The Yoga of Rural Zambia

I just finished a week-long workshop away from the village where I was able to practice some type of yoga asana such as sun salutations every single morning at the guest house.  As I did, I was thinking what a treat it was for my body to fall into this familiar movement pattern of stretches and breathing exercises that I have been practicing more than ten years after days of sitting and discussing at a workshop. 

Back in the States, yoga was a huge part of my life.  Some could even argue that it WAS my life as I practiced quite a bit at home, taught classes, helped manage a studio and used yoga postures and breathing techniques with various patients in the clinic, young and old.  I went to workshops, read yoga magazines and books and surrounded myself with people who shared the same values.  I was so intent on doing yoga that I dove into it head on.

Fast forward to the rural Zambian “bush” where if I tried to explain to the villagers what yoga was (luckily my Lunda vocabulary isn’t that great) I would probably get met by a bunch of blank stares . . . which is perfectly natural around here anyway for the strange muzungus.  In the village, I’m lucky to get in one asana practice per week inside the hut, but my body  (and mind for that matter) don’t crave it in the village like I used to.   Village life in itself is its own yoga, rooted deep into the red Zambian earth and filled with rhythms, movements and sounds of an earlier, simpler time.  I don’t need a mat.  I just need to open my eyes, ears and lungs to slowly take in what surrounds me.

For one thing, Scott and I are usually busy from dusk to dawn.  The days start with the rooster crowing at dawn and morning chores such as sweeping ash out of our outdoor kitchen, doing the previous day’s dishes by hand, filling our filters and bathing devices with our water needs for the day, feeding the chickens and watering the garden.  The days themselves revolve around cycling or walking and multiple meetings with villagers who always greet us with a smile, and end up with tired 3-4 hour cooking sessions that involve lots of chopping vegetables and fire-tending.  Even when the sun sets we have visitors eagerly awaiting in our outdoor kitchen  under the kerosene lantern to give us a bush note from down the road about tomorrow’s program change or hoping to get our help with some math or English homework.   If  we’re lucky Scott and I have 30-45 minutes of candlelit alone time reading in our hut before exhaustingly putting ourselves into bed, usually before 9pm.  Although we are “busy,” we are rooted and centered as mundane tasks of daily life take on a rhythm and life of their own. 

My mind and body are filled with the rhythm of nature throughout the day.  The lack of street lights, computers, cell phones (for the most part) and automobiles has opened up my senses to take in the sights and sounds of nature all around.  Even our thatched-roofed hut is open to the ventilation of the cool breeze we feel each night while slipping into pure darkness after the last candle is blown out for the evening.  If the moon is not full, the sky is open to innumerable stars and galaxies.  Some of our villagers have even asked if there are stars in America after watching us gaze at them on peaceful moonless nights, and we have to sadly report that “yes, they are there, but just not as bright.”  When the moon peeks out even to a quarter of its full self, its bright silver light casts shadows of the trees that tower above our home and the thatch of the neighboring roofs.  A full moon night basks not rouses the sleeping villagers and children into song and games of football into the wee hours of the morning.  When the joyful voices die down we often hear different choruses of happy crickets and frogs, especially after a rain.  During the rainy season the waves of rain come in an orchestra complete with the drumming of thunder and the eye candy of lightning.  We’ve seen the vegetation change from a dense green low scrub to a dry tall labyrinth of grasses and heard birds of the morning chirp at first dawn.   Instead of alarm clocks, e-mails and deadlines, the patterns of nature dictate daily life; people wake with the sun and sleep with the stars.  They plant with the rains, mold bricks out of the nearby earth  and harvest thatch for their roof during dry season, and can tell the time of day from the position of the sun.  It’s a life that makes you pause at least once a day, take a deep breath and enjoy the natural beauty that surrounds you.

The traditional Lundas utilize these same rhythms of nature every day as the women eloquently pound their dried cassava and sift into a fine dust to feed their hungry families with nshima and the men take their slashers and make song-like grass cutting sweeps to clear the tall grasses for the next season of planting.  Small children find their own hierarchy amongst each other, separating themselves between genders and age groups as they shift from games to family meals to helping with the endless family chores.  My neighbor Rasmod sings as he moves in and out of his hut, Selah huddles over her three log fire flouting the product of today’s work in the fields, Joshua sits quietly under a tree at his foot-pump sewing machine after a hard day smearing walls with cement in the town to watch his young grandsons play football, and Joy elegantly greets her fellow Lunda lady friends while perfectly balancing a 20L jerry can of water on her head and a baby on her back.  Small children ride adult bicycles carrying sweet potatoes on the pedestrian super-highway that is our dirt road, teenagers of the opposite sex playfully walk together and then separate when they see someone coming, and young school children form groups to walk 3-4 kilometers to school at different times of the day carrying their notebooks in small plastic bags on their sides.  Sunday churchgoers with two outfits to their name polish their shoes and dress in their finest to raise their voices in joyful unison, a pure celebration of life.  When Scott and I walk by, we are greeted with a handshake, a clap, a bow, and at least several lines of Lunda formalities by every single person that passes by.  When we ride by, sometimes breaking the speed that is the natural pace of the village, we still get our names joyfully shouted by the proud villagers and a small bow which we reciprocate with a hand to the heart and reply “mwani vudey mwani,” out of respect.

Yes, people in the village still experience sickness, disputes, arguments and grief, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis.  I’ve seen a five year-old boy die in his mother’s arms hot with malarial fever after she walked with him over 10 kilometers to reach the nearest clinic.  She wailed, shook, and trembled on the ground as complete strangers from our community came to the ground to wail with her.  I’ve seen grown men bicker over village disputes over property and had friends who have lost the entire year’s bean crop to insects.  I have seen community counselors use each other to cope after they have to reveal a difficult HIV diagnosis to a pregnant woman and sat with my neighbors at an all-night vigil in front of bonfires to commemorate a brother who was stabbed in the Congo.   Although these events cause grief and mourning, I have seen the beauty and strength of the human spirit as it perseveres and the smile that show through in the wake of turmoil.  They have a very keen sense for the impermanence of life and the need to move on.

So in the village daily life is my yoga.  The pause I take every day to enjoy the crickets or gather water from the shallow spring reminds me that we all have something to give to this earth.  I am confident that my backbends weren’t as graceful as they once were and I usually tip over in what’s the name of that sanskrit balancing pose?  Why does it matter when the tall balanced stacks of vegetables the women carry on the way back to the fields resonate inside of me? My attempts of formal breathing and meditation have sneakily found their way into surprising corners of the day as the previous focus on doing has been replaced with a satisfaction of just being and watching nature and an unwavering human spirit unfold around me.  Zambia has taught me to step back and take it all in as its people slowly mould a pathway into my soul.  Inside, I am balanced.