I have heard and learned many new names since I’ve been here; both familiar western names and local names that take me a few tries to pronounce them correctly. It is pretty common to name people after other significant figures in history or cinema (the youngest girl—18 months—at Mudzi Wa Moyo is named Cleopatra), or to make names from seemingly random words that for one reason or another are appealing. Nothing compares, however, to some of the names in Lusito, a community about 30km away from Chirundu that we visited earlier this week to have dinner with two more Italian priests. While I did not have the pleasure of meeting these individuals, Fr. Mauritzio told me that in grade 11 there is a Hitler who is best friends with Stalin, and the school’s roster also includes a Diablo and, my personal favorite, Elevator. Hats off to the parents of Lusito. They’ve got style.
Other exciting events of the past week have been the arrival (and departure) of several more houseguests. We have welcomed countless more Italians, but more noteworthy are some of our new animal friends. Fr. Paolo had his first mass in his new parish last Sunday, which was a major celebration that involved him bringing home the lively offering of two chickens, a duck, and two goats. The birds when into the chicken coop with the rest of the poultry, and after a few skirmishes with the turkeys the duck finally started behaving. That is, it stopped causing trouble for the other birds. However, on its second or third morning here the duck made a break for it when Christine opened the door to feed them. She ran back to the parish house where most of us were still finishing breakfast and told Father Michele, “The duck has escaped! I’m going to the compound (their word meaning neighborhood) to look for it.” Miraculously she got it back, and it quickly had a few choice feathers removed to deter any future flight attempts. The goats stayed in what used to be the dog kennel and enjoyed the leaves of several trees around the parish house that we fed to them. Then, their time came. Fr. Paolo decided there wasn’t much sense in keeping live goats around the parish (they were both male so milking wasn’t an option) and so he arranged to have them butchered. Ironically I suppose, the event took place just outside the parish house during lunchtime and hearing their final bleats reduced the appetite of some of those gathered around the table. Our freezer now has a small supply of goat meat and their carcasses are, for some reason, still hanging in the tree by the chicken coop. Poor poor dead goats.
I am now sharing a room with Barbara, a 20-year-old Zambian girl who is staying with us at the parish house while she writes her grade 12 exams and transitions into Mudzi Wa Moyo. I’m not sure about the details or how long she will be staying, but I have come to really enjoy spending time with her. While it’s great to hang out with the girls at Mudzi Wa Moyo and other girls who I have met around the parish, it’s nice to get to know someone my own age. My impression is that the majority of women in Chirundu in their early twenties are already married, have children, and are therefore less interested in meeting some random foreigner. This is understandable, but has left me in the company of lots of 14 and 15 year olds. Among other activities, Barbara and I have bonded over being the only non-Italian speakers in the house, washing mountains of dishes, folding paper cranes, and good naturedly poking fun at Justin’s perpetually red nose and tendency to lose track of personal belongings.
Living with Barbara has also given me more of a Zambian cultural immersion, which has been both enjoyable and somewhat uncomfortable. In Zambian culture members of the same sex often walk around with linked arms or holding hands and in general there is less of a sense of personal space. I am still a bit surprised when Barbara grabs my arm or sits pressed up against my side as we are eating. Also, since Barbara has moved in I sort of feel like I have a shadow. This is somewhat attributed to her feeling out of place around so many Italians, but also because Zambians are generally very social. This is taking some getting used to for me. I just hope I don’t inadvertently offend her or anyone else as I work to come out of my solitary American bubble of personal space. We’ll see.
Zambians (or Barbara at least) also have a higher standard of cleanliness. She used the washing machine once but has since gone back to vigorously hand washing because she didn’t think her clothes were clean enough. She has also instructed me that we should sweep and mop our room at least once per day. We always sweep out a considerable amount of red dirt/sand, so while I think once every two or three days would be satisfactory I understand where she’s coming from. I have taken to thinking of it as the daily dirt removal, DDR for short. I think my DDR could become a big step up from the currently known and loved videogame. The object: keeping a Zambian house clean during the windy season. It would include activities like dusting, mopping, and the ever-popular watering the dirt driveway (which does keep the dust from blowing around for an hour or two). You could do all of the motions yourself with a Wii and it would be more exercise than bowling! DDR Zambia: Sure you can dance, but can you sweep?
A few days ago I experienced two of the most agonizing and hilarious hours of my time in Zambia so far. I finally agreed to have my hair fully braided and so I now have 14 little cornrows curving around my head. I have never been able to see so much of my own scalp before. I am certainly impressed by my hair’s transformation, but unlike almost all of the girls here who rebraid their hair on a weekly basis this will probably be the first and last time I do it. Not only am I skeptical about whether showing so much scalp is actually a good look for me (though all of the girls at Mudzi Wa Moyo have assured me I am much more beautiful now), but it really really hurt and I lost tons of hair. Despite the pain the experience was also ridiculously funny. At one point there were four different girls pulling on my hair and always many more gathered around me jabbering to each other in Nyanga laughing at my face as I winced through the particularly painful points. That, and everyone ended up covered in numerous stray hairs that had been ripped from my head. Now the trick it to put plenty of sunscreen on my head so that my scalp is not subjected to additional torment from sunburn.
This week also included what has to be my most embarrassing moment of the trip. We just had a whirlwind visit from the bishop and his entourage of Italians, and while setting the table for dinner last night I tipped over a stack of small plates and several smashed on the floor. Yep, classic Hannah move. Luckily the Italians all had a good sense of humor and no one was impaled by chards of plates. I guess it wasn’t that bad, though everyone sure got a glimpse of a very red blush from me.
Unfortunately there has not been any progress on the computer classes. Justin and I have talked to Fr. Michele several times about starting something in the afternoons, but he has so many projects going on that I’m not sure if we will ever get it going. We’ll see I suppose. Sadly Christine and I have not had any more lessons since the last post either. She is in the process of adding another room or two onto her house so she has been spending much of her free time watering cement blocks.
As for the waterwheel, we made a trip to Lusaka on Thursday to buy new seals for the joint and most of the materials for a bigger wheel. Shopping in Lusaka was quite the ordeal. Browsing on your own and then quickly checking out it not an option in the hardware stores. In each store there is a wall full of samples of all the products they theoretically have in stock. You then tell someone behind the counter what you would like, they make a list of all of the items and their prices, send someone off to get you what you want, and then you go see someone else to pay. After paying you pick up your items at the door where someone else checks that you have everything on your list. The process involves at least four receipts with several stamps. There is also a 16% tax, but least we didn’t have to do any haggling. Our trip to Lusaka also included picking up two more Italians at the airport and several other errands, so by the time we were on the road for the two hours back to Chirundu Justin and I were sharing the back of the pickup with seven suitcases, 100 liters of gasoline, a box of books about Catholicism, groceries, and all of the materials we bought for the waterwheel. Despite the close quarters and statistics about traffic casualties in third world countries nagging on my mind, the trip was actually pretty enjoyable once we got out of the heavy traffic and smog in Lusaka. It was a clear night so we had unobstructed views of the stars and we munched on a few tasty shortbread biscuits we had picked up at the grocery store.
