Teeth like Melon Seeds

I’ve been procrastinating writing this blog entry for most of the week. Not because I don’t want to describe Camp Glow Mwinilunga, but because I feel daunted by my inability to really show you how it felt, what it looked like, and the sense of accomplishment we took from the week.

Two second year Peace Corps volunteers in the health program coordinated the camp and recruited eight other volunteers in our province from the education, fishery, and HIV/AIDS programs to assist in facilitating the sessions and acting as mentors and supervisors. It was a tremendous opportunity to see my friends, people I see socially at the house, people I recognize coming off of transport covered in dust and spend time with making group dinners, rock it in their areas of expertise. My colleagues are talented, intelligent, articulate, passionate young adults with tremendous drive and compassion. I came away seriously impressed with the caliber of my fellow volunteers and a huge respect for the two ladies who put the camp together.

Those of us from outside the Mwinilunga district met in Solwezi last Friday. All the volunteers from Mufumbwe and Kasempa have to take a day to travel from the Southwestern area of our province north into the provincial center and then take a bus out to Mwinilunga, a sleepy little boma in the far Northwestern corner of Zambia sandwiched between Angola and the DRC. Heather and I were very fortunate to find transport into Solwezi with a man from China who manages one of the road crews west of Mufumbwe. We spent our four hour journey learning a bit of Mandarin and enjoying cross cultural stories.

Left the next morning on the most cramped and precariously packed coach bus I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen a lot of squished transport in the last seven months. I sat in a three person seat with two adults and two kiddos. In true Zam fashion, the mother in my row handed me a leggy six year old when I took a seat. She perched on my lap for the next couple of hours and played with my watch. The other volunteers fared worse, and spend the trip balancing on bags or possessively hanging on to two or three inches of seat space. Part of the luggage area was coming loose and had to be tied up for the five hour journey—we all believed we would eventually lose our bags somewhere on the road, but thanks to ingenious rope tying, we managed to keep everything and everyone in the bus all the way to Regina’s site, the home of one of our coordinators.

We stayed the night at her site before moving on to the Bible school where the camp was located. The family who lives next to Regina had a son coming back from a month in the bush completing a circumcision ritual. We were treated to an entire night of drumming, singing, and yelling right outside the walls. The community was in high spirits and while it was lovely music, none of us got any sleep at all and periodically made comments like, “unblievable, it’s 4:00 a.m. and they’ve not taken a break.”

We made our way the next morning to the Bible college facilities, a beautiful campus in the middle of nowhere. Built by the Brits several decades ago, it’s a haven of brick, hydro power, and scenery. The facilitators’ chalet had bedrooms with proper beds and sheets—ahh, such luxury! After organizing the week, we had a decent night’s sleep and waited for the girls to arrive.

26 young ladies from Grade 10 and 12 in high school from the Mwinilunga boma were selected by their leadership qualities and academic achievement and invited to spend a week with us talking about career choices, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and general social empowerment. On the final day I led a session on Sexual Assault, a session that was in turns intense, enlightening, and extremely emotional for both me and the girls. In a country that routinely sees young ladies leave school because of pregnancy, often because of relationships with their teachers, discussions about sugar daddies and sex assault are highly charged and difficult since there is currently little reliable infrastructure for protecting the young ladies if they encounter pressure from men in positions of leadership. I had goosebumps listening to the girls shout “No means NO!” using strong voices and arms lifted in protest. I walked away from my time with them on this topic passionately convinced of the necessity for education, awareness, and empowerment and humbled by the courage and strength of these young women who jump so many hurdles to complete their education.

It was also really cool to have three amazing male volunteers with us for the week. It worked well to model men and women working together as equals: colleagues and friends striving for common goals without any power struggle. These guys are dedicated to seeing development for everyone and the girls responded well to the attention. It was also really great for them to see men attentive to their concerns without any ulterior motives.

We were divided into teams of six or seven. I co-led a group of six with Bob, a HIV/AIDS volunteer who came late in the week. Our group called themselves “The Real Girls,” and we competed throughout the week with other teams (Mazo, Champions, Angels, and Impalas) to gain points through participation and competition. These girls were fabulous encouragements to me—so full of energy, so smart, and so committed to developing their own lives. We sang songs, danced dances, played hard, talked deeply, and laughed loudly.

During relay night, my girls fought hard to gain some points against the other teams, but the American facilitators learned a cultural lesson that night. Zambians don’t queue well, a source of constant frustration at the bus station and Shop-Rite, and this lack of queuing goes extremely awry in the case of relays. Our girls were in and out of lines, cheating, screaming, taking several turns or none at all, ending in massive hilarity and confusion. My girls, who were losing spectacularly, evidently misunderstood the idea of a relay so much that they confronted me at the end of the night extremely upset that “they had won every event and not gotten one point!” I have great photos of faces full of mealy meal, drenched facilitators from the “fill up a water jug resting on a facilitator’s forehead” game (Team RG had great aim, thankfully), and pandemonium.

We talked a lot about empowering others as a way to see success for all. In Zambia, just as in the states (and probably everywhere else), a culture of jealousy for the successful is deeply embedded in personal interaction. Some people are extremely afraid of success because jealousy can ruin their lives (ask me another day about “flying” coffins in the village). After talking about this for a week, we had an exercise called “pat on the back” where we placed pieces of paper on our backs and wrote nice things about others on their backs. The girls were asked to take to papers off their backs, stand up and say “I am…(insert compliment)” with confidence in front of the whole group. I got to say, “I am a wonderful baby.” (J) I have never seen more gleaming smiles in my life. Everyone walked just a little taller that day, and hey, I wanted to run home and post my “pat on the back” on a fridge!

The day transport came for us we piled in the back of an open bed truck and the girls broke into a song dedicated to each of us. I choked up.

Unfortunately, we must have had some sketchy water or food because I’ve been dealing with a stomach bug ever since and spent the last week in Lusaka recovering. I did have a chance to spend time with other volunteers I didn’t’ really know before and had a blast making new friends. I also received the oddest “pat on the back” ever when a coworker of a new friend said I have “teeth like melon seeds.” It was meant as a compliment and I’m sure it’s one I won’t soon forget.

I’m finally back in Solwezi and will leave for Mufumbwe on Monday. I’m getting a ride with Peace Corps since we are having a village goodbye for one of my nearest neighbors, Matt, who is finishing his service. The revolving door of Peace Corps volunteers can be really challenging emotionally—especially if you’re like me and become attached to people quickly--but it is really great to have the chance to meet so many amazing people, and I now have two new neighbors in the Mufumbwe district.

I’m looking forward to spending a good amount of time at home. I start teaching on Tuesday afternoon, my Girls Club begins this week, and my house extension should be mostly finished when I return. And I should have a thatched roof all set for the start of hot season. I’m also really looking forward to reading the 7th Harry Potter novel and cuddling with my kitty!

I’ll write again at the end of September when we come in again for our provincial meetings. All my love to everyone.