It is Christmas Eve here in Lusaka, Zambia, although it doesn’t quite feel like it. This morning, we slid on our flip-flops and took a walk, on a dirt path, along a congested, 2-lane tarmac road and under blue skies, hot Zambian sun and white, fluffy clouds. We passed a big grocery store called Melissa’s, where a quartet of Zambians were playing brass instruments in front of a decorated plastic Christmas tree, and a few blocks later a young man wished us a seemingly out-of-place “Merry Christmas." These have been our only reminders of the holiday. Everything else about Zambia is becoming more familiar, but still foreign enough to seem very distant from the United States, our lives there and the holiday frenzy I’m following on Facebook And, right now, I take it as a blessing; it keeps the homesickness in check.
Shaun and I are in Lusaka, the capital city, for Christmas- partly for vacation and partly for medical reasons, which I’ll get to. We’ve been planning for months to celebrate New Year’s (and the end of our Community Entry) with a number of other PCVs by spending a week at Nkhata Bay on Lake Malawi. To get there from our village in Mwense District, Luapula, it’s a 3-day journey, so we’ve broken it up into several mini-trips: Chibondo village – Mansa – Lusaka – Chipata – Nkhata Bay (Lake Malawi).
The day before Community Entry ended (17 December 2010), we hitched with our friend and neighboring PCV, T., to our other PCV friend’s (S’s) site 50km away in the village of Chibondo. It’s only 50km, but it took his 4 different hitches to get there: the first on the back of a big truck hauling 50kg bags of maize seed, until it stopped 8km down the road in Kashiba to unload; the second in a nice cruiser with the District Commissioner, until he dropped us off in Mulundu where he was attending a funeral; the third on a mini-bus which charged us each 10,000 kwacha ($2 USD) to take us to the junction to S’s village (from the junction, her village is 12km on a dirt road); the fourth in a nice a ZPCT cruiser, after we’d already walked about 5km in the heat of the day. The ZPCT cruiser was a savior, as the day became unseasonably hot and we were beginning to feel dehydrated. We spent the rest of the day lounging on S’s cool cement floor, hydrating and enjoying the company of fellow PCVs- with the exception of T., whom the heat got the best of and made quite sick- poor gal!
The next morning, we got from S’s place back out to the main road where, as luck would have it, a bus to Mansa came moments after our arriving. For 10,000 kwacha, we rode comfortably down to Mansa, the provincial capital of Luapula Province. We spent the week at the Peace Corps Provincial House in Mansa with our fellow PCVs- some veterans and many fellow newbies fresh from Community Entry. We used the time to reconnect, adjust from village-living to town-living, update our blogs and online picture galleries and just enjoy the modern amenities like TV, electricity, running water, warm showers and a kitchen.
While in Mansa, infection set in on the weeks-old sore on Shaun’s foot from a stray brazier ember, as well as in a new blister between his toes. Foot infections are no joke in the village because it’s impossible to keep your feet clean- especially when you’re working with fish farmers and harvesting ponds. We did hot saltwater soaks and used our steri-scrub, but saw no improvement. So, at the recommendation of our superb PCVL, Shaun called the Peace Corps Medical Officer (PCMO) for advisement. The PCMO had Shaun start antibiotics and get on the next day’s bus to Lusaka for a medical examination. As luck would have it, we were already planning to go to Lusaka the next day: a stop en route to Lake Malawi and a nice place to be for the Christmas holiday. Now, since Shaun was directed by the PCMO to go to Lusaka for examination, his bus ticket to Lusaka will be reimbursed and we can stay (gratis) at the bunkhouse on the Peace Corps compound, which saves us quite a bit of kwacha. I love it when things work out like that- we must have good karma or something!
Yesterday, Shaun saw the PCMO who checked out his feet, which seem to be healing now that he’s on antibiotics. We’re staying at the PC bunkhouse for the holiday, which is quite enjoyable because we have the company of a couple other volunteers here also convalescing. We get hot showers and electricity, free internet, and we get to indulge in the amenities of city-life, like cafes, pizza, the movie theatre and martinis (well, that last one I get to indulge in while Shaun has Coke because he can’t 'drink' on antibiotics).
Yesterday, we spent the day with our friends and travel companions S. and Sy. (fellow PCVs fresh from Community Entry and en route to Lake Malawi) and we four went hog-wild- hahaha! We started the day at Blue Moon Café, where we indulged in bagel sandwiches, iced coffee, cappuccinos and Oreo milkshakes- all of it overwhelming our taste buds with that “tastes just like at home” sensation, an supreme surprise! Then, we decided to go see a movie at Arcades (one of 2 shopping malls in Lusaka). Shaun and I got tickets for “Unstoppable” and S. and Sy. got tickets for “Harry Potter”. We had some time to kill before the movies started, so we roamed around Arcades until we saw a poster at Rhapsody Restaurant for martinis. Our eyes lit up and we ladies all had the same thought- let’s get a martini! So, we did and they were fabulous! I can still taste my chocolate martini. After that, we floated over to the movie theatre and were thoroughly entertained and transported back to the U.S. for a couple hours.
And then, it was time to call our spree quits before we'd spent all our money (Lusaka’s quite expensive when you’re living on $250 USD a month). So, we went our separate ways: S. and Sy. went to Chongwe to visit another PCV friend, and Shaun and I went back to the PC bunkhouse. There, we hung out spinning yarns and eating pizza with our new friend, a fellow PCV also in Lusaka for medical reasons. I love interacting with other PCVs because we gain so much from being able to share our different ideas, perspectives and stories.
Today, Christmas Eve, we walked back to Blue Moon Café with our new friend and indulged once again in cappuccinos, bagels and milkshakes. Then we came back to the PC Compound and lounged, did online research and read. Even with the gray rain clouds moving in this afternoon, it still doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, we’re going to celebrate tonight with another group of PCVs also in town for the holiday.
I’d better sign off here- I’ve got a cocktail party to get ready for! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Pictures from December 2010 at our site in Chebele Village
Here are some pictures from our December 2010 in our village. December 2010 was the last month of our Community Entry and it was great- lots going on! A snake trying to slither in our front door one morning; pond harvest with our counterpart and his family; traditional bark-hive beekeeping workshop in our village.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Wait- You Said You Wouldn't Have Electricity or Running Water
It's true- we live off the grid, despite being just 4km from the township where many have electricity, albeit not 100% of the time. Our village does not have electricity or running water, so here's how things work...:
No Electricity at Night:
When it gets dark, we stay in. Unlike our Zambian friends, we can't see at night and need some kind of light. At night, we rely on candles and wind-up or solar-powered flashlights to see- and with the creepy-crawlies around, we want to be able to see what's going on in the dark corners!
Since both of our headlamps have broken, we light several candles around the house each night. Thus, we go through our candle stash much faster than other volunteers seem to. But, it's not a problem because in the township we can buy candles for about 10 US cents each. Next time you have a power outage in the evening and have to light candles, think of us :)
Cooking:
When we want to cook, Shaun grabs some charcoal from the 50kg sack we keep in our house. He breaks it up with a hammer, then fills our charcoal brazier, lights the charcoal with dry grass (which is proving an issue in rainy season) and then swings the brazier until the charcoal lights and we have a cooking fire. Then, I cook, which really isn't as tricky as I thought it would be, once I got over not being able to regulate the heat.
As a side note, Shaun and I an agreement that since I'm in charge of all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., his duty is to start the brazier.
Charging Stuff:
For small appliances like our mp3 players, GPS and digital camera, we have a small, portable solar panel that allows us to charge things via USB cable, as well as rechargeable AA batteries. It works pretty well, especially since it still charges under overcast skies.
For larger things, we've set up at our house what I like to call “Zam-tricity”. We've rigged up a car battery to an inverter, which we plug our phones, Nook (eReader) and laptop into in order to charge them. Each sunny day we're home, we give the car battery a booster charge by hooking it up to our solar panel that we set up in the sun in back of our house (so as not to advertise to passers by that we have it). The solar panel gives enough of a charge to the battery so that we only have to take the battery into town for charging once a month (as opposed to once a week otherwise). We expect we'll have to take the battery into town for charging more often during rainy season because there will be less sun of which to take advantage.
Now, taking the battery into town is an excursion of its own. We don't have access to vehicles and paved roads, but we do have mountain bikes and a decent enough dirt road to get us to town. Shaun loads up the battery (concealed in a chitenge or Ralph's shopping bag Mom sent) on the back of his bike, and he rides down the dirt road to our welder friend in the town's market. We leave the battery with our friend overnight and he charges the battery for 4,000 kwacha (about 80 US cents). The ride there is the easy part because it's mostly downhill. However, the ride back to our place is all uphill and it starts with a very steep climb from the market, which levels off into a more gentle uphill slope to our village.
Communication:
There's a post office in the township just 4km from our house. However, we have pretty good Airtel (formerly Zain) and MTN network coverage at our site/house. So, with our Nokia internet mobile phones, we find Facebook and e-mail a better way to stay in contact with folks at home. I'm amazed at this every day: we can post status updates and pictures, receive and sometimes send emails, read the news, even surf the web. Yet, our village doesn't have basic electricity nor running water. It's a very interesting situation I find myself pondering often. One of these days I'll tackle the subject in this blog.
Drinking water:
We get our water from a stream about 3 football fields away from our house. Actually, I should say our village helpers (village teenagers, 13-17 years old) get our water for us at the stream. We pay them a very attractive 500 kwacha (about 10 US cents) per container of water they fetch for us, and we have a couple teens who come by everyday to ask if they can get water for us. They take our two 20-liter jerry cans down to the stream, fill them up and carry them back- on their head- to our doorstep. Those containers are heavy- I have no idea how the kids carry them on their heads.
After the kiddos bring back the water, I pour a capful of chlorine in the water to treat it. We shake the containers and then let them sit for 30 minutes or so to allow the chlorine to go to work. After that, I pour the water into our two heavy-duty, Peace Corps-issued, 5-liter water filters. I've been told we should be filtering and then chlorinating the water, but (1) that's a big pain and (2) so far we've had no issues or illness.
Because we get our water directly from a stream (as opposed to well or, even better, a borehole) the candles for our filter get slimy and dirty pretty quick and then stop filtering the water through. So, about once a week, I take apart our filters and clean the candles with an old toothbrush. It sounds like a pain, but it takes less than 30 minutes, and in the village, you have time for these kinds of chores... plus it's water- it's a priority :)
Bathing:
We do not have an indoor bathing area, but rather an outdoor, grass bathing shelter (“ulusasa” in bemba). When we first moved in, our ulusasa had a dirt floor, but our counterpart cemented it for us. He also cemented a walkway from our front porch to the bathing shelter so we don't have to walk in the mud- I love it!
In our bathing shelter, we have a 5-gallon solar shower which is basically a black plastic bag that warms the water inside using the sun's rays and then sprinkles your bathing water out of a hose attached to the bottom of the bag. During the hot season, we get warm showers, but lately during the rainy season, our showers have been cold (but quite refreshing) because there's little sun to warm the water. We're not motivated enough to get a brazier going to heat water in the mornings just for bathing, so a cold shower it is. And it really isn't a big deal when we're in the village. We find we get dirty enough that getting clean outweighs the need for warm water- hehehe
Dishes:
Dishes, of course, are all done by hand and I often have little helpers for this chore, too. Little girls in the village come by most mornings and ask if they can do our dishes. When I have dishes for them, they literally squeal with delight! We pour a basin of water to soap up the dishes and scrub off the food. Then I fill another basin with water to rinse off the dishes. Then, when the suns comes out, I like to set the dishes out in the sunshine to dry (covered, though so the dust doesn't get them dirty all over again). And if I have helpers, I always thank them with a “sweetie” (usually a fruity gummy vitamin).
Laundry:
Yep, this is all done by hand, too. Unlike fetching water and dishes, I do this one all on my own. It's actually quite nice to do in the heat of the afternoon because I usually get wet and it cools me off. One basin is for soaping up and using my Zambian bamaayo skills to scrub out the smells and stains. Then, another basin of water for rinsing out the soap. Then, I hang the clothes up on the line outside to dry.
Because we have to worry about bot fly laying their eggs on our damp clothing, when the clothes have dried on the line, I fold them up into a designated laundry bag and let them sit for 72 hours before we wear them. If the bot fly larva doesn't come into contact with human skin within 72 hours, then you don't have to worry about it burrowing into your skin and creating... yuckiness. My practice of waiting 72 hours may be overkill since I hang our clothes to dry on a wire, not a bush like I've seen most Zambians do. Better safe than sorry, I say.
And rather than wait, I could also iron our clothes with a village charcoal iron to kill the larva and dry the clothes. However, I haven't found one yet and even if I did, I'm not sure I could get Shaun to go through the hassle of lighting a brazier to get hot coals to fuel the iron... we also don't have a surface (like a table, etc.) good for ironing. So far, it's much easier to just wait a few days.
The “Toilet”:
We don't actually have a toilet because we don't have running water, nor anything to sit on when we “do our business.” We have a pit latrine (hole in the ground) sheltered with mud-brick walls and a thatch roof (fancier ones have a roof made of metal sheeting). In Bebma, it's called an icimbusu, or “chimbus” for short. Perhaps one of these days I'll write an entry on the “chimbus”, but for now I'll leave it at that (who knows, maybe you're snacking as you read this).
So, that's how we're doin' it!
No Electricity at Night:
When it gets dark, we stay in. Unlike our Zambian friends, we can't see at night and need some kind of light. At night, we rely on candles and wind-up or solar-powered flashlights to see- and with the creepy-crawlies around, we want to be able to see what's going on in the dark corners!
Since both of our headlamps have broken, we light several candles around the house each night. Thus, we go through our candle stash much faster than other volunteers seem to. But, it's not a problem because in the township we can buy candles for about 10 US cents each. Next time you have a power outage in the evening and have to light candles, think of us :)
Cooking:
When we want to cook, Shaun grabs some charcoal from the 50kg sack we keep in our house. He breaks it up with a hammer, then fills our charcoal brazier, lights the charcoal with dry grass (which is proving an issue in rainy season) and then swings the brazier until the charcoal lights and we have a cooking fire. Then, I cook, which really isn't as tricky as I thought it would be, once I got over not being able to regulate the heat.
As a side note, Shaun and I an agreement that since I'm in charge of all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., his duty is to start the brazier.
Charging Stuff:
For small appliances like our mp3 players, GPS and digital camera, we have a small, portable solar panel that allows us to charge things via USB cable, as well as rechargeable AA batteries. It works pretty well, especially since it still charges under overcast skies.
For larger things, we've set up at our house what I like to call “Zam-tricity”. We've rigged up a car battery to an inverter, which we plug our phones, Nook (eReader) and laptop into in order to charge them. Each sunny day we're home, we give the car battery a booster charge by hooking it up to our solar panel that we set up in the sun in back of our house (so as not to advertise to passers by that we have it). The solar panel gives enough of a charge to the battery so that we only have to take the battery into town for charging once a month (as opposed to once a week otherwise). We expect we'll have to take the battery into town for charging more often during rainy season because there will be less sun of which to take advantage.
Now, taking the battery into town is an excursion of its own. We don't have access to vehicles and paved roads, but we do have mountain bikes and a decent enough dirt road to get us to town. Shaun loads up the battery (concealed in a chitenge or Ralph's shopping bag Mom sent) on the back of his bike, and he rides down the dirt road to our welder friend in the town's market. We leave the battery with our friend overnight and he charges the battery for 4,000 kwacha (about 80 US cents). The ride there is the easy part because it's mostly downhill. However, the ride back to our place is all uphill and it starts with a very steep climb from the market, which levels off into a more gentle uphill slope to our village.
Communication:
There's a post office in the township just 4km from our house. However, we have pretty good Airtel (formerly Zain) and MTN network coverage at our site/house. So, with our Nokia internet mobile phones, we find Facebook and e-mail a better way to stay in contact with folks at home. I'm amazed at this every day: we can post status updates and pictures, receive and sometimes send emails, read the news, even surf the web. Yet, our village doesn't have basic electricity nor running water. It's a very interesting situation I find myself pondering often. One of these days I'll tackle the subject in this blog.
Drinking water:
We get our water from a stream about 3 football fields away from our house. Actually, I should say our village helpers (village teenagers, 13-17 years old) get our water for us at the stream. We pay them a very attractive 500 kwacha (about 10 US cents) per container of water they fetch for us, and we have a couple teens who come by everyday to ask if they can get water for us. They take our two 20-liter jerry cans down to the stream, fill them up and carry them back- on their head- to our doorstep. Those containers are heavy- I have no idea how the kids carry them on their heads.
After the kiddos bring back the water, I pour a capful of chlorine in the water to treat it. We shake the containers and then let them sit for 30 minutes or so to allow the chlorine to go to work. After that, I pour the water into our two heavy-duty, Peace Corps-issued, 5-liter water filters. I've been told we should be filtering and then chlorinating the water, but (1) that's a big pain and (2) so far we've had no issues or illness.
Because we get our water directly from a stream (as opposed to well or, even better, a borehole) the candles for our filter get slimy and dirty pretty quick and then stop filtering the water through. So, about once a week, I take apart our filters and clean the candles with an old toothbrush. It sounds like a pain, but it takes less than 30 minutes, and in the village, you have time for these kinds of chores... plus it's water- it's a priority :)
Bathing:
We do not have an indoor bathing area, but rather an outdoor, grass bathing shelter (“ulusasa” in bemba). When we first moved in, our ulusasa had a dirt floor, but our counterpart cemented it for us. He also cemented a walkway from our front porch to the bathing shelter so we don't have to walk in the mud- I love it!
In our bathing shelter, we have a 5-gallon solar shower which is basically a black plastic bag that warms the water inside using the sun's rays and then sprinkles your bathing water out of a hose attached to the bottom of the bag. During the hot season, we get warm showers, but lately during the rainy season, our showers have been cold (but quite refreshing) because there's little sun to warm the water. We're not motivated enough to get a brazier going to heat water in the mornings just for bathing, so a cold shower it is. And it really isn't a big deal when we're in the village. We find we get dirty enough that getting clean outweighs the need for warm water- hehehe
Dishes:
Dishes, of course, are all done by hand and I often have little helpers for this chore, too. Little girls in the village come by most mornings and ask if they can do our dishes. When I have dishes for them, they literally squeal with delight! We pour a basin of water to soap up the dishes and scrub off the food. Then I fill another basin with water to rinse off the dishes. Then, when the suns comes out, I like to set the dishes out in the sunshine to dry (covered, though so the dust doesn't get them dirty all over again). And if I have helpers, I always thank them with a “sweetie” (usually a fruity gummy vitamin).
Laundry:
Yep, this is all done by hand, too. Unlike fetching water and dishes, I do this one all on my own. It's actually quite nice to do in the heat of the afternoon because I usually get wet and it cools me off. One basin is for soaping up and using my Zambian bamaayo skills to scrub out the smells and stains. Then, another basin of water for rinsing out the soap. Then, I hang the clothes up on the line outside to dry.
Because we have to worry about bot fly laying their eggs on our damp clothing, when the clothes have dried on the line, I fold them up into a designated laundry bag and let them sit for 72 hours before we wear them. If the bot fly larva doesn't come into contact with human skin within 72 hours, then you don't have to worry about it burrowing into your skin and creating... yuckiness. My practice of waiting 72 hours may be overkill since I hang our clothes to dry on a wire, not a bush like I've seen most Zambians do. Better safe than sorry, I say.
And rather than wait, I could also iron our clothes with a village charcoal iron to kill the larva and dry the clothes. However, I haven't found one yet and even if I did, I'm not sure I could get Shaun to go through the hassle of lighting a brazier to get hot coals to fuel the iron... we also don't have a surface (like a table, etc.) good for ironing. So far, it's much easier to just wait a few days.
The “Toilet”:
We don't actually have a toilet because we don't have running water, nor anything to sit on when we “do our business.” We have a pit latrine (hole in the ground) sheltered with mud-brick walls and a thatch roof (fancier ones have a roof made of metal sheeting). In Bebma, it's called an icimbusu, or “chimbus” for short. Perhaps one of these days I'll write an entry on the “chimbus”, but for now I'll leave it at that (who knows, maybe you're snacking as you read this).
So, that's how we're doin' it!
End of Our Community Entry
Shaun and I just finished the phase of our service called Community Entry- can I get an “Amen”?! After a PCV finishes Pre-Service Training (usually 9-12 weeks, depending on your program), they are posted to the site where they will serve their 2 years. This begins the start of Community Entry: 3 months in the village with the purpose of getting to know their community, its needs and building relationships before the PCV begins working. It's a great tool for building the relationships and gaining the inside knowledge necessary for being an effective volunteer and resource for the community.
We started 9 weeks of Pre-Service Training in July 2010, were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers September 24, 2010, and then were whisked up to Luapula where we scurried around for a couple days to get everything we'd need for our site. Then, we were posted to our site (among the first in our group) the last week of September, just before my 31st birthday.
Our Community Entry started that last week of September 2010 and lasted until December 18, 2010, with a brief intermission at Thanksgiving when we came to Mansa, the provincial capital, for Provincial Meetings and to celebrate the holiday. Despite being a great tool, Community Entry was beginning to give us a case of cabin fever toward the end. Community Entry mandates that the PCV spend as much time as possible in their village and not leave their district, unless for official meetings or to receive medical attention. In the coming blog entries over the next 2 years, I hope to explain what it's like to live in a rural Zambian village... and then perhaps you'll understand what I mean about the cabin fever Community Entry causes Americans. Now that we've finished Community Entry, we're feeling (1) like we've experienced a rite of passage, (2) like we've become “real” Volunteers, and (3) very excited to be able to spread our wings here in Zambia and explore other parts and cultures of the country!
But, before I get into all that, let me tell you what our life is like here in Zambia and what we've been learning.
We started 9 weeks of Pre-Service Training in July 2010, were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers September 24, 2010, and then were whisked up to Luapula where we scurried around for a couple days to get everything we'd need for our site. Then, we were posted to our site (among the first in our group) the last week of September, just before my 31st birthday.
Our Community Entry started that last week of September 2010 and lasted until December 18, 2010, with a brief intermission at Thanksgiving when we came to Mansa, the provincial capital, for Provincial Meetings and to celebrate the holiday. Despite being a great tool, Community Entry was beginning to give us a case of cabin fever toward the end. Community Entry mandates that the PCV spend as much time as possible in their village and not leave their district, unless for official meetings or to receive medical attention. In the coming blog entries over the next 2 years, I hope to explain what it's like to live in a rural Zambian village... and then perhaps you'll understand what I mean about the cabin fever Community Entry causes Americans. Now that we've finished Community Entry, we're feeling (1) like we've experienced a rite of passage, (2) like we've become “real” Volunteers, and (3) very excited to be able to spread our wings here in Zambia and explore other parts and cultures of the country!
But, before I get into all that, let me tell you what our life is like here in Zambia and what we've been learning.
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