A little bit of the Zam Culture.

This last week, while we were at our second site visit, we had an assignment to speak to some of the village community members and get to know some of the culture and cultural beliefs.

To start: Traditional Beliefs/Superstitions among the Nyanja/Chewa people:

• If a fly enters your mouth, it will mean something bad is coming
• If a snake with stripes dies, and if it breaks into pieces along its stripes (as the apparently do so here?) it means that either where you are going or where you are coming from, there will be a funeral
• If you see a black and white snake and it doesn't hide it's face, you will die where you are going.
• If you are moving and a big bird passes in front of you, it means there is a death in the family.
• During lightning and thunder storms, it is advised to only stay inside, and not to wear red, as it attracts lightning to strike you.
• It is a bad omen to eat a corn husk with three parts; it means you will have triplets.
• If a grasshopper stops and digs in the sand infront of you, and then re-covers it, and you witness it, there are problems in the family and trouble will come by nightfall.
• When a person is struck by lightning, it is believed that he/she was bewitched, or is being punished for a wrong doing.

... After all of this, we told them we wanted some positive ones. People die all the time here, so they dont fear death as we do back home, but they seem to have many excuses for death or other negative occurances. I assert this to their lack of knowledge. I told them of our superstitions on the US, such as walking under a ladder will give you bad luck, or seeing a black cat.. or Friday the 13th, and I realized that our superstitions are linked with negative things as well. But, they were able to tell me two, sort of positive, beliefs:

• If you see a black ant carrying food in its mouth, you will find luck and abundance where you are going
• If your hand itches on the palm, you will receive something good; if your top eyelid twitches, it means you will see something good.
• When rains aren't coming as they are supposed to, you can pray under a Masolo tree and offer sacrifices, and it will rain.

"These are to passed from generation to generation so that each new generation is kept aware of good and bad things. They are meant to teach respect, and to teach young ones to focus and plan for the future." ...I'm not sure how, exactly, but thats a direct quote when we asked the significance of these customs and beliefs to the Zambian culture.

Funeral Practices: In a village, whether you knew the person, were invited, or not, it is important to attend the funeral and pay your respects. This next bit will be my notes from the village community members when we asked them about funeral preparations, they will most likely be unorganized, since I'm about a 6 beers and a glass of wine in at this point, and the power keeps going out and I continue to lose everything I've typed up... I'm just trying to do this as quickly as possible. This will also be in broken English, as I recorded it how they told it.
    When someone is about to [knowingly] die, members of the village will close
 their eyes and mouth as if they are sleeping. They will wash them, and apply lotion, then dress them nicely, after they have passed. They will place a blindfold on their eyes (to keep bugs out) and place them in a coffin. A hole is dug 6 ft into the ground, the coffin is placed, then logs are placed ontop, then a reed mat, and then the dirt. They will place tombstones, with the persons life history. This is a new thing being practiced, graves used to be unmarked, or only had the names. A woman will not cook if her husband has died, until the second visit from his parents.At the first visit, they will shave some of his hair, and at the second they will shave the front part of his hair, as well as give the wife medicine to wash him in, and then she is allowed to begin cooking again. If they want her to remarry, they will throw a chicken or maize at her to let her know that she's free to do so. When someone dies, word spreads quickly. You will bring a chicken to the chief to tell him one of his people has died. People will bring food to the funeral. When someone dies, they are to be buried the next day. Children will be buried within the same day, ASAP.Everyone in the village is expected to show up to funerals. For stillbirths, there is no funeral. A young childs funeral lasts a day, while an older personals funeral lasts from 2 days up until a month, where people will still come to the house to mourn and pay respects. Church services will be conducted, people will give speeches to tell the stories of the deceased persons life. If a man dies, only men will wash him. If a woman dies, women will clean her. Men are the only ones to lower the coffin, while women provide the food. When there is a funeral, no one will work- no planting, no meetings, nothing- all work in the village is suspended, except for the womans house chores, which she will do as quickly as possible early in the morning. The tradition during a time of death is only mourn, cook, eat.

Sometimes things happen..

One of the things that I learned on past service trips is to never go into things with expectations. Another thing that I’ve learned, through life really, is that things don’t always go as planned. And that’s the exact thing that has become extremely evident with the Peace Corps- things never go as planned. So it was no surprise when, after spending 6 days at Bens site for our second site visit, PC never came to pick us up and take us to our individual sites when they were supposed to. They said that they would be getting us at 7am, and when 11am rolled around, we texted the drivers and those in charge to see when they would be there. We had gotten up early, gathered our things from all around Ben’s compound, rolled up our sleeping bags and packed up our tents already. They replied that they wouldn’t be getting us that day, we’d have to spend another night. At this news, we told Ben we were all sleeping in his double person bed (all 5 of us), and we were quite excited that we’d get to walk with him to the headmasters house where there was a TV, so that we could watch the Zambia vs. Uganda soccer match- the first qualifier for AfriCON (Africa Cup of Nations). I read and finished a book I had borrowed from our PC house library, took a nap, cooked some Soya, and then we started on our journey. We packed into the headmasters house, Slumdog Millionaire status, 29 of us in a small room crowded around a tiny TV, and watched as Zambia beat Uganda 1-0. Afterwards, the headmaster told his elderly father that I was single, and he proceeded to propose to me. This is very common, everyone wants an American wife/husband, because we’re apparently rich. I gave him one of my many excuses that I tell everyone else who foolishy proposes to this cold-hearted gal- I must marry an American.  We joked, we laughed, and we slowly danced our way back to Ben’s village, wondering about what we should cook for dinner. When we returned, we lit the braziers and began cooking a simple meal- white rice and soya- and then pondered what drove us to consume all of our alcohol within the first few days, and why didn’t we have any for tonight? We sent Ben’s host sister to a tuck shop to buy us a few cartons a ShakeShake- a Zambian alcohol made from maize corn that they let ferment. You shake it up before drinking it. I had never tried it before, and have only heard that it’s disgusting, but we went for it anyway and bought 4 cartons. The other two trainees with me did not enjoy it, but I told myself it tasted like white wine, and after a while we started adding cinnamon and sugar to it to make it taste a bit better. When the first two cartons had been finished, Ben’s host family comes walking up to his site carrying dishes a food- a regular occurrence. One of these particular dishes, however, contained 3 mice, that had been captured in the field, salted, and cooked in a pan over an open fire. It’s a traditional dish of Eastern, and as I’ll try everything at least once, I decided to partake in the tradition and enjoy a little mouse. They still had all of their fur, their legs, their tails, their nails.. everything. I started by eating its little tiny livers, and then the rest of the insides, and then the legs. They were crunchy, and salty. At first, I pulled the fur from the skin, but then just ate the entire thing, fur and all. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and was sort of chewy and tasted like beef jerky. After [enjoying] the tiny field mouse, we made a campfire, cooked some popcorn, and lit up the hookah while sipping on our ShakeShake, to celebrate an extremely awesome 2^nd Site Visit. As we shouted many times throughout the week, this was the “BEST SITE VISIT EVER!!” We got to experience so much of the Eastern culture- the Nao dancers came and danced for us, we walked to Malawi (who else can say they did that?!), we witnessed a huge bush fire that caused us to haul all of our bags and our butts out of Bens hut so it wouldn’t burn down, we ate mice, we saw a Zambia soccer game, we drank ShakeShake, and we hung out with the locals. Pretty solid.

That night, since we had decided that we weren’t going to set our tents back up if we were being picked up early in the morning, we all crowded into Ben’s room, Ben, Courtney, and I in the bed, Jesse and Andrew on the floor. We had some pillow talk, then just as we were drifting off to sleep,  Ben’s phone rings. He was reluctant to answer it, as it was 11:30 at night, and it was Lauren- one of our bosses who is Acting Country Director at the moment. Ben answers the phone, and I hear him say “Yea, she’s right here next to me.” Now… when Lauren calls, it’s bad news bears. Ben hands me the phone, and the first thing that Lauren says to me is “Caitlin, don’t worry, your family is fine” (she’s the one that reports to us if a family member or friend has passed away or had something terrible happen) and then she continues “But I want you to know, one of your good friends has died.” Now, before Ben handed me the phone, and after her first sentence, I started freaking out that I had possibly done something wrong and that they were going to send me home. Until she told me that: “Paul Blum passed away this evening, due to natural causes. The cruiser will not be picking you guys up tomorrow morning, and you will not be going out to your sites. We want to have you all come back to Lusaka together, so that we can plan a memorial service for him. I am so sorry. You were listed as one of his closest friends, and you are the first person that I am notifying. Can you identify anyone else that was close with him, and do you have their numbers?” The only thing I could muster out was “Oh my god.” And then I broke down crying, and Courtney and Ben started rubbing my back, even though they hadn’t heard the news yet. I told her that I knew other people and had their numbers, but I honestly couldn’t come up with any words. I couldn’t think. We hung up, and within seconds, the rest of us were crying from the news I had to break.  

The good thing about things not going as planned and us not getting posted to our sites this day was that we were all still together when we heard the news. We were able to console each other, to grieve together. Unfortunately, as we were the only ones who weren’t posted that day, I can’t say the same about the rest of our group. There were only a select few of us that were notified late that night of Paul’s passing, the rest finding out the next morning. But I cannot imagine how hard it would have been had I been alone, for the first time in almost two months, in a mud hut in an unfamiliar village without a single person to turn to when I found out the news.

We decided to pack up a bowl of hookah for Paul, as the first time he had smoked hookah was with us, from Ben’s hookah, during first site visit. For the next few hours we laughed, and we cried, as we remembered Paul. We wish to honor the things he spoke of during our training, his dreams of what he wanted to pursue while he was in Africa. Paul was the coolest 65 year old man I had ever met. He was so chill, so easily able to go with the flow, and was completely down with whatever. He’d joke with us. He’d say stupid things. He always hung out with us, even though we weren’t his age- and there are a few people in our intake that are around his age who don’t hang out with us. He was young. And he was so extremely positive. He always spoke about his girlfriend back home, his daughter, and his grandchildren, and would share with us pictures that they drew for him and mailed. Paul was a great guy, an angel, and I’m glad I had the chance to get to know him over the last few months. There are so many things running through my mind about how this could have turned out differently- if they had posted us like they were supposed to that morning, he would have still been with other health volunteers, and someone might have been able to resuscitate him. Maybe, while in his new village, he was saying that he needed help, and they just didn’t understand English or know what to do. There are so many maybe’s, but the fact of the matter is he’s gone now, and nothing can bring him back. We don’t know how he died, so we don’t know if it could have turned out differently. All we know is that we were lucky to have him, and that he’d want us to continue doing what we came here to do. He decided, after 60 years on this planet, that he wanted to give back.  That he wanted to serve those less fortunate than himself. Serving with the Peace Corps had been a long time dream of his. And although we are still in training and haven’t been able to start our projects yet, he’s already changed lives here. I’m glad to have had the time with him that I did.

I knew that when coming to Zambia, I would befriend people that would possibly pass away during my service. I just never thought it would be another Peace Corps trainee, like myself. Our hearts are broken.

Gender roles... but pretty much just sex.

Young eyes should not read this entry.

There is so much that can be said about the cultural differences here in Zambia, that I don’t even know where to begin. Within gender roles and acceptance, there are a lot of differences than what I’ve known in America, and that is/will be a struggle for me to get used to. Not that I have to accept their beliefs, but I do have to learn about them, respect them to some degree, and acknowledge that this is meant to be a cultural exchange.

Women are meant to do all of the house chores here. A woman is considered lazy if she stays in bed until 8am. A man, however, can stay in as long as he would like, and wouldn’t be considered lazy. Boys are meant to go to school and get an education, while a girl is to stay home, care for her siblings, and help her mother with house chores, while learning how to be a woman and take care of a man. Boys eat first when meals are served, and will usually get the better food, while the leftovers will go to the sisters or younger children after he is finished. A woman is responsible for getting up early in the morning, fetching water, cooking breakfast, and sweeping the house/outside grounds as well as mopping. She then does dishes, and serves her father or husband (whoever the male is) their breakfast. She is responsible for taking care of the children, collecting and washing the dishes, cooking all of the meals, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, fetching the water, fetching firewood, selling whatever it is that their family sells, and pleasing her husband to whatever extent it is that he asks. A woman is to kneel on the ground before her man, and in some cases, she is not to make eye-contact, as a sign of respect. She eats after he has eaten and been satisfied with his meal. And if we can get into sex practices, as we talk about very often here, it goes even further.

A woman must succumb to sex at her partners’ wishes, and if she denies having sex with him, it is grounds for a divorce. Before engaging in sexual activity, a woman must kneel on the ground, and clap 3 times. Every few days, she shaves her mans private parts, as a type a foreplay. After sex, she is to take a warm towel and clean his privates, and again, kneel before him, clap, and thank him. When I explained to my bamama what we consider ‘rape’ in America (for the sake of definition, I will simplify it as a man taking advantage of a woman through sex when she has said no and denied him to engage with her), my bamama told me that badada rapes her very often. Now, I think there is a lot here lost in translation, and I know that my badada is not a violent man (and is much smaller than my bamama, I don’t think he could force her to do anything!) and I see a lot of respect and love for each other in their relationship. I’m sure she just meant that sometimes, when she doesn’t feel like engaging in sexual activity, he still tells her she has to. Since I am on the topic of sex, I will explain some other cultural practices around it, and probably go into more tangents (this post was supposed to be about gender roles, and I’ve already switched!). Women here wear beads, which is a string of beads worn around their waist under their pants, never to be seen by anyone but their husband, and worn as a sort of decoration to please their man. There are three main colors of beads that women wear: white, red, and black. White is the color that is worn on a normal basis, so that he husband knows she is okay. Here, men and women, even in a relationship, do not discuss the female body or things that go on with it openly. That being said, the red beads are worn or placed on the bed when the woman is on her menstrual cycle, so that he knows she is not available for sex during that week. When she is finished, she will put the white beads back, so that, again through indirect communication, he knows she is okay. And the black beads are worn or placed on the bed when the woman wants to initiate shaving her husband, and initiate having sex.

Here, it is very uncommon to use condoms, and is pretty much unheard of in a married couples relationship. There are different taboos surrounding condom use, as well as a lot of religious objection to them. First off, if a woman goes to a health clinic and is educated about condoms, HIV/STI’s, birth control, whatever- and she is receives free condoms then presents them to her husband to use, he will think that she is a prostitute and that’s where she has gotten the condoms (sex workers have really low rates of HIV/STIs in Zambia because they use condoms!!). Secondly, the myths such as condoms taking away from the feeling of sex, condoms carrying HIV, condoms not being big enough, wearing 2 condoms=greater protection, etc. are still believed in a lot of the rural areas. Also, because this is a Christian nation, talking about condoms is discouraged, as “it will contribute to premarital sex.” When we go to give health presentations at the schools, we have to check with the headmasters about what we are allowed to present. They usually forbid the discussion of condoms, so our ABC (Abstinence, Being Faithful, Condoms) talk turns to an AB talk. However, the students will bring up the subject, in which we are able to invite them to the clinic for more information- because off school grounds we can educate them about everything, and even distribute free condoms.

There are many cultural things that Zambia is learning from the Western culture and is trying to incorporate into their culture. One of these is gearing away from girls and boys getting married at the age of 15. Now there is a law that they must be 18. There is a high number of very young mothers, I’ve seen a lot of 15, 16, 17 year olds in the clinics that are pregnant or already with child. In going to the clinics and from having health talks at schools, young girls are starting to learn about family planning, and are learning the safe ages to have children without putting themselves or their baby at risk for child/maternal mortality.

Polygamy is still practiced in a few tribes here in Zambia. The tribe that I am now a part of (since I am now a Zambian), Tumbukas, is an example of a tribe where polygamy is still practiced. I’ve even met many married Zambian men who have a woman on the side that they are not married to. When I ask if their wives know, they say yes, but the wife cannot do or say anything about it, the usually just quietly accept it. However, a woman is definitely not allowed to have more than one man. From what I learned, there are lower rates of HIV in Polygamist relationships here, because the man is faithful to his wives. In monogamous relationships, it seems to be the man that brings HIV into the relationship, by sleeping around and being unfaithful. Off topic, and because PC says we have to be very careful about what we say on our blogs, I will just quickly mention: Homosexuality is illegal in this country, and if it is found that someone is gay, they are sentenced to 25 years in prison. And according to The New Yorker, Zambian prisons are the worst prisons in the world.

On the topic of HIV (I’m sorry, this is one component of my job, so I’ve learned a lot about it!), I will talk about dry sex. So, before coming to Zambia, dry sex meant something completely different to me. Since coming to Zambia, I have learned that dry sex is the practice of a woman taking a certain powder or herb, usually received from a village traditional healer/witch doctor, and placing it within her vagina to dry her out, so that she feels “tight like a virgin” and it is more enjoyable for the man. Of course, this causes the woman a lot of pain, but again, it’s all about pleasing her husband. And as you can imagine, the friction causes the female to tear, which… hey! open wounds = portal for HIV transmission = another contributing factor to Zambia having the highest HIV rates in Africa.

Hokay, so, that’s enough of the sex talk. Back to gender roles.. ish.

Yesterday (Aug 30^th, from the time I am writing this) we went to meet His Highness, the Village Chief. I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but in Zambia there are 9 Provinces, each province has a main Chief, who serves with the government (well, all the chiefs are a part of the government), and then in each province, it is divided into several districts. More Chiefs there. From the district, it is divided into Chiefdoms. Each Chief has his Superior Headmen that serve under him, and under them, each village within the Chiefdom has a village Headman as well. The experience of meeting someone who is considered royalty here was crazy, and it’s really hard for me to take serious (although I respect them and am sure I will learn to respect them more as time goes on) because in America we view people as equals and don’t really put people on pedestals. It was weird for me to have to bow down for someone, and we’re also not supposed to look them in the eyes. In fact, not only do women have to kneel (men do as well) but women have to lay down on the ground on their side and clap three times, then roll to their other side and clap three times. You also have to present a gift to the Chief, the best gift being a white chicken. His Highness was dressed in an elegant green robe with a matching green head cap, and walked with a staff/walking cane, as well as some fancy stick that seemed to have some animal tail fastened to one end of it. He entered from the opposite side of the courtyard as us, and was preceded by a group of women singing and dancing a song that announces his arrival and sings praise to him. We all had to stand until he entered, and he was also accompanied by his senior headmen, as well as his security guard. Once he was seated, we were invited to take our seats as well (on the ground) and present our case of why we had come to meet him. He told us how to properly greet a chief in the village, what the responsibilities are as a chief, how one is selected, and many other cultural lessons. He spoke very very highly of himself, was the complete opposite of humble. But eh, he’s royalty!

I recently got my site assignment, and this upcoming week, I will get to travel to my future village and spend 4 days there in my hut, alone! This is to give us a feel of what village life will be like when we are completely on our own, and see if anyone wants to ET (Early Terminate= go back to the US). I’m very excited about my site, but I also haven’t been there yet, so we shall see how these next 10 days go! My counterpart whom I will be working with came to a host workshop at our training center, and he gave me some information about where I will be. I have a little over 13 thousand people that I will serve in what is called my ‘catchment area’. I will live in a village called Komsokoto, on the property of the headman who is named Prince Charles. Prince, for short, has 2 wives that I have seen pictures of, but possibly more. They are building me my own house, which is a lot bigger than the typical house that people and volunteers live in here. It is square, instead of round, and rather than being just one room, it will have 4- two bedrooms, a seating area, and an indoor kitchen. Usually all the cooking is done outside, and as my asthma has gotten worse here from the smoke and dust, I don’t think I will be cooking over an open fire/brazier inside my house. I will most likely just use the kitchen to store my food, as a pantry. The bathroom and the shower are of course outside. They said I will be able to build a fence around so that I’m able to have privacy, which will be nice, and will also help keep my puppy inside! As well as my future chickens. Yes, I plan on building a chicken coop and raising chickens. No, I’ve never done this before nor do I know how. Yes, I will learn. And I will probably fail a few times. But it can’t be that hard, yea? If anything, I already know how to kill chickens and clean them to cook them!

My house is located about 3km from my health clinic in which I will work. I will bike to work every day. My clinic is severely understaffed, as it only has 2 trained staff members, rather than the required 5. My counterpart is a very educated man, and has gone to med school here in Lusaka, at the most respected Medical school in Zambia (one that I was possibly thinking about attending after my service with the Peace Corps, should I wish to stay in Zambia). He is an Environmental Health Technician, but also acts as the doctor and midwife at my clinic. Which is great for me, because I really want to learn midwifery and help deliver babies. He’s also working on a lot of the projects that I’m supposed to do in my community already. Another great thing, as I am a first generation volunteer. I was hoping to be a first gen vol, but I also wouldn’t have minded being a 2^nd or 3^rd, and coming onto projects that had already been established, in a community where they understand what a Peace Corps Volunteer does and what our jobs don’t entail (such as giving money, or doing everything for them). In my village, they have never seen a white person before. I know I will face many challenges in being a first generation volunteer here, but I’m also happy that I won’t have some huge shoes to fill of an amazing past volunteer, and not be able to live up to their expectations ;) I get to set the groundwork, and represent ‘Merica! And I will do my best. By golly gee wiz.

That is all that I have time for at this moment. Sorry this was all over the place… but you know what? It’s my blog and I can do whatever the fun I want! I’d also like to mention that I ate an entire jar of Nutella in one day. No shame. Chocolate is a commodity.

-Anya Ambrosia (how I am referred to in my village.. my Tumbuka name for the time being is: Taonga. That means 'Thanks'. I told them it was stupid and to choose a better one for me.) :D