Goodbye Canada, Hello Zambia!

My last day in Canada was so fitting, CANADA DAY! I celebrated the holiday with my family up in Honey Harbour, Ontario. It was so nice to be able to sit back on the Canadian Shield, over looking Georgian Bay and just take in the beauty that is Canada. After a tearful and funny goodbye, I hopped on my uncles boat, left Dear Island and headed for the airport. After one slight wrong turn we made it. It was time to really say goodbye to my parents. It was short and sweet, no tears, only well wishes and warm hugs. As usual, I was early for the flight. 5 hours early to be exact. I was so excited just to be sitting in the airport with my friends; Ed, Josephine and Trina. Our flight schedule was Toronto – Paris, France, Paris – Johannesburg, South Africa, Johannesburg – Lusaka, Zambia. The flights were long and boring, but I met some really interesting people along the way. For example, the man that I set next to was headed for France to participate in Tour de France. He told me about how hard he has trained, and that he actually doesn’t compete in the entire tour, only about half of the tour.

Once we arrived in Lusaka, we were greeted at the airport by other Long term overseas volunteers (LTOV), Dave and Mike. They took us to the hostel in Lusaka, and then a tour of the town by foot. White people are known in Southern Africa as Mzungu’s. When we went to the local market people kept yelling “Mzungu’s! Mzungu’s!” Even toddlers were yelling it. At first I didn’t know what to make of it, so I tried to not let it bother me. I eventually found out that it isn’t and insult, or meant to be degrading. It just means tourist, or European. While we were getting a tour of the market, the locals were really surprised at the simple fact that we were walking around the market, then when we wanted to eat the local food they were in total disbelief. Word spread around the market that 6 Mzungu’s were eating Nshima, and so many people had to come and see for themselves. It was funny for all those everyone involved.

You might be wondering what Nshima is. It is pronounced She-ma in Zambia, and See-ma in Malawi. Nshima is the staple food around here. Most of the locals cannot go one day, or sometimes even one meal without having a plate full of nshima. Nshima is maize flour made into a dough like mixture. It looks like a plate full of mashed potatoes, but once you touch it, you realize that there is no way it could be potatoes. You eat nshima by grabbing a little piece and making it into about the size slightly smaller then a golf ball. Then you make a thumb indent in it. The thumb print acts as a spoon and then you scoop up all sorts of sauces or relishes with it. Nshima doesn’t really have a taste to it that I can tell, so I don’t mind eating it at all. The only problem with it, is that it is so heavy. I try to only eat it at lunch because it fills me up for the rest of the day.

I spent about a week wandering aimlessly around Lusaka. I tried my best to learn from everything I saw, did, and everyone that I interacted with. I had a lot of fun exploring all the different markets, and surrounding villages. We were even sent on a scavenger hunt one day. We had a list of items that we didn’t even know what they were, and we had to travel to a town by local transport and we didn’t even know where the town was. It was fun trying to talk to the locals in English and their local language Chichewa. They were very helpful by translating our list, and then trying to teach us some of the common phrases in Chichewa like, “How much does this cost?” At one point we were crammed into a mini bus with about 15 people, my right foot completely lost all feeling, and our scavenger hunt list was being passed around the bus, followed by laughter and people screaming out the translations. A lady named Molly, gave me her cell phone # and told me to call her if we ran into any problems. The locals seemed very happy to help us out, and enjoyed the fact that we were making an attempt to speak Chichewa.

Slowly my group of 4 became 1. After 5 days I was now alone, without really anything to do except for wait 10 more days until I could travel to meet up with Jason. So I contacted another LTOV named Jenn, and made arrangements to go and visit her. Jenn lives with a woman named Barbra and her son Andrew, in a small town called Monze. I spent a few days getting to know Jenn, Barbara and their friends and really enjoyed my time there. The 3 of them live in a small house. They have a hotplate for a stove, no fridge, but they do have a washroom complete with running water…most of the time. This was my first reality check with my possible new living conditions. At first I thought, there is no way I can live like this for a year, but after staying there for 3 days, I realized that it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what I was used to. It was clean and they had running water, electricity and each other. They didn’t need anything more then that. They were happy.

I was fortunate to be introduced to an American woman named Lisa. Lisa runs a small school out of her home. The school is for the hearing impaired. You can check out www.deaaf.org for more details. I spent 2 days helping Lisa at her school. We started off by making breakfast for the children. Breakfast was a bowl of porridge with a scope full of sugar on top. It was not appetizing at all, but the children didn’t seem to mind. For a snack they would get a slice of bread with peanut butter. After their breakfast we went over readings, and flash cards. They are learning English and sign language all at the same time. The problem that I see with the school is that there is no real teacher or curriculum, and they have no funds and the supplies are little to none. What the school does have is a woman with a big heart, who is dedicating her lives to these children. The solution…I don’t know. Perhaps start by having volunteer teachers come in. Is there a Teachers Without Borders out there? Even student teachers for the summer would be great. They could come in and assess the situation and possibly offer sustainable solutions for the school. Donations, I believe, is another key element to the solution. At first I was thinking of collecting donations of school supplies in Canada, but then I realized the cost just to ship everything to Zambia would be huge. I think that it would make more sense to have financial donations sent in, and then buy school supplies in Zambia, which would help the local economy and the school at the same time. I wish Lisa all the best with her school, and if there is any way that I can help her I will try. Maybe just even sending out an email to create awareness by having everyone visit her web site would be help. So if you can please check it out.

After 3 days I left Monze, and headed for Livingstone. I met up with more EWB volunteers that I had yet to meet. We went to Sorghum Fest! Sorghum Fest was a project started by an EWB volunteer. He was partnered up with CARE International, and worked with local farmers by helping to improve their crops. He convinced them to start diversifying their crops. The farmers started growing sorghum instead of maize. The 2 villages that were focussed on were living in poverty, and needed help. Once the farmers switched to sorghum they started to prosper. A local brewery started to buy all their sorghum for a fair price, and the villagers discovered all sorts of things that could be made with sorghum. The festival was a big hit. There were all sorts of activities planned for the day, like a bird scaring competition (very funny) tribal dancing, and then prizes were awarded to local farmers for the best yields. The 2 villages involved had truck loads of people being shipped in just for the festival. It was such a pleasure to be a part of the festival, even though I mostly sat backed and enjoyed the activities.