year’s Eve.

Many people also make New Year’s resolutions, including Ba Allan. But not Ba Agatha or Ba Bernardi. “I changed once a long time ago,” Agatha joked. “I’m done changing.”

Our biggest Christmas Eve excitement was eating freshly fried ifitumbua, which their oldest daughter, Brenda, made for the holiday.

Up until this point, my Christmas Eve had been slightly frantic, as I tried to get everything done before I left for my last Peace Corps-sponsored vacation on the 26th. (Somewhere in between the drunks and the workers, I stayed sober but refused to work on Christmas Day, aside from my usual household chores.)

On Christmas Eve I’d had two separate meetings with farmers, then found myself planting the last of my seedlings in the rain at 5 p.m. I was grateful for getting soaked, though. The soil had previously been too dry to transplant my tiny, nitrogen-fixing gliricidia trees.

My most crucial pre-holiday projects finished, I spent Christmas morning on my porch, making a ton of banana bread (aka, “cake”) with Boke, Joyi, and Allan Jr., then handing out small portions to any child who came by.

Yay banana cake! Joyci, Boke, and Allan, Jr.

I also used Christmas as an excuse to unload some of the empty peanut butter, honey, and cooking oil bottles I’d been hoarding. I let all the kids with whom I’m close choose their own gift: either a container or 12 bottle caps, which I’d biked in from the PC house in Kasama, knowing there weren’t enough containers to go around.

With just one exception, every boy chose the bottle caps – to play a board game called “Solo” or “Drafts” – and every girl chose a container, then promptly gave it to her mother to use. (Doro was the lone exception. She took the bottle caps.)

When things started to get out of hand with the dozen kids present, it was the perfect time to bike to my cell reception spot to call my brothers and friends in the States.

That was when I got rained on for the second time in two days. This time, happily, it was an actual storm. But I was prepared. I put on my rain jacket and huddled under my too-small umbrella with the phone pressed close to my ear as the rain came down and the road turned into a river.

For those of you who talked with me on Christmas Day, here’s what I looked like, standin’ out in the rain with a cell phone.

View of the road from under my umbrella.

I finished my calls just as the rain was letting up, then biked back home. Then, legs covered in mud, I wrapped up my holiday with one more shared ubwali meal (at Ba Allan’s) and the delivery of more banana bread to families whose kids had missed out this afternoon.

And that was it. Possibly my most uneventful Christmas ever. But in the land of unpredictability, I consider that a day well spent.

Around the Mutales’ fire

20 August 2014

I am seated around the Mutales’ three-stone cooking fire, and it’s getting late.

We’ve already eaten dinner, exchanged stories, maybe done a little Bemba-English language exchange.

I put my teapot on the fire, signalling I’ll be leaving as soon as it’s boiled. (My own charcoal brazier has probably died down by now, if I ever lit it at all, and I want hot water to put in my thermos for tomorrow.)

But then someone asks me a question, cracks a joke, or says, “You’re leaving already?” and we’re off again. The kettle boils. I take it off the fire. I’ll boil it again in a little while.

Why would I leave so soon, when an evening spent with the Mutale family – Ba Agatha, Ba Bernardi, Boyd, Stephen (aka Bwalya), Joyci, Cila, and Gile – is almost always the highlight of my day? Just hangin’ out with them in their nsaka can transform even my worst days.

Joyci, Stephen, and Gile goofing around atop some maize sacks in their family’s nsaka.

I don’t know what it is about them, but every single member of their family has a firm hold on my heart. They are warm and generous. They make me laugh. Somehow, they seem to understand and accept my strange habits and shifting moods in a way that few others do.

Simply put, the Mutales are some of the best people I have ever known – in any country.

When I realized this simple fact a couple months ago, I asked Ba Agatha if we could eat together more often – like maybe three nights a week? “Of course!” she laughed, like it was the world’s most hilarious question with the world’s most obvious answer. “We always like having you over.”

But it isn’t just the ego boost I get from the Mutales’ kind acceptance of me into their family that makes me feel so welcome – so at home – sitting around the fire with them. It’s some magical mix of factors that can’t be put into words.

Something about looking up at the moon or the stars in utterly comfortable silence. About sharing stories while Stephen dutifully translates my awful Bemba into good Bemba and Boyd cracks jokes. Or sitting with Cila and Joyci pressed right up against me while we wait for Ba Agatha to finish stirring up a big pot of ubwali.

Ba Agatha talking with her daughter Gile while cooking ubwali over a traditional three-stone fire.

Around the Mutales’ fire, I’ve watched shooting stars with Boyd and Stephen; discussed gay rights with Ba Bernardi and Ba Webby; danced with Cila and Joyci; and compared cooking tips and religious beliefs with Ba Agatha.

A few weeks ago I arrived at the Mutales’ place exhausted, wishing I hadn’t invited myself that morning. It had been a long day, and it turned out dinner wasn’t even close to being ready.

Next thing I knew, Cila was leaning up against me, and Boyd was absentmindedly drumming on my charcoal brazier. I began to relax, and, without thinking, to move my shoulders in time with Boyd’s drumming. Any hint of dancing on my part always gets the kids going, so of course Stephen and Cila started giggling. Then Boyd stepped up the rhythm.

Boyd with the charcoal brazier that doubles as a drum or “heat necklace” when the coals have gotten very low.

Next thing I knew, I was dancing and beat-boxing in my seat, and Ba Agatha was cracking up.

The whole scene was so hilarious that I was quite happy I’d finally thought to bring my camera to dinner. As soon as I pulled it out, more clowning around ensued.

Four of the Mutale kids around their evening fire: Boyd, Gile, and Cila up front, with Joyci in the background.

Then Agatha and Bernardi’s visiting eldest daughter, Ba Brenda, uttered the words that always break the spell: “We’re going to miss you when you go back to America!” Usually it’s Stephen or Agatha who throw out this phrase, but the effect is always the same.

It makes me want to stop time. To take all of this – the smell of burning wood and good food; the feel of warm, wooly little heads; the impromptu music; the touch of cool night air – and hold onto it forever. To bottle this wonderful feeling and carry it with me on the bad days.

Or on the day when I’ll have to leave Mfuba for good. Which is coming faster than I think, and which, on nights like these, I can scarcely bring myself to think about.

What’s in a name?

It’s tough to remember all my neighbors’ names.

Who can blame me? Most adults in Zambia have at least three names. Some have four or even five. (These are just first names, not surnames, which add a whole other level of complexity. I don’t think anyone has a middle name, thank goodness.)

Almost everyone starts out with two names: one in Bemba and one in English. Both are given some days after the baby’s birth, after the parents have gotten to know the kid a bit.

From then on, it’s up to the family, and the child, which name gets used most often. Typically they’ll use the English name in school or when greeting an adult they judge to be important, and use the Bemba name in the day to day.

Hence I’ve often been surprised to hear kids whose names I know very well introduce themselves to another adult or a visiting PCV with a name I’ve never heard of.

Mwape, me, Chola, and Mwango. It wasn’t until I took them to Camp GLOW that I learned their English names: Gladys, Evet, and Precious.

As one might expect, some kids also get nicknames. Obed, aka Charles, has been nicknamed Chomba.

Obed, aka Chomba, with some kind of moss on his head.

Some names get shortened. Among my favorites: “Boni” for Boniface and “Agri” for the unwieldy Aggripa. (When I first met Agri, I was sure the other kids were calling him “Ugly.” Which made no sense, as he is absolutely adorable.)

Agri. He’s even more adorable in the photo posted on my Home page side bar at the moment.

Ba Brenda, Ba Agatha’s eldest daughter, took the unusual route of giving her second-born son just one name: Knowledge. His name is among my favorites.

Ba Brenda with her single-named baby son, Knowledge.

Others include:

A-guy. (No idea the spelling, but it’s pronounced “Ah guy.”)

Not just any guy, this is Ah-guy!

Mapalo, which means, “blessing.”

Ubupe, which means “gift.”

Katongo, which just sounds fun.

Better.

Ba Better, carrying sugarcane back from his awesome garden. His name has done well for him, as he really farms much “better” than the average Mfuban.

Kutemwa, which means “Like” or “Love,” depending on your interpretation.

Love, pronounced not as Americans would pronounce it, but as, “Lah-vu.”

Musonda, which means “spirits,” specifically the kindly forest-dwelling spirits that bring us caterpillars and other bounties. Anger those spirits, I’m told, and they’ll take away the caterpillars.

I’m biased to like this last name, as it’s the Bemba name I was given. But it’s a common one for boys and girls alike. It’s frequently shortened to “Muso.”

Muso looking up from a big sack of groundnuts.

Loyci with her little sister, Muso.

Muso, left, with her friend Cynthia.

All of these are just the names given in childhood. Once a woman has a child, she’s known from then on as the mother of her eldest child, “Bana _____.” When she has a grandchild, her name changes again, to that of the mother of her eldest grandchild, “Banakulu _____.”

Thus Ba Agatha (who is “Ba Angata” in Bemba) became Bana Brenda but is now known as Banakulu Ino, after Brenda’s oldest child, Innocent. Ba Dorothy was Bana Nellis but is now Banakulu Muso, after Nellis’ eldest.

Same goes for men. “Bashi Mwaba” is Mwaba’s dad. “Bashikulu Sampa” is Sampa’s grandfather.

Such is the importance given to having children and grandchildren that often no one even knows, or at least no one remembers, the person’s original, pre-offspring name.

If only I’d known this to begin with, I would’ve saved a lot of time asking adults their given names when no one uses those anyway. I’m the only one who calls Ba Agatha “Ba Angata.” (Well, except for her youngest child, two-year-old Gile – aka Gracious – who’s hilariously taken to mimicking me and calling her mom “Ba Angata!”)

Ba Agatha, aka Ba Angata, aka Bana Brenda, aka Banakulu Ino, with her 2-year-old daughter, Gracious, aka Gile.

I’ve found myself looking for the home of “Ba Derrick” or “Ba Dinus,” only to discover that no one knows who those people are. Instead I find myself in a complicated game of describing the person, until someone realizes, “Ah, you mean Bashi Abraham!” Or, in Ba Dinus’ case, Bashi Love.

All of these different names could be interpreted as obstacles to getting to know one another. Or, seen in another light, as a way of getting to know people again and again, on a deeper level each time, as we discover more about one another.

The art of mourning

25 April 2014

I am caught between two cultures, trying to decide how I should be mourning my grandmother’s death.

Today I didn’t want to return to Mfuba. First time that’s happened since before Christmas. I’d spent two days in Kasama, trying to contact family and friends after my phone e-mail crapped out right after my Mamma died. (Bad timing, huh?) I’d also gotten food poisoning somewhere in there – my first real bout of puking and diarrhea in Zambia.

I think I was still needing the muzungu bubble of the NoPro provincial house, still trying to deal with a lot of things, still deciding how I feel.

So this morning, I delayed and delayed leaving Kasama, for no good reason. I could’ve easily left at 10 a.m. but didn’t get going ‘til after noon. I felt like crap on the bike ride home and ended up hitching two-thirds of the way, dreading my return the whole way.

But I came back anyway, because I had so much to do: finish building my compost pile and resuce those rotting green leaves we’d collected before I left; plan Sunday’s GLOW meeting with Ba Dorothy; re-schedule the nutrition meeting and Youth Club workshop I’d bailed out on when I decided I couldn’t handle staying in the village with my feelings and no connection to the outside world.

Then as soon as I arrived back in Mfuba, I was called over by a big group of my neighbors who were just hangin’ out. Not surprisingly, they’d all heard, and greeted me with the standard funeral greetings: “Mwalosheni mukwai” (You are mourning) or “Mwaculeni mukwai” (You are suffering.)

I sat around for a little while, then asked Ba Dorothy if we could meet tomorrow to plan Sunday’s GLOW meeting. “Teti,” she said, which just means “can’t.” I thought she was about to tell me she had some other commitment, but no. I can’t work for several days because I’m in mourning. If I work, people will think I didn’t care for Mamma.

No compost-making, no teaching the girls about boyfriends and peer pressure, no meetings. “Intambi,” (culture) Ba Dorothy said.

I was immediately angry. I should’ve just stayed in Kasama another night after all! Why did I even come back here? No wonder nothing ever gets done around here! Where are everyone’s priorities?! Mamma would WANT me to carry on and teach, wouldn’t she?

And then I caught myself. Isn’t this what I love about Bemba culture? Their care and compassion for family? And couldn’t I actually USE a break for a change? And then: what the heck is wrong with me that I can’t just stop DOING things and mourn my grandmother? Why do I always have to bury my feelings and move on? Even calling my two good PCV friends this morning, I barely mentioned Mamma, then moved right on to our work and vacation plans.

I could argue that this numbed reaction is the product of being so far away. Mamma’s death doesn’t really seem real, to be honest. Maybe it won’t until I go back home and CAN’T call or visit her. But mainly, it’s just me. I’m an “I’ll be fine,” kinda person. Like many Americans, I don’t deal well with sadness.

So I’m caught between these two feelings, these two cultures. Part of me is ticked off at my neighbors: Who are they to impose THEIR culture on ME when I’M the one mourning, not them? This is NOT the way Americans do it. Dammit we have work to do!

Another part of me thinks: wow, their way makes so much more sense! I actually DO need to slow down and let myself have feelings once in a while, and having this forced on me may be the only way it happens. Maybe this is exactly what I need?

But I can’t help it. I’m still a stubborn American. I’m still fretting over the compost, my garden, and another week without GLOW.

Goodbye, Mamma

21 April 2014

My mamma died early this morning. Or late last night, as I’m seven time zones and many hours away.

I always knew this was a possibility. Mamma (pronounced “Memmaw,” with a southern drawl, or grandma for all you non-Appalachian folks) turned 80 last year – eight months after I’d moved to Zambia.

Mamma & me, on a visit just before I moved to Zambia.

In January I got word that she was sick and in the hospital. I talked with her on Skype and tried to convince myself that she’d be around another year. I knew it was a lie.

I won’t be going back for the funeral. Three days of travel, and she won’t be there anyway.

Instead I’ll be here in Mfuba, thinking about all those great Mamma-isms, like, “I feel like everybody ate!” “Lord have mercy!” and “Can’t never did do nothin’!”

That last one will always stick with me. I like to think these words of wisdom from Mamma helped shape me and my, “I can do anything” (aka stubborn) attitude. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve repeated that phrase – to others and to myself – over the years.

It’s my hope that at least something of her rubbed off on me.

Mamma was one tough lady. She moved from east Tennessee to Detroit with my grandfather (that’s Pappa) when she was just 15. (Yes, 15. They got married VERY young.) She worked a full-time job while raising two kids in the 1950s – long before working moms were common. She kept the whole family in line with a combination of shrewd financial skills, Southern Baptist faith, hard work, and a lot of love.

Growing up, I was closer to her than to my own parents – or to any adult for that matter – and I gleefully spent many a night sleeping over at Mamma and Pappa’s house.

Mamma took no crap from anyone, and I vividly remember the one and only time she raised her voice at me, using the word “hell.” I was shocked and horrified and never did that again! But normally she didn’t HAVE to raise her voice – the desire not to disappoint her was enough.

There was a sense of peace and calm that pervaded her house – kept just interesting enough by my late Pappa’s tales of ghosts that would be awakened by noisy grandchildren and watermelons that would grow out of your ears if you ate those black seeds.

Like the thick down “comforter” we got to sleep under at Mamma and Pappa’s house, there was an warm, easy feeling about just being in Mamma’s presence. It was she who taught me to sew and cross-stitch, to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and Christmas ornaments out of just about anything. She who never tired of braiding my hair in my favorite style: two french braids, one on each side of my head. She who painstakingly decorated individualized cakes for her six grandkids’ birthdays – making out of icing dolls or typewriters or sports cars or whatever else we requested each year. She who instilled in me key components of the moral compass that guides me to this day.

I went to church with Mamma every Sunday of my childhood, and though I quit religion a long time ago, she never judged me for it. I told her that the mountains and forests were my church, and she wholeheartedly accepted that, telling me these were all God’s creation.

Mamma was a pragmatic Christian, telling me on several occasions, “I’m voting Democrat, but don’t tell your Pappa.” Upon learning that one of her grandkids was gay, she paused only a split second before saying, “He’s my grandson, and I love him.”

She accepted, too, that I was nowhere near the family-oriented homebody she was – and that all my wandering was just something I needed to do. I imagine she thought of it something like this: “Theresa may be crazy, but she’s my granddaughter, and I love her.”

I love you, too, Mamma.

Return to Yuda

29 January 2014

My roots in Zambia (shallow though they may be) are firmly planted in the soil of Yuda Village. This small community outside Chipembi is where my Bamaayo, my Bataata, and all of their extended family and neighbors patiently taught me how to speak Bemba, cook ubwali, dance like a Zambian, and generally adapt to life here. It’s the host village where I spent 10 weeks during Pre-Service Training.

I never got tired of the view behind my little house on my host family’s compound in Yuda Village.

Today I returned Yuda. It was at once a reminder of how I got to where I am today, and a remedy for those feelings of loneliness and isolation I sometimes struggle with in my new home of Mfuba. I was honestly shocked at just how comfortable and content I felt, even after nine months away. It was like going home.

With all my medical tests finished and my neck lump greatly reduced (see “Medical Mysteries of Zambia”), I’d found myself waiting around Lusaka for the results of one last biopsy, with three days to go and nothing to do. Then suddenly I remembered: Chipembi is only about two hours from Lusaka. And since Peace Corps Zambia is gearing up for the next group of LIFERs to arrive next week, there are vehicles going back and forth to Chipembi nearly every day.

So I enquired, and, sure enough, caught a ride up yesterday afternoon. Today I borrowed a bike and rode out to Yuda, completely unannounced.

Along the path to my host parents’ field outside Yuda. This photo – and all the rest – were taken last year, when I was still living there. Ba Samwell is on the left; Bamaayo’s on the right.

Since I arrived around 10 a.m., Bamaayo, Bataata, and nearly everyone else was out in the fields. No problem. I just walked out there myself with a small troupe of familiar-yet-shockingly-much-taller kids both leading and following.

I have to admit, on the bike ride from Chipembi to Yuda, I’d been a little nervous. Would they be happy to see me? Would I finally be able to have a real conversation with my host parents, who speak no English? Or would I stumble and flail and disappoint my ever-critical Bataata yet again? What if the whole visit consisted of uncomfortable silence?

My Zambian family: Bataata, Ba Margaret, and Bamaayo, with Lucy and Libby up front.

I needn’t have worried. From the moment I emerged from the forest into their maize field, the joy we all felt was palpable. First Bataata, then Bamaayo, came running to hug me, and we could hardly stop. I was elated to find that quite a few of the neighbors were out there as well, helping with the weeding. It was a full-on reunion.

Ba Margaret immediately announced that they were done for the day anyway, and we all headed back to the vil. Along the way I enquired about the rest of the extended family, and my host parents exclaimed over how good my Bemba had become. (You can usually count on parents to exaggerate your accomplishments, especially when they haven’t seen you in a while and have conveniently forgotten your faults.)

Back at the house, Bataata showed me the moringa and msangu trees they planted while I was living there, telling me he thinks of me every time he looks at them. I was utterly touched, and felt bad for all the times I wanted to yell him for his impatience with my Bemba progress.

It wasn’t long before all the guys called me over to the shade of the mango tree to talk. Bamaayo, on the other hand, was rushing around the yard, clearly preparing to cook lunch. Oh no you don’t, I thought. This woman spent 10 weeks cooking and cleaning and fetching water for me, and no way am I going to let this happen when I can now do all these things perfectly well myself.

So I told Bamaayo I’d do the dishes, and by the way, I’d brought food to cook for lunch. So we left the guys behind and hung out in the hot sun together ‘til the dishes were done. (She still sand-scrubbed the pots; I did the rest.) Then I proceeded to chop up and cook all the veggies for the makings of a veggie-masala-dhal-type dish, while Bamaayo sat next to me, doing absolutely nothing but chatting and laughing. (Realization No. 1: Bamaayo’s knife, a dull lump of metal with no handle, gives blisters to anyone lacking her ultra-tough Zam hands. Realization No. 2: I didn’t realize just how awesome my Bamaayo is until I’d moved out on my own. Realization No. 3: I’d actually accomplished the goal that got me through the long days of Pre-Service Training – to one day hold a real conversation with Bamaayo.)

I even cooked the ubwali – the only time during the actual visit when I was genuinely nervous. (It’s stressful being entrusted with the national staple dish!) Thankfully, it turned out great. Whew!

We ate together, just the three of us, but I was glad Ba Margaret stopped by for a bit. Bamaayo and Bataata both proudly told her that I’d cooked the whole meal. They did NOT say whether they actually liked the food.

Ba Samwell’s family (my family, too, since they’re cousins of my parents): Ba Eunice, Ba Felix, and up front, Kennedy, Bwalya, Samwell, and Junior.

Then we went next door to visit with Ba Eunice and Ba Felix, Ba Samwell’s host parents. A steady stream of visitors came and went, including Yuda’s headwoman and my little sister Lucy, who appears to have grown six inches and is now in Grade 8!

We sat under the mango trees for hours, talking about my new home and my job and their crops and the borehole that’s still broken and Ba Rita’s now five-month-old son. I understood almost everything they said.

I felt a sense of belonging that’s rare in my new home in NoPro.

See, in Mfuba, I have a job to do and a slight guilt complex and a whole lot of people constantly asking me for things – or asking me why I do things in all the strange ways that I do things. My Yuda family, on the other hand, seems to have no expectations of me whatsoever. I think they were happy just to see me, and I felt that extremely rare commodity that I suppose some people come to expect from family: unconditional love.

In fact, everyone in the village kept thanking me over and over again – for visiting, for volunteering in their country, for practically nothing at all.

No, no, no, I said over and over. Thank YOU. You are the ones who took care of me when I had the skills and vocabulary of a three-year-old. You are the ones who taught me everything I needed to know live by myself in rural Zambia, with a level of patience I can’t even fathom. Without you, I could’ve never become a PCV. Without all the families like you, all around Chipembi, none of us PCVs could ever do our jobs well. YOU are the ones whom Zambians all over the country should be thanking.

That feeling stayed with me the rest of the day, even as I rode back to Chipembi in the pouring rain an hour before dark, having stayed much too late because everyone assured me that the storms were just passing around us and that it wouldn’t rain ‘til nighttime.

Sunset view from the bike ride between Chipembi and Yuda. Taken back when I was still living there.

As I bombed down that old familiar, bumpy hill, I thought first of my old next-door neighbor Ba Samwell, whose dedication to learning Bemba rubbed off on me and inspired me to keep trying. We’d ridden into Chipembi nearly every day during PST, practicing our garbled Bemba along the way. My Bemba brother, he is as much family as my Bamaayo and Bataata. Everyone in Yuda had asked about him, of course, and I know we all wished he’d been there.

Then my mind drifted back to my Zambian family. I promised I’d come back to visit again before I return to the States. After all, I told them, I may live in Mfuba, but I was born in Yuda. It’s there where I can return to my roots.

Losing a friend from afar

12 January 2014

Basil died yesterday, and I just now found out. He was my brother’s dog – the dippy, perpetually confused retriever everyone loved to make fun of. But Basil was as sweet and loyal of a dog as you’d ever find, and he was possibly a better hiking buddy than my brother. (See more photos of Basil here.)

Me, Lee, Basil (left) and Roxy during a visit to Montana in 2011.

I found myself in tears when I found out, and maybe not just because it was the loss of a loved one (even if he was “just a dog”). Not only because I suddenly felt bad for always making fun of Basil. And not only because there will be a big empty place at Lee and Jorge’s place when I return.

Part of my tears, I think, were because I found out about Basil’s death via e-mail. Because I’m here in Mfuba, so far away, where phone calls aren’t an option unless I bike 10 minutes up the road, and they’re expensive anyway. I can’t even visit Lee and Jorge to give them a hug.

Strange this feeling. Even when I was still living in the States, I was a 12-hour drive away from my brother’s place, and I’ve been a lot further away than that many a time. I’ve spent entire summers out in the mountains, with little to no contact with family and friends. I’ve travelled in other countries for months at a time, gone without speaking to my brothers or my closest friends for months at a time. We’re all used to this, right?

Sometimes, though, Peace Corps Zambia feels like a whole different ball game.

I worry about my Mamma, who’s 80 and not in the greatest physical shape. How would I feel if she died while I was way over here?

I remind myself that anyone I love can die at any moment; life’s like that. We come and we go, and we do the best we can in the in between. For me that means trying to balance my selfish adventures with my love for Lee, Jay, Mamma, and all my friends back home.

I think they understand why I need to do these crazy things that take me away all the time. But every once in a while, I don’t quite get it, myself.

Rest in peace, Basil.

Giving thanks

30 November 2013

Two days ago I celebrated American Thanksgiving with 41 other PCVs, plus our Zambian NoPro boss, Ba Jonathan, and the saintly Zambians who take care of the NoPro house and Land Cruiser. But I’m still feelin’ grateful.

PCVs Zach, Eric, and Chandra cookin’ up a storm at our week of Provincial Meetings.

Thanks to twice-yearly provincial meetings, we’d all been crammed into a small space together for three days at that point, cooking communal dinners over loud music, playing “Settlers of Catan,” and swapping stories. And yet a sense of ease and comraderie continued to permeate the atmosphere.

I’d come into the week dreading the thought of so many people, so much social interaction, so much loud, 20-something partying. And I did have to take occasional, “Leave me alone, I’m playing guitar in an isolated corner” breaks.

Yet I had an overwhelmingly good time. I learned just how caring and helpful and insightful my fellow NoPro PCVs are – even the ones I’d never talked with before.

PCVs with Pig: Dan, Adam, and Zach roasting up the pig they bought, carried, and butchered for Thanksgiving.

Each province has its own particular identity in the PC Zambia world. Maybe all these deep, philosophical conversations and “Hey, let’s all pitch in to help clean up!” efforts are the reasons we’re known alternately as “NerdPro” or “The Kumbaya Province.”

Or maybe it’s that, before eating Thanksgiving dinner, we went around in a circle and gave thanks – some of the older PCVs with tears in their eyes, realizing they have only a few months left here.

Me, I said I was thankful for the kids in my vil, and for the overwhelmingly positive energy and light I saw reflected in all my fellow PCVs. (Apparently I’m in the right province. ;+)

I didn’t want to take up too much time, what with delicious food and SEVEN – count ’em, SEVEN – pumpkin pies waiting. So I left out a lot of my thanks.

For one thing, I am so, so thankful just to be here. I sometimes forget this in the day to day, but I wanted to join the Peace Corps – in Africa specifically – for well over a decade before it finally worked out. Back in early May, when I signed my final piece of paperwork declaring me ready to head into the vil, I got tears in my eyes. I feel privileged and amazed that I’ve made it this far.

I’m also thankful for my closest PC friends, the Gu Crew, Adam, and, further afield in Central Province, Samwell, who’ve taken me in, listened to my ups and downs, and kept me sane.

Me and Adam on Thanksgiving.

Samuel, displaying his best Zambian hospitality by cooking me ubwali at his site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m thankful for my Zambian Bamaayo and Bataata, who patiently taught me Bemba and shared their culture and sheltered me in so many ways I didn’t even realize at the time, when I was still in Pre-Service Training.

Bataata, Bamaayo, and their grandson, Musonda.

I’m thankful to all of Yuda Village for doing the same, and for being my first home in Zambia.

Ba Allan planting trees with some of the kids.

Here in Mfuba, I’m thankful for Ba Allan’s constant enthusiasm, reliability, and can-do attitude; he’s the best counterpart a PCV could ask for.

Ba Bernardi, working on my roof.

 

 

 

I’m thankful for the hundreds of things Ba Bernardi has done for me, never expecting anything in return, and always, whenever I say thank you, declaring, “Ah, but there is no problem!”

Ba Agatha, comedienne extraordinaire, showing off her trademark look of amusement at her 2-year-old daughter, Gile.

 

 

 

I’m thankful for the tentative but growing friendship of Ba Dorothy, Ba Martha, Ba Nellis, Ba Webby, Ba Maxwell, Ba Teresa, and, especially, Ba Agatha, who warmed my heart today with her enthusiastic greeting: “Welcome back, Bemba woman!” I’m also eternally thankful for their boundless patience with my awful Bemba.

Agri and Katongo, eating dried caterpillars (in Katongo’s shirt) at my front door.

I’ve already declared my thanks for all my favorite kids in the vil, but I’m especially grateful for all the help, Bemba lessons, and laughs from Boyd & Bwalya (I don’t know how I’d get anything worthwhile done without them), and the constant joy and gleeful greetings of my adorable next-door neighbors, Katongo and Agri.

On the home front, I am so, so thankful for every single letter and package sent by family and friends back in the States. Words just can’t express how good it feels to get something tangible from someone I love back home. Even my 80-year-old Mamma writes me in spite of failing carpal-tunnel wrists, and THAT makes me feel very lucky indeed.

I’m also thankful for my friends who aren’t such great letter-writers but who have sent me such encouraging e-mails and blog comments. Those I actually get right here in my hut (OK, I may as well admit it; I’m even kinda grateful for smart phones. :+), so they’re a kind of instant pick-me-up when I’m having a rough day in the vil.

I’m thankful for long bike rides and stumbled-upon beauty in a relatively monotonous landscape.

Storm rolling in over my front yard.

I’m thankful for the crashing, lightning-streaked deluge of rainy season thunderstorms; the daily acrobatics of birds and lizards in my yard; and the view from my front porch.

Last but not least, I am thankful for music. For my iPod (yes, another admission of techie-gratefulness) in times of loneliness and homesickness; for the distant singing of kids and adults alike, all over my vil and most everywhere I’ve been in Zambia; for impromptu dancing in the field or the yard; for the Hokey Pokey, which has brought such joy to Mfuba Village; for my guitar, which brings me back to myself; and for every drumming-singing-dancing fest in my yard, which opens me back up to Zambia again, even when I thought all I wanted was to be by myself.

Thank you

20 June 2013

“I am only one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.” — Helen Keller

I’ve been reminded of this quote a lot lately, especially after all your words of encouragement. My friend Craig sent it in an e-mail a while back, but it had floated to the back of my mind. I’ll try not to let that happen again. :+)

I wasn’t looking for a pep talk or kind words when I wrote my last post. Writing here just helps me process things, and it’s nice to share and feel connected to friends and family back home, knowing you’re reading along.

But kindness and inspiration were exactly what I got via comments and e-mails from many of you.

So thank you. Thanks for sharing the journey with me in some small way, just by reading.