We are all very tired, its 5am on Saturday morning and we have finished our last meeting. We couldn’t have spent any more time or energy this week, that’s for sure. STS concluded a facilitator training (and facilitators-to-be) around 5pm on Thursday, we had 28 graduates complete our training which covered topics like how to write a lesson plan, interactive teaching methods, as well as HIV transmission, prevention, treatment, and the immune system. The evaluation of the training by the facilitators was very positive, they were extremely appreciative of our efforts to partner with them in this ministry and share the knowledge and skills we have. We also interviewed all of our trainees individually and found that many had very impressive and admirable goals for their clubs or other kinds of HIV/AIDS ministry in 2010.
Also, I am particularly excited about working with churches to give them information, training, strategies, and support as they find God’s calling to this ministry and to the lives of their members affected by HIV and AIDS. I have several friends who already have expressed interest in teaching information to the members of their churches. I continue to be inspired by the way that God uses tragedies like the deaths of HIV+ persons to draw others closer to Himself and call their surviving family members to this ministry as part of the process of grieving, redemption, and renewal. My heart goes out to those who have persevered in this ministry for many years, seeing many they care about die along the way, and often finding resistance from persons and groups despite the fact that there is no one left in Botswana, Zambia, or perhaps Southern Africa who has not been personally, intimately affected by the stigma, suffering, poverty, anger, fear, despair, and death which HIV has wrought.
We had an amazing Friday in Murundu, playing with 100 or more children, very eager and curious about some people which appear much different than them. The Enfy’s Orphan project in Murundu which we support has made great progress in its income generation through the director’s agricultural business which includes pigs, chickens, tomatoes, potatoes, moringa, and maize. It has completed building a clinic which we are tentatively hoping to staff with a VCT counselor who will offer free, spiritually-inspired counseling and HIV testing to the residents of Murundu. 3 of our club facilitators and I are planning to pilot a health/spiritual education program with the orphans about twice a month. In fact, we believe we will need to cover many different topics which are particular to these children’s situation in Murundu and the challenges of orphanhood.
I wish safe travel and blessings to my colleagues who are returning to their homes, jobs, and families. Their desire to seek God and to give Him their vacation time and their savings to come here, and their leisure time in preparation for their trips continues to fan the passion which I have for this ministry and for God. These guys are the real deal, the vision you read on our website is lived out, and its been an awesome team to be a part of. If any of you reading this think you may be interested in what we do and why we are doing it, contact us, perhaps there is a calling somewhere there. Let God take you where He wants! Stay well.
Blessings
Johnny
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Night in Africa - from William
If you happen to be in the bush, then nighttime is exciting. At dusk, the path in front of you glows orange-red with the setting sun, and the sky is kiln-fired to a bright pink and brushed with dusty blue pigments. The earth, the sun, and the trees, the people, the birds, and the fields of maize that stretch out beside you, and even the houses are all clearly made of the same red-orange-pink-blue stuff, and that stuff is in you and in all things, and you walk among the orange stuff and you see the pink and blue stuff, and you are in all that stuff, but you are a part of all that stuff, as well, the stuff that stretches out and makes more room to let the glow of evening fill up the spaces between all things. And then the sun sets, and all the stuff of the earth is glued back together, crystallized into rigid shadows and outlines, dark on light, black superimposed on black. The sense of being a thing among related things begins to fade. You continue along the path, and the outlines of the trees loom up in front of you, guiding your turns. The path glows faintly, if there is a moon out, but early in the evening only the shadows (which are really grasses) and the sound of your feet on the sand can tell you - Yes, this is the path. The way forward is still this way!
Night time is not always quiet. In the center of the villages, the bars are blasting and thump-thump-thump-thumping Congolese rhythms, with the clear intention of deafening everyone for miles, and electric lights blaze overhead, their arcs of light askew and casting fanciful shadows of passersby and shoppers - but not shadows so much as elongations of their souls, cocked at the odd angles that the geometry of Fate might construct to contain them, bouncing off the walls of shops and the uneven leafy-ness of bushes in a mad attempt to transcend The Here, to ascend to Heaven in one quick jump. These shadows, black forms on yellow and white backgrounds, they shimmer and dance out of pace with their bodies, until they shrink down, crammed again into their vessels by enveloping darkness. The shoppers pass on, and the music is still thump-thumping.
So you turn away to the outskirts of the village. There, the night sounds fade to crickets and the path leads away from the village, back towards the fields. The smell of woodsmoke hangs limply in the air, a twinge of humanity's presence in this dark, inhuman world. A dog yips at something until another dog joins in, and another, and another, and suddenly the whole world is howling at something indistinct and thrilling, something bigger than the moon - the moon which has just peeked it's head over the tops of the distant trees, and sits there swollen and still growing, waiting for the right time to grab hold of her rightful seat in the sky - but still something not quiet as big as the sky and all the stars in it. The howls die away, and the occasional voice is heard behind you. A ladle is dropped, laughter suddenly jumps up from the nearby houses. A villager appears - really, you can't see her until she is right in front of you - walking along with a load of wood on her head. Her dress is dark fabric on dark skin enveloping her dark eyes in her head, invisible under her load are her dark tresses, so no wonder she appeared as a ghost in front of you, nothing more than shadow falling on silk. She is late coming home, didn't beat the sun back to the compound, firewood piled high, and people are waiting. Behind you, she turns a corner and disappears into the mystery of blackness that is the night, that is Africa itself.
Mystery has always bred magic. (After all, what is the magician but a controller of illusion, the Ring Master of normality, of rules and oaths, the inventor of a bubble in which things are unknown, unknowable, and mysterious?) And the mystery of night propels you forward with one swift step into the center of town. In one instant, you are in urban Africa, where night has the tang of metal ground into dust and the feel of leather worn, scuffed, and cracked. Here you notice that the air has cooled from the late afternoon rains, and the puddles catch the streetlights, flashing sodium orange globes up at you as you walk past. On raised and covered sidewalks, the evening people - a people seldom met in daylight - these people are crowding close to the artificial lights still on in store windows and hanging under the sidewalk's roof, sticking close to that thing they will not suffer in the day, churning out popcorn or samosas on charcoal fires, selling odd handkerchiefs and battered gents' watches, soliciting exotically at the edge of shadows, or barking at the yawning, toothless portals of nightclubs, from whose dimly lit interior comes the sounds of more Congolese music thump-thumping, the smell of bodies pressed tight against the real blackness, and shouts of revelry in the artificial nighttime.
Further away from the center of town, the lights fade down to just streetlamps. (The moon is still rising, but now it is obscured entirely by the trees around you.) Along the edge of the street, the sidewalk gradually gives way to a path in the grass, then fades to a track amid grasses cut low just today, then descends down to the street and over the curb, and flows away on the asphalt, invisible. You walk along the edge of the road, following the raised black-white-black-white paint of the curb. Soon, the night's orb spreads a glimmer of silver through the tops of the trees, but no light reaches down to the ground yet, just the black-white-black-white of the curb and your feet softly padding along in rhythm, left-right-left-right, still the same rhythm of the thump--thump-thump-thumping in the clubs and in the village, and the whole world is moving 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 with you. In and out of the streetlights, you walk through their pools of yellow light, the buzzing of electric daylight above. At first, your shadow leaps out behind you, stretching to grasp at the inky street, but then it is compressed around you, becomes a blanket wrapped around your body as you reach the center, then - sensing relief - it rushes again towards the nighttime on the other side. Your shadow always reaches the far side of the light first, where it waits, taunting you, but ready once again to travel with you through the nighttime.
The street is not yours alone, however. Behind you, the whistle of the cars becomes a rush becomes a crashing elephant becomes a beeping horn - Do you need a Taxi, my Friend? - and then flies past, leaving a womp-womp-womp-womp sound of unevenly filled tires on unevenly worn pavement and the light in front is replaced with the dull, red-orange-amber, evil grin of the tail lights, watching you with warning and malice - Don't Follow Me! In the opposite lane, the cars appear as if by angelic appointment, just two (but often only one) white globes suspended near where you think the horizon might be. Again the whistle and the rush and the crash of elephants and also a beeping horn - Should I take you to your destination, Boss? - and then it passes you, showing you the same demonic smile, issuing the same demonic warning - Don't Follow Me! A dog darts across the road, tail between her legs, not trespassing into the light, just skirting the edge of the street lamp's domain. Other people walk along - before and behind you - their dark skins reflecting only brown and orange light under the streetlamps, then disappearing into the night between the lights again, and again glowing, now disappearing, until they turn off the road and into a compound or down a side street.
You walk along 1-2-1-2 until you pass under the last streetlamp. The darkness is there, waiting. Now the people walking along here are fewer. And, like the woman in the field, they appear as a whisper of motion, more of a hint of being there than something truly seen, just at the edge of vision where night takes Truth and Knowing and Safety and smelts them all into mystery.The lights of the houses on either side stab brightly into the dark, short rapiers thrust into the folds of something much to large to comprehend, let alone wound or slay. You look away because they rob you of what little perception can be had without moon or sun or torch to light the road in front of you. Now the road is becoming rutted, riddled with potholes. The cars no longer speed past you, but creep, winding along various paths of their own designing, seeking the low, smooth bottom of the road - a rivulet flowing through a river otherwise tormented by rocks, eddies, and whitewater. When the headlights of the cars catch people moving in front of them, their silhouette stands out from the ankles upwards but disappears at the knees, melting back into darkness. Their shadows reach out in front of them, though, tall and proud and you can't begin to tell which of these mysterious figures belongs to whom, for is it the shadow standing in the air or lying along the ground?
You leave these troubling ghouls of nighttime and walk to the edge of town. Again, you have reached the fields and the bush, and you stand at the top of a rise, which descends slowly to a river before rising again to the forest on the other side. All of this you can see clearly - the mango trees lining the path, their branches loaded with sweet fruits, the grasses swaying along the river's edge, bowing in obeiscence to the soft breeze, the outline of a house across the bank, and the lines of maize and sweet potato beds running in exact parallel through it all, criss-crossed by the wandering paths carved out by ten thousand feet. A veil of moonlight seems laid down upon the earth, illuminating most things, but revealing nothing in the face of her mystery.
-William
Night time is not always quiet. In the center of the villages, the bars are blasting and thump-thump-thump-thumping Congolese rhythms, with the clear intention of deafening everyone for miles, and electric lights blaze overhead, their arcs of light askew and casting fanciful shadows of passersby and shoppers - but not shadows so much as elongations of their souls, cocked at the odd angles that the geometry of Fate might construct to contain them, bouncing off the walls of shops and the uneven leafy-ness of bushes in a mad attempt to transcend The Here, to ascend to Heaven in one quick jump. These shadows, black forms on yellow and white backgrounds, they shimmer and dance out of pace with their bodies, until they shrink down, crammed again into their vessels by enveloping darkness. The shoppers pass on, and the music is still thump-thumping.
So you turn away to the outskirts of the village. There, the night sounds fade to crickets and the path leads away from the village, back towards the fields. The smell of woodsmoke hangs limply in the air, a twinge of humanity's presence in this dark, inhuman world. A dog yips at something until another dog joins in, and another, and another, and suddenly the whole world is howling at something indistinct and thrilling, something bigger than the moon - the moon which has just peeked it's head over the tops of the distant trees, and sits there swollen and still growing, waiting for the right time to grab hold of her rightful seat in the sky - but still something not quiet as big as the sky and all the stars in it. The howls die away, and the occasional voice is heard behind you. A ladle is dropped, laughter suddenly jumps up from the nearby houses. A villager appears - really, you can't see her until she is right in front of you - walking along with a load of wood on her head. Her dress is dark fabric on dark skin enveloping her dark eyes in her head, invisible under her load are her dark tresses, so no wonder she appeared as a ghost in front of you, nothing more than shadow falling on silk. She is late coming home, didn't beat the sun back to the compound, firewood piled high, and people are waiting. Behind you, she turns a corner and disappears into the mystery of blackness that is the night, that is Africa itself.
Mystery has always bred magic. (After all, what is the magician but a controller of illusion, the Ring Master of normality, of rules and oaths, the inventor of a bubble in which things are unknown, unknowable, and mysterious?) And the mystery of night propels you forward with one swift step into the center of town. In one instant, you are in urban Africa, where night has the tang of metal ground into dust and the feel of leather worn, scuffed, and cracked. Here you notice that the air has cooled from the late afternoon rains, and the puddles catch the streetlights, flashing sodium orange globes up at you as you walk past. On raised and covered sidewalks, the evening people - a people seldom met in daylight - these people are crowding close to the artificial lights still on in store windows and hanging under the sidewalk's roof, sticking close to that thing they will not suffer in the day, churning out popcorn or samosas on charcoal fires, selling odd handkerchiefs and battered gents' watches, soliciting exotically at the edge of shadows, or barking at the yawning, toothless portals of nightclubs, from whose dimly lit interior comes the sounds of more Congolese music thump-thumping, the smell of bodies pressed tight against the real blackness, and shouts of revelry in the artificial nighttime.
Further away from the center of town, the lights fade down to just streetlamps. (The moon is still rising, but now it is obscured entirely by the trees around you.) Along the edge of the street, the sidewalk gradually gives way to a path in the grass, then fades to a track amid grasses cut low just today, then descends down to the street and over the curb, and flows away on the asphalt, invisible. You walk along the edge of the road, following the raised black-white-black-white paint of the curb. Soon, the night's orb spreads a glimmer of silver through the tops of the trees, but no light reaches down to the ground yet, just the black-white-black-white of the curb and your feet softly padding along in rhythm, left-right-left-right, still the same rhythm of the thump--thump-thump-thumping in the clubs and in the village, and the whole world is moving 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 with you. In and out of the streetlights, you walk through their pools of yellow light, the buzzing of electric daylight above. At first, your shadow leaps out behind you, stretching to grasp at the inky street, but then it is compressed around you, becomes a blanket wrapped around your body as you reach the center, then - sensing relief - it rushes again towards the nighttime on the other side. Your shadow always reaches the far side of the light first, where it waits, taunting you, but ready once again to travel with you through the nighttime.
The street is not yours alone, however. Behind you, the whistle of the cars becomes a rush becomes a crashing elephant becomes a beeping horn - Do you need a Taxi, my Friend? - and then flies past, leaving a womp-womp-womp-womp sound of unevenly filled tires on unevenly worn pavement and the light in front is replaced with the dull, red-orange-amber, evil grin of the tail lights, watching you with warning and malice - Don't Follow Me! In the opposite lane, the cars appear as if by angelic appointment, just two (but often only one) white globes suspended near where you think the horizon might be. Again the whistle and the rush and the crash of elephants and also a beeping horn - Should I take you to your destination, Boss? - and then it passes you, showing you the same demonic smile, issuing the same demonic warning - Don't Follow Me! A dog darts across the road, tail between her legs, not trespassing into the light, just skirting the edge of the street lamp's domain. Other people walk along - before and behind you - their dark skins reflecting only brown and orange light under the streetlamps, then disappearing into the night between the lights again, and again glowing, now disappearing, until they turn off the road and into a compound or down a side street.
You walk along 1-2-1-2 until you pass under the last streetlamp. The darkness is there, waiting. Now the people walking along here are fewer. And, like the woman in the field, they appear as a whisper of motion, more of a hint of being there than something truly seen, just at the edge of vision where night takes Truth and Knowing and Safety and smelts them all into mystery.The lights of the houses on either side stab brightly into the dark, short rapiers thrust into the folds of something much to large to comprehend, let alone wound or slay. You look away because they rob you of what little perception can be had without moon or sun or torch to light the road in front of you. Now the road is becoming rutted, riddled with potholes. The cars no longer speed past you, but creep, winding along various paths of their own designing, seeking the low, smooth bottom of the road - a rivulet flowing through a river otherwise tormented by rocks, eddies, and whitewater. When the headlights of the cars catch people moving in front of them, their silhouette stands out from the ankles upwards but disappears at the knees, melting back into darkness. Their shadows reach out in front of them, though, tall and proud and you can't begin to tell which of these mysterious figures belongs to whom, for is it the shadow standing in the air or lying along the ground?
You leave these troubling ghouls of nighttime and walk to the edge of town. Again, you have reached the fields and the bush, and you stand at the top of a rise, which descends slowly to a river before rising again to the forest on the other side. All of this you can see clearly - the mango trees lining the path, their branches loaded with sweet fruits, the grasses swaying along the river's edge, bowing in obeiscence to the soft breeze, the outline of a house across the bank, and the lines of maize and sweet potato beds running in exact parallel through it all, criss-crossed by the wandering paths carved out by ten thousand feet. A veil of moonlight seems laid down upon the earth, illuminating most things, but revealing nothing in the face of her mystery.
-William
Thursday, January 7, 2010
1/7/10 from Johnny
Hello friends,
I am very excited to be posting on the STS Trip Blog for January 2010. First, I am very excited to begin a year in which I will be working for STS from Mufulira, a ministry which I feel the Lord has been preparing for me over the past few years and which I am deeply grateful to be a part of. The first few days (and travel from Virginia to Mufulira which began on Friday 5pm at Richmond Intl Airport and ended Monday at 5pm when I was dropped off at the bus station in Mufulira), I have felt the Lord’s hand on me and on the group of Americans and Zambians which are spending this week in training in preparation to lead the clubs we are coordinating in several communities across the Copperbelt. Today was especially powerful- we had some really beautiful and moving worship to start the day and just before lunch break. The way that Zambians allow music, song, and dance to attune their spirits to worship resonates with me, I dig it! Despite their already impressive enthusiasm for and ability to soak up all of the training sessions’ content, the facilitators continually bless us with their passion to take their learning back to their students and to plan outreach activities to cover an even greater number of people (many of whom were not and are not reached by government and other NGO programs).
1 Thess. 5:11,14 was embodied through an amazing testimony from a Zambian woman who shared with our facilitators the fact that she has tested HIV+, the struggles she had experienced before she came to accept her status, and the overwhelming love of God which has given her a renewed sense of belonging and purpose in Christ. Likewise, many of us were encouraged by her request to test, thus knowing our HIV status, and we had # test today, some of whom it was their first time. Praise God!
Pastor Terry shared a message on “Vision,” it was a powerful word which the Lord gave us through him! I could feel everyone’s spirit buzzing, as a result, we transitioned directly into some awesome praise songs. Pastor Terry said that there are people who don’t know what is happening, people who ask “whats happening?” and finally people who makes things happen. God’s calling of our Zambian and American volunteers to this ministry is evidence that He is with us, He is in the lives of the people we live and work with and pass on the street, and that He is making things happen! My prayer is that we continue in faith and obedience, allowing the Spirit to work in our lives and in STS’s activities.
The community which I have already found and which I expect to build an even deeper relationship with in the volunteers and other persons associated with STS is something that I have been thanking God for constantly, and I encourage anyone who is reading this trip’s blog who has experienced the same reception and fellowship with STS as I have to find an opportunity to let them know what they mean to you.
Monday, January 4, 2010
1/4/10 from Jami
Our early morning started around 6:30am. After fighting with my mosquito net for the vast majority of the night, the morning came too soon! Note to all, duct tape doesn't really stick to anything when it's hot and humid. I will describe our first day at the STS training seminar here in Mufuliria, Zambia as wonderful with a hint of frustration. Six of the STS Facilitators were present for the training today as well as former students from STS clubs. Some logistics such as food, snacks, transport, lodging, quality of accommodations, water and don't forget talk time have been requested throughout the day, hence most of our frustrations. The training session in contrast have been nothing short of awesome. All the discussions, learning, participation, attentiveness from everyone is refreshing and lends itself to the hope that there really is change being made in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. During my discussion with my group on Attitudes in the Classroom, I have them act out difficult scenarios and they are to role play to work on dealing with difficult conflict. One exercise required that two boys be talking and are being disruptive to the class. The one teaching realizes this and has to deal with it accordingly. The ones participating in this exercise acted so perfectly that I thought they were reading my notes from my working notebook. Johnny had arrived back from holiday and visited us at the Church Planting School. Once the day was complete we fit six people into a taxi and drove to 158 Jomo Kenyta! There we were greeted by Shadi and family as well as the smell of wonderfully good home cooked food. Reuben is the designated cook on this travel trip. It's nice to have someone in the house who actually "likes" to cook and does a great job. There were nightly indabas, my mosquito net was diligently fixed by Mr. Porter who's become the STS rope tying expert. Matt also brought a flashlight that has a red laser pointer combination. Therefore, it became a means of entertainment for the evening. The children at the house "loved" chasing it as it was moved across the ground. I've never heard Elizabeth (Shade's little girl) laugh so much. It was fun to watch them chase the laser around, play and have fun.
It's raining, for the very first time, on me here in Zambia! It's amazing. I've been coming here for many years and have barely seen a cloud in the sky. Now I've experienced what it's like here in the rainy season. At various times throughout the afternoon it pours rain. I've started to keep track of the times to see if I can see a pattern. My station in the training seminar is located outside, at the Church Plant School, under an awning. This location isn't very good if it starts to pour rain. A good rule of thumb is to make sure all your supplies are in bags, if traveling during the rainy season!
All-in-all it was a wonderful day and it's nice to be back home in Zambia! We're all looking for what's to come during this week's seminar.
Thanks,
Jami
It's raining, for the very first time, on me here in Zambia! It's amazing. I've been coming here for many years and have barely seen a cloud in the sky. Now I've experienced what it's like here in the rainy season. At various times throughout the afternoon it pours rain. I've started to keep track of the times to see if I can see a pattern. My station in the training seminar is located outside, at the Church Plant School, under an awning. This location isn't very good if it starts to pour rain. A good rule of thumb is to make sure all your supplies are in bags, if traveling during the rainy season!
All-in-all it was a wonderful day and it's nice to be back home in Zambia! We're all looking for what's to come during this week's seminar.
Thanks,
Jami
1/4/10 from Megan (HIV Ed Team)
Happy birthday to me. Feel free to send presents. You’ll need lots of postage.
In other news, we have successfully arrived in Mufulira. The train ride from Dar Es Salaam across Tanzania and into Zambia was amazing. The scenery in Tanzania is gorgeous (puts Zambia to shame) and once we got up onto the plateau, it was blissfully cool. Which means that we spent the first 12 hours in extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity - 7 people plus 14 bags in a 2nd class compartment intended for 6 people with presumably no luggage whatsoever. We had to pile the bags on one of the bunks, so we slept seven people on 5 narrow bunks. I use the term “slept” loosely, since you have to wake up every 30 minutes at a minimum to adjust your position (“my tailbone!”, “oh, my hip”, “my arm is asleep”, “I can’t feel my legs”, etc. for 6 hours) and to prevent yourself falling onto the cockroach-infested floor when the train makes sudden stops.
The cockroaches were actually a late addition, when our first car was deemed unfit for service (something that sadly could not be fixed with a four foot pipe wrench and excessive banging on the joint between the cars). They said we had to get out of the car and unload all our bags through the window so we could stand on the side of the tracks in the rain for an undetermined amount of time. We declined that offer and opted to simply move our bags into the next car while the whole train moved forward and back on the tracks for about an hour. Apparently there is not a clear procedure for replacing a car (which could be construed as a good thing if it doesn't need to happen that often, but judging by the number of abandoned, tipped over, and rusted out cars along the route, I’d say the normal procedure is simply to dump the offending car and let the passengers walk to the next destination). They did eventually succeed in inserting the staff car where ours had been, but the staff gets the short end of the stick when it comes to quality living conditions. Jim is our master cockroach stomper, and taught us a thing or two about how not to jump onto the benches and scream like little girls at the site of a scurrying, hideous, creepy critter (you may be noticing a theme here by now).
Aside from that, the ride at large was awesome. We did see a herd of giraffes (twiga = giraffe, in Swahili), a couple warthogs, and a bunch of antelope things which may have been impala. It was fun seeing all the people run out to the train as it passed – they come through twice a week, but the kids still get really excited and there are a bunch of people selling things through the windows at every stop. We also met some interesting people on board, including a nice chatty guy with the MCC (Mennonite something something) working in Zambia, and a couple girls with FORGE, which also stands for something, doing aid work in Zambia. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep so you’ll have to forgive the lack of details. The food was pretty good, and we only had one upset stomach (which actually resulted in tossed cookies out the window of the moving train – one more reason not to stick your head out the window unless absolutely necessary – you don’t want to be downwind of that…).
We arrived about 6 hours late, but were greeted by William (yay! Newly arrived from the states via Johannesburg) and Felix, who works for Zamtel up in Muf, and two other Zambians we’d never met before. You’ll be delighted to hear that a 7 passenger minivan can in fact hold 8 STS’ers, 3 Zambians, a million bags AND a stray Canadian who needed a lift to Ndola. So yeah, 3 hours in the van made those dingy train cars look like the Hilton. But we made it safe and sound, and got to enjoy a substantial rainstorm on the way. Good times.
We did some HIV ed stuff today, but I’ll leave that for the next blogger, since it’s not my birthday anymore, and I need some sleep. Sendamenipoe, mukwai (we’re back in Bemba territory now).
Megan
In other news, we have successfully arrived in Mufulira. The train ride from Dar Es Salaam across Tanzania and into Zambia was amazing. The scenery in Tanzania is gorgeous (puts Zambia to shame) and once we got up onto the plateau, it was blissfully cool. Which means that we spent the first 12 hours in extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity - 7 people plus 14 bags in a 2nd class compartment intended for 6 people with presumably no luggage whatsoever. We had to pile the bags on one of the bunks, so we slept seven people on 5 narrow bunks. I use the term “slept” loosely, since you have to wake up every 30 minutes at a minimum to adjust your position (“my tailbone!”, “oh, my hip”, “my arm is asleep”, “I can’t feel my legs”, etc. for 6 hours) and to prevent yourself falling onto the cockroach-infested floor when the train makes sudden stops.
The cockroaches were actually a late addition, when our first car was deemed unfit for service (something that sadly could not be fixed with a four foot pipe wrench and excessive banging on the joint between the cars). They said we had to get out of the car and unload all our bags through the window so we could stand on the side of the tracks in the rain for an undetermined amount of time. We declined that offer and opted to simply move our bags into the next car while the whole train moved forward and back on the tracks for about an hour. Apparently there is not a clear procedure for replacing a car (which could be construed as a good thing if it doesn't need to happen that often, but judging by the number of abandoned, tipped over, and rusted out cars along the route, I’d say the normal procedure is simply to dump the offending car and let the passengers walk to the next destination). They did eventually succeed in inserting the staff car where ours had been, but the staff gets the short end of the stick when it comes to quality living conditions. Jim is our master cockroach stomper, and taught us a thing or two about how not to jump onto the benches and scream like little girls at the site of a scurrying, hideous, creepy critter (you may be noticing a theme here by now).
Aside from that, the ride at large was awesome. We did see a herd of giraffes (twiga = giraffe, in Swahili), a couple warthogs, and a bunch of antelope things which may have been impala. It was fun seeing all the people run out to the train as it passed – they come through twice a week, but the kids still get really excited and there are a bunch of people selling things through the windows at every stop. We also met some interesting people on board, including a nice chatty guy with the MCC (Mennonite something something) working in Zambia, and a couple girls with FORGE, which also stands for something, doing aid work in Zambia. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep so you’ll have to forgive the lack of details. The food was pretty good, and we only had one upset stomach (which actually resulted in tossed cookies out the window of the moving train – one more reason not to stick your head out the window unless absolutely necessary – you don’t want to be downwind of that…).
We arrived about 6 hours late, but were greeted by William (yay! Newly arrived from the states via Johannesburg) and Felix, who works for Zamtel up in Muf, and two other Zambians we’d never met before. You’ll be delighted to hear that a 7 passenger minivan can in fact hold 8 STS’ers, 3 Zambians, a million bags AND a stray Canadian who needed a lift to Ndola. So yeah, 3 hours in the van made those dingy train cars look like the Hilton. But we made it safe and sound, and got to enjoy a substantial rainstorm on the way. Good times.
We did some HIV ed stuff today, but I’ll leave that for the next blogger, since it’s not my birthday anymore, and I need some sleep. Sendamenipoe, mukwai (we’re back in Bemba territory now).
Megan
1/4/10 from Reuben (Moringa Team)
Mulishani mukwai? (hello, how are you? in Bimba) and Habari yaku (Hello, in Swahili).
The team has concluded our work for this trip in Tanzania and traveled on to Mufurila. We learned just a little bit of Swahili while in Dar es Salaam and are now back in the copper belt of Zambia, muddling our way in Bimba. I do wish I had more of a gift for language, English included.
During the last STS workshop day in Dar es Salaam the team prepared about 50 planting bags and distributed them to interested pastors and students at the workshop. Several people were very excited about the moringa information we provided and were discussing organizing local projects to promote the trees and knowledge of their health and nutrition benefits.
After our two day travel by train to Zambia, we began our first working day this morning (04 Jan 2010). The moringa trees at Dr. Thinus's house are looking very well, healthy, and full of leaves and pods. We plan to harvest leaves and make moringa powder for the orphanage in Burundi. The Mufurila saw mill provided the lumber required to build drying trays and we nearly completed construction of 10 trays and a rack.
It's great to be back in Zambia and greeting again the people we know here.
Reuben
The team has concluded our work for this trip in Tanzania and traveled on to Mufurila. We learned just a little bit of Swahili while in Dar es Salaam and are now back in the copper belt of Zambia, muddling our way in Bimba. I do wish I had more of a gift for language, English included.
During the last STS workshop day in Dar es Salaam the team prepared about 50 planting bags and distributed them to interested pastors and students at the workshop. Several people were very excited about the moringa information we provided and were discussing organizing local projects to promote the trees and knowledge of their health and nutrition benefits.
After our two day travel by train to Zambia, we began our first working day this morning (04 Jan 2010). The moringa trees at Dr. Thinus's house are looking very well, healthy, and full of leaves and pods. We plan to harvest leaves and make moringa powder for the orphanage in Burundi. The Mufurila saw mill provided the lumber required to build drying trays and we nearly completed construction of 10 trays and a rack.
It's great to be back in Zambia and greeting again the people we know here.
Reuben
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)