Pictures Depicting Everything Mentioned Below (plus village moonshine)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nswaswa/

Caterpillars

Right after the first rains begin, women trek into the bush to collect caterpillars. Armed with a pail and often a child to climb the trees, they collect many different varieties: fat neon green ones, spiky ones, black and white ones. They usually track caterpillars by looking carefully at the ground. If you see droppings, there are caterpillars munching on the fresh new growth on that tree.

Women spend all morning collecting caterpillars and return when the sun is at its peak to cook ubwali for lunch. At home they squeeze the caterpillars starting from the head and moving toward the end, like one squeezes a tube of toothpaste, to rid them of the insides. Then the caterpillars are fried with cooking oil.

Chris enjoys eating them. I see the merit in caterpillars being a protein source where meat and eggs are scarce, but I prefer my texturized vegetable protein pieces.

Not all caterpillars here are benevolent. Chishishi, huge grey caterpillars with bristly hair, are also plentiful at this time. As with snakes, the policy with chishishi is to kill every one you find. If they contact human skin, the bristles will cause you to itch and have a rash, similar to poison ivy.


This Is Our World

A young woman reclines on the clay floor of her parents' cooking shelter. Her breasts hang down nearly to her navel beneath an old red t-shirt, and her arms are thin; the width of an ubwali cooking stick. In a hoarse voice voice she recites her symptoms in monotone ciBemba, a change from the tonal inflections that usually accompany the language: a cough, vomiting, body pains, jaundice that turns the whites of her eyes into a sick mustard color. The clinic's diagnosis is yellow fever, an illness similar to malaria in causation and symptoms. There's no cure but elapsed time, and already these maladies have persisted for over a week. Where Western medicine has failed her, she turns to the traditional umuti of her ancestors. A thin strip of bark fiber from a mutondo tree is tied around her neck to prevent vomiting and her family dabs water infused with pepa root in her eyes, nose, and on her fingertips.

The illness has caused her to stop producing breast milk, so she can't feed her two-month old daughter. In the U.S., the crisis could be averted with store bought formula. But formula here is only available in urban centers and costs USD 5 for a 1 kg tin, unaffordable for subsistence farmers who survive on USD 2 a day. Besides, formula mixed with unclean water would ravage the baby's body with diarrhea. A wet nurse, a compassionate neighbor with her own baby, could help. But no nursing mother here will touch this cursed, sickly little girl. People gossip and whisper "AIDS" behind the backs of their hands. The family feeds the baby porridge instead - corn, millet, or cassava flour cooked in boiled water. It is pure carbohydrate with no nutritional value at all. The baby is very thin and cries all the time.

The aspersions that the women whisper to each other, heavy and ominous like the sagging dark clouds that hang in the sky this time of year, may be true. It's got to be either AIDS or witchcraft; no single family can fall so far from God's mercy on their own.

This woman's husband had a first wife in a distant village that died after a long illness. The husband himself is sickly. People warned the woman's parents not to approve of the marriage years ago, but the parents only scoffed, thinking it was jealousy. The couple has since brought five children into the world, two of whom they've already buried. Soon to be three. Young children face enough adversity threatening their fragile lives without being pulled away from their mother's dried up breasts at only two months old and fed only starch.

In the U.S. ("The Promised Land," as we've taken to calling it) this incurable virus ravaging Africa can seem impersonal. Children dying from preventable illnesses is sad, but detached from your reality; your own children have chubby cheeks from baby fat and grow like weeds. This life is our reality.


Kasama Town Cast of Characters

These are the quirky, omnipresent, mentally disturbed people that inhabit Kasama Town. Kasama does in fact have a mental hospital, but its only a place for people to sleep at night. During the day, they're on their own.

Judgment Man: Has long tangled hair, wears a tunic closely resembling a potato sack, a huge cross necklace, and carries a staff. He'll quietly walk into a place of business or to an individual, draw himself up, and begin a tirade in Bemba. I usually don't even try to understand what he's saying, but he repeats "judgment" a lot and asks for 100 kwacha (~2 cents). He's found on Luwingu Rd, and solicits the internet cafe several times a day because the staff there will quickly hand over money so he'll leave.
Inconspicuous Dude: Is found near Shoprite, often sleeping in a shady patch of dirt beside the road. He has unkempt mats of hair and wears ripped clothing the exact shade of the soil. He doesn't harass anyone and often blends into Kasama itself.

Several months ago, an angry, displaced swarm of bees terrorized the centre of town, disrupting business. African bees are fierce even when unprovoked, so the street quickly emptied, except a few tenacious people who ran by. Inconspicuous Dude, however, strolled down the street, completely oblivious to the swarming mass that seethed around his head.
Bernard: A short, stout man with grey hair, untamed nose hairs, and kind eyes. He used to stand in front of Shoprite everyday just hanging out, but the regulars that hawk newspapers and prepaid talk time forced him out. His new haunt is PJT Market, the local supermarket chain on the next street over. He's supposedly a beggar, but in the two years I've known him, he's never asked me for money. He always greets me by name and is completely lucid except for one thing - he thinks I'm his wife. In fact, he thinks every light-skinned woman he meets in Kasama is his wife. He gets upset if you protest, so I play along. Our usual conversation usually goes something like this:
Bernard: Ah, Nicole! How are you?
Me: I'm fine. And you?
B: I'm okay. Last week I did not have much money for food, but it is better now. How are our children?
M: They're doing well. Little Mary is doing very well on her exams and little Bupe had malaria, but he's recovered now and is back to playing football with his friends.
B: You must bring them to see me soon.
M: Sure.

Bernard is fluent in English and well-spoken and spoke once of being educated at Cambridge in the UK, which I believe. Rumor has it that he was once a successful businessman and was married to a white woman. At some point mental illness crept in.


Hot Season and Hot Tempers
BashiAmose told us his schoolteacher from years ago once noted that there are a lot more disagreements and fights during the hot, dry season (September- November) than other times of the year. I'd be willing to concur. I personally was miserable during this period; it's too hot to do anything but lay in your house from 10 am until 15 hours.

About a month ago, some men came to BashiAmose's house while he and BanaAmose were away and pressured their fifteen-year old daughter to sell them home-brewed beer. Soon there was a group of men sitting in the shade and drinking. Tempers started flaring and two men began fighting. One was hitting another with a stick, there was blood flying, and the disagreement went on for a good half an hour, to the great interest of the children, whom no one thought to shoo away. Apparently on this same day, just 400m up the hill, a boy from the village and a Sable worker were also drinking and one was threatening the other with a knife.

Remember Chanda, the teenage boy who broke into our house last Halloween? After he stole from several other houses, tuckshops, and finally us, the village agreed to send him to the police. Because he was a minor, he was sent to live in a orphanage and attend school in Kasama for two years. But a few months ago he ran away and returned to the village. We spoke to his legal guardian at the Department of Social Welfare, but the man kept insisting that Chanda would return after a home leave of a few days and if we didn't like it, we could accompany him back to Kasama ourselves. Four months later, still in the village, Chanda broke into a tuck shop again. He was taken to the headman's house to be punished and people ended up forcing the soles of his feet into the coals of a cooking fire so he couldn't run away. We saw him the next day, supported by two other boys as he was barefoot and limping badly, standing at the tuck shop he broke into while the items he stole were recovered. Kids ran over to jeer at him. Later, he was sent back to live in Kasama.

Recently a man stole 11 million kwacha ($USD 2,000) from a business in Kasama. With uncharacteristic tenacity and accuracy, the Kasama police tracked him to his parents' house in our village. When the police arrived, the man had only enough time to hide in the bathing shelter. As they were questioning his parents, the man tried slipping away. The officers tried to pursue him and one fired his gun, but the man escaped into the bush. They recovered half of the money from his wife, and then took her into custody because they thought she knew more than she was telling them. The next day, the police came again in an unmarked vehicle and found the man on the road, trying to find transport out. Again he escaped into the bush and hasn't been seen since.

They're saying that this man was able to evade capture twice because he has powerful spells and is a known wizard. Apparently if he puts money into the pages of a special book, then closes the cover, he's able to duplicate that money. It hasn't been explained why he had to steal ZMK 11,000,000 when he could have just used his book and avoided involvement with the police.

Traditional Leaders

Most villages are named after the headman. (Ours happens to be named after a nonexistant river, a grandiose nomenclature for an area with only two sinuous streams.) Headmen are hereditary, traditional leaders on the most minute scale; chiefs have jurisdiction over several dozen villages; above them are senior chiefs; and finally one paramount chief for an entire dispersed tribe. The Bemba paramount chief is named Chitemukulu and resides in a palace in Northern Province, the ancestral home of the Bembas.

The headman and his panel of good old boy advisors are the equivalent of an American town mayor, council, and court. Most headmen are fair and don't abuse their power. Our own headman has no schooling past grade 4, but he understands the value of development despite a conservative populace. He's consistently been an advocate for us.

Puppies!

Willow gave birth to 6 puppies fathered by Chankulila in mid-October. They're now 5 weeks old and starting to wean. They were a big strain on her body and she was looking pretty skeletal even though we fed her better than most people and even we, eat. We were covertly feeding her boiled eggs, dried fish, and ubwali fortified with soya bean flour and milk powder so our neighbors wouldn't click their tongues at us and demand that we give them some. All the puppies are fat and healthy except for some unavoidable fleas and chiggers. We're looking into getting Willow spayed and dewormed once she's back up to her normal body weight. Wish us luck; the procedures here are done without respirators or monitors in not sterile environments, but our PC Medical nurse (who's active in Lusaka spay & neuter campaigns) said the benefits still outweigh the risks.

The Protected Spring Box

The protected spring box was completed on 2 November after 2.5 days of labor, supervised by an engineer with Rural Water from Kasama. The total cost was $500 (donated by U.S. based Appropriate Projects) plus the community contribution of 1,000 burnt bricks, 1 ton of crushed stones, and K 2500 (~50 cents) from every household to buy wooden planks.