It’s the little things

Not much has happened since Lusaka in one way but in another, there has been a lot of quite progress and achievement. I’ve finally settled into the run of the place. I feel a lot less home sick and more at ease here. I wish I could explain to you what it’s like here and I guess this post is trying to address that but let’s face it, I’m never going to be able to achieve that goal. It’s the 25C heat at 8 am, the flies that hitch a ride on my brighter t-shirts in the morning, the beautiful sunset almost every evening and the 100 other things that make this place and this time special and different from everything I have ever known. This post is a mismatch of little thoughts, insights and things that I hope will make us laugh and show just some of the differences. They could all be their own separate posts but between you, me and rest of the internet, I really can’t be arsed!

Tea, Father?

You probably know I’m a fan of the Fr. Ted TV series. Good old Mrs. Doyle was always ready with the teapot and a stark determination that everyone must drink. Well, being white here, much to my amusement/consternation I am continuously being referred to as ‘Father’. “No”, I tell people with a smile, I’m not a priest, just a volunteer. I’m tempted to get a T-shirt printed and delivered (I even know that the design would be, a boy chasing a girl with “Not A Priest” on the back) but I find it funny that people automatically assume. And people are just as persistent as Mrs. Doyle. Indeed, John Pedro, my flatmate was made to stand up in mass one Sunday when he first arrived and the priest made it publicly know that he was not a priest! Which is quite ironic given that they’ve done nothing but try and talk him into the priesthood since!

I miss flirting

Now, you know me, I’ve never ever, ever been called a flirt. And sure, to be honest, I wouldn’t even know how to flirt! Honest! :) But, if I did, then I would be missing it right now. The majority of female contact these days involves nuns and even I have some level of moral conduct so I’m at a bit of a loss. People are very friendly here. And yes, there is a potential female friend but damn, it never dawned on me that I would be missing that. And what’s worse is that I stay on a teaching training college campus. There must be parties and potential around here somewhere. I think I need to start getting out more in the evenings! :) Do you hear those violins too?

All creatures great and small

I came to the realisation last night that I’ve been here awhile now. This happened as I walked past a big spider in the hallway and didn’t even flinch. Indeed, I walk past spiders, cockroaches, frogs, stick inserts and geckos without even batting an eyelid. To prove the point, last week, I found a scorpion sitting in the corner of my wall with nothing but the mosquito net between us. It can’t have been more than 50 cm from my head but I just rolled over and went to sleep. I haven’t seen it since. I’ve been told that now, as the rain session starts, the snakes will start to appear and two cobra’s have already been found around the parish. I go running in the morning, always scanning the ground for movement and ready to jump over/aside whatever it is I might find. But it’s not just the creepy creatures that’s different. There are loads of species here that I have never seen before and that all adds to the differences of the place.

Buon Appetito

Food here is much better than I had feared. The local staple diet is shema, a dish common in many countries around this region. It’s made with ground maize and flour, cooked and shapped into hand sized ovals. It is pretty tasteless but I enjoy eating it when I get the chance. It’s usually served with a little meat or fish and some vegetables (I’ve had either rape or pumpkin leaves so far). It’s so dense that a little goes a long way and everyone here grows maize. I’ve had goat intestines with shema and my other housemate has promised to get me the fabled goat testicles, yummy! Sadly I just missed out on centipedes in Lusaka as the resturaunt had run out that night. What a shame I tell you. At home and for lunch with the priests, I eat lots of rice and pasta at the moment, usually with chicken. Lunch on Friday is always fish (it’s a Catholic thing long since forgotten in Ireland/UK). But the fruit is great here. We are just coming into mango season and mangos have everywhere in Chikuni. After that the guava will be in season. We have also enjoyed watermelon lately and at K10000 (€1.80) for the entire thing, I think you’ll agree it’s good value. There are also peaches and a new fruit, Mexican apples, which I am hoping to cultivate over the coming year.

Capturing the moment

My camera and I are rarely parted as you know and here is no different. However the use is totally different. Here, I feel shy about taking photos and so I take far fewer. Everyone sees the white priest and so there is no stolen moments. I have also long biased towards black and white photography. Here, it feels like a betrayal to shot black and white. The place is so full of colour that it seems a shame to limit it to grayscale. That was until recently when I saw a really great book produced by an Italian photographer. All the photos in the book were black and white and he had some truly stunning portraits of people. So I’m going to try and break my usual stealth approach and be a bit bolder. Or at least try… especially because I miss not taking photographs.

Getting from A to err, A?

I gained my independence at the tender age of 19 in the guise of my sisters crappy old Nissan Micra (sorry Mairead, I was very glad of it but it was!) which she loaned to me while she unwittingly went to Australia to meet her future husband. In London I no longer had a car but I still had my freedom. Here, oh boy, is a totally different story. One of the stipulations of the volunteer program is that I am not allowed to drive. I’ll be the first to say that I knew and accepted this when I agreed to take part. Despite it being an excellent idea in terms of my personal safety and for the reputation of the programme, it sucks. In fact it sucks big time! I am utterly dependant on other people to either drive me somewhere (where I can get a public transport connection) or know somebody who is going out. I am here to be of service to the community first and foremost but, phew, it’s tough! If I want to go and do some proper shopping or see my student friend then I have to go to Monze. It’s 7KM of compacted dirt track to the main road and then another 15KM to Monze. There are taxi’s around but on my current budget of about $3/day they are a luxury. But on the bright side, not being able to go anywhere is giving me lots of time to do what I came here for, to think about my life so far and what I want next. And eventually I’ll get the bike here fixed. I swear!

You guys

People have been great. I’ve had lots of lovely emails and even a couple of postcards (they take 20+ days to reach me!) from all the people I have left behind. You are all in my thoughts and in my prayers from time to time. You rock! I opened the good bye card from Tideway last night and it was lovely to read all the comments. And if Chris Bryan is reading this, thanks for the extra one from Caroline, I laughed so hard my eyes watered! It’s funny to imagine all your lives continuing in different ways, even unexpectedly bumping into each other from time to time. I still miss you, just maybe not as much as during that first month. I know a few of you are going through tough times right now but I’m there in spirit! Another friend showed me recently, you never know how a seemingly negative event can prove to have a very positive outcome. Olga, I’m really glad everything worked out! By the way, if anyone has sent me a text on the new number, then I’m afraid it hasn’t reached me. Sorry!

So I’ve left out a hundred other things but there you go, I’m a bastard like that! :)

Til next time,
A much happier David

Lusaka

Overtake, undertake, swerve, hoot. This is how we drive through the streets of Lusaka, 7 of us packed into a pickup truck, not a seatbelt in sight. There is the constant rapid-fire chatter of Italian around me as (yep, you guessed it) the car is filled with Italians except for yours truly. This was the beginning of my first Saturday night out in the capital. A Saturday night, not spent at home, wondering what I could be doing in London and what all my friends and family are doing back in their normal lives. It feels good, very good! Maybe it’s the fear, maybe it’s the buzz, maybe it’s the fact that I know this will be a rare occasion but whatever the reason, I feel alive!

Lusaka, as you’ve probably guessed from that introduction is a typical (African) city. Lots of people moving about, noise, traffic, pollution and poverty. That Saturday night we passed two car accidents and found a car with no brake or back lights happily driving along. You need your wits about you! If you’ve never been to Africa then you may be surprised to learn that in some ways, cities are very similar to European cities. We went to a shopping centre/mall/arcade and found people milling around the cinema, mobile phone shop, resturaunts etc just like in Europe. I also finally managed to get myself a local SIM after countless disappointed faces around Chikuni learned I only had an UK number.

Sunday morning we went to the bus station to organise a bus back to Chikuni for later in the day. This was, by far and away, the most horrendous experience of the weekend! Not helped by the fact that it wasn’t even 10am yet. We didn’t even manage to cross the road before people were surrounding us, trying to sell us stuff or trying to be the one to organise a bus for us. Add to that, the near constant honking of impatient bus drivers waiting to depart with little else to do but lean on the horn. On top of that there are cars trying to drive through the place and guess what, they’re also beeping at people to get out of the way. Finally you have the mass of people trying to catch their bus or get through the insane asylum. Oh and although I’m sure it’s perfectly safe, I have my own personal fear of getting mugged/pick-pocketed as the icing on the cake. Needless to say I was glad to leave there, ticket (and confirmed seat) in hand and of Jean-Pedro doing most of the leg-work. I know next time I go there, I’ll be on my own so it was great having him as a safety net.

After the manic frenzy that was the bus station, I was treated to a much more pleasant experience, a most wonderful mass, said by a fellow Irishman. I was sitting there thinking, it’s like having Gay Byrne give the sermon, great stuff! The church was packed, with ushers trying to find seating for the people standing at the back or sitting on window ledges trying to get a view. And there was a Gospel choir who really knew how to sing and indeed, how to get the entire congregation clapping, singing or dancing. I mentioned the Gay Byrne comment to the priest after mass, but I don’t think he was too impressed :)

So all in all, a very nice weekend, with lovely accommodation, good company and an excellent reconnaissance mission to figure out the details of how I will get to Lusaka in the future and even to the lower Zambezi national park eventually. Lusaka isn’t a place I want to spend a lot of time though and as I departed from the city I realised that I wouldn’t miss it. I guess it’s not my city like London/Cork would be and I don’t feel at all comfortable there, nor do I want to! So it’s back to the bush for me, waiting patiently for the temperature to drop to a more workable level and enjoying the calm life style here.

For those who want my new number, it’s +260 Nine Seven 500 Fifty-one eighty-eight. Sorry for the text version but I don’t want it getting screen scraped by spammers etc. If you text me and don’t hear back, it’s either because it never got to me or I don’t like you! Either way, you could try emailing as well if it was important. I also wanted to say thank you to all those people who emailed after the last post. It must have sounded very gloomy as lots of people thought I was down. But fear not for my spirits are high (despite the heat, spiders and now snakes). I can't even quite believe that I am here almost a full month already.

Cioa,
David

The unhappiest sport in the word…

…(to paraphrase a very dear friend of mine) is how I often think of jogging. I ask you, how often have you seen a jogger smiling, nay, even vaguely looking like they are enjoying themselves? Eh, never I say you say. Well this is the predicament I find myself in. It’s become clear that walking everyday is not going to be enough to sustain my need for exercise and so, in the absence of finding a squash partner (cue the quintet of violinists) I’ve had to take up running. Problem is, I went for my first run on Friday and I haven’t been able to walk properly since! Oh dear… The muscles in the front of my thighs are very very unhappy and are making damn sure I know about it. But I will soldier on and try again this week, this time, making sure I cool down as well as warm up. Watch this space for more news on my aches and pains.

We had a kick-ass lightning storm here on Tuesday. I was in mass for all souls days and thankfully missed the majority of the rain but the storm was ahead of me on the way home. And not crappy old sheet lightning like in Ireland or London, oh no! Proper fork lightning with thunder loud enough to make me jump and swear simultaneously. I think lightning even hit the water in the lake I walk past everyday as I was passing by. I wish I could have captured it on camera but I was too busy a)trying not to get wet and b)not get electrocuted. However there’s been no rains since and I’m getting tired of carrying an umbrella for no reason. But you know as soon as I leave it behind me what’ll happen. People have started planting maize (the staple diet here) in preparation for the rains so it can’t be far away. I’m also thinking about starting a little photography project for myself with the maize. More on that later.

I’ve been missing my London life a little this week, especially in the evenings and weekends. Saturday night, I was washing clothes, (re)reading the Kite Runner and wrote an email. I do nothing in the evenings and don’t know how to change it other than continue to be friendly and wait for the inevitable friendships to be formed. I feel however that while people are very friendly here, there is a line in the sand between me and them. I haven’t really connected with anyone and I haven’t really met anyone who I see the seeds of friendship in. My only saving grace is Jean Pedro. He even got me an invite to lunch today with our resident doctor (Dr. Claudia) and three Italian telecom engineers who are here helping set up a data centre. So it was 5 Italians and I around the table. I got snippets of conversation at best, but I’m used to that from Sara and Rachele so it was fine and I was very glad to have a bit of banter and some laughter. And I’ve learnt to make gnocchi from master chef Jean Pedro. Yum yum yum!

Finally for now, I went out with HBC on Friday. We went to another two parishes and it was nice to be out of the office having spent four days there. On the way there we passed through a waterlogged pothole which could have happily housed a crocadile or small hipo! The second village we went to I met a young girl. She can’t have been more than 10 but she was HIV+. I felt (and still feel) really angry at a world that can allow a child to have to suffer with this awful curse. A curse she had little to do with but will cut her down long before she should have to
shuffle off this mortal coil. She had the most beautiful face and we caught each others eyes while everyone else had their heads bowed in prayer. I think at that moment we were friends in mischief and we smiled happily at each other throughout the rest of my time there. On a number of occasions she lay down on her guardians lap and I saw in her face a sense of comfort and safety that I think only a child can really feel. A sense of safety from a world which doesn’t really care. Only that guardian can provide safety from the world you don’t understand. Something in me misses that feeling, it feels like a long time since I’ve felt it last. I can’t help but wonder now (after thinking about it on Friday evening, writing about it in my journal, writing about it in a email and finally here), that maybe some people find that comfort in God in their (adult) lives. If so, I guess I’m missing out somewhere along the line!

Til next time, from a very hot Zambia

-D

Sights and Sounds

So you know I’ve arrived here… now what’s here like? I’m sharing a (slightly ramshackled) house with two guys, Mono the radio operator and John Pedro, an Italian volunteer who’s here until Christmas. The parish is split up into three areas, Chikuni itself (where the radio station is), Charles Luwanga (where I stay), which is a high school, and Knenisis (not the correct spelling), which is the primary school. It’s a brisk 15-minute walk between my house and the radio station. The walk starts on a ‘road’ then shortcuts through the scrub land, past a noisy pigery, along the edge of a man made lake (which provides water for much of the area, though not drinking water due to the pigs and other livestock that can often be found on the shoreline) and on through alleyways between houses, to enter through the rear of the radio station compound. It’s a nice enough walk, especially by the lake where you often get flocks of birds flying over-head and a lovely view of the sun setting in the evening. And the walk will prove to keep me in shape in the absence of all my usual exercise.

I’m currently working for the home based care centre which goes out into the remote villages to provide support and anti-virals to people who are HIV positive. HBC help people in the same village to set up support groups, which help them to help themselves, with projects like organic gardens. You remember the three friends I mentioned in the last post? Yes? Well it wasn’t the three kids in the photo but instead three others. AND it turned out that they were trainee nurses. So they, 3 of their friends and myself went out with HBC on Thursday and it was a really great day, the highlight of week one for sure. I have spent so long helping rich people get richer than it was really nice to see how HBC make a difference to people on the ground. Now my job is to help HBC sort out their data so that they can a) get better funding b) spend less time typing and more time helping.

Apart from that excursion, I have spent three days in front of a screen writing code, remembering (or trying to) SQL and hoping desperately that my laptop won’t over heat. So far it’s frozen twice at bios startup and I’m thinking that it’s not designed to work in almost 40C temperatures. Now where’s Kerryn when you need him? Along side that, I’ll be shortly installing some retail software for the centres shop to help keep track of turnover and make life easier for the people involved. Monday I helped prepare for a party Fr. Ted (yes, that really is his name) was having for the religious community to celebrate Independence Day (which was actually last Sunday).

Saturday, I was out and about as well, helping Fr. Andrew set up a PA system for our local group of Spiritans who were marking the death of their founder, Claude Poulard De Places, 300 years ago. The popes representative to Zambia showed up and helped celebrate the two and a half hour mass. The mass was really great with lots of singing and dancing. And it was even in English, so I could understand it.

Today Sunday, I again went to the 7am English mass in the parish. After breakfast, JP and I went for a long walk to the nearest hill (1 hours walk away). It was well worth it for the view and when we got to the top, we found that it was home to a large array of very beautiful butterflies, both large and small. Secretly I was hoping for an encounter with something more tropical like an elephant or similar but sadly, not today. I did however see a swallow, which I thought was really cool given that I only ever see them in Europe during the summer and here they are now, for their winter holidays. The other cool thing that happened today is that we had our first session of rain. A little earlier than expected, but still very welcome. As hopefully you can see, when it rains, it pours here. It looks like I might not be wearing sandals for a while.

‘Til next time…

-D