(Note: If you are squeamish or dislike hearing animal slaughter described in graphic detail, sections of this blog post may be unsuitable for your little baby eyes. I told this story to a hippy granola-eating aid worker living in Siavonga the other day and she refused to speak to me for about an hour. I was very ok with this because granola-eating hippies annoy me, but I would certainly hate to offend you, dear reader, so, if you need to, please skip over the section marked with asterisks like so: ****. You have been warned.)
A number of people have emailed me recently asking about my Thanksgiving weekend here in Zambia and expressing their condolences over the fact that I have to be over here during the holiday season. Does it suck being so far from home during the holidays? They ask. Yes, to a degree, it does indeed suck to be away from friends, family and Lite 98.1. However, I still managed to have a nice little Thanksgiving feast with my Zambian friends and family…and a good time was had by all (humans).
While nobody here celebrates Thanksgiving and I had to work on Thursday and Friday, I wanted to have some kind of a small celebration. What better way to celebrate, I thought, than by slaughtering a live animal? Nothing gets me ready for the holidays like chopping the heads off of birds, so I went ahead and made what has now become a pretty standard agreement with my neighbors. I pay for the chickens (they cost around US$5 each, outside of he price range of most rural-dwelling Zambian families and thus a rare luxury, perfectly suited for a celebration such as this), they go to the market to buy the chicken (it’s a 15 minute walk to the nearest market and I’m usually too busy during the day to make the trip), I get to kill the chicken and do the major knife-work, they do most of the cooking and we all do the eating. It’s a nice little setup.
****Gruesome Part********Gruesome Part********Gruesome Part****
So, after work on Thursday I skipped home happily in anticipation of my Zambian Thanksgiving feast. I kept my work clothes on (which, as you will discover, was a tactical error) and made my way behind the house, finding the children waiting for me with two large, loud chickens (we ate one this night and one the next). I grabbed my knife and got to work.
I thought I had my act down as far as the slaughtering goes, but I had a little slip up on this one.
Whereas in other parts of the world they may grab the chicken by the neck and give it the old spineroo to break the neck and kill it, or chop the head off with one quick cut, out here in the village the method of execution is by standing on the bird’s wings and feet, grabbing and pulling up on the neck and sawing back and forth with a kitchen knife. It’s rough to watch and rougher to do. I do feel bad doing it. But then I remember that I’m a grown ass man and sometimes out here grown ass men need to kill animals to feed their families and I do what I have to do.
Things went a bit awry on this occasion. Before I had sliced all the way through the neck the chicken spasmed, I lost my grip and the thing started flopping around, with the head still barely attached to the body, spraying blood onto everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. My pants, my shirt, my shoes, everything. A few of the kids from next door and their mother were watching and I think they got sprinkled, too. Yikes. At this point I couldn’t grab the neck and finish the job because it was going all over the place, but fortunately it didn’t take long to bleed out. Man, it was disgusting, even for me.
****End of Gruesome Part********End of Gruesome Part********End of Gruesome Part****
The rest of the process, fortunately, went according to plan. We poured boiling water over the body to make the de-feathering easier and the little kids and I de-feathered. Then, under the close supervision of Cholwe, the 15 year old boy living next door, I sliced that sucker up and removed the insides. As always we had an anatomy lesson, which included a fierce debate over whether two of the oval-shaped objects inside were eggs or testicles, which was fun. And, I had a proud moment when Cholwe took the knife from me to make some cuts, accidentally pulled too hard once and brought the knife back quickly and dangerously close to his waist area. I made a quick but elaborate statement in Tonga about him nearly transforming from a musankwa (boy) into a musimbi (girl) and got a great crowd response. Tonga jokes are the best. My language skills have come a long way.
When the girls finished cooking, we sat out and spread mats over the dirt behind our house, eating and laughing and having a good ol’ time under the stars, crickets chirping and cows mooing in the background. Was it a typical American Thanksgiving dinner? No, it wasn’t. But it certainly didn’t suck.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Bobby Fischer-ing in the Motherland
In early elementary school I learned how to play the game of chess. I loved it from the get-go. I’d play every chance I’d get. My nerdy friends and I would even bring little travel chess boards to school and play during free time and during lunch (and I’d like to take a moment to publicly declare that as cool as Steven Lowry may have become years later by growing dread locks, liking rap music before any of the rest of us, etc. etc, he was in fact one of my nerdy chess friends). I can still remember around the 4th grade when I started being able to beat my dad consistently and thus emasculate him on a regular basis. Ahh, those were the days.
I first saw a chess set out at the Namumu boys’ dormitory sometime last year and was immediately intrigued. The boys have a fair amount of free time outside of school, but all I had seen them play before that had been soccer, UNO and crazy eights, so to see them playing chess made me very happy.
I was immediately challenged to a game by Kebby, the boys’ caregiver, and I immediately accepted. After all, while I hadn’t played in years I had been a young chess master, and surely I could hold my own against a young, rural-dwelling Zambian guy. I didn’t think twice. I sat down and went at it.
What followed was a slaughtering of epic proportions. Kebby proceeded to beat me like a red-headed step-child in three straight games, including one in where he pulled one of those BS tricks and managed to checkmate me in about six moves. The worst part was, a big group of boys was watching and shouting, “Ohhhhh!” every time Kebby made a good move or I made a stupid one. It seemed the emasculation had come full circle and I was now the victim. Ouch. Very ouch.
While I haven’t gotten back in the game and tried to restore my good name since this incident, I’ve done my best to encourage the boys to play as much as possible. Playing chess is good for them. It’s a game of strategy and logic and will help with their problem solving skills. And it sure beats what a lot of kids their age in the village are running around and doing (chasing girls, drinking, etc. etc.). I’ve tracked down a few chess boards in town and they now have three out at the dormitory, which is enough to keep them busy for now.
So now, along with a small army of computer hackers, Namumu will soon be producing a small army of chess masters, and I’d be willing to bet there aren’t too many sub-Saharan African orphanages that can say that.
I first saw a chess set out at the Namumu boys’ dormitory sometime last year and was immediately intrigued. The boys have a fair amount of free time outside of school, but all I had seen them play before that had been soccer, UNO and crazy eights, so to see them playing chess made me very happy.
I was immediately challenged to a game by Kebby, the boys’ caregiver, and I immediately accepted. After all, while I hadn’t played in years I had been a young chess master, and surely I could hold my own against a young, rural-dwelling Zambian guy. I didn’t think twice. I sat down and went at it.
What followed was a slaughtering of epic proportions. Kebby proceeded to beat me like a red-headed step-child in three straight games, including one in where he pulled one of those BS tricks and managed to checkmate me in about six moves. The worst part was, a big group of boys was watching and shouting, “Ohhhhh!” every time Kebby made a good move or I made a stupid one. It seemed the emasculation had come full circle and I was now the victim. Ouch. Very ouch.
While I haven’t gotten back in the game and tried to restore my good name since this incident, I’ve done my best to encourage the boys to play as much as possible. Playing chess is good for them. It’s a game of strategy and logic and will help with their problem solving skills. And it sure beats what a lot of kids their age in the village are running around and doing (chasing girls, drinking, etc. etc.). I’ve tracked down a few chess boards in town and they now have three out at the dormitory, which is enough to keep them busy for now.
So now, along with a small army of computer hackers, Namumu will soon be producing a small army of chess masters, and I’d be willing to bet there aren’t too many sub-Saharan African orphanages that can say that.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Computer Time
I’m happy to report that, at long last, the Namumu Children’s Computer Training Program is up and running. Boo ya.
We knew we needed to start it long ago. The Namumu management team has been talking about doing it for months now. The kids have been ready and willing to get started. Zambia National AIDS Network (ZNAN), a Zambian aid organization, donated a desktop computer to us last year and we have a few functional (albeit virus-laden) laptops lying around, so the resources have been in place. I guess the reason I didn’t push to start things sooner was that I found out how badly many of our kids’ reading skills sucked and tried to tackle that problem first. But now, since a lot of the kids are reading better and I have some help, it’s computer time.
Vinod (the Indian [dots not feathers] VSO volunteer), Kebby (Namumu’s charismatic boys caregiver) and I are all getting in on the action and teaching the kids basic computer skills. Kebby has been getting the boys working every night on his laptop in the boys’ dormitory and Vinod and I are working with different pairs of girls most evenings in the Namumu front office. It’s always a long, painfully slow process getting them started, but we’ve had a number of fast learners and many of them are doing much better.
My ultimate goal is to build up a small army of computer hackers capable of penetrating government databases and performing other such stealthy operations. As for now, we’re starting off slowly, focusing on opening, saving and closing Word documents and trying to get them typing at faster than 3 words per minute. We’ll get there. These are bright kids.
Along with computer lessons, I’ve taken it upon myself to drop some culture on the girls I’ve worked with as well. One of the computers we’re working on is my old laptop which has a good amount of music still on it. When the girls are typing we crank it up and have a good ol’ time. So far I’ve hit them with the Beatles, Boyz II Men, Tupac Shakur and Johnny Cash because dangit my girls are going to have well-rounded tastes. They really hate Johnny Cash, but I don’t care, I’m the boss and they are going to listen to what I say they are going to listen to and I will continue to ram it down their throats until they give in and learn to appreciate it.
So, overall it’s all going well. I’ll try to keep you updated on their progress.
We knew we needed to start it long ago. The Namumu management team has been talking about doing it for months now. The kids have been ready and willing to get started. Zambia National AIDS Network (ZNAN), a Zambian aid organization, donated a desktop computer to us last year and we have a few functional (albeit virus-laden) laptops lying around, so the resources have been in place. I guess the reason I didn’t push to start things sooner was that I found out how badly many of our kids’ reading skills sucked and tried to tackle that problem first. But now, since a lot of the kids are reading better and I have some help, it’s computer time.
Vinod (the Indian [dots not feathers] VSO volunteer), Kebby (Namumu’s charismatic boys caregiver) and I are all getting in on the action and teaching the kids basic computer skills. Kebby has been getting the boys working every night on his laptop in the boys’ dormitory and Vinod and I are working with different pairs of girls most evenings in the Namumu front office. It’s always a long, painfully slow process getting them started, but we’ve had a number of fast learners and many of them are doing much better.
My ultimate goal is to build up a small army of computer hackers capable of penetrating government databases and performing other such stealthy operations. As for now, we’re starting off slowly, focusing on opening, saving and closing Word documents and trying to get them typing at faster than 3 words per minute. We’ll get there. These are bright kids.
Along with computer lessons, I’ve taken it upon myself to drop some culture on the girls I’ve worked with as well. One of the computers we’re working on is my old laptop which has a good amount of music still on it. When the girls are typing we crank it up and have a good ol’ time. So far I’ve hit them with the Beatles, Boyz II Men, Tupac Shakur and Johnny Cash because dangit my girls are going to have well-rounded tastes. They really hate Johnny Cash, but I don’t care, I’m the boss and they are going to listen to what I say they are going to listen to and I will continue to ram it down their throats until they give in and learn to appreciate it.
So, overall it’s all going well. I’ll try to keep you updated on their progress.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sam Cross: Entertainer, Marriage Counselor
A few more random updates from Namumu-land…
-- I made a trip out into the bush to see Vincent Luubi at his home the other day. Vincent, you may recall, is Namumu’s head welder. He’s tall, lanky and very goofy. He’s a good man. He works hard and he takes care of his family.
You also may recall that, for some inexplicable reason, Vincent named one of his children after me. His youngest son is Samuel Steven Luubi. I made it out to their little hut the other day and had a nice little visit.
Samuel was looking good. Samuel was looking fat. He’d significantly plumped up since I’d last seen him, that much was obvious. I guess he’s taken after his namesake in that respect. I teased him relentlessly about it...luckily I think he's too young to understand and won’t have the self-esteem issues I’ve had lately, what with everyone telling me how fat I am.
Anyway, it was good to see him. I got a great photo of the two of us together and will post it if I get a chance.
--I’ve had a lot of fun walking through the local village recently, either on the way to the harbor in the morning or to the market to get food. It’s great to see all of my old friends again.
I found the secret long ago to befriending all the kids out in the village. Juggling. A few of the local kids found out I knew how to juggle and they ask me to do it every time I walk by. Holy crap they go crazy. I mean they lose their minds. Obviously this speaks more to the lack of stimulation they are experiencing out in the village than to my actual juggling skills, but whatever. It’s nice to entertain people. So, now, every time I walk by, the kids say something in Tonga akin to “Dance, monkey, dance!” and I am all too happy to oblige.
--The Grade 7 students at Namumu Community School recently finished up their big Grade 7 Examinations. As you may recall, these examinations are very, very important all across the nation, and can often determine the educational futures of these kids. Last year the Namumu kids did very well. Two of the children boarding at Namumu, Brenda and Christopher, did well enough to qualify to go to two different prestigious boarding schools. We hope to have similar results this year. The results should come out in December or January, so please keep our kids in your thoughts and prayers.
--Finally, I’ll end with an interesting encounter I had yesterday morning on the way to the harbor…
I was walking up the big dirt hill that leads towards town and the harbor and a man of about 30 came onto the road from a side path and started walking beside me. We greeted each other and continued walking. I start off around 5 am each morning, so I’m always a little bleary-eyed. I’ll greet most everybody but I don’t usually make much of an effort to have a conversation at this point in the day unless they do first. This guy did.
“Yes, sir, I’m having a problem at home…”
I’ve heard this conversation-starter probably five thousand times since I’ve been living in Zambia. It’s almost always about not having enough money or food and every single time it ends with them asking me for money. It’s tough. These people have been completely shafted and have little opporunity to un-shaft themselves. Of course I want to help them. Sometimes I can. Most of the time I can’t. I usually try to talk to them and tell them how sorry I am and give them a pat on the back and say it’s going to be alright even though usually I know it might not be. Anyway, with this guy I prepared for the same old spiel.
He continued on. “I’m going to the court later today to ask the judge to be lenient towards my wife.”
Wooooah, I thought. What a conversation stater that was. Here’s one I haven’t heard before. This one sounds interesting.
“What did your wife do?” I asked, curiously.
“She burned me. She burned me very badly,” he said.
No, no, my friends, this was not an emotional burning. This one was physical. This guy’s wife had thrown boiling-hot water at his back when she was angry at him. He told me about the incident, saying that she had heard rumors (false rumors, he insisted) that he had been keeping a girlfriend in a nearby village. She got pissed off one night and gooshed him with the water.
He lifted up his shirt and showed me and my reaction was just like Billy Madison’s when Ernie shows him that he’d wet his pants…”What do you mean your wife burned y……Goooooooo!!!” It looked terrible.
I spent the rest of the walk patting him on the back (metaphorically speaking...a literal patting might have killed him) and telling him that I’m sure he could find a way to work it out. He said he had forgiven her and that he hoped they could make things right. I don’t have much marriage counseling experience, but I tried to do my best.
I felt bad for the guy, but at least it was more entertaining than the usual “I need money” speech…
-- I made a trip out into the bush to see Vincent Luubi at his home the other day. Vincent, you may recall, is Namumu’s head welder. He’s tall, lanky and very goofy. He’s a good man. He works hard and he takes care of his family.
You also may recall that, for some inexplicable reason, Vincent named one of his children after me. His youngest son is Samuel Steven Luubi. I made it out to their little hut the other day and had a nice little visit.
Samuel was looking good. Samuel was looking fat. He’d significantly plumped up since I’d last seen him, that much was obvious. I guess he’s taken after his namesake in that respect. I teased him relentlessly about it...luckily I think he's too young to understand and won’t have the self-esteem issues I’ve had lately, what with everyone telling me how fat I am.
Anyway, it was good to see him. I got a great photo of the two of us together and will post it if I get a chance.
--I’ve had a lot of fun walking through the local village recently, either on the way to the harbor in the morning or to the market to get food. It’s great to see all of my old friends again.
I found the secret long ago to befriending all the kids out in the village. Juggling. A few of the local kids found out I knew how to juggle and they ask me to do it every time I walk by. Holy crap they go crazy. I mean they lose their minds. Obviously this speaks more to the lack of stimulation they are experiencing out in the village than to my actual juggling skills, but whatever. It’s nice to entertain people. So, now, every time I walk by, the kids say something in Tonga akin to “Dance, monkey, dance!” and I am all too happy to oblige.
--The Grade 7 students at Namumu Community School recently finished up their big Grade 7 Examinations. As you may recall, these examinations are very, very important all across the nation, and can often determine the educational futures of these kids. Last year the Namumu kids did very well. Two of the children boarding at Namumu, Brenda and Christopher, did well enough to qualify to go to two different prestigious boarding schools. We hope to have similar results this year. The results should come out in December or January, so please keep our kids in your thoughts and prayers.
--Finally, I’ll end with an interesting encounter I had yesterday morning on the way to the harbor…
I was walking up the big dirt hill that leads towards town and the harbor and a man of about 30 came onto the road from a side path and started walking beside me. We greeted each other and continued walking. I start off around 5 am each morning, so I’m always a little bleary-eyed. I’ll greet most everybody but I don’t usually make much of an effort to have a conversation at this point in the day unless they do first. This guy did.
“Yes, sir, I’m having a problem at home…”
I’ve heard this conversation-starter probably five thousand times since I’ve been living in Zambia. It’s almost always about not having enough money or food and every single time it ends with them asking me for money. It’s tough. These people have been completely shafted and have little opporunity to un-shaft themselves. Of course I want to help them. Sometimes I can. Most of the time I can’t. I usually try to talk to them and tell them how sorry I am and give them a pat on the back and say it’s going to be alright even though usually I know it might not be. Anyway, with this guy I prepared for the same old spiel.
He continued on. “I’m going to the court later today to ask the judge to be lenient towards my wife.”
Wooooah, I thought. What a conversation stater that was. Here’s one I haven’t heard before. This one sounds interesting.
“What did your wife do?” I asked, curiously.
“She burned me. She burned me very badly,” he said.
No, no, my friends, this was not an emotional burning. This one was physical. This guy’s wife had thrown boiling-hot water at his back when she was angry at him. He told me about the incident, saying that she had heard rumors (false rumors, he insisted) that he had been keeping a girlfriend in a nearby village. She got pissed off one night and gooshed him with the water.
He lifted up his shirt and showed me and my reaction was just like Billy Madison’s when Ernie shows him that he’d wet his pants…”What do you mean your wife burned y……Goooooooo!!!” It looked terrible.
I spent the rest of the walk patting him on the back (metaphorically speaking...a literal patting might have killed him) and telling him that I’m sure he could find a way to work it out. He said he had forgiven her and that he hoped they could make things right. I don’t have much marriage counseling experience, but I tried to do my best.
I felt bad for the guy, but at least it was more entertaining than the usual “I need money” speech…
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Fishing and Body Image Issues
Once back in action at Namumu it didn’t take long for disaster to strike one of our income-generating activities. A major storm hit the lake one night last week and jacked one of our boats up quite nicely. The wind pushed the Lucy boat up onto the shore of a nearby island. The pontoons beat up on the rocks repeatedly, puncturing one of them and allowing water to slowly seep in. Awesome. Welcome back to Africa, Sam. Here’s an emergency to deal with on day one in the office. Just awesome.
But you know what? It worked out just fine. Mubita, my right hand man in the fishing department, and I got back into our groove immediately. Between the two of us we got our boat towed back to the harbor quickly, before it sank, tracked down a mechanic from a nearby village to fix damage to the drive unit and arranged to get our welders and their bulky equipment out to the harbor. I spent most of my first day on duty calling and roaming around town, begging our neighboring fishing companies to let us borrow the equipment we need to make the repairs (I’m pretty sure I’m the only white beggar in Siavonga and maybe in all of Zambia and, man, I’ve got the routine down cold. I play the “we’re a struggling orphanage” card early and often). That very day we had the entire team working on the boat, and after two and a half days of repairs both boats were fixed up. They both fished last night. Boo ya.
I can’t stress enough how well Mubita continues to do in his role as fishing coordinator. This guy is still working his arse off. I returned to Siavonga to find that he had things running smoothly in my absence and had kept the records clear, detailed and accurate. I felt like a proud parent. I still haven’t quite gotten over the fact that he didn’t name his recently born son after me, but I still love him.
Otherwise, I’m assimilating well back into Zambian life. Although, I am having self-esteem issues again because everyone keeps telling me how fat I got in the US. I mean everyone. I know, I know, weight is viewed differently here and to them it’s not an insult and they mean I look healthy and blah blah blah blah. They are going to drive me to an eating disorder in the very near future.
Just kidding. I actually made a goal for myself to put on 20 pounds while back in the US and when I set a goal for myself I don’t mess around. A few Tuesdays at Hooters and Wednesdays at Five Guys and I cruised to victory. Unfortunately, my hard work may be for naught as I’m back on my fish/vegetable/bread diet. We’ll see.
Anyway, for me it’s back to the slow, quiet southern African way of life and it feels mighty fine.
But you know what? It worked out just fine. Mubita, my right hand man in the fishing department, and I got back into our groove immediately. Between the two of us we got our boat towed back to the harbor quickly, before it sank, tracked down a mechanic from a nearby village to fix damage to the drive unit and arranged to get our welders and their bulky equipment out to the harbor. I spent most of my first day on duty calling and roaming around town, begging our neighboring fishing companies to let us borrow the equipment we need to make the repairs (I’m pretty sure I’m the only white beggar in Siavonga and maybe in all of Zambia and, man, I’ve got the routine down cold. I play the “we’re a struggling orphanage” card early and often). That very day we had the entire team working on the boat, and after two and a half days of repairs both boats were fixed up. They both fished last night. Boo ya.
I can’t stress enough how well Mubita continues to do in his role as fishing coordinator. This guy is still working his arse off. I returned to Siavonga to find that he had things running smoothly in my absence and had kept the records clear, detailed and accurate. I felt like a proud parent. I still haven’t quite gotten over the fact that he didn’t name his recently born son after me, but I still love him.
Otherwise, I’m assimilating well back into Zambian life. Although, I am having self-esteem issues again because everyone keeps telling me how fat I got in the US. I mean everyone. I know, I know, weight is viewed differently here and to them it’s not an insult and they mean I look healthy and blah blah blah blah. They are going to drive me to an eating disorder in the very near future.
Just kidding. I actually made a goal for myself to put on 20 pounds while back in the US and when I set a goal for myself I don’t mess around. A few Tuesdays at Hooters and Wednesdays at Five Guys and I cruised to victory. Unfortunately, my hard work may be for naught as I’m back on my fish/vegetable/bread diet. We’ll see.
Anyway, for me it’s back to the slow, quiet southern African way of life and it feels mighty fine.
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