So what did you do in Zambia? (i.e. "what I'd like to put in my resume)

Gina's Post

Peace Corps Zambia encourages us to finalize a resume before we finish service so we can best turn some of the work we did here into marketable skills in America.  Since I had lots of relevant work experience before coming to Zambia, the part on my resume talking about Peace Corps is just a header and a few quick bullet points trying to somehow connect what I did here with the labyrinth of paperwork and insurance reimbursements that is the American medical system.  I tried my best to fill in the 2 ½ year gap and show that my work here in Zambia was somehow relevant to my career.  Try as I might, the resume can never truly encapsulate my Zambian experience, so I’ll try my best in this post.

So what did you do in Zambia?

In Zambia I got dirty.  Really dirty.  I got caked with mud while biking in the rainy season, and covered in a layer of fine dust while riding in the back of flatbed trucks on multiple occasions  during the dry season.   I breathed air so dirty that my snot turned black.  I went hours without washing my hands because running water entails running to the nearest river to bathe, or pouring cupfuls of warm water heated by fire over my body.

I lived in, around, and for nature.  I woke to the sounds of birds chirping, villagers singing, and light peeking through a grass roof and measured time by following the sun’s path in the sky.   I grew some of my own food. I anxiously anticipated the first rains like all of my neighbors and anxiously waited for them to stop whenever a torrential downpour would turn the front of our house into a lake.   I realized that brilliantly-colored insects and lizards were a part of daily life.  I noticed more shooting stars than I’ve ever seen in my life and bathed in moonlight as it filled the village with children’s playful laughter when the moon decided to be full.

I rode my bike.  A lot.  I rode to huts and villages unreachable by car or even motorcycle just to help with an outreach clinic.  I rode my bike to hidden waterfalls and on abandoned bush paths.  I rode my bike with flat tires and broken rims and gears that wouldn’t shift and 50 lb. sacks of chicken feed strapped to the back, dodging pigs and goats along the way.  I rode long distances on crappy dirt roads just to see another Peace Corps volunteer or check the mail, and then rode back, ecstatic, with the package tied to the back with an old piece of rubber tire.

I made friends with people who gave me a different perspective on life.  I befriended religious leaders, subsistence farmers, grade school dropouts, and single mothers.   I listened to stories of people living with HIV and people who lived through watching several of their children die and people who gave birth to twins in the bush . . . alone, and people who were gay but afraid of sharing for fear of imprisonment.  I listened to stories of people who hunted elephants for food before they all disappeared from the area.

I played with kids.  I made kids fetch me water and sweep my yard in exchange for my attention (and sometimes a sweetie).  I taught kids how to read and how to hold a pencil and how to string necklaces made from cut-up straws.   I made some kids cry just by looking at them because they had never seen a white person. I was constantly asked how many children I had, and given looks of astonishment when I told people I had none.    I weighed babies . . . lots of them. I carried babies on my back and got peed on by babies wearing rags instead of diapers and palpated unborn babies inside their mothers’ bellies.  I named babies and saw babies being born.  I watched babies die from malaria and childbirth complications, wishing there was something more I could do but knowing that there wasn’t.

I learned to cook on a charcoal brazier and how you can’t just turn down the heat or click the next burner on.  I learned to stir and make that crazy gumlike substance called cassava nshima until the ladies knew I cooked “well” for my husband.  I ate bush rat, caterpillars, termites with their wings removed, unidentifiable bush meat, wild greens and slimy reddish plantlike substances that others cooked for me, and in turn, taught people to make pumpkin bread and banana bread and goat cheese.

I got sick.  I pooped my pants . . . several times.  I had upper respiratory infections, malaria, a broken toe and egg sacs squeezed out of my feet.  But through it all, I felt stronger and more alive in my skin than I ever had before.

I prayed, and I danced, and I sang, but maybe not in that order.  I prayed in unison at church when the whole congregation got on their knees and asked God to be generous to their families.  I prayed for my life whenever I got onto a Zambian vehicle.  I silently prayed in gratitude when I woke up in the morning just to acknowledge the sun was out or as I was biking through an amazing floodplain, taking in the scenery.  I danced with women when children were born or young ladies were initiated.  I danced with a chieftainess, and drunk men and people in traditional masks half the size of their bodies.  I danced the night away in Zambian nightclubs, and I cranked out songs like “Grease Lightning” on my ipod to dance with the village kids.  I danced the hokey pokey just to show villagers what it was all about.  I sang the eerie wailing pitches that women sing when their neighbor dies.  I sang for joy the best Lunda I could with ululating choruses of women and in English when the Lunda just didn’t come out quite right.

I read by candlelight and jumped for joy when cell phone service actually came and I didn’t have to climb an anthill anymore just to send a message.  I wore clothes that didn’t match (though always below the knee!) and had my hair cut by anyone who had a scissors and was willing.  I drank wine out of a box, Congolese beer, and village homebrew, depending on the occasion.

I got asked for lots of things on many occasions: money, medicine, food, books, biscuits, juice, clothes, my hand in marriage (didn’t matter to them I was already married), an ambulance, my bicycle, a passport to America.  But, despite all the asking, I was offered so much more by people who have so much less:  nshima and greens when there was barely enough to feed the family, a free ride when fuel prices reached record highs, hot water for bathing and a place to stay when I was tired (even if it meant a family of four sharing one bed for the night), words of wisdom and encouragement, and abundant joyful songs and smiles.

I laughed a lot, cried a lot, thought a lot, wrote a lot.  I experienced fear, bliss, and felt every emotion on the spectrum a thousand times over.  I tackled difficult questions about life and purpose and become closer than ever to the man I love and my life partner.  I learned a different way to be in the world.  I learned that life is short, and life is beautiful, and really deep down we’re all the same, and that’s what Peace Corps is all about, isn’t it? 

So what did you do in Zambia?