Birth and Death

A message with an apology and “I didn’t know how else to reach you,” is never one with good news.  Especially not when it comes from someone so far in your past you honestly probably wouldn’t have remembered them if someone had asked you to name everyone that was part of your life that particular year.  You might have remembered them with respect to their role in your life---oh yes, and there was the new volunteer who replaced me at my site---but not by name.

Yet, when that name popped up on my Google Chat, I knew exactly who it was.  I knew the name lingering inside the chat window’s large block of text even more: Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

One of my bamaamas, my Zambian moms.  Bamaamas are like kids I think; you’re not supposed to have a favorite.  Maybe there’s an exception for the one that bore you; that one can be your favorite.  But the ones that are your other bamaamas, the ones that help raise you (even when you’re already grown), and feed you and teach you how to cook and wash and speak Tonga, and live.  The ones you wish you’d asked to teach you how to pee standing up.---I understand the concept; I was just never gutsy enough to try it.---Those bamaamas, I don’t think you’re supposed to have favorites.  But I did.  I had two, and Ba Joyce was one of them.

“I was in Zambia…”

Zed!  Oh, Zed! Just the day before I had been describing Zambia to someone, “Zambia itself will crawl in your heart and never leave. It will burrow like a panya in the grass of your roof, with a scratching that forbids you forget it’s there no matter how infrequently you actually see it.”  At the sight of “I was in Zambia,”  every bit of burrowed Zambia burst forth. 

And then it exploded.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.”

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce bore her second son the week I moved into the village.  Her passing through my life bookended by childbirth.  One of those many things we take for granted here.  One of those common, everyday, planned things that used to truly be a miracle.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away during childbirth.” 

“The family is still clearly mourning her loss.”

Ba Joyce. 

Ba Joyce.

The family.

The family without Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

My eyes welled up as my body filled with ambivalence.  Not the American ambivalence of not caring; the British ambivalence of feeling two conflicting emotions at once that I learned from Kryten.  A strange taffy pull that brought even more tears.  Devastation that Ba Joyce was dead.  Elation that others were not. 

Ba Timmy was out in the village, visiting us.  We were nearing close-of-service (COS in Peace Corps parlance), pack-up-your-bags-and-say-goodbye time.  “When are you coming back to visit?”  Ba Lenix had asked.  “Oh, probably in about five years,” Ba Timmy had answered.  Ba Lenix let out a sort of snorty chuckle, a chortle if you will, “We will all be dead.”

I feared he was right.  At 36, he was already past what was then the Zambian average life expectancy.  At that time, the HIV rate in the country was hovering at about 20%.  Simply statistically speaking, a family with one husband and four wives was not an optimistic proposition.  It had only been a few months since I had sat in the shade shelling beans with my favorite bamaamas asking about why one of their others wives had gone to the mission hospital some 20+ km away, since deep and serious eyes had looked at me as a voice tried to laugh a laugh that caught in a throat, since I had heard  “tuyakufwa.”

There was something else, too.  I knew my situation was not like Ba Timmy’s.  Funding a trip to a quasi-remote African village would not be in my near future.  Not in five years, probably not in ten.  When my mother and grandmother came out to visit the year before, it truly had been a once-in-a-lifetime trip.  Even if I were to move back to Africa, I doubt Mommy would visit again.  But then, going to see your twenty-four-year old daughter in a small community she’s made home is very different from visiting your nearly middle-aged child in a block of flats in some bustling metropolis.

I used to write to them, my family, my Zam-fam.  I used to write letters and Christmas cards and little notes to say hello.  I’d send along pre-paid postage vouchers from USPS so they could write back.  “Ndamueya!”  I’d write, “ndamueya maningi!”  I was not lying; I think about them everyday. 

To get mail to the village, I would send it to the post box in Monze, the nearest town, for the government school in Chona, about 10km from our village of Cheelo.  There was a wonderful family who lived in Chona.  The parents taught at the school and the older sons ran the family transport business, carrying things and people and goats to and from Monze.  They would collect the mail and send it over to Cheelo with a passenger who might be going that way.  Perhaps another Cheelo resident or someone passing through on their way to somewhere like Namateba.  But the mail started coming back, unopened, months later, having gone across the Atlantic, through Lusaka, to Livingstone, to Monze and back.  The school had closed its P.O. box. 

Occasionally, I’d meet a Zambian or someone who was traveling to Zambia.  “Can you take a letter for me?”  And I’d hope the magic informal mail system of people who know people going that way would work.  I don’t know if my letters ever made it.

We lost touch.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Years.  But still, ndabaeya maningi, everyday.  Sometimes, I see them in my dreams.  I see them running towards me as I run towards them, coming up the path past the cattle stall and Ba Lenix’s special cisyu field.  I see them around the fire as we munch on roasted mapopwe.  I hear them yelling “Ba Nchimunya, Ba Nchimunya!” and laughing while my face aches from the stretched smile I simply cannot contract back into fitting on my face. 

Even when I am not asleep, I talk to them.  Imaginary conversations in the shower and on bike rides and in the car and walking down the street.  “Ndaunka ku mbeleka kwa ciinga.”  I’m sure my Tonga is worse than ever, but my thoughts are always in it.  There is no one here to know if I am accidently yelling “prostitutes!” into the air or asking if someone’s menstruated.  I imagine introducing them to Mr. Trizzle, standing sort of scared and unsure on the packed dirt, afraid of what allergens might jump out and bite him.  “Ah-ah, where is Ba Mr. Mindala?”  I try to punt the question.  “ezyi Ba Trizzle, bali benzuma.  Ndabayanda.  Bali kabotu maningi.”  “Ba Nchimunya, muntu isiya?”  Ba Fare would laugh, not really asking a question.  And they would make him feel so welcome and stuff him full of nsima.  The good nsima made from mbusu ground in the village, not that tasteless store-bought mealie meal from town.  And Bay Joyce would hang back a little bit, a huge smile on her face, “Banina Daddy Bunny.  Mwabola?” before coming in for a hug.  “Inzya, ndabola”  I have come.  Finally.  At last. 

But I have not.

And there is no Ba Joyce to smile and greet the mother of stuffed rabbit.

No Ba Joyce.

Ba Joyce.

“Ba Joyce recently passed away.”

Ba Joyce.

No Ba Joyce.

Mazoka, bamaama benu babolide.  Ino, mwakalona lyoonse, antomwe.  Amudokamane.  Pesi, mebo,ndaousa.  Ndamueya, bonse.

Adventures with Ivory: Back in the Ville

The Annual Returned Peace Corps Volunteer meeting was going to be held at Vanderbilt.  How could I not go?!

So I called up my friend MattE who had been asking me to come visit him in Nashville.  (He’s currently working on his 3rd Vanderbilt degree, a PhD in Political Science to go with his Masters of Divinity and his law degree.)  It was the perfect trio – MattE, Peace Corps, Vandy.

So I got in Betty and we headed down, and down, and down, until we arrived late Wednesday night, hot, sticky and smiling at Cafe Cocoa where MattE and his friends were gathered.

During the day, I went to the Peace Corps events and got to meet up with some people at the law school that I like to say hi to when I’m in town.  MattE and I were able to hang out in the afternoons and evenings.  He showed me all the changes that have happened in East Nashville – it’s going from ghetto to Hipster-ville a block or so at a time.  We went to a number of restaurants, ones I’d been to when I lived there and ones that were knew to me.  And he introduced me to the girl he liked, who was his girlfriend by the time I left. ;)

MattE just bought a house a few weeks before I came down.  It’s super cute, and he has it really well setup.  It doesn’t look like a bachelor’s pad at all.  It even has a library with patio doors that go out onto a deck, and a very nice guest room with an antique bed he and friend assembled.

The Peace Corps events were fun, too.  I found a friend from Cali, the president of the NorCal RPCV group, and we were able to hang out a bit.  He introduced me to some other RPCVs he knows, one runs a chocolate company based in Madagascar.  Neat.  I met lots of other RPCVs over the weekend, including some that served in Nigeria.  It was interesting to talk with them because they served in the 60s.  The city I lived in in Nigeria wasn’t even built until the 90s.

I also met some recently returned volunteers from Zambia!  I know Zambia’s changed a lot in the past ten years; that much I can tell from Twitter.  It sounds like the program I was part of in the Peace Corps has also changed a lot.

Overall, Nashville was a great trip.  I had a lot of fun, enjoyed beautiful weather, saw old friends from different areas of life and picked up a present for Mzzzz Jones’ expected little one.  I also found out about some opportunities to go back to Africa in an IP context…

Ndili Mukuwa, and It’s Ok

I’ve always been acutely aware of my “whiteness.”  In kindergarten, it was benign, meaning only that I couldn’t do as much fun stuff with my hair as some of the other girls.  By first grade, it was that other people’s not having as much or being downtrodden was my fault as on Martin Luther King Jr. Day we were taught “white guilt.”  By fourth grade, I was evil, inhumane, cruel, for beating all those slaves before the Civil War. 

In high school, added to all this was that I simply wasn’t cool enough to talk to the groups of black students.  By college, all the guilt and meanness and cruelty and uncoolness, added to the fact that I’d never be able to dance or jump, had me paralyzed with fear.  “I can’t talk to you.”  “I don’t know how to talk to you.”  “I’m not good enough.”  “I’m not cool enough.”  “Everything bad that’s ever happened to you is my fault.”

So I did what anyone does when they’re totally afraid.  I ran away.
To Africa.

Here, it was different.  I was different.  New stereotypes were flung at me, but I didn’t buy into them.  Maybe it was because they were delivered to me by individuals instead of society as a whole.  Maybe it was because I knew them to not be true with respect to myself.  How come I always accepted that the stereotypes back home were true?  Indoctrination at a young age?  Societal reinforcement?  Not grown up enough to know myself?  I started to realize that things I’d believed about myself weren’t true.  I was me. Me. Alone. Me. Not the billions of other people in the world who had come before me and happened to have something in common with me.  Me.

I had been taught that “racist” was the worst thing you could ever be called.  My fear came from fear of that word.  In Africa, the worst thing I was ever called was Mukuwa/Muzungu/Onyibo and that isn’t that bad.

Now I understood.  Just because someone calls you something, doesn’t mean you are such.  I was, am and always will be Mukuwa.  But in some ways, I was also correct when I’d yell back to those “Mukuwa!” screaming kids, “Tandili mukuwa, ndili Ba Tonga.”  I am not a foreigner; I am one of you.

There may be times when I am racist, but it’s because of me, my thoughts, my experiences, not because of all those people I never knew in all those places I’ve never been.  I’m me. 

Sometimes I’m good; sometimes I’m bad.  Sometimes I’m right; sometimes I’m wrong.  Sometimes I’m cruel and unfair; sometimes I’m compassionate and generous.  But I am not afraid of what I am anymore.  Africa gave me that.  That, and some of those hairstyles I’d been wishing for since I was a little girl.

The Top 10 Reasons Pit Latrines are Better than Toilets

In follow-up to yesterday:

10.  House is safe from bathroom odors.

9.   No pipes to burst.

8.   Don’t need a garbage can nearby. 

7.  No water wasted on flushing. 

6.   Doesn’t clog.

5.   Very little time and energy required to clean it.

4.   You can’t flush porn down the toilet.

3.  Lots of exercise walking all the way out to it. 

2.  Much stronger thigh muscles.

… and …

1.  No fights about leaving the seat up.

No Place to Pee

It was our first week in Zambia.  Our third day, actually.  Site visit; our first taste of “real Zed.”  We were divided into groups of three or four and sent out with the PCVLs (Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders who were each in charge of a province) to visit currently serving volunteers at their sites for a few days and see what it was like to live as a volunteer.

My group was going to Northwestern Province, an 11-hour drive(covering 372 miles) just to the province’s capital, Solwezi, and then another 9 hours out to the volunteer’s site the next day on mostly dirt roads and bush paths.

The first day was long and fun.  The second day was long and not as fun.  On the first day, we were on main highways; we stopped at small roadside restaurants and ended the day at the very nice PC house where we had electricity, plumbing and beds.  The 10 of us, packed in the Land Cruiser with camping gear and our luggage bags, rode along excitedly.  We sang along with the PCVL’s cassette tape of 80s hits and oohed and awwed at the gorgeous country-side.

The second day, we left the main highways and headed onto the very bumpy dirt roads.  We drove through thick grass and frightenly close to trees.  The countryside was even more gorgeous but also more intimidating.  Vegetation was thick.  The road disappeared behind and ahead of us.  Red dust swirled all around and coated the vehicle and everything in it, including us.  As we passed near villages, children ran alongside the Land Cruiser yelling “Byepi! Byepi!" (hello) and “Muzungu! Muzungu!” (white person).  Some of the other trainees yelled back out the open windows, “Byepi"!’  Waving as enthusiastically as the children.

My daddy raised us to always use the restroom before getting in the car – we took lots of road trips as kids – so I’d taken care of that before we left.  But on this day, there were no roadside restaurants to stop at.   We stopped a few times for “restroom breaks” that consisted of pulling over to the side of the road.  I was amazed at how easily the other female volunteers in my group could exit the Land Cruiser, wander off into the grass, and take care of the business.  I stayed close to the vehicle and waited.  The hours ticked by, 3, 4, 5.  It wouldn’t be long before we were at the first volunteer’s site to drop off half our group.  She’d have a muzungu-appropriate bathroom, I was sure;  I pictured a full ceramic throne in a small hut.

Hour 6… Whew. We clamored out of the Land Cruiser and began unloading the items that belonged to the group staying there.  The volunteer had made us lunch so we stayed a bit and also received a tour of her two-room hut.  I asked if I could use her restroom and she pointed me to a small brick and thatch structure around back from her hut.  I snuck away and found the entrance. 
On no!  The small square shelter had a dirt floor and a small hole in the corner.  That was it.  “This is the bathroom?!”  I stood there for awhile, too embarrassed to go right back outside where the volunteer would know I’d been too scared.

We got back in the van and headed to our site visit location where I hoped I’d have better luck.  Despite the drastic increase in personal space after dropping off half the group, my physical discomfort was growing exponentially. 7 hours, 8…  It was only a couple hours to our site, I could make it.

“Well, I suppose this is slightly better.”  Our host had a stone floor and a bigger hole but it wasn’t less-scary enough to matter to my body.  9 hours, 10 hours, 11, 12. 13… That night was very restless and attempts to sleep did not go well.  The next day proved better.  27 hours…  Fear of the cimbuzi, conquered! 



At my own site, my Bataata built me a very nice cimbuzi, with a cement floor, a cover and raised feet holders.  By the way, there’s a darn good reason for women to traditionally wear dresses and skirts.

SoPro Pride

You gotta have some hometown pride, even when it’s for your adopted hometown, or home state, or home province.

When I first arrived in Zambia, there were so few Peace Corps Volunteers in placed in Southern Province, we were grouped in with Central Province, under Central’s Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) and reporting to Serenje in Central Province for information from headquarters.  By my second year, the organization had expanded in Southern Province and we had enough Volunteers to truly be our own province.  So naturally, we needed something to show our province-pride.

Central Province had t-shirts with CP/PC and a lightening bolt on them for Central Province Peace Corps and their lightening bolt tattoos.  Northwestern province had their branding (an attempt to compete with the tattoos), which I can’t really say what it was supposed to represent because none of them turned out right.  I think Northern and Eastern province had some t-shirts, too.  But us down in Southern Province, we needed something better than a t-shirt.  After all, this was the era of Southern Hip Hop’s international prominence and we were in the dirty dirty.

So we got together and had our own special garments hand-painted.  Jumpsuits!

They had our province on the front: So Pro, our names – mine says “Nchimunya”, and “The Dirty South” on the back.  We loved them and our Zambian counterparts found them highly amusing.   They weren’t very cimbuzi-practical, but they were great fun when we were in town.

I still have mine, though I don’t really have anywhere to wear it.  It’s a jumpsuit, so it’s meant to be worn when you might get dirty.  But if I get it dirty, I’ll have to wash it, and the hand-painted lettering might come off.  I’ll have to host a janitor-themed costume party or something.

And the back:

My Tattoo

It’s pretty much always completely out in the open.  Even in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, it’s on one of those patches of skin that very likely may peek through all the layers of outer gear.  Yet, it’s very rarely noticed.  A young boy in Nigeria noticed.  My mother eventually noticed, although she thought I’d just drawn on myself with marker.  A few other people here and there have said something, but generally it’s more of a “do you have any tattoos?”  “Just this one.”  “Oh, I hadn’t even noticed that.”

It is very small.  It is also very important to me.  I got it in Zambia.  A friend of mine did it with a sewing needle and calligraphy ink.  She did a lot of them for a lot of volunteers.  All the same, or relatively the same, depending on how drunk she was when she did them.

Although I was living in Southern Province, at the time we were considered part of Central Province for Peace Corps org-structure purposes.  A group of Central Province volunteers had liked how the abbreviation for Central Province Peace Corps, CP PC, was reminiscent of the band name AC DC.  They designated the lightening bolt as Central Province’s symbol and it stuck.  It was on the Province t-shirts, carved into the Peace Corps house’s gate, painted on all sorts of things, and it was the tattoo.  Except for the people who got theirs when she was drunk; they got tadpoles.

After trying to find pictures of it, I get why people don’t usually see it.  I went through years and years of photos and found one where it’s visible.

 

It’s a Bird, It’s a Squirrel, It’s Goldenrail in a Tree!

“Ba Nchimunya, mulaputa,” it was a common refrain on my family’s compound, about as common as my mother saying, “get out of that tree, you have a dress on.”  But I love climbing trees, and so puta-ing* or not, up I go.

Heels or bare footed, dress or trousers, those branches call my name.  Long arms and long legs make for great climbing.  Don’t worry, I have pantaloons to wear when climbing trees in dresses.

When I was growing up, we had an excellent climbing tree in front of the house, on the strip between the sidewalk and the street.  Lightning hit one of the lower branches one year, and Daddy had to remove the branch.  That made the tree a little harder to climb, but I still managed.  Luckily, I was tall enough by then to reach other branches.

In Zambia, there was an excellent mulberry tree right outside my first hut.  My climbing that tree led to the mulaputa accusations.  It’s branches were small but sturdy.  And climbing it meant access to mulberries that the children hadn’t been able to get.  

The family I stayed with in Nigeria had a beautiful lemon tree directly outside their kitchen window.  I startled the maid one day by suddenly peeking in the second-story window from the tree.  The family’s young daughters decided I had a great idea in getting into the tree and learned to climb it themselves.

Africa seems to be fully of great climbing trees.  At a party for some of the girls’ friends, I found the perfect photographing spot high in the branches of a nearby tree.

That particular climb was extra great because I had on one of my favorite pairs of shoes for climbing.   5” wedges with a very flat ball and toe area.  The small wedge was great for, well, wedging into branch joints, and the flat front flexed with my foot and allowed for good traction on the tree bark.

I’ve climbed trees in other heels, too.  On my first trip to Mr. Trizzle’s home, I attended one of his friend’s birthday parties.  It was in a park with a great climbing tree.  So up I went.  One of the party guests was so impressed that I was in a tree in heels, he kept taking pictures.  Sadly, I don’t have any of his pictures.  But there are plenty of other great climbing trees in the Bay Area, like this beauty at Cordornices Park in Berkeley.  It provides a great view of the basketball courts.

 

Maybe someday I’ll stop climbing trees, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.

*kuputa roughly translates as to be playing with something you’re not supposed to be playing with

“Wait!” or, The Day I found my Bravery

I suppose we all like to believe we’re brave sometimes, though we’re scared often enough.  I’m certainly afraid plenty; afraid of the dark, afraid of my shadow, afraid of strangers, afraid of plane crashes and falls and injuries.  Afraid of the unknown.

But we must all have bravery inside us somewhere.  True bravery to plow on despite those fears.  Bravery to say “no” to our doubts.  Bravery to remember we were brave once before.  Calling back on past bravery to create current bravery – yes.  It’s something I have to do now and then.  And I think back to the moment I first found my true bravery.  I remember it so well.*

I sat in the long corridor, gripping with white knuckles the bottom of the hard, plastic seat.  White from the force of my grip, white from fear.  My stomach somersaulted.  I wanted nothing more than to get up and run.  Run as fast as I could.  Run down the corridor.  Run past security.  Run out the big glass doors.  “Wait!  Wait for me!”  “Don’t leave yet, wait for me!”

What was I doing here?  Sitting on this cold, hard seat in my daddy’s old blue and red flannel with the soft quilted lining.  “Wait!  Wait for me!”  “Wait!”

Me, here, it was absurd.  I was the home girl, the one who wouldn’t even look at a college more than half an hour away.  The one who stopped by nearly once a week for four and a half years, who never missed a Christmas or an Easter or a Mothers’ Day at Grandma and Grandpa’s, who loved game nights in the kitchen and Fourth of Julys in the park, who preferred New Year’s Eve Monopoly with the family to any party.  And yet, here I was, alone in the airport – had I even ever been on a flight by myself before? – here I was, all packed and ready and about to move to Africa.  “Wait!”

I held onto the chair as much to keep myself from running than anything.  I was terrified.  Would I make it?  Would I get sick?  Would I have to eat bugs?  Would I die?  And most terrifying to me of all, would I lose all my friends?  Would their lives go on without me and change and not have room for me when I came back?

I looked down that corridor and saw myself running.  “Wait!  I changed my mind!  Let’s go home!”  “Wait!”  But I couldn’t run.  Not from this fear.  Not this time.  Everyone was too proud.  I couldn’t let them down.  I couldn’t run.

“Come on Daddy Bunny, we’ve got a world to change.”

Ok, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that, though I probably did say something to Daddy Bunny.  Somehow, we moved towards the gate and we got on that plane.  I can’t say we never looked back, but we never ran.  And you know what, my worst fear did come true.  Few friends remain from before I left.  But, I’d do it all again.  Sometimes, we’re afraid most of things we needn’t fear.

Now, whenever I must confront a new challenge, a new unknown, a new fear, I remember that day, the day I found my bravery.  If I could get on that plane, I can face anything. …except peeing in the bush; I’ll never do that

 

* Ok, I’ve probably added details with the passage of time like I do with so many other “memories” as my mother likes to point out to me, but humor me.

Patterns? We Don’t Need No Stinking Patterns!

It didn’t take long for me to realize that a small sewing box wasn’t going to cut it.  Only a month into Peace Corps training, I knew I needed to do more than small mending.  And then the opportunity came. 

The Peace Corps had to send me into town to remove a different type of stitches from my leg (see 3rd-last paragraph), which meant me and the driver and the big min-bus.  “Is there anything you’d like to get while we’re in town?” the driver asked.  “Yes, a sewing machine.”  That wasn’t quite what he had in mind.  I wasn’t sure he’d go for it, but he did.  I returned to the training center with a beautiful Butterfly treadle machine. Even with my better-than-the-locals Peace Corps salary, I couldn’t afford a Singer. 

When I moved into my village, I had a mattress, a handful of dishes, and my sewing machine.  The corner store in Monze sold fabric, on a table across from the breakfast cereal and powdered milk, next to some farming gear.  Notions like buttons and zippers were available behind the counter or at a few stalls in the market.  Now, I could sew, except I didn’t have any patterns.

I had made my swearing-in dress by hand, without a pattern, but it was very simple.  That was different, impromptu, improvised; there was hardly any cutting involved, just stitching rectangles together.  I was ready for more.  I wanted a nightgown.  A light, breezy nightgown for the hot Zambian nights.  A romantic nightgown that would fit my romantic village surroundings, that would allow me to play in my pretend Pride and Prejudice or Little House on the Prairie worlds.  A nightgown that would make me feel like a princess when I carried my golden old-fashioned candle holder with the curled handle from my living room to my bedroom.  Such a nightgown needs a pattern.  And so, I made one.

I made a pattern, and I made the nightgown.  Long and flowy with a ruffle along the bottom – getting the ruffle and the bottom of the nightgown to be the same length was the hardest part – a thin yoke neckline and simple white buttons down the front.  The cream fabric, although not cotton, was still light and a loose enough weave to be cool.  It was everything I wanted.  I did feel like a princess, and a Bennet and an Ingalls.

As I sit here now, years later, in that same nightgown, it no longer has the Bennet-Ingalls-princess effect.  Something about electricity and computer screens and carpet ruins all the romanticism.  But it is still light and breezy and cool and perfect for these unusual (and delightfully) warm summer nights in the Bay.  Maybe if I turn off the lights and get my old-fashioned candle holder from my nightstand, I can feel like a princess again.

 

Another non-pattern item I made on the Butterfly: http://goldenrail.blogspot.com/2010/07/of-3rds-and-4ths.html

Too Many Choices!

We talk about how much stress there is in our lives.  One of the main contributors to this large amount of stress is all the choices we encounter everyday.  Choices require making a decision, weighing factors, gathering information.

I loved shopping in Zambia.  Need toothpaste?  Get the only one available. Milk? Choose between Cowbell or Nido.  Want cheese?  Too bad; it’s too expensive.  The small corner stores were easy to get to and easy to navigate.  They may have only had a little of anything, but they had some of anything.  In a building the size of a hotel suite, I could purchase food, fabric, candles and even farm implements if I wanted.  In and out and no hassle.  It’s quite the opposite of our US stores filled with 100 different kinds of laundry detergent and half an aisle of toothpaste, not to mention the two aisles of soft drinks.

My adventures booking my flights for Angie’s funeral perfectly exemplify how much stress choices can induce.  On each side of the journey, I had three airports to choose from. Oakland, San Francisco San Jose and Regan, Baltimore and Dulles.  For each set, there was a preferred airport but there was more to consider.

For each airport, I had to gather information about ease and cost of transit to and from the airport.  This also differed based on what time a flight would depart or land.  For example, I would normally take BART to OAK or SFO, but if the flight leaves before 7am, that’s not an option.  San Jose (SJC) had cheaper flights, but driving there from my house can take between an hour and 3.5 hours depending on traffic.  There’s Amtrak, but then that’s another schedule, etc.  You get the idea.

Aside from weighing airports, I had to look at departure and arrival schedules for each flight.  And, as mentioned above, this could impact whether or not an airport made sense in terms of being able to get to it or from it.  That’s not even considering lack of sleep.

Then there’s the flight schedules themselves.  How many layovers?  How long are the layovers?  In which airports are the layovers?   This means also needing information about the airports, how far apart gates are, their reputations for flight delays, wi-fi and food options and such.

And of course, there’s also the factors by which airlines differentiate themselves. What’s the airline’s reputation for service and being on time? How much seat room do you get?  Where are the nickel and dime points? Etc.

Oh yeah, and cost.  That one’s so big it does the first narrowing of choices and then goes off the table.

Amenity considerations like airport wi-fi and airline reputations went out the window first.  There were just too many more important things to consider.  The cheapest flight was out of San Jose and into Baltimore. Two inconvenient airports.  After some research and math, I found that once transit costs to and from the airports where added in, the cost savings was marginal.  So I was at least able to narrow the list of choices down to my preferred airport on each side.

But, there was still all this schedule stuff.  One flight had good departure and arrival times but had 2 layovers that were both only 48 minutes.  That means leaving one flight when the other is boarding, running through airports; if the first flight is delayed at all, possibly missing the second.  Another had better layovers but went through ATL.  That airport is a nightmare. Gates are far apart, flights are often delayed.

Trying to minimize the stress associated with the flight itself, I was getting stressed with the options to the point of almost just giving up.  I called a friend who I knew would understand both the frustration of trying to find the best flight option and the need to go.  She was super helpful.  By helping me prioritize the factors that had overwhelmed me, we narrowed the list to just two or three flights where schedule was the only meaningful difference.  Now I could easily decide which non-ideal was the least worst and pick a flight.  I decided that having to get up at 3:30am was a lesser evil than having short connections, and I was set.

Then the airline nickel and dimed me – all “free” seats were gone and I had to purchase special seats on 3 of my 4 flights – so I almost had to start over, re-comparing costs.  Luckily (I guess), the extra $100 in seat fees didn’t bring any other flights into the equation.

Had any one of the flight options been the only option, I would have taken it.  But having so many different choices required a whole lot of thinking.  It’s nice to have a few choices, but when I’m faced with a whole boat load of them, I really miss Zambia.

Book Review: The Slaves’ War

It was one of those books that I ordered expecting it to languish on my shelves until I should happen to be in the mood for it. Though it sounded terribly interesting, interesting enough to prompt me to buy it, it was thick and had the sort of college-course-assignment vibe to it. But it didn’t languish nearly as long as I expected, and my expectations for how long it would take me to finish were even more exceeded.

The Slaves War by Andrew Ward is billed as “The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves,” and that’s exactly what it is. Woven together with more standard historical battle accounts and report from generals are first-hand accounts from slaves collected during several interview projects in the early 20th century.

The book is arranged in chronological order, covering from just before the war through some of reconstruction. It’s incredibly interesting to see how the slaves’ ideas about and reactions to the Yankees change as the war goes on.  From an initial fear of an unknown described to them as a monster, to an almost idolizing, to disgust, distrust and near hatred, there’s a very visible evolution that comes with the war, occupation and Reconstruction.

Nearly every anecdote popular about slavery and the Civil War seems to come out as true in some area another. The South was (is) a big place and there was great variety among slave-holders, slave treatment, and direct effects of the Civil War.  Some stories of society in the mid 1880s seemed to have a striking resemblance to aspects of current society. Stop snitching has deep roots.

But for me, the most striking part of the book was this photograph from the Library of Congress,

which immediately brought to my mind this picture,

and reminded me of Ba Faye (fourth from left, back row) telling me while we were picking cotton that she wished someone would kidnap her son (front row, 2nd from left) to make him a slave because then he would be in America.

 

I recommend the book.

Note: My “Zam Fam” pic also appears on the post “Mosquitos Kill, Kill Mosquitos” from October 26, 2008.

Peace Corps: Preparation for Life

When I was in the Peace Corps, I didn’t realize it was preparing me to live in the Bay Area.

For most Peace Corps Volunteers, there’s plenty of things they learn that they realize will be useful when they get back to the States.  How to write a project proposal, outlining objectives and goals, maybe even how to start a fire.  I figured learning how to wait patiently for public transit, how to cook rice in a pot and how to deal with creep crawly things would still be useful tricks when I got back.  But there’s a whole bunch of other things I never expected to use in the US.

This past weekend, my friend Meg&Jack came over and we had a rummage sale.  I suppose bartering isn’t a surprising element at a rummage sale, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised to find myself drawing out old market day skills.

Bartering

My strategy was to decide the price I was willing to pay for the item before getting into negotiations.  I was less interested in paying the absolute lowest amount possible than in paying no more than I thought something was worth.  If the seller wouldn’t go done to my pre-set value price, I walked away.  For the rummage sale, I sort of just flipped the strategy, thinking how low would I be willing to go to part with something.  Since the sale was mostly stuff I was just trying to get rid of, this went well for buyers.

Making do with limited language skills

The surprising bit was how much I had to use my I-really-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about skills, and even more surprising, occasionally my smile-and-nod-cuz-I-don’t-give-a-vampire skills.  Nearly every person that came to the sale had a thick accent with varying degrees of English skills. 

There were the two Spanish women who asked on nearly every item, “is there another price?”  And the woman from next door who I think is from South-East Asia.  She’s got Tibetan prayer flags on her porch, but along the I-80 corridor of the East Bay, nearly everyone has Tibetan prayer flags.  An African woman stopped in briefly, but I didn’t get a chance to find out where she was from.  A younger gentleman who could have been British, Australian or even South African (I can’t tell!) came by looking for some action figures.  And there was an older gentleman who sounded as though he came from Eastern Europe a long time ago, his accent softened by years of English.  These people were all very nice and we talked only of items for sale.

I really have no idea what you’re talking about

The smile-and-nod-cuz-I-don’t-give-a-vampire skills came in with my downstairs neighbor, an elderly man from Bangladesh whom I had never actually met before this day.  He told me, and then Meg&Jack and me, repeatedly, that we shouldn’t have a rummage sale on the small street.  We should put everything in our car and just sell it out of the trunk on the busy road.  He came back later, after Megan&Jack had left and gave me the entire history of Bangladesh.  It wasn’t until about 10 minutes into it that I realized he was saying “Bangladesh.”  Understanding maybe only every 5th word, I think I got the gist. I definitely got as much as I wanted to get.  I was so relieved when he left. 

Then he came back and gave me his whole family history.  It was so, so much like a conversation that would have happened in my Zambian village.  “I moved from here to there on twenty-three April 1965 and then I went to visit my cousin in nearby city on seven June 1942 and stayed there 1, 2, 3 weeks.”   Years clearly not making sense, going backwards in time, numbers being confused.  “On 18 February, I moved here, but then I travel to India for visit to my brother and I stay 6 weeks.”  Etc, etc.  Then it got so much like a Peace Corps village story it was surreal.  “I am very poor.  My brothers and my sister, they send me money.  But my brother, he only gives me food, no money.”  And another 5 minutes about how poor he is.  In Zambia, I would have assumed a person was telling me this because they saw me as a rich muzungu and wanted me to give them money.  Here, with my neighbor saying this, I had no idea what was up.  Smile and nod; smile and nod.  And be thankful when the poor man’s cell phone rings.

Photo: one of my Zambian neighbors who would come over and just talk and talk and talk and I rarely had any idea what she was going on about

Have I Mentioned I Hate Bugs?

A Story

I was exhausted, it had been a long, hard-fought battle against the ants.  I collapsed onto my bed, my luxury princess bed in my mud and thatch castle.  The large pile of blankets atop the foam mattress felt like heaven.  I tucked a satin-cased pillow under my head and reached for my book.

Three days, it’d been at least three days, this battle with the ants.  At first there were only a few.  I didn’t mind a few, as long as they stayed on the ground or the walls.  They weren’t the impashi (“ihm-posh-eee,” fire ants) that can devour a human baby whole in a few minutes.  They were regular little ants.  And after all, inside isn’t all that much different than outside when everything’s made of mud and grass.  But then, they’d started getting into things, those pesky ants.  Climbing over the salade (“salad-eee,” cooking oil) bottle, around the balsamic vinegar cap.  Hey, that’s my breakfast!  Getting on stuff I needed to touch: the chair, the table, my sewing machine.  That was when I decided to fight back.  I had no idea it’d be so long or so torturous a fight.

At first, I just swept them out.  Short straw broom, hunched over, sweep, sweep, swee-eep.  Out go the ants, back outside where they belong.  But it wasn’t enough.

I put all the food away.  Well, the little bit that was out.  Most of the food was already tucked away in thick plastic buckets with tough snap-on lids to keep the imbebe (“ihm-bey-bah,” rats) out.  So the few glass jars and such, into the buckets they went, too.  With out any food out, there should be nothing to attract the ants.  Another sweep, sweep, swee-eep, and the ants were gone.  Briefly.  It wasn’t enough.  Time to call in reserves.

Ba Lenix, Ba Feya, Ba Joyce and Hampola came to investigate.  Where were the ants entering?  Maybe there was something we could do to block the entrance, or to make the entrance less appealing.  Considering the windows didn’t close, the roof didn’t meet the ceiling and the whole place was made out of mud, this seemed like an odd idea to me.  Oh well, anything’s worth a shot.

With the hut half emptied into the front yard, we found a few possible entry points and brushed some wood preserver around the areas.  On the brick, on the concrete, on the wood.  Sweep, sweep, swee-eep.  Goodbye ants.  Seemed good.  I rested. It wasn’t enough.  Time to call in the extra special back-up reserves: the village.

Ba Lenix had decided the ants were coming through the cracks in my concrete floor.  We emptied the hut, again, this time everything but the bed.  Ba Lenix and several men from the village began chipping away at the cracks in the cement floor.  The cracks had been small carcks, now they were deep gorges carved out with rough hoes and spare pieces of metal.  The men filled the newly enlarged cracks with new cement from a spare bag they’d scrounged up.  The previously smooth and shiny, but slightly cracked floor now looked like a relief map of the Missouri-Mississippi river system, with rough lines of various thickness running here and there.

It was done.  No more ants.  I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled.  I took out my floor polish and polished my new floor ‘til it shone brightly.  Everything was moved back into place and I polished the legs of my table and chair and bed, the bottom of my bookshelf, anything that touched the floor that the ants might want to crawl up should they come back.  There would be no more ants.  I was determined.

Finally happy and relieved, I dropped my exhausted body into that princess bed.  I lay there reading my book, muscles aching, smile on my face.  Then I felt a little tickle on my neck.  I reached my hand up to move my hair away, but as I brushed at my neck, I noticed my hair was not there.  I brought my hand back to where I could see.  There was an ant.  Slowly, stiff with fright, I rolled my head to the left.  The entire side of the bed was a wave of ants crawling over the mounds of fabric, headed straight towards me.

A Summary

That feeling, that twitch on my neck, the stiff fear that took over my body, the view of hundreds of ants coming directly towards me at eye level, it’s one of my most vivid memories from Zambia.  It was probably my hardest days there. One of those things that once it happened and I didn’t flee for the US made me realize I could handle a lot more than I ever expected.

I didn’t necessarily handle it well.  I jumped out of that bed and out of that hut as fast as I could.  I threw all the blankets and sheets  over the clothesline and hopped on my bike for town.  I  fled.

A Repeat

Today, I got to relive part of this story.  When winter starts in California, it rains.  And when it rains, ants become a problem.  I keep boric acid, and when I see some ants start to come in, I line the baseboards with boric acid.  That generally gets rid of the ants.

My roommate was supposed to move out while I was gone.  He did.  But before he did, the ants started to come.  I had emptied all the trash and put away all the food before I left.  If the ants came before my roommate left, he’d put down the boric acid and they’d be gone.  At the very least, the ants would just be trailing over empty counters.  After all, he’s a grown-up and grown-ups are responsible, right?  Nope.

Apparently, the ants did come before he left.  A lot of them came.  My roommate sprayed them with all-purpose cleaner and left them, large piles of drowned, smooshed ants all over the kitchen floor, the counter, the sink.  Knowing there were ants in the vicinity, he proceeded to leave dirty dishes in the sink, food out on the counter, and empty beer bottles and cans around the apartment.  And then he moved out.  Happy homecoming goldenrail.

Not only did I have those lovely piles of dead, drowned, smooshed ants to clean up, I also had nice streams of live, crawly, creepy ants to clean up.  Armies of ants marching across the walls.  Lines of ants going in circles on every bottle in my liquor cabinet.   A wall of ants covering the sink with its dirty dishes.  Even the faucet handles were teaming with ants.

This time, there was nowhere to run.  No reserves to enlist.  No super-special reserves to call.  Just me.  Me, a pack of cleaning gloves, a sponge and my boric acid.  Have I mentioned I hate bugs?

 

Double click for full-size terror.

December 1st is World Aids Day

It was a hot sunny day, the kind of day common most of the year in Southern Province and especially during Zambia’s hot season.  Stretched out on citenge clothes spread across the hard packed dirt of the yard, hunched over on small wooden stools, we sat together chatting and enjoying the afternoon.  The thatch overhang of the nearby mud brick hut provided welcome shade as a soft breeze rustled through the nearby mulberry tree and made the hot day comfortably pleasant.

It was the time of day for easy tasks, the types of chores that can be done in the half asleep loll of a lazy mid-afternoon, Shelling groundnuts, slicing vegetables for the evening meal, getting maize kernels off the cob.  It was also one of my favorite times of day, sitting together with the wives.  Not just enjoying the beautiful weather, but also enjoying the good company, the chats, the friends.

I couldn’t always keep up.  With the same Tonga skills as my four year-old brother, Mazoka, I was lucky to follow any of the conversations.  When the neighbors came over I was particularly lost, they talked so fast.  But the wives, Ba Fare (pronounced Feya) and Ba Joyce, they were wonderful and always tried hard to make sure I was included.  “Mwonwa?” they would ask, “do you understand?”  “Inzya,” I’d answer them.  “Yes.”  Or else just look at them with my brows furrowed and say one of my favorite Tonga words, “ndapyopyongana.”  “I am confused.”

This particular afternoon was more than just the regular small talk; there was news to share.  The second wife had gone to the nearby mission.  I knew little about her.  She lived on her parents’ compound in some nearby village and came infrequently to ours.  When she did come, it seemed it was only to yell at her husband and clean her and her daughter's hut.  She had been sick for a long time, on and off.  Everyone said that was why she lived on her parents’ compound.  I wondered if it wasn’t also because she and her husband (and the other wives) got along so poorly.

But on this day, there was no yelling, no screaming, no strange plastic items launching into the blue sky from the doorway of a small round hut.  Today there was just the quiet voices of Ba Joyce and Ba Fare as they talked about the news.  “She’s gone to the mission.”  “For a workshop?”  Lots of people go to the mission all the time for all sorts of events; it’s the center of activity for many villages across this side of Monze.

“No. She has gone to the hospital at the mission.”  I listened, unsure what it meant, stones of fear piling up in my stomach.  “She has been sick a long time.  She is sick enough now to need to be at the mission.”  “Everyone that goes to the mission hospital is tested.”  She means tested for HIV.

Understanding dawned in my eyes, I could feel them widening, my eyebrows creeping up my forehead.  I’d thought of this before; it would have been hard not to.  At this time, the HIV positive rate in Zambia was 20%, one in every five people.  I’d looked at the statistic and looked at my family.  Wife 1, Wife 2, Wife 3, Wife 4, Husband, 5.  But that was just statistics.  That was just numbers.  This was my family.

I looked at Ba Fare, afraid to ask, afraid to hear the rest.  She looked at back at me, our gazes saying more than words.  Then she laughed a sad half-laugh.  “Tuyakufwa.”  “We are all going to die.” 

We are all going to die.

Of 3rds and 4ths

Today is the 3rd of July.  That means tomorrow is the 4th of July, my 3rd favorite holiday!  (After Easter and Palm Sunday.) So, seeing as it is the 3rd before the 4th that is my 3rd, it seems like a good day to reminisce about some of my favorite 4th of July memories.

Parades

Growing up, the 4th of July meant hot, sunny days and warm nights, parades and swimming and fireworks.  Mommy and Daddy would sit on lawnchairs on the wide grassy part between the sidewalk and the street (something they don’t really have in the Bay Area).  My sisters and I would sit on the cement curb in front of them, perfectly poised to jump up and snatch some tootsie rolls when the candy-throwers came by.

Twirling

As we grew older, we did less watching and started actually being in the parades.  First it was Alfred, who joined the baton twirling corps in 1st grade.  After watching her in a few parades, I wanted to be in them, too.  So I became a banner carrier for the twirling corps.  And eventually I started to twirl as well.  I was terrible.

[Alfred marching with the Senior twirlers.]

I remember my first parade as a twirler.  Not because there was anything especially memorable – I chased my rolling baton to the curb as much as any other parade -, but because there’s a video somewhere taken by my aunt from Daly City who was out visiting us.  I approach the waiting family, including this favorite aunt we don’t get to see enough, and instead of running to give her a hug or asking for water or anything nice, I, in all my early-teenage glory stomp my feet, whip my baton through the air and yell “I’m never doing that again!” Right as one of the military guards marches past and fires their rifles, so it comes out more as “I’m never doing – BOOM *flinch* – again! *baton swing*.” 

But of course, I did do it again, many, many more parades and competitions and parents shows.  I wasn’t particularly good at twirling.   I usually won just because there weren’t any other 16 year-olds still in the Beginner category.  But it was fun, and I do love me some pretty outfits. ;)

[Beginner Miss Spring 1997; me in pretty outfit.]

Zambia

The best 4th of July parade I was ever in was the one I ran myself.  In Zambia.  On like July 10th or something. 

I was living in in Cheelo, about 2.5 hours outside of Monze.  It was my first Fourth of July outside of America.  And I was sick.  Really sick.  I spent the entire day lying on my foam mattress on the dirt floor, under my mosquito net in my small two-room hut.  It was not fun.

So I celebrated the Fourth of July when I was better a few days later.  Since I was the only American for miles, it hardly mattered that I was a few days late.  I didn’t have my special American Holiday shoes (described here) in Zambia at that point, so I had to come up with a new special outfit for this occasion.

Using my treadle sewing machine, some fabric left-over from making dresses for Peppino and Ngandu and some old bicycle spokes from when Ba Lenix repaired his bicycle, I made my first home-made corset and a matching skirt.  July is the middle of cold season in Zambia (much like the Bay), so I wore a long-sleeved leotard under my outfit.

[Me in 4th of July corset.]

I looked more like a Bavarian sheep herder than anything else, but whatever, it was still special!

[Below: The banner.]

Our Parade

Then we had our parade.  We lined up in front of my hut door, “Happy 4th of July” scrawled on my skirt pattern pieces clinging to the rough wood.  John Phillip Sousa marches warbled out of the small plastic speakers set at the hut’s base.  Bana (children), Ba Lenix, a few other grown-up men from the village and me in a line, we set off marching around the compound, waving American flags, blowing whistles, banging nsima spoons on pots, slamming pan lids together, smiling and laughing.  It was fabulous!

[Our 4th of July / 10th of July parade. Ba Lenix is the one in the camouflage shirt.]

After our exhausting parade, we popped some popcorn over the open fire and enjoyed some more of that warbley Sousa music.   What a perfect non-holiday Holiday.

1 Million Toilets for India

Did you know that there are more cell phones than toilets in India?   My goodness, can you imagine having to share a toilet with 3, 4 or 5 other people?

The people of India are suffering horribly for this lack of toilets.  Sharing toilets with more than one other person is highly unhygienic.   The facilities get dirty quickly and can not be cleaned as often as necessary to keep them free from deadly bacteria.  Obviously, since we in America require one toilet for every two people, if not one for each person, everyone else in the world deserves the same amount of toilets.  It’s a human right.

This is why my dear friend, Tremainz and I have decided to start 1 Million Toilets for India, so that children across India can grow up safe and happy, without the degradation and disease that comes from having to share a toilet with too many people.  We’re going to include everyone on the Indian subcontinent, too.  After all, country, continent, it’s all the same to us.

You Can Help!

Here’s how the project works.  You, rich white people who have never been outside your little bubble world, save for that two-week vacation to a third world country that totally changed your life, you are going to donate money and stacks of toilet tissue to us.  See how simple it is for you to help save the world!

Then we, the people of 1 Million Toilets for India, will solicit donations of old toilets from people in Africa.  We will take your money and buy more toilets from African toilet manufacturers.  Now, we’re helping those starving people in Africa, too!  Next, we’ll have those toilets and tissue packages shipped across the country of Africa to India.  This will help all sorts of local economies by employing drivers.

Once we get to India, we’ll use a group of volunteers sourced from our program staff, the African companies that donated and delivered the toilets, and some lucky donors who win our special contest to go to India and get their life totally changed, again.

What about the Indian toilet manufacturers and installers?  Who cares!  Clearly, if they knew what they were doing, India wouldn’t have this awful toilet shortage.  They must be terrible at making toilets, so we’re going to ignore them.

------------

I hope, dear readers, that you realize what is written above is totally tongue-in-cheek.  Tremainz and I did develop this idea together.  The joke amused us for several days at least.  Spawned by the 1 Million T-Shirts for Africa ridiculousness [I’m not giving it a link, google it], we went off on a sarcastic binge against junk aid.

But this foolishness about junk aid has made me begin to question what I always thought of as decent aid.  I started wondering where to draw the line.  Is any aid really decent or good?

Donations of Infringing Goods

This past week, I attended INTA, the International Trademark Association’s annual meeting.  In the Exhibition Hall, generally full of vendors peddling their oh-so-useful trademark services, was a booth for World Vision. 

World Vision was there to solicit donations.  Donations of infringing goods that would otherwise be destroyed because of their violation of trademark law.  Their display featured a series of pictures of smiling African children and adults wearing Chicago Bears Super Bowl XLI Champion t-shirts and hats.  For those of you who don’t know, the Bears didn’t win that Super Bowl.

I looked at those pictures, at first slightly amused.  It didn’t last too long.  I soon learned where those pictures were taken.  Zambia.  Monze, Zambia.  The Monze, Zambia I called home for two years.

The Local Economy

My first thought was the tailors that sit outside the store fronts in Monze or under an insaka on their family compound in the village.  My second thought was of the people sitting in the dusty, crowded market in downtown Monze, selling salaula (used clothing imported from the West) and new clothing imported from Asia.  All these people lost something when the Bears swept down on Zambia as Champions.

Setting an Example

My third thought came not from my experiences in the Zambian community where these clothes were deposited, but from my training in intellectual property law.   What message does it send when we say, “you must stop counterfeit goods” with our mouths, and with our hands, fill the country with counterfeit goods?

The US government, the Zambian government, most of the other governments in Africa, are trying to teach their citizens the value of trademarks and not to infringe others’ marks.  There are many reasons for this, I’m not going to get into all of them here.  But I will mention the one most important in this instance.

Weak protection of trademarks discourages investment in the country.  It discourages new companies from forming within a country and it discourages foreign companies from entering the local market.  Bad, bad, bad.

Long Term Effects

How can we convince Company X that it should invest in Zambia, that it should open a facility and employ thousands of people and that its company will be protected from imposters when the population is taught that there is nothing wrong with infringing goods?

How can we convince Mr. Banda he should start a new business in Zambia instead of abroad when he’ll be subject to imposters and to having his company’s market overrun by free donations from abroad?  (This later issue is addressed well in Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid.  I highly recommend it.)

Final Thoughts

I remain conflicted on World Vision’s program.  In general, I like World Vision and the organization's work.  But this clothing thing has made me question their other work as well.
I understand the idea that donating something is better than destroying it.  But how about just not making it at all?  Do we really need to have our Super Bowl champions shirts available immediately after the game?  What’s wrong with waiting a day or two? 

As for the infringing goods, how about removing the mark when possible, and recycling the materials when not.  There must be other solutions than drowning developing countries in our excess and illegal goods.

How Old are You, Again?

When I was younger, everybody always thought I was older.  Now that I’m older, people always think I’m younger.  I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been 25 my whole life.

When I was younger…

Drinking in the nsakas of the nearby pub was a common activity at the close of a long day of Peace Corps training.  Most of my fellow volunteers had their beer of choice: Mosi, Castle or Rhino.  A few had a softie: Fanta or Coke.  And I usually had a box of long life milk or a plastic carton of Super Maheau.

One afternoon, near the end of training, two of us sat together in the nsaka, waiting for the others to arrive.  Myself and the person I felt I had grown closest to during our 2 months in training.  “How old are you going to be?” My friend asked, referring to my upcoming birthday.  “23.”  “You mean you’re only 22 now?!  I thought you were older.”  She went on to explain that she didn’t mean it in a bad way, that I didn’t look old, but that I acted older, more mature.

Now that I’m older…

My roommate, The Legend, is a bit younger than me.  Just a few months older than Alfred.  He constantly forgets how old I am.  But he doesn’t just forget how old I am, he forgets how old I am in relation to him.  He always thinks I’m younger than him and that Alfred is the oldest in my family.

On more than one occasion, we’ve had conversations that go something like this:  “Alfred’s your older sister, right?”  “No, Alfred’s younger than me; she’s your age; I’m the oldest.”  Puzzled look from The Legend.  “Wait, how old are you again.”  I tell him, his face screws up into some sort of distorted I’m-thinking-but-I’m-still-confused-did-a-bird-just-poop-on-my-head look.  He spends the next 10 minutes or so trying to figure out why he can’t remember that I’m older than him and all his friends.

Always 25…

In some ways, being mistaken for younger makes more sense.  I’m such a kid at heart,  I love to play and pretend and have fun.  Mommy has referred to me as the biggest 5-year old she knows.  To which Munchkinhead quickly chimes in that I need to be at least 7, otherwise she isn’t born yet.

At the same time though, I’m slightly offended by The Legend’s inability to grasp that I am older than him.  Perhaps this is partly because I feel so much more mature than him.  And perhaps partly because I have always been the big sister, “the oldest”.

Throughout my life, I have always looked to my superiors around me for role models and examples.  For most of my life this meant adults, people older than me.  These have been the people I turn to with questions, the people I watch, the people I try to emulate.

Recently, I realized that more and more often, the role models I look to for guidance are no longer older than me.  They’re my age or younger.

This doesn’t really bother me.  I look for people with experience and knowledge, and I generally don’t take age into consideration.  But I have to wonder, is part of the reason people think I’m younger?

 

Maybe it’s a bad thing to be thought of as younger.  But maybe I’m content to be perpetually 25.  Half grown-up, half kid, all me.

Smiling from Ear to Ear

Long time readers may remember a post from over a year ago featuring a silly picture of me … hold on, I know that doesn’t narrow it down, let me finish …  of me in a pirate hat and a princess dress. 

That day I announced my new Fellowship at Creative Commons.   And on that post I said, “It couldn't get more perfect.  Yet, somehow, I think it'll still only go up from here.”  I had no idea how right I would be.

For the past bunch of months, since my first day, I’ve been working pretty steadily with CC in various forms and incarnations.  First as a Google Policy Fellow, then as an intern supported by Vanderbilt’s Public Interest Stipend – then I disappeared to take the Bar – then back as a volunteer intern.  It’s been fabulous.  I absolutely love what I’ve been doing there:  spending my days working with people in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and even Zambia!  Never thought I’d get to sign a work email “Ndalumba,”!

Well, this week, all this fabulousness got even more fabulous.  I signed on as an independent contract, part time, until after Bar results come out.  Not only do I get to keep doing the work I enjoy so I much, I get paid!

Every day, there’s a new adventure and new excitement.  My dreams are coming true and things are coming full circle.  But maybe I’ll write about that another time….

For now, Yippie!!!!!!!!!  (and I hope this good luck sticks around until results come out.)

The Most Amazing Day

When I got up this morning, I had a plan.  By 9:30am, that plan had been chucked out the window.  Why?  Well, this was in my inbox as part of the weekly school announcements:

ESLS, TELP, and the International Law Society present Mark Schultz and Alec van Gelder: "International Intellectual Property Development and the World Intellectual Property Organization"
Monday, March 23  |  12:00pm - 1:00pm  |  Moore Room
Mr. Schultz and Mr. van Gelder will be in Nashville for the Leadership Music Digital Summit, and they have kindly agreed to come to Vanderbilt Law to discuss their recently published paper, "Nashville in Africa," which discusses similarities between Nashville's music industry and currently developing creative industries in Africa.  Their talk will focus more generally on international intellectual property development.  Pizza will be served.

 

By noon, I had received several emails, including one from one of my favorite professors, making sure I had heard about the event.   Guess people know me!  Mzzzz Jones even asked if I set up the panel (that they'll be on at the Leadership Music Digital Summit).

Their paper had somehow come to my attention while I was in Nigeria, so it was saved on my computer, though I hadn't yet had a chance to read it.  Perfect time to have Adobe read it to me! (while I scrapbooked.  I am of the multi-tasking generation.)  It was very interesting.  My favorite part: Mondo Music and the large sections of the paper devoted to the Zambian music industry.  Yes, that's right, I said Zambian.  You don't happen to know anyone who knows anything about Zambian music do you?  Yeah, me neither.  ;)

So I walked up to school for the noon event.  I was sitting in the hallway, waiting for the 1Ls to empty out of our meeting room (their class room), when who should walk up, but the speakers themselves!  The student escort left them there, room still occupied by 1Ls.  It didn't take too long, we were soon all talking about about Africa and copyright.  Then my professor walked up, he knew one of the guys already and mentioned to them that he had just emailed me about their event.

Sitting in the hall, talking with the three of them, it was so neat!  I mean to just be able to sit and talk to people about the stuff I care about, wow.  Cuz really now, how many people do you know that will sit down and talk about Zambian music, the Nigerian Copyright Commission and African copyright laws with me?  Sure, sure, you all humor me (and I appreciate it!) but do you really want to talk about it?  Didn't think so.

They're speaking again at that conference tomorrow.  One of my Twitter friends gave me all the info about the conference.  (He goes to Belmont, it's at Belmont.)  I'm heading over tomorrow morning for a nice day of music, tech and IP issues.  The founder of Pandora will be there, too - could be helpful for my paper on Pandora and int'l licensing, if I can miss class.   We'll see.

What a great day!  Now I have to try to go to sleep.