Gina's Post:
Up until a few days ago, many Zambians (including those of us on a meager Peace Corps stipend) could consider themselves millionaires. Every month, we had over a million kwacha (roughly US $200) deposited into our bank accounts. Even something as small as an avacado would cost 500 kwacha, which is about 10 cents. So . . . if you weren't used to all the zeroes, things at first appeared very expensive!
Supposedly all of these zeroes came from the Zambian high inflation rates in the 1980's until the early 2000's. Back then, people literally had to pin 50 kwacha notes together to make 1000 kwacha, or one "pin," which was a standard trading value. Up until a few days ago, something that was 50,000 kwacha was "50 pin" and something that was 5,000 kwacha was "5 pin," or about 1 US dollar. Now, instead of 50 pin, it's 50 kwacha, not 50,000 kwacha. Essentially, three zeroes have been dropped.
Check out the new banknotes at: http://www.ukzambians.co.uk/home/2013/01/04/consumers-yet-to-familiarise-with-rebased-kwacha/
So far, most Zambians I've seen are very excited about the new currency and want to keep all their fresh crisp notes. Even the market ladies would say, "this shirt is only 5 pin, I mean, 5 kwacha" as they orally corrected themselves. Since my only experience with the new kwacha has been in Solwezi, it'll be interesting to see what the villagers think of the change. Supposedly there are going to be new coins to compete with the old 500 and 1000 kwacha notes, so I can see that getting a little confusing, but so far so good.
Maybe the US could learn from this currency rebasing and drop pennies and nickels? Just a thought.
Friday, January 4, 2013
A Week in the Life: Pre-Christmas Edition
Gina's Post:
Thursday, December 20th: Drama Camp
Today was the last full day of a camp that has been in the
making since last April when the idea of an HIV project involving youth and
drama surfaced after meeting some Lusaka drama facilitators at a boys’ football
camp. I had put in a lot of time
and effort up to this point, including writing a grant, coordinating with
district ministry officials and contacting local drama groups. It was nice to see results of my labor
pay off on World AIDS Day (December 1st) when eight local groups
from the Mwinilunga area competed for a spot in this week-long camp focusing on
HIV education and drama skills.
Five teams brought six members each (men and women between 15-35 years old)
to a youth center in the bush with no running water, electricity, or phone
network. It has truly been a
“camp” experience. Monday and
Tuesday focused on HIV facts and education, while yesterday the drama training
began, and has continued until today where the actors will give a community
performance to this rural village about HIV facts and prevention.
The week itself has been exhausting but exhilarating to see
the energy of the youth pour out into something that can tangibly benefit their
villages. Another volunteer, Adam,
helped with food logistics for the first few days, and Scott has offered
unwavering support with answering questions and basically being
“behind-the-scenes” while I’ve been busy coordinating each days’ events. I woke at 4:30 with thoughts whirling
through my head about today’s program and words of wisdom I could leave with
the youth. Mostly I wanted to tell
them how much I appreciated my husband Scott for helping out with this program,
because in typical Zambian culture, it is the man that coordinates things and
the woman who is behind the scenes.
Around 5:00am, I went into our makeshift office (a closet in
one of the classrooms of the youth center) and started creating record books
for the drama groups to take home so they could document further educational
performances, make action plans, and keep financial records. As I sat drawing lines in 5 different
exercise books with a ruler and pen, I couldn’t help but think to myself how
much easier this would have been with computer/printer access. Wishful thinking! When in the bush, you have to work with
what you have. I heard signs of
the participants up and sweeping and cleaning around 6am . . . they knew their
teams would gain valuable “points” for various prizes if seen helping out. I handed out sticker points to these
mostly full-grown adults and realized the power of positive reinforcement to
all ages.
Breakfast consisted of bread rolls Scott had bought during a
BOMA run yesterday (a major treat for most of these villagers) with margarine,
mashed avocadoes, and ketchup as topping options as well as tea. Scott and I had leftover rice as we
didn’t want to deny the participants of their bread treat. Scott had also bought 12 broiler
chickens, and they were miraculously all still alive and corralled in the
corner of one of the classrooms waiting for today’s lunch—we had already
butchered a goat and pig for meals the last two days.
After breakfast, the groups went to rehearse their sketches,
which focused on three different HIV related topics: the ABC’s of prevention
(abstinence, being faithful, and condom use), HIV facts vs. myths, and
encouraging people to go for testing.
They were excited to use their new skills to perform in front of the
village as well as the Chief and some officials from Mwinilunga. The Lusaka facilitators were busy
critiquing their performance skills, while local Lunda-speaking facilitators
made sure they got the correct message across during rehearsals. When the groups weren’t rehearsing in
front of the facilitators, some relaxed and played pool while others worked on
their action plans. I kept busy
answering people’s questions—mostly related to how they would get home tomorrow
and how much money the various facilitators would get. The Peace Corps cruiser with two staff
even stopped by briefly before taking a SUV bush path to check out a future
volunteer’s site. The staff said
they would come by later in the afternoon to watch the final performances.
Lunch consisted of chicken, (definitely still alive this
morning), cabbage and nshima. The
chicken was a treat for the villagers and I could tell they were happy to have
it. The dramatists were encouraged
to hurry and get their “costumes” (crazy thrift store clothes) and meet at the
school so the performances could start on time. I surprised them by collecting their notebooks for extra
points. Only 9 out of 30
participants thought their notes from the week of learning were good enough to
turn in, but at least a few took notes for points.
Around 2:30pm, some of the actors started drumming around a
tree. I looked on while I graded
notebooks for points, and several people from Mwinilunga came to watch all the
commotion, as well as the chief’s mother as the honored guest. Peace Corps staff rolled in from
a distant site visit to complete
the honored guests in the audience. Rain clouds started gathering around the
tree, and we were thinking of moving the performance to an indoor venue, but
the dramatists insisted on performing outside until it actually started to
rain. The professional
actors/facilitators started, and even though their skit was in Bemba, they drew
tremendous laughter from the crowd.
The wind picked up during the second performance, and on
impulse, the actors, 150+ townspeople and VIP’s shuffled into a small classroom
in the school. They hurried to
bring the two couches before the VIP’s actually sat down. People crammed on desks and sat on the
floor to watch the remaining performances, and the actors had their full
attention (even rolling with laughter at times) by the end of the show. Even with my rudimentary Lunda
comprehension, I could tell that the HIV messages were coming across.
After all of the groups performed, the rains picked up to
the size of small marbles, and all 150+ in the small classroom knew that they
weren’t going anywhere. So . . .
both male and female actors took turns accentuating their hips with various
types of fabrics and did their typical hip-shaking dances to drum rhythms. The audience was still thoroughly
amused, and didn’t seem to mind being stuck in the stuffy classroom one
bit. After the dances, the chief’s
mother gave an appreciation speech in Lunda. The Lusaka facilitators, who had been at the palace saying
farewell to the chief, drove away in an SUV as 200 people waved farewell just
in time to watch the SUV get completely stuck in the mud. No problem, they just helped push it
out.
The rains finally let up as dusk approached, and the
participants took the window of opportunity to run back to the camp. Of course the evening meal was nowhere
near done as the cooks were busy watching the skits and couldn’t get to the
outdoor cooking shelter in the pouring rain. The group waited in the dark and rain for one hour and
finally got a meal of kapenta (small dried fish), cabbage. We did have a little meeting after
dinner where I gave encouragement and praise as well as the long awaited points
for the day. I openly thanked
Scott for all of his physical and emotional support during the course of the
camp. A few watched a drama DVD,
but most of the dramatists went to bed, satisfied with their performances.
Friday, December 21st: The Longest Day of the
Year
Since we’re somewhat close to the equator, you can hardly
notice a difference between the longest and shortest day of the year. But . . . this was definitely the
longest day, especially for some of the drama camp participants. Scott and I woke around 2am to loud
singing, wailing, and drumming coming from the dorms below the office where we
were sleeping. It sounded slightly
like funeral singing, but I wasn’t alarmed because no one had come to wake us
up. I figured the youth were just
energized from the previous days’ performances and wanted to spend their last
night celebrating together. So, I
walked in the moonlit night to the outhouse and then went back to bed.
I woke around 6am and went to the office to do paperwork for
the final day and was very surprised to find no campers up sweeping and doing
chores in the hopes of getting more points for their teams. Several people finally came to help,
and one was a young man with a serious look on his face: “Gina, we have a
problem. Did you hear all the
noises last night?”
At that point, I got a little worried, thinking one of the
participants was seriously injured or had died. “Yes,” I said.
“Well we had a big problem last night. One of the female participants . . .
the one with the baby . . . had a dream last night and she went off into the
forest by herself and she refused to come back. Another woman went too. They took the baby.”
My heart raced.
“Who took the baby?”
“The spirits.”
“Okay . . . “
“But then we all awoke and we got down on our hands and
knees and we prayed and prayed to God to save this child. We were up all night just praying and
begging to God.”
“So was it people
who took the baby?”
“There are bad things in that forest, I tell you. Graves. It is very dangerous.
But we prayed to God and the woman came back and the baby is safe.”
I was mentally putting the pieces together in my head and
finally it clicked that it was the woman’s shenanigan using witchcraft as an
excuse to gain her peers’ attention.
“So now is everyone safe?”
“Yes, but the woman is not well, and the participants, they
are very tired. Some men, they
have gone to the network spot to call the cantor truck to come and make sure
everyone leaves on time.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing it was not a true
emergency, and said, “well, that girl should rest, but we’re not going to five
her any extra attention because we don’t want to encourage that kind of
behavior in the future.”
“Okay madam. We
shall make sure she gets some rest.”
“In the meantime, we’re still having the last day’s program,
and we’ll be meeting for points at 7:30.”
Sure enough, at 7:30 sauntered in half the group,
bleary-eyed and tired—a far contrast from earlier in the week when they were
eager to help and learn by 6:30.
Even the breakfast cooks were late. Maybe they were just tired because it was the last day. While breakfast was cooking, the local
drama facilitator gave feedback to the drama groups while I added up final
points for prizes. Some hurried to
finish their action plans so they could get reimbursed for transport
costs. Finally we ate breakfast at 8:45 of a corn porridge called sampo,
rice, beans, and groundnuts. Even
though it was a hearty breakfast, the campers were already worried that they
wouldn’t have their typical nshima (cassava porridge) before transport
arrived.
We had a quick lesson on mosquito nets and discussed all the
ways people misuse them, such as fishing or straining honey. We also discussed how and why people
should use the nets correctly.
Each team had to do a 5-minute skit on the main message: “it is very
important to use a mosquito net correctly because it can save your life.” The chief’s mother and some of the
cooks came again to watch the skits, which were surprisingly entertaining
considering they had such little time to prepare. Two of the head teachers were selected as judges and awarded
first prize to those who best conveyed the message.
The groups presented their action plans for further drama
education and I gave one last pep talk before the campers were released, as
well as distributed the long-awaited prizes of school supplies and cookies to
the teams who had the most points.
I had also to do one of the least fun parts of any grant: handing out
money because no one is ever satisfied or thinks the distribution is fair. The campers got a small amount to cover
transportation costs, then posed for pictures. The cantor truck they had booked never came, so they waited
around and some played football.
They made their own lunch over the fire logs as they waited. In the meantime, I had three separate meetings
with the cooks, the facilitator, and the organizers to explain transparently
why each was getting the money, as I didn’t want any individuals coming to me
to ask why they didn’t get the money that was stated in the facility contract.
Scott and I loaded our bikes with our personal belongings as
well as drama camp supplies . . . it was a very good thing that Peace Corps
helped us take some supplies back to the camp the previous day. The organizers didn’t want us to leave
until we ate ourselves, so we went to the youth center manager’s house where he
cooked us cabbage and eggs. The
storm clouds were gathering over Angola, just 8 kilometers to the west, where
the storms usually come from. We
wanted to say an official goodbye to the chief, but because we wanted to get
home before the rain and also because the chief himself would be driving some
of the campers home, we decided just to waive, and his officials said that was
okay considering the circumstances.
We lucked out on the 25 kilometer bike ride home. Although there were some wet and muddy
spots, we just got sprinkled on a few times. Scott had fixed my back brake during the camp, so luckily
there was no fishtailing on the sandy road like the way up. The chief’s truck and another van
passed us and all the campers cheered.
I breathed a sigh of relief that all the transport worked out okay.
On the way home, we caught up with one participant from our
village who was also on a bicycle.
He was very excited from the drama camp, put also kept talking about the
witchcraft event from last night, saying there should be no more events a the
youth center because it’s a haunted place. I mentioned how it was strange that there were no witchcraft
events when the Lusaka facilitators were staying in the dorms, but the night
there were only Lundas was when the “spirits” came. I also re-iterated that the girl who started the whole thing
was just trying to get attention.
Scott and I finally rode into our village and it was
refreshing to be greeted by all of our villagers. Ryvus was busily slashing the grass in front of the
house. I could have gone to sleep right
then and there, but we still had to unpack our bikes and give the neighbors the
usual greetings after several days away.
I went to the garden to pick dinner: lettuce, cucumber and one sorry
tomato (they stopped growing well once the rains came) for a salad. The seedlings Scott had planted just
before the camp were doing well, as were the carrots and basil I had planted
several weeks ago. It was just
getting dark and starting to rain as we took the salad veggies in. We topped the salads with pistachios
sent by Aunt Joan—such a treat to have fresh produce after a week of nshima and
cooked vegetables.
We had another treat a bit later that evening: Ryford
brought us two large pieces of smoked guinea fowl he had caught during a recent
hunting trip to Angola.
Unfortunately three men were sharing a musket, which broke in the middle
of the trip, so they had to come back early. They slept under Scott’s tarp during the heavy rains. But their rewards included a baboon, a
dika (deerlike creature), and a small monkey. Luckily the monkey had already been eaten by the villagers,
so we didn’t have to taste that.
The guinea fowly tasted like richly intense smoked turkey—definitely one
of the best meats I’ve eaten in all of Zambia. We both fell into bed, not even thinking about unpacking
from camp. Summer solstice or not,
it was definitely a long day!
Saturday, December 22nd: A Sigh of Relief
We both breathed a huge sigh of relief and slept in for the
first time in over a week. Scott
fed the chickens while I swept chicken and goat poop from paths surrounding our
house. I chopped some care package
almonds as well as dried cherries for a treat to go over our porridge for
breakfast.
Scott and I were pleasantly refreshed by the lack of
Christmas anticipation in our village.
Here, it’s a 1-day event where the villagers dance and roast a pig. I was feeling just a bit nostalgic, so
I made a batch of caramel corn
with fresh honey that I had to manually separate from the comb and then wrote a
few Christmas cards to selected villagers. Scott emptied half a barrel of rainwater and started hand
washing our dirty clothes from the previous week while we listened to BBC on
the shortwave radio. It was nice
to feel “in the loop” about unemployment, youth in Egypt, and John Kerry being
appointed as Secretary of State. I
picked some chili peppers from the garden to supplement the carmel corn for
Christmas gifts and was about to take a delivery run to the clinic on my bicycle
when those ominous clouds formed and it started pouring rain.
Finally the rain slowed a bit and I took the Christmas
deliveries in a very light drizzle.
At the clinic, there was only the in-charge nurse (yes, we finally got
one after over a year without one) and three unfamiliar men chatting in the
front porch lobby. They had just
finished a morning of male circumcisions, and I was happy to see this
traditional practice being promoted under sanitary conditions in the clinic
rather than in the bush where it was traditionally carried out. The nurse said he sent two of our main
clinic volunteers to a workshop earlier in the week , so it was just him
manning the clinic for the entire week.
When he saw that I had a card and some chilis for him, he pulled me into
the office so the others wouldn’t be jealous. He sat down and told me all of his frustrations: how he had
been at this clinic for 5 years prior to midwifery school and was hoping to get
a clinical job at the district hospital.
How he feels overqualified and unrecognized by district officials. How traditional practices and witchcraft
get in the way of disease prevention and treatment all the time. He was tired of giving routine
painkillers and wound dressings and was unsure of how much longer he could stay
at our clinic.
“Oh great.” I
thought, knowing that if he left, it would probably be another year without a
nurse before the district could find someone willing to replace him. We made up a plan so the in-charge
could utilize the skills he learned in midwifery school by developing a curriculum
for other nurses at the rural health centers to teach them about safe birthing
practices. That way, he could use
his knowledge and also let his talents shine for district officials and NGO’s. He seemed very agreeable to the
idea. Well . . . crisis averted
for now. If we can work together
to keep him challenged, maybe our health center can keep a nurse for another
year.
I walked across the road to Hilda, one of the clinic’s birth
attendant’s house. She and a bunch
of women and children were huddled around a cooking fire cooking a scant amount
of cassava nshima and fresh mushrooms.
She insisted that I eat with the family, and it took all I could to
explain that I was full and I really couldn’t eat as I looked at the hungry
eyes and bellies of the women and children around me. As discreetly as I could, I gave her the card and caramel
corn with all hungry eyes watching me.
Although she tried to put it in a corner without much of a fuss, I could
tell it would be devoured within about one minute of my leaving the cooking
shelter. Hilda tried to send me
home with some raw cassava, but I had to remind her three times that she had
given us one yesterday that we still hadn’t eaten, and we were leaving town
tomorrow. So difficult to refuse
food in this culture, but with Hilda’s family in particular, I knew anything I
refused would be put to good use by one of the many women or orphans she has
taken in.
I cycled over the river and up the hill a bit to deliver two
more cards and then hurried home to take a bath since Scott had left the water
on the charcoal brazier. I rolled
out some tortillas made of leftover porridge from breakfast and wheat
flour. Scott was busy frying
onions and making fresh guacamole with avocados from nearby and fresh cilantro
from the garden. So nice to have
some “American” food and a break from cassava nshima! I took an amazing hot water bucket bath as I scrubbed the
dirt from my feet after a week at camp.
We had several visitors as we were cooking the tortillas,
including our host brother Allen, who we hadn’t seen in months since he had
been staying and working at a faraway field. He wasn’t with his wife and one-year-old son, so we asked
him about his family and how they were.
He said his wife “shifted to another village because she had a
problem.” When we tried to get him
to elaborate, he said, “she has evil spirits, so we are no longer
married.” Scott asked about the
child, and he stated, “she is a bad mother because she is not producing any
milk, so I am fighting to take the child back to this village.” It was an interesting observation in
seeing how domestic disputes are portrayed in this culture, many times using
“evil spirits” as a euphemism for not getting along. Scott and I then walked next door to share some hot
tortillas with our host family and give them our Christmas card, for which they
were very appreciative.
Our neighbors Ryvus and Ryford came over and he helped them
with some English lessons. I gave
them some caramel corn and their card and asked how their milking goat was
producing. They said it had only
been 200mL per day for the last few days, so I asked if I could get up early in
the morning to watch. Before going
to bed early (had to be up for goat milking at 6am!) Scott and I watched the ¾ moon
with clouds passing over it and listened to crickets chirping with the faint
sound of Zambian pop music playing from a radio in the distance. Although we would be leaving tomorrow
for Christmas on the farm and then back to Solwezi, it was nice to be “home” in
our little village.
Follow-up: 2-days of cycling in the drizzle, we cycled to
Mujila Falls farm where we enjoyed Christmas American-style. We then bused to Solwezi for New Year’s
where we were spontaneously invited to a bollywood hotel party hosted by Indian
shopkeepers. All in all not a bad
holiday! It was great to catch up
with friends and family via internet and Skype over the New Year’s break.
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