Village Life

Yes, there is a power pole in this picture. They are lined up everywhere, even in the MOST secluded areas. Many Zambians carry around a cell phone, even in the villages (depending on how far away the nearest big town is). Since the rainy season is starting up, we don't see many of these beautiful sunsets where we can see the sun. But, we did get to see these types of sunsets nearly every night for the last 8 weeks!

If there is not a town around, there are these many walking paths that people use to get from place to place. A lot of them are to and from where the Zambians get their water, passing between villages or other people's homes. I have been on these little trails before and have met man-made bridges consisting of car doors over a ditch or stepping stones in wet areas. Most of the stay here, the only thing that was green were the trees because the ground was pure brown dirt and dry grass. And, sadly, the only wildlife around are the normal bugs, spiders, hornets, dassie rats, and dogs.

On a few of our village visits at the end of last week, we helped carry water to the Zambians we were visiting. This picture shows what little water they have - it is about a foot and a half deep. Once it is dry, the Zambians wait for the hole to fill again, either by rain or by some underground spring that slowly seeps water up into the hole. Once collecting the water, a few of the girls from the group carried it on their heads (I watched). I have read that women who carry heavy loads atop their heads for an extended period of time causes their back vertebrae to compress together due to the weight. However, most village girls start learning to carry loads atop their heads as young (or younger) as six years old.

Apart of the village life is the extensive chickens that are running around. Although it seems like there are a lot of squawking, if there were visitors or family members from another village, the chicken population is greatly reduced. But, every village I have been to or driven by has had at least three or four chickens running around. These last few visits, I even saw some kittens and one or two puppies, which is a rare pet to have since they are of no value (except dogs are used for watch dogs, but most are feared due to being wild or having possible rabies). The hut behind the chicken nests in this picture is used as a storage area and to keep the valuables off the ground from animals. Also, most of the people I have met are farmers or work with some sort of beef or crop business - either it be tobacco or maize crops, which are the two biggest crops here in Zambia. Zambians also cell their garden products (if they have a garden), or they are workers for white or Zambian farmers.

The last picture is what a village looks like. The first building on the right is an area where Zambians go to get out of the hot sun as a social place to talk and relax. The other brick buildings on the left are homes. There may be nothing but a few rugs and home-made stools inside to sit on. But, their kitchens are outside with an open fire and great metal cooking pots to cook nshima (made of finely ground maize - looks like flour). They also eat kapenta - a fish that looks like a large minnow, about two or three inches in length that the Zambians usually eat dried like potato chips.

As my time here is coming to a close, I am enjoying every bit of being with the guest house staff (they are like family!), and allowing my experiences here to register and commit to memory. And I still have so many more stories to tell all of you once I get back!

Next stop: Livingstone - Victoria Falls, evening safari, and more exploring!

Disclaimer: None of these pictures are mine - so a lot of the girls are very good with photography!

What I've been doing lately

A couple of things that I need to brush up on, since it's been a while! I'll bullet what I've done so that it doesn't become a very long blog:

October 29th - Chabbobboma Banana plantation and Harbor

• Located near Lake Kariba for irrigation system
• 4,000 banana plants are harvested each year
• Crocodiles live in the lake, as do hippos which come out of the water at night to eat the banana plants. They are scared off by flashlights held by guards. Apparently hippos are not a fan of light
• Harbor - Fisherman who go out into the water may be fishing in a bad boat. They get washed up on the beach drowned because they cannot swim well. Fishing as a job is very dangerous and risky.
• Ate nshima, chicken, and relish for lunch Zambian style (with hands) on a comfortable log. It was good eatin'

November 5-8: Lusaka (capital of Zambia)

• Toured Lusaka, saw the Embassies of different countries, courthouse, courtyard, air port, and other government-owned buildings.
• Visited the late-president's grave
• Karaoke at Le Triumph Dolphin Restaurant - really good tomato soup there! And Indian food!
• Had American-style pizza for the first time in two months!
• Watched A Christmas Carol in a very nice theater! LOVED the computer graphics - very well done.
• Bought some souvenir type stuff at the craft center and learned the art of bargaining "Come, come and look. Pick out which one you like and we'll settle for a price." Heard that a lot, it was fun!
• Caught a cold. I think it was from the air conditioner in my room's fault because I did not have a cold before or after the trip to Lusaka. So, no surprises when I come back to the colder side of the world.
• Visited an orphanage/hospice. It was amazing that only 6 Sisters cared for nearly 45 infants/toddlers every day - changing, feeding, loving them. Hospice patients, in their sickness, greeted us with songs of greeting and joy that we had visited them. Homeless people also come in the night to sleep at the hospice (but only to sleep there and nothing else)
• Met a guy from Idaho who had worked for the Peace Corps. Supposedly his friends assumed that we were 'fresh off the boat' just because we were taking pictures. Nope, just fresh from Choma!
• Visited St. John's Medical Center, hospice, orphanage, urban school, Nursing Council building, and CHAZ (Christian Health Association of Zambia).
• Last day we were going to go to a church in Lusaka (Sunday), but two of our team members were sick, one with Malaria and the other with a GI upset, so we just headed home. Five hour drive, but it was all paved, so it was nice sleeping

November 9: Habanuga Village Visit

• Team from the Choma hospice allowed us to travel with them about 2.5 hours away from Choma waaaay out into the wilderness or 'the bush' to educate the Habanuga village
• Taught village men and women and children about how to prevent malaria, HIV/AIDS, being faithful to significant other, decrease or cease to drink the amount of shake-shake intake (village beer), boiling water to kill bacteria, washing hands properly, sexual health, spiritual health, and exercising to make them stronger.
• Learned some cultural beliefs about what makes people rich
• One person stated that they do not seek health care when they get malaria because it takes 48 hours to get to the nearest health clinic and by the time they get there the malaria is already very bad, so they just stay at home.
• The children ran away from some of the girls who wanted to play with them (they ended up chasing the children). This, I learned, is because when the children are younger, they think that white people resemble ghosts because of our white skin due to an old cultural belief. However, once they become older to understand, they know that white people are the same as they are.

I do not have any pictures as of now of all that I have experienced, and there is much more that I have not written down, but those are the main points. That's what I've been up to, anyways.

And it is starting to rain more! We had our first thunderstorm yesterday! Yay! However, it brought a lot of flying termites into the house and moths. I just found out this evening by one of the Zambian staff that they eat the flying termites with nshima as relish. The caterpillars that hang from trees I hear are pretty tasty, too.

Guest House

I have realized recently that I have failed to show where I live here while I am staying in Africa. Above is a picture of the guest house that we are all staying at. It is very nice and we all call it our 'home away from home'. It is always nice to be greeted by the knowledge that we have a stable place to call home in Africa, and a household staff that is just like family when we get back from traveling a long distance or when we come back from a two + day overnight trip.

Here are a few of us lounging in the living room. The kitchen is the bright door on the right, and the tv is on the very left. There is a long table that the meals are served on right behind the chairs on the left. And that is pretty much the living room. I am actually in this picture, but you can't see my face. Just my watch and water bottle.

This is my room. I sleep on the upper right bunk bed. We use that fan every day - 100 degree weather is HOT. We were already sweating by 9am this morning. By this time in our stay here, our mosquito nets have a lot of holes in them, so we have to sew them up. Good thing I have been equipped with that sewing kit my grandma and mom made for me when I was a freshman in college.

Here is a little bit of what Africa looks like in the Bush waaaaay out there. The huts on both sides of the brick building could be used as a kitchen, meeting place, or just a place to hide from the sun in the heat of the day. More than likely, the brick building in the middle is the house used for sleeping and escaping the hot sun. The sun is quite intense here... we are all wondering when the rainy season will start!

Enjoy the pictures! I have a lot of work to do today, so I had better get on to writing those papers!

Fashion Show and Independence Day

Friday was the fashion show that lasted from 8:30pm to around 1am (but we only stayed until 12am). I must admit that I have not been in my 'college student' mode. I was beat by around 10:30pm while the fashion show was still lively and energetic. However, the night was young as the 10 contestants came out to model what they were wearing. The different categories consisted of: office wear, sports wear, summer wear, traditional, and cocktail. The category that interested me the most was the traditional wear because they dressed like the different province tribes in Africa and the significance of each costume.

This picture shows the model in a nursing outfit. The person who was modeling actually wants to be a nurse as a profession. Other models wanted to be a soldier, social worker, secretary, among other jobs that I am not remembering at the

present moment. Between each modeling category, there were groups of young men who were on the stage to do a performance of entertainment. A couple groups did lip-sync raps and songs. There were two groups who did break dancing, which was very impressive. The music was very loud - all of us were the honored guests so we sat right in front on the right side with the speakers blasting into our ears. However, I did not hear anyone who had informed of ringing in their ears. I guess our ears can take more than what we give them credit for.

Independence day was Saturday, October 24th (a.k.a. Yesterday). The entertainment and celebration of the morning and afternoon consisted of frequent school who either sang songs or who performed the 'social dance' with both boys and girls. I think that s

ame dance was done about 4 or 5 times by different schools. The dance didn't change much, but the costumes and the number of people changed. There was also a boy who had a sack on his head and danced in front of the guest of honor. In the middle of his dance, he opened up his hands and

a whole bunch of people began to fill his hands with Kwatcha because he was dancing very well. Songs were sung by secondary schools as well as a disability school, St. Mulumba. The pictures shows a group of kids in the trees. The area around the performance square was packed with kids - about 85-90% of the audience seemed to be kids. There were guards and tape around the area. It was also really neat to see 'soldiers' march into the square with rifles (no bullets included) and saluted Zambia and its people in the beginning and the end of the program. After the entertainment of the morning, we headed back to the compound and were greeted with turkey, baked potatoes, potato salad, salad cuts, carrots, green veggies, and FROSTED cake. It was so very good! And the rest of the day was filled with catching up on homework and lovely napping. Out of the entire experience, I think I will remember the most about sitting behind the guest of honor in the shade of a small tin-roof stand and being served chilled peach-flavored water.

Three different cultures sitting under the trees

We went to St. Mulumba school today, a school for children who have an impairment such as blindness, Down Syndrome, and deafness. All the students, teachers, and some people from the community (including us Americans) were seated under three large shady trees to watch a Japanese group dance and show us a little bit of their culture. There wasn't a lot of karate chopping or anything, but there was a lot of full body moves (jumping in the air, thrusting their hands to the skies, bending low to the ground and then coming back up in about a millisecond). It wasn't just the Japanese culture dance that we got to see. We also got to witness some 'social dancing', and a group of girls that danced very fast, fast enough and energized enough that people were going up to the girls and throwing Kwatcha on the ground. They were all very talented.

It was also really neat to see how one of the people did sign language for the hearing impaired (the girl dancers were hearing impaired), and also to listen to the sound of a group of blind children. Their voices were amazing and excellent at harmonizing. The program consisted of a drummer drumming, Japanese dance, Zambian 'social dance' and 'girl-coming-out dance', singing, playing with Japanese children's toys, eating strawberry/vanilla ice cream, seeing what your name was in Japanese, a fashion show (the Zambians dressed up in Japanese clothes and the Japanese dressed up in Zambian clothes), and then learning how to do the Japanese dance they did at the beginning.

As far as my health is concerned, I am pretty much back to normal except for little spells of being really tired. But, the doctor told me at my checkup yesterday that it would take me about a full week to recover. So, I am drinking about 4-5 liters of water, and eating normally. Dinner time!

Malaria

My apologies for not have writing so long. A lot has happened, so I will briefly summarize:

Last Wednesday through Friday I went to the Salvation Army Hospital in Chikankata, which is a nursing school/hospital/AIDS research facility. I was allowed to sit in on one of the classes in the nursing school. It is amazing at how they have to learn. The teacher writes down EVERYTHING onto the chalkboard and the students copy those notes into big notebooks. We're talking pages upon pages of notes that the students write down. It makes sense to do this since they did not have a projector of any type or a laptop in sight. I befriended one of the students. She told me that they have school all year round with only a two week break in December and holidays off.

I didn't do anything with the AIDS research part of the hospital, but I was able to give an IV push in the ICU, observe tube feedings of babies in the NICU, and observe a G-tube placement in an infant. I did a lot of observing while following around the nurses who would explain the procedures they were doing as well as briefing me about different patients and what process of healing and care they were going through.

Now for the not so exciting news.... My original plan was going to be to blog all of this on Saturday night, but I wasn't planning on getting a severe case of gastroenteritis (aka nausea, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, vomiting). It was an experience that I stayed conscious and very alert throughout the entire thing. I won't go into the gross specifics (who wants to hear about that? Yuck), but I will just say that by 1:30am Sunday morning, the last time I tried to head back to bed from a bathroom visit was the turning point. I crawled to my room and laid on the floor - I crawled very slowly because I was severely dehydrated to the point where orthostatic hypotention would cause me to be unconscious if I tried to stand up. My two roommates helped me by making a bed on the floor with some blankets and one of my nursing professors came to assess my condition (she had been checking up on me all night). We decided that if I couldn’t stand up without feeling lightheaded, then I would have to go to the doctor. So, I tried to get up. I made it to a bent over sitting position and that’s as far as I could go.

I was carried out to the van and transported to the nearby clinic. The doctor was waiting for me. An IV was instantly inserted and I was started on IV fluids. My very first IV I happen to get in Africa. My very first experience as a patient I have in Africa. I thought that was an interesting little twist. I also received antibiotics for my gut infection and a fever was starting to develop… Malaria. Originally, looking back on it all and during the time, I thought that the attack on my intestines was the Malaria, but that was actually some weird unexplainable fluke that happened to be on my fork or food or a fly that landed on something I ate. So, I am a little upset that I don’t really know what it was that made me so sick. But, it was food related. This weakness, however, was the perfect opportunity for the Malaria to form its battle regiments and attack my immune system subtly. So, really, I only experienced fever, backache, possible nausea (but that was probably from the gastroenteritis infection), and weakness from the Malaria. I did not get fever and chills, dilusions, or any of the full-blown attack signs of Malaria because I was already being treated in the clinic. So, Malaria was present in my system (the blood test was positive), which made my case a very mild one.

I spent from early Sunday morning to late Tuesday morning recovering in the clinic with my IV line constantly pumping fluids into my veins. The doctor who took care of me (all credit to him) knew exactly what to do with my case and was so good at educating me about what I was experiencing. Very excellent doctor. He’s had worse cases involving the gut… such as hippos biting a chunk out of some guy’s side. But, that’s besides the point. He did say jokingly that I was now officially welcomed into the country by Africa because I had been welcomed by the common illness of Malaria.

I am now back recovering at the compound drinking a lot of water, eating here and there, and overall trying to get the energy racing in my system again. Anyways, there’s more to that story, but this entry has already been long.

Thanks so much for everyone’s prayers in my healing process. God is definitely doing so much for me and my health, both physically and spiritually. Not once did I panic because I was in Africa without my family. Not once did I get homesick because I knew God was with me and I had so many people here supporting me – even our wonderful Zambian staff who is like family to me. Prayer is a powerful tool that God has given us to use to lift others up when they are ill in any area of their life. I am so thankful for prayer!

Hope

It rained Saturday and Sunday! We were all very excited about it. I went to the Market Saturday morning at around 9 or 10 am with a small group of girls from my team. It had only sprinkled for about two minutes, so we didn’t think it would rain. BUT it did! During our market visit while buying fabrics for chetinges and bags, it began to gently rain on us. We befriended a Zambian young woman who had let one of the girls on our team carry her baby. He slept away as the rain downpoured onto his covered head. Our new acquaintance was amazing – she knew all sorts of back ways in the market as we zig-zagged through the stalls that sheltered us from the rain. Of course, none of us had an umbrella, so we felt very fortunate to have the skies downpour on us when walking through a wide open area around the railroad tracks. By the time we got to Spar (Zambia’s Wal-Mart), we were all pretty soaked. But it was our first African rain experience that we were soaked with, so just that part was a thrill (it doesn't take much to make me happy).

Today I went to a hospice and helped two Zambian nurses make beds and clean the bedside tables. It was amazing and very encouraging to know that their view of a hospice is a place to get well and return home, and not a place to go when a patient is near death. Most all the patients at this hospice were HIV positive, but they had hope of recovery and are fighting to live. The hospice also had an outpatient teaching program centered on the idea that if a person has HIV/AIDS they need to learn how to live and strive with it; to have immense hope because a person can still live with this disease if they take the time to get treatment. It is very encouraging to see the responses of hope and health promotion going on here in Zambia concerning HIV infected patients. There is a lot of teaching, disease prevention, and health promotion being spread throughout villages and towns. Zambia is not lost to AIDS due to the growth that is happening. I have become much more excited to help these

people who come to the clinics and hospitals waiting for check-ups, immunizations, or ART (antiretrovirus treatment). It is amazing to see how many people are not giving up because they are sick or have a disease they cannot get rid of, which means they have hope for their ailments to decrease. Although the battles rage, there is still a great sense of faith, hope, and trust surrounding these people.

This is today's sunset. Please enjoy!