Zambia wins AFCON!

Most Americans, unless huge soccer fans, have probably not heard about the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), but now that our Peace Corps host country has won the AFCON, Gina and I will keep it on our list of favorite sports for now on.  Watching the AFCON is similar to watching NFL playoffs in America.  The games are weekly (approx.), there is a lot of hype before the game, people buy and display all kinds of fan-based merchandise, and everyone wants to be somewhere for the game.  Since late on Sunday the 12th of February, the game has been replayed on the sports channels over and over.   Zambia was not considered a real contender to win at the beginning of the AFCON (if someone had bet that Zambia was going to win before it started they would have won 40 times the amount of money they bet).  They reached the AFCON final in 1974 and 1994 but lost.  In 1993, on their way to a qualification game, 18 players died in a plane crash.  The remembrance of that tragedy allowed a lot of sympathy for this underdog team,while the favored Ivory Coast team was described as "star-studded".  It is hard to describe the excitement in Zambia on the day of the game.  As Gina and I wore our fake Zambian jerseys around Lusaka on game day, people would honk at us and shout with glee "You are supporters"! This game was classically exciting.  Late in the game after no goals were scored, Ivory Coast got a free kick on goal due to a foul.  The team's star player, Drogba, missed the goal completely (a little high), giving Zambia a second chance to score in regulation time. Their were power problems which caused the game to go black for about 10 minutes on 2 different occasions during the match, getting people even more rowdy and excited.  After extra stoppage time at the end of the second half, an extra 30 minutes because of a draw at the end of regulation time, and extra stoppage time at the end of the extra time, the game had to be decided by sudden-death free kicks.  Both teams had successful free kicks for 7 rounds.  On the 8th, Ivory Coast, kicking first, had their free kick blocked by Zambia's goal keeper who made big plays all night (Mweene), so everyone was sure that Zambia would make the reply kick and win.  But, Ivory Coast's goal keeper denied Zambia's kick, putting everyone on the edge of their seat or standing at attention, alternately praying and shouting for Zambia to win.  In the 9th round, Zambia's keeper shone brightly again by blocking Ivory Coast's kick, but Zambia was able to answer that with a goal, winning their first ever AFCON, and setting Zambia in a "love-your-country" frenzy for the next 24 hrs.  I must have been hugged 7 times by strangers as I walked out of the bar we were in, and high-fived everyone else with whom I had eye contact.
As a cultural note, the game is watched a little differently in Zambia than in America, the closest comparison I think being Super Bowl Sunday.  Instead of actually watching the half-time show, for example, Zam-pop music is played really loud and people dance around their tables or on the tiny dance floor.  Food does not appear to be a big draw, but beer is.  And there are very few commercials.  The only time I saw them was at the end of the 1st half and beginning of the 2nd (after the drowned-out half-time show).  Though the stadium was packed for the final game, the playoff games had practically empty stadiums.  I never figured out if that is because the prices are so high or if there were security issues at the stadium, but it was really odd for whatever reason to see empty stadiums during playoff games when in the U.S. it is difficult to get tickets for any playoff games unless you plan years in advance.
The next day the whole city of Lusaka was preparing for the return of the team.  People lined the road all the way from the airport to Lusaka (about 10 km) to get a glimpse of the team as they perched on a flatbed truck and waved to people the whole way.  Gina and I shared in that, but decided the center of town was too crazy to attempt to see the music and speeches in the city's fairgrounds.  By Tuesday things seemed to be mostly back to normal, but Zambia will be able to boast about their AFCON win for at least the next two years until the next one, and I hope to be watching Zambia in that battle, too.

Chipolopolo and City Slickers

Gina's Post:

Whoohoo Zambia!  Wednesday night was a huge night as Zambia's football (what we call soccer) beat Ghana 1-0 and progressed to the finals of the Africa Cup of Nations. Even like a fairweather fan like me found myself at the edge of my seat for the last 10 minutes of the game against Ghana that will lead this underdog team to the final match against the Ivory Coast this Sunday. We were in Lusaka for a conference and heard cars honking, people cheering "chipolopolo" and shooting off fireworks into the wee hours of the morning.  Even when we woke up at 6am, people proudly displayed Zambia jerseys and flags as they walked to work and school.  It'll be nice to be in the city with full electrical hook-up for a game that just might make history this Sunday.

Speaking of Lusaka, Scott and I were able to catch up on a few more posts about village life which we'll put up shortly.  This last week of the workshop was interesting, because each Peace Corps volunteer was asked to bring a Zambian "counterpart," or villager we work with closely on our projects to help promote local follow-through with projects once we leave.  Topics included permaculture, behavior change, and project development.  I invited a traditional birth attendant (TBA) who volunteers at our clinic and Scott brought a hardworking fish farmer.  Neither had been to Lusaka before--the journey to the capital city from our village is out of reach for most villagers as it takes 3 days and costs over 200,000 kwatcha ($40 USD).  This is usually less than what a family around us makes in a month with their farming income.  Anyway, our counterparts enjoyed the workshop tremendously and we took some photos they will be proud to take back to the village.

Highlights included:
- Teaching them how to plug in the TV in the hotel room (I admit I had to be taught the trick to the Zam-style plugs when I arrived in Lusaka as well).
- Walking up a large pedestrian overpass in Lusaka's version of a freeway to get a view of some tall buildings.  Scott's counterpart loved it, although mine only walked two flights of stairs before deciding it was too much.
- Going up an escalator--took a few tries to get on.
- Watching a 3D movie with surround sound--the closest our counterparts ever got was watching a flat screen TV.
- My counterpart had trouble reading the handouts at the workshop but could read the flip charts far away quite well.  I suggested she try on the reading glasses of another volunteer's counterpart and her world opened up!  Come to think of it, the only glasses I've seen at our village at all are worn by the teachers.

Oh the things we take for granted!

A Tale of Two Types

Here's a story about two very different people. One is named Ryvus, the other, Brighton. Ryvus is one of the harder-working, non-drinking, church-going Zambians that I know. More importantly, he respects education and volunteership. He is always ready to help Gina and I with projects, such as fence building, without expectation of material reward. Then there is his "brother" Brighton. Zambians don't have a word for step brother, niece, nephew, or cousin, so anyone who is similarly aged and related is a brother or sister. Brighton lives in the larger town, or BOMA, about 17 km away. He arrived by himself one day and was very excited to tell me that he was the "brother" of Ryvus, here visiting friends and family in the village. He didn’t know much english, and had an odd habit of filling any silent pauses with "Mr. Scott!" with a big grin that was less jubilant and more "I don’t know what to say" or "How can I best ask this white guy for something and get what I want". He tried to help me work on a shelf I was modifiying, and then left to visit more folks. He came back about 2 weeks later while I was working on a solar dryer outside. I got the same "Mr. Scott!" grins and some vain attempts at assistance (most villagers don’t know what a solar dryer is, less know how to build one). This time I could tell he was bursting to ask me for something, and sure enough, he asked for some sacks to carry beans back to his house in the BOMA. The village is ripe with fresh beans at this time of year. I am pretty sure he had heard that we had given Ryvus and his family some sacks to help them carry fish food to their ponds, as a favor to them for frequent gifts of food and assistance with labor-intensive projects. Gina and I have a policy to not give anything to anyone for nothing, with the exception of extra food, so I told him our sacks were for our projects so until those projects were finished, we would keep our sacks. He just said "Ooooh" followed shortly by "Ok Mr. Scott, I am leaving". We think about how lucky we are to have a generous, helpful, and respectful family like Ryvus’ living near us when we have encounters like this one.

Tree Finding

Like any over-achieving homeowner, as soon as I moved into our mud-brick hut with grass-thatched roof, I had ideas for home improvement. Most of it revolved around making a better use of the space for storing things. But we also had a dream of some satellite structures around the house, like drying racks, solar dryers, fences, and gates. For any home improvement on a house far from a big town like Lusaka or Solwezi, the search for materials does not start in a store but a walk into the bush behind our house. No permits required. Just grab an axe and maybe a knife, and look for what you need. On the Saturday before Christmas I found myself working with two brothers in the village to gather materials for a fence around our garden. Goats keep any gardener in our area in need of a fence to keep seedlings and starters from getting eaten before you can say "I can't wait to make pesto!" So the three of us took a walk into the bush one sunny afternoon to find the perfect trees to make the posts that would be sunk into the ground and the rails that would connect each post, followed by dry grass to tie to the rails, the sum of which make a sturdy fence. Finding the right tree required the same kind of patience and skill that I have learned in my Christmas tree hunting in Washington State. And the idea that I was out in the bush looking for the "perfect tree" at about the same time as my neighbors in Yakima brought fond memories of fluffy snow, hot chocolate, and the smell of a freshly cut evergreen tree. But perfection in a tree for a fence is a little different than the perfection in a tree for a christmas ornament. There are some similaries: it should be the right height and girth for example. Not too short or the goats can jump over, not to thin or else the goats will push it over, and not too tall or thick or it will be too heavy to carry a bundle of them back to the garden area. For both poles and rails, we were looking for trees that were not going to be munched by termites in a matter of months. And the brothers I was working with knew exactly what to look for. When I saw a nice straight tree of about the right height and thickness I would ask "How about this one?" The brothers would look at each other like I just asked them to use a fork to eat nshima, and politely say "Ah, Mr. Scott, that one is not strong. The termites will eat that one very fast." So we continue along looking for the strong trees that these brothers have been looking for ever since they were little kids to make everything from fences, roofs, walls, wheelbarrows, cages, stools, hoes, axes, slingshots, and just about everything else. And the list of names of trees and their best purpose is long. Some trees are used for their strength, some for their flexibility, some for their bark, some for their termite resistance. Some have multiple qualities. As I planned to build something out of wood in the U.S.A. I saw only soft woods or hard woods, and the remainder of my vague qualifications for selecting wood was how it would look. But in the bush, the type of wood is important and to use the improper type for a particular thing is like using thumb tacks to install dry wall. So I will continue to learn how to build stuff in the bush with "appropriate technology", using the wisdom of a backwoods dendrologists each time.

A Child is Born

From my journal entry December 1, 2011:

I woke up at about 6:30am with a list of things to do because I knew it was going to be a busy day.  I was in the outdoor kitchen cleaning my bike chain from sand like I had been meaning to do for 3 days.  The next door neighbor came by and asked for some of our concrete so they could plaster their outdoor kitchen, and I had to say “no” so I felt bad, as I don’t quite have saying no mastered yet.  Then two young sons of another neighbor came by for what seemed like an eternity just to say hello and play but all I wanted to do was get all of my chores done and get ready for the school writing/letter exchange program before heading to the clinic to assist with the pre-natal clinic.  I knew this was the last opportunity for Scott and I to help the students write the letters in English because they were leaving the next day for a 5-week Christmas holiday.

                                                                                                        

At 7am, my host mother came by the outdoor kitchen and mentioned something in Lunda about a pregnant village woman needing my help.  She pointed to the hut across the dirt road.  As I’m still learning Lunda, I didn’t really get the gist of it, and said, “fast, fast so we can prepare for our school program.”  In my head, I was thinking to myself: “they know I’m not a doctor.  I wish I could skip all these visitors and just get my morning chores done.”  She seemed in a hurry, and I didn’t even get a chance to tell Scott that I had started cracking eggs for breakfast inside the hut.

She led me across the road.  I was very surprised as she led me into a side door of one of the small mud brick homes.  This was my first time inside the home of someone I did not know, so I figured there was definitely something wrong.  We crossed a small living room with the only furnishings being a few stools, and into the bedroom, which had two beds made out of bricks and covered with reed mats. 

Lying on the floor was a female traditional birth attendant (TBA), at the foot of the young woman.  She was surrounded by four other village women, most of whom I recognized as my neighbors.  She was lying on the floor on a reed mat with another woman helping prop her head up and covered only by chitenge fabric.  I knew at that moment that I couldn’t just politely excuse myself.  There were no men in the house, and I could hear the sound of children playing in the front yard, as if they knew something was going on, but knew very well not to interrupt.  I felt honored and helpless at the same time that the village women would invite someone they knew less than one month to this intimate birthing experience. 

Luckily I had seen one other birth of a good friend back home, so I knew a bit what this was about, but at the same time worlds apart: no hospital, no heart rate monitors, epidurals, or labor-inducing drugs at hand, much less electricity or running water.  No sutures, suction, or forceps.   No nurse for over 19 kilometers, and no cell phone service. There were a few buckets of water near the mat for washing.  The TBA had with her only disposable latex gloves, a bar of soap, and a jar of petroleum jelly.  Was this really happening?  I had read about a similar experience from a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid ‘90’s, but I naively assumed that most births these days happened in the clinics. 

The mother was about 10cm dilated and I could already see a little round bump of the head when I walked in.  The TBA was skillfully stretching the labia in between contractions, where all the women coached through with soothing words.  The woman in labor had found a small crevice in the mud brick wall to her left, and was using it as a foothold during the contractions.  Her right leg was braced against another woman’s knee as they all sat in low stools surrounding her.  I asked how many other children she had, and she said this was her fourth.  She looked no older than 25.

When I entered around 7am, I assumed this would probably happen quickly since the head was protruding out.  She had already been in labor for a few hours.  The minutes ticked slowly away and each one seemed like an eternity as the contractions came no closer together.  The mother made hardly a sound and was not sweating, but I could tell by the expression on the TBA’s face that things were not going as planned.  Between each contraction, the little one’s head kept disappearing back inside the mother.  The women helped the mother change position by supporting her a few times in a squat or half-stand, which exposed the traditional Lunda scars in the shape of intricate designs that had been etched on her back during a woman’s initiation ceremony probably a decade before.  The mother was unable to stand on her own and looked several times as if she would collapse into the arms of the assisting women. 

Around 9am, things got downright scary.  My host mom led the women in a round of Christian prayers, and I could see both the mother and the rest of the women taking turns giving it their all to get this baby out.  Some began praying very fast as if they were speaking in tongues.  I’m no expert, but I think at this point at a western hospital, she would have been given some type of drug to assist her in labor.  I couldn’t understand exactly what the women were saying, but I kept hearing the word “ambulance” being called out intermittently, which I knew could not be good. I even volunteered to bike to our rural clinic to radio the hospital, but deep down inside everyone knew that it wouldn’t come.  In my three months at our village, I have never seen the ambulance up our road.  Three of the women heard a cantor truck (one of about 5 vehicles per day that drive our road), and went to flag it down to see if it would stop to give the woman a ride to the BOMA.  For awhile, it was just myself, the TBA, and the mother, and all I could do was hold her hand. 

My heart sunk, and minutes turned into hours.    I had a sinking feeling that there was something horribly wrong as the amount of head showing was less than it was when I arrived.  I heard the rumble of the truck go down the road and knew then that the women were unable to negotiate a ride (would you let a lady give birth in the back of your pick-up truck?) and that whatever was going to happen would happen in that home.  The mother-to-be said another prayer for strength.  The TBA and village women surrounded her once again with a second wind of energy.

Finally, around 9:45 am, contractions started coming closer together and the water broke.   The head came out and was out for what seemed like an eternity without crying and looking very pale yellow.  I still had my suspicion that this would be one of these horrible statistics you hear about rural childbirth in Africa when a little body came out, the baby started crying, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.  All I could think of to say was “amayala,” meaning “it’s a boy!”

My stomach was still in knots from the close call, and I didn’t think I could handle watching the afterbirth, so I volunteered to prepare a drink of oral rehydration salts at my hut for the mother, who was at this point sweating and shaking.  When I came back into the house, the poor mother was just seated next to the water buckets like a forgotten piece of clothing while all attention was on the baby.  The women took turns washing him and then swaddled him with no less than 3 clean blankets and a cute little hand-knitted outfit.  I don’t even think he got to taste his mother’s milk (even though he was making sucking motions with his mouth) before they whisked him into the arms of the TBA, who rode on the back of a bicycle powered by a neighbor 4 kilometers to the local clinic to be weighed.

They invited me to ride along, and really wanted me to register the baby.  Before we left the hut I asked what his name was so they could mark it on the register.  I must be used to the U.S. where people sometimes name their future children before they’re even conceived.  The mother looked at me blankly, and all the other women pointed at me and said, “you name the baby.”  I couldn’t even think.  I had less than 2 minutes as we were already in a hurry to get the baby weighed and back to his mother.  Some trendy American name came out of my mouth that I don’t even remember now, and all I remember was seeing blank stares on the villagers’ faces.  I was not going to subject this poor child to years of mispronunciation, so I blurted out, “Golden.”  That was my Lunda language teacher’s name, and I’m pretty sure it was a familiar name.   They all smiled and nodded in approval and we were off to the clinic: me on my fancy mountain bike and 3 people including a 30 minute-old swaddled infant on a rickety Zambian bike.

I walked into the clinic and helped the child get registered, and then saw the three off again on the bicycle ready to unite the baby with its mother.  I walked next door to the school, my head still spinning and somehow mustered the energy to assist Scott with the letter writing activity with 30 energetic 7^th and 8^th graders.  All in a day’s work!

Follow up:

Golden is doing well and I always see him strapped to his mother’s back as she goes to the fields or to meet the other village women.  I always say “Golden wakola?” meaning literally “is he strong?”, and she confirms, saying “Golden wakola.”  It will be fun to see him grow over the next two years.  I never found out what prevented his mother from going to the clinic for the birth, but thank goodness he is a happy, healthy infant.

I was invited to observe another home birth about a week later, but came a little late (this one must have been without complications) and was only able to see the afterbirth and the cord cutting by the TBA using a piece of string.  Of course they wanted me to name that one too, so I named him Philip.

Without my prodding, the in-charge  of our clinic announced that we should work with the TBA’s to implement a program that encourages women to come to the clinic for deliveries.  Although the clinic has no running water, electricity, or a nurse, it does have beds, latex gloves in stock, and access to a short wave radio which is a step up for the home births.  Most importantly, this gradual change in behavior is getting the women used to the idea of traveling somewhere for labor for the sake of their own health and that of their children.  I’m working with the TBA’s to create ways to dialogue with their villagers about safe birthing practices.

A Few Funny Conversations

 We’ve had more than a few cross-cultural exchanges over the past few months with our village, but I wanted to share two of the most memorable

1)   The Geography Lesson: sitting around the brazier (burning coal stove) and talking with some of our neighbors after dinner

“So when you came here to Zambia, you came in an airplane, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did the airplane cross the ocean in the air or did it float on the water?”

“In the air.  Let us show you on our map.  The journey was long and we had to take a few different airplane rides.”

“America is part of North America or South America”

“Actually America should be called the United States because there are many countries in both North and South America.  The U.S. has 50 states including Alaska and Hawaii”

“Hawaii?  You mean people live way out there in the middle of all that water?”

“Yes, just on that little dot.”

“ They are not afraid that the ocean will drown them?”

“No, they are used to it.  They can even swim in places where their feet don’t touch.”

“Alaska, it is very cold?”

“Yes, very cold.”

“And there is a small Russia just next to Alaska.  I thought Russia was the largest country in Asia.”

“Russia is the largest land country, partly in Asia and Europe, and if this map was put on a large ball called a globe, the large part almost stretches to Alaska.  Maybe sometime we could show you a globe.”

“If you went all the way to the end of Russia, would you fall off the end of the earth?”

“No, you would just continue around the circle.”

“Wow, God has really made an amazing great big earth.”

“Yes he has.”

2) The Wedding Talk: with a bunch of youth at the clinic.  We were trying to translate the word “partner” into Lunda in preparation for a skit. 

“So in America, a partner is someone you are with whether you are married or not?”

“Yes, for example Scott is my partner.”

“(Shock) You mean you’re not married to him?”

“Yes we’re married.  He’s my partner AND my husband.”

“When you got married, did he have to pay your parents money?”

“No, we don’t have that custom in America”

“You mean his family didn’t have to pay anything?”

“No.”

“In our culture, the man has to pay the wife’s family because he is taking her away, and the family is losing work.”

“In America, it’s almost the opposite.  The bride’s family usually has to pay for the wedding.”

“(All the boys) Wow! Send me to America to get married!”

“(All the girls) If I get an American husband, send him to Zambia so he can pay me!”

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

And we have 63 of them to share with you from the last three months:


https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=ginaord&target=ALBUM&id=5702162774906862001&authkey=Gv1sRgCOXmwP3uqYqpfA&feat=email

Scott and I are doing well, and taking turns passing through the provincial house on the way to more Peace Corps training in Lusaka.  We've had a busy few months filled with community introductions and house projects, but have taken notes so we can hopefully post some stories in the upcoming weeks.

We had a relaxing Christmas and New Year's in our village . . . we were some of the few volunteers we know who did not travel over the holidays as we hope to save up our vacation days (hopefully for some of you coming to visit--you know who you are!).  Thanks for all the cards and letters in the mail.  They're a great treat when internet access is scarce.

We keep hearing about all these crazy winter snowstorms and counting our blessings to enjoy warm sunny days usually punctuated by afternoon or evening rains.  Okay, sometimes they are torrential downpours, but usually pretty mellow.  It just makes mountain biking on the local roads and bush paths more of an adventure!

Keep checking in on this blog as we should have more posts soon.
Gina and Scott