Goodbye 2010

2010 was in lots of ways a very good year for me; snowboarding, Berlin, Italy, new friends, wonderful plays, fantastic bands, watching couples move in together, getting married or becoming a mum and of course, a new life for me. I learned that I am still brave enough to change everything and to not settle for less. I have had a truly amazing 10 weeks here and can’t wait for the next 42. I can only hope that 2011 holds as much joy as 2010 did and that I find what I am looking for here. I want to thank all of you for your well wishes over Christmas. It’s lovely to hear from you all and to be reminded that you haven’t forgotten me (yet).
Christmas was fine, a non-event really, spent with a married couple, an eccentric doctor and a nun who could be 105. If ever there were a bunch of characters, it was them. The husband is half deaf; the doctor who thinks himself hilarious (and has a braying laugh to prove it); the nun with two buck teeth and who has been here from “the start” (1905) according to the doctor. The day was a mixture of tension, rude jokes, banter and good food. Christmas pud from Dublin and three glorious, wonderful, sublime Gin and Tonics. Oh yes, David was on his ear!
So Happy Hogmanay, New Year etc. etc. and I look forward to seeing most of you at the end of 2011. Here’s to another great year!

Giving Something Back

I had a thought recently, which is a good thing because I was wondering if I was ever going to have one in 2010. I am really enjoying writing these posts and from the unsolicited feedback people have been giving me, you seem to also be enjoying reading it. While I don’t check the stats all that often (only every five seconds or so), the last time I checked, the blog has had over 650 hits since it started, from places including the Slovenia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, the US on devices from the usual IE and Firefox to iphones and ipads. I am also hopefully about to have an article published in a quarterly Jesuit magazine which has a reference back to this blog so readership should increase even more.

Anyway, I digress. The thought was that WE could use this blog to help the people here. Blogger is owned by google and so I can allow google to place ads on this blog. Now I have been using gmail for many years and I have never as far as I can remember, clicked on an ad which are always present on the right hand side of the page. The only times I have clicked on an ad is to help a web site that I have gotten something useful from, like a computer program. I dislike advertising in general and so decided up front to not enable ads. But that was because I didn’t want to make money for myself out of it.

So here is my plan/suggestion. I am going to do a trial run of one month with ads enabled at the side of the blog. I’m currently posting about once every seven to ten days. I would like to think most of the posts are entertaining (dare I even say amusing). If you think so too, then I ask you to click on the top ad after reading a post. As far as I know all you have to do is click it and then you can close the window. The fact that the webpage didn’t fully load is irrelevant apparently. For a change, I’m not asking you for money, but instead, about 5 seconds of your life for each new post. At the end of the trial I will post the results and if we actually make some decent money (lets say $10-$20) then I will continue and at the end of next year I will post a survey and WE can decide what to do with the money. Every penny/cent/kwatcha will go to community. Perhaps we can help an orphan get an education, help a HIV+ family earn an income by buying some goats or provide a borehole so that a community can get fresh water. I don’t know, but I’ll get some options and post them. If you hate the idea then hopefully you can just ignore the ads, just as I do in gmail.

Merry Christmas one and all

Apparently it’s Christmas? I would really know to be honest; it’s 25C here, I’m wearing short and a tee-shirt and still sweating, there are no Christmas lights, there are no Christmas decorations, there is no Christmas shopper buzz, there aren’t even any Christmas carols and it still gets bright at 5:30 and dark at 19:00. If that sounds negative (and I bet it does) then I have mislead you. I don’t mourn these things. I miss you all greatly and my family even more so but I am not unhappy now. I am in fact happy. Maybe not very happy but happy none the less. I have chosen this path and I accept it’s differences. I am loving the fresh mangos and the OMG 100% pure mango juice that now accompanies lunch. Nero mango juice shall never pass my lips again I tell you, pleeuuwkkkk! To my mothers amusement I’m sure, I have been baking Christmas cakes with Mabel. Mixing by hand with a wooden spoon type implement in a plastic bowl usually used to wash clothes etc in Ireland. We line the cake tins with cut and buttered empty paper sugar bags. No greaseproof here darlings! My guardian angel and all your good karma have resulted in a random meeting with a woman from Dublin last week. She has very kindly invited me to join her family in Monze for Christmas Day. So I will have a family Christmas even if it’s an adopted family rather than my family. You cannot believe how much of a relief this is. The two days I dreaded most before coming here were Christmas Day and the 21st March (when I leave my momentous 20’s behind me).

I hear through the grape vine that Europe is again experiencing very cold conditions. I do feel for you all, honest! Especially while I sit outside in the cool shade of a tree sipping freshly juiced mangos. Seriously though, I know people are travelling at this time and I would be a very pissed off camper if I was stranded in London for the holidays. But please, please, please darlings do travel safely! Believe me, I know how important it is to get home or to a loved one but not at the risk of your own life. So please drive/travel carefully and stay safe.

I’ve been thinking about my first 8 and ½ weeks here as I thought about what to write here. The wondrous feeling of adventure, as I first stepped onto African soil in 24C heat at six in the morning. The image of three little black kids sitting on a fence next to an abandoned railway line with the line running behind them into the shimmering distance; viewed from the window of my bus returning from that weekend in Lusaka. The total happiness I felt eating fruit in the back of the trunk sandwiched between 5 nurses all chattering away and laughing after my first day out in the villages with HBC. And the thousand other memories that I look forward to boring you senseless with upon my return next year.

So I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a very, very Merry Christmas and a Fabulous New Year. I look forward to seeing you in person again at the end of the year and hope that between now and then, life will smile on you. But if life doesn’t, then feel free to give it the two fingers from me. Oh, and if anyone meets Santa Claus on the way, can you ask him to redeliver my presents, pretty please?

Yours,
A slightly disorientated, almost Christmas-y David

Goodbye Hair

Barry's expression changed from casual geniality to hesitancy as he watched me park the bike and walk through his door. He knew he was in trouble, real trouble! Look at it, all sleek and straight. This was going to be the biggest challenge of the day! I should introduce Barry; he's my new stylist and is the proud owner of one of three barber shops in my local market. It's probably not obvious to you that in Africa, all hair is naturally curly. European straight hair is therefore something of a challenge. I smirked at the look on his face. As if he was approaching a particularly difficult sudoko puzzle.
I was twenty when I knew for sure I was doomed. My hair had started to recede (thanks dad) and turn grey (thanks mum). For the past three weeks I've been putting off getting my hair cut because I knew what was ahead of me. Forget scissors people, it's machine only in this neck of the woods. We all know the look, the man who’s long since lost all hope of hair but is still desperately trying to hang on; the comb-over is point in case. It’s BS and everyone knows it! For this reason, although I’ve been relatively confident that I still have time on my hands, for the past two years, I've been threatening to shave off my hair and stop trying to pretend that I still have a regular hairline. So this seems like a good time, to at least experiment with the look.
And so I find myself, not quite recognisable yet in the mirror. I am enjoying the feel of my hand running over my hair though and hair that dries in less than 5 minutes is quite welcome. Sadly, in the half-light of the shop, I didn’t notice the large patches of hair that he missed. It also only occurred to me later that normally, my wonderful Turkish barber has ALWAYS shaved my hair upwards, not downwards and so unsurprisingly, there are indeed these lovely patches of longer hair. At $0.80 a visit though, I think I might be able to stretch to another visit to rectify the matter.

Yours, a much more air-conditioned David

Soundscape

The sawing of metal through chicken skeleton floats through the open kitchen door as the cook cuts through the freshly thawed chicken which is being prepared for the priests dinner. I shouldn’t even be here but for two days straight there has been no power and so I’ve had to use the priests house which always has electricity thanks to the radios diesel powered generator. This is just one of the many foreign sounds I’ve been experiencing here.

When I thought of what Chikuni might be like as a place all those months ago, I thought of “the back of beyonds”. No street-lighting, no cars, no sirens or constant traffic and very sparsely populated. To be honest I thought it would be deathly silent. Ha, was I wrong! I remember one of the first evenings it rained here, maybe a month ago. I was in mass when the rain broke, the heavens opened and the lightning shrieked from above. I got nicely soaked by the time the rain stopped. On the walk home, the noise was incredible. Toads, frogs, crickets and who knows what made it perfectly clear that they were very happy to see rain. Indeed, the noise was so loud, I had to put my hands over my ears!

The most memorable sounds tend to be at night though. The rustle of something large in your bedroom after turning off the lights; the boom of thunder and followed by the pitter-patter (and even pounding sometimes) of rain on our roof; walking home in the pitch black along the top of the reservoir amidst a plethora of calls made by creatures I have never seen before nor can now identify. Even the surprisingly loud buzz of a mosquito, only inches away from your head with nothing but a mosquito net between you and it.

In the morning it’s the birds that make the most noise. By 7 am have already had two and a half hours of practise done. The birdsong is also punctuated by the annoyingly loud cry of cockerels announcing themselves long after dawn has been and gone. The bastards!

During the day, there is usually the pleasant sound of laughter. People here are remarkably happy and laugh regularly. For example, on Friday we were supposed to go with a drilling crew to drill a borehole for fresh drinking water in a distant village called Cheelo that lies on the outskirts of the parish. The rig broke down no more than 100 meters from where the crew had stayed overnight; the rear suspension cracked, thank you crap Zambian roads. The boss was clearly annoyed by this and his crew were trying to fix it without much success but yet they were still able to tease and laugh with each other. These guys sleep rough every night in tents wherever they are drilling or find themselves. Life is a long way from easy and yet they are not downtrodden or heartened, which I really admire. There is also another reason for the laughter, or perhaps giggling would be a better description. As a white guy wherever I go, after meeting a group of people (but especially girls) there is usually an uproar of laughter. I take this in good spirits and can only hope they are not being too mean about me. Then there is Tonga, the local language. It’s quite lyrical but not like any other language I have heard before. Besides those, there is the mechanical sound of Radio Chikuni, generators/UPS’s (because we lose power at least once a week) and badly maintained cars bouncing over dirt road.
I think the noise I notice the most though is the steady sound of crickets. They go on and on, at the same pace and pitch until they blend into the background and you don’t notice them for hours. Then you stop thinking or dreaming or talking and there they are. Even now as I write this at 17:30 they are in full swing and in stiff competition with the evening news on in the kitchen.

I hope all that makes sense. I’ve discovered it’s a rather difficult thing to describe sounds, especially when I don’t have that many reference points for you. But needless to say, just like most other things here, it’s all quite different and sometimes scary.

Sleep tight in your boring creature free homes,
David

Rain!

Sky blue puddles turn to brown reflections of trees moments before the car tyres plunge in, sending frogs flying and turning the mirrored surface into a tidal wave crashing over the lip of the pothole in the dirt track. This happens time after time for over an hour as we make our way to Chona village. We accelerate to 30 km/h then brake hard for the next lake in the road. The once green landscape is slowly turning brown as farmers drive oxen drawn ploughs through the rich soil. Everyone is busy now that the rains have started to fall properly. We meet another HBC support group in Chona, numbering about 20 people. It’s the first time in weeks that I have been out with HBC as I’ve been too busy writing software. It’s nice to be back out. Nowadays when I go out with Monica (the HBC nurse) the formula is always the same. I have to introduce myself to the group so they know who/what I am. Afterwards when all the talking is done their personal medical files are distributed and I take up my own nurse duties. An ancient scale is placed in front of me and they line up to be weighed. I record their weight (reading numbers upside down turns out to be fun activity) and give them back their file. After all the weights are done we move onto blood pressure. A nifty little machine is used with an electronic reading which even I can manage to operate. Some people are all smiles as we go through this process, others are shy and a handful shows no emotion at all. Regarding the last group, I suppose they get so tired of the small old rigmarole every month that over time they just become despondent. Or they might just not like me (shock/horror!). Either way, I almost feel worse for them because I can’t help but feel like they have given up hope. I am glad to be of use though and it beats standing around feeling useless. After both of those measurements they go to see Monica who distributes various drugs including painkillers and ARVs (anti-virals) that help fight HIV. After my duties are done, I sometimes take out my camera and take some shots.

A consequence of the arrival of the rains is the absolutely amazing thunder and lightning storms. I have long been a fan of a good lightning storm and here I have been treated to, without doubt, the most spectacular storm ever! Picture a clear night sky dotted with bright stars directly overhead. Now look in any direction you wish and watch the cloud light up with flashes of white as lightning flashes. But still there is silence and the stars overhead, somehow out of place because you shouldn’t be able to see stars during a storm and why can you not hear any thunder? The flashes are constant because there is lightning everywhere but here. Sometimes you see huge streaks of fork lightning crashing to the ground to split trees, cause havoc and make babies cry. Sometimes the lightning even seems to go horizontal and then back up into the cloud. The best bit is that you are sitting outside, with good company and an illicit Castle beer in your hand, waiting to be called inside for a dinner you don’t have to cook for a change. This happened last Monday night as Jean Pedro and I sat outside “yellow house”, our local restaurant. We also had lightning Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Are you seeing the pattern yet? The side effect of the lightning is the electricity outages. At least three times this week we’ve lost power, often over night. Two mornings I’ve woken to find no Zesco (power). JP and I made a campfire Monday night though and ruined an aluminium pot making tea though, which was very nice. The last time I had made a fire was on a beach in Ardmore (Waterford, Ireland), many New Years eves ago with a girl who sadly, still means a lot to me but I no long see.

Last weekend was great. I went to a traditional Zambian wedding (don’t worry girls/mum, it wasn’t mine). Pretty much everything was different from a European wedding (like the bride arriving before the groom) and I think I was guest of honour. I also ended up making a fool of myself dancing with some traditional African dances on Saturday with a group of very talented young ladies from Mukanzubu, the Chikuni Tonga cultural centre. I believe the saying from the bible is: ask and you shall receive…

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