Going Back Into the Bush

It’s been wonderful to recuperate from the adjustment period I’ve been going through in my village, but now I’m feeling refreshed and ready to get back and start working!

Today I want to write a bit more about what I’m learning in my little home about myself and about Zambian culture.

First, I am learning just how important holding on to local languages is to the communities who speak them. One of the other PCVs said that there are less than 50,000 people in the world who speak Ki Kaonde as their first language. Even though English is the Zambian national language, it seems equally important to my neighbors to be faithful to the language of their tribe as it is to be able to communicate with other neighbors in the official national language. Most Zambians work around the tribal language barriers by learning multiple languages from a very young age. Most of my neighbors speak three, four, or five local languages and they freely mingle them. This makes it extremely difficult for them to understand why I have such trouble learning only one additional language—and it’s easy for me get confused when I’m hearing hybridized languages constantly. They tell me that it’s easy, that I’ll pick it up, that I’ll be conversant in just a few months. Unfortunately, I feel ridiculously slow and I spend most of my time saying in Kaonde, “I am learning Ki Kaonde, but just now I don’t speak it well, so please speak slowly.” And then I’m forced to switch into English.

For the most part, it is men who are educated and fluent in English, so I spend much of my time chatting with educated men, fielding proposals, and convincing my community that I don’t have a lot of money to give them for development. I’m not sure I’ll ever be accustomed to riding my bike and hearing people greet me from the road, “Hello, my future wife!” It sounds like it would be flattering, but instead it makes me feel awkward, uncomfortable, and irritated. I often want to stop and say back, “You don’t know me. You don’t even know my name. Why in the world would you want to marry me?”

Because this is the key: Gender roles are incredibly defined in rural Zambian, and the women are rock stars! They are unbelievably strong! I have seen the women carry their weight in goods on their heads. The women work the fields, raise the children, take care of the household, run shops, and generally keep processes running smoothly. I want to say, “But me. This one, she does not like to clean, or cook, does not know how to farm, cannot lift 50 kgs of water on her head, does not want to raise a handful of children, is short tempered, obstinate, expects respect, will not allow drunken infidelity, and will want you to participate 50/50 on chores. Why would you want to marry me?” That’s what I want to say. And I am getting a bit more sassy about it, but I am trying to find polite and culturally sensitive ways to assert that I have a choice of how I want to be in a relationship. Additionally, I am learning to establish immediately that my time in Zambia will be spent in furthering my education, assisting in development, immersing myself in a culture, and not looking for a Zambian spouse.

I feel pretty passionately about working with the young women in my community. So many girls get pregnant at a very very young age and have to drop out of school in order to take care of their new families. The schools are doing a good job of working on programs that assist girls in finishing their education if they have started a family as a teen, but it’s incredibly difficult to take care of their babies and get the money for school fees and take care of their homes. The burden of responsibility falls squarely on the “girl child” and I am incredibly burdened by the necessity to let girls/women know that they really do have a choice about their future. Of course this means getting a solid understanding of the language.

I’m thinking a lot about these incredibly complicated issues. I have a large group of young girls (between the ages of two and sixteen!) who show up at my house nearly every day. They teach me Sunday School songs in Ki Kaonde and I teach them the ABC song, the Hokey Pokey, and Sunday School songs in English. We jump around a lot and do a lot of laughing and yelling in confusion since we often do not understand each other at all. But since it appears they are making their appearances a habit, I’m trying to think of how to make that time constructive learning time. I’m hoping to get my hands on some really simple kids books in English to act out as stories and help them with their English skills since it’s imperative that the girls have a good grasp in the national language for potential employment and access to resources.

I’ll wrap up by giving you a glimpse of my daily life. I wake up about 5:30 a.m. and pop open the window near my bed to watch the sun come up. I’m up and out of my mosquito net around 6:00 ish and try to get a fire going. (This has taken me up to an hour and a half.) I am reading through the Bible this year and so I do my Bible study every morning and plan out my day while I’m waiting for my water to boil. I cook breakfast (mostly oatmeal!) and have tea, sweep my house, and do laundry if necessary. Then I get myself out of the house to either attend meetings or walk in the market and introduce myself to strangers or say hello to my acquaintances. I don’t really cook anything for lunch because making three fires in a day is just a pain, so I am eating through my protein and granola bars at an incredible rate! Most afternoons I ride into the boma to take in whatever mail I’ve written the night before and to pick up any yummy stuff from the bakery. Once I get back to the house I read through a portion of my training materials, evaluate what I can do next in my community entry observation period, play with the girls, sew, and start dinner. After dinner, I am locked in my hut by 7:00 p.m. when it gets dark and read. I’m usually asleep by 9:00 p.m.

As I get more comfortable, I’m sure this schedule will change, but for now, it’s really nice to have the time to get settled in, meet people, and contemplate this amazing cultural experience. I’ll be returning to Solwezi in a few weeks for a Peace Corps meeting and I’ll update everyone then with more stories.

Keep the letters coming!

Stacey Jean