May 10th

After today I think I may be known in the village as the crazy mazungo who put a puppy in a chitenge and carried it around like a baby. Typically chitenges are used to hold real babies, well actually that is just one of the many uses of a chitenge, but I doubt that it has ever been used to carry a puppy. The women were doubled over with laugher, calling on their other friends to come and bear witness to the crazy American with a puppy on her back. The puppy was really cute.

On our way home from the clinic today Ellen and I passed by one of the churches in the village. The children were having a self-directed children’s choir rehearsal. They sang in rounds and harmonies with no direction from an adult and no help from a musical instrument. Their angelic voices were quite moving floating through the air in soft rhythmic tones. I don’t think I will see children in the States voluntarily singing church hymns with no adult direction or supervision.

May 9th

Ellen and I decided to bake today; things did not really go according to plan. We tried to make beer bread. The bread did not rise. We cooked it anyways. It was quite dense. Each slice weighed as much as a small child. We ate it anyways. Then we tried to bake a cobbler with canned apricots and pears. Someone may have put baking soda instead of baking powder into the dough (that person shall remain nameless). We were also missing some key ingredients such as eggs, butter, and milk so we switched water for milk, soy bean oil for butter, and extra sugar for eggs. And yes I do know that sugar is not a substitute for eggs, but we were hoping that if it was sweet enough we would not care. I don’t think all the wishing, hoping, or praying in the world could have saved this cobbler, but we ate it anyways.

Trying to restore a sense of accomplishment Ellen and I decided to do something productive that we knew we could not screw up; we limed her walls. This involves taking lime (not the citrus fruit) and mixing it with water then taking a cloth and rubbing it on her walls. It is slow, messy, mildly caustic to your skin and a few spiders may have lost their lives, but now a larger portion of Ellen’s hut has white walls.

May 8th

I visited the clinic bright an early this morning to bear witness to the under-five vaccination clinic. Per District Health Commissioner the clinic would be stalked with the appropriate supplies, including the vaccines, to vaccinate children under-five. The clinic has no electricity and therefore no refrigeration system which makes storing vaccines in the clinic impossible. Silly me to think that the supplies would arrive prior to the opening of the clinic at 0800. I did not factor in Zambian time which is on average 3- 4 hours off. The vaccines arrived at 1130.

Ellen and I held a meeting for the Safe Motherhood Action Group (SMAG) and the Neighborhood Health Committee (NHC) in hopes to motivate them into action. Both groups are responsible for spreading education among the villagers, they are supposed to motivate the community in take the appropriate steps to improve health and safety within the village. Even though each group has a list of “active” members the groups have not met in several months, nor have they been “motivating” their communities. The SMAG and the NHC have slightly different goals and responsibilities. For example the SMAG is supposed to encourage mother to get prenatal care, they are supposed to encourage mothers to go the clinic when in labor, and they are supposed to encourage mothers to seek out family planning. The NHC is supposed to do community inspections to ensure that the grass is slashed, children are sleeping under mosquito nets, and bathrooms are located an appropriate distance from the hut. Ellen and my goals were to have each group make a constitution and create an action plan for their first intervention within the community. Unfortunately I felt like most of the people showed up to watch the mazungos talk, but here’s hoping. We scheduled a follow-up meeting with the groups in a month. 

May 7th

Ellen and I made the journey to the hospital again in hopes of politely harassing some higher up people into letting me help in the hospital. We spend one hour in the pharmacy playing solitary waiting for the district medical officer to get out of a meeting; then we were ushered to another office where we waited for another 2.5 hours. Ellen is now a master at Luxor, a computer game. Anyways when we were finally able to meet with the BMO he took down my name, number, a copy of my diploma and my college transcript. He told me that they are very short staffed and that they would be happy to have me. He promised a call by the end of the day. It is now 2100, I am not holding my breath.

Ellen and I hitched back from the Boma and made it just in time to sit in on a meeting with the newly appointed District Health Commissioner and all the head men of Nyansonso. From what Ellen was able to translate for me the head men were getting a bit of a tongue lashing for not being role models in the community. They have the power in influence and to spread knowledge that would help the community to thrive but they have done very little to spur progress. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that her words will inspire some forward thinking/ motivation for maybe a week.

Oh yeah and I have a cold. My boyfriend sneezed in my face. We are taking some time apart.

May 6th

Today I went for another run. This time I was accompanied by a 13 year old named Sharon. She ran with me on the pavement barefoot and in a skirt for 30 minutes. It put into perspective the American need for high tech and stylish workout clothes and shoes. It is a billion dollar industry, which I am sad to say I have bought into, that completely over rated and overvalued. The proof was running right beside me today with a big smile on her face. She had no fancy Nike sneakers or fashionable running shorts or sports bra; she was barefoot in a skirt!

Later Ellen and I hitched our way back to the Boma for a night of fun with some new Peace Corps volunteers. We spent the evening with electricity, but only until midnight which is when the whole town goes dark. The best part of all there was the shower! It had hot water and everything! The water pressure was barely more the trickle and it may have taken 15 minutes to get my hair even wet, but it was a shower and I was clean!!

May 5th

So I am going to retract my previous statement about all foods tasting delicious; that may have been a bit premature. Ellen’s Ba Mama brought over some bush meat for us today. I am not entirely sure what kind of animal it was, but it was hairy even without skin. It had the consistency of cat food and tasted like what I would imagine the bastard child of spam and gefilte fish would taste like.

To compensate for the awful bush meat experience Ellen and I decided to bake a cake with one of the girls in her compound. We made a vanilla cake over hot coals and it did not burn and it was amazing. My outdoor culinary skills are greatly improving. Next we shall tackle the task of baking bread!

I went for a run today. The concept seemed to confuse many of the villagers. They kept asking me where I was going. When I would respond that I was just going for a run and that I had no destination in mind they looked at me like I was off my rocker, which I maybe.  I also delighted many of the village women today by carrying the 10 liter jug of water on my head back the compound. Although I was put to shame by the 13 year old carrying a 20 liter jug on her head going nearly twice as fast as I was. 

May 4th

So I am going to take a moment to discuss the bathroom situation here in the village. There is a brick shelter with a straw roof and a tear drop shaped hole in the cement floor; the thickness of the floor is questionable. The hole appears to be 10-15 feet deep. I try not to jump for fear that the floor will cave in and I will be stuck in a big hole of shit; not that I have many reasons to be jumping in the bathroom, but you never know.  There are not many things that I am afraid of one of them is being stuck in a hole of pooh and the other is spiders; this bathroom has both threats. In the ceiling there is Vladimir, a mean looking baseball sized spider. Each time I enter the shelter I pull back the plastic doorway, peek my head in and locate Vladimir and keep my eye on him as a squat over the hole. If you have ever tried to pee into a hole as a woman then you know that there is a science behind the process. Through careful evaluation I have discovered that there is no sure fire way to hit the hole consistently and constantly. You must constantly shift and change your weight to compensate for the change in pressure and direction; then just when you think you have it down it all goes to hell and you end up peeing on your leg and soaking the floor. The real trouble starts when you have to do number 1 and number 2. I’ll save you the explicit details, but believe me it takes concentration and skill. This bathroom is also the residence of many many flies who like to hide in the hole and the erupt with surprising force from the hole as soon as you squat over it leaving you with the feeling of little flying torpedoes ambushing your butt. This just further complicates the whole bathroom situation.

As for what we did today, Ellen and I completed our morning chores and then walked around the village meeting a greeting people. We visited the residence of a blind lady and her husband. We help her shell the kernels of corn/maize off the cob by hand so that it could be further dried then pounded into meal. The process of shelling maize is not all that involved; however it is very time consuming. It is estimated that the women in Zambia spend more time shelling maize each year than any other task. That is hundreds of hours of labor.

For dinner Ellen and I made our African version of shepherd’s pie with lentils, corn, cabbage, and instant mashed potatoes. I never thought instant mashed potatoes could be so amazing!! We rationed our chocolate for dessert. Ellen allows us to have three squares of chocolate at night. I find myself thinking of those three pieces of chocolate all day. Living in the village is like back packing; everything tastes amazing!