(no subject)
I was afraid to leave the life I knew to come here, and now I've found so much more of myself than I knew existed, and so much more of the world and people than I had known before. It is impossible to be here and not become changed. Poverty, as Americans know it, is so trivial. There are safety nets in America that do not exist here. To go to the market (in Zimbabwe, just over the border by Livingstone) and have a man my own age offer to trade one of his pieces of art for the socks off your feet... The simplest things have so much value, and it makes you take another look at your own, and what you choose to give value to in your own life. Part of me wishes I could run home and tear apart my things and pack into boxes all of the things that I do not desperately need, post them over here, and know that they will be used. So much of the stress of my daily life seems so insignificant. In Zambia, there are no body image crisis. Weight and skin color are characteristics, not qualifications. My body is a "traditional build" here, which is considered, if anything, to be more attractive. Men flirt with me in the streets, and I cannot help but feel beautiful, and completely unaware of the size of my belly, or the paleness of my skin. What matters here is the size of your heart. I wish I could bring that back with me. I wish I could spread that way of thinking to everyone I meet. My Zambian relatives have made so many jokes with us about color. We use the word Muzungu (Moo-Zoo-n-goo), Nyanga (the local language) for "White person". When we drive through the villages, you can see the children on the sides of the street with their eyes wide, and read their lips- "muzungu". It is a far cry from the looks a black person receives driving through a white area of the states. In America, being the minority is a threat. In Zambia, we are simply different. The children look because they have only seen white skin a few times- they are interested. They want us to be welcome, to come and speak with them, to get to know us.
It is also nearly impossible to not feel the forces of whatever higher power you believe in. You watch a person become so incredibly overjoyed that you have bought what equates to $5 worth of their goods, because they will eat tonight, and you do not know when the last time they ate was, and the only words that come to their lips are "praise god". Where American children actively dread church (well, many of us anyway), here the ch ildren are so grateful for a chance to worship. We attended church under a thin tin roof, no walls, a dirt-covered cement slab floor. Each person brought a stool to sit on, many of them hand carved from a chunk of wood. As the service came close to four hours long, I looked around me. Here I was, unable to sit still, my back aching from four hours on a stool with no support for my back. The children's faces showed that they too felt the strain on their bodies, but they were so grateful to be here worshipping, they did not even stir. Could you imagine an american child staying in one place so long? It is so very different.
Of course not all of Zambia is like this. There are areas of wealth, but they are the tourist areas that Americans and Europeans visit. To see real Zambian life you must wander beyond.
One other thing that struck me. Of all the people I've seen, the happiest are those in the villages. They live in huts that we would consider primitive. The children walk several miles to school. The clothing they have is clearly all given to them by wealthier nations. But they are happy. They live in their homes, withtheir families, raising their livestock and cooking over flames. These are the people we see in the commercials asking for money. The child who is not smiling (the faces appear serious to us, because the visual cues of a smile are of our culture, not theirs), with flies on his face (The flies here are stubborn! I'm a well fed american and I've had many flies on my face!), with no shoes on his feet (haven't you ever walked barefoot to enjoy the feel of the earth between your toes?), with a skinny build, but a round face and round belly (we assume this is malnourishement, and in some cases it may be, but it is also frequently just the build of these people- trust me, the people in the Kufa's home where I am staying have had plenty to eat, and they are built similarly). It is beyond our comprehension that someone might be happy with that way of life. If we were even the slightest bit culturally compentent we would ask them what they needed. Tea and sugar. Bottled/Safe water. The things they can only get at the store, that is too far to walk to. Mostly they would ask for things for their schools.
My time to write is up, but my head is full. There is so much to be done here, and so much that this place is doing to me. I am a different person; a better person.
It is also nearly impossible to not feel the forces of whatever higher power you believe in. You watch a person become so incredibly overjoyed that you have bought what equates to $5 worth of their goods, because they will eat tonight, and you do not know when the last time they ate was, and the only words that come to their lips are "praise god". Where American children actively dread church (well, many of us anyway), here the ch ildren are so grateful for a chance to worship. We attended church under a thin tin roof, no walls, a dirt-covered cement slab floor. Each person brought a stool to sit on, many of them hand carved from a chunk of wood. As the service came close to four hours long, I looked around me. Here I was, unable to sit still, my back aching from four hours on a stool with no support for my back. The children's faces showed that they too felt the strain on their bodies, but they were so grateful to be here worshipping, they did not even stir. Could you imagine an american child staying in one place so long? It is so very different.
Of course not all of Zambia is like this. There are areas of wealth, but they are the tourist areas that Americans and Europeans visit. To see real Zambian life you must wander beyond.
One other thing that struck me. Of all the people I've seen, the happiest are those in the villages. They live in huts that we would consider primitive. The children walk several miles to school. The clothing they have is clearly all given to them by wealthier nations. But they are happy. They live in their homes, withtheir families, raising their livestock and cooking over flames. These are the people we see in the commercials asking for money. The child who is not smiling (the faces appear serious to us, because the visual cues of a smile are of our culture, not theirs), with flies on his face (The flies here are stubborn! I'm a well fed american and I've had many flies on my face!), with no shoes on his feet (haven't you ever walked barefoot to enjoy the feel of the earth between your toes?), with a skinny build, but a round face and round belly (we assume this is malnourishement, and in some cases it may be, but it is also frequently just the build of these people- trust me, the people in the Kufa's home where I am staying have had plenty to eat, and they are built similarly). It is beyond our comprehension that someone might be happy with that way of life. If we were even the slightest bit culturally compentent we would ask them what they needed. Tea and sugar. Bottled/Safe water. The things they can only get at the store, that is too far to walk to. Mostly they would ask for things for their schools.
My time to write is up, but my head is full. There is so much to be done here, and so much that this place is doing to me. I am a different person; a better person.