... So lazy me doesn't have to recount it also. I'll add what this woman's son said about her:
"My mother, she died of, let say old age. But, what really took her, well, she was having diarrhea for two weeks and the condition did not improve until the day she died."
This post was written by Annie, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a SWB board member.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Today I drove in my first funeral procession...
... I mean me actually driving, I've been in a funeral procession before. It was in Zambia, I drove the third car, a truck. I had three Zambian women in my backseat. And I had around ten women and children in the bed of my truck.
But let me start at the beginning. Annie and I arrived at the church where the funeral was being held mid-ceremony. It was a windy and chilly morning, very extreme and bare. The church was pieced together. It was a sparse wooden frame with cardboard squares nailed to it. We walked inside where about 100 Zambians were attending the funeral of a woman who was reported to have been 92 years old. The singing was beautiful and every time the wind blew the make shift wooden windows flapped open and shut.
After the funeral everyone piled into the cars to start the procession to the cemetery. It was a long drive, all the women in all the cars sang most of the way. The woman we were burying was a grandmother at the Chikumbuso school where I work. We drove along the outskirts of Lusaka. We drove and drove until we came over a ridge to a valley. At the far end of the valley were twin hills. In the valley was a massive burial ground, tens of funerals, and thousands of mourners. It was, for lack of a better word, apocalyptic.
We made our way through the crowded country road and found a place for our procession to park. We all walked over to a burial plot and began the final ceremony. It was nice, the choir was magnificent. The deceased was old, everyone was calm. However, the multitude of services around us, offered a variety of emotions, sounds, and attitudes, too numerous too mention. Everything from hysterics (sorry, gender biased word) to dances.
In front of me as I watched our ceremony lay miles of burial mounds all only inches apart, with people wandering about throughout.
At the end of the ceremony Annie and I were asked to say a few words about the deceased on behalf of all the woman at Chikumbuso. I had never met the woman to my recollection, neither had Annie. But I said how happy we were to have everyone here, and what a wonderful woman she had been, and how she left behind a community which I was sure would miss her. Annie added a lovely unitarian prayer.
I walked away somewhat fazed by the whole the experience, and did not react to the points and shouts of Mizungu directed at my white skin. I know it was an amazing and special experience, though I do not believe that I should have said the last words for at 92 year old Zambian's funeral. It makes me wonder who will speak at my funeral.
This post was written by Rick, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's president.
But let me start at the beginning. Annie and I arrived at the church where the funeral was being held mid-ceremony. It was a windy and chilly morning, very extreme and bare. The church was pieced together. It was a sparse wooden frame with cardboard squares nailed to it. We walked inside where about 100 Zambians were attending the funeral of a woman who was reported to have been 92 years old. The singing was beautiful and every time the wind blew the make shift wooden windows flapped open and shut.
After the funeral everyone piled into the cars to start the procession to the cemetery. It was a long drive, all the women in all the cars sang most of the way. The woman we were burying was a grandmother at the Chikumbuso school where I work. We drove along the outskirts of Lusaka. We drove and drove until we came over a ridge to a valley. At the far end of the valley were twin hills. In the valley was a massive burial ground, tens of funerals, and thousands of mourners. It was, for lack of a better word, apocalyptic.
We made our way through the crowded country road and found a place for our procession to park. We all walked over to a burial plot and began the final ceremony. It was nice, the choir was magnificent. The deceased was old, everyone was calm. However, the multitude of services around us, offered a variety of emotions, sounds, and attitudes, too numerous too mention. Everything from hysterics (sorry, gender biased word) to dances.
In front of me as I watched our ceremony lay miles of burial mounds all only inches apart, with people wandering about throughout.
At the end of the ceremony Annie and I were asked to say a few words about the deceased on behalf of all the woman at Chikumbuso. I had never met the woman to my recollection, neither had Annie. But I said how happy we were to have everyone here, and what a wonderful woman she had been, and how she left behind a community which I was sure would miss her. Annie added a lovely unitarian prayer.
I walked away somewhat fazed by the whole the experience, and did not react to the points and shouts of Mizungu directed at my white skin. I know it was an amazing and special experience, though I do not believe that I should have said the last words for at 92 year old Zambian's funeral. It makes me wonder who will speak at my funeral.
This post was written by Rick, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's president.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Our house was robbed on Friday...
... Seriously a let down.
I started with the women's literacy classes at Chikumbuso. Awesomely awesome. I found this post about Shake Shake on h2g2. When the Shake Shake trucks come rumbling down the street, we leave the compound. I've been saying "compound" a lot without explaining that it is the sort of PC way of saying "slum" here.
The other day, I was walking in the compound market, and, lo and behold! 'Tis the season for fried rats! So, the ladies at Chikumbuso told us, of course, they eat rats, they are tasty! We bought some for Trudy and Beauty and they ate the whole things! Fur, bones, head... all of it.
Not to be confused with the tub-thumping scouse club scene, Chibuku is the preferred Friday-night medicine for millions of black (and maybe one or two white) southern Africans, notably throughout Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. It is commonly referred to as 'shake shake' because of its propensity to settle into its liquid and solid fractions. Shaking restores the beverage to its former grainy off-yoghurt consistency.
How They Make 'Shake Shake'
Chibuku is made by adding yeast to a thin grey-pink, gruel-like maize porridge, after which it is allowed to brew for the length of time available until it needs to be consumed. After fermentation, it doesn't look any less sickly.
Industrially, the porridge/yeast mixture is packaged on day one into "one-liter of milk" style wax cardboard cartons, where it is brewed for anything between three and ten days.
The Product
After three days' fermentation, the mixture remains fairly mild in terms of both taste and alcoholic content. It smells not unlike home brew that's not ready to drink, which is not surprising because that's pretty much what it is. At ten days, the brew is somewhat more mature with a significantly stronger kick. However, by this stage most of the sugar in the brew has been gobbled up by the yeast and the taste might be euphemistically described as 'tart'.
At most stages throughout the brew cycle, the yeast is still busy converting the starch/sugar into alcohol, so the drink will have a zesty effervescence not unlike Lambrusco.
Conversely, precisely not like Lambrusco at all, Chibuku contains lumps of partially digested maize-porridge which require some degree of mastication. Generically, Chibuku is an opaque beer, which is to say it contains sediment. Actually, chibuku contains lumps of matter, not dissimilar in texture to cottage cheese, which may or may not be related to sawdust.
The Scene
Chibuku, 'the beer of good cheer', is most regularly enjoyed in a shabeen, a probably illegal, almost certainly dingy spartanly furnished drinking den playing loud repetitive piston-popping kwassa-kwassa1 music.
A meal in a box, chibuku doesn't pretend to refresh; it is taken as a cheap and efficient intoxicant.
This post was written by Annie, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a SWB board member.
I started with the women's literacy classes at Chikumbuso. Awesomely awesome. I found this post about Shake Shake on h2g2. When the Shake Shake trucks come rumbling down the street, we leave the compound. I've been saying "compound" a lot without explaining that it is the sort of PC way of saying "slum" here.
The other day, I was walking in the compound market, and, lo and behold! 'Tis the season for fried rats! So, the ladies at Chikumbuso told us, of course, they eat rats, they are tasty! We bought some for Trudy and Beauty and they ate the whole things! Fur, bones, head... all of it.
Not to be confused with the tub-thumping scouse club scene, Chibuku is the preferred Friday-night medicine for millions of black (and maybe one or two white) southern Africans, notably throughout Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. It is commonly referred to as 'shake shake' because of its propensity to settle into its liquid and solid fractions. Shaking restores the beverage to its former grainy off-yoghurt consistency.
How They Make 'Shake Shake'
Chibuku is made by adding yeast to a thin grey-pink, gruel-like maize porridge, after which it is allowed to brew for the length of time available until it needs to be consumed. After fermentation, it doesn't look any less sickly.
Industrially, the porridge/yeast mixture is packaged on day one into "one-liter of milk" style wax cardboard cartons, where it is brewed for anything between three and ten days.
The Product
After three days' fermentation, the mixture remains fairly mild in terms of both taste and alcoholic content. It smells not unlike home brew that's not ready to drink, which is not surprising because that's pretty much what it is. At ten days, the brew is somewhat more mature with a significantly stronger kick. However, by this stage most of the sugar in the brew has been gobbled up by the yeast and the taste might be euphemistically described as 'tart'.
At most stages throughout the brew cycle, the yeast is still busy converting the starch/sugar into alcohol, so the drink will have a zesty effervescence not unlike Lambrusco.
Conversely, precisely not like Lambrusco at all, Chibuku contains lumps of partially digested maize-porridge which require some degree of mastication. Generically, Chibuku is an opaque beer, which is to say it contains sediment. Actually, chibuku contains lumps of matter, not dissimilar in texture to cottage cheese, which may or may not be related to sawdust.
The Scene
Chibuku, 'the beer of good cheer', is most regularly enjoyed in a shabeen, a probably illegal, almost certainly dingy spartanly furnished drinking den playing loud repetitive piston-popping kwassa-kwassa1 music.
A meal in a box, chibuku doesn't pretend to refresh; it is taken as a cheap and efficient intoxicant.
This post was written by Annie, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a SWB board member.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Things have been passing by quickly...
... and apart from my health assessments there hasn't been too much news. I have completed the health assessments at Chikumbuso which totaled 200 students. Each assessment was head-to-toe including the weights and heights of the children. I was very pleased to be done with the assessments since I have been wanting to see other parts of the school, including sitting in classrooms and watching the children learn in their courses. The class discussions should be fun to listen to as I have read on the chalk boards some interesting topics the students are learning.
This week we truly began the 'volunteer' program with the Lamumba Secondary School students. We have chosen 10 to work with and each Tuesday and Wednesday we take 5 to one of the schools we have been working at. They have been blown away at times at how good they feel after helping the younger children learn basic English. They have told us each time we take them to the schools how fun it has been, but also how tired they are afterwards. Very true!
It is a new concept to them to volunteer since there aren’t many Zambian volunteer programs. It is not something that most young people do here. We hope to have them stay involved and maybe to create some sort of program that might stay in place even once we have gone.
I have almost completed the Chamba Valley School assessments and I hope to finish them the week before I leave. We are thinking that from the assessments, we will create an excel program with all the information. This way we will be able to get some statistics that may be useful for future grant writing or activities that could help raise funding for these schools.
Thursday I visited Jon's Hospice which is where I volunteered last year for 6 weeks. From the week before there were not as many patients, but this week every bed was full. Also, the few patients I had met the week before had sadly all passed away. I was told that they did pass peacefully.
The daycare there is doing very well. Three other American medical students have just recently arrived and are quickly getting into the schedule. Sadly, they did not have their luggage for almost a week, so they were sad and a bit grumpy... which is exactly what I would be!! I am hoping they will be able to help with another project here related to our schools.
On this note, as I have mentioned before, Dr. Tim runs a non-profit organization that helps children in Zambia who are orphans, HIV+ or vulnerable. On Thursday he and I talked about his organization donating 40 rapid HIV tests to the 2 schools. I would perform the test and his social worker would do the counseling and enrollment into the organization if the child is positive. This will be something I have never done before. I know that for each child I test, I will be extremely stressed while waiting for the results which apparently only takes a few seconds. This I will be doing on my last week, and I hope that the American medical students will finish the testing when I’m gone.
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
This week we truly began the 'volunteer' program with the Lamumba Secondary School students. We have chosen 10 to work with and each Tuesday and Wednesday we take 5 to one of the schools we have been working at. They have been blown away at times at how good they feel after helping the younger children learn basic English. They have told us each time we take them to the schools how fun it has been, but also how tired they are afterwards. Very true!
It is a new concept to them to volunteer since there aren’t many Zambian volunteer programs. It is not something that most young people do here. We hope to have them stay involved and maybe to create some sort of program that might stay in place even once we have gone.
I have almost completed the Chamba Valley School assessments and I hope to finish them the week before I leave. We are thinking that from the assessments, we will create an excel program with all the information. This way we will be able to get some statistics that may be useful for future grant writing or activities that could help raise funding for these schools.
Thursday I visited Jon's Hospice which is where I volunteered last year for 6 weeks. From the week before there were not as many patients, but this week every bed was full. Also, the few patients I had met the week before had sadly all passed away. I was told that they did pass peacefully.
The daycare there is doing very well. Three other American medical students have just recently arrived and are quickly getting into the schedule. Sadly, they did not have their luggage for almost a week, so they were sad and a bit grumpy... which is exactly what I would be!! I am hoping they will be able to help with another project here related to our schools.
On this note, as I have mentioned before, Dr. Tim runs a non-profit organization that helps children in Zambia who are orphans, HIV+ or vulnerable. On Thursday he and I talked about his organization donating 40 rapid HIV tests to the 2 schools. I would perform the test and his social worker would do the counseling and enrollment into the organization if the child is positive. This will be something I have never done before. I know that for each child I test, I will be extremely stressed while waiting for the results which apparently only takes a few seconds. This I will be doing on my last week, and I hope that the American medical students will finish the testing when I’m gone.
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The week started off very busy...
... and our activities have begun to get more in depth! I have so far performed health assessments that total at 190 children within the 2 schools. The other Austinites have been working in nice small groups with 5 students each teaching basic English and working towards basic math. We have noticed a significant difference in the children at Chikumbuso from the children at the Kibbutz School which is more rural. These children have also had less food and nutritional intake. Through my assessments, I began wondering what was the difference between the 2 groups in terms of health and learning abilities, which was interesting. Some students are very gifted and fast learners, where others in the same age group and class, are struggling to grasp the individual teachings. An example that Kelly told me was how many children have a hard time holding the pencil and controlling their letters.
After talking with staff at the Chikumbuso school I learned that these students were all given de-worming medication a few months ago. I think this has significantly contributed to better overall health. I am hoping that through our work here, and the health assessments made we could help give support to organizations to provide de-worming medication for the children who are living in rural Zambia. These children are like most children, so amazingly happy, but unlike most children I know at least, so alone with no advocacy. These children with the little that they have or are given share everything with each other. I have brought many hard candies and when I have run out I see those who have gotten treats share theirs with those who have not gotten any. The same goes for supplies and activities that my group has been providing. Each time we have visited the Kibbutz school there are little ones who wander up just to find their older siblings – the boys and girls both call their younger one to them and they sit with them through class. It is also endearing to each one of us that when we arrive at each place we visit, there are so many waves and screams of "Hello!" along with waves from these kinds little beings! It has also been a little scary when they get so close to the car, but we have been working on that as well.
Some other Americans arrived on Monday who have come to provide a wonderful mural for the Chikumbuso school. They will paint a nice simple design on the outside of each school room, then each child will get to dip their hands in colored paint then make a handprint on the building wall. It will be really great to have such a fun project for next week!
Tuesday we visited Jon's Hospice and I was glad to be back. I wrote in a previous e-mail I believe my feelings and thoughts on the day. I hope to go back this Thursday. Dr.Tim lives very close to the Kibbutz school and on Tuesday Moses (his driver) took us there. We learned on Thursday from Sharon, the school headmistress, that Dr.Tim had come to visit the school. He brought food and he has asked me to identify children who are in need of medications through my assessments so that his organization (Tiny Tim and Friends) can provide medicine and care to them. The mission of this organization is to help children in Zambia so it works very nicely…. Also, his house is only a 7 minute walk from the school.
The weekend has come and gone and more adventures to come! On Friday we leave by bus to visit the city of Livingstone to see the Victoria Falls. I have been looking forward to seeing these beautiful falls for over a year now, since last year I was unable to make such a trip. We will be staying in a hostel over the weekend since Annie was lucky enough to reserve us a room with our own bath.
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
After talking with staff at the Chikumbuso school I learned that these students were all given de-worming medication a few months ago. I think this has significantly contributed to better overall health. I am hoping that through our work here, and the health assessments made we could help give support to organizations to provide de-worming medication for the children who are living in rural Zambia. These children are like most children, so amazingly happy, but unlike most children I know at least, so alone with no advocacy. These children with the little that they have or are given share everything with each other. I have brought many hard candies and when I have run out I see those who have gotten treats share theirs with those who have not gotten any. The same goes for supplies and activities that my group has been providing. Each time we have visited the Kibbutz school there are little ones who wander up just to find their older siblings – the boys and girls both call their younger one to them and they sit with them through class. It is also endearing to each one of us that when we arrive at each place we visit, there are so many waves and screams of "Hello!" along with waves from these kinds little beings! It has also been a little scary when they get so close to the car, but we have been working on that as well.
Some other Americans arrived on Monday who have come to provide a wonderful mural for the Chikumbuso school. They will paint a nice simple design on the outside of each school room, then each child will get to dip their hands in colored paint then make a handprint on the building wall. It will be really great to have such a fun project for next week!
Tuesday we visited Jon's Hospice and I was glad to be back. I wrote in a previous e-mail I believe my feelings and thoughts on the day. I hope to go back this Thursday. Dr.Tim lives very close to the Kibbutz school and on Tuesday Moses (his driver) took us there. We learned on Thursday from Sharon, the school headmistress, that Dr.Tim had come to visit the school. He brought food and he has asked me to identify children who are in need of medications through my assessments so that his organization (Tiny Tim and Friends) can provide medicine and care to them. The mission of this organization is to help children in Zambia so it works very nicely…. Also, his house is only a 7 minute walk from the school.
The weekend has come and gone and more adventures to come! On Friday we leave by bus to visit the city of Livingstone to see the Victoria Falls. I have been looking forward to seeing these beautiful falls for over a year now, since last year I was unable to make such a trip. We will be staying in a hostel over the weekend since Annie was lucky enough to reserve us a room with our own bath.
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
I have now been going...
... to the Chikumbuso Community school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Monday I began the health checks on the children starting with grade 1. There is a Zambian nurse working with me and she has been very helpful. She graduated from nursing school here in Lusaka in 2002. She and I did 37 health checks on Monday and 40 on Wednesday. She is working with me for a 2 hr period and it has been going well so far. The children have mainly been healthy and if one is displaying signs of an infection or needs medical care, each has a registered health card. With this health card, we send a note home to their parent/grandmother/aunt requesting that they take them to the compound clinic as soon as possible. The school is located within a compound and it is in a different part of the city called N'gombe. (Last year I was in Messisi and John Lane compounds)
Mainly the ones who have been ill have had ear infections, rashes and burns. I have been cleaning lots of minor scrapes and cuts with the first aid supplies that were sent by some group. From all these supplies there were gloves, band aids, antibiotic ointment, gauze, wrapping gauze/kerlex and cotton balls. All of it has helped with the minor scrapes and such..... plus, I divided them up to make first aid kits that will go to some of the women in the community.
I have been also helping the widows by knotting the plastic bags that they use as 'thread' while making the handbags. There are so many colors and they use 1 crochet needle to knot them and create them. Then, they sell them to various people and it creates a reasonable income. An income greater than having nothing due to their husband's death and then what was happening before was they and their children were in dire need of food. My contact here is Linda Wilkinson who has helped organize and teach these women how to make and sell the bags. She told me the story of how it all began 2 years ago with 8 women and now it has grown into 40 women. Plus, through her efforts and aid, they have been able to change a brothel and bar into this wonderful school with teachers and over 400 children. Pretty amazing!
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
Mainly the ones who have been ill have had ear infections, rashes and burns. I have been cleaning lots of minor scrapes and cuts with the first aid supplies that were sent by some group. From all these supplies there were gloves, band aids, antibiotic ointment, gauze, wrapping gauze/kerlex and cotton balls. All of it has helped with the minor scrapes and such..... plus, I divided them up to make first aid kits that will go to some of the women in the community.
I have been also helping the widows by knotting the plastic bags that they use as 'thread' while making the handbags. There are so many colors and they use 1 crochet needle to knot them and create them. Then, they sell them to various people and it creates a reasonable income. An income greater than having nothing due to their husband's death and then what was happening before was they and their children were in dire need of food. My contact here is Linda Wilkinson who has helped organize and teach these women how to make and sell the bags. She told me the story of how it all began 2 years ago with 8 women and now it has grown into 40 women. Plus, through her efforts and aid, they have been able to change a brothel and bar into this wonderful school with teachers and over 400 children. Pretty amazing!
This post was written by Sabrina, a doctoral nursing student at the University of Texas at Austin and SWB's resident registered nurse.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Alright, alright, alright...
... I know I haven't blogged anywhere since I got here. Not on MySpace or LiveJournal or Blogspot or anything. In my defense our internet has been down for a few days, and even as I write this I don't know if it will actually go out because the connection is so bad.
Well, it is my first "day off" all week, so I finally have a few minutes and an internet connection at the same time. I just boiled my water for coffee and Lady, our dog, is waiting outside my door for some much needed play time, so I'll try (and likely not succeed) to be brief.
It took us four days to get here. We were delayed for 6 hours on the tarmac in Amsterdam, then delayed another 18 hours or so. Then in Nairobi they hadn't heard of us even though A'dam was supposed to arrange a connecting flight. So we were delayed there over night after arriving at 7 am. We found out the day after we left Nairobi that there has been International News Making Sized killings in downtown Nairobi since the day we were there. Considering changing our return route.
Zambia is beautiful. It get a little warm during the days (80 degrees or so) but the locals say that will change soon and we will be in full blown winter. I keep waiting, because my mizungu skin is starting to go pink. The sky is huge, and always blue and fully of puffy white clouds.
Zambians call us (white folks) "mizungu", which isn't insulting, and I gather that it means "white ghosty person."
Everyday we walk down the street in N'gombe, the slum where our school is located, to a shack that sells cold sodas, run by a boy of 10 or so. When we walk down the road, all the children follow us and laugh and say "Mizungu, mizungu!" and laugh at our very very bad attempts at Nyanja. I think they think we are the craziest mizungus they've ever seen-hanging out in a slum. The other day, a little girl, maybe 2 years old came up and pulled on Kelley's pant leg, looked up with big brown eyes and said, with a lisp-"-athunguuuuuuuuuu" which was hilarious.
We went to our first school on Monday, Chikumbuso, which is awesome. In one year, they have changed it from bar and whore house to functioning school. All the kids were super happy to see us and would crowd and scream and giggle when we took pictures. Saba (Sabrina) got through 37 health screenings (phew!) with only a few serious cases (some seriously swollen lymph nodes and a bad ear infection) and about 7 presumed cases of HIV according to the headmistress, Gertrude Banda (Trudy).
The next day was better--40 health checks and no presumed cases, but a little boy fell into the open flame where lunch was being cooked. The burn was pretty bad, but contained to only his leg, so Saba did some great first aid and his was back, playing in no time.
I hung out with the widows that make those beautiful purses that some of you have seen. They taught me how to string the bags together for crocheting and we sat and with the help of a translator talked a little about being a widow in N'gombe and how making the purses has given them a new lease on life.
Our second school, Kibbutz, was in an area called Chamba Valley. It made Chikumbuso seem like the Ritz, really. About 90 elementary school kids, 60 or so who show up regularly, who are incredibly smart, but also very behind. They really can break your heart. Ruthie Banda, age 3, walked right up to Rick (all the other kids were sort of hesitant with such a big mizungu) and said "How are you?" and stuck out here little hand. We observed school and helped out a little and then played with the kindergarteners outside in the field. Rick ended up acting as the kid's first playground, picking them up as tall as he was, much to their delight. They swarmed around him yelling in Nyanja "Pick me up mizungu, pick me up now!" One little girl fell and cut her leg, and without gloves (which I had forgotten at home), I really could do nothing. I showed her how to wash it off, and then gave her a candy and she seemed happy.
Well, my birthday is coming up (June 14th) and I'm hoping to throw a birthday party at Chikumbuso. None of the kids know when their birthdays are, so I figure they can all have mine. Or, at least share in a giant cake, something that they have probably never seen before. If you all are thinking of giving me a present, just make a donation to School Without Boundaries. You can send your checks to my dad, and if you are interested, write back and I'll send you the address.
I would write more, but we have to walk down to the grocery store to meet Saba and go to Chikumbuso.
This post was written by Annie, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a SWB board member.
Well, it is my first "day off" all week, so I finally have a few minutes and an internet connection at the same time. I just boiled my water for coffee and Lady, our dog, is waiting outside my door for some much needed play time, so I'll try (and likely not succeed) to be brief.
It took us four days to get here. We were delayed for 6 hours on the tarmac in Amsterdam, then delayed another 18 hours or so. Then in Nairobi they hadn't heard of us even though A'dam was supposed to arrange a connecting flight. So we were delayed there over night after arriving at 7 am. We found out the day after we left Nairobi that there has been International News Making Sized killings in downtown Nairobi since the day we were there. Considering changing our return route.
Zambia is beautiful. It get a little warm during the days (80 degrees or so) but the locals say that will change soon and we will be in full blown winter. I keep waiting, because my mizungu skin is starting to go pink. The sky is huge, and always blue and fully of puffy white clouds.
Zambians call us (white folks) "mizungu", which isn't insulting, and I gather that it means "white ghosty person."
Everyday we walk down the street in N'gombe, the slum where our school is located, to a shack that sells cold sodas, run by a boy of 10 or so. When we walk down the road, all the children follow us and laugh and say "Mizungu, mizungu!" and laugh at our very very bad attempts at Nyanja. I think they think we are the craziest mizungus they've ever seen-hanging out in a slum. The other day, a little girl, maybe 2 years old came up and pulled on Kelley's pant leg, looked up with big brown eyes and said, with a lisp-"-athunguuuuuuuuuu" which was hilarious.
We went to our first school on Monday, Chikumbuso, which is awesome. In one year, they have changed it from bar and whore house to functioning school. All the kids were super happy to see us and would crowd and scream and giggle when we took pictures. Saba (Sabrina) got through 37 health screenings (phew!) with only a few serious cases (some seriously swollen lymph nodes and a bad ear infection) and about 7 presumed cases of HIV according to the headmistress, Gertrude Banda (Trudy).
The next day was better--40 health checks and no presumed cases, but a little boy fell into the open flame where lunch was being cooked. The burn was pretty bad, but contained to only his leg, so Saba did some great first aid and his was back, playing in no time.
I hung out with the widows that make those beautiful purses that some of you have seen. They taught me how to string the bags together for crocheting and we sat and with the help of a translator talked a little about being a widow in N'gombe and how making the purses has given them a new lease on life.
Our second school, Kibbutz, was in an area called Chamba Valley. It made Chikumbuso seem like the Ritz, really. About 90 elementary school kids, 60 or so who show up regularly, who are incredibly smart, but also very behind. They really can break your heart. Ruthie Banda, age 3, walked right up to Rick (all the other kids were sort of hesitant with such a big mizungu) and said "How are you?" and stuck out here little hand. We observed school and helped out a little and then played with the kindergarteners outside in the field. Rick ended up acting as the kid's first playground, picking them up as tall as he was, much to their delight. They swarmed around him yelling in Nyanja "Pick me up mizungu, pick me up now!" One little girl fell and cut her leg, and without gloves (which I had forgotten at home), I really could do nothing. I showed her how to wash it off, and then gave her a candy and she seemed happy.
Well, my birthday is coming up (June 14th) and I'm hoping to throw a birthday party at Chikumbuso. None of the kids know when their birthdays are, so I figure they can all have mine. Or, at least share in a giant cake, something that they have probably never seen before. If you all are thinking of giving me a present, just make a donation to School Without Boundaries. You can send your checks to my dad, and if you are interested, write back and I'll send you the address.
I would write more, but we have to walk down to the grocery store to meet Saba and go to Chikumbuso.
This post was written by Annie, a public policy student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a SWB board member.
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