Crocodiles of God

Hello everyone. Sorry it’s been so long. This will be my last update from Zambia as I am leaving for Malawi on Monday. After a couple days in Lilongwe I’ll be spending the next couple weeks on Lake Malawi before making my way to a language school in southwestern Tanzania. Do a Google image search and be jealous.

I suppose I should start with the waterwheel. It is in the Zambezi aaaaaand… working! Well, for now at least. It has actually been in the river for several weeks now, but has been functioning with varying degrees of success. The rotating joint is really the only thing that has been causing problems, but it appears we finally have something that works. I suppose I shouldn’t speak too quickly, but it has been working without even a minor leak for almost two weeks and I would like to be optimistic. We are hoping to find something that works for at least six months at a time or, ideally longer. The current design of the joint is actually also the simplest we have tried to far, which makes me feel a bit better about the sustainability of the project as a whole. I still have my doubts, but knowing we don’t have to commission the manufacture of heavy, complicated, and expensive joints in Lusaka is encouraging.

I suppose I should explain the basics of our waterwheel-driven spiral pump. The waterwheel uses the power from the river to turn two spirals of polypipe that scoop up river water. Each time the wheel turns, the water is forced further down the coil and compresses the air that is also present in the spiral. At the innermost coil the air is so compressed that the pressure is high enough to force the water up the bank and into a large tank from where it then flows to a series of washbasins. (I post photos once I find some decent internet.) The volume of water being pumped is also less than we would like, but it has been great to see people using the basins for washing, bathing and collecting water. We (i.e. the welders, though I did use the grinder once and didn’t grind off an appendage!) are now in the process of constructing a much larger waterwheel so that we can pump water to the roof of the parish house, about 30 meters. (The current version has between 15 and 18 meters of lift.) I made about 85% of the decisions and calculations regarding the modifications of this design from previous waterwheels, so hopefully it will not be an epic failure. Unfortunately I will not be able to see it in the river before I go, but maybe that means I will be spared the heartbreak of seeing it not work at first and by the time I return a year from now it will be flawless. As the Zambians say: at least…

In other exciting news, there are puppies at the parish house! We have no idea what kind of dogs they are, but they are super cute. They have only been here for a couple days and are still pretty timid, though they enjoyed chasing some children around the yard yesterday afternoon. They will be killing snakes (the real reason Fr. Michele wanted dogs in the first place) in no time. Their names are Luna and Pluto. I randomly suggested calling them Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers—Fred and Ginger for short, of course—but apparently in Zambia it is quite insulting to give a dog the same name as a human (insinuating that the human is like a dog I guess) and there is a Fred just down the road, so those names were vetoed and we went for the space theme instead. In all honesty, after hearing the no-giving-dogs-human-names rule I was a bit unsure of what we could call them since there appears to be no limit to what someone can name their child. In addition to the names I shared in the last post, I have since heard: Gearbox, End, Medicine, Urgent, Geography, Motorola, InBetween, and Diesel. Diesel’s last name was also Diesel, but the Nyanga or Tonga word for it.

Aside from hanging out with children and working on the waterwheel in Chirundu, Justin and I took a trip north into the central province before he returned back to the states. Justin has a friend serving in the Peace Corps in a village outside of Serenje, so we got a taste of village life for a couple days. The bucket showers, pit latrine, water source that was 400m away, and general sense of isolation (Marcus was actually close to Serenje relative to some of the other volunteers) gave me a more real perspective on the Peace Corps. It would be both an incredible and challenging experience. Luckily I can think about it for a couple years before applying. One of the many advantages of finishing college in a less-than-timely manner… Anyway, the highlight of the trip was celebrating the full moon with a bunch of children at a nearby farm. We taught the kids the hokey pokey as we danced and sang around a fire and they taught us a song about a man who was taken to the witchdoctor because he killed his daughter for marrying her cousin. Yes, this trip was a big dose of culture. Then we played versions of kick the can and duck duck goose before heading back through the fields to Marcus’ hut where we unsuccessfully tried to get a mouse out of the house before going to bed. All under the light of the full moon. Fantastic.

As this is my last post from Zambia, I feel I should share some of my general observations from the summer. I feel an appropriate place for me to begin is food. As I mentioned before, the parish house employs a Zambian woman, Christine, to cook during the week, so aside from cooking for ourselves on the weekends and Christine’s pizza on Thursdays we do eat lots of Zambian food. The basis of all Zambian meals in nshima, and as I have no idea how to describe it I have stolen this description from my guidebook which says it is “a thick, doughy maize porridge that’s bland but very filling.” Thank you Lonely Planet. I think the adjective “gluey” is also appropriate. Nshima is usually eaten with one or two sides of vegetables, beans, or meat when it’s available. As the parish is not hurting for funds we almost always have meat for our main meal (lunch); sometimes chicken, but more often some form of red meat. Now, by red meat I don’t mean beef. I mean meat that is actually quite boldly red in color, usually sausage. The most offensively red sausage comes from a meat producer ironically called The Real Meat Co. Ltd. Real meat? I think not, though I do like that a hippo is included among the edible animals of their logo. My favorite part of the meal is usually the vegetable, which is either cabbage or rape, a dark leafy green that is delicious and nutritious though it sometimes makes for strange-sounding statements or questions. I’m certainly used to it by now, but being asked “What did you think of the rape today?” was initially a bit disarming. Dinner is more simple and starchier than lunch, usually consisting of rice or pasta and some sauce that often contains potatoes. As we have bread and tea/coffee every day for breakfast, there is never any lack of carbs. Once we actually ate bread, rice, pasta, pizza, regular potatoes and sweet potatoes all in one day. Ugh. Despite any tone I may have used in my above description, the food certainly isn’t bad. It just lacks variety and generally contains at least twice the amount of oil and salt I would prefer. I’ve heard Tanzanian food, especially around Dar es Salaam, generally has more flavor, so I’m hoping that is actually true.

I have really enjoyed learning some Zambian English this summer. (I have basically failed to learn any substantial amount of the local languages.) So, here are some words and phrases that have taken on new roles in my vocabulary: Zambians use “this/that side” to indicate a place or direction regardless of how far away it is. It is usually accompanied by a vague sweep or flick of the hand. They also refer to each other as “this/that one.” I was rather taken aback for the first couple weeks because calling the girl standing right next to you “this one” seems really rude, though now I also use it regularly. To say “and so on” or “et cetera” Zambians say “what what,” “flip flops” are “tropicals,” and if someone says “we are leaving now” you still have some time whereas “now now” means you should be ready to go. In my first week in Zambia someone told me their last trip to Lusaka was a nightmare because “the robots were broken” which had me astounded (robots?! in Zambia?!) and thoroughly confused until this person saw the look on my face and explained that “robot” is the Zambian word for “traffic light.” One of the habits I have not picked up on, however, is the tendency to add a “y” or “u” sound to the end of words ending in consonants. Words in Bantu languages almost always end with a vowel sound, so the consonant-heavy English can be difficult to pronounce. The additional “y” and “u” sounds makes for some minor, though amusing transformations to words. For example, “disease” becomes “diseasey,” “childhood” becomes “childhudu,” and (my personal favorite) “dogma” becomes “doggyma.”

Many of the Zambians I have befriended this summer are happy to tell me about their culture, especially traditional beliefs. The Zambians who have shared the following beliefs generally good-naturedly make fun of them, though it’s good to keep in mind that for many villagers these ideas a parts of their cultural reality. Perhaps most relevant to my work on the waterwheel, I learned that there are two kinds of crocodile: crocodiles of god and crocodiles of people. Crocodiles of god are harmless, whereas crocodiles of people refer to those sent by a witchdoctor to attack a specific victim. Luckily for me, both types of crocodiles are supposedly afraid of mzungus. And crocodiles are not the only ones who fear white people. If someone has a dream about a mzungu it means they have been visited by a ghost, or if you see an albino on the street it’s best not to look at them and you should pull the collar of your shirt up to your mouth and spit lightly until they’ve passed. No one could really explain to me why you should spit into your shirt, it’s just something you do… Anyway, while the fact that Zambia is a “Christian nation” is codified and I have never been in a more zealously Christian place, witchcraft still plays a major role in most communities, especially villages. Witchfinders charge huge amounts of money to come to a village and determine why someone’s child or animal died, why their hut burned down, or to rid an area of evil spirits. Then they do a few chemistry tricks to prove one of the villagers was practicing witchcraft which results in anything from this person being fined, shunned for a while, or even run out of the village. Traditional voodoo belief also suggests things like burying a child’s heart underneath one’s shop improves business, and until only about a decade ago twins born in villages were killed because they were seen as unnatural.

It is traditional beliefs such as these that make me question what development is or should be and how to go about it. I certainly believe that preserving culture is important, but I hate to see people made vulnerable and so routinely taken advantage of because of their beliefs in witchcraft or—another frequent source of conflict—the feudal chief/chiefness power structure. In my opinion, one of the best ways to counteract these oppressive structures seems to be education, but despite the current president’s “commitment to education” there are still thousands of children (especially girls) living in remote locations who don’t go to school. And lets just say there isn’t much of an emphasis on critical thinking in the schools kids are going to. Ahhh, pangono pangono (slowly slowly)…

Goodness, I think that’s enough. Ha. You may have thought that several paragraphs ago…

Zambia, goodbye for now.