America.. here I come?

**This blog was written November 30,2011 the last night in my village before I am gone for a month, I will be in Lusaka (the capital) for a workshop for a week and a half before I fly to America on December 14, I won't return to Zambia until January 5th. It will be the longest I have been away from Zambia and my village since starting Peace Corps 16 months ago. So apologies in advance if it is a bit over dramatic. The village does that to you sometimes.***

I am sitting here in my hut, watching a huge rainstorm that has been building all day over my little village. I just cooked my counterpart our last lunch together for a month, I just packed up all of my clothes under my bed in suitcases ( so my various little rodent friends won't eat them while I'm gone) and although I am leaving my village tomorrow , right now America couldn't seem further away.

I have been counting down this day for months, marking my calendar as the months went by and thinking of all the things that await me at home, but now that the day has come my emotions are mixed. Of course I am so excited to go home, sleep in a bed that doesn't have a rat living above it, eat food without having to substitute dairy products for fake yellow cheese, and to see my family and friends. However part of me will remain here. Part of me will stay with my kids as they draw on my porch ( which is what is happening currently as I write). Part of me will stay with my PC family as they travel to surrounding countries to celebrate the new year. Part of me will stay in my village reading in my hammock and listening to my kids giggle and dance outside my door.

It has been a year and a half since I have left this continent and a year since I have left Zambia (I went to Malawi last new years). It's a weird feeling that is hard to describe even as I try. For example, a baby was just dropped on my porch by one of my iwes. In America this would probably be considered neglect by the parents of said child ( her name is Emma and I have attached a picture), as the iwe in charge of this baby is only 10 years old. However here, it all works. I love that I don't know who emma's mom is and probably won't know as she is probably a women passing through to collect caterpillars ( it is caterpillar season here in Kalaba and people come from all over Zambia to collect them). But for now Emma and I are playing and bonding and getting along quite splendidly and this is normal.

These are the things I worry about going back to the states. I'm worried I'm going to try and hold any baby found anywhere. Grocery store, gas station, restaurant, I will probably try and hold them . Secondly my "famous" status will go on reprieve for the first time since arriving. When I go running, to town or just outside of my house I won't have children screaming my name and calling after me. In an interview with former President Bill Clinton, I heard him say one of the weirdest things to adjust to after finishing his presidency was that they stopped playing a song every time he walked into a room. I feel you Bill.

But with all of the weird changes and social norms I am sure to break, I think I will survive in the end. I'm sure to offend strangers by staring at them blankly ( a social norm I have become accustomed to) or wearing something that was " so 2009" ( which is the last winter I was home). However even with all of it, I can hardly wait. To see my family and friends even for a few short days, weeks, or hours, is worth breaking every rule in the book. So get ready, because here I come!

First Rain

**This blog was written September 30, 2011 as a journal entry in my village**

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year for Jews around the world. Today we had our first rain in Zambia, the official mark to the end of dry season. Although seemingly different, both symbolize a beginning. Rosh Hashanah is a time where we are suppose to look back and think about our past year. We are suppose to think back on things we did wrong, sins committed and decisions we hope to learn from. We are also suppose to look at the parts we did right; prideful things, ways we have grown and changed throughout the past year. Rainy season, or the first rain, is similar to Rosh Hashanah in a lot of ways. It's a clean start, everything has been burned (my yard was just burned last night-the scariest/coolest thing I have ever seen) and people are ready and waiting to plant again. It's a new season, maybe a chance to plant something you have never planted before, for Ba Shaderick that will be watermelon, for others maybe cabbage. For Zambians just like Jews and all Americans really, the timing of Rosh Hashanah, is the calm before the storm. For Zambians, it is hot season. A time to rest and try to survive the immense heat which has appropriately been named "Suicide Month". For Americans October it a time to enjoy the cool weather, the new football season where every team still has a fighting chance, and halloween where everyone gets to revert back to childhood and just have a night for dress up.

Next comes November. For Zambians this marks the beginning of rainy season because when and only when the rains begin can they start planting. Everyday from 04:00 am to 07:00 am they will all be in their fields planting. Being precise with every seed is crucial for a good crop. As that one head of cabbage, or row of maize could feed their family for a week later in the year. They will timelessly plant and hope that the rain will continue to fall. For with every drop, their harvest will improve.

For Americans November means one thing, Thanksgiving. Although many (mostly men, no offense) don't know this, mothers across America will start planning, cooking and preparing for Thanksgiving the first day of November. Whether it is deciding which family to visit, where to have it or who will attend, there is always something to do. November 1st, start your engines. It takes a whole months to plan Thanksgiving because after Thanksgiving (and for some literally the day after) Christmas begins. Lights start going up, presents start being bought , holiday cards being sent out, the list never ends. This falls true for Zambians as well. December is also a crucial month for rain as January will be when the first crops start trickling out of the ground. December is also when the children get out of school here, although at the beginning of the month, rather than in the end like in America. It is scheduled this way so fathers have more hands in the field, while women have more kids in the kitchen. However this is where things start to differ drastically.

The end of December in America means gorging yourself. Gorging on Christmas dinners, festive holiday drinks and work parties galore. It's a time where you keep telling yourself you will start that new diet at the first of the year. In a lot of ways December means excess in America. Excess food, drink, presents and cheer. In Zambia, December means hunger. It marks the beginning of "hunger season". A time where crops from last year are running low and crops from this year haven't come up yet. It's a time where children will go a little hungrier, mothers more warn out and fathers less prideful. It's a month where families will go a whole day with just one meal and patiently wait for the night to fall. Although this is partially the families and farmers faults as the opposite of hunger season is waste season. Food sustainability is a big problem in Zambia and you will see many children in April (when crops are plenty) throwing maize meal at each other as a game or feeding the whole village while they should be saving it for later in the year (like December). Whatever the reason, December is not an easy month for most Zambians.

The longer I am here the more I notice the similarities and differences in my two worlds. On one hand we are all the same, mothers worrying, fathers working and children playing. On the other hand, like when it comes to December, we are worlds apart.

Mothers-Education-Dance, just a few thoughts from the village

So this blog post is a little different than my previous ones. Instead of writing one long blog about a certain event, thought or experience, I have put together three separate journal entries that I wrote during different times in my village. They are just thoughts and observations taken at different times throughout the last month. So here I go, hope everyone enjoys.

Bamaayos (Mothers/Women)

As I sit here reading, waiting for my participants to finish their tests, I am amazed. Bamaayos, women in Zambia, are incredible. They sit through their trainings with babies on their backs, having to get up and leave the room every time they start crying. They learn and take notes as their babies’ breastfeed on their laps. Then, when the big final test comes a child gets sick and throws up over her mother's lap. The mom looks frantic, trying to take care of her sick girl and move her paper out of the way of her child's vomit, all the while still trying to take her test. She calms the child, makes sure she is ok, put her back on her lap and whips out a breast for her to breastfeed on. Now it's finally back to test time. Bamaayos- the strongest people on earth.

Education

With all of the problems that are talked about with the American school system, and I agree with a lot of them, it's nothing compared to here. I just finished going around to all of my zones and giving Post Tests to make sure they had been trained properly as an NHC. At every one the question would have to be asked, " who doesn't know how to read and write". Remember the test that was given was written in Bemba so the people who don't know how to read or write are illiterate in their own language. At every single one of my 14 zones, at least two or three out of 15 and sometimes even topping off at half the group would be illiterate. When my counterpart would ask the question (only so he would know who to take outside and verbally give the test to) the few people almost always women would shyly raise their hands and giggle in embarrassment. I would always try to flash them a reassuring smile trying to tell them without speaking that I was so proud of them. They just sat through a 3-day training where their only learning tool was to listen. They are doing this voluntarily, for no money, only to help their community who has failed in giving them a proper education. So maybe that's why they are so brave and strong. Maybe they are trying to give the education they were deprived of to their children, grand children and great grand children. Education. The longer I am here the more I am convinced it is the key to the future of this country. With better education Zambia could grow into the successful country it's meant to be. However like all things, it's so much easier said than done.

Dancing

Why don't we dance after meetings or trainings in America? I think I might try to start a revolution when I get back to America. After every single one of my NHC trainings that I have visited over the past two weeks, we have always ended with singing and dancing. They are celebrating being finished with the training, being given this gift of education and a chance to help their community. Plus they just love to dance. Think about it, it could revolutionize the work place. After every meeting or long conference call, everyone gets up and sings and dances. It would lift worker's moral, get people moving a bit (maybe a small step in the fight against obesity), and its just a little extra fun in your day. It will probably be years until I have a "proper office job" (sorry mom and dad) but when I do, I am dancing.

This American Life.. but not

**This blog was written a few weeks ago in the village**

This past week, I was back in America, kind of. Before you start writing the hate e-mails, I wasn’t actually in America or else I would have obviously called all of you prepping you for my arrival and all of the wonderful food we would eat and drink we would drink. However I was back in America in the sense that for the first time in 12 months, I had a schedule. I got up around 6:00 am, I went for a run (although it was through the African bush with little children chasing me), I took a shower (or bucket bath in the cold mornings looking up at the massive Zambian sky), I got dressed (in chitenge and tank top), made breakfast (used the leftover coals from heating my water to heat water to make oatmeal) and then went to work at 8:30(walked 5 minutes to my clinic) and came home around 16:30 (walked the 5 minutes back to my house), immediately got into my pajamas, listened to the news and went to bed (around 20:00/8:00 pm). So OK it wasn’t EXACTLY like America, but like I said, it was the closest I have gotten to being there in over a year.

Why did I have this unusual schedule when my normal one usually consists of one meeting a day and cleaning, cooking, and doing other chores the rest of the day? Because I finally held my NHC Training of Trainers!! So now you are probably asking, what the heck does that mean? It is a bit confusing but I will try to explain it in the easiest way possible. An NHC is a Neighborhood Health Committee. The rural health center, which I am connected with, contains a catchment area of 14 “zones” AKA collection of villages, each which has their own NHC. The job of an NHC is to give health education to the community, do small projects to raise money for a health post where the clinic comes once a month to give immunizations to children under 5 and be the general link between the village and the Rural Health Center. These NHC’s are crucial as they are only link between the village and any health education what so ever.

When I first got to my village in September of last year I started going around to visit all of these NHC’s and soon realized that although they were “formed” none of them were functioning. They didn’t know the jobs of an NHC and weren’t educated on any of the six health thrusts of Zambia (which include HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Reproductive Health, Nutrition, and Water and Sanitation.). These health thrusts are the top issues in Zambia’s health care system and what I was trained to teach about in the village. However this information wasn’t getting to the villagers through their NHC’s, which is why I decided to focus on it as my first big project.

Now it might sound crazy but I have basically been working towards this training since I got to my village. It took 3 months to just bike and visit all 14 of my zones during my community entry. Then I had to apply for a grant in order to get enough supplies, food, etc, to hold this training. Then I had to wait for the grant to come through and put a schedule together comprising of different facilitators throughout my RHC and the District Health Office who could come and help me to train. The way in which I decided to organize it was to have Training of Trainers where we picked two people from each zone to come to training for five days. They were trained on the six health thrusts of Zambia as well as exactly what an NHC is and why it is so important. After this five day training they are to go back to their zones and each train their own NHC. This is what is happening as we speak. Then over the next few weeks I will be traveling to each of the zones and checking to make sure the trainings actually happened, giving a post test to verify that the proper information was given and then give certificates of completion (which are a really big deal in Zambia). Whew. Did you stay with me throughout that?

Anyway, so the training went really well and I am thrilled that it did. Everyone showed up on time, they participated and seemed to be learning a lot. It was one of those moments where I truly appreciated Peace Corps and the work I am able to do here. Just watching them learn and really feeling like this would make a difference, even in a few peoples lives, was one of the most rewarding feelings I have had in Zambia. Also, this past weekend I hosted new volunteers in my village and decided to take them to one of the NHC trainings, which was happening. I want to preface this with the fact that I wasn’t planning on going to any of the trainings until the last day when they had worked out all of the kinks. However this was the first day and I was extremely nervous that they wouldn’t be prepared, or nobody would show up or the whole thing would be a bust. I was happily surprised. They were there, they were prepared and the training seemed to be going extremely well. I really did feel like a proud mother. I know not all of my NHC’s will be this great and after this not all of them will be as active as I want, but with everything here even if half end up being successful I will consider it a success.

I hope you all could keep up with that crazy explanation. It really is hard to explain what we do here sometimes. Either way you hopefully got a small idea of what I do here and why I love the work so much. It has officially been a year since I landed in Zambia and the amount I have learned about myself, my work and my village is amazing to me. I truly do learn something new everyday, as cliché as that sounds. So its one year down and one to go, I can’t wait to see what this next year brings.

P.S. the picture at the top of the post is the last day after we had finished the Training of Trainers. Felt like a proud bamaayo ( mother).

Dream or Reality? Family Vacation 2011

The day came and the day has gone, Simmons family vacation 2011 is officially over. I can say without a doubt in my mind it was the vacation of a lifetime for all involved. We ate, we drank, we flew in small plans, we saw lions mating, we relaxed next to one of the wonders of the world, and we really did it all. So let me not get ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning.

As I mentioned in my last blog post my father, mother and brother all flew into Zambia on June 13, 2011. I greeted them at the airport and it was immediately as if no time had gone by at all, that is why I love family. My Dad and brother were already making fun of my mother for a comment she made on the last flight, she was rolling her eyes and holding me hand (I think relieved to have another girl in the mix after being the only one for a year) and I was just smiling and taking it all in. We spent their first day in Lusaka, doing a little bit of walking around but mostly just talking and trying to catch up on a year of missed one on one time. That night they got to meet their first of many PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers). My friends Ashley, Brooks and Angela all went out to dinner with them and everyone got along famously- not that I was surprised as PCV’s are some of the best people I have ever met and my family is also quite easily liked. So we drank and ate at a restaurant which is rarely visited because of our “Peace Corps Salaries” AKA we are broke, and had a great time. The next day I got to show them the famous “Manda Hill” Zambia’s one and only shopping mall and then we were off to Mfuwe!!

They boarded their fourth flight in two days and I boarded my first in over a year. After hitching to Eastern province last December on my way to Malawi (a 5-hour hitch in a really good ride we got lucky to get), we were in Mfuwe in less than an hour flight; this is where my dream state began. Getting somewhere in Zambia in less than 5 hours of standing by the side of the road, meeting and greeting strangers and taking sometimes questionable transport, this couldn’t be real!? We arrived in Mfuwe and were taken then on a four-hour ride through South Luwangwa Park in order to get to our Bush Camp. Instantly after getting into the camp we were seeing Zebra, Impala, Elephants, Oh my! It was incredible and everyone got their first view into what our Safari was going to look like. When we finally arrived at our camp it was pretty late at night, maybe 20:00 (8:00 pm) and I just figured that since it was so late we would probably not have dinner and just crawl straight into bed—silly peace corps mentality. No, instead we were greeted with hot chocolates by the staff and a man asking what time we would like dinner, as it was already ready, we said 15 minutes and it was ready in 15 minutes. Not just dinner but a 3-course meal of the best food I have had in my entire life. Dream state was continuing and getting even more vivid. Maybe this was a Malaria prophylaxis dream; they are usually pretty outlandish and vivid. Definitely had to be the prophylaxis. So then we continued to be pampered and see incredible animals for four days. The mornings we would wake up early and be out on Safari by 6:30 and back by 10:30. Then we would have an early lunch/brunch with incredible food that was all made from scratch on site- I ate my weight in whatever they gave me, after this vacation it was back to rice and stir-fry for another year. Then we would have a Siesta from around noon until 16:00/4:00pm. This was wonderful as it was the heat of the day so we could read in the shade, nap in our incredible beds, and shower in our outdoor shower while watching a herd of buffalo go by and just relax. We would usually set out on another drive in the afternoon for our night drives which were amazing. We would drive for a while until right when the sun went down when they would stop at some absolutely magnificent spot where we would have “Sundowners” or cocktails as the sun went down. Then it was off for another hour or so of driving where our drivers could spot a tiny chameleon in a tree with their spotlight, which looked like a leaf to the naked eye. Incredible. So after our wonderful Safari was over it was time for “the real Africa”, village life.

We were first welcomed in Mansa by some more PCV’s who were sweet enough to make my family a welcome sign and clean up our often cluttered provincial house. After a quick tour of Mansa (not so much to see) it was off to the village! Seven of us packed into a small car and off we went. The Village was wonderful. I am not going to lie I was a little concerned about this part of the trip as we were going from one extreme to another and I have heard some horror stories of parents crying every night they are in their child’s village, wondering what their crazy child is thinking, etc. However the Simmons clan did fabulous! We cooked them a delicious stir-fry the first night and hung out and got them acquainted with peeing in a hole in the ground, using candles and headlamps when the sun went down and of course playing with my children. The next day the village took over. It was father’s day so we cooked my Dad some delicious pancakes for breakfast and just hung out a little while. Then it was off to the festivities! We went over and took a short tour of my clinic and then started watching all of the Bamaayos (women in the village) cook every dish I have ever heard of and some I hadn’t even tasted yet. They cooked for hours and we watched for a short while before the drumming began. Then the drumming began and that’s when things started getting crowded. I think the majority of my village was in the surroundings within 5 minutes? This seemed more normal to me, back to reality, I was famous again and everyone was staring. Dream state went on a reprieve for a short while. Then the traditional dancing started and it never stopped. It was wonderful, my youth sang welcome songs, the whole community got up to dance and my family got to see what a traditional Bemba dance looked like. Obviously at the end they wanted us to get up and dance so thankfully my fellow PCV’s aren’t so timid, so we all got up and showed the village the skills we had learned in the past year. I must say they are still talking to me about it and I am sure will be until the day I leave Zambia. Then it was time to feast. As my parents looked a little dubious about the meal, eating with your hands and what this mush in front of them was, my brother dug right in. I was impressed by his nshima eating skills. A lot of people think it’s an acquired taste but he put down a good amount. As for myself and my PCV’s it was like Christmas—Chicken (never ever get in the village because its too expensive), all types of ifishashi ( ifisashi is any vegetable which they mix with pounded groundnuts making kind of a “creamed spinach” type of dish) and fresh fish (we usually only get to eat the dried tiny fish), it was wonderful!! The rest of the afternoon we just laid in our Nshima Coma’s- often can’t move after eating so much Nshima, and my family got their last play time in with my iwes.

The next morning it was back to the dream state. We left my village at 6:00 am and were in Livingstone by 14:00. This would usually be at least a three-day trip for me. One day biking into Mansa and getting my things, then hitching to Lusaka which on a good day you can get there in less than 12 hours and then another day of hitching to Livingstone. I was dreaming again. We spent the next four days relaxing, eating more delicious meals and seeing the amazing Victoria Falls. We also had a few adventures which included Bungee jumping with my brother while my parents very daringly watched from a café overlooking the gorge we were jumping into with a cord tied to our feet, as well as riding elephants on our last day through the river and into the sunset.

Before I knew it the adventure I had been waiting on for so long was over. I was waking up from the most amazing dream of my life. Except it wasn’t a dream, it really happened. I know this may seem like an obvious statement but I have to keep writing it out to remind myself that it’s true. It was a wonderful vacation with the people I love the most in the world. I got to laugh, joke, talk, discuss, debate and explore with them. All of the things I am lucky enough to do with my Peace Corps family now but that I will always miss doing with my real family. As the trip came to a close I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel, saying goodbye again for another long period of time. Although it was hard I felt shockingly content after the last hugs and kisses were given. I have lived in Zambia for a year now and it really has become my home. I have an amazing support system in my fellow PCV’s and my fellow villagers, I have a hut that feels like home and a country which I can’t seem to breathe in quick enough. The vacation was incredible and something I will remember for the rest of my life, but so is my Peace Corps service and that in of itself will always make me want to wake up from a dream.

Ulupwa mu Zambia!!

The day has finally come, the anticipation is at its highest, in just three days on Monday July 13, 2011 the Simmons family will finally touch down in Zambia!! I am overwhelmed with excitement about their arrival as it will have been 11 months since I have seen them. I can’t wait to show them Zambia, a country that I have fallen in love with and continue to discover and explore everyday. I will also be lucky enough to experience parts of Zambia, which I haven’t been able to see yet, including my first Safari in South Luwangwa national park in Eastern province. After our four-day Safari we will head to Kalaba, my village for two days of “roughing it” (AKA reality to me). My village is ecstatic about their arrival and has planned a huge celebration where I am pretty sure they are preparing enough food to feed my entire village. Finally we will head to beautiful Livingstone and Victoria Falls to relax and soak up one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

As my family's arrival continued to get closer I started to think about all of the differences in American and Zambian culture. I decided to compile a small list of “advice and adjustments” that they might find useful when coming to the “real Africa”. It is quite a funny list to the outsider’s eye so I thought I would share it with you all.

Lusaka/Arrival:

1. Talking about the airport, I will be there to pick you up and it will be near impossible to miss me. There is one gate, one terminal, and customs, passport control; security and baggage claim are all within one room. Welcome to Zambia!
2. The cab drivers will try and charge us a “muzungu” (foreigner/white person) price. Just smile and let my Bemba skills go to use. This is when they come in hand the most. They will most likely cut the price in half when they realize you aren’t their average tourists.
3. Lusaka (the capital of Zambia) is not a realistic view of Zambia. Most compare it with South Africa as every store, restaurant and amenity is from South Africa. Nonetheless it has restaurants, which we lack in Mansa (my provincial capital) and obviously in the village. Therefore I will be really excited to eat food, which you are used to consuming everyday in America. Just let me get excited and chuckle silently to yourselves when I change my mind of what to order 10 times because I am overwhelmed by the amount of choices.
4. The reason we are only staying in Lusaka for a day is because there is nothing to do there but eat and shop so if you want to “see the sites” we will have to just wait until we get on Safari.

Village Life:

1. When we arrive EVERYONE in my village is going to stare at you constantly and probably won’t stop the entire time you are there. This is because of a few reasons. First, we are arriving in a taxi, which is probably the only car they have seen all day. Second, we are white and we are many (as they say here in Zamlish). It is already an event when I arrive alone from a weekend in Mansa on my bike but now there will be four white people which is basically like having the Beatles, Lady Gaga and Brangelina show up in your town at the same time.
2. There will be kids around my hut constantly. Even if you don’t see them they are like the children of the corn (literally hiding in the maize fields) or trees or bushes. They might be scared at first but eventually they will come out to play and they will no doubt melt your hearts instantly.
3. EVERYONE is going to want to greet you. In Zambian culture greeting someone is one of the most important and respectful gestures you can give. You greet people at every point in the day, morning, afternoon and evening. So we will work on your Bemba skills before you get here and they will think its amazing and hilarious if you even attempt to greet them in their own language.
4. They are going to call you fat. This is not because you are fat. They call me fat, they call my friend fat who barely weighs over 100 pounds, this is because it is a compliment to call you fat. It literally translates in Bemba, as “you look good or healthy”. This is the result of living in a 3^rd world country where malnutrition is a very real issue. To call someone fat means they have enough food to support themselves and their families, which is a rarity in the village.
5. My hut is very small, very very small. We will make it work but it is going to be tight. Just think of it as family bonding time.
6. My village and I have been waiting for your arrival ever since I moved there in September. So enjoy all of the beauty that is Zambia and is the African bush as it is a view of Africa that few people truly get.

I think that is it for now. I will be sure to write another blog when our wonderful vacation is over. I can’t wait for all of the stories, jokes, and amazing experiences we are going to have together. Mwende Bwino (Travel Safely) and see you so soon!

Love to all of you back in the states and thank you so much for being so supportive this past year. Knowing I have such a strong support system near and far is something I value dearly. Love and miss to all of you!

Reality in May

I want to preface this post with a note. I love Zambia, Zambians, Peace Corps and the work I am doing here. However it is hard hard work that comes with a lot of emotional and physical difficulties. So this blog post isn't my usual peppy happy blog post but I don't want that to come off as a negative thing or have anyone think I still am not loving it here. I just think its important to share the reality that is living and working in a third world country. With that said the following blog was written in my hut over the past few weeks and I have transferred it to my computer. Therefore it is read kind of as a mix of a journal entry and blog post. I hope you all enjoy...

Some of you may have noticed that I skipped my monthly blog in May. The reason for this wasn't because I was particulary busy or was on vacation, it was because May was a hard month. It was a month that I wasn't sure I wanted to share with my blogging world. However now that May has passed and we are onto a new month I have decided I think it is important to blog about May. All of my previous blogs have been of my adventures, experience and lessons learned in the village. May was a learning month but in a much harder and different way.

I returned from vacation at the beginning of May after being away from my village for 3 weeks. It always takes me a day or two to get back into the groove of village life; the constant Bemba, being constantly watched but also kind of lonely. However this time there was additional hardships which came in the form of funerals.First let me back track and say that in April the day before I was about to leave for Camp Glow and my subsequent vacation there was a funeral next door.
In Zambia you know a person had died when you start to hear wailing. Wailing is the only way to describe the noise that comes through my hut however it seems more than wailing to me when I hear it. It seems like women loudly yelling out their hearts, souls and tears for the person they have lost. It is the truest expression of grief I have seen in my 24 years in this world.
So the day before I left I was cooking lunch like I do everyday for my Zambian counterpart and I. I was in my insaka (a kind of open gazebo) and started to hear the wailing. At first many times it is hard to tell where the loss of life has occurred or who it is affecting as people come from surrounding villages wailing as the walk from kilometres away. However I asked one of my children and they informed me it was my neighbours granddaughter who had passed. My heart dropped as her two granddaughters are two of my favorite kids. However I soon found out it was a granddaughter from another daughter of hers who lives on the village over. I did not know this little one. But the second I could take a breath of relief I just kept thinking it could have easily been one of my little ones.
The child mortality rate in Zambia is one of it's biggest problems. Children die daily from curable illnesses such as malaria, diarrhoea, and malnutrition. I know this not just from living here but from being a health volunteer who reads the statistics and articles about it everyday nonetheless who sees it daily at my clinic. However this never makes the reality any easier. On my way out the next morning I stopped by my neighbours early in the morning to offer some salt and saladi - cooking oil, as that is what is customary when someone is grieving. I wanted to sit and sing with them and the over 100 people who had slept outside and in their yard that night but truthfully I wasn't comfortable enough yet and so I biked off into town, hoping it would all he better when I returned.
I returned in May. My second day in the village it started again. Wailing. Constant, all encompassing wailing. This time it was the mother of one of the girls in my youth group. I couldn't get a clear reason for her death - a common issue here. Some said she fell off her roof, others said she started coughing blood ( a possibility that she has TB but since there is stigma surrounding TB as it is often an opportunistic infection related to HIV many don't seek treatment). Either way his time i was ready and really wanted to go to the funeral, especially as I had just been with the girl the day before. So I went. Women were wailing, people were singing and talking. It was a Sunday so they combined the church service with the funeral. Here it is traditional to leave the body out in the open so people can pay respects and wail over it until it is buried later in the day. In the middle of the service a few of the bamayos - (village women) that I knew tapped me on the arm and pointed to my arm hair. It was a chilly day so my arm hair was standing up which they thought was hilarious. Zambians don't have much body hair so seeing mine put them on a tizzy. It was a nice break in the service. I left the service early - as they can go on all day- and went back to my hut to reflect and cook some food. Although the funeral was incredibly sad I still felt a bit lucky. I hadn't really known this women although I m sure I had waved to her many times, I couldn't place her exactly and felt lucky that once again I had been one step away from the true grief.
Then Tuesday May 17 came where I wasn't so lucky. I was in Mansa doing some work for my my training and was getting ready to head back to my village. It was early in the morning probably around 06:00 and I got a call and text message from my best friend emanual in the village.

From this point forward I am just going to copy and paste my journal entry from that day. The grammer is horrible, sentences disjointed but it is the truest description of what happened and how I felt. It is very personal to me but at the same time feel its important to share..... I titled it grief that day and just started writing.

I think grief and grieving is such an interesting emotion. Today Ba Emma and Stella’s first born one month old daughter, Florence passed away. They will never know why as Zambia’s health care system isn’t up to par to diagnose anything other than malaria and a headache outside of the main hospitals in town that nobody can afford. I was suppose to meet her next week. I kept meaning to give emma baby blankets and onesies that my dad sent but I forgot. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had given them to him. But then would that have made it harder for him? To have a pink blanket and onesie with no little girl to go into it. I mean I am sure they have clothes and blankets that she was wrapped in but for some reason I feel like it would have been harder if it was something I gave to him. But I still wish I could have given it to him.

The only type of grieving I have seen in Zambia is at funerals in the village. I have only been to two. One during community entry when my bamaayos friend passed away from “ high BP- blood pressue”. It was more of a cultural experience at that time. I was taking in the wailing, the waiting, the singing, the following of the cast. It was very sad of course but I was so detached at that point that it didn’t hit me too hard. The second funeral was the one I went to in Kalaba. It was for one of my youth’s mothers. I I felt included when I was invited to the funeral as it was the first I was invited to in my village. This one hit a bit closer to home. It was my village, my neighbors, the wailing could be heard from my house and I had had a meeting with the youth a day before and had laughed and pushed through brush with the daughter. Still, it wasn’t like this.

This one was raw. Emanual was my first and still best friend in the village. Maybe it is because his English is good, maybe it is because for the first few months we were both bachelors living on our own, maybe it is because he is an outsider from Chipata (Eastern Province) like I am from America. For whatever reason we have stayed close friends for the past 7 months here. He has been there when I needed help finding things in the village, would feed me even when he has no money to feed him and his new baby and when Stella came opened her up to me just like we were the three musketeers. This wasn’t a perfect pregnancy. It was an accident. Stella still has one year left of school and when I found out she was pregnant I was FURIOUS at Emma. HE IS A YOUTH, he sells condoms in his shop, how could this happen!? She only had one year of school left, she was a smart girl, she has been through so much in her life and still beat the odds by making it to high school. But she was pregnant and that was not going to change. So then I started worrying she wasn’t eating enough, working too hard. She was my first pregnant friend and she was Zambian which is a completely different pregnant culture than Americans. I had no idea what to do but was just worried. Then the baby girl came into their lives.. Flo.

I found out while all of the crazy riots where going on in Mansa. I was worried because I knew they were planning on going to Senama clinic which is close to where the riots started. Luckily I found out it was ok they delivered at central clinic and mom and baby were healthy. Now it was time to plan a visit. But first I had a bunch of funerals in my village and started getting busy with the NHC planning. So my plan was to visit her during PEPFAR training at the end of May. I would be here for a week and I could give them the baby clothes then. Then came today..

Got a phone call and text which I assumed was Brendan (my ride) telling me about when he was going to pick me up which was instead Emanual saying his precious baby daughter had passed away early this morning. I called immediately. He sounded devastated on the verge of tears. I lost it when I got off the phone. I called my mom in the middle of the night American time. I needed to talk to someone. She was wonderful per usual and calmed me down and talked to me for as long as I wanted. Then I wanted to run, to get out. So I ran. Then I went over in the afternoon. I expected wailing like usual but found out since the baby was so young that the tradition is different and they bury them right away. So instead it was more like a wake where you go and just visit. I sat there as they told me the story of baby Flo and how sick she got. They tried to take her to the clinic but they couldn’t help. So then they resorted to traditional medicine which I have no idea what they even gave them, but like Emma said, they had no other option? I would have done the same. As other people came, Stella moved closer to me. Eventually we were just holding hands as I watched tears stream down her face and could physically feel the pain radiating off of her. It was one of the hardest moments I have ever been through. No words had to be spoken. Just holding her hand, she wouldn’t let go and neither would I. Eventually I had to go, more people were coming and I needed to get back. I told them both how sorry I was again and left. Stella is 17, Emma is 26, they lost a baby today and I don’t know how they are dealing. I do know that all I can do is try and be there for them as I know they would be for me. They are my family as I am there’s.