Anniversarial Reflections (and other news)

I felt it fitting to post on the 2-month anniversary of my arrival in Zambia. It’s strange that such inconsequential chunks of time as months or years should cause us to reflect more on what has passed than on any other day, but I guess that’s just the way things are…

When I look back on the last 2 months, it’s hard to know where to start. In some ways it feels like yesterday, in other ways I already feel like Lusaka is “home”. The culture, the people, the routine has once again seeped into my life so quickly, that it is hard to put this experience in context with any of the others I have had… At least today that’s how I feel.
Enough waxing philosophical, we all know I’m not cut out for it! So, let’s get on with the stories and anecdotes, eh? (Now there’s a word I haven’t used in a loooong time!)

On Tuesday we had our last Nyanja class before the Christmas break and our teacher, Stephen (an absolutely wonderful guy, but unfortunately the only person concerned with punctuality in all of Zambia), taught us some new vocab that had us all in fits of laughter. Most of them were “household” words that I guess they didn’t have indigenous names for in Nyanja, so they “adopted”, and slightly adapted, the English words brought over with colonialism. So you have:

sipuni - spoon
filiji - fridge
sitovu – stove
kapu – cup
taulo – towel
matilese – mattress
delesi – dress
etc…

I’m sure you get the idea… Coincidentally, understanding the Zambian way of interpreting English words phonetically helped me understand today why the Christmas card that my ‘nephew’, Hamilton (who pronounces my name perfectly), brought over for me was addressed to “Ashisli”…

The rains continue to fall at will, which has now caused the “grasses” to emerge, devouring what used to be the dust. Today as I made my bi-weekly trek down to Cairo Rd, the main drag in the city centre, I began to cross through the open expanse by the railway tracks that cuts into town, and could hardly recognize where I was. It used to feel like a wasteland: nothing but dust, piles of garbage and people spread out intermittently, selling roasted maize, or umbrellas, or random items of clothing. Today it looked like the Zambian version of the Emerald City: lush green grass as far as the eye could see, and huge, marshmallow-castle clouds that formed as the rains passed… It’s nice to see things “green up” a bit, but it hasn’t made me any more fond of the rains, which, when they are not soaking you from above, are forming Lake Ontario-sized puddles that last 4 days to soak you from below (I may have to join the Zambians that carry around a small cloth and brush to shine their shoes every 5 minutes). And if that’s not bad enough, last week it wasn’t just rain that fell from the sky, it was ice! Very large chunks of it that came in through the window and landed on the dining room table right in front of me!

Yesterday Sam invited me into his house for the first time. It looks small from the outside, so I have always been curious to see just exactly how so many people fit in there. As I found out, having bunk beds in the kitchen certainly helps! Sam's four younger brothers share the two beds, which are butted right up next to the stove, in a kitchen half the size of my bedroom. There isn't enough room for Sam, so he goes to a friends house a 20 min drive away every night at 23:00, and comes back for 06:00... The sitting room is crammed with sofas surrounding one of 2 TVs! (the other is in the kitchen) which I found quite amusing, for some reason. Anyway, it showed me once again how culturally different the need for space can be. But although it might not seem ideal to the average North American, it's a cozy place and all the faces inside it were smiling brightly.

Work is going well, and I must say that the last 3 weeks have been very productive and satisfying: I have helped organize and facilitate a 2-day workshop for Support Groups of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA as they are known here) on proposal writing and financial management; I participated in and helped facilitate a 2-day Strategic Planning meeting for ZARAN and then revised their 3-year Strategic Plan document; I helped facilitate a 2-day Strategic Planning meeting for TALC and then wrote the summary document which I am now incorporating in to the mega-proposal that I am supervising the writing of, which will hopefully get funding for all of TALC’s work in the coming year; I am on the Steering Committee for the NZP+ General Assembly and the Civil Society Conference on Positive Living to take place in March; and I am working on setting up a “Proposal Clinic” to provide ongoing support in proposal writing for Support Groups of PLHA, for which I am writing my own Project Planning and Proposal Writing Guide….

Yeah, lots of work! And lots of it to be done before I go on holiday to MOZAMBIQUE next Thursday – yeeeeeaaaahhhhh!!! In the end Xavi is tied up by his dissertation and his passport, so I am heading to Chokwe, the town where he is living and working, and which he lovingly refers to as “el culo del mundo” (for non-Spanish speakers, culo means a$%, the rest you should be able to figure out on your own!). Hopefully he’ll be able to get his dissertation out of the way ASAP so that we can run off to the Bazaruto Archipelago, or Inhambane, or Kruger Park in SA… Tough choices I know! But I must say, although it’s nice to be in a warm and foreign place for the holidays, Christmas just isn’t the same without the miserable weather (unless your Australian, like Mel, in which case Christmas is apparently about beers and “barbies”!).

In case I don’t get another chance, I’ll take this opportunity to wish those of you that are still reading a very Merry Christmas! Or Happy Hannukah, or whatever it is that you may or may not be celebrating in the coming weeks. May you share much joy and laughter with your loved ones and may the New Year begins brightly.