Pa Maka!

After elections on September 20^th, Zambia now has a new president, and it was quite an exciting time to be in country!

A very brief political history of Zambia …

After independence in 1964, Zambia was a one-party democracy with one president, Kenneth Kaunda, for about the first 20 years.  Then the MMD (Members for a Multi-Party Democracy) party was formed and won the election.  They continued to win and the three consecutive MMD presidents served for about the next twenty years.  This recent election had 10 parties on the ballot, with three main front-runners.  (1) MMD with Rupiah Banda hoping to retain the position.  (2) PF (Patriotic Front) with Michael Sata hoping to win the position.  And (3) UPND, a party popular mostly in the Southern, Western, and Central Provinces.  PF and UPND initially had a “pact” where they would support one candidate as to not split the opposition vote, however it was not seen through. 

In Northern Province, the two main parties were MMD and PF, and while the intensity of the campaign does not approach that in American politics, it was just as interesting.

PF’s symbol is the canoe and their main cheer is “Pabwato”, meaning the boat in Bemba, the most popular language in Northern Province, and Michael Sata’s tribal language (as he is originally from Mpika district in Northern province).  In Mbala, men would lean out the windows pretending to row the car down the street.  Men made canoe-shaped hats out of cardboard boxes and wore them on their heads.  Pop songs were created by Zambian artists that support the opposition party which were screamed out of car speakers that went driving through the village hoping to gain some support.  A second cheer was “Don’t Kubeba”, meaning don’t tell, and created by a Catholic priest from the Copper Belt.  It referred to the chitenge material, millie meal, bicycles, lollipops, and other goodies that MMD distributed as part of their campaign.  It meant to advise people to take the chitenges, take the food, but not to tell them where their vote was really going.  A third cheer was “Pa Maka”, meaning the strong, referring to Michael Sata and the strength he has shown in his various political positions leading up to this.

After three days of counting ballots, transporting results, following-up on controversies, Michael Sata was announced President and has chosen a white Zambian, Dr. Scott, to be his Vice President.  In his inaugural address he promised visible change in 90 days time, placing us just around Christmas.  His campaign focused on job creation, especially for just-out-of-school young adults, making education free from grades 1 to 12 (it is currently only free up to grade 7), and ridding the political hierarchy of corruption. 

So far, he has combined ministries, replaced the District Commissioners in each district, returned one of the national banks to its original owner (after some controversy over its forced sale during Banda’s term), and is asking MMD to detail where they got the money for their campaign.  The entire country is on it’s toes; watching to see what he will do next, standing together in celebration, and looking over their shoulder because they know that if they are not performing at work they could lose their job.  It is an exciting time and people appear ready to step into action and make some changes. 

In the village, everything is going well.  I am often exhausted and frustrated, exhilarated and inspired, each and every day.  In the mornings, I am at school, either co-teaching in grade 2 with Madame Mbita, who attended a co-teaching workshop with me in Kasama recently, or helping in classrooms without a teacher present.  I have been working more with the grade 1s and slowly becoming more comfortable communicating with them.  In the afternoons, I teach grade 8 and0 9 math alone and am thoroughly enjoying my time with the older students.  The grade 9s have really taken to class, motivated by the national exams coming up in November that are necessary to continue to grade 10.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the men and women from the village come to school for two hours to learn both English and math.  This, by far, is the most effective and rewarding program I have in the village currently.  These men and women came to me asking for help.  Over 50 of them came to our initial meeting, a total of 37 have returned at least once to take my initial assessments, and each day we have between 20 and 25 adults.  We start with an hour of English, doing 20 minutes of oral language work together as a full class and then 40 minutes of written language work in ability groups.  Then we do an hour of math, split entirely into ability groups.  The ability groups were crucial to creating a curriculum as the education levels range dramatically.  There are a few who ended formal education at grade 1 and others who continued up to grade 9 or 10.  A few of the young men from the next village come, hoping to pass grade 9 exams next year, preparing in case President Sata is able to make education free, allowing them to go like they weren’t able to before.  The oral English work allows for more immediate results, keeping them motivated, and the math is a lot of fun for both me and then.  The written English, however, is proving more difficult and is a slow process, but the adults seem willing to be patient as we work through it together.  We laugh and play games and I always leave with a smile on my face!

Now for the not so positive: A list of the things that are beginning to drive me crazy.

(1) Candle Wax: As my source of light, I have candles burning all evening before bed.  If it’s just me, only two or three, but if I have company (another PCV, an older pupil coming for extra help, or the occasional friend come to have a butchered Mambwe conversation) then there might be up to seven or eight lit at once.  With all this candle use, I am buying only the cheapest ones, which also happen to be the drippiest, droppiest candles available on the planet.  I have wax everywhere.  It pools on the concrete floors, globbing together and gathering dirt, becoming an awful dusty-brown color.  It covers my reedmat.  Gets on my buckets, Tupperware, plates, baskets, chair.  All over my pants, chitenges.  It hardens and falls to the floor in small pieces.  I’m collecting it to make a wax for my floor, but these small pieces, these drips, not useful.  My candle holders (empty glass bottles, some covered in chitenge scraps, and tuna fish cans nailed to the wall) look like wax castles, similar to drip castles at the beach, but when you touch it instead of just collapsing it breaks into tiny pieces and drops to the floor.  More for me to step on, kick around, and eventually sweep up.  I am uncertain of how to win this battle.  And I do vastly enjoy the candle light!

(2) Insects: Not all insects, mind you.  Not the spiders who just chill on the wall, often found in the same place the following day, eating mosquitoes.  Not the crickets, who also chill on the walls (of my house and my shower), some very big, intricately detailed, but they don’t bite me, just enjoy jumping, allowing us to live harmoniously.  It’s the stupid and the lazy that get me.  The small moths, and other small-winged things, that dive-bomb the candle, making a little burning sound, singeing a wing and then bouncing all over the floors.  And the flies.  The lazy flies that put up camp on your shirt, backpack, hat, wanting a free ride across the village.  At any hour of the day, no matter the weather, these flies can be seen on the backside of every passerby.  Lazy.

(3) Mice: There were two types of mice that used to reside with me.  The first are “seki-seki” mice that live in my roof.  They resemble small koalas with their big, round ears and furry face, and have a long, bushy tail, like a dwarfed raccoon’s tail.  These mice eat a variety of things, including clothes and chitenges, plastic bottles and baskets, and even my luggage that I attempt to store away.  Also, these mice laugh at me, look down on me from the top of my walls, between the brick and the thatch, and mock me with their high-pitched, squeaky mouse laugh.  I do not like these mice.  The second type, recently terminated, whose name I do not know, have a long, thin snout that protrudes from their faces almost like an elephant’s trunk, or an anteater’s trunk (trunk?).  They lived outside and entered the house at night.  I was never sure where or how.  Their favored activities included scratching at the bag holding my charcoal, ripping huge holes, causing the charcoal to escape.  But I no longer have these residents, just the seki-seki mice, who I sometimes “hunt” in the middle of the night, but more often I simply climb into my mosquito net and give them the house.

I guess the thing I am really becoming tired of, while equally intrigued and confused by, is the ecosystem that I call a home.  I am an American, accustomed to controlling my environment, ensuring it’s efficiency.  But this is Zambia, where I control nothing, and nothing is efficient.  The mice don’t eat the ants.  Or the spiders, or crickets, or mosquitoes.  The ants don’t eat the mice droppings, leaving me to do all the cleaning.  It’d be best if we could find a way to work together.

Many of my nights are spent sitting, looking at the wall, and thinking, hence this drawn-out analysis of my surroundings.  For those who suffered through the rambling I do apologize.  I also apologize for the lack of pictures.  I have many good ones waiting to be posted, but appear to have left my camera in the village. 

But soon.  I promise. 
I did get a chance to add a “Wish List” page that contains package ideas.
Mwikala ningo sana!