Banja Yanga

There were at least 20 of them. Enclosing in on me like an avalanche of eyes and hands. Bobbing, grabbing, pushing, shoving to get closer. Younger ones scrambling over older ones to get a better view of the mzungu. Hair pulling ensued. They had not seen one this close. What would her skin feel like, her hair? Does she eat nshima? Ah, she smiles too! Mzungu, mzungu!* Curiosity takes hold…

This was my first encounter as I approached the village compound that would be my home for next 3.5 months.

later that day

As soon as you bring out the camera, the scene changes. Everyone insists on having their picture taken

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My household consists of four single females and it rocks. “Amai" - or Mom, a mother of seven, Queen the breadwinner of the family (she works for Zambia State Insurance), and Sharon, 20 years with a daughter of 18 months.

Amai

She speaks the least English in the household, and I the least Nyanja, yet I think that I am able to communicate with her the best. She works harder than almost everyone I know and is constantly one step ahead of me.

In my efforts to help around the household, I am usually more of a detriment than any source of assistance. When I am reading, she replaces my candle before I notice it as a mere stub. If I leave my scuffed blundestones out for the night, they are polished in the morning. When I make my bed, I come home to find that it is made better. She washes last night’s dishes, draws water, and already has nshima on the boil while at the same time washing clothes and probably carrying something on her head before I barely get up to brush my teeth.

In front of our house, there is an abandoned clay hut. Amai has hired neighbours to do the piecework to smash the hut into a pile of the clay.

The crushed clay is then moulded into bricks,

which will be used to build an extension of our kitchen (unless cement powder is mixed in, these are the building blocks for all residential construction here, they are moulded like so and then burnt) - we live in a brick house with a tin roof with no electricity. Almost all of our neighbours have a clay house with a straw roof. We don’t have to walk far to draw water as we have a well in our backyard. So by these standards, we are a rich household in the village compound.

From our backyard

At the end of the day, the pile of stones must be covered with water so that the heap does not dry overnight.

I come home from work and I find them at this task. I fumble over the words, “Nifuna neme tiendezeni - I would like to help.” It always starts like this.

“But your feet! You don’t have no shoes.” She points at my bare feet. Then I point back at hers. “Niether do you!” She laughs so I draw water from the well, carry the bucket (though not on my head yet) to the pile, and with great zeal dispense its contents. I return with clay caked between my toes, trousers covered in splatter, and dress shirt ruined. And it usually ends like this.

Whether at my attempts to cook or store food (which has brought rats) or tie my chitenge, Amai has been known to laugh at me for five minutes straight. And even after all this, she will still take me in and call me her daughter.

Sharon

For the first few days, I had thought that the young one belonged to the eldest sister. Yet I would wonder why Sharon, who is my age, tended to the baby day and night. After everybody has gone to bed, dishes must still be cleared and clothes must still be ironed. So Sharon will often do this. If the baby cries, Sharon will do this with the baby strapped to her back. Sharon wants to be a nurse or a teacher, both career paths currently out of her reach financially so right now she is studying to work in customs, maybe in Tanzania she says. She is gorgeous and sharp as a whip. I want to tell her that she can be anything that she wants to be. We admire eachother, but in different ways.

When Sharon was 17, she gave birth and the man left the picture. Young pregnacies are common in the compound village. Sometimes, when the family finds out that the young woman is pregnant, she is not accepted back into the family and so must fend for herself and the baby. Alcoholism is also a huge problem here.

When Amai found out that Sharon was pregnant, she accepted the child into the family and named it blessing.

Blessing

People react differently to skin colour. Many years ago, when the Portuguese first arrived, the Ngoni people thought the white man was some sort of strange, white baboon. In my experiences so far, dogs have chased me, children grab my arm to feel my skin or reach for my hair (school children in numbers are a force to be reckoned with)… in some of the villages that I visit for work I am the first white skinned person that they have seen, so some will stop what they are doing, drop both hands to their sides, and just stare.

But Blessing, man! For the first week, she couldn’t stop crying. When I would look at her and smile or attempt to ease the situation, things would worsen. I’m sure I was the cause of many headaches that week. Amai would just laugh.

Blessing ready to cry

Queen

Some things are expected to be assumed, others need to be forced in front of you.

For my first “La Mulungu" or Sunday/Day of Worship, I went to church with my family (religion and its infleunce on daily life is very different in Zambia than in Canada. With mention in the constitution, Zambia is predominately a Christian nation. The question is not whether you are religious, but “what church do you go to?”). It was the weekend of African Freedom Day,

so much preparation and practice had gone into today’s activities. For someone with little to no religious upbringing, church was...

....people breaking out into spontaneous dance, elder women hollering and crying out in bursts or when someone was congratulated on their achievements (the women do this thing where the tongue wags back and forth and it sounds like Zena the Warrier Princess), songs so beautiful and beyond my ability to describe. I wish I could have recorded their voices to play them here.

Halfway through, a group of people in flocks hauled in a gargantuan sack. Underneath their flocks read, “TB: ANYWHERE, EVERYWHERE.” The sack was cut to reveal a stack of blankets, dozens upon dozens (right now it is the cold-dry season and it gets very chilly at night). The blankets were for members of the church who had loved ones lost to HIV/AIDS.

Names were called and I watched as one after the other, ophans and widows, stepped forward to receive their blanket. As the stack dwindled, “Queen Banda,” my sister is called. She stands, walks to the front, receives her blanket, and then quietly sits back down beside me. Some things are expected to be assumed, others need to be forced in front of you.

I cannot overstate the impact of HIV/AIDS. It is a living pandemic, it is everywhere and affects all aspects of life here. I’ve heard statistics ranging from 17.5% to 40% of the population is affected, it varies depending on where you are in Zambia. In Chipata, a person will die everyday. Many people also do not get tested and there are rumors about the disease that perpetuate its dissemination. It is on the radio, on billboards, in churches, and in schools. In the media, it eclipses the impact of other prevalent sicknesses like malaria...

It is as though on every other field visit for work, we arrive at a community to discover that there is a funeral. There is no community mobilization and nothing you can do. The meeting is cancelled and we pack our bags and go home. When a chief dies in a village, there is no business activity for a week (or else fines are imposed).

To hear that HIV/AIDS hampers the economy and the nation’s development, affecting young adults, the most productive part of the population (in some villages that I have visited, there is a disproportionate number of elder people and children), bringing life expectancy to 30.5 yrs (In 1996, life expectancy in Zambia was 50. It’s 80 in Canada.), or that it so badly afflicts the education system (it is estimated that up to 45% of teachers are positive), is one thing. But to actually see it, is another.

My sister Queen

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On the day of my arrival to the village compound, I knelt down to shake hands with the youngins that had surrounded me …

As I asked their names and ages, frantically trying to gather their responses, Queen explains that only a few of them have parents. Some have none, others one. This single parent will leave for Chipata to clean, crush stones, stack bricks, work the markets, or perform other "piece work" jobs in the informal sector, returning every 2 or 3 days to bring the children and extended family food. “One or maybe two meals today, saving the other for tomorrow. This is how they survive,” Queen says. And I had to close my eyes and turn away.

*Please refer to * on post "A Day in a Life"