A Day in the Life

September 3, 2007,

This post was written on August 1st, 2007. However, for some reason, I never posted it, but instead only saved it as a draft in my blogspot account. I think the reason was lack of time to proofread it. Also, part of the purpose of this post was to show that there was a lot of happy times for me in Zambia, and I ended up posting about the wedding just after making that message kind of redundant. Anyways though, 1 month late, here is the post in its unaltered entirity. (I will add pictures later).

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August 01, 2007,

As I was preparing for my placement in Zambia, one of the things I always found the most useful/interesting was reading about what a typical day in someone's life is as a volunteer. For two really good examples, try EWB Longterm Volunteer Chad Hamre, and EWB former Longterm Volunteer, and current Junior Fellowship Program Support Staff Paul Slomp.

So, to keep up with the trend, I thought I'd take this chance to share what a typical day in my life in Zambia is like. I'll qualify this whole thing by saying that there really is no "typical day" for me here, but this attempt is probably pretty close.

Weekdays

I wake up every day sometime between 6:00am and 7:00am. This is entirely dependent on what time I want to be at work. First thing after getting up, I light a candle, turn on the radio to Radio France International (the only station I get clearly), and start making some breakfast. My breakfast is a very un-Zambian peanut butter and something sandwhich (something varies between jam, honey, or bananas depending on what I have). I used to take breakfast with the family, which would consist of maize porridge (litterally ground up corn mixed with water) and a cup of tea, but I had to stop; the reason being that the family breakfast is prepared according to no percievable fixed schedule, and so partaking in it was making me consistently late for work.

After breakfast, I wash my face, get dressed properly for work, and get all my things together for the day. Then, it's clean my room time: make my bed, arrange my things a bit, sweep my floor (you can sweep a dirt floor infinitely, but it gets really dirty if you don't; it's complicated...), and then it's time for work.

My bikeride to work is about 7km on a rough dirt road. Sadly, due to the road, and my one speed bike which frequently breaks down, this ride takes me about 30 minutes. It's punctuated by polite greetings with strangers, kids yelling "how are you?" at the top of their lungs from places out of my eye-sight, the occasional run-in with a friend or aquaintance, and basically a lot of getting stared at for being a Musungu (foreigner) on a bike on a dirt road. I'm pretty used to the getting stared at thing though, so it doesn't bother me. I'm still waiting for people to get used to me enough to not notice anymore, but it seems to be taking a long time time.

My work officially begins at 8:00am. However I have literally never seen anyone other than me in the office at 8:00am. Most days, the first thing I have scheduled is a computer lesson with one of my co-workers. This will nominally start at 8:00, but I can expect them to arrive anytime between 8:30 and never. (I shoud say that one time Elias got there at 8:00 and I was 30 minutes late...so it goes go both ways). The lessons are scheduled to finish at 10:00am, but since by that time there's still usually nothing happening at the office, they often go longer. If I don't have a lesson that day, or something else to work on, I usually come to work a little later.

After computer lessons, I usually have some task to do associated with the dryer, or I help out on something else the Cooperative is working on. The things I do at work vary so much that I won't try to describe them too much. I think that it will be better discussed in another post.

Lunch is normally at 1:00pm. Since I live a good trek from the office, I usually go and eat at one of the restaurants in town. There are only three, and each serves the same things: chicken, fish, sausage, or offals, usually with a vegetable (usually rape, a.ka. canola, or cabbage), and always with nshima (a mixture of ground up corn and water that you role into a ball in your hand, and then use to pick up whatever else you're eating). One of the restaurants in town also usually has beans, and since I'm trying to revert back to vegetarianism as much as possible I go there most days.

Lunch is either eaten alone, or with the Cooperative accountant Mr. Daka, depending on whether he's in the office on any given day. No one else at work eats in town. If Mr. Daka is in, then after lunch we usually go play a few games of pool together in the market. Otherwise, I head back to work. The afternoon is usually more productive then the morning, and it's when the bulk of my real work usually gets done.

Work finishes at 5:00pm, and following that I hop on my bike and head home to the farm. First thing on the schedule: bathing. Any attempt to postpone, delay, or alter this schedule in any way is met with horror by my family. I guess immediate post-work bathing is seen as a neccessity by them; but it could be equally because it's when it fits their schedule best for me to use the shower stall. Either way, I don't argue.

Bathing here is a bit different than at home. Basically, I have one large bucket of water, one small container, and a bar of soap. I use the small container to scoop the water from the large container onto myself, lather up before it dries, and then use the same process to rinse myself off. At my old house, there was a river about 15 minutes walk from where I stayed, and I used to just go there in the morning, jump in, soap up, and jump out. This had its flaws (Zambian mornings in July are about equivalent to Canadian mornings in October in terms of temperature), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The bucket system, on the other hand, I don't really like, mainly because I was initially spoiled by the river. Still though, it works pretty well.

After bathing, it's time to help with chores, which almost always means shelling groundnuts (peanuts). The family harvested their groundnuts shortly before I arrived, but to sell them to the Cooperative, they have to be shelled. This means that most evenings we sit around the fire cracking the shells, putting the nuts in a bowl, and throwing away the shells. This ritual has been going on already for two weeks, minimum one hour per night, with no end in sight.

At some point during the shelling process, the women of the family prepare and serve dinner. I eat with the men (aka Mr Silumbu and any male guests), while the women and kids eat seperately. I don't exactly love this, but it's the culture, so I haven't done much to fight it. There's a fine line between representing your own values, and respecting someone else's, and I think this custom is firmly on the "respecting" side.

At my old house dinner was usually nshima with either fish, chicken, beans, eggs, or soya pieces, and a vegetable (again, rape or cabbage). However, where I stay now, food/money supplies are a little tighter, and so typically the meal is nshima with rape, cabbage, or groundnuts. Still though, it's more than enough for me; contrary to many volunteers, I really like nshima.

After dinner everyone continues to shell groundnuts, and I generally help. On the odd night I might pull out my guitar and sing some songs while everyone works, something that is universally welcomed, but I don't do it too often because from a learning/integration point of view I'd rather be helping.

I'm usually pretty tired from work, so most nights I'm one of the first one to bed (somewhere around 8:00pm-10:00pm). Following my usual Canadian routine, I read a book in bed until I'm too tired to continue, switch back on the radio for the evening news, and then fall asleep. This whole process usually takes about 10 minutes because at the end of the day I can be really tired.

Weekends

There's no typical schedule for what I might do on the weekends. On Saturdays I travel to town to use the internet, or go and visit my old community, or go to work (usually when I have to write a report for EWB), or just stay around the farm helping with things, reading, and relaxing. There's usually also some personal chores for me to do, most notably handwashing my clothes which can take some time. On Sundays I sometimes go to church with my family, and other than that have the same combination of chores/work/relaxation typical of a Saturday.

A Happy Saturday

In my last post I was trying to get accross one aspect of my placement, namely culture shock. Since last time I shared a few less than perfect stories, I thought this time I would show the other side of the coin, and share a good day I had last Saturday. This kind of fun day is much more typical of my placement.

The day started off with me waking up and having the standard porridge/tea breakfast with my family. Following this, I hopped on my bike and rode to the office to write my month-end report for EWB.

At work for the last week, Elias (my co-worker, ex-host, and best friend) had been suggesting that I come for a visit back to the old community. Specifically though, he was saying that I should bring my guitar and play some songs, something I did a lot while I was there. So on that note, after the report, I threw my guitar on my back, and rode my bike to the old house.

I was greeted immediately by an awesome lunch prepared by Elias's wife Ethel (who's company I also thoroughly enjoy). Full and happy, I wandered around the old village greeting friends who I hadn't seen for a few weeks. After a bit of wandering, I ran into my friend Roden, who suggested heading down to the river for a swim. Since the sun was scorching hot at this time, I thought it sounded like a plan.

We found the river full of kids playing and swimming...typical of noon on a Saturday. I also found my friend Joseph who was down there for the same reason as we were. All in all, I love the river, so it was a good time. We jumped in, shivered for a while, than quickly adjusted. We had a few swimming races, following which I taught Joseph the front crawl (he's really fast, but has never learned "proper" swimming strokes), and then hopped out and dried in the sun. After this, Roden and I went back up to the house to reconnect with Elias.

As soon as we got back, Elias pulled out a blank tape from somewhere, and said he wanted to record me playing guitar (he's the third person to want to do this). With this in mind, we sat inside his hut and, tape player running, I began to play.

Playing guitar inside is very atypical for me in Zambia. Usually, I play outside and as a result, gather a large crowd of kids who come to listen (and dance). I felt kind of bad to be ignoring the kids to play inside, but for the purposes of sound-quality, agreed with Elias that inside was best.

After playing a few songs, I looked and noticed that there was a shadow outside of the door. Opening it, we found two kids shyly waiting outside and listening. Quickly, we invited them in, closed the door, and I kept playing. A few minutes later, more kids arrived...again we let them in. A few minutes a later, more kids again. After about 10 minutes of playing, every seat, bucket, and bit of floor of Elias' hut was quickly filling up with kids. It was pretty neat.

I played for my little audience for a few more minutes, and then we decided to move things outside. After that, some of the kids dispersed, but there was good crowd, and I was happy to alternatively play guitar, sit with friends, talk, and generally enjoy myself for the next few hours. Following that, I hopped on my bike rode home for a good dinner with my host family, shelled some groundnuts, and went to sleep. All in all, a good day.