Same World Same Chance

The 'Rush Life' of the Bush

2012-02-21T03:30:00.001-08:00

It’s been a long time since I wrote. I’ve been to Canada and back to Zambia since I wrote. I sat down to write a few times. I would start something and then I couldn’t finish it. It may be the case that there are so many things happening right now, that one thing didn’t seem more significant to write about over the others. It may be the case that all of these things are running into each other inside my brain, and I couldn’t give one of them enough time to thoroughly process. We’ve got 3 volunteers from abroad here. We are still constructing a staff house. We are trying to start adult classes. We have been continuing with our nursery program. We are planning an on site fundraiser for March. We are farming. I now have 3 chickens, 2 ducks, 4 puppies and a dog that run around outside my house. I’ve got peanuts, maize, butternut squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and soy beans that need a lot of attention in my garden. Things are busy, and I haven’t even touched on half of it all.

Recently a friend brought to my attention the fact (and not the feeling, but the fact) that every single day, I was getting up tight about at least one of the above gazillion things happening around here. At first I defended myself and tried to explain that I’m not one of those persons that gets upset about the small things. After all, I happen to love what I am doing, and people who love what they’re doing, don’t let the small things bring them down. I gave up a lot of ‘things’ that were supposed to make me happy in Canada to be here and had convinced myself that that idea alone was supposed to make me happier than others. Wrong!

What I finally realized (when I developed enough courage to try to change this nasty habit I was getting into) was that no matter how ‘simple’ you make life, there are still worries. There are still conflicts and fears and challenges in the bush. Without watching the 6:00 news and without neighbours and without shopping malls and media; there are still issues to face here. I was letting those issues mean more to me than the beauty of all the good. The issues meant more to me than the things that are supposed to make me happy here. They meant more to me then waking up with the sun, and running beside my dog in the morning, and even more than being a part of and watching the progress of SWSC.

I’ve decided to give it all another go. No matter where I am, and who I find myself in the company of; I want to be appreciative. It’s worrying about what is going to happen next that leaves me short tempered. It’s strange that I became a victim to the rush of the western world, while out in the peace of the bush in Zambia.

Zambia to Canada and Back

2011-12-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

I’m in the airport in Lusaka, and I’m on my way to Canada for the holidays.

What am I leaving behind in Zambia?

I’m leaving my house and 11 new puppies my dog gave birth to on Tuesday. I’m leaving an un-weeded garden. I’m leaving garden beds that haven’t got soya or ground nut seeds in them and were supposed to have. I’m leaving the rain and the emerging vegetation that resembles the entire spectrum of the colour green. I’m leaving 56 kids and toddlers that are going to classes everyday taught by Bushimbe and Katamfya. I’m leaving my ex-pat friends and my Zambian friends. I’m leaving unfinished issues with leadership over here and I’m leaving a lot of love behind.

I’m only going for three weeks. You`d think it was three years.

What am I going towards in Canada?

I’m going to my family and my friends. I’m going to stand beside my best friend as she recites marriage vows to her husband. I’m going to cold and snow, and warm fires and piles of blankets on my childhood bed in my childhood bedroom. I’m going to live music and the chance at some live theatre and window shopping with my Mom. I’m going to coffee and hot showers and nights of endless amounts of belly aching laughter with the girls who are now ladies, that I grew up with.

What am I coming back to in three weeks?

I’m coming back to an organization that is MAYBE, just MAYBE now getting its feet off the ground. I’m coming back to two Canadian volunteers, a Japanese volunteer, a German volunteer, two American volunteers and a slew of Zambians that have believed in this thing longer than Kim and I have. I’m coming back to the peak of mango season and fresh maize and pumpkins, which I can whip into a fabulous soup. I’m coming back to a change.

We are expecting a tight year full of back to back volunteers from around the world; all coming to be a part of something that means something more. I want to take care of them when they`re in Zambia. I want to watch them fall in love with Kibombomene, the way Kim and I did. I want to see it all through their eyes. I need that.

I keep thinking about something Vance (one of our newest arrivals from Goderich Ontario) said to me a few nights back. He said that when he was teaching in Canada, he never knew what it was all for. He said that in Kibombomene, at SWSC, he knows now. He feels purpose and meaning. I think that this is what it`s all about. This unwritten sorta thing that can only be felt. It tells us that things can be better. It tells us that we can be a piece of making it better. It`s that hope. It`s the ambition that drives all opportunities to create more happiness and more love. It doesn’t have to be only felt in Kibombomene. It should be felt all over the world.

One of the greatest gifts that I can reflect on as my time in Zambia comes to a close for another year is this HOPE. It`s watching hope through other people`s new experiences. It`s seeing it when our students stand up and recite the alphabet for the first time all on their own. It`s seeing it in Vance as he remarks astonishingly about the beauty of the place that I sometimes unfortunately forget.

I am looking forward to going home to Canada and I`m looking forward to coming back to Zambia. I`m looking forward to living a life from here on in, that doesn`t forget how hope looks and feels and how it just is.

Plant and Paint

2011-11-16T23:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve found a new way to handle life.

It involves a paint brush and some dirt. If I knew long ago, that all I had to do when things got tough, was surrender my thoughts to an unpainted wall or two, then I would have been a champion of life years ago.

Let’s get serious though. Being a champion at life, or trying to understand the challenges as they come at you like bugs in your windshield, is something I am still working on. I’m sure I will never get it all straight. However, for the time being, painting and planting are solving (or should I better say ‘delaying’) the tender issues of SWSC from my point of view.

I find ourselves at a crucial turning point over here in Kibombomene in terms of leadership. The people behind this organization, including me, need a readjustment or a refreshment or a rearrangement or something that involves being “re’d”. Maybe if we are “re’d” into something new than we will be able to keep moving forward positively. I feel so much pressure, because I feel like this is it. I won’t go into the details of what is happening over here. I won’t do that because I would be writing for days. It just seems though, that this current challenge will label us for the rest of our existence. Who are we and what did we start as SWSC? More importantly, who is that we are working for? Never mind all the nitty gritty details. I’m only sure that painting and planting are going to help me answer these questions.

If I paint and then I plant, then it seems easier to get through this. When painting, I can see progress. Although some of the progress is shared on my arms and legs, most of it gets on the wall. I can see that I am moving forward. It is simple. With one stroke here and another there, I am accomplishing something and boy does it feel good. When planting, I can feel growth. There is hope when you put something into the ground. Although not all of the seeds will take bloom, I can believe that most of them will. It is simple. With one seed here and another there, I am accomplishing something and boy does it feel good.

When I do these things, I am tricking my brain. I am letting it believe that I am getting some work done. If it weren’t for this, my brain would be overcome by the issues of SWSC. I don’t need that right now, because this new way to handle life includes being patient. I believe that after a few more painted walls then an answer will be revealed. I believe that after I plant those banana trees today then an answer will be revealed. Maybe it will happen somewhere in the midst of it all.

So, I urge you to paint a little and plant something with me. I think that if we are together on this, then we will come up with something that works for all of us. I can’t see that quite yet. When we do see it, then I believe what I know about the future of SWSC will come to life. That crucial turning point that I’m talking about involving our people over here, won’t seem so crucial because we will have made the right decision. We will have taken the right path.

Choose Better

2011-11-09T22:53:00.000-08:00

I want to be able to choose right in my life. Is this the greatest human inner conflict? It’s the battle to want to be good and do good, and then fail miserably in attempt of doing so? It’s the battle to want love and give love, and then fail miserably in attempt of doing so?

SWSC is supposed to be better. It’s supposed to be better than the mistakes of the past. It is supposed to give opportunity to those who otherwise wouldn’t have that chance. It is supposed to make good decisions. These good decisions are supposed to be based on love for each other.

Lately I have been thinking a lot lately about how a good idea and true intentions can turn sourly. A President in Zambia may start his campaign with a full heart for the people. This would be a heart for change. There would be more schools and more hospitals and more jobs and less people suffering. Where though, does the problem begin? Somewhere along the line, the true intentions start to smell badly. Decisions get made from the wrong influence and at the end of the day the President has gone so far away from those original intentions, that he can’t find his way back to the honest goal.

I will die if this happens to SWSC. In the beginning 4 years ago, I would say that I wouldn’t want to know me, if one day I woke up and I was a member of something that became dishonest.

I’m terrified of being that President in Zambia, or that corporate leader, or that NGO Director, that wakes up one day and doesn’t know the difference between real good and the fake good. The fake good is the type of good that starts off good, but really isn’t because it is backed up by so many horrible excuses. It makes the wound deeper instead of heals.

What have I got to hold on to? There is only belief left. Christmas is next month and it is a great time to remember that I believe in something. Christmas may be one of those horrible excuses though, and I think it is better that I remember to believe today. The only choice is to believe that what you’re doing is entwined with goodness. It’s about being humble when I have made a mistake and letting others push me back onto a better path.

I do believe in this organization. I do believe after four years, that it is better than what is behind us. We can’t do this alone though. I’m asking you all to believe that this world can be better and should be better and that it’s not too late to be the real sort of good. The fake one doesn’t resolve.

This is What we NEED

2011-10-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

Someone once advised me that I should work on my communication skills. He told me that I needed to be more active about telling the world EXACTLY what it is that SWSC needed. I've been here for almost 4 years now. I've known this friend for longer than that and when he came to Kibombomene in September, he told me that it wasn't until he arrived here that he had a better understanding of our needs.

Let me try to be clear today. Today I'm a little frustrated and a lot sad. Today, everything feels like a personal attack. Today, the non-existant health centre in this community hurts me. Today the lack of education and resources hurt me. Today all of the corruption and all of the lies and all of the greed, hurt me. Today, after 4 years I know I am a victim of all of the afore mentioned things, because I am a member of this community.

Today I will tell you what we need RIGHT NOW in Kibombomene. I'm not taking you on a guilt trip and it's not about trying to make you feel sorry for poor little Africa. It is simple about surrendering to who we are supposed to be as human beings. It is our duty. It is our right. It is an optionless choice that we MUST CARE FOR EACH OTHER.

What WE need is a health clinic. We need Doctors (note the plural, because one is not enough). We need nurses. We needs an endless supply of medicine. We need equipment and machines for testing and x-raying and whatever else. We need people who specialize in dentistry and in different diseases and etc, etc, etc. We need a big building. We need beds and other furniture. We need more staff to run the clinic.

We need all of this now because what we have, let me say what I HAVE, is a 17 year old Zambian sister who nearly lost her life last night while giving birth to her already dead baby girl. It happened on a dirt floor under a grass roof.

I don't care if it's the government or some other NGO or a private business; I don't care who it is that builds this thing, but we need to do it together. I understand that this sort of thing also happens in Canada. Babies die and mothers lose their lives, but it shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't happen like that, when the possibilities for improvement are right in front of us. It's not right.

We gotta love each other more than this.

Breakfast is Served

2011-10-12T00:11:00.003-07:00

October is hot in Zambia. Every year I try to be better than the heat. Every year I try to force myself to do the things that I want to do throughout instant sweat. Instant sweat comes about when you're just lying in bed, surrendering to the afternoon heat and you are still sweating. A couple days ago, instant sweat beat me. So, I decided to take a 'sick day' which consisted of me stretched out on my bed waiting for the heat to pass. Since, I'm not very good at having 'sick days' and shutting off my brain to sleep, I opened up some of my old journals to have a gander. I opened up some of my old writing from 1999 and came across this little note:

'I pretend to know how it must feel to be starving, but I don't and I'll go on for the rest of my life eating like I could care less about children and families who haven't eaten in days. I "NEED" so much from this world but am too spolied to change the way a two year old in Africa will see tomorrow. The bottom line is WE NEED HELP. EVERYONE DOES'.

When I was 15, I didn't know I was going to be living in rural Zambia at 27. When I was 15 I had no idea that I would have started a breakfast program as part of an orgnization that I would be committing my full energy to. I had no idea. At 15 I knew that I wanted things. I wanted to have fun and I wanted a boyfriend I'm sure, and I wanted to play soccer. At 15 though, there was something inside of me that told me I had too much and that I was supposed to do something about that. I was supposed to be concerned about people in far off places, somewhere in Africa and I was supposed to understand their needs.

This is how the world works. The world is in need. In Africa, in North America; people around the world need things. They need food and education and health care and they need love. I need those things too. We are all in the same boat. I'm wondering if that's why SWSC can grow. It can grow because we're here as Canadians who may just be deemed spoiled, working with Zambians who may just be deemed poor. We are here living with them and we are serving the same needs that I expect to be met for myself.

With that said, SWSC is now serving up breakfast. It is expensive. It is costing us about $80 Canadian every week to feed just less than 50 toddlers and kids who make it to our classes every morning. They're coming from more than 2kn away and they're coming to learn the alphabet and write their names.

I figure, if there is NOTHING else that we do but feed a few kids a healthy breakfast, than we have succeeded. I feel good about this. I feel like my 15 year old self would have been happy if she knew this was going on. I guess the heat brings a little more than sweat after all.

Not Every Day is Sunday

2011-09-13T05:27:00.001-07:00

Someone I live with, someone who has ended up being sort of like a teacher for me, gave me some very simple but helpful advice a little while back. He told me that ‘not every day is Sunday’. I laughed in his face when he said this, because to be perfectly honest, I thought it was stupid. Apart from accepting the obvious, that yes indeed, not every day is Sunday; I felt like he was patronizing me by informing me of something more appropriately geared for a toddler. He’s younger than me, so I had to fight the pompous urge to put him in his place by reminding him of that. After all, I’m older with more life experience and pride tells me that I’m way above taking advice from barely 20 year olds.

Because I sometimes like to refer to myself as a mature adult, I thought I’d give him about 20 seconds to infer more meaningful wisdom. After all, today is Tuesday, right? Yesterday was Monday, wasn’t it? That makes tomorrow Wednesday or something like that and therefore I am able to conclude (thanks to my many bright years in Canadian Public Schools) that Sunday only comes around once in a while.

Since I live with my friend, I know that sometimes he does his washing on Sundays. On some Sundays he helps me do some landscaping around the house (also known as pulling out grass from dirt). We usually have nshima for dinner and we are all in bed sometime around 9:00PM. When he was telling me that ‘not every day is Sunday’, I was trying to imagine what he found so horrible about Sundays at our place. There’s never ice cream for dessert on Sundays or a mid-day drive through the park. There is walking around barefoot and the thrill of clean hands for about 30 minutes while I wash my clothes next to the stream. I guess it’s not really the sort of thing that many people would be envious of. However, there he was, sitting across from me, looking into my eyes, imparting this intelligent piece of information to me...and then I got it.

Not every day is Sunday.

It’s not every day that I wake up and feel like my involvement in this project is right. I sometimes feel like I have made a mistake or two. It’s not every day that the relationships between the people who are involved in this organization are on perfect terms. We disagree from time to time. It’s not every day that we receive a donation for $5,000. Sometimes our account narrows in on zero. It’s not every day that the world is going to validate that what we’ve attempted to do over here in Zambia is right. There are some who have the courage to tell us that we’re wrong. These days are always worse than they need to be, because at the close of them, I realize I’ve been given the opportunity to reconsider some of the decisions we have made. These bad days, end up being helpful in the end.

The most honest thing about Sundays is that when they’re good, they always promise to be good. When Sundays are bad, they always promise to be bad. They pass though , these Sundays. It has something to do with science and the way the sun works its way around us. Some brilliant group of people a long time ago, realized that it was best to have Sundays finish. It’s only 24 hours and then it’s a moment of the past. At times, it`s a truth that I am stubborn enough not to believe. Sometimes I let the disasters of some Sundays drag on into Monday. I have a difficult time accepting that, what is done is done. I want to fix it and I need it to better immediately.

I’m wondering if, after all, I’m not too old for `stupid` advice. It may be the thing that is going to help me and this organization to grow. If we dwell on the past, if we try to fix too many of the mistakes, than we will get lost. There are so many Sundays that have finished before us, and they don’t matter because we can’t do anything about them. It`s the Sundays in front of us that we can do something about. In fact, I have 6 days to think about my next Sunday. I have 6 days to focus on a better Sunday. That, I know I can do. Thank goodness that not every day is Sunday.

ME ME ME Disease

2011-09-06T00:35:00.000-07:00

The ‘what about me’ disease has recently been attacking my immune system. It’s one of my greatest weaknesses. I can sense it creeping into my skin from kilometres away, yet my body still acts surprised when it starts to invade my cells. It repulses me. This self centred, self absorbed illness that works by convincing me that everyone in the world is against me. The symptoms are not feeling appreciated, and feeling like I have been taken advantage of, and feeling like everything you do for everyone else has been forgotten. No one notices and no one cares when you sweat and no one cares when you sacrifice. My problem lies in not admitting that I have the disease. I like to ignore it. I like to pretend that it’s impossible for me to feel this way. It’s a disgusting disease anyways, and my pride tells me that I should be the exception. My pride tells me that by some miracle, when I was born, my inner make-up, and mine only, was void of any self pity. WRONG!

I hate this disease, because I am one of those humans that wear their heart on their sleeve. You know those people, right? I think we’re the hardest people to deal with in the world, because our feelings are impossible to hide. I try with all my might to swallow the ‘what about me’ disease along with some sort of righteous pain killer; but I am never successful. A pain killer is only a mask, and after its effects fade away, I am still left feeling like the world isn’t noticing ME, ME, ME. There’s my heart, right out there for everyone to see, consumed by self absorption. The worst part is that the ‘what about me’ disease is contagious. It likes to feast on people who are in good moods. It likes to bring those people down as well and it isn’t satisfied until everyone notices that ME ME ME is suffering and that ME ME ME needs some attention.

Horrible.

What finally eradicates the disease from my body is realizing that people do appreciate me, and they do love me, and they do want to take care of me. The disease feels a lot of shame when this is realized. It sort of evaporates slowly out of my body with its head down, understanding that love is always greater. That’s the kicker. Love and the disease are worst enemies. It’s like watching the same war movie over and over again. You know ahead of time that the good guys are going to win, but you sit through two hours anyways, waiting to be convinced in the final scene.

What I wil do, because everyone knows that life just moves on, is pick myself up right now. I will try to slap the ‘what about me’ disease in the face. I will tell it to go take a hike. There are more important things to do today and I don’t need the disease in my way. Here I go, and by the way, thanks for listening and reminding me that ‘what about me’ is only a moment or two that is always conquered by something so much more worth it; love.

To You

2011-09-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family and teachers and....

It's me here again, trying to get some of my thoughts out of my brain and into writing. One thing I'm always thinking about is how to PROPERLY convey my gratitude to you for everything you've been giving me. Just as before and just as always, I can't seem to find anything more than words. I wish it were easier than words. I wish there was something I could pick up at an expensive shop in Lusaka that would be enough. I wish I could pick it off the shelf, wrap it, hand it to you and then you would know. You would now how grateful I am, by the size and the colour and the shine and the cost. However I always come to the same conclusion, nothing is big enough. Nothing would ever be big enough and therefore I'm left with words.

I'm only saying this now because you've done so much for me. It's gone on too long without me saying anything and your kindness towards me needs to be awknowledged now.

What I did to receive your genorosity seemed very simple to me. All I did one day was listen to something inside of me that felt pretty right. That led me to africa and it took me straight to Kibombomene in Zambia. I gave a lot up in return for the opportunity to give and receive real love. Real love I think means something different for everyone, but for me it has a lot to do with sacrifice.

That's it. I gave some things up in an attempt to know love. I'd do it again and I will do it again because my life feels better than it was. I gave these things up and it was challenging and life got hard, but I always knew what I was looking for. I gave things up and love started to reveal itself to me. It was slow at first but now it shows up all the time. It shows up because now I allow it to show up and before I couldn't.

I want to apologise if I haven't said thankyou in the right way. Saying it in the right way would mean that you would feel my appreciation instead of hearing it.

What helps me to understand how love is played out in the world is a song called 'Love Never Fails' by Brandon Heath. I could listen to it a trillion times over and I would still crave to understand everything the song goes on about. A friend of mine just walked down the aisle to this song playing and it never sounded more true. My favourite parts of the song sing:

"Love will sustain. Love will provide. Love will not cease at the end of time. Love will protect. Love always hopes. Love still believes when you don't....love is right here. Love is alive. Love is the way, the truth, the life".

Thank YOU. You know exactly who you ALL are. I am so grateful.

Love Wears a Yellow Dress

2011-08-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love’s choice of clothing. It reminds me of sitting on a bench at a Tube Stop in London England, on my way home to Canada for Christmas last year. I think that love is like someone wearing a bright yellow dress amongst a crowd of head downers. The head downers have their faces in the newspaper, or their faces in their phones and the head downers are wearing black pants and black jackets and black scarves. I’m sure the head downers that passed me that day waiting for my train to arrive have some yellow dresses in their closest. That’s faith, you know. It means believing that the head downers wearing black have some light in their lives, or in other words, they have some love in their lives. Faith is believing that they must at least have some yellow underwear. It’s hoping that their choice of clothing doesn’t reflect the love they must have underneath the black layers. Maybe the head downer’s wear black so that they can absorb as much light and as much love as possible. Maybe they have a better understanding of love than I do, because yellow reflects a lot of light, but doesn’t get to hold it in. But the problem is that all the head downers are wearing black and there isn’t any yellow warmth to absorb.

I’ve been thinking about my clothing choices lately. Sometimes I feel like wearing black, because maybe then I will blend in with the crowd. People won’t stare at me as much then. When I am really being me, I like to turn one of my pink scarves into a shirt somehow and I like to wear big dangly earrings and I like to wear the bright purple dress Candace bought me last year. I don’t think it’s because I like to show off, but I think it’s because what is inside of me feels bright and I want to wear that a little on the outside. When I am really being me, I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to be another black skirt.

Love isn’t a black skirt. It doesn’t stand on the Tube platform wearing the latest black fashion from the coolest retail outlet. It doesn’t pretend to check text messages on the phone as opposed to making eye contact with another black skirt. Love wears the yellow dress because that’s all it knows how to do. It is bright without being a show off and without being overly proud and it is bright because it refuses to hide amongst the others.

Some days I wish I understood love better than I do. You can tell by my obscure reference to love being clothing, that I am really struggling to figure it all out. What I wish is that I could wear love’s yellow dress every single moment of every single day and I wish I wasn’t ashamed. I will never say that places like that Tube Station I sat in is void of love. I will never say that places like Zambia are vibrant with love, (because here it is extremely rare to find someone wearing black). I guess it’s that when I am in Zambia I feel a little more like it’s ok to wear the yellow dress FOR REAL. Wearing it for real, means that when I feel love; I am able to speak it and breathe it and show it. I won’t run away from it, and I will certainly never hide from love; even if it puts me in an outfit that I never imagined I would ever wear. The challenge is there. The challenge is being able to recognize love the second that it steps out of the train and onto the platform. The challenge is to understand that it doesn’t matter how embarrassing it may make you look. The challenge is not denying the feeling that it is something that you want. The challenge has been conquered when you begin to walk after it, inquire about where you can get your own yellow dress and understand that you will never change your style again.

Love will always choose the yellow dress.

Thinking about Zamland?

2011-08-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

I'm writing an introductory letter for our SWSC volunteer guide, and ya...this is what I came up with and I couldn't finish it, or edit it....and it just came out like this....some preliminary thoughts and some time to reflect on this little organization of ours. It needs some work, but this is the first draft:

Mwaiseni (Welcome) to SWSC!

SWSC has been more than three years in the making, and has been in the hearts and minds of people around the world for years and years before. We’re so glad that you found us, because your input, your time, your energy and most importantly your heart and the hearts of everyone else involved in this, is what makes us move forward. We may be small in number, but our true intentions are what should bring us enormous fame. This is because our true intentions are about achieving an equal opportunity for all. Our goal is not an easy one, but we believe that as long as we ATTEMPT to make change always supported by love, than we may never go too far off track.

Years ago, Kim and I ventured from Canada to Africa in order to grab our own perspective of what Africa is. We were not satisfied with the media’s continual image that flashed a bleak and negative picture of a continent forever in turmoil. Although we were sure we would find a positive side to the disarray that the media portrayed; what we have found instead is a unique individualistic experience; one that cannot be multiplied. This experience is neither positive nor negative. What initially appealed to us about Zambia was the colour. There seemed to be colour in the landscape and in the people, and this colour made everything magical. However, like every single place in the world, the colour sometimes fades and when it does, you begin to know something or someplace or someone for what it truly is. SWSC is about an experience called life, and when we started Same World Same Chance, we wanted to get living it. We wanted life to mean something, and so we went about it in the only way we knew how to do it.

That is exactly what we are inviting you to have. Wherever you may be in the world, we are asking you to take a second look and while you’re at it, beg a few questions from the world, about the way the media wants you to believe it. What we have learned is that, change is possible. What we have learned is that, you don’t have to go far to work towards it. What we have learned is that, SWSC has become an organization that embodies every single good thing that we aspire to have about us.

Come Laugh With Us in Kibo!

2011-07-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

My friends and I that I live with started what seems to be a campfire tradition a few weeks ago at our place. We’ve been having a campfire pretty frequently lately. It’s sort of what just happens when there isn’t a television and when you don’t want to go straight to bed after dinner. We’re sort of an odd bunch (my friends and I), but I love that we are together. Living in the house most days is; me, an 11 year old (daughter of SWSC Managing Director), my Canadian Nurse friend, my friend from Kitwe (who happens to be my Canadian friend’s fiancé), his friend from Kitwe, three puppies and my dog. This changes weekly, as people come and go from all over the place, staying a night or two or longer. We have Peace Corps friends stay and friends from Canada stay and friends from Kitwe stay; and we are continually shuffling beds around to accommodate everyone; but it is wonderful.

When I first came to Zambia, the campfires I used to sit around lost their alluring glow almost immediately. It’s because most people in rural Zambia are cooking two or three meals a day on a fire and there is always a fire going. What I used to love about sitting around a fire in Canada burned out and quickly became something I dreaded. It’s because when I first came to Zambia, people would sit around the fire, waiting to for the food to cook and they would tell stories and laugh and joke and I had no idea what was going on. They would be speaking in Luvale or Kaonde or Bemba and I was left out. It made me feel so lonely. It made me so bitter and I ended up hating their laughter. I hated their happiness around those fires because I blamed them in a way for not involving me. It wasn’t their fault though. This experience was new for everyone. I was a young English speaking woman thrown into unknown territory. They couldn’t communicate jokes to me in the little English they knew. The positive side to those lonely nights for me was that it forced an urgency to learn the language. I wanted to laugh too. I remember when my brother came to visit me 6 months after Kim had left me in Zambia. By then, I hadn’t really laughed in so long. I remember him telling a joke, and I remember this unfamiliar noise coming from within me. I remember it feeling so strange because I had forgotten how to laugh. I had literally lost my humour. I was half alive!

A lot has changed since then. Now we have these campfires at my house, and my friends and I, we tell stories and we laugh around them. We started telling stories one night and now it’s become our thing. It’s usually not long before someone asks, “Who’s first”? We start out by jokingly introducing ourselves, like we have never met before. We really know how to set a proper stage.

I’m writing this now, because I have a moment on this quiet Saturday morning to realize how important story telling is. My friends and I like to tell stories about love. Two friends that I live with are getting married in a few weeks here in Zambia. The other night, one of them re-told us their love story. I hadn’t heard it in a while. It sort of made me upset that I hadn’t asked to hear it in a while. How could life be so busy that I forgot to hear stories about love? Didn’t I know that there aren’t any better stories to hear about? I was there, when she fell in love with her fiancé and I was there when he fell in love with her; but I hadn’t heard the story in so long. I liked the way she told it. I liked the way that we remembered to tell each other about love and just how beautiful it is. I liked the way that it reminded me that I am in a very different place from those campfires three and a half years ago. Instead of my heart growing harshly, as it was then, it is growing in a way that begs for more stories about love.

Anyhow, the point of this little blog is that, we are always looking for more stories about love around our campfires. If you need directions of where to find us in quiet little Kibombomene, let me know!

Fatness

2011-07-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

There's a little girl that comes to our wee little school at SWSC and her name is Fatness. Yup, her name is Fatness. Trust me, I double checked with one of her older siblings a couple times that this was in fact her name. The Canadian-ess in me, made me wonder why anyone in their right mind would name their kid Fatness. Were her parents preparing their baby girl for hundreds of minutes of future ridicule? Any kid in Canada wouldn't make it out of the hospital with a birth certificate scarred with such an insulting name. After a while, my Zambian-ess kicked in and I realized that the name was most likely given as an honour. An honour to be fat, eh? This is Zambia. Fat is beautiful. Fat is wealth. Fat is health.

How did the translation across the ocean get so misinterpreted about this physical quality that is so appreciated here and not there? Why are millions of ladies and girls across the ocean devoting so much valuable brain power to 'fatness'?

I've been called fat so many times since being in Zambia. At first it kinda sucked because I didn't think I was fat at all. I grew up watching friends worry about their diets and their amount of excerice, and it was never me. I watched friends suffer by reading the lies in labels on packages at the same time as reading the number of calories burned on the treadmill, making sure it all equaled out. I never thought twice about the way I looked. But I got to Zambia and people started calling me fat and it made me want to return an insult, because that's what it was, an insult to me. What they were saying though was that I was beautiful. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear that. Instead, it made me feel badly about what I had and others didn't. I saw weight as an indicator of wealth and I didn't want to be wealthy. I didn't want to have something others didn't. My skin colour was already a big enough sign of my wealth and that was something I couldn't change. I lost a lot of weight. I stopped being healthy. I stopped being beautiful.

What a waste of time. It was time I should have spent loving; myself included.

Be with me here on this one ladies because a negative thought spent on the way we look should not be regarded as more than just a simple thought. It can pass. It should pass and we should let more valuable thoughts take its place. The way I think about HIV in Zambia is the same way I think about the disease of weight; useless. A big part of me is in SWSC because I'm thinking about the millions of minds that could stop HIV if they weren't dying from it. A big part of me is in SWSC because I'm thinking about the millions of minds that could LOVE more if their minds weren't already controlled by image.

There's a change that needs to happen in our hearts. It's not merely a change for Africa, because the way I see it; places like Kibombomene in Zambia are already so much farther ahead of places elsewhere. There are women and girls here who love themselves and each other and they don't need a mirror's approval. They don't need a magazine or a tv show to tell them if they're beauitful enough. Wars and avoidable deadly diseases and corruption and all that other jazz that we peg as the "problems with the world today" aren't going anywhere until we spend more time being in love.

The names our parents give us or our friends call us, should not effect how we love. The world will continue calling us things we don't like...let it pass...and let love BE as good as it is.

Freedom of Guilt

2011-07-10T00:49:00.000-07:00

We’ve been staying in a pretty nice lodge in Malawi over the past few days. It’s built on the top of rocks with a view of the lake. The waves crash into the rocks all night and despite the sound they make, there is a quiet about the place. Everyday we walk down to the lodge’s restaurant and have breakfast and lunch and dinner. The food is expensive here. It’s priced in American dollars. It’s what you would pay for a decent meal at a decent restaurant somewhere in Canada. The prices are aimed at the tourists who don’t even really look at the price when ordering. What a group of three pays in one night’s meal may be what the person who is serving us that meal would make in an entire month’s salary in countries like Malawi and Zambia.

I was wondering if our waitress ever thought about sitting at the table where I have been sitting. Has she ever had the opportunity to parooze a menu and let her taste buds direct her to a limitless choice? Has she ever had the opportunity to be served a 15 dollar meal? I wondered if she thought what we were spending on meals was ridiculous. I wondered if she didn’t think this at all, but was just used to it; understanding that the rich come from somewhere else and that the rich can afford whatever they want on the menu.

I was wondering about the guy who was cleaning our gazebo as I lied out on my bed reading a book yesterday afternoon. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to mop the floors, they weren’t that dirty anyways, but I let him continue, knowing that he was probably supposed to do it no matter what I said. I was wondering if he wanted to be on vacation like me, if he had ever been on holiday before. I wondered if he thought that the idea was entirely preposterous; that some people have the ability to just go somewhere and eat and read and relax. I was thinking about all of this, realizing that I was supposed to be enjoying myself.

As I was closing my eyes that night for sleep, I was thinking about enjoyment and what it meant to different people around the world. I was thinking about happiness and how this was connected to freedom. I realized that it doesn’t matter where you are, what you have or don’t have or where you go to enjoy life; it’s about the freedom we allow ourselves to be able to feel things like love and happiness. Because we are human, we all want something we don’t have. We somehow convince ourselves that if we finally get to the next level, achieving something that someone else has that we don’t (because they are more free than us) then we will finally be all right. When school is finished, when jobs are achieved, when debt is paid, when vows are made, when babies are born, when houses are bought; we will feel free. Burdens will be no longer.

Enjoyment. Happiness. Freedom. Love.

As I woke up this morning, I was thinking about a moment with Kim experienced almost two years ago when I was in Canada for a while. She had just bought a house in London, Ontario. We were at the house with her Mom and they were re-arranging some furniture in the basement. I had just got back from Zambia. I wasn’t free. I was burdened with so much guilt at the time that it infected every single moment of my life (I feel very sad when I write this, because I know that it’s the truth). They were moving around the room, picking up furniture and putting it into a different place. They would step back, admire the room and then decide whether or not it looked all right. If it didn’t satisfy their intentions, then they would move the furniture around again. This went on for the best part of an hour. I couldn’t stand it. I had just come from Zambia where people didn’t have the freedom to move furniture around a living room. It’s because in Kibombomene there isn’t a lot of furniture, let alone living rooms to move things around in. I thought they were wasting time. I thought this because I knew there were more important ways to occupy time. Kim and I got into an argument about this. I like to think that people can’t read my feelings when I am annoyed. I have always thought this, but I am told repeatedly by close friends and family that I am as transparent as window glass. She knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I had made her feel horrible for looking down on this activity that she had been enjoying with her Mom before I ruined it with the condescending attitude I was breathing into the room. At the time I couldn’t explain to her that I wasn’t free. I couldn’t feel happiness and I struggled to enjoy anything. I was lying to everyone in fake smiles because I didn’t understand that guilt owned me.

I’m sharing this moment with you because I’ve been slowly replacing guilt with something more beautiful over the past year or so. I am run by something else. Who is to say that the man cleaning my room yesterday has less than me? Maybe he is freer than I am. Maybe he fills more moments with love. Maybe he enjoys life more than I do. Maybe he laughs more than I do. Maybe our waitress fills her belly with less expensive food, but maybe she swallows every bite in appreciation. That’s a more valuable meal than one priced at 15 dollars. You can’t put enough spice on a meal like that. There isn’t any sauce that will make it taste any better. Her meals may be as sweet as she needs them to be, and it is all up to her.

I’ve been thinking over the past two weeks that I’m supposed to be feeling different about life because I’m on holiday. I’m supposed to be freer. I’m supposed to put my feet up on our gazebo’s porch, lean back, look out onto Lake Malawi and breathe a breath of relief, knowing that now, life is good. The truth is though, that I don’t really feel much different than I do now then when I’m in Kibombomene. Even when I’m at home, I lean back in a wheelbarrow and look out into the tall grass. I am free there, if I allow it. I am free here, if I allow it.

I’m smiling now thinking about this, as I write. Tears are coming to my eyes a little because I UNDERSTAND SOMETHING I DIDN’T TWO YEARS AGO. I know that my life is rich anywhere I go, as long as I am able to let love create my thoughts and my words. No matter where I am and no matter what I have; my life’s freedom and happiness and enjoyment can only be judged by one thing…..LOVE.

Dream Drive

2011-07-08T02:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a lot of time to think, and by ‘thinking’, I clearly mean day dream. It was day dreaming and not thinking because as we were driving from Chipata Zambia to Sanga Bay in Malawi; I was lost. My eyes were open and I was looking out the passenger seat’s window, but I wasn’t seeing anything. From time to time, when someone made a comment about the loads of people packed onto Canter Trucks or the current Malawian fuel crisis; I woke up and realized where I was.

I was dreaming about our little organization. I was dreaming about what we wanted and why we wanted it and how we were going to achieve what it is we wanted. My Mom kept asking questions about the hundreds of young women that we passed along the highway. They all seemed to have babies ‘chitenge-d’ onto their backs. They were all going somewhere but it wasn’t school. They all looked so young. I was dreaming about the source of the problem and trying (like every other single person in the field of development) to think about how to solve it. I kept dreaming about how we cannot just build a school. There is nothing that four walls and a roof will achieve if we leave it at that and walk away. I kept dreaming about how vulnerable this situation is that we are trying to improve. We have the opportunity to help people make their own lives better, but what does that mean…”better”? I was dreaming about my own life and what it is that I wanted to make my life better. What makes me different from the desires and needs of the young mothers we saw along our journey? I know that I want love in marriage and love in children and love in family and love in friends. Don’t I want these things regardless of my level of education and the quality of my health care? I can have and I do have the best education in the world because of where I grew up, and yet I still need love. My life is nothing without it.

When reflecting upon my own desires, I recognized that we need to be so careful with our little organization and our big goals. What improves the world and changes the world and makes lives better is love, whether it is in Zambia or in Canada. It has always been about an individual, because love is so specific. The sort of love that I need doesn’t work for someone else. Love means knowing our future students. Love means not shuffling our future students into a curriculum that works for Ontario or that works for Northwestern Province in Zambia. Love means not tossing them into a learning grade that doesn’t cater to their current ability. Love means knowing the struggles outside of a classroom that youth face in rural communities like Kibombomene.

I thought about something an American woman I met at Lumwana said to me a couple months ago. She said that the people in Zambia were so poor and she said it in a way that she felt sorry for them. It was strange because I didn’t know what she was saying. I couldn’t understand why she would think that the Zambian people were poor. I know now, it’s because she was referring to their torn clothes and to their grass hut homes that she noticed when she drove by them. That’s why she knew them as poor. I have been living with these so called ‘poor’ Zambians for over three years and their poverty doesn’t even occur to me. I always think that there must be people worse off; and there certainly are. The people I live with in Kibombomene have love. My definition of poverty has to do with love. Poor people to me are those without love. The people in Kibombomene have homes and shelter and most of them have farms and eat at least one meal a day. They laugh and they play and they love. There are no guns and there are no fences and even when there is animosity, there are still handshakes and friendly greetings. I think about places where there is war and where there is a lot of hate. Some people in the world are waking up and before they even open their eyes, their hearts are filled with so much hate. There is hate for their governments and for other people’s governments. There is hate for their neighbours and for their co-workers and for their families and there is hate for themselves.

I think that we have an incredible opportunity here with SWSC. We have the chance to turn a community already raging with love into a community educated and properly medically cared for. The combination is explosive. It has the ability to spread like a wild fire AND it most certainly will. In our case, time acts like an inhibitor and a developer. Time will pass by youth in Kibombomene that are ready to learn now, especially the ones that are vulnerable to early pregnancy. Oppositely, time will encourage us to learn how to love the community and help make the right decisions about how to see it succeed.

South Luangwa, Zambia

2011-07-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

I’m in heaven right now or paradise or somewhere not so far away from it. I keep wrinkling up my nose, lazily blinking my eyes as I look around, trying to fully believe that I could be somewhere else besides just there. I’m sure I’ve never seen anywhere more beautiful. This is serenity as we are all supposed to see it; in the way that upon seeing it, it makes you feel it. It absorbs you. It forces unintentional smiles and chest tightening reassurance that peace is amongst us. It’s not something we plan but something we fall into, if we are open to it. I need the world right now to witness this. I need the world right now to drop their guns and their ill intentions and their greed so that they can feel what it is I feel right now. As I look around the beauty of South Luangwa Park in Zambia, I realize that it is all for me. I can’t help but selfishly feel like it’s been a moment waiting for me to walk into. It’s my moment of fulfillment.

What is my prayer or my hope or my desire for this world? It is that every human being may experience a moment deep into love. If my prayer may go beyond that then it would have people living for moments where this love is returned. It would be for us to understand that if it can be felt once than it can always be felt again. It is my desire that we can realize that this is all there is to live for; these little moments that come and go and fill us with everything that we need to be filled up with.

Home Visits Home

2011-07-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine who had spent six years living in Zambia with his family once told me something that continually emerges into my thoughts from time to time. Whether accurate or not, he told me that 2% of the world’s population pick up and move away from home to live somewhere else. Ex-patriots; they call that 2% of us. I’m not sure if that 2% includes refugees and people who seek political asylum or only people that have intentionally sliced through the roots that have born them.

I haven’t decided if I like fitting into the ‘ex-patriot’ category. ‘Ex’ implies that I am no longer. Tacking ‘patriot’ onto the end of ‘ex’ to me, gives a negative connotation to how I feel about where I came from. Am I not proud? Asking that question then opens up an entire set of new queries. Have I attempted to escape the choking hand of Canadian societal pressure? Am I searching for meaning in a way of life that only my Great Grandparents from Lebanon and the Netherlands would most intimately understand? Am I bitter? Am I grateful?

I wonder throughout all these questions if I am an ex-patriot in any way.

I remember now what I cut off though, when moving to Zambia. I am remembering because right now I am with my family. I’m with my family in Africa which really is such a strange partnership. The place I live and the people I love have now met. They are my roots, my beginning; my definition of what is beautiful about where I came from. What I have cut myself off from is the type of comfort that fills loneliness. It’s comfort that is defined by the same sense of humour and similar physical features like sweet teeth that magnetise towards cocoa bean products. It’s stupid petty arguments and stories about the past and JUST BEING ME and JUST BEING loved for JUST BEING ME.

Yesterday was Canada Day and my Mom brought me a red Canada shirt from home for me to wear. She brought some Canadian flags with her also and they were draped over the couch when I got up in the morning. I wore my Canada shirt all day yesterday. I also wore my usual assortment of African jewelery; rings and bracelets and necklaces and earnings….everything bright and big and beautiful. I think I’ll stick to being somewhere caught in the middle. I think I’ll keep striving for that comfort that family brings. I think I’ll let it push away the loneliness that comes when confusion takes over. I actually don’t think I’m an ‘ex’ at all.

Commanding Love

2011-06-27T04:34:00.001-07:00

Love.

I’m thinking about ‘love’ as a command. I usually think about it as a ‘thing’. I usually think about it as, the ‘thing’ that’s missing or the ‘thing’ that must be keeping other ‘things’ together or the reason for why ‘things’ are the way they are. I think about it most often as something to have.

I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it this way; so urgently. I’m thinking about it as though it’s some ‘thing’ that I must be doing now; not tomorrow, not later on this evening, but right now. I started thinking about it when I was driving to Lusaka yesterday afternoon. I was in a hitch with Catholic Sisters from Northern Province. The sun was setting over burnt grass and it turned the sky a different shade of red for the last two hours before we drove into Lusaka. I had been on the phone with my brother and his girlfriend and my parents; speaker phone of course so that I don’t have to repeat every story again and again.

I was thinking about how wonderful it would be if I let love consume my entire life. I thought how incredible I would feel if I gave everything up for love. I was thinking about whether or not I would be capable of doing this as I realized what my journey was all about. Right now I’m in the Lusaka Airport and I’m about to fly to Johannesburg to meet my Mom and Dad in South Africa. It’s their first time here. I’ve been waiting for this for over three years; for them to see my life over here, and for the gap of understanding to be lessened. Somehow, I can’t wrap my brain around how big this is. I can’t comprehend that this is love as a command. This is love in action. This is my Mom and Dad whom never imagined themselves traveling to Africa in the first place and getting on a plane for almost 20 hours to be with me. Their eyes are about to see what I have been desperately falling for. This is love going into a place unknown to them, that has caused heart ache and longing.

I’ve been nervous about their trip here. I was afraid that they may not feel the same way about this place as I do. I was afraid they would ruin my perspective. I was afraid they would hate the chaos of this place that I love. I now think that I was wrong to fear their trip here. It’s not about what they see and if it inspires them or not; it’s about them putting love into action.

Give Up

2011-06-13T00:36:00.000-07:00

I have always struggled with the laws of giving. Someone somewhere when determining the intricacies of our consciences decided that we should follow a set of rules for giving. Strangely enough we were all composed with a different set of rules, therefore making it impossible to be controlled by the giving police.

Like every country labelled to be ‘developing’ there are always a varying population of rich. In Zambia the rich consist of the government, mine workers (mostly including Zambian, and the ex-patriot community of South African, Australian, American, British and Canadian), volunteers from European countries and North America and Japan, and the business owners mostly descending from India or homegrown here in Zambia. Excuse me for my sudden stereotypical catergorisation, but that’s pretty much how i see it.

Zambia, unlike South Africa or Namibia or Zimbabwe that have long suffered and are still suffering from a ‘racial divide’; is a country that mostly missed that parade and is alternately faced with the ‘status divide’. The laws of giving especially come into play when this happens. In Canada, the laws of giving are much more controllable. You are faced with giving when you come into contact with salvation army bell ringers, and school fundraisers and clothes drives, World Vision commericals and the odd homeless person when walking down the streets of Toronto. My point is, that giving in this sense in Canada is all together avoidable if desired upon. You can turn off the tv and not answer the door and avoid street corners. In Zambia it is on your face, every single day which is why your brain instantly tunes into the morality channel and you have to start referring to your ingrained rules of giving.

Over the years of living here, I have heard a number of different rules; all of which I have subscribed to at one point. It was all static though and nothing was coming in quite clear. Here is a short rundown of the most popular Do’s and Dont’s to giving in Zambia;

Do not give to street children. They will most likely spend the odd kwacha you give them on sniffing gas or plastic liquor sachets found at every corner shop.
Do not give to street children because they will be encouraged to beg again and again and again, and anyways it is not going to solve the problem. Giving them a few thousand kwacha (less than a Canadian dollar) isn’t going to give them a roof over their head or send them to school.
Do not give to street children because most of them actually have a home and their parents can’t afford to send them to school, so they are only coming to the streets out of pure boredom.
Do not give to the villagers. They are lazy and should be farming because there is ample land.
Only give to someone if they are willing to do something for you. If they wash your car or exchange a barbequed piece of corn then, yes, go ahead and give them something they have earned.
Do not lend money to anyone. You won’t get it back; especially under the promised time frame.
Only give someone food if they are begging on the street. They will spend the money you give them on alcohol anyways, so it is better just to buy someone a piece of fruit.
Do not give to the Preachers on the bus, they may just be full of it anyhow.
Do not give to the “deaf” child on the bus who pass along a piece of paper explaining that they are orphaned and taking care of their younger siblings...they’re not.
Most importantly, do not give to your neighbourhood alcoholic. Usually a male between the age of 15 and 65 who spends everyday socializing at the local drinking hole. He won’t give the money to his wife for nshima, he will most likely drink it before 11 AM.

Unfortunately, all of these rules are played like a song that irritates you endlessly on repeat. That song is called....GUILT. It’s a nasty high pitched, deafening song that won’t shut up. I let this song play on my radio for a couple of years. It was horrible. I even started to tap my feet to the tune because I didn’t know how to groove in any other way.

Fortunately now, I have turned down the volume. Believe me, it still plays but it is quiet and it is because I have decided to do something about it all. I decided that the rules of giving superbly sucked. I threw them out. I burned every single last one of them because that conscience that I spoke of earlier was never satisfied. The guilt got worse by following the rules; not better.

I give when I feel like it. Sometimes I’m in a bad mood and I don’t give. Yesterday I didn’t buy a cup of coffee for some friends we were working with at a craft show. I thought about it. I wanted to, but my wallet was relatively empty yesterday and I had to look out for myself. Instead when we were hitching back home, I gave a drunk dude I have known for 3 years as ‘station master’ (essentially he tries to arrange rides in transport trucks for people leaving Solwezi) a few thousand kwacha. He actually didn’t even get us a ride, but he makes me laugh and I felt like it. It all balances out. Instead of the guilt station, I am trying to perk up my ears to the ‘faith’ station. The DJ that plays the music here, repeatedly sends the message that....I am going to be looked after. I don’t have to ‘look out for myself’ as I felt I had to do when I denied my friends a cup of coffee.

When you give without rules and without limits, you open yourself up to this incredible opportunity to receive. You start to receive unimaginable things. It starts with eliminating guilt and ends somewhere with the freedom of acceptance. I cannot count the amount of times every single day that I receive. Guilt is a plague and the rules of giving are only a part of the kindling that fuels a fire for that plague.

Asking for It...

2011-06-06T05:58:00.001-07:00

“You can hit me again if you want to”.

I was reading the above quote from a story my friend Jeremy sent me, when I started to wonder whether or not I was capable of requesting more punches in life. I’m referring to this same issue I’ve been talking about with my work permit in Zambia. I had written Jeremy an email asking about which path I might take in order to defend myself if I were to find myself in the midst of a boxing ring with another Zambian organization. He wrote back almost immediately reassuring me of his support and then sending me a short story centred around the idea of being defenseless.
I’m a little behind and therefore a little more confused, because I grew up in a society that teaches you to keep your ‘dukes up’ so to speak. I grew up defending myself in sports, in school, in arguments with friends and in arguments with parents. We are all innocent. I am innocent and therefore I have the right to do whatever it takes to defend myself in situations that directly cause me any harm. If this is the case then, I should regard Jeremy’s email as preposterous. Why would anyone in their right mind ask to be ‘hit again’? Haven’t I been hit enough? Can I not plea the blameless bystander in this case?

I know that I have to let my instincts lie on this one. That is, the superficial instincts of course, the ones that immediately tell me I should be writing that action plan for ‘Worst Case Scenario A through Z’. Ironically enough (those who know the inner workings of this mess will find this ironic), faith doesn’t permit a back up plan. You’re not allowed to stand in front of the masses and declare pure belief and trust and faith, and that self protection is a scam; unless you’re lying through your teeth. Jeremy said something about being humble in his email and I think I know what he means. Being humble in the midst of a fight whether you put yourself there or not, doesn’t meant turning your back and walking out of the ring only to receive a sucker punch as you pass under the ropes. It means walking straight into your opponent, begging for another hit, without a smirk on your face. It means throwing up your arms and believing that it’s all out of your hands anyways.

My true instincts have to do with a feeling that sat with me for most of yesterday. It was a feeling of peace. It was a feeling that told me that I didn’t have to worry about pulling my boxing gloves out of the closet. It wasn’t the same feeling I had when I wrote Jeremy an email for advice after I found out this morning that the issue may not be so easily solved. I felt alone when I wrote the email and I felt like I had to summon the forces to battle against Zambian corruption and blackmail. My true instincts tell me that I can take more punches. They remind me that I can even ask for more, being assured that I won’t be caught off guard when they come my way.

Stress for me in this situation is irrelevant. It’s maybe unavoidable, but it’s a lie. I do believe, even if I need a little reminder once and again, that everything will work out exactly the way it’s supposed to. The result may not be what I want right now. The result I want includes a new work permit under SWSC and a bus ticket back to Kibombomene first thing in the morning. There are apparently other plans for me though, and I simply need to rest in the comfort of someone else’s boxing ring….the one I create will only see me fail.

Asking for It...

2011-06-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

Njesuleni Amenso Yandi

2011-06-02T01:09:00.000-07:00

More tears on a bus today. This time there weren't frustrated tears or thirsty tears. They were the tears that drop from eyes that have seen peace and have felt confidence and a body covered up in reassurance. The same body blessed with ears that hear such a sweet sound that settles the soul.

"Njesuleni amenso yandi".

In Bemba it means, 'open my eyes'. It's a song performed by my most favourite Zambian artist, Ephraim. A new Canadian friend bought the CD for me when we were driving him up to Kitwe yesterday. Ephraim's music has proved again to feed my hunger. I am stubborn. I always have been. My best friends know that, my family knows that. However I've always felt this calm in the prayer to have my eyes opened in situations when my stubborness gets me into trouble. I'm sure there's always something I can't see. My tears came about realizing that there's something in this current struggle that I can't see right now. I hear it through a symphony of a sax, guitar and a blended choir in a language that evaporates uncertainty directly from my heart.

Njesuleni amenso yandi, so that I will walk on this path a little less blindly than before.

Being A Wreck

2011-06-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

I cried a lot today. It had been a while since I cried, so I guess I was making up for lost time. No one died and I didn’t break any bones. It wasn’t that sort of cry. It was an exhausted, heat of Lusaka, frustrated with corruption, thirsts not yet quenched sort of cry. It was a cry that humbled me. I still feel pretty humbled right now, because I cried and acted like a 3 year old for a couple of hours. I was driving a car when I was crying and I made everyone in the car with me aware that I was upset. I slammed on the breaks inappropriately when I felt like it. I didn’t answer questions being asked to me about where we were going. I just drove. I said some nasty words to Mukimba and even threw some at Candace. I was already deep into tears so I kept up the immature act quite well. When we arrived at my friend’s apartment building, I got out of the car stormed into the house and began packing my bags. I was leaving…I didn’t know where, but apparently I was going somewhere. Then I sat in the corner of his parking lot for a while and felt sorry for myself. To top it all off, I did this in front of a guy I just met whom I want to sell my computer to (good luck with that sale now), and a relative of Mukimba’s wife who I’d been waiting for three years to meet. I didn’t even get out of the car to greet her properly.

That all happened a few hours ago. I didn’t go anywhere. My bags are still here. I’m sitting beside Mukimba in my friend’s apartment. I’m here with Candace and I think she’s still interested in being my friend. I apologised to the computer guy and Mukimba’s sister in law and I have wiped my tears. There is only a bit of tear residue left on my cheeks and I won’t wash my face clean until I have really thought about the show I just put on for my friends and colleagues.

I’m half wondering why I am posting this “inspiring” account. I’m doing it though because the root of this escapade is embedded in a wee bit of good old Zambian scandal. I’m sharing it because today I felt confused and annoyed and angry and weak and right now….I can sort of smile about it a little because a few hours ago my world was crumbling down and yet I’m still here amongst the rubble. I’ve been feeling pretty stressed out for the past few days heading into this Lusaka trip that we have been planning for weeks. You see, this little scandal has to do with my work permit. It’s odd that in the past I have even questioned my decision to stay and live here, because it’s evident in my reaction to all this, that as soon as permission for me to live here is on the line, I fall apart. I am a wreck. I may be a wreck, yes, I am certainly a wreck; but this is my home right now. I live amongst the beautiful wreck and I know that this is where I’m supposed to be. My business with immigration will all work out and I will move on. I will cry again another time, and when I do I will have long forgotten about today.

Desperate to Blame

2011-05-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

I am near to finish a book a friend gave me, co-authoured by the parents of one of the girls that was murdered in the Columbine High School shootings. I’m sure you are all familiar with the tragedy that occurred about a decade ago in a normal suburban city in Colorado. The book takes you through the life of their beloved daughter, as well as how they had been dealing with their loss. It also touches at an explanation for why two high school aged boys opened fire on their peers and attempted to blow up the entire building that day.

That’s what has made me write just now.

As humans, we feel the need to feed the urge to lay blame or point fingers. In this case, we could blame the boys’ parents, their teachers, the media, television, movies, video games, angry music, their friends, alcohol, drugs, weak gun laws, a psychological imbalance, violence in sports, peer pressure, too much sugar in breakfast cereals, being dropped on their heads as babies, eating paint chips as kids, being picked last for dodge ball…..just about anything. We could spend all of our lives, and some people sure will, looking for the reason as to what made the boys pull the trigger again and again and again. The ‘what ifs’ in the situation are enough to drive anyone mad. What’s the point?

I find this all very relevant because I just came back home from teaching an assortment of 3 to 12 year olds from the village, some odd English basics. I’ve been at this for weeks, and apparently maybe not doing a very good job, because when I asked students, “what letter is this”, and proceeded to point to a large picture of a small ‘a’ like I’ve done a hundred times this past month, no one put up their hand. I wanted to bang my head repeatedly against the wall. There must be someone to blame for this, and it can’t possibly be me. Right? In Zambia, when a school aged child is asked a question in English and they can’t answer, their elders usually make some annoyed sound with their lips and then say…”ahhh but you are grade 9”!!! The elders of course can’t answer the question themselves, but that doesn’t matter because to them, the responsibility lies in the hands of the teachers. They have wiped their hands clean from educating their children. Their fate lies in the hands of something socially above their heads.

My point is; this morning I couldn’t help but stare helplessly into a row of little girls and think, “are you serious, you haven’t grasped the concept of the letter ‘a’ yet”??? GRRRR! It doesn’t help that today is Friday and I spent a long week hosting visiting friends, painting the house, managing finances, buying building materials, looking after 9 puppies and a 12 year old girl, and…..etc. etc. etc. My point is that I wanted to blame these little girls for not knowing the answer. That’s the easy way out. If I dedicate more thought to my anger, I can even blame the community teachers and the government and the parents and the entire African continent and the rich people somewhere else and the corrupt people in another place and the list goes on. I realized quickly this morning when reading the Columbine account, that blame for any atrocity whether one that loses lives or one that holds lives back or whatever, is all the same thing. Blame is a massive cope out. It sure is easy, yes, and it feels great to know that once in a while we are the innocent ones, but blame blame blame will get us nowhere unless we are ready to look at our own lives. We need to take a few moments and figure out what our roles are in the whole mess of things.

These parents of this girl that was brutally murdered had no one to blame. They too realized that blame would only fuel their own anger and bitterness. Blame would stop them from healing, and without healing the wound gets dirtier, and puffier with irritation. So you’ve heard it from me first; I promise to take a deep breath when 16 year olds can’t write their name. I promise not to get all pissed off and go on a rant about the rural education system in Zambia, because the truth is, the problem is deeper than that. It’s maybe an intricate combination of so many mistakes, and the only thing that can begin to rebuke it all is to start somewhere fresh. It’s to start at Columbine high school and Kibombomene and see if there are places where love can’t grow if only just a little. I’m being quite vague by saying love is the solution, but it works. It works because love is an individual thing and there isn’t any blanket, except for love that will cover up all the shameful acts of the past.

It’s not as simple as hardening gun laws and it’s not as simple as building four walls of a classroom. It’s not about pushing our youth through, whether in Canada, America or in Zambia. It’s about knowing them throughout their challenges and making sure that we don’t overlook their struggles and toss them into a labeled standard that doesn’t quite fit. Love is a tough thing, and you’re supposed to move slowly so that when you make a mistake with it, you can gently glide back onto track.

Love includes accountability. Love doesn’t include blame

To Someone

2011-05-26T01:46:00.000-07:00

"Just do what you want to do anyways. If you haven't started doing it today, or when you're 35 or when you're 86...just know that regret leaves a bad taste".

Someone, and maybe they have forgotten even saying this, but someone very close to me, wrote this in an email a couple of years ago when I was feeling stress about being in Zambia. Maybe I was missing home, or was worried about money or maybe I was just concerned that I had made a mistake; I'm not sure what provoked it in the first place. But this person wrote this to me and despite its obvious simplicity, I had written it down in a book where I keep quotes of things that inspire me; from movies, books, magazines or from songs. When I moved into my new house a few months ago one of the first things I did was paint some blackboard paint on a small piece of wall, where I copied out the above words. I made a mistake though because chalk can be erased, and I should have written it in permanent paint.

There is something else, this same someone I love very much also said to me once. This person is always good for influential advice that doesn’t have its direct impact at the time, but then comes back months later in a passing thought or two. This someone told me that in life, he was building up to something significant. He was building up into a moment that would finally allow him to move somewhere without turning back. It sounded like he was talking about putting regret into its grave and walking away without a glance behind. He wouldn’t even erect a tombstone for regret’s funeral. He was ready to walk away without a prayer or a moment of silence for regret. He would bury it, sweating out the last of regret’s worth as he shoveled pounds of dirt over its priceless casket. The casket would be similar to a safe room from a nuclear explosion; nothing would be able to get at it and likewise the regret couldn’t get out. It would be the complete opposite to what God intended when we bury our loved ones in the ground. He wouldn’t give his regret the opportunity to rot one day; stinking as it seeped its way back into the soil. He might have thought about shooting his regret deep into the sky on a rocket, but then again there’s the whole gravitational pull of things and he sounded terrified that his regret might come pouring back down onto earth. What if he weren’t able to send it far enough away past the orbiting planets? His regret therefore must be buried.

There are moments in all of our lives that question our ability to take a chance and take a leap into the unknown. My 'someone' is maybe in that place right now and I am encouraging him to do something, anything...I'm not sure what, but something that won't allow his life to be burdened by this regret that years ago he made me feel like I could keep away from. I'm here now in Zambia and like I have said a billion times before; it's not always perfect, but I cannot imagine what life would be like anywhere else. It's his words that help me to be here and to continue despite a deep pang from missing him. Missing is okay though, I can handle missing, because missing means that time is the only barrier. Regret however, sticks to our rib cages right deep in our insides and it chokes us from breathing every time we take a deep breath in.

Hey someone, if you know who you are by now...know that I love you so very much and that no matter what direction you take in your life...know that I will love you always always always! I just wanted to remind you of a few words you've slid in my direction...thank-you.

Love and Sorrow

2011-05-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm inspired to write just now by a quote I found written on the last page of my date book. I had copied it there a few months ago after I read it in a book my friend Lauren had given me. I was in a meeting with Zambian Board and Team Members, half falling asleep after the second hour of failing to catch up with what was being said. Mr.Mukimba was explaining as issue we've been having with my work permit to the other members; as usual in great detail. From Kaonde to Bemba back again in Kaonde mid sentence with a hint of English thrown in here and there, I was finding it better to daydream. Normally I would try my best to follow the changes, considering I can speak Bemba and I understand similar words in Kaonde; but I had already heard the story three or four times. That week I had heard it once in English, once in Luvale and the other times a Kaonde-Bemba mix.

The quote I had written was from the novel 'Shantaram' by Gregory David Roberts. I had gotten past 500 pages of the 900 some odd page novel when I accidentally left it in the back of a transport truck when hitching to Kitwe a few months back. Paul, if you're reading this; I blame you! Lauren; if you're reading this; losing that book is one of my greatest regrets because I had been completely captivated by Roberts' story. Zambian Truck Driver; if you're reading this, please bring my book back to Kibombomene! To anyone else reading this feeling pity for me; please send me another copy!

Anyhow the quote goes: "Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn".

I could write for days about how this quote gets interpreted inside my messy brain, but the one line that sticks out is about love and its duty. Love and its mission and its promise and its commitment, is all that we got whether we like it or not. It's an obligation we don't even sign up for; a contract in effect that has no end. Likewise, sorrow and its truth is written as though sorrow is something we need to lie about. Love's unavoidable presence is just as existent as sorrows'.

In the meeting, before I found the quote, I was sort of feeling like a failure. In other words, I was having a pity party; with me being the only party attendee. I had been looking around at the 10 other local volunteer members in the room as they listened intently, skawfing at all the right moments in Mukimba's story. They were clearly concerned about the ridiculousness of this work permit issue involving my legal status in the country. They were supporting me. I felt very sorrowful because I wasn't sure I was doing enough for them. I felt right then, that they were the ones with hard lives and my issue was being painted to them like it was more important than their own. They have to think about feeding their families everyday and paying for their kids to go to school and....my issue seemed so small.

Reading the quote made me feel like no matter who we are or where we come from, sorrow and love mark us as the same. We are all holding onto life so preciously for tomorrow; again only to feel what's inevitable. I know that I cannot judge other's sorrow or their love. That's not my role. As petty as my sorrow may be at times, it is still sorrow non the less and worthy amongst all of us sorrowful and loving souls wandering around planet earth. So thanks goes to Lauren for giving something to me in a way that she couldn't have possibly ever known...love and understanding, needed in a moment when sorrow hadn't the qualifications to stay too long.

Postcard from Zambia

2011-05-17T22:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I saw Africa as a postcard. It was my part of Africa in the Southern Hemisphere, in Zambia, in the Northwestern Province, in Solwezi East Constituency, in a little village called Kibombomene, on the property of Same World Same Chance. It was a quick glimpse at a postcard, because the sun was setting and if I had been more focussed on the task at hand, I may have missed it. I describe it as a postcard because, postcards only have the best images printed on them. You’re supposed to send the best images home to the people who miss you and who love you and who may want to know a little bit about where you’ve been.

I was following my dog behind my house on a little path between the 2 metre high grass. We carried on past our compost heap, through the rows of ready-to-be-harvested corn, past the farm where we are growing onions and chinese cabbage and carrots and on towards the stream. 2, 20 litre yellow jugs for carrying water sat in a wheelbarrow as I pressed on to draw water for the night. I looked up as I passed through the last row of corn and there was my postcard. It was right there sitting only a little higher than the horizon of grass. It was a combination of small birds flying off in the distance in front of a red sun that was dying the sky right where it set. It wasn’t one of those big red hot suns that you think of when imagining Africa. It’s the beginning of cold season now, and the sun sets with less irritation at this time than it does in October when it’s hot. So there was me, my dog, a wheelbarrow full of potential refreshment and this brilliant Kibombomene sun that was directing the entire scene. It was one of those moments when you have to blink and when you lose temporary control of your surroundings.

I’ve been writing a lot about Africa lately, and I think it’s because…man, am I ever happy here. My stay over the past three years has had torrential ups and downs, but my postcard image tonight reminded me that I’m where I’m supposed to be. It’s never been perfect. It’s been incredibly lonely and terribly frustrating and overwhelmingly challenging. It’s been all that and yet I’m still here falling in love with the place. Everyday when I’m wise enough to look up for a few moments, there’s the ability to see and be a part of more beauty than I’m capable of realizing. It’s these unexpected moments derived from something that I’m incapable of fully understanding that keep pushing me forward.

Anyhow, that’s my postcard of Africa.

Ode to Future Joy

2011-05-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

On Friday last week, I went to a talent show at one of the Private schools in Kitwe. I’m sure this school is one of the best in the country. Friends of mine had informed me earlier that day of the event and I more or less invited myself to join them. I miss live music and dancing and…anything organized really; even if it is performed by a lot of amateurs. The audience was full of multicultural parents. There were black and white and brown and what they had in common was the fact that they have all paid for the best of the best education that Zambia has to offer. The audience was made up of a slew of ex-patriots and wealthy Zambians. As I sat there and waited for the show to begin, I took in the sounds of America (I doubted Canada, but I listened for the distinguishing ‘out’), South Africa, India, Britain, Australia and what sounded like parts of South America as people chatted to each other. This was a proper school event and I was impressed before the show even got on; with the lighting and the concession booth, the program and the sound system.

Two acts in, after the Zambian National Anthem and a tribute to a student who had recently passed away from a motorcycle accident; I started to feel the weight of where I was. A seven year old boy walked up to the stage after being introduced by the MC clutching his little guitar. A stool was placed centre stage for him and one of the backstage help came to the front to adjust the microphone for him. The music teacher kicked off his accompaniment on the piano while he got ready to strum the chords of ‘Ode to Joy’. I was grinning like an idiot and I wondered if people around me noticed my emotions come to play. This was normal for them. It used to be normal for me. So I sat there mesmerized by the talent of this little 7 year old boy and tears started to come to my eyes. I pictured Mukumbi or some other child from Kibombomene up on a stage like that playing a guitar. My emotions were mixed with frustration and anger and appreciation and excitement for the day that that comes true. Mukumbi deserves it if she wants it. She’s just the same as those Kitwe kids anyhow, and maybe we’re not so far from that. I mean we need some teachers and we need some more classes and we need some guitars, but one day the gap between Kitwe and Kibombomene won’t be so big. We’ll invite the parents as well and they’ll sit in the audience beside me and we’ll introduce their children like stars and they’ll stand up and know that they’re not missing out anymore.

Windows in Africa

2011-05-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

I looked out my bedroom window again today and meant it. There are 13 windows in my house and yes, I do look from the inside out quite often, but today I looked for more than a few seconds, right straight into Africa. Yesterday when I looked, I felt like I was dreaming. I was remembering a time, once before I even came to the continent, when I had conjured up this idea of what my life would be like here. In my imagination, there weren’t any tall trees around (like there are at my house), but just long and wide flat plains of burnt grass. In this same image, my house sat in the middle of a small hill and it was a simple house, with big windows and doors that stayed open all the time. There was quiet from people and traffic; just like there is now, only the sound of the gusting wind.

I’ve been in this house for over a month now, and looking out the window was long overdue. It is after all, ONLY my view that I can write about. It is ONLY my window into Africa that I have to base my opinions on. My view is about 1.5 metres wide and 1 metre tall. It is made of 6 different window panes and therefore my view is a little corrupted from the frame that passes between each piece of glass.

A friend from Stratford that was visiting us in Zambia and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about perception and image. He’s a photographer, and was explaining that the media craves rather pathetic looking faces of Africa. In other words, we are very well prepared to label Africa without even knowing the truth. This is what sells. This is what people need to see in order to give money. I disagreed. I knew that Kim and I were inspired to come to Africa in the first place to put that image to death. We wanted to see the good that was here and then we wanted to tell people about it. My friend had offered to take some shots of our project, and potentially auction or sell them to bring back some funding for SWSC. I asked if he would take pictures of the smiling kids. I hate when big NGO’s travel to rural parts of Africa and wait for the first snotty nosed, clothes torn child to start wailing before they snap a single picture. They then post it all over their advertising and target the guilt of wealthy westerners.

I realize now that looking out my window and my window only, will not help Africa at all. The truth is that the continent; so diverse in culture and tradition and social structure isn’t much different from anywhere else. We are human the whole world round and as it seems, we find ourselves in situations where love is unavoidable. Love in all its glory, best felt through the relationships that we find ourselves caught right up in. Who are we without the people who know us deep down and dirtily? We are nothing without parents, siblings, friends, teachers, grandparents…whomever; the people that love us more fiercely every time we fail or every time we make a mistake. As much as love defines our humanity so does fear and suffering. Tears produce the same way they do on faces in Canada as they do in Zambia. I’ve been to enough funerals in Zambia and enough funerals in Canada to know this now.

It’s all relative. I asked my friend to take pictures of the smiling kids because I wanted Canada to know that the children in Kibombomene aren’t always in tears, snot dripping down their noses wearing torn clothes. It’s ONLY ONE of the windows to look into. Likewise, Canada is not a country full of rich white people that drive absolutely everywhere because when you’re that rich, there is no longer any need for the two feet God gave each of us (one of the many misconceptions that Zambians have about people where I come from).

My last argument is that the world IS moving towards a better place. Our windows are expanding and we’re looking into each other’s lives, whether millions of kilometres away. We are seeing our humanity being reflected upon each other and we’re seeing that the things that make us human beings; including love and suffering are felt in the same ways. However it is our duty to understand that one window is not enough to look through, we must try to look through as many as we can so we can see the world without any restricting frames.

J.Browne and I are 'Late for the Sky'

2011-04-25T03:32:00.001-07:00

‘How long have I been sleeping? How long have I been drifting along through the night? How long have I been dreaming I could make it right if I closed my eyes and tried with all my might, to be the one you need’?

The above is from one of my favourite songs called ‘Late for the Sky’ by Jackson Browne. Years ago when I finally got past the disliking-my-parent’s-music stage just because it was their music and they couldn’t possibly have good taste, I found the ‘Best of Jackson Browne’ in my Mom’s music collection. As a teenager you excuse your parent’s musical interest by saying that they can’t possibly know any better, or maybe they’ve gone deaf at the “crippling” age of 45. You’re not supposed to like your parent’s music as a teenager, but as a kid I did a poor job of hiding my interest in it. I secretly loved when my Dad blared Sam Cooke, the Beach Boys, Buddy Holly and anything Doo-Wop when he was doing the dishes. I remember my Mom cringing when he ordered a 4 disc set of the best of Doo-Wop from the 50’s. My Mom and Dad taught me how to love Jazz. Their music came with meaningful lyrics as opposed to a lot of the popular stuff my friends were listening to. Their music was romantic and about love and that to me, is what motivates people to sing in the first place.

Right now I’m sitting in my favourite Solwezi Take Away enjoying an instant coffee and listening to the best of Mr.Browne. I was working on a proposal for the Kansanshi Foundation (Solwezi mine), when I heard the above favourite lyrics through my headphones. I’ve always wondered the meaning of these words. I think I once googled it and found that it was written about a break-up or a relationship failing or something like that. However, I can’t help but feel right now how much this combination of words fits into my life.

If anyone is at all interested, I think this may be the round-about explanation for what the heck I am doing in rural Zambia. Before Zambia, I felt like I was sleeping, drifting along through life waiting to feel meaning and purpose. I felt betrayed, annoyed that my educators didn’t paint a true enough picture of what was going on in parts of the world outside Canada. If they did, then I was in fact sleeping through it all. Now although I feel alive and awake, I’m still dreaming. I’m dreaming that I am enough (we are enough now as SWSC) to be what Kibombomene needs. I’ve been sitting here all morning now and this proposal that I’ve been working on now for over 6 months is finished and it has a shot at getting us some big funding within Zambia so we can try to meet these needs. If I’m honest with myself I will realize that it took me 6 months to write because I half believe that it will get approved. I half believe that sitting here and listening to Jackson Browne writing proposals that (in my experience) have had little success is more worthwhile than being in a classroom with kids who have walked more than a 10km round trip in order to learn at our make-shift classes (initiated by visiting Canadian instructors from Laurentian University).

What I love about SWSC is that we have the ‘do it anyways’ approach to our project and to life. When I think about it, we are what we are and we dream the way we do, because whether or not my flashy proposal with pictures and numbers and words gets approved, we are going to do it anyways. We are teaching and we are building and we are doing it and have been doing it for three years and not a single person is making any money off of it. It’s right and it’s really good because we’re all in it for that meagre attempt to be what someone else needs and that is enough.

So, I’m about to pack up my fully charged laptop and head out into the dust of Solwezi and hitch a ride back home. I’ll walk the 2km into the bush where we are building and walk in on a classroom in session. Candace may be teaching or I might find Mr.Bushimbe at it. Regardless, there will be someone making an attempt to meet unattended-to need and…. I will ‘close my eyes and try with all my might’ to be a piece of that.

Zam-ification

2011-04-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

My kitchen got a "renovation" or make-over or it got re-done or something along those lines when I went to Solwezi yesterday. I made a quick trip with a friend coming from Kitwe on short notice to pick up some jewellery made from an AIDS orphanage in town. It's part of an income generation thing for them, and for us it is part of a 'grab bag' give away at an upcoming fundraiser in Stratford. (Fashion show and auction organized by Stratford store owner, Danna Nicole and crew. It's Sunday May 15th if you're interested!!!) I had to get there fast because my guests from Laurentian University were on their way out and I needed the jewels back to Canada before the big event.

Because I left a meeting and goodbye lunch for the ladies back at the construction site to make the pick up, I left my kitchen at the will of Mukimba's wife. She was told to prepare the rice and goat (which lost its life in the honour of our visitors) in my absence. Bad choice on my part really. I came home and found a lady I didn't recognise washing my dishes and Mama B (Mukimba's wife) putting the final touches on my new 'zam-ified' kitchen.

Just like a good zam-kitchen should be, I now found my pots displayed individually below a shelf designated specifically for my tupperware containers. My serving spoons were nailed individually on a wooden shelf that got removed from the back of the house where we were storing kindling and nails and other handy back of the house like equipment.

My dish cloths were draped under my mugs and glasses with the ends hanging over the edge to add a touch of class. My only set of drawers in the kitchen now remained empty. Thank goodness she left the quilt tied to the roof hanging the beans, rice and mealie meal. If that got removed some quick re-re-doing was about to have become my afternoon activity.

Mama B declared instantly in bemba that the kitchen now looked nice and that she had done a good job. I uttered a thank-you that probably resembled the type of thank-you a horrible birthday present like a wind chime might receive. I tried to shake off feeling violated and intruded upon when I went into my bedroom to find one of our carpenters eating a hefty bowl of rice, given to him by Mama B. I instantly thought about the mouse that would now be visiting me in the night. Wonderful!

All in all, my kitchen now wreaks of Zambia. The italian seasoning brought from Candace and the hot sauce doesn't make Canada stand out enough amongst the guavas, massive container of cooking oil and nshima stirring spoon. However, this house of ours is a wonderful mix, maybe the perfect combination of Zambia and Canada and I guess I wouldn't want it any other way.

A Classroom Alive

2011-04-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

It's taken more than three years, but today a classroom breathed in and out at SWSC. There were children and there were teachers and there were people singing the ABC song and there were people learning. It just sort of happened actually, without being planned.

Right now there are two Canadian instructors visiting from Laurentian University. That's where I graduated from 3 and a half years ago. They were here in my house and we were busy going through a couple of duffel bags of teaching equipment that they brought when Mr.Katamfya came to visit. He asked me when I was going to start teaching the kids, and the question sort of caught me off guard. I hadn't planned on doing any teaching at the site yet; my days are pretty full as is. I looked over at the LU ladies, who said they could take it on. Could they start tomorrow, Mr.Katamfya wanted to know. So...that's exactly what happened. Mr.Katamfya went home to his village and announced that the children should come for class in the morning and the youth later in the day. They showed up...almost 60 kids ready to learn. The walls were immediately filled up with names and numbers and letters; walls that have remained blank for almost two years.

Before I knew it, we were making a schedule for teachers. Looks like I'm in for Wednesdays. Mr.Bushimbe on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Candace somehow got roped into Fridays. We are still looking for someone local to take on Mondays. So that's that. The schedule is to teach kids in the morning, youth in the afternoon and adults in the early evening.

SWSC is alive!

Here we go!

HOMEEEE

2011-04-07T06:14:00.000-07:00

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Lusaka, Zambia at the Arcades Shopping Complex. The restaurant must be a South African chain. I’m guessing that only because there is biltong on the menu. South Africans love their biltong. The Arcades Shopping Complex has a movie theatre. It is the only one in the country. When I make the nine hour drive or so down from Kibombomene to Lusaka, one of the first things I go and do is see a movie. Everyone from the western world who has ever spent anytime in rural Zambia and comes to watch a movie at the Arcades Theatre knows that being in the theatre is just like being in Canada, or wherever it is we all come from outside of Africa. It’s a strange sensation when the movie ends and the lights come on and you walk back out into the heat. I just came from a horrible American movie shot in Berlin Germany. I didn’t even know what it was about when I purchased the ticket this morning at 10:00 AM; and I didn’t really care because I just wanted to be in Canada, for a couple of hours anyways. At the restaurant, I ordered an extra large, extra creamy strawberry milkshake that didn’t go down to well. That’s not much of a surprise after having difficulties digesting food, particularly milk products, since contracting ghardia a couple years back. Strangely enough, that’s never stopped me from ordering the delicacy when I’m in the big city. It’s a risk I take because I’m tired of feeling different and because I’m tired of feeling displaced. I’m sitting here and across the restaurant there’s a small sign displayed on the wall beside one of the booths. It reads ‘home is where your story begins’. When I sat down here at my table and opened up my computer, inspired to write, I took a few moments to ponder that little sign. I’ve had a hard time defining ‘home’ over the past few years and I’ve had a hard time trying to get my story out of my mouth, let alone on paper for others to read. I’ve wanted to know home in the way that when you say you are going there, it makes you feel a flash of comfort and a wave of warmth. I’ve wanted to have my story begin and let it run smoothly. In short, I’ve wanted ‘home’ and I’ve wanted a real story to tell; one that makes sense to me first and then to the other people who read it.
I’m 27 years old and I’m wondering if I haven’t earned the right to define home and write a story about it all. I’m 27 years old and there is one place that I miss right now. Sitting here in this air conditioned restaurant that’s leaving goose bumps on my arms is making me feel that. The movie theatre didn’t make the missing go away. Celine Dion’s most popular recordings played in the background over a sound system that actually works well, isn’t changing that either. Being in one of the nicest places in the country, and probably in the continent with the cushioned booths and the classy décor and the western music and the beautifully dressed with their heavy pockets doesn’t take the missing away either. This place that I miss doesn’t have chairs or a kitchen table. It doesn’t have electricity, but the solar lights are far better. It doesn’t have a sound system, but it has two little girls that fill the quiet with laughs and cries and their own songs. It doesn’t have a stove for fast cooking, but it has a small brazier that sometimes takes hours to cook upon. Everyone pulls up the wood benches when we’re cooking, and we all sit around it and chat and sing or sometimes just sit there quietly and look into the tall green grass. When I’m there I walk around barefoot with my hair in a mess and a stained pink scarf tied around my waist to wipe my hands on. My hands get dirty pretty quickly there. When I have to fill the brazier with charcoal and when I do the dishes and when I’m cutting onions and tomatoes for dinner or when I’m cooking nshima, I always need somewhere to wipe my hands. My dog is there and she barks far too loud at seldom passing neighbours. I let her sleep beside my bed at night which shames Charity. She tells me every night with quite sternness, “that’s a dog Mapalo, dog’s should be outside”. HOMEEEE.

Crazy

2011-04-03T04:47:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and I was in Zambia. Specifically, I was squashed in a bed under a mosquito net with an 8 year old and an 11 year old. The 8 year old’s head was resting on my shoulder and her hand was nudged somewhere under my chin. I woke up this morning and had a cup of horrible instant coffee, stood at the side of the road in Solwezi and started waving my hand for a ride home to Kibombomene. A transport truck picked up me and the girls. It was carrying thousands of dollars worth of copper plates from the mine.

I woke up this morning and there was someone listening to the news. The news was about massacres in the Ivory Coast, a plane crash in Canada and a NATO air-strike gone wrong; all were the result of lives lost.

I woke up this morning and made my way to the closest thing that I’ve ever had to my own home in my entire life. It’s a three bedroom mansion (compared to most Zambian homes), that over looks a grassy meadow close to a stream where a farm should one day soon be. The cement walls and floors are a cool comfort compared to the blazing mid-afternoon April sun in Zambia. The kitchen has some makeshift shelves built by go-get-‘em Canadian friends from Stratford. The shelves house our food supply and our store of dishes, plates and pots. Your voice bounces off the iron sheet roofing which seems fun during the day, but ends instantly when the 8 year old cries in the night or my dog barks warnings at animals lurking in the bush.

I woke up this morning and experienced a pang of hesitation thinking that I might in fact, be absolutely crazy. At 27, I have more or less taken on the full responsibility of two young girls, plus the development of an organization that is yet to really get its feet off the ground. Maybe I’m making a mistake?

What settles me now is thinking about the irony of this world. I’m thinking about the plane crashes and the bomb threats and the guns being blasted and all the dirty, little nasty things happening in the world that we seem to accept everyday as normal. What settles me is realizing THAT as crazy. Crazy is; giving up and settling and being alone and millions of dollars worth of copper being extracted from a country that isn’t benefiting from its own riches.

I don’t think crazy includes love. Love is exactly why I keep making these off the wall ridiculous decisions that are pre-empted by warnings from friends and family. Do I really know what I’m getting into? I don’t think I’ve ever known exactly what I’m getting into. I’m nervous because it’s big and it’s messy and it IS out of my control, but what makes the decisions I’m making more crazy than the worst of the news that forces itself into our lives?

Tomorrow is 27

2011-03-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's my birthday. I didn't realize that it was tomorrow until Romana, my Peace Corps friend asked me how I was going to celebrate. I remembered of course that it was coming up, but had no concept of which day it actually was. My brother likes to remind me that I am great with keeping time, but useless with dates and days of the week. Here in Zambia, everything seems to all mesh into one experience known as life. I often have these moments when I realize that it has been a very long time of me living in Zambia. Moments that express just how much of Zambia I have adapted to. A perfect example is having no idea that my birthday in fact is Saturday; tomorrow. Zambians don't celebrate birthdays in the rural areas. I always laugh when I ask someone how old they are because it takes them minutes to count, as they look up into the sky and try to remember if it was 1968 when they were born. Now if it was 1968, was it November or July? It's strange to me, because in Canada we count birthdays like they really do mean something. How is it that the translation over oceans of the meaning of a birthday got so lost?

Growing up in Canada taught me that birthdays are celebrated because it's a time to gather friends and be happy that another year has passed. It's about looking into the future and being excited about what is yet to come. Another year of life lived, begs for reflection. It makes us pause and remember what has been good, what has been challenging and what must for certain be carried on with us into the next year.

What do I want to carry on with me into my 27th year? I want to carry on this idea of faith most recently taught to me by a visitor from Germany. This visitor jumped on a plane and came to visit us in Zambia based on an article that he read about SWSC in a German newspaper, written by a journalist that stopped by Kibombomene more than 6 months ago. I don't know what the article actually says, because it's in German, but whatever it was, was enough for him. He carried thousands of dollars worth of solar equipment including our first water filter. For the first time in three years, I charged my laptop in Kibombomene. For the first time in three years I drank clean water without boiling it, buying it or adding chlorine. It reminds me of an act of faith that Kim and I took more than three years ago. There was no questioning it, it just made sense because it felt right. Is this an experience merely enjoyed during our youth?

I hope not. It's what I'm taking with me tomorrow when I turn 27 years old. I hope it's enough for me to carry on to 37 and 47 and all the other years of my life. I want to always believe that acts of kindness and love are JUST that. I want to always believe that the good that comes out of these things, are JUST that. It really is enough.

Driving with the Congolese

2011-03-03T05:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, we hitched a ride from Kitwe to Lusaka in a four by four with a man from the Congo. We listened to ABBA along the way. We spoke about different people in the world and their characteristics. We tried this anyways, in a mix of French, Bemba and next to zero English. My friends in the Peace Corps aren’t allowed to go to the Congo. The border is less than 100km away from us in Kibombomene. They’re not allowed to go there and if the Peace Corps finds out that they have traveled there; they can be deported back to the States. I asked if it was safe in Lubumbashi, where he lives. I asked what it was like there. The only things I know about the Congo are what I have read in books, or watched in documentaries. There are few Congolese living in Kibombomene. I always practice my French with them. My French is slow and pathetic and my Bemba is much stronger. I never thought I would want to go to the Congo; it doesn’t seem safe. That’s what the media tells me.

Our new friend grew up in a very torn country. It’s still torn. There are women being raped and there are wars going on and there are people being killed for useless reasons. There’s a battle over the country’s expansive resources; over stupid things. Things that end up being slid into the manufactured ‘necessities’ that are used on a daily basis in other, more richer parts of the world, like Canada. We never seem to know this though, and we keep buying the things we need despite the consequences. It maybe started with King Leopold and his hunger for rubber and more importantly his hunger to control a piece of Africa; all from the safety of his castle in Belgium. Maybe it’s the lack of attention from other parts of the world. Maybe it’s the Government. I think though that it’s a combination of all of these things and more, wound into one destructive fire; incapable of being extinguished.

However, our new Congolese friend was nice. He told me about the values and the principals that he raises his kids upon. I liked them and I thought they were good values and very loving values. He reminded me a couple times throughout the 5 hour journey, of the reason why Kim and I packed our bags and headed to Africa in the first place, more than three years ago. We did it, because we didn’t want to judge Africa anymore from our places on the couch in front of our TV’s. We didn’t want to feel sorry for it; for AIDS, the genocide, the corruption. We wanted to find people like this man we did yesterday. We wanted to know that in a continent so bleakly looked upon and judged; there were beautiful, healthy, loving people. Even in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a place full of so much pain inflicted from the outside and from the inside, there is love. It’s there. I’m trying to do that more and more these days. I’m trying not to judge the people and things that through immediate instinct I feel like disregarding.

It’s easy to love Zambia, well relatively. The people here are generally friendly. It’s safe. I’m free here, but for some incredibly stuck-up reason, in my head and in all the atlases, there is an imaginary line that separates Zambia from the DRC. In my head, if I cross that border 100km away from my home in Kibombomene; I could be in danger. In my head it might be a senseless risk to cross that line. I’m thinking now though about all the wonderful things I might miss out on if I stay away. If I define the ENTIRE country by the atrocities that are occurring in only some parts; the parts that are far, far, far away from where I would cross that line near Kibombomene, then what is that I’m even doing over here?

Forgive Me

2011-02-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

Things haven't been going particularly well lately here in Kibombomene. I've been going through a bit of a challenge lately that questions my leadership in this organisation and my support as a friend. I want to be able to be a leader and a good friend; but I'm wondering if its at all possible. I'm learning that maybe I can't be both in this situation. I know that I've hurt some people in the process of trying to be a leader and that wasn't easy for me to handle. I'm a people pleaser and I like everything to be well and happy. I get nervous about influencing others because I'm afraid of hurting them.

This always confuses me and makes it more difficult for me to understand what's right. In this case what was right for this organisation wasn't right for my friends.

However I never intended to hurt anyone. I never intended to cause pain. I believe in grace and I believe in being forgiven and I believe in trusting that everything that allows love to be involved will someday sort out.

I made a promise a while ago that I would only TRY my best to help make this thing work. That's all I got.

Peace was Sitting in the Living Room

2011-02-19T07:37:00.000-08:00

Mr.Mukimba called me into the living room this afternoon and sitting there on the couch was, Peace. Peace is a 15 year old girl whom Candace and I met while visiting Zambezi (a town near the Angolan border) last March. I was sort of shocked to see Peace here because we had met only when we were there and one other time maybe in June when she passed through on her way to Lusaka with her father. I probably haven't thought about Peace since.

I sat across from Peace and she began to tell us her story of the last 5 months. In October her father died of malaria. In November, her mother hung herself; obviously not being able to cope with her husband's death.

Peace had come to me because she remembered that we were building a school. Her remaining family was in Angola and she had no one to stay with, there was no one to pay her school fees. She traveled over one thousand kilometres to see if she could come to our school. I told her it wasn't open yet and she started to look worried. I told her the school was for the community and she started to cry.

Mukimba, his wife and I then left the room to have a small conference. This is Zambia. There is a lot of love here. This means that Peace will now be staying with me. The discussion lasted not even five minutes and I already knew I wanted to take care of her.

I hugged Peace at the side of the road as she headed off to Solwezi. She went to get her bags and she's coming home to me tomorrow. That's that. Now I officially have Peace in my life.

Mr. and Mrs. Mulope

2011-02-09T23:45:00.000-08:00

I wrote about Mr. And Mrs. Mulope a couple of weeks ago. It was their baby that died from the basic school down the road.

I haven't been able to get either of them out of my head for longer than a couple of hours since I was in their home, mourning with them. When I spoke with Kim about it, she encouraged me to write more. How did the baby actually die, she wanted to know.

The baby's death, like a lot of useless deaths in rural Zambia, well was just thatN useless. That's the way you and I would see it after receiving some of the best health care in the whole world in Canada. Mr.Mulope didn't see it that way but I will come to that later on. The baby died as the family made so many desperate attempts at getting her the best health care. It turns out that even the best attempt at that is rather pathetic. Here is the breakdown:

-the family probably isn't using mosquito nets and its rainy season now, so the little ear rattlers are at their worst
-the water the family is using for drinking, washing and cooking is not clean! The government well is broken at the school and even then, we tested the water there and found e-coli!
-the closest health clinic is 25 km away and is no better than a dispensary.
-the hospital in Solwezi has one ambulance borrowed from UNHCR, so it wouldn't come out here anyways.
-the family would have had to hitchhike into town to get treatment, 55km away
-they spent more than a teacher's monthly salary on a private clinic, which didn't have an oxygen machine
-when they were sent to the government hospital for ventilation, the baby died in a taxi in her father's arms

I say that this all seems very useless because her death was entirely preventable and yet she was let down. I say that Mr.Mulope wouldn't agree with me because he believes his baby's death has greater meaning and purpose than an empty space in his heart and home. That's what I haven't been able to forget; this understanding of life and our purpose.

I finally went to go visit the Mulopes yesterday. I was oddly nervous in their presence. Not because they are unkind people, but because my confusion and misunderstanding of life seemed to be in the spot light in front of them. I felt like they could see deeper into me and pick apart my insecurities and like they had the answers to everything in my brain that unsettles me. In their company once again, I felt this strong desire to be better. Not because they made me feel insuperioir but because I longed for the type of assurance that controls their every action. I felt the need to repent or say sorry and that if I did that then they would forgive me for anything that I needed to say sorry for. I felt that and they didn't even ask it of me.

It's a strange feeling that I can't quite shake, one that I don't want to try to. Instead I'm trying to do something about it. Maybe a start is sharing this with you. Maybe a start is awknowledging that a change has to be made. A change for better health care, education and a much better me.

The Dragon

2011-02-07T05:14:00.002-08:00

Charity, my 11 year old sister, my friend and my companion makes me laugh. Last week, just like every morning, I was sitting on a wooden bench in Mukimba’s kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil over the charcoals. Before my morning coffee, I’m not really the most pleasant person. You see, my big brother got my hooked on the smooth black beautiful beverage after an episode of caffeine over-dose on our road trip through Namibia in late 2008. If you’re ever traveling Southern Africa and happen to stop into a Wimpy’s Diner; look out for their mega coffee. It’s mega.

I was sitting there, probably with my head in my hands waiting not very patiently for the water to boil. Making morning coffee is a process. It involves emptying the brazier (small sort of bbq) from its last ashes, loading the brazier with more charcoal, walking to the neighbours to get some small pieces of fire (they always have embers that last through the night), putting the old exhaust pipe over the charcoal so that it will spread faster on the dormant coals, filling the kettle with drinking water previously brought 500 metres away from the government well….and watching it boil. It’s quite the process.

SO….I was sitting there and Charity was washing the dishes from the past night, when the dragon dance emerged from somewhere deep within her. ‘Dragon’ is what she calls the book that I started teaching her last year. It was imported from Kim on her last trip to Zambia. Charity loves the ‘Dragon’ book. It’s a great little story about a dragon that goes into the woods to find other animals. When the dragon starts singing, the other animals run away and hide and this makes the dragon cry.

All of a sudden Charity started with a step and a shake, chanting the memorized lines from ‘Dragon’. One shake of the bum cheeks to the left and “the birds were singing”. Another shake of the bum cheeks to the right (in perfect African tribal style), and the “bees were singing”. Awesome.

If anyone is interested in the ‘dragon dance’ steps, feel free to come by for morning coffee. It’s not the best coffee; it’s not mega. It’s instant, but it does the trick. You’ll find us in the kitchen, Charity doing the dishes and me waiting for the water to boil. We’ll show you the moves and you can take it back home with you to share with your friends. See you then!

Falling In Love.....over and over and over

2011-02-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

I've been falling in love a lot lately. It's funny because I've never really felt like this before and I wonder if it has to do with something coming up in my life. I'm enjoying this part of my life right now. I never know who or what I'm going to fall in love with next.

This morning I fell in love with the voice of Africa. On Mukimba's beat up radio, a song that my dear friend Liz once shared with me on an old school burnt CD (specially made for me), came crackling through the speakers as I was choosing ear-rings for the day.

I also fell in love with my dog's comfort. I was waiting for Candace to come pick me up, and she lazily rested her tired head on my feet under the shade of a mango tree. For a second I wondered what it was that always made her follow me around; but her companionship for me doesn't deserve to be picked apart; it just is.

After that I fell in love with puppy love (I'm still young myself and I hope to experience my own one day). My 17 year old friend Brian asked me if I had passed on a message of love to my other friend Rachel. The message was a kiss on her hand. he blushed when he asked me if I had sent it well.

Next, I fell in love with Michael Buble. That shouldn't come as a surprise for anyone who knows me at all; because falling in love with Michael Buble occurs on a daily basis. He was 'singing a song for me' as I checked emails in Solwezi while waiting to skype with Kim. I fell in love with him today though, because I was sure that he was singing his song for ME (the other million-odd women who also believe that are irrelevant).

I like being in love. I like having moments throughout my day that make me scrunch my shoulders up tight, remembering that I'm so blessed. I experience love in a hundred different ways every single day. I sometimes wonder what I'm missing out on in the world, and sometimes that makes me feel very far away. Other times, like right now, I turn my head over my shoulder, look out the window to the never-ending green and feel pretty lucky to be in love with a place that just keeps giving to me.

Am I Really Losing?

2011-02-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

Zambian Culture: 70,984
Me: 0

Once again, Zambian culture has come to bite me in the bottom. I’m used to it now, so I don’t really fight it very hard anymore. I expect it, but I still haven’t learned very well how to deal with it. It makes me feel very lonely when Zambian culture wins and I lose. It’s a pride thing and it’s a selfish thing and it always ends up with me feeling like I have been attacked or that I am compromising my true feelings about whatever issues are on the table.

We’ve been struggling over here in Kibombomene, Zambia. The biggest challenge lately is to get this staff house finished so that me and my small little following (including Canadian nursing friend Candace) can move in and be closer to the site. I have been living with our Managing Director Mr.Mukimba and his family for three years now. Believe me, I am not by any means running away from them. I love this family. Mr.Mukimba has been and will continue to be one of my greatest teachers in everything about life. I teach, eat, laugh and play with all his children; including the ones my age; and likewise they offer me the same.

It’s just that it’s not really ideal for me to be making a 10km round trip by foot in 30 plus degree weather, when the list of things to be done is phenomenal. It’s just that I am ready to lead my own space at 26 years old. It’s just that we are hoping to receive a range of volunteers this year from around the world and we need somewhere to keep them. It’s just that I want to have a garden and my own bedroom and it’s just that after three years; it’s just time.

The house is not finished. Trucks are not venturing deep into the bush along mud-made roads to get sand (due to heavy rains); which means we can’t finish the plastering on the walls or the floor. I have been waiting 2 weeks now for this dude in Solwezi to cut window glass for me. It’s funny that they always seem to remember to cut it for me, when I conveniently come into the shop and ask for it! The doors haven’t been made, and the guys are just now being sent into the bush to cut planks for our beds and the remaining inside doors. Long story short; we are maybe 3 weeks away from moving in; Zambian time.

Mukimba, Bushimbe (other Zam-Director) and I got in quite the heated argument about all of this. What it came down to was that if I were to move and sleep in the classrooms before the house would be finished; I would be deeply offending and disappointing Mukimba (i.e. Zambian culture). The community would think that he was chasing me from his home and how dare I rather sleep in a classroom than a house soon to be completed. It would look horrible. He told me that when I move, they all must escort me down the road; as bicycles carry my two suitcases full of clothes and my books. They will cry he says; even though I’m only moving 5km away. He says that we must let the people cry, just as they did when Kim left Zambia the last time a couple years ago.

So here I am sitting alone in Mukimba’s house; half wishing I could finally gather the strength to beat this culture and just get what I want. Candace is at the site now. She couldn’t wait. There’s a lot of love there at the site that she couldn’t be without. I urged her to pack her bags ahead of me, knowing that that’s what she wanted and needed.

I guess it’s easier for me to see this culture as an enemy as opposed to a friend. I guess it’s easier to feel defeated by it, then swallow my pride and let it show me that it has taught me so many beautiful things. I’m just mad at Zambian Culture, because I know that it’s right. It’s right for me to succumb to it, because in part; it’s who I have become and it’s what I (sometimes regrettably) understand now. In a couple of weeks, I will zip up my bags, and not be so angry when the people I have shared my life with in Zambia; proudly and sadly walk me down the road to my new home in Zambia. For that I think I’ll let Zambian culture take another swing.

I've got Life to Learn

2011-01-31T22:50:00.000-08:00

There’s a lot that I don’t understand about life. I’m so young in my years at 26 and even younger in my wisdom. I learned something today from someone who had just suffered such a great loss. At the time, I felt like I wasn’t the one supposed to be learning, I felt like I was supposed to be comforting, but there were other plans for me.

One of the teachers at the basic school, a km down the road lost his baby girl today. I don’t really know the family all that well, but we have been in each other’s acquaintance for three years now. Candace, David and I were coming back from Kitwe, when we heard the news. Upon arrival at home, we shovelled down some nshima and beans, and then trudged down to the school for the visitation. On the way, we were joking and laughing and not really thinking a lot about death, or how the family would be feeling when we would greet them.

We walked into the house, and there lying on a mattress on the floor of the sitting room, was the mother (also a teacher at the basic school). She was surrounded by her colleagues and her remaining children. She looked as though she had been sucker punched repeatedly, or the oxygen had been vacuumed out of all her cells. She looked to be in so much agony. The father, who I know a little better than the mother, came into the room and greeted us. I shook his hand, held onto it strongly and when I asked him embarrassingly how he was doing; he answered in all the possible confidence he could muster up by saying, ‘I’m trying’. I felt shame immediately. In front of me was a family that was ‘trying’ to cope with the death of their baby girl, and I felt like lately I hadn’t ‘tried’ to do much of anything. Yes, I work and I love and I continue on with my days mostly pretty happily, but I didn’t think that I ‘tried’ to feel much of anything lately. Right then, I imagined what it must be like to ‘try’ to deal with your baby’s death.

After some time, I managed to breathe in some courage and share my condolences with his wife. I crawled over to where she was lying on the floor and grabbed her out-stretched hand. I held on to it tightly and told her that I was so very sorry. I cried with her and told her to be strong and that I would be praying for her. In my uncomfortable-ness, after what I felt to be enough time, I attempted to pull my hand away. She held on tight to me. Without words and through her grip on my now weak hand, she was telling me to be strong. She wasn’t meaning that I should wipe away my tears or stop feeling pain for her. I knew then that she wanted me to be stronger in my belief that there is something greater than death on earth that rules us.

Eventually I released my grasp, got up and walked outside to release the faster flooding tears. Her husband met me outside; and we spoke for what seemed like hours; as he graciously explained to me how the baby had died. Throughout the whole conversation, I was continually reminded that I was the one that was being comforted. I was being enlightened, inspired and encouraged through the way he was dealing with his baby’s death. All of a sudden, I felt like life was moving too fast. I felt like I had lost touch with who I was trying to be. It scared me. His confidence and patience and peace flooded onto me and I instantly craved some of my own.

I learned something today. I want to re-align my goals. I want to re-align my focus. I want to re-align my heart. I don’t want to live like a happy robot, feeling like I have life all figured out; but I want to be stronger. My teacher friend and his wife were stronger than me tonight; despite their great weight and loss. I was a small child in their presence, feeling like I was learning the basics.

Ideas Overload

2011-01-24T01:51:00.000-08:00

The ideas are being generated inside my head as fast as the rains are pouring down on Zambian soil. I sat today with a friend in Solwezi who has major ideas. They are major because he doesn't hesitate to go big AND he seems to have the resources, contacts and support to make all of these things happen.

I was almost in tears (once again this week), because I was so moved by the potential that he could create for this community, for this province, for this country, for this continent and for this world. It was hard for me to sit there and listen to it all happen. He was dreaming in weeks, in months, in years...he was dreaming and things are going to happen on that time frame. I wanted my dreams and my ideas to be produced like that. A tinge of jealousy swept through my thoughts as he continued with one incredible project to the next. I wanted to be a part of it all.

I thought about our paint-fading/in-grown-grass-covered sign post just 55 km down the road; and I felt very little. I almost felt like our chances were being stripped away from us. I wondered when we were going to get around to accomplishing all the things that SWSC wants.

I'm sitting here now thinking that little isn't so bad. Little is pretty good actually, especially if the right intentions and heart are applied to what 'little' is attempting to accomplish.

Mud Dives

2011-01-21T00:37:00.000-08:00

I fell in the mud twice this week; literally and emotionally. It wasn’t fun. It was dirty and smelly and I had fallen so quickly that there wasn’t even any time for me to pick up my pride and continue; so I left it there in the dirt.

The first time I found myself knee deep in chocolate coloured Zam-dirt, was after I had my heart broken…oh just a little. I fell in love with Jo when I first met him three years ago. I fell in love with his singing voice and was sure that the person attached to the sound it produced wasn’t capable of any harm or any problems; it was straight from heaven. Jo is my brother over here and I say that I (fell) in love with him, because when his singing voice won me over, I couldn’t help but support him in any way possible. Jo isn’t easy to love. He is 18 and he has a little 2 year old girl whose mother he chased away a few months ago after he decided she was using too much soap! He failed his grade 9 exam twice (so he doesn’t go to school) and he drinks too much and he hangs out with the wrong people, and he occasionally elicits the local prostitutes.

I was at home about to open my office hours for the afternoon when Sharon (Jo's sister) came in to announce his most recent disaster. The rumour was that his latest girlfriend had knocked his teeth out over an argument, that she was also sleeping with other men. I was overwhelmed. I threw on my shorts and my running shoes and went straight into the bush, running to blow off some steam. After about 10 minutes, I was down in the dirt. Wonderful.

The second time happened after a 10 ton truck we rented to carry staff house building materials got stuck in the dirt about 50 metres past our sign post going towards the school site. I stood there helpless, as our directors worked anxiously (for free) to get this truck out. I couldn’t stand there and watch, it was also breaking my heart. So, Candace and I hurled two mattresses on top of our heads and started walking the 2km to the site. We had to do something. We were maybe 300 metres away from the site, when I went down; knees, and hands deep in the post-down-poured-upon dirt. This time I laughed, I had to laugh; there was nothing else to do. So I found myself, the 6 children entourage that had joined us and Candace, with tear stained cheeks from laughter. It was pathetic.

I cried the entire 3km walk back home, after leaving the truck stuck in the mud at the sign post. I felt like I was failing everyone. I told Candace that I felt like I was a disease that had infected this community as opposed to a light that had come to shine upon it. I had fallen in the mud, and I had reluctantly pulled myself out twice. However, I did get up. When my dog saw me she jumped all over me, wiping her muddy paws on my already soiled dress. This didn’t bother me. I got up, and I cleaned off the dirt, put on my pajamas and crashed into bed.

This is hard I know, but I’m not quitting. After all I only ever promised that I would try to do things right. Today is another day to get a little closer to that. A little dirt here and there reminds me that the road ahead isn’t a perfectly paved path. I got up this morning and on my way to buy bread, I saw Jo. He always knows when I am disappointed or hurt by the things he’s done. Instead of walking by him, like I wanted to do out of anger, I walked up to him; held his face in my hand and begged him to stop making mistakes….the big ones at least, the ones that might lead to an early death. I love him too much and I love this project too much to let the mud pull me down.

2011

2010-12-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

Happy last day of 2010! Here are my thoughts for a new year and a new start:

I hope I can wake up everyday and feel encouraged that what I am doing is right. I hope I show gratitude and appreciation at the right time and the right place to the right people. I hope I'm never tired enough to notice when people are being kind to me. I hope I always notice people's hard work, especially the work that isn't ever recognized monetarily. I hope that I'm always humble enough to realize that the change I wish for the world will never be solely achieved through me unless I learn that every interaction could be enough to create that change.

My biggest challenge going into 2011 will be to love people who don't agree with me. It will be to love the ones closest to me who might not always encourage me; even if they don't really mean it. My biggest challenge is understanding that my truest responsibility in life is to be a good, loving human being. This comes before everything else and it should be the focus of my day's tasks and my work in Canada and in Zambia.

My greatest goal is to continue living my life like I'm on holiday everyday. It's a goal that realizes how fortunate I am to be able to be doing just what I want to be doing all the time.

My most important truth is to understand that I won't always do or say the right thing; but to know that I'm only trying. It's the best that I got, to be able to put all my morals and beliefs into one organization called Same World Same Chance, and simply TRY to make the world better. It's a better me, a better you, and a better way of life in Canada and in Zambia; because it's focused on learning how to love ourselves better and love each other better.

Sorry Chisola, but thanks first to Germany!

2010-12-29T13:34:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting here in my parent's house in little Stratford Ontario, looking outside at the snow. My nose and my fingers are cold and I`m wondering if my Mom would notice if I turned up the heat...oh, just a notch or two. I`m sitting here writing thank-you cards to people in Germany and all over Ontario that have donated to SWSC through our paypal account linked from our website. I`m sitting here in Canada, writing to people I have never met; saying thank-you to them for believing in me and Kim. To me, they`re doing a lot more than making a donation for 100$; they`re saying that what we are doing is worth something. It feels really great to know that I`m a piece of a worthy something.

It`s a huge honour that people have forked over thousands of dollars in the past 3 years for this project. It`s an honour to be a part of the distribution of that; to build classrooms in little, sticky with humidity and most likely drenched with rain at the moment, Kibombomene, Zambia. I wonder what the weather is like right now in Germany.

Early 2010, while sitting (man. I seem to do a lot of that) in my favourite take away restaurant in Solwezi (Food 24); where they make me a vegetarian pie upon request and let me sit as long as I want to work at my computer; I met Danie Meyer. On this particular day, Uncle Chris, Food 24`s most inefficient and most talkative waiter; was chatting up a white couple sitting outside in the middle of the blowing dust when I walked in. I went to my usual table and plugged in my computer; as I checked this couple out. They had a South African plate on their car, so I assumed they were miners; tourists do not come to Solwezi. However, it was the middle of the day, and they looked pretty relaxed. Miners have very rare days off and they don`t usually eat off the mine compound.

Uncle Chris then introduced me to Danie and her boyfriend Nils from Germany. I was way off. Danie is a journalist and they were doing a 6 month tour of Southern Africa, writing as many stories as she could get her hands on. They were in Solwezi, doing a story on the mines. I told her that her story wouldn`t be complete without an interview with rural Zambians. I invited her to come to Kibombomene and see our project, as well as interview some villagers. To my surprise, they took me up on my offer and came to spend 3 days with us at Kibombomene.

She interviewed me and Mr.Mukimba while taking numerous pictures of the site; and above all that, ended up taking little Samantha to the hospital in Solwezi after she broke her arm to get x-rayed and casted. Danie published two articles. One about Mr.Mukimba and another about SWSC that was recently published in `Die Zeit` in Germany. Thanks to this article, I have received email after email offering encouragement and some others wanting to help out financially.

I don`t feel so far away from the rest of the world now. People believe that we are doing something worthwhile and in a week or so I get to fly back to Zambia and put it all to good use. Thank-you to Mr.Mukimba for sharing with us his vision, thank-you to Uncle Chris for your friendly persona, thank-you to Danie for putting words together in the right way and thank-you to everyone in Germany, who read something; got up out of their chair and sent a little something to us.

Coffee Talk Cures

2010-12-14T10:45:00.000-08:00

I seem to be meeting with a lot of different friends over coffee while here in Canada. It's people from highschool or University or people that I have met from being in Africa. It's old friends and new ones and a lot of acquaintance-turned-friends people that are interested in SWSC. It means that I have stepped up my coffee consumption to 3 or 4 cups each day, which is 3 cups more than my instant breakfast coffee that I drink in Zambia.

This morning I met with an old friend from Stratford over breakfast at an old coffee shop. I was feeling a little distracted and I needed some grounding advice from someone that has been beside me growing up over my second cup of black steaming brew. I needed to know if 'nice' and 'good' things in life were enough. I needed to know this because being in Canada, always allows me to flirt with the idea of what it would be like to actually live here. I have been thinking that 'nice' relationships and 'good' things seemed very tempting to me after coming out of complicated continuous culture shifts. I told her that I wouldn't mind just settling for a little 'nice' and 'good' after having everything else in my life so challenging.

I wanted her to tell me that I would be happy if I accepted 'nice' and 'good' and moved back to Canada to lead a more normal life. Instead, she said exactly what I already knew to be true. She told me that settling for 'nice' and 'good' would seem ok at first, but that it would never satisfy my desire for something spectacular like 'incredible' and 'fulfilling'. She told me that the minute you throw up your hands and surrender to a life that is only partly suited to your every will and desire; that you will fail.

I thought again about 'nice' and 'good'. I thought that they might be easier, but that the life I have chosen to live is so much more of what I want and who I am. I don't want those qualities to be enough. 3 years ago, I got on a plane to Africa, and it was right there and then when I was deciding that I didn't want 'nice' and 'good'. I want adventure and thrill and peace and excitement and a lot of love; and I want it to be better than 'nice'.

I was walking to the washroom when Toto's 'Africa' came on over the speakers. I came home and played it again to remind me of Zambia. My friend is right. I am in a very different place than she is with her life, but I love and respect her choices, as she loves and respects me for the choices that I have made. I realize that this won't be the first time that I will need a little reminder of how good these choices have been for my life. It's what friends and coffee are for; curing a questioning soul!

Shania Twain rocks Stratford

2010-12-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been trying to live life the way I want to do it. I was very tired of trying to live life the right way for Zambians in Zambia and for Canadians in Canada. I was doing a horrible job and just couldn't keep up. I'm 26 years old though and I figured it was time to get to know the things that I like about me, influenced by both my experiences in Canada and in Zambia.

I have been running for years. My parents and my brother run marathons and it just fit. I started running seriously out of high school because it was mandatory for my training for Varsity soccer. When I graduated, it was the only way that I knew how to keep fit. It's been almost 7 years since I have been running, and I'm finally admitting today that I don't like it. I never have. I hate running in fact, and I'm really not that good at it. I also don't like doing weights and push-ups or exercise tapes.

I used to wake up early and go for runs in the bush behind my house in Zambia. My dog would run in front of me to scare off the snakes. I knew this seemed absolutely ridiculous to Zambians who are strong, healthy people, but know nothing about forced exercise.

I was having coffee with my big brother and my friend Jeremy yesterday when my brother said something that woke me up. He was telling Jeremy that everyday he thinks about me and how I get to do whatever I want, all in regard to running SWSC in Zambia. This shocked me because I realized that that was only half true. Half of me is doing what needs to be done for SWSC everyday, but the other half, the lifestyle, everyday task half of me, was caught somewhere in the middle. I was living as a Canadian in Zambia and as a Zambian in Canada. It didn't work. I wanted what my brother said to be true, so I woke up and made a few adjustments.

The first one, had to do with realizing that I actually don't like running. I realized it's a forced task that doesn't make me happy the way some people talk about it making them happy. I thought about what activity it is that I do like. It's dancing. It's dancing to any type of music, without a routine or pre-planed moves; it's just moving to whatever song comes on. So this morning I woke up and put on a few of my old CD's from high school and just rocked out in my parent's basement. It was incredible. I found myself sweating and raising my heart beat with the only goal being; enjoyment.

I wondered if their neighbours were going come over and ask to turn down the Shania Twain that was booming from the speakers, but I didn't really care. I felt free. I was doing something that was healthy because it made me happy and I didn't even have to put on a pair of running shoes.

World without AIDS day

2010-12-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

Today is December 1st and it is World AIDS Day. I'm wondering if we just have the name of this internationally recognized holiday all wrong. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that the number of people infected with HIV is still growing today. I realize it's a day about education and awareness. The idea being that the entire world acquires actualization that this isn't a sickness very far away from all of us, no matter where we are.

BUT, what if we changed the name? What if we had a day, or many for that matter, that was dedicated to a world without AIDS? What would we spend the day doing? I feel like this would be a better approach to getting rid of this horrific presence in our lives. I feel like it would actually let us talk about REAL preventative measures. To me, these don't include condoms and other contraceptives, clean needles and latex gloves. It's about talking about the issues that gets us into situations where AIDS is alive and real. It's not about the innocent accidents, but about the people we are. It doesn't change. We are the same people in Canada that we are in Zambia and India and all over the world. We have the same concerns, motivations and desires.

We don't talk about these things. We lead private lives, pretending like a clean bill of health away from HIV is a better life than the others. We want HIV to stop, and we want the world to know about it, but we haven't started talking about what MAKES people put themselves into situations where HIV can attack them. I'm Canadian but it doesn't make me safer than someone living in Zambia where the HIV rate must be near 20% of the population.

For me, ending HIV starts when we all start to realize that there's something wrong about a 15 year old girl getting into a truck for a few useless minutes of useless pleasure without using protection. There's something wrong that can't be fixed with condoms and sex education. It's knowing her and her life and giving her another opportunity to save her own life. It's giving her the confidence and the self respect so that she doesn't get inside. You can stash the truck with all the condoms in the world and you can educate the girl about the dangers of the disease all you want, but she still gets inside.

World WITHOUT AIDS Day might give us a different perspective. Instead of focusing on the millions of people infected, we could focus on talking about real life and real issues.

I found home

2010-11-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

I am home. I have just come from home, but now I am home again. I left my Zambian home, and am at my Canadian home and despite the lack of sleep over the past 5 days of traveling, I feel pretty good.

Yesterday I was sitting in the airport in England waiting for my flight and I had this incredible feeling. I was reading a book called "Africa: Altered States Ordinary Miracles" written by Richard Dowden and I was falling in love with Zambia. Although I had just come from another long stint in the country, I had been so caught up in getting to Canada that I forgot how much I love Zambia. I was in an airport, people minding their own business, all wearing black and gray with their heads down caught up in their phones or the newspaper. I longed for the vibrant colours, friendly people and just realized how fortunate I have been to fall in love with Kibombomene. I wondered if it was possible to love two places the same. It was so satisfying to feel so thrilled about heading to Canada, but at the same time, feeling so much peace with the place I had just come from.

About two hours before my flight landed in Toronto, the nerves started to increase. I was seeing my family after a long time, I was seeing Canada after a long time. I almost bowled down everyone in front of me to get off the place when we landed. I raced through immigration and the luggage pick-up and I was home all over again. I ran right into my parents and I couldn't have been happier.

There's no place like home, they say. I'm stuck in a battle of always missing one place, but for now I am in Canada and man, does it feel good!

Walking back to Canada?

2010-11-02T02:04:00.000-07:00

“It should not be physically possible to get from the banks of Pepani River (Zambia) to Wyoming in less than two days, because mentally and emotionally it is impossible. The shock is too much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of is, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of the States in tiny incremental sips, maybe touring up from South America and Mexico before trying to stomach the free and the brave”.

This is a quote from Alexandra Fuller, an author that writes about many of her experiences growing up in Africa. She wrote this after being in Zambia for some time before coming back to the US where, at the time, her family was now living. I love this quote, because it is exactly how I feel about coming home.

I am 2 weeks away from boarding a plane and heading back to Canada after another 9 months in Zambia. I am ecstatic to see friends and family back home and just enjoy the holidays, but I am also thinking about mother Africa`s hold on my life. I have mostly been spending my time in the bush of north-western Zambia. There are no big box stores, fast food chains or massive supermarkets. There are crowded streets, busy markets, hole in the wall restaurants and dirt! The closest encounters I have had with Canadian life come from my ex-patriot friends and the occasional visit to the Royal Solwezi Hotel where most of the mining community gathers.

I am coming back to a place where people wake up in the morning, and they just go. In Zambia, I get up when I am ready, go for a run, cook breakfast over a fire and start my day, not based on a clock. I am coming back to a place that dresses for success and where impression can be more important than credentials on a resume. In Zambia, I don’t even own a full length mirror and wear styles that I’m sure have been outdated years ago. I am coming back to a place where the media drives society. I haven’t watched TV, movies, and have barely listened to my solar powered radio in the past 9 months. I am coming back to a place where people close their doors and pull their blinds at most times of the day. In Zambia, I have been living life outside and been in constant communication with visitors, friends or people passing.

With all this and so much more un-said, I am getting on a plane and heading back home. I am looking forward to coffee shops, hot showers, live music, chatting with friends, visiting family, driving a car and so much more. But it’s true what Fuller has written; the contrast is raw. Anyone that has ever spent a countless amount of time in Africa and moves to the western world; feels it. It is an understanding that us ex-pats over in Zambia have without many words. I hope that Canada will take it easy on me; be patient will I let Africa drip away from me, and welcome me back home with wide open arms.

Dear Friends

2010-10-15T03:01:00.000-07:00

Same World Same Chance is a non-government organization based in Solwezi East about 60km from the town centre along Solwezi-Chingola road. The work of construction is going very well. We are near to complete the second building (1x3 classroom block). We are on the final touches. The building looks good and we are very happy to see 2 buildings at the site.

Board members are coming in different days to do the work at the centre. I am very happy to see each member coming with one person from his or her church to work. David Ngungu is the only volunteer we have at SWSC and he is working very tirelessly and he is a hard working boy. He works at the school site 3 times per week and we are expecting to receive more volunteers next year within the community, Zambia and all over the world who have the heart to work with us.

Mapalo (Marissa) has devoted herself to the work of painting the first building. Her American friends are coming to join this job. The building looks very nice. The son of a board member also came to help her. People are coming and asking questions about how we operate and where the workers are coming from.

Mapalo, Mukimba and Bushime are the directors. We dont stay at the site, so we walk long distances traveling by foot to see how the work is going. We are very busy planning for this project. Let me thank the board members of SWSC in Zambia and in Canada. The money they are raising there is helping us to build and paying salaries to the workers. Thanks again to the donors for their support from Canada, also from Kansanshi Mining.

We have planned to start the construction of Mapalo`s house if money is available. Also we want to plant 100 metres square of corn.

Thank-you,

Pastor Samuel Bushimbe (Director)

African Beauty Queen

2010-10-15T02:51:00.000-07:00

I’m in Ndola right now at a guest house. It’s strange what things I desire when I come into a city to stay a couple of days. I love my life. I love my home in Kibombomene with no running water or electricity. However, every time I stay a night in the city, I always request a room with a television. It’s my number one request before a hot shower. For some strange reason, I crave soap operas, American dramas and even commercials. It is my link to what is going on somewhere else in the world and I am so drawn to it.

So right now I am sitting in my guest lodge watching South African programming. I am listening to the stories on television, but I am mostly looking at the people who are in them. There are a hundred different beautiful people that I am watching on tv. I feel pretty fortunate to have witnessed beauty in so many ways since coming to Africa. In the village, sometimes I am in awe of how gorgeous the women are surrounding me. It’s a shock to see women on television and in the cities so done up, so perfectly put together. I think that they must see the dirt that’s plastered onto my sweaty skin from miles away and I can’t help but feel a little out of place. I rarely get the chance to look in the mirror these days and I rarely get the chance to watch tv and see the latest trends. It’s incredible how beautiful this makes me feel. I feel it without makeup and without caring too much about my figure, I just feel it.

In this way, Africa brings out the best in me. I usually wear my hair in a puffed up french braid. I usually try to wear a dress, one of my many sewn by a woman that stays in my village, who works on a hand crank machine. The simplicity of the way I look makes me feel beautiful. It makes me happy. I think Candace and Kim feel the same way when they are here. I wish everyone could experience that. I wish everyone could take a break from the demands of social influences, and just be with themselves to be reminded of their own beauty. The pressure of society to be thin and look just the right way is overbearing. It has an immediate presence that I feel only from the big cities. Zambia has freed me from that insane way of life, and it is something that I hope doesn’t fade when I head back to Canada in less than a month. Yes, I am ready for the break and I am ready to see my family. I am ready to clean feet for longer than 3 minutes. I am ready for real coffee and hot showers and window shopping! So here’s hoping that the beauty I feel today stays with me as I step off that airplane in Toronto and into the arms of my family! Here’s hoping that it all translates to my life back in Canada! Here we go!

Things ARE Happening!

2010-09-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I started out writing an email to my best friend and co-founder Kim, when I decided that this message needed to be shared with the world/the small percentage of the world out there reading my blog.

Kim always writes to me at the end of an email about life, love, school, SWSC, whatever; that ‘things are happening’. It has been a saying that we have often thrown back and forth to each other over the years. Something said to let each other know that we shouldn’t lose hope. It helps us understand that despite our distance, we are both working on this project. Yes Kim, indeed, ‘things are happening’. I feel like the luckiest woman alive to be a part of it. I never need to know exactly what these ‘things’ are that are happening, but I always read that line, feeling confident that somewhere, someone is out there making ‘things happen’.

Kim and I have unique experiences. She is in Canada, studying in order to further the potential for this incredible organization we have started and often feels disconnected to what is happening in Zambia. We miss her here and it has been over a year since she has found herself in Kibombomene. Yet, she is moving forward with this whole ‘things are happening’ bit like she was here yesterday. She inspires me.

I on the other hand, am in this tiny forgotten village in the far corner of Zambia. I check my email twice a week in a mining town 50km away and THAT is my connection to the ‘things that are happening’ for SWSC in Canada. I often feel alone in this push. David and I are less frequently going to the construction site, due to the extreme heat these days, and when we make it there, we only manage to paint a few strokes of blue on our walls before we collapse. Sometimes I sit under the doorway of our first classroom building while David and my flea ridden dog nap on the bricklayer’s beds made of grass and old plastic sheeting. I sit there and I think about all of the work that needs to be done and all the potential for greatness if we could just finish all that work that needs to be done, and I feel very overwhelmed by it all.

However, my best friend keeps telling me that ‘things are happening’ and I love her and I trust her and I am happy today because I know that she is right. I don’t feel alone today, I feel like there is a massive population out there; friends, family and colleagues who love what we are doing and want to be a part of that. Can you believe it? I love ‘things’ and I love them even more when they are ‘happening’. So, thank-you out there, to all of you who love us and support us. For some crazy reason, that makes me smile when I try to understand it, you are right there with us, wanting ‘things to happen’.

Budget Smudget

2010-09-16T02:11:00.000-07:00

In Zambia there is no room for a budget. Trust me, I have tried it. Last month, I became very proud of myself when I sat down one day at the table and wrote out a spending budget that covered all my expenses from travel to communication and even a food ration. At the end of it all, I got up from my chair triumphantly feeling like I had just solved world hunger. My budget proved to me that I was blatantly wasting valuable kwacha and that I could actually get away with spending a lot less than what I was previously draining from my account. I felt like I was solving all of my stress problems by gaining a better understanding on my finances. I found that if I were to keep track of my money, there would even be room for an end of the month miracle bonus, allowing me to treat myself to various luxuries like ice cream and Chinese made flip flops.

Well, let me tell you, it all didn’t last very long. The concept of budgets has definitely come from the western world and the person who invented this whole system, I swear never spent any time living in rural Zambia. Budgets work for societies comprised of people who are living for themselves and their own. It certainly doesn’t cater to a country filled with people who rely on each other despite family ties and not social systems, unlike the developed world. A budget helps us manage what we have so that we can see ourselves through the future whether immediate or distant. I somehow thought that I could apply my western upbringing to the culture here and at the end of the month feel like I was tackling my debt. Unfortunately, I was too naïve to pressure myself into making something as logical as a budget make sense, in a country forced to exercise the whole ‘just-getting-by’ theory.

It all went to the crapper, so to speak, when I found myself one long weekend alone taking care of 2 children, 2 grandchildren, a teenage mother, father, a grandmother and some other souls here and there. Our managing Director and his wife went on a rare journey to Kitwe for a conference and immediately I saw my budget being thrown into the neighbouring seasonal bush fire. I tried desperately to adjust it, determined not to go over my monthly allowance and found myself even more stressed out about my finances than before I set out on my whole budget making escapade. I found myself being extremely stingy when it came to the care of this family and realized that it was making me an ugly person. I was feeling resentful towards the family because they were forcing me to go outside of this plan that I originally felt was easing so much discomfort in my life. Every time I sent someone to the shop to buy more cooking oil, or more sugar, I felt like I was failing. I got very defensive and even had the audacity to question what these people were doing for me. For the first time in more than 2 years I was attempting to pay back my loan and all of a sudden I saw the numbers in my account increasing as opposed to decreasing. Stress started to crawl back into my heart and it was taking a massive hold.

I should have known after more than 2 years that this is not the Zambian way. In Zambia, if you have money in your pocket and your friend needs something, you don’t think twice. You don’t think about how you had been saving that precious wad of cash for months, aiming to buy a new dress. You don’t count the remainder in your head and feel like crying as you hand over the money to the one in need. You don’t question whether or not they really need it. You don’t think about how you are now going to survive. You don’t think about tomorrow or next month or next year. You think about your friend. You open your pockets, you open your heart and you give it all with absolutely no regrets.

In Zambia when someone comes to visit, you offer them the best chair, give them the last bit of sugar for a cup of tea and send them on their way with whatever they came calling for. In Zambia there are no regrets because people live with the faith that they will be looked after.

I had been doing a really good job of living my life like this. Yes, in the western world it would be considered irresponsible and reckless, but man, did it sure feel good. Living like this, allowed me to give completely selflessly, falling asleep at night knowing that I would always be cared for. Making a budget took this Zambian-ness out of me and I wasn’t happy with myself. I was waking up in the morning practically weighing the sugar down to an ounce, trying to determine who had stolen a spoon when I wasn’t looking. I was evaluating the amount of sugar by the amount of money in my pocket and it was horrible.

So, what will happen to my budget? For now, I am going to voluntarily throw it into that fire I spoke of. Maybe today is not the day for me to eradicate debt from my life. Maybe today is not the day for me to be restricted by the stress of a budget that has no room for the odd weekend of ‘family-sitting’. After all, I feel at ease knowing there is a community of people here who make sure there is food in my stomach and a clean blanket on my bed every night. This is a life that a budget knows nothing about, caring about each other is all that matters.

Mapalo is HAPPY!

2010-08-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

More than 2 years have passed since I first landed on Zambian soil. I didn’t know it then, but the wind was being knocked out of me slowly as more and more atrocities about Africa were coming to my knowledge. It hasn’t necessarily been about war, corruption or AIDS that we so often hear about as it ravages this continent; but it has also been about all the little things. It has been about waking up every morning in Kibombomene knowing that I can afford to eat whatever I want for breakfast and feeling the eyes of an entire community on my back, wondering about all the riches I had stored up in my back pack. It has been about wanting a basic human right for people I share my life with here (education and health care) and feeling like the world is telling me it all doesn’t matter. It has been about totally uprooting everything familiar to me including my relationships with the people I love and my culture and trying to establish a new way of life amongst people who just don’t get why I like to wear pants. It has been about totally immersing myself in this culture trying desperately to be accepted and about losing touch with the small characteristics that have made me so beautiful.

Through all of this and more, Africa has broken me in ways that I could have never imagined and it has forced me to rebuild so much of my character. Over the past 2 years, the guilt has stuck to my rib cages like super glue and I was feeling it every time I needed to get fresh air. I couldn’t get a handle on it. I became so quiet, not understanding the emotions I was going through and not really knowing where to turn to help solve them.

I now know that I was totally stricken and I have only been able to know this because I have finally come out of it. Today, life is being breathed back into me in a way that I wasn’t really sure was possible. I skip sometimes when Im walking to the construction site. I sing in a small choir with a soprano that has spent years vent up inside of me waiting to burst onto the scene. I dance at night with my Directors family to Zambian gospel. I laugh with that `full heartedly, deep down, life cant get better than this`laugh with anyone and everyone. I teach English to kids in a way that makes me feel proud. I paint SWSC because it has always been something I have enjoyed doing, even though im sure I could be doing more important things. I play with a 2 year old little girl named after me, because when I do, she giggles in a way that takes away all the pain in a 100km radius. I eat deep fried bread as a delicacy and share it with my dog, adding jam (even at the shock of watching neighbours) because she likes sweet things and turns her nose at peanut butter. I visit with friends from all over the world living in Zambia and feel comfortable amongst people of a similar culture, wondering if im still in Canada. I wake up in the morning to watch the sunrise and I am finally falling asleep each night with a smile on my face, thankful that the guilt and the stress are starting to evaporate out of my soul.

Innocence Gone

2010-08-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

I know that sometimes in Canada in a desperate attempt to get their children to go to school, some parents may offer money as an incentive to get their buts into gear and on the school bus. Things are different in Canada; school is more often seen as a chore, as opposed to a privilege like it is in countries like Zambia. I never thought that I would see the day when I would have to pay youth to get them interested in learning; but it looks as though it has come down to this.

This morning my companion/SWSC intern student David let me in on a little Kibombomene gossip that left me feeling quite numb. Years ago when I started to develop my interest in Africa, I read about how truck drivers across the continent were a main carrier of AIDS and that prostitution was common. They work ridiculously long hours on crappy roads for little pay without seeing their wives and family for extended periods. Can you blame them really for feeling lonely and looking for the company of a cheap woman once in a while? Living a sheltered life, I never assumed that these stories could ever take place in Kibombomene. I was sure that they happened in a distant place in Africa like Kenya or Nigeria; not in my small humble community in Zambia. Apparently, thanks to David, the news is a lot closer to home that I would like to believe. Young girls from the church choir, drop-outs from school, failures with no skills except for cooking and cleaning are selling their bodies for sex every night right across the street from where I sleep. They are getting into the same trucks I sometimes hitch to Solwezi town once or twice each week. These are the same drivers that I talk with about the weather in Canada, the ones that I just don’t FEEL could have AIDS. Unfortunately AIDS is something you cant smell or see; its sneaky like that, goes around without wearing a name tag like an invisible guest at a dinner party. These girls, left without any other opportunity are making between 1 and 5 dollars per man; sometimes just a drink.

I asked Mukimba (our Director) about the situation and to my shock, he explained that the parents in this particular case know full and well what their daughters are up to. In fact, they are even been reaping in the benefits; receiving new pots and blankest for their homes, while their daughters are out losing their innocence.

I immediately felt like David and I had to do something about this. I asked David what it was they seemed to need money for so badly. He explained that this wasn’t something new and that he had seen this happen all through his life. He gave an example of girls in his old church choir selling sex in order to raise money for transportation and food rations for church conferences. I was disgusted.

So what is my plan, you ask? I don’t assume to eradicate Africa from teenage prostitution but my life is devoted to changing lives and therefore I have decided to start with one. Beatrice, a 16 year old, educated to grade 2 relative of our Director took her first rendezvous with a truck driver the other day. I feel that if I grab her now and offer her something better than what she is getting from 30 seconds in the back of a smelly transport truck; I can maybe save her life. I have offered her work at our construction site with me and Davey 4 times each week; painting, planting trees, gardening, whatever. At night, she is obligated to come to my house to learn English (writing, reading and speaking). When the classes are finished each night I will give her 5,000 Zambian Kwacha (just over 1 Canadian dollar). 3,000 of this will be put in a piggy bank and she can walk away with 2,000. If she is 5 minutes late, I start deducting money showing her that I wont wait for her or call after her. This is her opportunity to change her life around. I will help her set a goal with her money and hopefully we can work out a small business plan so that her money is doubling at the end of the month. If I

I don’t know if this is going to work, but I cant sit around while I watch this girl die, which is exactly what’s going to happen if she keeps having sex with truck drivers. AIDS is not as far away as we may both think.

So many people have let Beatrice down in her life. Some of them are sitting in large offices in the capital city enjoying the high life, being chauffeured everywhere in an entourage of expensive imported Japanese vehicles. Some of them are her neighbours and her own family. If this works, if she falls into my little trap, than I think it might just be the best 16$ I will spend in my entire life.

Making it Through

2010-07-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wanted to blog about how difficult it is to run a non profit organization in a country like Zambia. Yesterday, I felt like going on and on about how so many adversities here can tackle you down for the count, crippling you at the knees, not allowing you to show your face in the ring ever again.

Today is a different day and I am not feeling so much like writing about the road blocks, but about the longevity of change making. My friend David reminded me of something this morning when I was having a particularly difficult time feeling motivated. I have dedicated myself to starting a reading program at the local elementary school to the female students twice every week. The head master wanted me to teach all the girls, whom definitely needed it, but teaching over 200 girls to read, write and speak English when the majority don’t know the difference between the letters a and b, was leaving me feeling quite overwhelmed.

I was explaining to David that I felt like I didn’t have any support, that I was tired of filling the gaps that the government left so void especially in the rural areas like Kibombomene. I was explaining that I had taken too much on and sometimes felt like sleeping in all day knowing what work lied ahead of me. Like a perfectly good friend, David smacked me out of this selfish daze and reminded me that change doesn’t happen the way we want it to. Being here for 2 years means nothing compared to the lifetime of change we are committed to making here and getting up tight that it is not happening at the speed I need it to, is not getting me anywhere.

Mandela waited 27 years in prison to see his country free, took hit after hit and still walked out of Robben Island one foot in front of the other. Ghandi spent weeks without food in order to prove a point to his British oppressors; obviously feeling sorry for myself and this plight we have taken on for SWSC was not warranted.

We all have these days. I know that. We try to hide what we are really feeling inside, take on all of the load by ourselves and forge forwards towards the goal. We throw up our hands and bury our heads deep in our pillows when we feel like nothing is happening. Whether we are paper pushing in an office, digging nickel at the mines, standing in front of a classroom, waiting tables or directing an NGO; we all feel some sense of time disappointing us and moving too slowly for our ever courageous minds.

That being said, I continue to encourage all of us out there who are willing to stick it out with time and be patient for the change that we are so optimistic about. I’m sure Mandela had his days when he felt like the sun would never rise again, but the days where we felt it shine brightly despite the darkness of his cell ended up outnumbering the others. What we have started here may not move the way I want it to, but it is moving. We are spreading confidence and generating huge waves even when the wind is as dead as the cement we are building with!

That's the spirit!

2010-07-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to go finalize our building materials list at JAID's, a wholesaler in Solwezi that supplied us with everything last year. I ended up having a very real conversation with the owner when I went to go inquire about a discount for the materials. Last year they had given us cement at cost, a 15% discount on everything and free transport to our site. I understand that not everything in life is free, so I approached the owner saying that, "I know you helped us out last year and I don't want to make assumptions again, but I'm wondering....". The owner who has got to be the most friendly business operator in Solwezi stopped me, "listen Marissa, let me see the quote and I'm sure there is a way that we can help you out again". I said, "well, is there anything we can do for you? Can we help you advertise or something by our sign post? Would you like to sponsor us and put something up on our website"? He then responded by saying something I did not quite expect to hear from a man who is in business to make money. He said, "You know, I left the western world because everyone seems to be living life for themselves there. I lived 20 years in London, England and it seemed like people only did something good when there was a reward to be given; whether that be a tax credit, or a plaque with their name on it, or a head-line in the newspaper. I'm not interested in that. I want to give because the big man upstairs is watching and I know that it is right. I don't need to advertise that we are helping you out, because it is good. Don't be afraid to ask for help". This is the way life is supposed to be, I'm sure of it. We are supposed to be helping each other out.