God transformed a brothel

I have a week off before I begin my ten week class of Nyanja so I went with Ruth to Chikumbuso Monday (Miriam stayed home with a cold). The grounds used to be a bar and brothel but have been transformed into a school, housing, kitchen, sewing room, workrooms and salesroom. While Ruth did art and read books with the children, I sat with the women and watched them make purses out of recycled plastic bags.

During the morning a grandmother arrived with a week old premie girl of about 4 pounds. The mother had AIDS and had died of hemorrhage from what I could understand. The grandmother had taken the infant to a local orphanage and they had insisted the baby be evaluated in the hospital before they would take her. The grandmother did not want to take the infant to the hospital for evaluation since the elections were the next day Sept 20th and she feared if the child were admitted she would receive no care. We reviewed the importance of taking the medication (to prevent AIDS) and how to make up the formula, how often to feed and the signs of dehydration. The baby was well bundled in about 6 blankets which makes sense if you know that babies are born "cold" and have to be slowly made to become "hot." Productive adults are hot and a baby must avoid exposure to many adults when they are first born. I don't know if this unspoken cultural reasoning had anything to do with refusing to take the baby to the hospital.

I am learning many local beliefs about disease. My tour guide at Chikumbuso informed me about the stye on her left upper eye lid, "In my culture this happens when you or someone in your family is pregnant.We treat it by cutting it open and draining pus. But this one just came back so maybe I am going to get pregnant." I told her "In my culture this happens when you are under stress, don't get enough sleep and get this type of infection. We treat it with hot packs for twenty minutes 4 times a day and sometimes antibiotics."

AISL Volleyball Champions

John is not into blogging, yet so I am reporting on his activities. This weekend AISL (American International School in Lusaka) played in the ISAZ Midlands Senior Volleyball Tournament. John played on the varsity boys team. They won all six of their matches! Bravo.
Theater is a new class for him and he tried out and was chosen for the Tinman in the WIZ. Jim and I are still hoping we will find a violin teacher and he will want to continue his musical studies......

I went birding with the Zambian Ornithological Society (ZOS) this weekend north of the city just beyond the Mutumbi Cemetary.We saw waxbills, twinspots, puffbacks, yellow canaries, weavers, boubou, sunbird, Ashy flycatcher, Cardinal woodpecker, chinsopt batis, Paradise flycathcher(with tail that looks about a foot long), Tawny-flanked prinia, cisticola, bulbul, greenbul,wire;tailed swallow, black kite, Wahlberg's eagle, apalis, and gray heron. There were many more heard like the hoopoe, but not seen.

Wattled Cranes in flight

Traditional Health Practitioners

Witchcraft is illegal in Zambia. Witchcraft is associated with evil spirits. It is also illegal to accuse someone of witchcraft. However, Traditional Health Practitioners are perfectly legal and in fact 40,000 have been certified and are apart of the THPAZ, Traditional Health Practitioners of Zambia. The four main categories are faith spiritualists, herbalists, diviners, and TBA's (traditional birth attendants). Faith spiritualists are possessed by spirits, speak in tongues and may fall down and go into a trance state. Herbalists frequently receive their knowledge from an older family member such as a grandfather who reveals the way to use plants and herbs for medicinal purposes.There is also knowledge of poisons and plants that can permanently sterilize or injure someone. Diviners have received power and can make predicitons, understand and interpret dreams and may make use of objects such as water or mirrors. A diviner could help you find the keys you lost and could help you understand why you are unable to get a job or find a husband. TBA's deliver babies and also instruct women in hygiene and matters of sexuality. Traditional healers have certain areas of expertise particularly in areas where modern scientific medicine has failed including impotence, infertility, family planning, and psychological illnesses to name a few. Our lecturer was a professed Chrisitan, Presbyterian and the head of the THPAZ. He encouraged us not to demonize traditional healers but admitted there were quacks and cheats and to be careful. Many people wear beads "chibwewe" which he described as similar to immunizations which protect against disease, similarly the beads worn around the waist or neck or over the shoulder protect against bad genes, bad spirits, curses and witchcraft. You might wear something to enhance yourself or your good luck. If you are selling tomatoes you want to draw customers to your stall.  As a Christian our speaker might implore God to come into the beads and thus use the power of the Holy Spirit for protection. Shells and oil are mixed and placed on a baby's fontanelle to give it strength. The smoke from a porcupine quill being burned can stop a bloody nose. Leaves gathered in a certain manner, crushed and drunk from the Muvanga tree can leave a person barren for the rest of their life.
When I asked our speaker how he as a Christian would understand the taboo in Leviticus against cutting the body and tattoos and where scripture condemns divination he acknowledged that he knows divination is wrong and that it is using power only God should have. But "we have all sinned and fall short." Additionally the patients who come to him for help keep him sinning. When they stop coming for help he will stop. He stated there is a great temptation if a large amount of money is given for services. He also shared it is unethical to say no to a patient who asks for your help. Syncretism is defined as "to inconsistently attempt to unify or reconcile differing philosophical or religious schools of thought"    

Avoiding dishes

Well, the only reason why I am posting is to avoid doing the dishes. So I need to make this long. Well I really like the weather here. It's nice and sunny all day, but apparently in October the heat is absolutely brutal. The school is pretty cool because when your walking to each of your classes you have to walk outside so you're always getting fresh air between every class which is nice especially after PE when you're really hot.
One thing that's going to take getting use to is the money. You see one US dollar is equivilent to 5000 kwacha. So during the first week when someone asked for 10000 kwacha my first reaction was "10000!? Heck no!" but then I realized that was only 2 dollars. Also the food at the school is very cheap. Its 2000 kwacha for a ice cream bar (40 cents), 1500 for a bag of popcorn (30 cents, and the bags are pretty decent sized). And for a Swift, which is a fruit drink that is like the same size as a coke, its 4000 (80 cents). So I can bring 10pin (pin is a symbol for a thousand, so 10pin is really 10000) to school and get a drink, ice cream bar, and popcorn.
Well the dishes are now done so I will be signing off. I hope everyone in the US is doing fine. See ya.

What am I doing here?

With almost 4 weeks under our belts here in Zambia, a belt I might add, that I have had to literally tighten a notch (a good thing), I feel like I might be better able to answer the question, "So what will you be doing in Zambia?".

As many of you know Amy and I have felt a sense of call to serve overseas for many years. I am working for the Centers for Disease Control as a medical epidemiologist. My actual role seems to be broadly that of a physician-public health person who is to support "where needed most." The where needed most for the foreseeable future is helping articulate what the Global Health Initiative (http://www.ghi.gov/) means in Zambia, and designing and implementing an ambitious maternal mortality reduction plan in four districts. I hope to also engage in the University Teaching Hospital soon as they form an infectious disease fellowship. The Medical College is moving towards developing a School of Public Health and I hope to pitch in there as well. I am sure there are many other projects and tasks that I will get involved in over time.

My main concern is that I not let work overwhelm my time, there is much more to engage in here in Zambia - getting to know the people and culture. I truly hope to engage in the local church and the seminary and do not want my work at CDC to consume me.

Probably the biggest adjustment for me has been going from being in a leadership role at Rush to being somewhat peripheral. I suspect this is not such a bad thing - leadership has its headaches. But beyond fewer headaches, I think this will give me an opportunity to mature spiritually by forcing me to think about my ego, my pride, and my source of a sense of significance. Not bad lessons to learn as I turn 50 in few weeks.

My most significant early observation is that Zambia is a country moving forward from a development point of view but they must do something about the significant disparity in wealth. Of course this is a problem in most countries of the world, but the contrast here is huge. Well over half the population lives on $1-2 per day, with all of the issues associated with poverty (malnutrition, low life expectancy, poor education, etc.), while a significant proportion, particularly here in Lusaka, have most of the trappings as well as some of the problems (obesity) associated with wealth.

I am glad we came even though these initial days have been hard. One can hardly complain when there is so much true poverty around you, but I have to admit I would like to get into our permenant house, have a car, get our household effects, and have consistent internet.

I continue to pray the children will adjust well and hope you will do the same. - Jim

Restoring Children on the Streets

Bros Jacek from St Lawrence Home of Hope* spoke to our class about children on the streets of Lusaka where he has been working for the last four years. Most children end up on the streets due to dysfunctional families and neglect, not poverty. Many children who sell things on the streets actually return to their families to sleep at night and are not homeless. Last month there were 239 truly homeless children in Lusaka. Ninety-five percent of the children are boys. The streets are a “living hell” for a girl who “will never spend even one night alone.” Most girls will leave the streets quickly and return to abusive home environments which are preferable to life on the street, where they will be repeatedly assaulted, raped and become pregnant. Abortion is illegal in Zambia but costs about 20,000 Kwacha ($4) in the compounds. Abortions are done using physical force and crushing the fetus and by using instrumentation with wire as well as traditional medication to cause abortion and hemorrhage. The boys are also subject to sodomy by older adults within days of arrival. One of the names of the streets where children sleep is commonly known as Devil’s Street by the children themselves.

According to Bros Jacek, “Everyone on the street is intoxicated” mostly from sniffing petrol or “Blanket” lead-based paint solvent. Tujirijiri can also be bought in small plastic bags and contains high proof alcohol mixed often with other contaminants and cost about twenty cents or 1,000 Kwacha. It can be deadly depending on the composition.  Sniffing blocks the cold, the fear, the hunger and the pain of living on the streets. These side effects explain the protective street name of “Blanket.”  Almost all the kids are using within a week of their arrival on the streets. Other effects include detachment, dissociation, euphoria, dizziness, slurred speech, impaired judgment, and increased salivation. Long term effects include brain, cardiac and lung damage. The outreach workers know the five main places where children sleep similar to Emmaus Ministry in Chicago insert themselves into the subculture fo homeless children. They visit them early in the morning before they are high, reaching out and targeting new arrivals in the hopes of getting them into shelters before hopelessness overwhelms them and homelessness and addiction become a preferred lifestyle. Residential care is offered to all children under age 15 and they have on average 50 new admissions per year. They trace families and engage in a rehabilitation process with the relatives attempting to reunite children to their extended families. Sometimes this is almost impossible as in cases where children have been trafficked from Congo or Ethiopia. The St Lawrence Home of Hope targets the city center. There are ten other organizations that target vulnerable children from the streets in Lusaka though only three do outreach work on the streets. We were told there is no drug rehabilitation available. There are no specialists such as psychiatrists available for counseling. Even if these children were developmentally able to express themselves it is not culturally acceptable to talk about sexual abuse. Children will not report abuse in the family because the child will be blamed by the entire family for revealing the abuse.

It was surprising to me to hear how adamant Bros Jacek was that we must NEVER give money or food to a child on the street as this creates a “dependency syndrome” and contributes to children feeling comfortable on the street and that cash handouts and food actually attract children to street life. He made the point that giving money or food is to salve our own consciences at night so we can sleep but only perpetuates the problem.

*Home of Hope was established in 1998 by the Catholic Women's League of Lusaka in theproperty of St. Lawrence Community Center in the Catholic Parish of Good Shepherd.

Property Inheritance and Ritual Cleansing

Today I learned about the importance of family and property grabbing. By Zambian law, when a husband dies 50% of his estate goes to the children, 20% to the spouse, 20% to the biological parents and 10% to dependents (his brothers, his  nieces and his nephews). Most clans are matrilineal and children belong to the wife’s family while property belongs to the husband and his family. Since the husband traditionally works and brings in money (and keeps property in his name) the property is his and his families. After the funeral, everything is taken out of the house and divided among the husband’s relatives, very quickly. The widow and children receive nothing and this is enforced by threat of physical harm. If the husband’s family believes she is hiding any property they will beat her severely. The husband’s family has no interest in the children or their protection since they belong to the wife and the wife’s family in a matrilineal system. People are more attached to their families and clans than to their spouses. The family/clan of origin and NOT one spouse is relied upon one's entire life and more important than the marriage bond.

If a widow goes to court for her right to 20% of the estate, she may forgo the cleansing ritual which only her husband’s family can grant her. The belief is that couples are bonded to one another and to each other’s families through a spiritual experience during the act of sexual intercourse. This bond to the family remains after the death of a spouse and can be dangerous to any future marriage or children. When a spouse dies, the widow(er) is still bound to the family and must be cleansed.  The spirit/ghost/power of the dead person is still inside the spouse and needs to be cleansed and removed. Without cleansing, if the person remarries outside the clan the future family and spouse will be put at risk for madness, sickness and even death.  An individual from the spouse’s clan is chosen to perform the cleansing which involves sexual intercourse with the bereaved spouse. If the widow chooses to become a second or third wife of a brother of her husband she remains in the clan and does not need to be cleansed. If a widower agrees to take another wife in replacement from the tribe he does not need to be cleansed. If a widow fights for her property rights the clan can refuse to allow her to be cleansed and can humiliate her by choosing a young boy or a mad man to be the one to cleans her. They can also defer cleansing for many years, preventing her from remarrying.

Since the advent of AIDS some of the traditions have changed so that there is a ritual of cleansing which might involved a close relative placing a flower under the bed while having intercourse with their own spouse (there is no intercourse required of the bereaved spouse) and then the widow (er) is presented with the flower, a lock of hair is cut and a prayer of blessing is given thus freeing the bereaved spouse to marry someone else. If the ritual is done with a flower, however, when there is an illness in the future, there may be questions and suspicions that the ritual was done improperly. People question if the flower was truly “hot” or if the ritual was done improperly and the flower was actually powerless.

The church has rejected the idea of a ghost haunting a person and the need for this sexual cleansing. Until the AIDS epidemic, the church was unable to make a change in this cultural behavior. Even now the family and not the church provide for the ritual and being cleansed remains a RIGHT of the bereaved. FEAR of the power of the ifibanda (ghosts, spirits), the importance of ancestors and the primacy of family before loyalty to a spouse are traditional cultural values and beliefs which still hold sway especially in the rural areas.

Birthday celebration, deities and caterpillars

To celebrate Ruth's 20th, on Saturday we drove an hour north past the airport in a rented car to visit Chaminuka. This 10,000 acre lodge was designed by Danae and Andrew Sardanis in a miombe woodland, savannah with a wetland area. We went on a drive to see the wildlife (all 6), a birdwalk (4 of us), a boat (5 of us), horseback riding (3 of us), swimming (3 of us), and ate a delicious buffet lunch complete with a group of waiters singing "Happy Birthday to Ruthie." Christopher returned to the buffet for ribs three times, even after the cake had been served. John who is an expert flan maker having had to create this for a Spanish class at ETHS, declared that the creme brulee was "pretty good."
On Sunday we drove to northwest Lusaka to the Matero area where Jim preached at a CCAP partner church. Miriam, Jim and I were the only nonZambians there. Several choirs sang and there were about 12 different offerings collected for different purposes; by region of the neighborhood of which there were about eight, from women, from men, from youth, from the choirs, from pastors, and from guests. Following the collections the totals were calculated and the amount collected in each bucket was read out publically. Jim preached from Acts 16 about the slave girl, Paul and Silas being imprisoned, the earthquake and the jailer coming to faith.
Monday I attended my first class at FENZA the Catholic Faith and Encounter Center. I learned there is a traditional god of earthquakes, Makumba, as well as ifibanda, evil spirits whose powers are taken away by Christians. I wonder about the average African in the pew and their interpretation of the events in Acts where we read about earthquakes and spirits of fortunetelling. I also learned about Musonda, the forest god connected to caterpillars. In November there is a very delicious kind of caterpillars with spines ("not the yellow ones"), which can be found in the forests to the north of Lusaka. It is a lucrative business for those who collect and sell them. As you pick the caterpillars from the branches it is easy to find after sometime that you have become lost and you are at risk of perishing or being eaten by wild animals. To prevent these calamities and for protection before leaving for the hunt the chief must perform a ritual to the god, Musonda to keep the caterpillar hunters safe.
Today I learned if you are offerred something to eat such as caterpillars it is OK to refuse but you must eat something unless you are truly sick or it will be offensive to your host who has prepared the meal for you. You may also be given a care package since the meal was prepared for you and is considered yours. When someone comes to your home for a meal they may request a care package since the meal was prepared for them and is theirs.

Miriam's first impressions

            My mom, Ruth and I went for a walk. We went to several stores. We had to cross streets with no speed limits or stop lights of any kind. Some guys whistled at us on our way back from the stores. I was afraid someone who was driving their car might hit us.  We saw several stores, Block Buster, Subway, and several other places that looked interesting. I hope to explore the Block Buster store sometime while we are here. I do not know when we are getting the puppy.  I might start riding horseback more often. I miss my friends and family who are still in the United States.  I found a spider in the shower this morning, that was a little unexpected. Our cat is here in Zambia with us. He seems to be enjoying himself. I am still waiting for the boxes that we shipped here including the box with my DVDS. It is ok, so far we are in a temporary house. I wish my DVDs would get here so I would have something to do besides work on my story I’m writing.  I also might get the chance to help out at the animal shelter called LAWS I still have to look into that. 

       There is a group called Chikambuso for widows with HIV/AIDS and orphans. The women make bags and purses out of recycled plastic bags in all colors. Ruth and I helped them by looping them which is the first step. we did not crochet any yet. Tomorrow we are supposed to go and visit the school where there are 300 children and 6 teachers. We are hoping to be able to help out or whatever they want us to do.