Polygamy, Lories, and Mendelssohn

This is the first time I’ve had internet for weeks, so I apologize for the delay in updating. So much has happened that I will never get a chance to write it all here, but I promise that if you have sent me snail mail—and I’ve received it!!—then I have mailed you personally with an update. And I aplogize up front for any spelling or grammatical errors, but I'm in a huge rush since every second counts up the kwacha!

First, I finally got my actual assignment for my work in the next two years! Please do not send mail into Lusaka anymore, because in three weeks I’ll be living just outside of the town of Mufumbwe in the Northwest Province of Zambia! (Please see the address at the bottom of the page.) I had the chance to go visit the volunteer I’m replacing this past week and had a great time making new friends and learning new skills like how to make a fire in a brazier and then cook on the coals. I discovered I’m one amazing tortilla and pancake artist. Perhaps it’s because the American way of cooking on stove and using a million ingredients or because I have access to Sonic and Whole Foods, or that I’ve been eating only for energy while I’ve been in training, but while I found a million ways to avoid cooking at home, I found myself loving the process here and have made fabulous curry, tortillas, banana chocolate chip pancakes, and almond syrup to show for it... Mom: I took pictures of this process just for you!

We are finally wrapping up training for Peace Corps and I’m looking forward to being an adult again and taking care of myself. I have some great home stay stories, but I’m longing to get to work and start establishing myself in my community. It may help that I had a very bizarre week before traveling to Mufumbwe and part of this was due to the lovely family I’ve been staying with.

Some of you may recall that when I arrived in Zambia I did not have a home stay mother. Since gender roles are strictly defined, this meant that I did not really have anyone to make meals or help me with washing or heating water for bathing. After about three days of being in a nearby neighbor’s care, a woman showed up that started bringing me meals. I was so nervous and excited that I didn’t really notice her absence and sudden appearance. Fast forward five weeks. I was sitting at my table attempting to study Ki Kaonde and learning nothing quickly. My “parents” were attending a family funeral and my “brothers” had just brought me a lovely bowl of peas for dinner and had gone to bed. Outside my hut was this incredible commotion and a woman yelling “Odi! Odi!” (Let me in.) Since everyone was away, I did the brave and noble thing. I put all my bags in front of the door and turned up my music and ignored the person and just studied while the roof shook a bit and voices yelled. I was Noah in the Ark. I finally fell asleep around midnight and when I woke in the morning and asked my TaTa what had happened, he just replied in Zam fashion, “it has been taken care of.”

So I went to language training and asked my instructor if he knew what trouble was brewing in the Kaonde family. He then told me the story that had been withheld on a Need To Know Basis. Here it goes:

My tata had a large family, but his wife passed away in 1999. All of his children are from this first wife. He remarried. This wife was his wife until he opted to have a PC volunteer (moi) and she did not want to keep an American in her home. She left. I arrived. A third wife appeared to take care of me. The second wife then returns to kick out wife number three, but did not know that I live in the original family home. So after much yelling at my house, some stone throwing, and a family brawl, wife number three is here to stay.

The best part of this story: no one seems dazed by this except myself.

Every day in Zambia is an adventure. Yesterday I had to hitchhike with my Peace Corps neighbor in the Mufumbwe district back to our provincial home for a week of intense language and cultural training. We woke at 6:00 a.m. to bike at sunrise down into the boma to try and get transport. (My current favorite Zambian activity: biking through the bush. Awesome.) When we arrived into town, we sat on the side of the road for three hours waiting for a ride when a lorry truck pulled in and said we could hop on for a fee. The back was piled with Mealy Meal and a couple women, but it looked like enough room for the two of us. By the end of the trip, I was perched on the Mealy Meal with 25 Zambians, a chicken, and three feet of luggage without any sunblock on going about 30 mph on the open road through the bush. I had to pause and think of my new life as an adventurer. I particularly missed my brother, Jeremy, when I thought of how much joy he would take in such a ride!

We are at the provincial home for a week and I’m eating everything I see. The Peace Corps sets up a house for each province where the volunteers can go every month to use the phone, stay in a real bed, use the internet, cook on a stove, and take a shower, and so this week we are using it as a training base and a way to get familiar with all of our neighbors. Tonight we are making lasagna and chocolate chip cookies and I’m going to read to my heart’s content. The provincial home also houses a library of all the books that volunteers have read and did not want to take home with them when the returned to America. Hundreds of books. And time to read. Wow.

I love my new home. I will write more of this later. I’m only a few clicks from the school I’ll be basing from and a few from my town. The town has an amazing perk: a BAKERY! The American missionaries who live on a compound outside the town has shared recipes with a Zambian woman who has started making cakes and banana bread for the community. I stopped in for a piece of chocolate cake the other day and the woman looked at me and said, “you will be my best customer. You and that other boy.” (Meaning my Peace Corps neightbor). Yes, I will be her best customer. Mufumbwe also has power (most of the time), has a little outdoor place to play pool, a guest house that will rent me showers!, and a beautiful main road lined with gorgeous trees. I’ve met several wonderful people and sat in on the choir practice for the New Apostolic Church of Zambia yesterday. Amazing. The choir was learning complicated classical pieces by listening to an instructor who read the music from a sheet-without using a pitch pipe. I was welcomed warmly and sat on the front pew beaming for more than an hour.

I’m running out of time here. I will return sometime this week to add thoughts and post pictures. I miss you all and I think of you every day.

With all my love,
Stacey Jean.