Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Discipline Problems

One of the hardest aspects about working in the schools around Livingstone was operating in a system that frequently uses corporal punishment on students. In fact, corporal punishment (“beating” as it’s known here) is really the only system used for discipline in the schools. As such, it’s the only type of discipline to which the students respond.

Beating typically involves a teacher having a student or group of students fetch a branch from outside. She then proceeds to whack the kids on their backsides. Typically, the whack isn’t malicious, but more of a stern reminder about proper behavior. Other teachers prefer to beat the children by whacking the back of the eraser on their fingertips. In all the instances I’ve observed, the punishment is not overtly abusive. Other volunteers, though, have had to witness outright child abuse.

On principle, I am adamantly opposed to corporal punishment. I believe in that violence begets violence. If physical punishment is the only way to resolve problems in school, how will these students solve adult problems in the future? However, I also do not believe I can question the cultural values displayed in Zambian schools. I can respect this honest cultural difference. Under no circumstances, though, can I participate in the beating of a child.

The frustrating part for me and the other volunteers is that corporal punishment is the only effective way to discipline the classroom. More peaceful techniques such as yelling, removing students from the room, “time-outs”, or any other non-violent method simply do not work. More often than not, the regular classroom teacher will intervene when discipline problems get out of control by having a student fetch a branch. Many teaching volunteers, including myself, quickly become disenchanted by this process and found little fulfillment in the Zambian classrooms. This is regrettable because the children are absolutely wonderful, but victims of a broken discipline system. Hopefully, a solution can be found to avoid this problem in the future.

Zac

Language lessons

When I told people I was travelling to Zambia, many worried I would struggle with the language barrier. I always confidently replied that I’d be fine since English is the national language. On this account, I was both right and wrong. English is, in fact, the official language of Zambia. Like most African countries, Zambia retained the lingua franca of its colonial master (Britain in this case). However, I have had to struggle with the language barrier.

In Zambia’s 9 provinces, one will find a total of 73 tribes. The unity that’s been achieved among these tribes is a huge source of national pride. Frequently, we’re reminded that neighboring Zimbabwe only has two tribes but loads of problems. With so many tribes, there are inevitably many languages and dialects. In the schools, students all learn English and Chitonga (pronounced “tonga” with a long o and the “chi” silent). Many of the tribal languages across the country are dialects of Chitonga, including the language spoken by most in Livingstone, Chinyanja (again, the “chi” is silent so it’s pronounced nee-YUN-ja – I think it sounds sort of like “ninja”).

Chinyanja is spoken across much of Zambia and pronunciations vary from place to place. While most Chinyanja speakers can communicate across these cultural lines, an outsider like me would struggle to catch on.

The language isn’t overly complicated to learn as words are generally pronounced just the way they look. One quirk of the language is that there are two forms of most words. One is used to address peers or people younger than you; the other is used to address elders, respected figures, or groups. The simple difference is that the word for elders adds an “M” to the beginning of the word.

We had one chinyanja language lesson that helped me pick up a few words. Here are the most common phrases I use:
Mwauka bwanji - Good morning (also implies How are you?)
Bwino - the response “mwauka bwanji” meaning “fine”)
Muli bwanji (How are you) - if addressing a younger person, I’d remove the “m” to say Uli bwanji
Zikomo – Thank you
Mwachoma bwanji - Good afternoon

Here’s an example of a short chinyanja statement: Mwauka bwanji. Nili bwino. Ndine Zac. Nilina zaka 23. Nichokela ku America. Tuzaonana bwino. Translated, I said: Good morning. I’m fine. My name is Zac. I’m 23 years old. I’m from America. See you later.

Around Livingstone, the dialect of chinyanja usually drops the word endings so “bwanji” becomes “bwanj” and “zikomo” becomes “zikom”.

The local residents enjoy it immensely if muzungus attempt to speak the language and are very patient with us. They also like to practice English with us, so the cultural exchange works both ways.

Tuzaonana mailo (See you tomorrow)

Zac

Monday, July 28, 2008

Leah's Update - Afternoon Projects

Well it is the beginning of our last week in Zambia and I must say time has flown by. I have never experienced days that go so fast. The clinics are always busy in the mornings and I usually get at least one interesting case a day (like a young girl who obviously has broken her arm because the bone is pushing out the skin) so my mornings go extremely fast. To my surprise I have found that my afternoon projects are by far the most fulfilling. I love working in the clinics but they are seldom a happy place. During the afternoon however I teach an adult literacy classes, work with home based care, and I plan and present anti-drugs and alcohol presentations for school kids. I have talked about working in the clinics before so today I would like to talk about these afternoon projects.

Adult literacy is a project that I originally did not want to do. I do not enjoy teaching or having to plan lessons. However over time this has become very rewarding experience. I work with two different classes. One class has the ability to read novels so we are working on skills such as resumes and letter writing. My other class is at the completely other end of the spectrum. They are a very low level class. Because I have had no teaching experience it is much harder to work with the lowest level but it is absolutely the most rewarding. Today with the help of a translator we taught a group of six women the alphabet and the sounds for letters A-L. One of the hardest things I have had to is explain that each letter has a name in addition to a sound. I was then asked what sound the letter X makes. The women that I work with in these classes study every night, they usually have to bring their young children to class with them, and the highlight of their day is when you grade their work. If you put a sticker on their paper they light up. I would like to note that today I work at a new location for our program and it is the poorest area I have been in. During this class I helped an elderly woman named Agnes Ngome write her name for the first time. Our great victory for the day is that when we asked the class to write their names at the top of their papers all six women could do it.

Home based care is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I want to start by saying that there was quite the struggle here over volunteers working in the only hospital in Livingstone. In the past volunteers that have had previous medical experience were allowed to job shadow in the hospital. However they could only shadow and were not allowed to do any hands on work. This year the hospital is demanding that volunteers pay 200 USD to shadow their physicians. I was pretty bummed because I wanted to work in the hospital but I was not willing to pay the money. Plus I was getting hands on experience in the clinics. What really lifted my spirits was the afternoon that I was told I had to pay to shadow in the hospital I did my first home based care. During this home based care a team of local women took me and another volunteer around a poor neighborhood and taken into people’s houses. We sat with several native people who are so poor they are literally dying in their homes. These ‘clients’ can not afford the 1.50 USD to visit the clinic. Every client has AIDS, TB, or both. When we meet the clients the local women translate for us as we do a quick history review. We then do a medical examination followed by our recommendations for improving their quality of life. The only tools we have available are aspirin, an anti-inflammatory, pain-killers, multivitamins, rehydration salts, antiseptic, bandages, fungal cream, and antacids. These tools don’t add up to much when in Zac’s words, “We are fighting AIDS with aspirin.” We can however make very practical suggests especially on dealing with the side effects of their medications. Common side effects of HIV and TB treatments include swollen feet, loss of appetite, and diarrhea. I know that a lot of volunteers do not like home based care because we are very limited in what we can do for the clients. Other volunteers try and give money to the clients, thinking that they are going to save them. The sad truth is that the majority of the clients we see are already dying and no amount of money is going to save them. I personally believe that the point of home based care is just to show these individuals that someone cares about them and is willing to help. Some of the people wait all week for the day that the volunteers come in to their homes and talk about the weather. One very apparent cultural difference here is that people (especially in the medical system) never complain. This means when you ask a patient how they are doing the answer is always good, great, just fine and then they ask how you are doing.

One other project I wanted to share with everyone is a new program simply called Anti-drugs workshop. One of the local schools requested that volunteers set up an anti-alcohol workshop for there students. Apparently the school has a problem with nine year old students coming to school drunk. I and three other volunteers put together a presentation that seemed pretty good to us. When we actually when to the school it became the worst project I have done here. When we started our presentation the kid’s teacher left for the day and the kids quickly became extremely hard to control. Because corporal punishment is regularly used in the schools the students will listen to nothing else. I should also mention that half of the kids didn’t really speak English. To end our program we split the class in half and asked each group to come up with a skit about the harmful effects of alcohol. By this time I was ready to give up on these kids and walk back to town. I took my group outside and tried to explain to them what we wanted them to do. Half of my group went to play soccer or left for the day. I was very frustrated and just before I was going to give up a young boy named Anderson decided that he would take charge. He stood in front of his classmates and explained what he wanted them to do in their local language. He got the remaining students excited and gave each one of them a role. He developed a skit where he as a student went to school drunk and failed his seventh grade exam (the single most important exam in a Zambian’s life). When a student playing a teacher would ask him a question like ‘what is 1 plus 1’ he would reply with a ridiculous answer like ‘Zimbabwe.’ And while the drunk person failed their exam everyone else passed and went on to great things. I was so proud of these children. I can’t even describe how great it was to watch them create this play. Then came one of the most difficult thing that I have experienced while here in Zambia. As we returned to the classroom so the different groups could present their plays to each other a World Food truck pulled up. The men driving the truck came in and demanded that all of the male children help unload the endless 100 pound bags of corn. The students spent the next 45 minutes that we were there caring bags that were bigger then some of the students. They never did get to perform their play and I personally felt so defeated that I wanted to cry. I wanted to share this project with everyone because I think it is so symbolic of what we see everyday. There are so many people here that strive to do good, live a good life, and achieve something and then the reality of their lives and their surroundings tear their efforts to shreds. Whether it is abuse, poverty, rape, marring young, disease, unplanned pregnancy, the demand to provide, or any of the things Africa is notorious for it ruins lives before these kids even have a chance. I would like to note that we have now completed another anti-drugs workshop on marijuana and this one went a lot better. However because the school is very close to a holiday we didn’t have many of the students who were there at the first presentation.

With love from Zambia,
Leah

Botswana Weekend

The weekend brought another amazing mini-vacation, this time to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We enjoyed a relaxing weekend full of big game and big memories.

The border crossing into Botswana is just about an hours drive from Livingstone. Botswana and Zambia, though, do not share a land border, but instead the Zambezi River marks the boundary. In the US, a basic bridge would span the river. Here, we had to ferry across the Mighty Zambezi to the border post. While on the river, we are technically at the intersection of four countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. It’s like the super-sized version of the 4 Corners!

Shortly after crossing into Botswana, we hopped into an open-air safari vehicle. It was a briskly cold Botswana morning, but we managed to survive. We keep telling everyone that this is nothing compared to North Dakota winters! After this short drive, we pulled into a small dock along the Chobe River and boarded a motorboat for a game-watching cruise. Our group, which consisted of us two Americans, an Australian, and 3 Dutch folks, was joined by couples from Spain and Italy to form our own little UN on the Chobe.

The cruise was quite wonderful. We jetted along the Chobe, which demarcates the border between Botswana and Namibia. We game across such game as baboon, vervet monkey, waterbuck, crocodiles, hippos (including a massive “island” of hippos – probably 50 all together), monitor lizards, African fish eagles, and kingfishers. We got so close to many of these animals, especially the massive crocs!

After the cruise, we headed to Elephant Valley Lodge (www.evlodge.com) for lunch and to check-in to our accommodations. The lodge is nestled nicely into the African bush and includes a watering hole frequented by elephants. Each “lodge” is actually a permanent tent that includes hard flooring and a bathroom with shower. It is an absolutely fantastic place. I couldn’t keep track of how many times Leah said, “I love this place!”

After lunch, a brief nap, and high tea, we headed out on an afternoon game drive into Chobe National Park. While the boat cruise was quite nothing, it paled in comparison to the drive. The long list of animals we saw in abundance includes impala, kudu, giraffe, African hornbills, helmeted guinea fowl, Cape buffalo, vultures, jackals, and elephants. Chobe’s 11,000 sq. km park is home to nearly 85,000 elephant, so we literally saw well over 100 elephant during our drive. Most of these animals are right next to the vehicle. It’s quite something to be within 5 feet of a giant elephant. Many of the elephants actually had small babies with them. Our guide spotted one baby he presumed to be only one or two days old! Before we left the park, we heard reports of lions on the prowl. Our wonderful guide quickly found their trail and led us to two young male lions scavenging a baby buffalo that had been killed. Again, we were within 15 feet of these animals!

We left the park in total darkness. Our guide shown his spotlight along the bush on our drive home and was able to spot two hyenas, adding to our list of animals. During our wonderful dinner back at the lodge, we marveled as over 25 elephants paraded to the watering hole for an evening drink.

In the morning, after a great breakfast (Perri, our Australian friend, believes we were on an eating safari more so than a game-viewing safari), we headed on another drive into Chobe. While we saw many of the same animals as before, we added the sable antelope to the list. Our group was determined to find zebras also this morning. On the way, though, we made an even better discovery when our guide spotted a leopard! We saw it only briefly and from a bit of a distance, but even that glance is a lucky feat in Chobe. We have now seen four of the “Big 5” with only the rhino left to cross off the list. By the way, we never did find the zebras. So sad….

Exhausted, we headed back to the lodge for a last meal and to check out before heading back to our final week of volunteering in Livingstone. One interesting thing we noticed in Botswana was the government’s proactive approach to fighting HIV/AIDS. In each government building, like the border and national park visitor center, were distribution stations with free condoms and brochures with AIDS education information. These were funded by the Botswana government. With the highest HIV rate in Africa, it’s no wonder Botswana is trying anything that might work.

As we are leaving on Sunday, I’ll do my best to update the blog frequently while reminding Leah to post as well. The time is flying by here in Africa!

We hope all is well back in ND!

Zac (with a little help from Leah)

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Livingstone Living

Livingstone is a wonderfully interesting city. It’s the capital of Zambia’s Southern Province and the country’s most important tourist location. Behind copper, I’d assume tourism is Zambia’s second most important industry. Including all of its (impoverished) suburbs, Livingstone has roughly 140,000 people, so it’s fairly similar to the F-M metro area in terms of population. The similarities don’t extend much beyond that. For instance, there are no traffic lights in Livingstone. Of course, the need isn’t great when there are only a handful of paved roads. Really, there is only one short stretch of a “downtown” type area. It’s centrally located along the always-busy Mosi-Oa-Tunya Road. Here, one will find stores, banks, bars, restaurants, and markets. It is really a thriving commercial area. I even spotted a Chinese restaurant the other day!

With its large size, one will find nearly all occupations in Livingstone. In Zambia, the traditional patriarchal society is still the prevailing custom, so men dominate most of the white-collar professions. Women, though, are not overtly oppressed and do hold some important positions. Beyond traditional jobs, many citizens are street sellers. Some set up stands in the suburban areas while others line up goods on the sidewalk. Others still just carry goods in their pockets. It’s impossible to walk the streets without being offered cell phones, bananas, or copper bracelets. Watch out for the illegal money changers who will happily trade you some photocopied kwacha for your US dollars or British pounds.

Along Mosi-Oa-Tunya Road, I most frequently stop by a bank’s ATM, Wonderbake (for some goodies), ShopRite (for groceries), or an internet café. However, one can also find an ice cream parlor, several sewing shops, many restaurants and bars, and even a small casino. Of course, there are more unique features such as the David Livingstone Museum and the offices of the UN World Food Programme.

Thinking about Livingstone leads me to categorizing some of the enduring memories I’ll take with me from this great place. Chief among these is the image of Zambian woman. This image takes two forms: a woman effortlessly carrying a heavy load on her head or a woman with a small baby attached to her back by a simple piece of beautiful African fabric. These women are incredibly strong-willed and physically strong to boot. At Mwandi school, the kitchen women carried 50kg bags of maize and carried them on their heads. That’s over 100 lbs!

I’ll also always associate Livingstone with a burning smell. Sometimes this burning smell is a small fire used to fry up some fish or other foods. More often, its burning piles of garbage. Whatever the case, this woody/charcoal-y smell is quintessential Livingstone in my mind.
The sounds of Livingstone to me are honking car horns. The horn honking is not an aggressive sing of road rage like in the US. Instead, horns are used as gentle and friendly notices to other drivers to alter behavior, or more commonly to just say hello to a friend. For me, the honking horn also always signals the arrival of our project buses. It’s like an extraordinarily obnoxious wake-up call. In addition to car horns, I’ll also think of street vendors and curio shopkeepers offering an energetic greeting of “How are you my friend? Come see my shop. Looking and touching are free. All prices are negotiable.” Ahhh…if only Wal-Mart was like that!

Not many people make their home in Livingstone proper. Instead, they live in the suburbs/townships/compounds like Mwandi, Linda, Maramba, etc. These areas run the gamut of wealth. Some houses actually appear quite nice. Almost all of these are made of concrete breeze bricks and are ramblers. However, most of the homes in the neighborhoods are much simpler. Some may be built of concrete bricks but will be left unfinished. Most have an outhouse-style toilet, even in the poorest communities. I suspect some foreign aid source or agency funded that project at one time. In the poorest areas, houses are built of mud that dries into a fairly sturdy clay. Some yards have extra large tents that are labeled as gifts of the United States. Of course, these homes are literally side by side with no room for a yard, as if grass grows here anyway. Truthfully and thankfully, most of the homes are serviceable dwellings that are at least a bit adequate for raising a family. They are nowhere near Western standards of even the poorest homes, but the families here are not screaming for more luxury.
Another feature of Livingstone is the huge dog population. Every night I fall asleep to a chorus of barking canines. All the dogs here look like they are direct descendents of some sort of doggie Father Abraham. I have never seen so little variation in such a large population. All the dogs are the size of medium sized labs and have similar type of fur. Some dogs have homes (I know because the gates have signs warning me of this), but most are strays.

Livingstone truly is a remarkable place full of vigor and joy. Like many big towns, especially those in African, many of its modern Westernized trappings cover up the real stories seen in the compounds. Poverty, hunger, disease, and overpopulation are rampant in Livingstone. After experiencing the city for over 2 weeks, I firmly believe that the power of the gracious and kind people here will overcome the evil forces of those agents and lead to a thriving Livingstone not so far in the future.

Zac

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Zimbabwe Weekend Part II - Leah's update

After taking a quick nap we went to the main lodge where they had a restaurant balcony that over looked a watering hole. We watched the sun go down and then we had a really nice supper with our friends. During our supper we watched an elephant eat from a tree and water itself. We also saw a large cat but we are not sure which kind it was. The next morning we had to get up early again to fulfill Zac’s dream of riding an elephant. We went with a tour company that prepared a wonderful breakfast which we ate on a deck that was on a river in the wildlife protection area. After breakfast we mounted our elephants and road through the park. In the park we saw buffalo, kudu, and giraffes. After our tour we went to a huge market where things were generally pretty cheap. When we were done haggling at the market we departed for Zamiba.

People both here and in the US are very wary about traveling in Zimbabwe however I felt that it was a much better area. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe is much more beautiful and well kept then Livingstone Zambia is. And in Zambia we often feel resented while we are here but in Zimbabwe people were incredibly nice. Zac and I had a lovely conversation with a woman who was causation and had been born and raised in Zimbabwe. She told us that if she was American she would have moved away but because she is Zimbabwean she has chose to stay because the people are so nice. When we talked to other citizens they all seemed to hold the view that Mugabe was a good president when he was first elected. You can see this in the roads, buildings, and developments that are found in Zimbabwe. It is only in recent years that Mugabe has become so corrupt. People are still proud of their country, and want their country to be better. They do not want to just leave and live somewhere else.

Today (Monday) I returned to work in one of my favorite clinics. Things were pretty uneventful except that I had to perform two malaria tests today. When a patient comes in with a high fever and complaining of headaches the clinics around here like to run a malaria test. The test is simple but it does require you to stick the person with a needle to get a blood sample. And of course these clinics do not have the nice automatic stickers so I had to do it manually. This was a bit unnerving but I now feel very competent at running the test which will really help out the small clinics that I work in.

Leah

Time and Money

Being a (white) volunteer in Zambia presents some unique struggles. Foremost among this is the (mostly accurate) perception that all muzungus are wealthy. Of course, in comparison to the material wealth of Zambians, most of us volunteers are rich. However, I firmly believe for the success of future volunteers, I must maintain I’m here to give my time and not money.
In the teaching projects, some of the biggest need is in infrastructure. Most of the community schools need to repair rooms or add more classrooms. If there would be more money, they would build an office for the teachers and perhaps another toilet for the children. As I re-learned again today, the decision to build and the actual building could be done in short order; the only struggle is finding the money.

Some volunteers have taken it upon themselves to fund individual building projects. At the most basic level, this is a great thing as it meets the needs of the community. However, it also puts other volunteers in tough spots. Once the school leaders learn that the volunteers are willing to pay for things like that, the requests for more money flow in. I have no doubt the need for money exists; however, not all volunteers can meet that need. For instance, the school I worked at today required over $7,000USD to complete its work. The other volunteer I was with suggested she might donate that amount. I could never come close to that without some large scale fundraising effort. I now feel I can’t compete with her value at the school.
Similar problems exist on the medical projects. During the home-based care project, volunteers dispense basic over-the-counter medicines and simple medical care to the homebound and those unable to afford the costs of the clinic. Some volunteers, though, also hand out money on these visits so patients can buy prescription drugs. Now that the precedent has been set, other volunteers are constantly harassed for money and not able to do the good work they set out to do.

Above all these practical problems, the whole situation lies within the context of a bigger moral dilemma. It’s obvious that as a Westerner, I have much more material wealth than almost anyone we work with on the projects. It’s hard to escape the sense of obligation one feels to share this material wealth. But, as others on projects have noted, one must think of the old saying about the virtues of giving a man fish or teaching a man to fish. We might not be teaching anyone how to fish here, so it’s tempting to at least feed people fish for one day. However, we all know what the right answer is to the dilemma posed in that age-old quandary. In Zambia, though, it’s hard to see when the right answer might actually happen here.

Despite this moral quandary, I don’t think African Impact or other volunteer groups can survive in the long-term if volunteers are also handing out funds. There needs to be a clear distinction between volunteering services and donating money. When the line is blurred, so are the benefits of both.

Zac

Monday, July 21, 2008

Project update

I officially left Mwandi school at the end of last week. As I mentioned earlier, the school is a success story and I simply wasn’t needed there. That is very much a good thing.

This week, I’ve started at Malota school. This school is African Impact’s newest partnership. It’s also the smallest and poorest school we work in here in Livingstone. Unfortunately, after just one morning there, I know it’s still not a good fit for me.

This school only has 2 classrooms. In the morning, grades 1 and 3 come for classes. There is already a volunteer in the grade 3 room, so I was put into grade 1. Regrettably, English is not taught until grade 2 at this school. As such, I’m virtually useless to the classroom. Today, all I was able to do was review the English words for certain body parts and sing Bible songs with the kids. To be fair, I LOVED singing the songs like “Jesus Loves Me” and “Whose the King of the Jungle?” The kids already knew “Jesus Loves Me” and sung along with enthusiasm.

As of now, I’m thinking about suspending my work in the teaching project for a bit. African Impact is doing some building projects at certain schools, and I feel I could be more useful there.

This afternoon, I’m headed to play football (soccer to those of us in the US) with the kids from Mwandi, and I’m sure that will be fun. The afternoon projects and Leah’s medical placement still continue to be great. I’m excited to give building a try tomorrow.

I’ll keep you posted…

Zac

PS - Before I left Mwandi, I noticed a gift box from Operation Christmas Child in their main office. It's really neat to see that the project that is such a big success at Faith actually does benefit communities like this.

Zimbabwe Weekend Part 1

Greetings at the beginning of another week in Zambia. We are officially at the halfway point of our stay here and will return to West Fargo in exactly one month. Yay for home!

This weekend, Leah and I traveled to the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We are going to split blogging duties about the weekend. I’ll tackle the first half.

Crossing the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe is a bit of an interesting process. In many ways, it is much easier than the US/Canada border. No one asks you questions or searches your vehicle. On the other hand, though, the need for buying visas makes the lines long and slow. We probably waited at the border for over an hour just to get 15 people across. That’s nothing compared to the line of semi trucks that stretch a mile on either side of the border crossing. We were told these trucks often wait in line for 3-4 days to cross the border.

In Zimbabwe, we stayed at a lovely place called Lokothula Lodges. The spacious lodges were almost luxurious compared to our accommodations at Mushili Way. Having got in later than expected, we rushed off to the Boma for supper. The Boma, which means “eating place” is a buffet style restaurant featuring traditional African food and entertainment. At various points in the evening, we played African drums, visited a witchdoctor, and wore African robes. Some of the food I sampled included lamb, chicken, pork, warthog, ostrich, guinea fowl, and kudu (a type of antelope). The warthog was absolutely wonderful! Leah and I both were brave and tried to the Mopani worms. We even have the certificate to prove it! Truth be told, they weren’t bad at all.

The next morning, our group got up before dawn to participate in a lion walk. African Encounter, the parent organization of African Impact, also runs a program called ALERT/Lion Encounter which is a breeding and rehabilitation program for the African lion. The program involves raising cubs from a young age, acclimating them to human contact, and eventually relocating them to various game reserves where they can breed and then their cubs will be completely wild having never been raised by humans. In doing the lion walk, we not only contribute financially to the organization, but also help them by giving the lions more human contact. The organization does have a website if you want more info. Google ALERT and Lion Encounter and you should find it!

After a brief education session where I learned all that, we began the lion walk. I thought it would be a pretty fun experience, but I was absolutely blown away at how awesome it was. Leah and I got to frequently stroke the lion and pose for pictures with it. We were accompanied by a brother and sister that were 18 months old; the brother, however, was a bit temperamental and didn’t want to be touched so we stuck to the female. The staff was incredibly enthusiastic and took loads of photos of each person with the lions. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that won’t soon be forgotten.

Though very tired, Leah and I went with some friends to the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls after the lion walk. There is quite a debate over whether the Zim or Zam side of the falls is the best. After seeing both, I can’t quite decide. If someone wanted to know which one view to see, I would recommend Zimbabwe because it offers a crisper more complete view of the massive Victoria Falls, although the view is not necessarily “better” but different. In Zim, you can literally walk to the edge of the gorge and look over, but be careful because they have no guard rails. It’s an awesome experience to walk through this tropical rainforest nestled in the midst of the dry African bush while getting soaked by the mist of Victoria Falls. Wow!

Leah will go through the rest of the weekend’s highlights, but I just wanted to make a quick note about the political situation in Zimbabwe.

As purely a tourist town, Victoria Falls is quite isolated from everything. We did, though, see political posters for the MDC and Morgan Tsvangarai. Mugabe’s official presidential photo is displayed in most buildings, though. The biggest evidence of a crisis was the lack of tourists in Vic Falls. The markets, lodges, and everything else is taking a big financial hit because of the news out of Harare and other areas of Zim. It was shocking to actually see the 5 billion dollar Zimbabwe note that is worth $1USD at best. However, the evidence of Mugabe’s good side was also apparent. The city was considerably cleaner and more modernized than Livingstone. The streets seemed much safer, even in the midst of a crisis. If anyone asked me if they should visit Livingstone or Victoria Falls (the town), I would definitely recommend the Zimbabwe city. I just hope and pray that the people can return to some sense of normalcy. They are a kind, welcoming, and friendly group of people and deserve a good leader. With the news breaking today about upcoming talks between Mugabe and Tsvangarai, let’s hope things get better soon.

More to come about Zim from Leah and more to come from me about my experiences in Livingstone.

Until then,

Zac

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Picture Time

We’ve had some requests for pictures, so here you go. One thing that’s fascinating so far is that the Zambian people (especially kids) LOVE to have their pictures taken. “Mister, mister…can you copy me?” is what they ask me any time my camera is out. With digital cameras, they are able to see their picture immediately, and it’s a great joy to watch their faces light up and hear their laughter. Like Leah mentioned, these people we work with most benefit from our loving attention, including the camera. We haven’t taken a lot of pictures working at actual projects yet, so I haven’t posted more than a couple pictures of Zambians because the pics we have right now of the people don’t have a lot of personal meaning. Once we bring the camera to our projects, we’ll post again.

By the way, we won’t be posting over the weekend as we are spending the whole weekend at Vic Falls on the Zimbabwe side. It’s very safe and we’ll be with a group of about 15 from African Impact and just staying in the tourist areas. I’ll post about that experience on Sunday night or Monday.

Cheers,

Zac

**Ok. The Zambian internet connection is quite strong enough to upload pictures. I'll keep trying at other cafes or wi-fi spots and hope to post some photos soon. Sorry.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Leah's first post!

Hey Everyone,

I realize I have been in Africa for a week now and this is my first post. I apologize for that. I have been incredibly busy here. Zac and I share our evening and weekend experiences but our day experiences are quite different. As you know Zac is in the teaching program, and I am in the medical program. Obviously the medical system here is a bit shocking compared to the US system I have been quite surprised by the conditions. Each morning I work in one of the five clinics in Livingstone. For a patient to be seen by a doctor (which are only found in the hospitals) they must be referred by a clinical officer. Clinical officer is a position that was created by the Zambian government in order to keep medical personal in their clinics. Therefore, no clinics have doctors, and the clinical officers have only a little more training then a nurse. It costs about 1 USD to be seen by a clinical officer. If a person has the money they can skip the clinic and go straight to the hospital for 3 USD. I should note that almost no one can afford to bypass the clinic.

When I first arrive at the clinic I take the vitals (temp, weight, blood pressure) of all the patients who wish to be seen by the clinical officer. We are also responsible for weighing infants and tracking their monthly weight progress. At the first clinic that I worked at, only two out of the three clinical officers showed up and they were over two hours late. The treatment of patients is also hard to get used to. In this society it is looked down upon to show weakness or express physical pain. During child labor mothers must remain silent. If they moan of yell they are yelled at or even hit. Patients sit and wait for hours without ever complaining. I have had a child with severe burns on his leg and a man with his finger almost severed sit and wait patiently for me to take their temps. When children cry they are disciplined, and the mothers apologize. Doctors, nurses, and clinical officers are very cold and usual abuse their positions. They often talk on cell phones and leave randomly during patient interviews. This is all extremely frustrating.

Half way through the mornings I usually go sit in with the clinical officers to gain experience. This part of my day has come with its own challenges. Clinical officers often ask me for medical advice like, “Do you think this is chicken pox?” and, “Do you think that hand is fractured?” They will also ask me my opinion on what drugs to prescribe. Since being here I have diagnosed syphilis, preformed a lung exam on a tuberculosis patient, diagnosed gonorrhea, taken patient histories, confirmed a pregnancy, and reviewed the bones of the human body with a nurse that did not know them. To say that the medical system is broken is an understatement, but I am happy to be here and there is progress being made. One of the five clinics is in relatively good shape and hopefully others will improve with time.

In the afternoon I work in community projects such as adult literacy classes and elderly homes. I find that the people of Zambia usually appreciate your work, but they more so appreciate our attitudes. We are the only people who smile in the clinics; we are the only people who ask how they are and compliment them. Volunteers come here with a caring attitude, and that is something that the young and old, and ill and injured really need here.

More to come,

Leah

Monday, July 14, 2008

Confusion

First off, Leah is working on some updates to post soon. All of you waiting anxiously to hear about her medical placement will be rewarded shortly with news from her!

After a week here, I’m still quite confused as to what my purpose is within the teaching project. To be honest, African Impact is often very disorganized. We as volunteers tend to have nightly complaining sessions about all the mistakes we think AI made each day. Nonetheless, the organization has done amazing things in and around Livingstone like building schools, creating HIV education and adult literacy courses, and creating opportunities for afterschool art and sports clubs for kids. The good work of African Impact here cannot be disputed. When it comes to managing and utilizing its individual volunteers, though, AI could do much better.

The whole teaching project in Livingstone is a bit confusing. I mentioned in prior posts that most teaching volunteers are placed into one classroom for the duration of their stay. Ideally, most volunteers help the teacher with grading and lessons and can make time for those struggling with the subject. In reality, though, African Impact volunteers in the classroom just create an excuse for the regular teachers to not show up for work. To be fair, most of the Zambian teachers are also volunteers. However, they would faithfully come to teach each day if AI volunteers were not in the classrooms. As such, it feels as if we teachers are more problematic than productive.
In Zambia, as I mentioned before, standardized tests and rote learning are really the only teaching methods used. Being a trained educator, I’d love to offer better instruction, but feel it’s pointless and actually counterproductive because the students must adapt to learn in the style their regular teachers use. The cultural gap between Western teachers and Zambian students also hurts progress. For instance, I had to teach simple interest to the math students today. These students had never even been to a bank, let alone worried about interest rates.

My concerns are not unlike most other teaching volunteers who are struggling to find a role. I have yet to speak with a teaching volunteer who feels useful and needed in their schools other than to give the regular teacher an excuse to stay home. There seems to be such an opportunity to help with education here. I’m on the verge of requesting an assignment change, but the better option would be to find a way to use my skills and training to serve Livingstone’s students. Perhaps with some patience and prayer, clarity will come my way.

With frustration,
Zac

Weekend Update

One of the nicest features of African Impact is it gives you the weekends off to have some fun and encourages you to invest some tourist dollars into the local economy. To be sure, plenty of others are here just to do simply that; it’s nice that touring is secondary for us and the other volunteers.

On Saturday, we spent the day familiarizing ourselves with Livingstone. It was nice to walk from Mushili Way to downtown Livingstone and see the shops that line Mosi-oa-Tunya Road. We briefly explored the curio market full of so many African crafts. We had been warned it was an intimidating experience by other volunteers; truthfully, I thought the markets in Mexico were much worse. The sellers were friendly enough, and no one ever harassed us. Perhaps it was easy to walk around because we had no intention of buying anything. The sellers, though, were interested in trading goods and particularly wanted some of Leah’s hair bands…we’ll have to remember this if we ever go shopping.

Later, we stopped in some general stores. The clothing is interesting here because one can tell much of it must have come from donations in the US. I’ve seen shirts from Boston College, just to cite one example. Sadly, all the stores in Livingstone are quite pricey ($7USD for a towel?!?!) Shopping won’t be a regular occurrence for us, I’m afraid.

Next, we took an extended lunch at Zig Zag to take advantage of their free wi-fi, which happened to be working incredibly fast for Zambian standards. Both Leah and I got to dive into some overdue emails and internet surfing. It was a welcomed relief from being on the clock at the internet cafes in town where service is 150 kwacha per minute (although that’s only about $0.20/minute).

Our whole day was scheduled around the sunset cruise we’d be taking at night with other African Impact folks. At 3:15, we all met at the post office and waited for our transport to come at 3:30. “Waited” is the key word in that sentence. Regrettably, the waiting never resulted in hopping on a bus. Apparently, the cruise company had mixed up our booking. Luckily, we hadn’t paid for anything yet!

Very frustrated, we headed back to Mushili Way since it was nearly dark. We returned home only to find out power and water were both out. What a great day! We tried to drown our sorrows in Diet Coke and pizza, but in Livingstone, a pepperoni pizza comes with onions and mushrooms…Leah and I don’t like those things on our pizza. Our first Saturday in Zambia was not a good one.

Thankfully, Sunday was as good as Saturday was bad. We had planned to attend church, but plans changed when we were able to head to Vic Falls with our whole house. I was sad to miss out on church, but grateful to have some friends show me around the Falls. Most of these new friends are leaving within a week, so this was our last opportunity to go with them.
When we got to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, we watched 3 of our fellow volunteers jump off a perfectly useful bridge. This bridge was located in “no-man’s land”, a bridge spanning the Zambezi River and Batoka gorge where the borders of Zim and Zam meet. Here, Jack, Kirsteen, and Phil all did the bungee jump and gorge swing (like the bungee jump, but you jump out and down instead of just down…Google it if you’re curious). I was terrified just to stand at the bridge railing, and I can’t imagine how they must’ve felt jumping. Thankfully, all made it back to land in one piece and with great memories.

Next, we walked to a very posh resort/hotel called the Zambezi Sun. Along the way, Leah and I marveled at the baboons. These creatures have no fear of humans and regular like to rob the tourists of food, cameras, and wallets. Nonetheless, Leah got a picture of the biggest one we saw! She is a wee bit braver than I am (thanks to my Scottish pals, I seamlessly say things like “wee bit” now). At the hotel, we impatiently watched the rest of our crew relax in the sun. Being in Africa, we weren’t about to waste time around the pool. Kirsteen had told us the hotel had giraffes on its property. Excited to see these animals, we set off on a journey. Leah and I were expecting to wander by a large fenced-in area and hoped to see some giraffes there. The actual story is much better.

We walked along the path Kirsteen pointed us down. This path led us into the bush area and, we assumed, towards the giraffe pen. Just about 5 minutes into our walk, I stopped. I told Leah to look up. For a few seconds, she saw nothing and worried I had seen a snake or other scary creature. Suddenly, she screamed because no more than 10 feet in front of us was a free-roaming giraffe! Just then, another giraffe walked up along side its colleague and began munching on the trees. We followed these giraffes around for a bit and got some fabulous photos and stood within 5-7 feet from them. They are gentle and beautiful creatures.
I guess I always knew that Africa had wild animals and safaris to see them are quite popular. For some reason though, I never truly grasped how remarkable this was until we ran into the giraffes. I’m more excited than ever to see more wildlife now!

After the high of the giraffe encounter, we decided to walk into Victoria Falls. If you ever travel to Livingstone, enter the Falls from the Zambezi Sun hotel because you’ll be spared the $10/person park fee. Anyway…the walking path started off quite basically with a few nice trees and other plants to look at. All of a sudden, though, we were greeted with the thundering fog of Victoria Falls. We snapped some photos thinking we had seen the Falls. With nothing else to do, we continued on the trail to explore a wee bit more (I am honestly developing a Scottish accent, too. It’s quite sad).

Just up the path, we walked by a stand selling umbrellas and raincoats. Now you should know the weather in Zambia this time of you is completely predictable. It is always about 80 degrees in the mid-afternoon with no clouds and no rain. It NEVER changes. We knew the raincoats had nothing to do with the weather. We also knew we didn’t want one!

Our decision paid off as we continued on the path and encountered the full breadth of Victoria Falls. One cannot even begin to describe the enormity of the falls. It literally stretched as far as I could see through the mist (actually mist isn’t a strong enough word for the precipitation at Vic Falls). The sound is very thunderous, just as the name Mosi-oa-Tunya implies. Walked for one a few hundred yards, Leah and I got SOAKED with the mist from Victoria Falls…and it was GREAT! The few photos and videos we took really don’t do it justice. You truly have to see it to believe it. For anyone that questions God the Creator, let me take them to Victoria Falls for a little chat.

If the giraffes and Victoria Falls weren’t enough, we decided to join our African Impact mates on the river cruise that was supposed to happen the night before. This proved to be a wonderful decision.

The cruise came with great food and an open bar, which for Leah and I meant all the Diet Coke we could throw down! I also fell in love with a drink called Mazoe, which is basically an orange juice concentrate mixed with water. The cruise down the Zambezi was quite lovely and the views were stunning. But things quickly got better.

About 1/3 of the way through the trip, we came across a large herd of hippos playing in the water. There were at least a dozen hippos just a few yards from our boat. Hippos and giraffes…what a day! But the hippos were about to be outdone because just upstream was an elephant grazing right on the shore. Hippos, and giraffes, and elephants, oh my! While the hippos and giraffes were fantastic, the elephant was simply majestic. Never before had a seen an elephant with its ivory tusks intact. This one had not only beautiful tusks, but was large and imposing. It effortlessly snapped the tree branches it was eating. If there was any lingering doubt before the cruise, we fully realize we are in Africa!

After the elephants and hippos (we spotted another herd upstream again), the sunset became the main attraction. The hues of the setting sun on the Zambezi River are breathtakingly beautiful. I won’t even attempt to describe them beyond that. I do hope you all get the chance to experience that some day.

With a busy week of teaching and medical care ahead, this weekend help us to relax and bit and refuel our souls to be ready for the week ahead.
Cheers,
Zac

On the road again...

On the road again
I will never complain about potholes in Fargo ever again. Seriously.
Zambia has some serious infrastructure problems. Actually, can I country have infrastructure problems when an infrastructure doesn’t really exist?

In Livingstone, I’ve only discovered only about 5 paved roads. To be fair, these paved roads are acceptable. They are littered with speed humps and rumble strips, nonetheless. The rest of the roads are dirt, or rather sand. These roads are not at all level, vary in width, and are washed out in the rainy season. Four times I day, I drive at least twenty minutes on these roads.
Each morning, we are picked up in what they call a mini-bus (it’s what I call a 15-passenger van). The bus must have been bought at a discount because I swear it does not have shock absorbers. The ride on the dirt roads is like driving through a pothole field. “Bumpy” does not describe the experience justly. We literally are bouncing up and down and side to side throughout the bus. Our drivers are extraordinary and a blessing, but there is nothing they can do on these roads to make it any better.

Back home, I easily get car sick, especially if I have to travel in the back seat for a long stretch. Remarkably though, I have not been sick at all. It’s amazing how driving through the scenic African bush or the poor townships communities of Livingstone can cure car sickness quickly.
Another powerful anecdote for these brutal rides is the smiling children we encounter. Sometimes, our trips are made in mammoth overland safari vehicles that have open sides and no windows. To say the least, these vehicles full of muzungus stand out a bit on the sandy roads. The children absolutely flock to the cars with arms waving and smiles as wide as you can imagine. The love a simple waive back and cherish a quick photograph. If you want a quick boost to your soul, I suggest driving through Dambwa or Maramba in a muzungu bus.
On a final note, it’s amazing that one cannot escape the global economy, even in rural Livingstone, Zambia. Here, several Chinese firms have been contracted for building and repairing roads. They have imported massive machinery and workers to complete these tasks. It still strikes me as a bit anachronistic to see a Chinese worker laboring under the hot Zambian sun.

By the way, they drive on the left side of the road here in Zambia. I would advise you all to give me a friendly reminder to go back to the right side of the street once I’m back in the US.

For now,
Zac

Friday, July 11, 2008

On religion

Zambia is a very strongly Christian nation. Nearly everyone is a practicing Christian, meaning they attend worship regularly and frequently speak of the power of Jesus in their lives. Moreover, the Zambians I’ve met are very evangelical. They have no hesitation in asking volunteers what church they attend back home. In fact, Christopher, whose one of our bus drivers, is going to take us to his Anglican church on Sunday morning.

I’m very comfortable being surrounded by religion here. Other volunteers, though, are not. In fact, the vast majority of the volunteers I’ve met are not religious at all; some are actually actively anti-religion. As guests in this country, most that are not religious do take everything in stride and just beg off questions about their own religion. Unfortunately, some do push their own anti-religion agenda when talking w/ Zambians. To me, that’s unacceptable behavior from our volunteers.

What’s most surprising to me is that so many without any religious conviction still feel called to serve in a place like Livingstone. Personally, I was driven to come here by my faith. Quite stereotypically, I expected everyone to have the same motivation. As such, I’m stunned that those without that drive still come here. What, then, motivates these people? I’m intrigued to keep trying to find out those answers. For now, though, I’m just trying to reshape my thoughts about nonreligious people. Because of my experience w/ the volunteers at African Impact, I see that those with no faith life still have strong values and a desire to do good in the world. What a learning experience!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

My first day of school

While I don’t intend to continually give a play by play of my days here, it remains the best way to describe the experience for now. I anticipate that by week’s end, I’ll be able to get away from this technique, so bear with me for now.

Even by Zambian standards, Mwandi is a materially poor community. It’s literally on the edge of the African bush. More than once, school has come to a standstill when students and staff had to chop the head of a trespassing cobra. Mwandi (ma-WAN-dee) also is nestled on the top of a hill overlooking the other communities of Livingston, and in the distance, one can see the risking smoke of Mosi-o-Tunya (Vic Falls). This will be my teaching home for the next several weeks.

The day was not unlike the beginning of my student teaching semester actually. I met my cooperating teacher, Mildred (ironically, my grandmother was named Mildred and also was a teacher). I sat in a seventh grade classroom with about 20 other students. I was actually surprised by the level of their schooling as today the kids learned about the planets of the solar system and multiplying with reciprocals of fractions. Mildred gave me the 7th grade social studies books and told me to start preparing lessons. Tomorrow, she said, I can teach a art lesson. Obviously, she doesn’t know I’m completely ungifted in art. Oh well, it actually will give me a chance to learn students’ names by having them make some name plates.

I was disappointed when coming to Zambia prevented me from working on the pumpkin patch much at Faith. Ok, that’s not true…I was quite relieved to have an excuse to miss out on the pumpkins. I just do not enjoy gardening/farming. I’m not a great ambassador for North Dakota in that way. Well, my afternoon assignment today was to work at Maramba Farm. Despite my misgivings about working the land, the project was for a great purpose. In Maramba community, a group of women have started a small farm that sells produce in order to raise money to buy medication for those too sick with HIV, TB, or malaria to visit the clinic in Maramba. The women’s biggest money maker is mushrooms, but I helped with a crop of eggplants. Did I mention that yesterday, a larger poisonous snake slithered right by the legs of some of our volunteers? Did Africa not get the memo that I’m petrified of snakes? Well, thankfully today, there were no snakes, but instead crocodiles were the bigger concern. You see, my groups job was to water the eggplants. To do that, one person had to work the water pump which really resembled a Stairmaster in the gym. Other volunteers watered by hand. This involved one person flinging an empty bucket attached to a stream into the river (more like a stream) behind the farm. Then that person (which was often me) would pull up the full bucket and pour it into the other buckets. Volunteers then walked these to the rows of eggplants. The farm’s permanent workers told us not to worry, though, because the crocodiles would not come out when there was so much noise. Just two days ago, Brave told us never to go by the river because the crocs could see us even if we couldn’t see them…I just can’t wait to go back to the farm! (I know sarcasm doesn’t come across well in blogging, so I hope you all caught it just then.)

The farming project did have one big highlight, though. The project leader, another local woman, mistakenly thought I was Dutch because another male volunteer was from Holland. She asked me if eggplants were eaten in Holland, but I told her that I was from the United States. Just after I said I was American, I previously silent woman who was boiling fish for lunch simply said, “Obama.” I was able to have a brief chat with her and express my fondness for Obama and told her I was excited to vote for him. She was not a strong English speaker, but I could tell she felt a lot of pride because someone with African heritage might become the most powerful person in the world. I, too, was proud of our country because of this.

Cheers (I’m starting to pick up the language from the Brits in my house),
Zac

Scottish wisdom and high stakes testing

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad”
- Scottish proverb

Ok, so that’s not really a Scottish proverb, but Kirsteen (who is from Scotland) told us this little tidbit today. It also has really no relevance about today in Zambia, either. Although it does speak to what life is like in a house w/ a bunch of bored young adults and no TV. Earlier, the UK citizens tried to name as many US states as possible; they got about 45/50. That’s better than most US citizens. As I’m typing this, we are contemplating if we can shave the cat and not be accused of animal abuse. Let’s hope the satellite TV is repaired quickly.

Despite the lack of TV (and running water virtually the whole day), we are all in high spirits around Mushili Way. Today, Leah and I had our project inductions for medical and teaching projects. Mine was a quick 35 minutes; Leah’s lasted nearly 3 hours.

When I left the US, I expected to find an education system in Zambia unlike anything I was familiar with at home. While this is mostly true (and especially true regarding the conditions of the schools), one thing is constant: high-stakes testing! Here though, the stakes are raised even higher. If students do not pass their Grade 7 exams, many believe they will not get into heaven when they die. Talk about pressure!

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be working in a Grade 7 classroom and Mwandi Community School. In Zambia, there are community schools and basic schools. Basic schools are government run with trained teachers. They receive consistent federal funding, and students must pay to attend classes. Community schools, though, are run by local parents who want a basic education for their kids. The schools do receive minimal, but inconsistent funding. One term, they might receive $1,000, the next $10. Obviously, this makes for a great need for volunteers.

Before I head to the schools tomorrow, I got the chance to make bricks this afternoon. The simple sand and concrete bricks will later be sent to the community schools to make new classrooms or toilets. The work was simple, but very hard. The reward was being able to scribe my name into a soft brick that will be a permanent reminder of my time in Livingstone.

Well, my housemates are contemplating how much we can get for the TV at a local curio market. Right now they figure they can get at least a couple baby elephants. That’s how we make lemonade out of lemons, I guess.

Until later,
Zac

July 7 Update

Nothing says “welcome to Africa” quite like waking up to find out the power and water are both out in our house! Yippee!

Anyway, after (sort of) finding our breakfast, we waited and waited and waited for our van to bring us to our project introduction. When we got there, we waited and waited and waited some more. I’m beginning to detect a trend here. Finally, we got our orientation and feel some relief now that we have an idea of what’s going on. A tour of Livingstone also was quite helpful as we visited the banks, bureau de change, and saw multiple internet cafes. Surprisingly, some areas of the town are quite Westernized.

After the brief introduction, we headed back to Mushili Way for lunch. Believe it or not, we waited and waited for lunch. I’m still in the process of figuring out if this is “Africa time” or just “African Impact time”. Right now, my feeling is it’s the latter, but I’ll keep gathering evidence. Lunch, by the way, was a tasty tuna pasta salad w/ fresh vegetables. We also discovered the peanut butter is just a bit different here, but highly edible nonetheless.

Once we got back to the main volunteer house, the plan was to take a tour of all the different projects in and around Livingstone. Shockingly, we fell behind schedule again. I did get the chance, though, to visit w/ a lovely group from the Shetland Islands of Scotland who are here to teach gymnastics for 2 weeks. The group leader has a beautiful young daughter whose father is a black Cuban gentleman…that’s quite the unique ethnic heritage for that young girl! Having visited Cuba many times, the mom told us of some terrible stories like her husband being able to visit his family at the hotel because native Cubans were not allowed into hotels. Just to see his wife and daughter, he had to produce a copy of his marriage license and pay $50. All the while, hotel staff shuffled in local prostitutes who paid just a couple dollars to enter the facility. Needless to say, this incident infuriated my Scottish friend. Being so close to this island nation, I’m stunned at how little I really know about it as an American and appreciate this insight gained in conversation with Joy from Scotland.

The delayed tour of projects was remarkable. We visited places with names like Dambwa, Maramaba, Nakatindi, and Libuyu. These were each townships, or ghetto-like neighborhoods, around Livingstone. The poverty was beyond belief, but in line with what we were prepared for. At each stop, the air smelled strongly of burning fires as families were preparing meals the only way they could. A big highlight of this afternoon was all the smiling faces of children who greeted us along the way. What a great feeling! These beautiful children were so happy to have the attention of all the volunteers. Even though it was a national holiday and classes were cancelled, the children still hung around the schools. This speaks highly to the importance of the schools in the community.

On our tour, we also got our first real few of Victoria Falls. Even though about 15 miles away, we could see the smoke rise up, and it looked almost like a forest fire. I can’t wait to see it up close.
Perhaps my favorite part of the day was traveling with a man named Brave. Brave, a Livingstone native, is just short of 30 years old. For the past 10 years, he has worked at Maramba Clinic as a peer educator teaching fellow Zambians about the dangers of HIV and other STDs. Recently, African Impact has hired him to be a community liaison between the agency and the neighborhoods of Livingstone. To us, he was beacon of friendliness and knowledge. He explained in first-hand terms the struggles of the community in terms of education and healthcare and showed the importance of African Impact here. As I mentioned, today was a national holiday in Zambia. The holiday, called Heroes Day, celebrates all those who fought for Zambia’s independence. Upon finding this out, our Scottish friends began calling Brave, Braveheart in honor of the famous Scottish independence fighter portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie. Brave(heart) certainly enjoyed this new nickname.
After a long day of orientation and tours, we have just a short morning of instruction particular to our medical and education placements tomorrow. In the afternoon, we finally get to begin working in the community. My first endeavor is a project called “bricks”. The name is quite explanatory as I’ll literally be making, moving, or placing bricks. I’m excited to add masonry to my resume.

Today ended on a high note as Leah and I became brave enough to take a taxi into central Livingstone and find an internet café and coffee shop named ZigZag. Besides the great hazelnut decaf brew we enjoyed, ZigZag has free wi-fi that is mostly reliable. Since it’s not particularly safe for whites to walk at night in Livingstone, the café called a taxi for our return trip, too. After getting back to Mushili Way, our housemates inquired as to the price we paid, which we said was about 24 kwacha ($8) each way. They laughed heartily at this and informed us we were charged “muzungu” prices. Muzungu is a common word around Africa to refer to whites, sort of like the more familiar term “gringo.” From now on, our housemates said, we just need to call the bluff of the drivers and tell them we are volunteers, not muzunugu tourists and we’ll get the better rates (about $3). Lesson learned!

While it’s often frustrating to live apart from the large majority of the other volunteers at the main house, I’m about to go and enjoy the one saving grace of Mushili Way – it’s hot, high-pressure showers!

For now,
Zac

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sorry for the delay

I have about 3 posts ready to go, but I accidentally saved them in Word '08 and the computers here can't open them from my jump drive. I'll post them tomorrow if all goes well. We were finally able to get Zambian kwacha, so life is great! In the meantime, please post comments or send emails.

Zac

Monday, July 7, 2008

In Livingstone...

After 4 long days of travelling, we finally reached our home for the next several weeks in Livingstone, Zambia. Although we are a bit weary, we are happy to safely be with African Impact, now.

On our journey today, the realization of that we are actually in Africa began to set in. Leaving the Jo’burg airport, we took a bus from our gate to the plane and boarded right on the tarmac. The flight to Zambia was breathtaking. Above Jo’burg, we saw the tin roofs shining brightly below in the impoverished township communities. Crossing into the airspace of Botswana and Zimbabwe, we marveled at the open African bush and only imagined what unique creatures live there. Sadly, we flew directly over Victoria Falls, but were sitting on the wrong side of the plane to get a view. Once on the ground, we deplaned (again right on the tarmac) and made our way into a long and slow customs line. After paying the $135/person visa fee, we were finally in Zambia!

We were quickly greeted by Jess from African Impact and met our driver Chris and fellow volunteer Perri…who bears a striking resemblance to Leah’s sister Aimee. On our short drive from the airport to the volunteer house, we already saw slum-like conditions with the evidence of poverty all around us. This is going to be some experience.

Mushili House will be our home during our time in Zambia. It’s a nice enough place with a security guard manning the gate at all times. Simba and his family, Livingstone natives, live on the property as well. Once dropped off here, we found ourselves in a completely empty home as the other volunteers were enjoying a day off by having fun in the city. Soon, though, some arrived back home. We met new friends like Phil from England and Kirstina from Scotland. So far, it appears we are the only Americans and the oldest of the volunteers.

To be honest, today has seemed quite hectic, and I would have appreciated more direction from the African Impact staff regarding a whole host of things. Luckily though, the project manager Nix arrived around supper time with the week’s schedule and told us we’d have orientation first thing in the morning. It was a big relief to have some guidance about what to expect. Talking with the other volunteers has us excited for the weeks ahead. I’m anxious to report back with news from our first day(s) of work here in Zambia.

Until later,
Zac

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Long flights and London

For those of you with limited time, the basics of the trip so far are as follows:
We have safely made it to Johannesburg, South Africa, and depart in the morning for Livingstone, Zambia.

If you have a little more time, please feel free to read more about our travels. I promise that most other posts will be shorter and guarantee they'll be more interesting. I happen to have great internet access right now, so I'm taking for advantage!

After a bittersweet goodbye to family and friends (thanks for coming, Vicki!) we boarded the small plane to Chicago. Luckily, we were able to fly stand-by on an earlier flight. Waiting in the terminal, our new flight was delayed nearly an hour and paramedics met the plane at the gate as an elderly gentleman was suffering from chest pains. Not exactly the most comforting scene to see when beginning 2 months of international travel…

We did eventually make it to Chicago on what has to be about the quickest flight I’ve ever been on. After navigating the maze that is O’Hare and catching a quick bite to eat, we waited anxiously at our gate to board the flight to London. Just after 4:00 p.m., we climbed aboard the jumbo jet and settled in for the 8 hour flight. Luckily a good mix of movies and music kept us entertained. I was even able to catch a few minutes of sleep. Truth be told, the flight felt much quicker than I could have ever expected.

At Heathrow, we quickly passed through customs and tried to get oriented to our new surroundings. The first thing any US citizen is likely to notice in the UK is how poorly our dollar is trading with the pound. One must essentially double the posted prices everywhere to understand how much goods and services cost in US currency. Yikes! It was not pleasant to pay $40 just to store our luggage for a few hours. The irony of spending the Fourth of July in England wasn’t lost on me. Perhaps this the exchange rate was the Brits way of extracting some revenge on us Yankees.

In any event, we weren’t about to let a bad exchange rate keep us in the airport all day. We boarded the Underground and journeyed the bumpy hour into Central London. With no real plan, we just wandered the streets for a bit until bumping into Trafalgar Square. With a good landmark to find on the map, we were able to walk pass the famous Horse Guards and through St. James Park (where we were greeted by hungry squirrels, pigeons, and stunningly large pelicans) on our way to Buckingham Palace. While snapping pictures of the guards and the palace gates, a motorcade rapidly drove past us, and I’m 99% sure I saw Prime Minister Gordon Brown in one of the cars. It at least makes for a good story, even if it wasn’t him.

After Buckingham Palace, we walked more purposefully to Westminster Abbey. Not really knowing what to expect there, we were happy to receive complimentary audio listening guides for the Abbey. Perhaps complimentary isn’t the right word when we paid £12 each for admission (Test your math skills to figure out the US equivalent). Despite that financial hit, I must say the Abbey was quite worth the time and cash spent there. It is truly remarkable to see the tombs of such dignitaries as Queen Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Chaucer, Darwin, and Isaac Newton. The Abbey is also the place where all monarchs are officially installed in Britain and hosted Princess Di’s funeral. If you ever find yourself in London, be sure to stop by.
By the time we left the Abbey, jet lag was fully setting in. We were only half-awake as we snapped pictures of Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. We hoped a little food would wake us up, but it seemed like there were no restaurants to be found unless we walked for several blocks. During this walk, Leah and I concluded that London was disappointing to visit. The sights were nice, but mostly looked better in photos than in person. The people were anything but friendly, and the city seemed to lack any unique personality or culture. It did not feel at all like we had arrived in a new continent.

Feeling let down and exhausted, we slept through the entire Underground ride back to the airport. In our wisdom, we forgot to take note of what terminal we departed from when we left Heathrow. There are 5 terminals there, so finding ours proved to be difficult. When we finally found Terminal 1 and tried to claim our luggage, the staff only emerged with one bag. Gulp! They invited us to the storage room, and luckily Leah and I were better at their jobs then they were and quickly found our remaining luggage.

We smoothly checked in for our flight to Johannesburg and made our way to the gate. After just a short wait, we boarded the plane only to find out we were in Row 74, the very last row on the plane. Thankfully, the seats still reclined, and we enjoyed the relative privacy the back row offered. South African Airways also proved to be much more luxurious than United. The TV screens on our seats were larger and interactive with a huge selection of movies, TV, and games. Not that it really mattered, though, as I slept virtually the entire plane. I only woke up long enough to enjoy the supper and breakfast that was offered to us. I know airplane food gets a bad wrap, but both meals were spectacular. Curry chicken and basmati rice for supper and scrambled eggs with mushrooms and potatoes for breakfast were nicer meals than I will probably eat for several months.

After a remarkably smooth landing, I quickly realized my complaints about London not feeling like a foreign city would not be repeated in Johannesburg. From the jumbled and long queue at customs to the hectic mess at the arrivals terminal, we had no doubt that South Africa would be different. We exchanged some money for South African rand at a much more favorable rate than seen in the UK. Next, we requested a taxi to our overnight stop. While we eventually made it to our hotel safely, we were a little tense when our driver was stopped by the airport security on the way out of the airport and fined for not carrying his driver’s license. We decided, though, this imperfect situation might have been the best introduction to Africa we could hope for as we learned that we can easily handle minor problems that might come up.

Our short drive brought us to the quintessential image of deepest, darkest Africa…the airport Holiday Inn! Ok, so it’s not exactly anyone’s stereotype of Africa, but we were overjoyed to be greeted not only with a comfortable room, but a lovely breakfast buffet. Nothing could have been better after a long couple of flights. Rest assured, we've already peaked in terms of our accommodations for the next 7 weeks.

Unlike London, we have been very impressed with the friendliness of everyone we’ve met so far in South Africa. In this one small corner of the largest city, we’ve seen far more smiles than we did walking about the busiest neighbors in Africa. Though our first day on the continent won’t be remembered for anything but catching up on much needed sleep, finally getting to change clothes, and taking a warm shower, it’s a great relief to just be in Africa.

Tomorrow morning, we fly out at 11:00 for a short flight to Livingstone. We look forward to being greeted at the airport by African Impact staff and getting to see what we expect might be the “real” Africa.

For anyone wishing to email, please use zachary.ista@gmail.com or leah.b.gustafson@ndsu.edu. Remember, we are 7 hours ahead of Central Time in the US, so keep that in mind when anticipating replies from us. I have no idea how often we’ll have access to reliable email and internet access, but I look forward to more blog entries about more important topics than London tourism, airplane food, or Holiday Inns.

For now,
Zac