Zamlish

After our Peace Corps-mandated last minute trip to Lusaka for H1N1 shots, we only had five whole days in the village before we left again for another holiday. In about twelve hours we're boarding a train bound for Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. There's a big music festival in Stonetown.

Our five days were pretty uneventful, as most of the village's inhabitants are still farming beans in the bush and only come into the village for Sunday church services. On Sunday, though, we spent the afternoon visiting. Our last stop was my counterpart's house, where she had brewed local beer to generate some funds. There were four older men sitting under a tree, sharing a cup and a 5 liter jerry can of thick, foul-tasting ubwalwa. They were very drunk, so we quickly greeted them and went to sit with Ba Catherine. Then BashiK, a notorious character in our village (often drunk, corrupt, pompous, has two wives, though polygyny isn't common in Bemba culture) stumbled over and wrote "SHAQ" in the sand. "Chris! Whas thees mean?" The previous PC volunteer, a sports enthusiast, had been asked to name BashiK's newborn grandson, and had endowed him with "Shaq." Chris explained, substituting basketball for netball, and BashiK stumbled back.

The next thing we knew, the men had risen from their seats and were yelling at eachother furiously. "...ICISUNGU! Blah blah really angry Bemba icisungu!" BashiK threw a jerry can and one man was inexplicably shirtless. Ba Catherine yelled, and the men suddenly turned sheepish. They apologized and retreated. Ba Catherine explained what the bewildering fight had been about. The English language. The men had been speaking Bemba the entire time, except for when BashiK addressed us in English. He only speaks English when he's drunk. The other men had ridiculed him, saying he didn't know how to write or speak English. Being able to speak English is a mark of education, although many people are shy about it because they don't want to be laughed at for their mistakes. Most pointless fight ever, especially because BashiK is conversant in English and quite literate. But funny all the same.

On a somewhat different topic, last week a taxi driver in Kasama, after we'd had a short conversation in Bemba, told us we should forget English and only speak icibemba fye. We explained that probably wouldn't go over well when we returned to America, since no one knows Bemba there.

And now, a segway...

ZAMLISH TO ENGLISH COLLOQUIALISMS

amaguys - That guy. A taxi driver, street vendor, professional loiterer that favors tight, women's bootcut jeans and knock-off designer sunglasses, is often drunk and in your face.
"Hey boy! Let me have one!" -An amaguy's request to Chris, when walking with a group of female PCVs.

be caref - Cautionary statement.

big man - Term of respect for an elder.

boss/boy - Equivalent to "hey, you."

bwana - A word that meant boss during colonialism, but now refers to someone with money. Possibly from Swahili.

he/she - Sex is irrelevant in language. In Bemba, ba indicates a male or female third person with respect. Only age is important in Bemba when talking about people; it determines whether that person is shown respect or not. Most (fluent) Zambian English-speakers mix up their pronouns, which is both endearing and confusing.

isn't it? - Used for emphasis. "He's farming a lot of maize, isn't it?"

kasmall - A redundant adjective. Ka is a prefix in Bemba used for diminutive nouns. "Borrow me your kasmall hoe."

mami - A term of endearment for a respected female.

obviously - Same general meaning, but exorbitantly overused, with no trace of sarcasm. Often used as an answer for questions.

"R" and "L" as interchangeable - There is no letter R in the Bemba alphabet, which causes some confusion in English. For the longest time, we thought Ba Alan's son's name was actually Jello; it's really Jero, a nickname for Jeremy. "For your preasure and leisure." -A sign at a guesthouse in Mpulungu

sorry sorry - Response to an embarrassing or potentially injurious situation. Often accompanied by tongue clicking.

spare wheel/side plate - A derogatory term for a mistress. Extramarital affairs for men are quietly accepted; men are seen as being insatiable and virile, so it's not usual for them to have many sexual partners.

sweetie - Candy. "You can't enjoy a sweetie with a wrapper on it." -A common, infuriating response when I try to teach condom use as a means for preventing HIV.

this one/that one - Used to describe a third person who is in proximity to the speaker or listener.

you can't manage - An observation made when a task is seen as formidable. Often used when a white person is carrying some bags or declares that they are going to walk a distance greater than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile).






Dedicated to my great-grandmother, Lola Flipse, 1909-2010.

Chimps and hippos and crocs, yangu!

Part II - Mutinondo
***Please read Part I, the post below this one, first.***

We stayed for three nights at Chimfunshi, then from Chingola we took a bus to Kapiri Mposhi, because it has the best rest area food in Zambia. Mmm, shwarmas. From Kapiri Mposhi, we were trying to find a ride north to Serenje, about 4 hours away. Hitching is the norm in rural Zambia as not everyone can afford a car, and most drivers will happily pick up hitch hikers to help pay for petrol. One memorable moment sticks out when we asked the only white guy there, in his 40's and driving a nice SUV, where he was going. He said "The other way" without knowing our destination, then blunty told Chris, "I don't pick up people like you." As if we were obnoxious homeless beggars. We ended up getting a fast, comfortable ride with an American-educated Zimbabwean working for the Swedish embassy in Lusaka. Best of all, he wouldn't take our money. "This is my good deed," he said. "Some time, I may be the one on the side of the road needing a ride, and then you can repay me." Chris replied that the best we'd be able to offer him was a ride on the back of our bicycles.


After spending the night at the Peace Corps house in Central province, we traveled to Mutinondo Wilderness Area. The first night, we shared a fire and traded travel tips with an older couple (she was South African, he was from Switzerland) who were living out of their SUV and traveling through Southern Africa.


Mutinondo is several thousands of gorgeous, protected acres, cut by the Mutinondo River and several waterfalls and many small rocky, mountains. The older British couple who run it say they've seen evidence of lions, and they see leopards quite often. In this over-poached, deforested country that is Zambia, that's really amazing. There's a camping area with running water, real hot showers, and clean, longdrop toilets - really, it was hardly camping because we have lesser accomodations and call it 'home.' There's also kilometers of different trails to explore. We mostly stuck to the trails that followed the river, because it was hot, and we'd jump in and swim anytime we found a suitable area. Below the third waterfall, 4 kilometers from our camp, there was a calm pool to swim in. To get there, we had to slip in through the trees and swim hard with the current to avoid being slammed into a large rock. I took off my glasses, reducing the world to a blur, because I've already almost ruined them once when they fell off during a rainstorm on our road, which turns into a fast-moving, deep stream with heavy rainfall. Luckily, Chris found them only minutes before a large truck came barreling by.




Chris and I got out into the calm part of the water and were standing on a rock, when I looked into the reeds around the edge of the river. There was a greenish tan curve slightly above water level, and a pair of glinting eyes on either side staring straight back at me, identical to Willow's eyes shining in the dark. It began to move slowly in our direction. I screamed "CROCODILE" to Chris, then realized I couldn't swim against the current to get back to shore, hysterical at this point and almost in tears. Chris spun around to look, and felt a moment of panic when he couldn't see it, thinking it had submerged itself underwater. He calmly asked me if I could still see it. "Yes, it's there," I screamed, pointing. He then realized that the crocodile I was seeing was actually a thick piece of sideways grass, moving slightly in the current, glinting symmetrically. He tried calming me down, but I still insisted on getting out of the water. I know what they look like, I saw one at a national park in South Africa. And without my glasses to define the blur I was seeing, it still looked very real to me.


They have about ten horses at Mutinondo, so Chris and I were able to go on a morning trail ride. I rode a couple times a week in the U.S. and Chris was learning, but this was our first time being on a horse, or even seeing a horse, in a whole year, since we've been in Zambia.


We just found out the medical staff wants us to go to Lusaka to get a H1N1 vaccination, so we won't be going back to the village as expected. We're going to Zanzibar (island off the coast of Tanzania) in early February, so unfortunately it looks like we'll travel to Lusaka, be in the village for less than a week, then leave for a week and a half in Zanzibar.

Chimps and hippos and crocs, yangu!

PART I - Chimfunshi

A quick highlight of recent events in the village:

• A spitting cobra blinded one of our hens, to eat the eggs she was sitting on. We thought the venom actually ate away at her eyes, and we weren't sure if she was going to recover. Some of our neighbors put milk in her eyes, the indigenous cure. A blind chicken probably wouldn't survive free-range grazing, so we slaughtered her and ate the meat with our host family.
  


• 97% of the village are away farming beans (the main cash crop) in the bush, living in temporary stick houses until late March. Most people come back into the village on Sunday for church. Shortly before we left, three houses by the road were broken into and all their belongings were stolen.
  
  

We just returned from an amazing vacation. First, we went to Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage http://www.chimfunshi.org.za/ in the Copperbelt, near Chingola. It was a 12-hour overnight bus ride from Kasama. The orphanage started in 1983 when a British couple with a cattle farm were given a sick, orphaned chimp to nurse back to health. Chimps aren't indigenous to Zambia, but they are to the Democratic Republic of Congo (the border is only kilometers from Chingola) and Tanzania. Due to the fighting in the Congo, chimps, their cousins bonobos, and gorillas are all at high risk. People kill them for bush meat, to use as fetishes in witchcraft, or for pets.

The orphanage now cares for over 120 chimpanzees of all ages. Most chimps live in family groups in four very spacious enclosures. Twice a day, they enter cages in an attached building to be fed, and so that the handlers can check on their well-being. The younger chimps and "the bachelors" are housed right by the founder's, Sheila Siddle's, house.

One of my favorite chimps was an older female named Milla. She was rescued from a bar in West Africa, where she'd imitate the patrons and drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Because she was a pet, she learned many mannerisms from people. She was in a cage, because the other chimps picked on her, and she learned how to escape from the electric-fenced enclosure. When we approached her cage, she'd lay her right hand over her heart, the traditional way of greeting. She'd also point hopefully out her cage at the house where her meals were prepared, and at the guava tree. She also carried around a square of blanket that she'd carefully arrange into a bed wherever she moved. Her caretaker said that a few times, when she escaped, she'd draw water from the borehole and use keys to open the locked food storage room.

<--Milla




We were able to observe a couple of feedings. They're fed local fruit, vegetables, and protein-fortified nshima. The caretakers will carefully throw food so that every chimp gets some, and the chimps will hurry to collect it and carry it in their arms to a spot by themseves to eat.

<-- Chimp collecting bush oranges

The younger ones love to play. They'll somersault around, and playfully hit to provoke the other chimp to chase it. The older chimps are very tolerant of the younger ones, and even older ones that aren't related will gently tickle the babies.

The most amazing part of our trip was the opportunity to go on a morning bush walk with four chimps from the orphanage and a caretaker. The chimps would immediately climb up onto our arms or on our shoulders when we walked, even Cindy, who was half of Chris' size.

<-- Sims (on Chris) and Deedee playing on their human jungle gym

They'd hold our hands and delight in being swung. The youngest one, Dominic, about four-years old, was very mischevious and would suddenly jump onto you from a nearby tree. Cindy was a notorious camera thief, so most of the pictures were taken by the caretaker, Dominic's namesake. While the younger chimps would scurry up trees, Cindy stayed right by us, holding our hands. She was casually eating some small green berries from a bush nearby, and gave me some.

<-- From left to right: Cindy, Dominic, and Carla

<-- Dominic the human and I swinging Dominic the chimp.

The wildlife orphanage also has a dozen African grey parrots, some vervet monkeys, and a hippo. The hippo's name was Billy and she was found as a days-old baby next to her dead mother. She's now full-size and wanders free over the marshy plain by the Siddles' house. She comes to the house every day to get a bottle of milk. Hippos are actually some of the most dangerous animals in Africa, so the Siddles have gates and barricades all around their house and yard to keep themselves and visitors safe from any accidental harm she could inflict.

<-- The founder, Sheila Siddle, feeding Billy her daily bottle.

<-- Chris and Jacko, a young vervet monkey

Tukopeniko, Ba Chrisi!

Jack fruit, or manna. A really tasty fruit that's the size of my torso.

Before a girl gets married, there's a ceremony in which her female relatives and the banacimbusa teach her some lessons. These were painted on the wall of the bride's house. Every picture represents a lesson. The two red lines on the bottom are a road, so a woman is instructed to look behind her and remember her family and where she came from. She needs to

respect her in-laws and husband. They need to submit to their husbands. Some of the pictures are sexual lessons. The lion represents a man (red, in the middle) and the hyena a woman. The women should let the man catch her when he needs "to feed" (read between the lines). Likewise, the fruit tree (not pictured) can drop its fruit whenever, just like a man's sex drive. On the top left, there is a pregnant prostitute. Women should not be like her.

The BanaBwinga about to get married. I wasn't there, but Chris describes the girl on the right as her "mini bride."

Willow (10 mos. old now) and Tiger. Tiger's adopted us and now wherever we go, we have two dogs following us.
Ba Allan and BanaChrisi, his wife, making nshima. She's a great cook.

Little Chrisi, Ba Allan's son. 5 mos. old.
Little Chrisi is also an aspiring acrobat.

It's a hassle to upload pictures on Blogger with a slow internet connection, so check Chris' facebook page for everything.

A Hot, Rainy Christmas

Catapillar season has come and gone. Women would go out into the bush for a morning and come back with baskets full of various kinds of ifishimu, or catapillars to fry. There was also an abundance of cishishi, giant furry catapillars. Those ones you can't eat, and you need to watch out for them, because their fur can give you a very bad, itchy rash. The children were terrified of them. Chris put one on a stick once and chased the children with it. They loved that game, and even pointed out more catapillars for him to chase after them with.

Mushroom season is now in full swing. There are many kinds of edible, wild mushrooms that people collect. There's one kind that's about 14 inches in width. Small, yellow eggplants are also being harvested from fields now. Surprisingly, I eat both foods now, but I still don't think this will translate to me actually eating mushrooms willingly in the U.S. Here, I can't be picky when we eat with Zambians, or I'll go hungry. We recently sampled some winged termites, and they are surprisingly very good. People go to a termite mound and just pick them as they come out, then rub the wings so they can't fly away. They cook them with some salt, and they almost taste fried, but I guess the oil comes from the termites bodies.

Chris has been teaching compost-making and permaculture gardening, so I have been teaching about nutrition in conjunction as they go well together. According to a 2007 survey, 50% of children in Northern Province are stunted in growth due to chronic malnutrition. 1 out of 9 children dies before the age of 5. Malnourished children are more likely to be sick and die from illnesses and diseases. Malnutrition would be preventable if people grew a greater variety of vegetables, rather than focusing on carbohydrates like corn, millet, and cassava. Chris and I have also been working together to introduce soya beans for human consumption (most people use them to feed their animals due to ignorance; they don't know how to prepare them). Soya
has more protein than beans and groundnuts, and can be cooked as a relish or ground into a flour to enrich foods. People have actually been very receptive to soya beans, so I have been promising people I will give cooking demonstrations and teach them how to cook them if they will grow them in their fields.

Family planning is also one of my ongoing projects that has intensified since World AIDS Day. Women in Northern Province have an average of eight children, according to the 2007 survey. Spacing births more than three years apart means both mother and baby are healthier, but 2 years is the norm. Shortly after they stop breastfeeding exclusively, they're pregnant again. Women are malnourished and weak during their pregnancy. I see all this everyday. Infant mortality is high, and increases as the duration between births decreases. Babies die often in our village, and no one but us realizes that it doesn't have to be this way. If I can convince people to actually listen, to grow more vegetables, to use contraceptives to plan births, less children will die. We can not only better lives, but save them through knowledge. I strongly believe we can have this impact, as Chris is teaching the techniques to grow food and giving seeds for multiplication; I am teaching what foods to grow; how to use family planning; and supplying family planning; people just need to apply the knowledge we give them from theory to practice.

Last post, I wrote about the stories the twin brothers in my English class wrote for their homework. I'd like to share them exactly as they were written.

picture: Me with my English class

Note: I have struggled with being treated differently not only because I am a white foreigner, but also a woman, since we've arrived. Men will often completely disregard me and direct their conversation at Chris. Men are regarded as smarter, more aggressive, and dominant over women. Education for girls is not as much of a priority for parents, so the cycle is repeated. There are many women in our village who can't even write their own names. Women are supposed to submit to their husbands, the head of the household, even though they do the majority of the work. Before a woman gets married, she is taught by her older female relatives, through song and dance, that she must be submissive to her husband. So it is not just men, but women that believe and are teaching the next generation that they don't have as much worth as a male. There is a clear division of labor, with women cooking, drawing water, collecting firewood, watching the children, sweeping, washing, and cleaning. Both men and women work in their farms. We have been trying to actively challenge these beliefs since we've arrived. Most people blame gender inequality on Bemba culture. I have been trying to get people to understand that culture is always changing. Christianity has become a huge part of the culture, even bumping out most traditional beliefs, since colonization, so why couldn't gender equality do the same thing? Apparently, people are listening:

By Godwin
When I was at home I did the cooking. My Grand Father found me. "Why did you do a cook while your wife is needleing?" said the Grand Father. "It's genda [gender]," I asked. My Grand Father replied, "In our traditional we did not allow men to do a cook, is not for men it's for women." I asked, "I told you that it is a genda issue." "Genda...!" He shouted in a loud voice. "Is it a dog [not quite sure what he meant by this] or a joke?" He threw down the stool and waving his hands around his face like a hundred buffalo. I said in a humble voice, "sorry. Sat down, my dear Grand Father, it is not a dog or a joke, it is a way of living that we have learned from American people Chris and his wife Nicole, the Peace Corps trainers, that husband and wife shall work together without separation. "Can you expect that white men can live in huts?" "No, I can't expect," said my Grand Father. I replied, "It is modern Zambia."

By Edwin
...Rinee said, "At 1500 hours I will start English lessons, so that I must go before the hour 15. I have my English teacher the peace corps from America, her name is Mrs. Nic she is very kind and friendly and I and my classmates we loves her so much." Then Wayne said, "I am also go to learn a permaculture garden and compost manure in order to make soil fertile. Our teacher is Mr. Chris the husband of your class teacher, He is also kind and active in the activities and also friendly as his wife." The two friends went and Wayne said to his friend, "Let us go..." Rinee said "Yes, let's go, after 2 years before they depart we will learn more, let's go."...

Up in the mango tree and down in the hot sand

The day after we returned from Kasama after dealing with the police regarding the robbery, a large boomslang slithered into our yard. The toddler and the five-year old girl from our host family were on the porch, along with our puppy and the dog that has adopted us, Tiger. Abandoning American sensibilities (we've been in Zambia too long), Chris grabbed a large stick and proceeded to have an epic showdown with the venomous snake, finally killing it. Tiger, being a Zambian dog, has some emotional baggage, and when Chris began to swing the stick, he thought he would be beat, and bit Chris hard on the leg. According to Peace Corps standards, Chris had to travel to Lusaka for a week to receive two rabies shots. Both dog and guy are still alive and free of rabies, although the snake did not fare as well.

Our next encounter with a venomous snake happened a few days ago. We were bicycling to a nearby village, an hour away, for umunada on a narrow bush path. I was in front and didn't see the large cobra just to the side of the path until I was almost next to it. Adrenaline pumping, I screamed, and pedaled faster, and Chris lifted his legs up so that if the snake struck, it would only hit his bike. We both were unscathed, although I was shaking for a good fifteen minutes afterwards and refused to stop bicycling until we were a kilometer past the snake. On the ride back, we got caught in a downpour, and I lost my glasses on the road, which had turned into an actual stream. Chris eventually found them intact, but it was a very eventful bicycle trip.

While Chris was still in Lusaka, our puppy went mad. Suddenly one morning she began to yelp and run around crazily. Her eyes were almost glassy, and her tail was between her legs, and she lost bowel and bladder control. It wasn't pretty and was very frightening. I had to tie her up for four days because I was afraid she would hurt herself or others because she wasn't in a normal state of mind. By the second day, she had attacks of madness about once every half an hour, but was completely normal in between. By the fifth day, she was back to her old self. People told me that she had eaten a poisonous grasshopper, and it's a common enough occurence in playful young dogs. They gave her local medicine; sweet potato leaves and a lizard. I've since heard that it can even kill if the puppy is too small. People also said she would learn and wouldn't eat a grasshopper again, although she continues to chase everything that moves.

I have been doing a lot of HIV/AIDS work since 1 December was World AIDS Day. As I have some experience doing HIV voluntary counseling and testing in West Africa, I went around with Ba Allan as he conducted his once monthly home counseling visits of people living with HIV in the village. The prevelance of HIV infection in the Northern Province is 7% of the population. If you applied that to our village, that would mean there are actually around 140 people that are HIV-positive, although there are only about 20 people that know they are HIV-positive. I've recently learned that two people who are my good friends in the village have been living with HIV for several years, which upsets me because they are both wonderful, friendly people. There are also several HIV+ children, many of whom are orphaned and attend Ba Allan's pre-school.

An NGO in Kasama donated 50 HIV tests (Ba Allan is trained to do VCT) and 700 condoms for our World AIDS Day activities. I wrote a report on the two days that I thought I'd post.

Report of World AIDS Day Activities in [name of village]
Nicole Barren, U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer

On the first day of programmed activities, 30 November 2009, PCV Nicole Barren and community member Allan Mwango spoke to 105 schoolchildren in grades 1-9 about HIV/AIDS, modes of transmission, and prevention. Pupils in grades 7-9 were instructed on the correct usage of both male and female condoms. Pupils asked good questions, and afterwards, sixteen boys and girls under the age of twenty went to VCT, and many teenage boys requested condoms.
On the first day of VCT, 17 people were tested, and the demand was so great that we decided to also hold VCT the following day.
The candlelight vigil in the evening was attended by 92 people, mostly children. There were prayers and drumming and dancing, and it was a fun, heartfelt ceremony.

On 1 December, an additional 13 people were tested for HIV, bringing the total number tested to 31 people. In the under 16 age group, three males and one female were tested. Seventeen males and one female aged 16-25 were tested. In the 26-35 age bracket, two males and one female were tested. Four males and two females over the age of 36 were tested. Of the 31 tests administered, 9 were non-reactive or negative, and 22 were inconclusive. There is obvious need for further testing to confirm the statuses of the remaining 22 people after the three-month window period.
For this day many activities were planned; a drama, games, an educational speech on HIV/AIDS, and a speech by an HIV-positive woman in the village. However, the Kasama General Constituency had also chosen this day to come and generate National Registration Cards for voters, drawing away many people from the planned activities. Due to poor attendance, the program was canceled, but will be rescheduled later this month, at a more convenient time.
Despite the failed educational programming, the condom distribution was successful. We received 200 female condoms and 600 male condoms from Northern Health Education Programme, and we distributed 735 condoms to 173 people over a span of six days. 52 male youths, 1 female youth, 88 male adults, and 32 female adults received condoms. All had instruction on how to use them. To avoid misuse of the condoms (using them for bangles, balloons, etc.), we didn’t freely hand them out- people had to come to where we were sitting or to our house and request them. We also refused to give them to young girls that we personally knew would not use them for the purpose of HIV prevention. Until five months ago, condoms were not accessible in [village name], so the free distribution was a great method of sensitization on the importance of their use. It is our hope that once people become comfortable using them and their supply diminishes, they will buy them from us (K 200 for a pack of three).

Despite scheduling conflicts, we felt that overall the programme was successful. We were able to reach many villagers with the importance of knowing their status and practicing safe sex. We will continue sensitizing the community on HIV/AIDS and contraceptives, and look forward to working with NOHEP again for VCT Day and World AIDS Day next year.

Among my favorite people in the village are two twin brothers who are in their early thirties. They are part of my devoted weekly English class of four men. They're really funny and always reliable. The previous class, I had given a homework assignment to write a one-page story in which there is dialogue, because they needed practice on punctuation and where to place quotation marks. One of the brothers had written a story in which he is talking to a friend about the Peace Corps volunteers in their village. He wrote how much he enjoys my English class and that I am very friendly and nice. Then he spoke about his guitar lessons with Chris and how much he enjoys their friendship. It was so candid and sweet, and was one of the few moments where I realized what impact my working and living here is having on people. We often worry that we aren't really accomplishing development because we have no means other than to impart knowledge, which is less regarded in Zambia then big, material projects. But large-scale, funded projects don't have the same emotional effect as our work does. Another moment like this happened just a few days ago, when my counterpart returned to the village after a month of visiting her brother. She had left because of problems with her husband, because he's often drunk, but ultimately returned rather than leave the village for good because of me.

There's ups and downs, emotional highs and depressing moments or events when I just want to go back to America where everything is safe and predictable. The newest drama is jealousy on the part of our host mother. She prefers to think that we are just there for her and her family, to give them things. She has been mean on some occasions to people that come to visit us, so that they no longer feel comfortable coming to our house. Apparently when the volunteer before us left, he gave many of his belongings to one of his good friends, and that friend is not allowed to come to our house in that chance that will happen with us. When I last met with my women's group at my house, she caused a scene, so we can no longer convene there. All in all, it's jealousy, controlling behavior, and an incorrect picture of what Peace Corps is. It isn't directed at us, but it's very important for us and for our job that people feel comfortable coming to talk to us.

Village Justice

When we first arrived at our village, and asked the Peace Corps volunteer there from 2007-2009 if he had ever had any problems with theft, he said no. Then he laughed a little, and said, "O.K., this one time I left the window open when I went away, and a candy bar was stolen." People kept telling us how safe it was here. Our headman had some goats stolen once, but the thief, who lived in Kasama, was found and arrested. The school had some solar panels stolen. But other than some firewood and indigenous fruits we left outside, we have never had anything of any monetary value taken.

So we were shocked when we returned home at around four in the afternoon on Halloween and found someone had tampered with our lock with a flat object, possibly a screwdriver. The lock was closed, so at first we thought the break-in attempt had failed. Then we looked inside. Things were just as messy as we had left them, but things were missing from the shelves in our bedroom, the mosquito net was untucked from the bed, and cartons of my thyroid medicine had been removed from a bag under the bed and tossed beside a pile of dirty clothes. Our solar charger, several packages of batteries, and a flashlight were missing. The bag containing our MP3 player was disturbed, but the MP3 player was untouched. We had money hidden, but the thief didn't find it. He had taken some batteries, but left a package of identical batteries untouched on my shelf.

I felt like I had swallowed a mango pit that was pressing painfully against my stomach. My heart was running the Boston Marathon. Worst of all, at that moment, what I wanted most was to go home to America. The repeated infections, bad sunburn I'd got on a boat at Lake Tang, diarrhea that came and went, the homesickness, alone was bearable. But now theft, invasion of the one place in our village in which we had real privacy... why try to help people that stole from you?

Since the lock was broken, Chris stayed at our house and talked with our host father, who summoned the Community Crime Prevention Unit (CCPU). I went to the road with my cell phone to call the Peace Corps Safety and Security Officer in Lusaka, who helped immensely and called Peace Corps staff in Kasama, then spoke with my and Chris' Associate Peace Corp directors. Then I went to inform the school headmaster and a senior teacher, who went with me to the village headman to help translate.

By the time I returned, night had fallen, and Chris and I sat pathetically on our porch beside a candle, knawing on half a loaf of banana bread, the only food we'd had since breakfast. Our host father came to invite us to eat nshima. He told us people were saying it was an "inside job" because only a few items had been stolen; most likely the thief was from our village and broke into our house to steal specific items, not clear us out completely. Some people were even blaming the family that lived around us for not preventing the theft, or worse, saying they stole from us. This, we didn't believe, but our host father was very distressed and later told us he'd questioned his three teenaged children.


Before going to bed, I set an axe between the headboard of the bed and the wall. Then I fell into a restless sleep, punctuated by moments I'd awake suddenly after hearing noises outside, and listen intently, my heart beating with Lariam-fueled paranoia. Chris, on the other hand, slept fine.


The following morning, at around 9 am, the CCPU came marching into our yard bearing some of our batteries that had been stolen. Our neighbor, a man that takes guitar lessons from Chris and English lessons from me, said he had become suspicious of his nephew, and upon entering his house, found the batteries. The twenty-year old boy confessed and the CCPU found the rest of our belongings, hidden in a hole under a rock which had been urinated on. Our flashlight, which doesn't take batteries, and you shake to charge it, had been smashed. Apparently the guy couldn't figure out how to use it. Our solar charger had been damaged and knocked around a bit, and the connecting cable was cut. About half of our batteries had been recovered. We also got back a bottle of shampoo, an inhaler, and my old cell phone from the states, which he didn't realize had been stolen. We've speculated quite a bit on why he took the inhaler. Chris' guess is that the package resembles a pack of cigarettes.


An impromptu community trial was arranged at the school to determine punishment. The robber sat under a tree, his head bowed, skinny legs poking out from baggy faded brown shorts, and one wrist shackled in a pair of ancient handcuffs. The headman, CCPU, and Chris and I stood around him, surrounded by a gaggle of children pushing frantically to get a view, and somber adults. The boy (he was so thin, helpless, and baby-faced that calling him a man or guy doesn't seem right) was mentally ill, we were told. He'd stolen before. A couple of days before breaking into our house, he'd stolen a mattress from a teacher's house. The headman, the boy's grandmother, and another older man scolded him in rapid-fire icibemba. Chris bent down, and in Bemba, said "We are here to help the village. Why did you steal from us?" The boy just mumbled that he didn't know. The community decided that he should go to jail. Jails in Zambia are horrible pits of dispair, where they don't think twice about beating prisoners. Our friend's host father had spent two nights there, and had to pay the biggest prisoner there ZMK 5,000 a day or the man would kick his butt. But there are no real facilities for the mentally ill, and the consensus was that if he remained in the village, he'd continue to steal.


The Peace Corps staff in Kasama had heard about our ordeal, and Ted and Scorpion came to the rescue, bringing us a new lock and a flashlight. The police in Kasama have limited funds and there is a fuel shortage, so you can only buy 5g of black market gas for over $10, so we would have to bring the thief to them. At that time, he was being held by the CCPU near his uncle's house. With nothing else to do on a Sunday morning after church let out, a large crowd of children sneered at him. Chris and I got into the land cruiser, then three men escorted the placid boy in behind us, and BashiKatongo, a senior member of the CCPU, came along to hold the boy and present the story of his capture to the police. As we rolled away from the village, the children stood on the red sand, waving enthusiastically. BashiKatongo grabbed the boy's hand and made him wave back. After a sleepless night and the comforting bounce of the cruiser speeding over the mud, I dozed. Chris awkwardly held the boy's handcuffs when BashiKatongo had to pee. And the boy looked in wonder at the bush speeding by out the window. This was his first time ever traveling to Kasama.

At the police station, we handed over the "evidence," a plastic Shoprite bag full of the recovered objects that had been stolen. We made a statement and the police locked the boy in a cell, a large concrete room with one side that was an open window with bars that faced the courtyard. The trial was supposed to be yesterday, and then today, now it's tommorrow. He's expected to plead guilty, so we won't have to testify.