Clever

Back in my early days at Namumu I spent the majority of my time working and interacting with old men. Munjongo, Namumu’s former Executive Director, Edwin, Namumu’s Finance Manager, and Jailas, Namumu’s Administration Manager are all up there in age. Mubita, our fishing Rig Foreman is up there as well. Nearly all day every day these were my only workmates and friends around the office.

They’re all great. It’s been wonderful getting to know these guys. But sometimes you just need to be around people your own age.

Fortunately, these days I’ve got Clever.

Clever, 25, is Namumu’s young Accounts Assistant (not to be confused with Zenzo, Namumu’s other Accounts Assistant), and while he’s only worked at Namumu for a few months he’s been connected to Namumu for some time. Clever was never a Namumu resident, but as he was a bright student with limited funds, Namumu supported him financially and helped him to graduate from college with an Accounting Degree. So, in a sense, Clever is a product of Namumu.

With Clever’s grades and skill set he could have easily found a more prestigious, better paying job elsewhere in Zambia. But out of gratitude to Namumu for its assistance to him Clever has chosen to come back to Siavonga to work. It’s nice to see that kind of commitment and sacrifice. I’ve had a few conversations with Clever about his future plans and not once has he hesitated in his commitment to give back to Namumu by staying and working here. I believe the eventual plan is for him to take over the Finance Manager position when Mr. Luneta retires.

Clever’s commitment has had an impact on me, and I’m proud to say that I have had an impact on him as well. He’s started growing a beard as of late, and while he’s never come out and said it I know that I was his inspiration. That’s just what my beard does, folks. It inspires people.

So, today give a prayer of thanks that Clever is around and working hard for Namumu, and that he is committed to doing so in the future.

Tonga Insults

I had a breakthrough moment in terms of Tonga language acquisition the other day.

I was sitting in the Namumu office, crunching kapenta numbers, when Zenzo, Namumu’s Assistant Accountant, my good friend and co-worker, entered through the front door. As he was stepping through he shouted something to someone outside.

“Zenzo, you’re too loud, I’m trying to work here!” I yelled at him in Tonga, jokingly.

Just to be clear, Zenzo and I verbally abuse each other in both Tonga and English on a daily basis. So it was cool. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He quickly shot back in Tonga, “Shut your mouth! You are a dirty white man. Look at you! You are dirty like a dog. Get out of my office!”

And guess what? I understood every word of it! Every single word! I was so proud of myself. Usually I can just pick up bits and pieces, but in this case, for maybe the first time ever, I got the whole thing.

The moment has inspired me to step up my Tonga game, especially to learn more Tonga insults. Zenzo is in big, big trouble now.

I Only Caught Five

Remember how back in September I posted a blog about how well fishing was going, about how we’d had a record-breaking month and made a truckload of loot for Namumu? Well, I totally jinxed us again. During the following months we saw a slow, steady decline in catches and a slow, steady incline in repair and maintenance costs. It was a disaster.

A combination of issues came into play.

We went through a period where the kapenta seemed to be hiding from us. Actually, all local fishing camps experienced extremely poor catches. A good friend of mine who runs one of the bigger companies in town and has been fishing for 29 years told me that January was very close to the worst month she’d seen in all her years in the business, and that October, November and December had not been much better. So, we were not the only ones catching poorly. The kapenta apparently decided to hide from everyone.

Around the end of October, Pierson, the captain of one of the boats and the outspoken leader of the group, resigned for unstated reasons. Pierson was my rock. He was the most experienced of the group and, more importantly, was always a happy, talkative, positive person who worked hard and whose attitude always seemed to rub off on everyone else around him. It hurt us when Pierson left. It hurt us badly.

Then, to top it all off, the generator on one of the boats kicked it in early January. It had fallen in the water some months ago and, despite a number of semi-successful efforts by a few local mechanics to bring it back to life it finally bit the big one, forcing us to buy a new one. And those things ain’t cheap around here.

To make it all worse, Mubita, the guys and I received quite a bit of criticism from certain members of the Namumu management team for the overall poor performance. I’ve made many mistakes here and am always willing to admit when I do, but in this case I felt then as I do now that we were being criticized for circumstances beyond our control, that we had worked as hard as we could work and had done as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Apparently others didn’t. It was tough to deal with.

Words cannot express the anger and frustration I experienced at numerous points during this period. All I really needed was someone to hug me and tell me everything was going to be alright. Unfortunately, Zambians aren’t particularly big on hugging, so I was out of luck. Oh, how I longed for the days of Nolan Doyle’s free hugs. I was really down. I tried expressing my inner anguish through the majesty of song, singing “Afternoon Delight” and making fart noises with my mouth, but even that didn’t help.

Fortunately, things have been looking up lately. Both boats have, despite experiencing a few intermittent problems, been up and running all February. Catches are good and we’re making some dough again. The overall mood of the group seems to be shifting towards the positive.
Let’s hope this continues. I’ll keep you posted.

The White Man's Coming to Eat You!

(Today’s blog is children-based...enjoy)

Walking around Siavonga, especially when passing through out-of-the-way villages, I’ll often come across children who have obviously seen few whites before in their young lives. Some, more than likely, have never seen a single white man before. By now, most of the local kids know me and come to wave and say hello. Some are still a bit wary when I come around. And some are downright terrified.

They’re always the smallest ones. They start by staring and looking perplexed for just a moment. They begin to back-peddle and run towards the nearest friend or family member, holding on for protection. I’ve seen it a thousand times. I’d say a good 50 percent of them start crying. A lot.

And, keep in mind, in these cases all I’m doing is walking by.

It used to upset me, almost hurting my feelings. I didn’t like it at all. Sometime a few months ago, however, I turned a corner and started having a little fun.

Now, whenever I see a child in the initial perplexed stage, preparing to back-peddle and cry, I stop, turn towards them and start walking, faster and faster. I show my teeth and start growling, putting my hands up and showing my claws. Sometimes I yell out, in Tonga, “Here comes the white man!” or “I’m going to eat you!” or both. Man, do they freak.

It’s awesome and strangely satisfying. It always gets great reactions from the nearby parents, too. They think it’s hilarious. They’ve seen white people before and most of them know me by now, so it’s all cool. They always stand there chuckling while their children are screaming and crying in utter terror at their feet. It’s great.

I know, I know, I’m a terrible person. But, the way I see it, I’m working all day every day to support orphans and vulnerable children in southern Africa and I’ve earned the right to strike a little fear into certain children’s hearts every now and again.

That’s my rationalization and I’m sticking to it.

Speaking of children, my little man next door, Junior, continues to grow up right before my eyes. When I arrived in Siavonga last year all he did was crawl and cry and poop on everything. But my little man is really coming along. Now he’s running around and stirring up trouble on a daily basis. He talks all the time, speaking what appears to be a mixture of Tonga, English and Chinese, though none of us are exactly sure. He can say about ten actual words, and I’m happy to say that Sam is one of them. I’m happy not only because it feels good that he knows and likes me now, but also because he stopped calling me “Tata”, or father, before any rumors got started. Phew.

Finally, the other day I came about as close to using corporal punishment as I have in all my time here at Namumu.

I was walking back from church with three of my little Namumu minions, Clivert, Bickel and Shankister. We had gone out to St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Mitcho, about an hour’s walk from Namumu, so we had plenty of time to chat on the way home. It’s always a nice walk, providing me with plenty of time to shoot the breeze and catch up with my kids.

So, there I was, chatting it up with said minions. We drifted into a conversation about music. These kids know a good number of American artists, but for the most part they’re all into crappy Zambian pop music.

I asked Clivert if he was into this one youngish female singer who goes by the name “Mampi”. No, he said, he wasn’t. Why not? I inquired. Well, first off, it’s the way she dances...she’s too provocative (his exact words). And her clothes. She’s always showing too much skin. She should cover up more, he said.

I was really proud of ol’ Clivert. Here’s one boy with a good head on his shoulders, I thought, one who won’t be pulled in by temptations of the flesh. I gave him a pat on the back and told him that those were good reasons (though, ironically, her dancing and skimpy outfits are the primary reasons I am completely in love with Mampi, but whetever...).

That’s when things took a turn for the worse.

You know who else I don’t like? Clivert said out of nowhere. Michael Jackson.

Wait. What?

Yeah. Michael Jackson is not that great. I don’t know why everybody loves him so much.

Then, as my anger began to rise, he threw in the kicker.

You know who is much better? T-Pain!

I nearly lost it. Immediately I had visions of pulling Clivert off to the roadside and George Lyle-ing his behind with my leather belt for speaking such nonsense. I didn’t . I held myself together.

But I was close.

Babies Everywhere!

Babies seem to be popping out everywhere around Namumu these days. In fact, two Namumu employees saw their wives give birth late Tuesday night around the same time.

First, my right hand kapenta man, Mubita, saw his wife give birth to a bouncing baby boy, their fourth child and fourth boy.

I felt bad because I had no idea that she was pregnant, even though I’d seen her a few times in the past few months. Whoops. I figured it was nsima weight. Apparently it was baby weight.

Mubita came into work as usual on Wednesday morning and was planning on working because, as I’ve said, that’s just what kind of guy he is, a hard-worker. I yelled at him and told him to go take care of his wife, which he did right away.

Then there’s Kanyama, Namumu’s poultry attendant, whose wife’s delivery was a bit more of an adventure.

Apparently she went into labor around midnight on Tuesday night. There are no ambulances in Siavonga, so Kanyama called Alfred, Namumu’s driver, and told him to bring the Namumu SUV (Namumu’s only functioning vehicle at the moment), the Toyota Surf. So, Alfred rushed to pick them up to drive them into town, usually a rocky, bumpy, 10 minute venture.

Well, the Surf must have rocked a bit too much, because before they had made it very far away from the Namumu complex that baby popped right out, right in the back seat, as they were driving. It’s by no means a big vehicle, so still I’m struggling to grasp the play-by-play of the incident. Fortunately, Mrs. Kanyama and the baby were both a-ok. Alfred brought them back to the Namumu clinic and Saviour, the Namumu girls’ caretaker and nursing assistant, took care of Mrs. Kanyama and baby Kanyama.

But you know what the most interesting thing about the whole thing was? I was talking with Alfred and Kanyama the next day about it and they were both so incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing. I kept asking them questions and saying how crazy the situation sounded and they just looked at me like I was a total idiot. It was just so not that big a deal for them. I guess it’s pretty common for babies in rural Zambia to just come out where they come out.

The next day the same Surf carried a number of Namumu employees to the bank as usual. Nobody seemed to mind sitting in a seat where a baby had been brought into the world just hours earlier. And you know what? I said to myself “When in Rome...” and hopped right on in too.

A Week in Zimbabwe

Well, the travel bug done got me again. I’m finding it harder and harder to stay in one place these days.

The Man, the Myth, the Legend, Bill Warlick of Park Lake Presbyterian Church in Orlando came to Namumu two weeks ago to check up on things, one of a number of stops he was to make around southern Africa. He had told me some time before that he’d be coming to Siavonga for a night and that he would then be flying down to Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city, to meet up with his wife, my homegirl, Nancy. He told me that if I could work out my own transportation I could join them in checking up on some of the Outreach Foundation’s projects there. So I did, and I did.

It was difficult to leave Namumu behind again so soon, on the heels of my most recent foray into Livingstone. Fortunately, these days the Namumu businesses are at the point where they can run on autopilot for a few days without close supervision. And my loyal readers assured me that they would continue reading by themselves in my absence. So, I once again packed my bags and headed out of Siavonga.

I was only in Zimbabwe for a few days, but I learned a good deal about the country. Nancy and Bill had lived in Harare for years, so they taught me a lot. We met up with a number of their friends who have lived there for years. They taught me a lot. And we visited a number of schools and organizations, chatting with social workers, teachers, students and street children. The taught me a lot too.

Let me tell you something. That country is in bad shape, and most anybody you talk to there will readily admit it. There’s massive unemployment, HIV rates through the roof, high crime rates and a great deal of hunger. It was difficult to witness. And keep in mind, this is coming from a guy who has spent the last eleven months living in one of the world’s poorest countries.

I know that God has a plan for Zimbabwe. Looking around Harare, though, it was at times difficult to know what that plan might be. Fortunately, there are still some good, good people there doing good, good things.

One of our first stops was at the Lovemore Home, an organization supported by the Outreach Foundation in which young boys are taken in off the streets, given a place to live and put through school. At the moment, Lovemore houses twelve boys and employees a number of Zimbabweans to support them, including a social worker, a caretaker for the boys and a general administrator, among others.

Bill and Nancy’s role with the Outreach Foundation is to consult with these various organizations, opening up communication and smoothing out problems that arise. During our visit, I was allowed to sit in on a meeting with Bill, Nancy and the Lovemore employees. I won’t go into the details, but it was helpful to find that many of Namumu’s problems are not Namumu’s problems alone, that Lovemore faced many of the same obstacles and issues. Still, while it had its obstacles, Lovemore sure seemed like a great operation.

Besides sitting in the meeting, I spent the majority of my time playing soccer with the boys and hitting on Helen, Lovemore’s social worker, and Loveness, Lovemore’s Administrator, two sweet middle aged African women. I love sweet middle aged African women.

And much to my surprise, Bill had informed me earlier that Loveness was, in fact, his second wife. Never would have pegged ol’ Bill as a polygamist, but there you go. I hit on Loveness anyway, and Bill didn’t seem to mind. Come to think of it, I hit on Nancy a lot, too. He doesn’t seem to mind that either. What a generous man.

Later on in the week we made it out to another Outreach Foundation-supported ministry called Home of Hope. Home of Hope, run by Joan Trevelyan and her son, Craig, provides meals and pays school fees for young boys living on the streets of Harare. And when I say living on the streets, I mean they are living on the streets, sleeping in parks and alleyways, no homes to go to. It’s terrible. Due to what Joan described as “Red Tape Issues” the boys can’t legally sleep at Home of Hope, but they come and get a good meal and a shower in the mornings, and a good meal in the early evenings as well. In addition, Home of Hope feeds a number of young adults living on the streets on certain afternoons.

You’d think that feeding poor street children would earn Home of Hope widespread praise within Zimbabwe. Actually, Joan told me that she had been harassed by the Zimbabwe police on numerous occasions. I never totally understood why. She seemed to think that those guys like to exert power in any way they can. Whatever the reason, I think it’s a pretty clear indicator of how things are run within the country. It’s a real shame.

We spent the rest of the week dropping in on a few other organizations and meeting up with a few of Bill and Nancy’s old friends from when they were living there.

There wasn’t too much going on at night in Harare. Not for me, at least. It’s a city full of desperate people and I was informed by everyone that roaming the streets at night would almost guarantee me a mugging. While I’m confident that no one in their right mind would try to mug a man bearing a striking resemblance to Chuck Norris, I played it safe and sat in my hotel room every night. It got a little boring. I actually sat and watched “Not Another Teen Movie” in its entirety on one of the few TV channels they provided and was very, very ashamed of myself afterwards. But what could I do?

So, after being in a beautiful but troubled country for a week, it was nice getting back to mother Zambia once again where the economy is pushing forward, the streets are safe (relatively speaking) and people are very, very friendly.

Although, I did experience one alarming incident while back in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. As usual, my friend, Ndandula, let me crash on her couch for the night when I made it into town. And, as usual, I sat on my bum and watched music videos and movies all afternoon and evening.

“My Best Friend’s Wedding” came on and she said she’d never seen it. Well, that’s ridiculous, I said, it’s only the best romantic comedy ever made. Really? No way. she said. Oh yea, what would you say is the best romantic comedy you’ve ever seen? I inquired.

Her response?

“White Chicks” starring the Wayans brothers. And no, she wasn’t joking.

Man oh man, maybe there’s no hope for Zambia either...




On a serious note, go ahead and pray this week for those in Zimbabwe that are suffering, and pray that organizations such as the Lovemore Home and Home of Hope can keep on keepin’ on.