A Series of Strange and Sometimes Unfortunate Events

Zambia is a sometimes beautiful, sometimes sad ,sometimes bewildering place. I thought I’d get a few experiences down in print that have happened to me since I’ve been here. I'm really doing this so that I’ll remember and not convince myself in twenty years I must have made up these completely ridiculous events.

Scene 1:

Arrive home from the market. A goat is tied to the post of our porch.
Me: Oh God, this isn’t a gift is it?!
Scott: I... have no idea.

Scene 2:

Woman carrying an entire twin bed frame on her head. No hands.

That one was just impressive.

Scene 3:

I am sitting on a bus next to a woman. She never speaks, probably assuming I don’t know Tonga. She stares. I try to ignore the fact that the person sitting five inches from my face is looking directly at me. She then proceeds to touch everything I am wearing. I am at this point staring back at her in complete confusion. She is unfazed and touches my hair, earrings, shirt, bracelets, necklace, ring, etc. All in complete silence. Then she stops as suddenly as she started and we both stare straight forward for the rest of the trip.

Scene 4:

One morning around dawn I was waiting in town for early transport to the clinics. As I sat next to the road, a transfer truck pulled in. 15 guys ran to help unload it. As they started, these paragons of manliness began to sing a loud and enthusiastic rendition of Shania Twain’s “Forever and For Always” in parts.

Scene 5:

The day I met Porno and his son, Cyborg.

Scene 6:

As I was making my usual walk to work, a little girl (maybe 4 or 5) ran up and took my hand like we’d known each other for years. She didn’t even look at me she just held my hand. She escorted me all the way to work and dropped me off at the gate of my office. She waved good bye and ran down the road.

Scene 7:

Around dawn, I was walking towards town to catch a cab. In the usual fashion a child comes up beside me to stare. He keeps up with me, staring all the while. I stare forward growing slightly annoyed that this is happening...again. He is looking at my shoes as I turned to match his intense annoying gawking. He looks up from my outfit to find me staring back at him. He lets out a small scream and scampers ahead. Little does he know that we are going in the exact same direction and I being a much larger person am going just as fast as his little scooting sprint. He panics thinking, I assume, that I will soon murder him. He ducks through the market but, I too, go that way through the market. He continues to look back at me in a soul-searing panic. At this point I can't control my laughter. He must believe, at this point, that I am certainly a monster. Eventually, he runs full tilt the opposite direction and I let him think that he's "lost" me and go the other way.

That is my one gift to the children of Zambia.

Scene 8:

Childbirth. Period. I can now say that I’ve caught placenta in a bucket.

Scene 9:

One day while we were far out in the bush visiting clinics, we hit a dove with the cruiser. I was very sad these blue doves were beautiful. The driver stopped, got out, and put the destroyed little bird in a plastic bag. He climbs back inside. Puts the bag in my lap and says, "dinner."

Scene 10:

The day 4 kids peed on me. I don’t really want to remember this one. Just know that it happened.

Scene 11:

One day I was visiting a clinic, with the folks who do Mobile ART (a service that brings meds to rural patients with HIV/AIDS). Crowds of people rushed the clinic. I was busy helping Esnart deliver a baby (I use the term "help" loosely- more like I got in the way while Esnart delivered a baby). I went out to find the In-Charge to find some delivery equipment. Shouts and rapid Tonga came out of the throng of people. I got close and moved through the crowd and found the In-charge holding a woman who was kicking another woman. A third woman had her hands on the weave of the first. "Help!" he struggled. I grabbed the woman with the handful of hair and pulled her back before some other folks finally stepped in and the fight was dispersed. It turns out the three women were wives to a man who was not present. One of the wives supposedly brought HIV into the family and the other women wanted her out. I helped escort the happy triad to the office for counseling. I then went back to the delivery room having completely forgotten why I left in the first place.

Scene 12:

The woman who passed me her baby and went to sleep on a bus.

Scene 13:

The woman who passed me her chicken and went to sleep on a bus.

Scene 14:

One day, as I was trying to get back to Choma, I grabbed a cab. It was a car roughly the size of a Toyota Corolla. They had one more spot and I felt lucky that I didn't have to wait for it to fill up. As we move down the road the cab driver tells the person in the passenger seat to put on his seat because we may go through a check point. The man looks around, hesitating. He takes the seat belt and wraps it twice around his neck. He settles back into the seat satisfied that the command had been accomplished. The driver just stares. Even he can't believe that just happened. He then pulls over and shows him how to use a seat belt in a way that will not actively try to kill him in the event of a fender bender. It was a truly painful lesson to witness. But "what a conscientious cab driver" I thought. As if God just thought of a joke, the driver pulls over again in front of a person flagging us down. "We are already full I say. No more." The driver laughs. The potential passenger then motions 2 other men out of the bushes. What follows is a lesson in body compression and shear dumb luck.

As if this happens all the time, which I'm sure it does, the men assume a spoon chain. We now have five passengers in the back seat crushed and spooning each other with two passenger now in the front seat.  The two proceed to buckle up for safety. I laugh cause why not? The man I'm spooning is palpably uncomfortable being held by a strange white woman. Then we approach the check point. There is no way we won't be stopped. Like no fucking way. We blaze through it like audacious clown car we are and nothing happens. The driver looks back at me and smiles.

"Seat belt" he says.

Scene 15:

I was once pinned in my kitchen for an hour by a cricket. It was the size of a mouse. I was not as terrified as I was mystified.

 

 

Rest in the knowledge that winning moments like these happen to me everyday. I've got more but I'll save them for another time. Hope you enjoyed.

 

So Zambia Has Gone and Made Me a Beggar for a Good Cause

Hello friends and family!

It is with awkward pride and unbridled hope that I announce I am raising money for a project that I love. I cannot stress enough that you will be riddled with warm fuzzy feelings and tax deductions if you give to this project. So, if that is enough convincing and you need not read further visit this website and donate:

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-611-005

If you need just a bit more info, here's where I break it down for you...

Helping Mothers in Need

SUMMARY

Conditions in rural Zambia make it difficult for mothers to receive care during pregnancy and delivery. Saving Mother’s Giving Life (SMGL) has trained community groups called Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs) to address mobilization and demand for services by encouraging women to deliver at clinics. Clinics and SMAGs (with support of the community) provide structures where pregnant women can stay at the clinic before their delivery date. These buildings make it easier and safer for mother and baby to access care when the time comes to deliver. These structures are paramount to encouraging skilled care among women in rural areas but many of them are incomplete or have fallen into disrepair. These impoverished communities have given of their time and resources to see that these structures are built but may not have the funds to finish or rehabilitate these shelters once problems arise. And that’s where you come in…

BACKGROUND

Kalomo District in Zambia’s Southern Province is a vast rural area in one of the world’s poorest countries. Housed within this district are 38 health facilities spread out over 15,000 square kilometers serving nearly 250,000 people.

These communities face innumerable challenges and overcome harsh conditions in daily living. Chief among these concerns is isolation and access to basic medical care. Because of these needs, Zambia has one of the highest rates of maternal and neonatal mortality in the world (440 deaths per 100,000 births and 39 deaths per 1,000 respectively). Due to isolated conditions and lack of knowledge concerning pregnancy care and delivery, well over half of all Zambian women deliver at home without skilled attendance during delivery.

SAVING MOTHERS, GIVING LIFE

In 2012, the Zambian Ministry of Health and US Government agencies like USAID, CDC and Peace Corps (along with multiple other partnering organizations) began an ambitious initiative to reduce Zambia’s maternal mortality by 50%. This program titled Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) addresses maternal and neonatal mortality in a number of areas from systems strengthening down to the community level. The primary intervention used to increase demand and access to care by women is the training of community led groups called Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs). Partner organizations and area health center staff train twenty community members per clinic area to form SMAGs. These groups are responsible for community outreach and public health campaigning on behalf of mothers and their families. During outreach the members teach women and men about family planning, antenatal care, warning signs, making birth plans, and the importance of coming to the clinic for delivery.

MOTHERS SHELTERS

Even with improved health messages and mobilization by SMAGs, women still must battle long distances to reach the clinic for delivery. Imagine being 8-9 months pregnant or in early labor and having to walk 10-50 kilometers to deliver your baby. Add to that poor road conditions and lack of emergency services like ambulances and you can see why some women opt to risk having a home delivery when their time comes. One way in which SMGL, SMAGs, and Rural Health Clinics attempt to circumvent issues of access is the building of Mother’s Waiting Shelters. These shelters are built on clinic compounds and house pregnant women for up to 2 months before their delivery insuring that they are near the facility during this critical time before the baby is born.

THE NEED FOR AIDE

As a Peace Corps Volunteer working with SMGL, I work with SMAGs to mentor and support their efforts in the community. After a lengthy needs assessment and discussions with SMAGs about the challenges they face, I soon discovered that those groups that did not have functioning shelters often suffered the most when encouraging women to come to the facility for delivery or attend antenatal care visits.

"We can only do so much. We have educated these women- they want to come to the clinic! But they will not stay here on the floor! Their homes are more comfortable. Our community has already given so much for this shelter but it is not enough to make it nice and now the termites have taken the walls. We can’t tell women to walk 40 kilometers when there is not a good place for them to stay. We need help!”

            -   Fellow Chilungwe, SMAG member (Dimbwe, Rural Health Clinic)*

Those groups who have low rates of maternal and neonatal death often site their mother’s shelters as the reason why women access the clinic.

“It is comfortable. Women can feel safe here even when the rains come. Their families can visit, so, they come well in advance and they benefit. We haven’t had a death since the mother’s shelter was built!”

           - Patience Chibwe, SMAG member (Simwatachela, Zonal Health Center)*

These accounts are also supported by ministry and clinic data which correlates that areas with uninhabitable or non-existent mother’s shelters have maternal and neonatal death rates that are 2-3 times higher than those with functioning shelters.

As a volunteer, I have the unique position to connect the needs of these SMAGs and communities to help them obtain the resources and skills they need to improve access to care for women. There are several facilities that could benefit from your support to see that their shelters are finished or restored but because grants through Peace Corps are limited, I have focused on three shelters that have shown the most need in terms of SMAG feedback and clinic delivery data. These Rural Health Clinics have highly committed and enthusiastic communities but need your help to fulfill remaining needs for their shelters.

GRANT AND FUNDRAISING

Each community will provide the man power to make improvements/start construction on these structures but this grant will help provide materials like cement, window panes, paint, beds, etc to make these mothers comfortable and safe. BUT this project would not be sustainable if we were only giving money, so to avoid problems of financing and upkeep in the future we are also providing Incoming Generating Activity (IGA) Training to these SMAGs. This training shows them ways of making money within their communities that will sustain itself for years to come (i.e. raising and selling chickens, investing and running a maize grinder, etc). So we are fulfilling an immediate need for mothers and providing a training that will help for years to come.

I hope to raise at least $5,000 USD for this project but the more that we raise the more facilities we can support! You may be asking- why are you raising money if this is a grant? Good question! The Peace Corps has several small grants that can be used by volunteers but construction projects are a perfect opportunity to involve friends, family, and organizations back home. This helps address the 2^nd Goal of Peace Corps which seeks to make Americans more aware of the culture and needs of my host country, Zambia. It also provides a handy website for you to submit donations and provides accountability and assurance that funds will be used appropriately- so you know your money is being spent directly in the communities that need it. Also, by making this a US government grant all donations are tax deductible!

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-611-005

Any assistance you can provide is greatly appreciated not only by me but by the thousands of mothers that will utilize these facilities. Please feel free to share this information with any individual or group that might be interested!

Please contact me with any questions or concerns! I’d love to hear from you!

*Dimbwe’s Mother’s Shelter remained unfinished after the initial community drive and is now crumbling from termites.
*Simwatachela’s Mother’s Shelter has a larger community that was able to contribute more funds to its construction as well as partner organizations that saw that the structure was comfortable and complete.

Birth of a Nation

Women here are hard as nails (I even saw a woman chewing a nail the other day but she was pregnant, so, she was probably just getting on top of an iron deficiency). To lend an example to this statement, I recently witnessed a woman give birth (I've actually witnessed several at this point but this one was special because it was my first). Because all clinics here are barely staffed by trained professionals, the midwives I travel with end up attending deliveries while we are at the clinic. I was unfortunately in the ward when a woman was in labor and was ushered into the delivery room with the midwives when they realized her time had come.

"You will see this, come we will show you."

I had no means of escape, so, I stood in the corner as this woman attempted to bring life into the world. 2 things to note about giving birth in Zambia 1) they give birth completely naked 2) they make no noise. Not a grunt. Not a whimper. Most women hear live under the belief that showing pain/making noise will cause their babies to die or show to others that you are not a strong mother. This being a true Zambian woman, only slow, silent tears dripped down this her face as she pushed a decent sized baby out into the cramped and dusty delivery room. Her nakedness and my complete lack of skill and legitimate reason for being there made me distinctly uncomfortable but the silence left me completely unnerved. In short, it was surreal to say the least and disturbingly beautiful to say the most. I just stood there in wide-eyed silence as they attempted to make the baby breathe. Had the midwives not been there the baby may have died. There was no resuscitation equipment in the labor ward so the midwives had to manually clear the airways. After a few firm slaps, the baby finally let out a screaming breath and the tension of the moment broke.

The look on my face was, I'm sure, not encouraging for mother and child. I think the midwives picked up on my green and contorted expression and tried to encourage me saying, "it looks good!"

I looked around in panic and mumbled, "Sure." Another one of my profound encapsulations of the moment. I felt like a caveman pawing at the ground for the right things to say or the right things to feel.

I did such a great job of doing absolutely nothing that they entrusted me with the task of telling the family. So, I talked to the family in a bit of broken Tonga which they were thrilled about- so much, so, in fact, that they named the baby after me. I didn't realize they were doing that at first they just kept repeating my name over and over again (keep in mind they don't have r's here so they struggled for quite some time pronouncing it). Outside with the family, absent of the metallic smells of blood in the delivery room, I was struck with a strange and fantastic feeling. While still mildly horrified, I was at the same time oddly amped on life- after all, I now had a namesake. I really shouldn't be overly flattered, however, seeing as how they name children after their favorite dairy products here, but, nonetheless, I felt an odd sense of responsibility for this new baby Carrie. I'll probably never see her again, though. I'll just have to hope she makes it past 5 years old, then she'll have a chance of making it to adulthood.

15 minutes after delivery, the woman was dressed, sitting straight up, breast feeding. Her family was gathering her things in preparation for 15 kilometer walk back home. Ready to show the new Carrie off to their men (who were dense enough to be absence from this epic part of life).

I thought to all the concepts I had of birth. Sterile environment, screams of pain, heavy breathing, drama. I found none of it. We forget in our lives of privilege and health care, what we are all truly capable of. I don’t in anyway mean to diminish anyone’s delivery. Were I to give birth right at this moment, I would want the Lamas breathing techniques, standard infection prevention, drugs, I want to look Scott right in his petrified face and tell him never to touch me again. But it illustrates how we take the most basic tenants of humanity and dramatize it. This way is not the best way (far from it really) it was just…different and it's had me thinking about the actual process of life.

We Moved!!!

So, just a quick update from the last post...

WE MOVED!

We are now spending our days in the provincial capital of Choma. My NGO suddenly moved to Choma in a mass exodus with all other southern province NGOs to be in the capital (Scott's NGO was already partly based here) and in order to avoid a troublesome and expensive commute, we moved too.

The mailing address is still the same for now although we might get our own box at the post office now that we are so close but for now we'll continue sharing the box at the provincial house.

So far the move has been for the better. We have running water now!

To give you an idea of what this means to us I will regail you with our previous water situation in Kalomo:

We lived in a house with plumbing but no water. The water came on at a random point every other day but almost invariably around 3 in the morning. Luckily it made a demon coming up from hell sound so we never had to wonder whether it was on or not. Once the guttural Tibetan throat singing began, we would spend the next 2 hours until dawn outside at the tap (because the pressure was so low it couldn't make it to the inside of the house) filling as many buckets as possible from a thread sized trickle. During the height of dry season we went a couple of weeks without water entirely. Remember when I said we had plumbing- that means we have flush toilets so imagine not flushing your toilets for two weeks... yep. During the final week we were there the rains started coming- thank god so we started catching rain water.

But now all that's behind us :) Honestly, I can live without running water if there is a well nearby or a latrine instead of a flush toilet. That was how we lived during training and it worked out just fine. But the factors that went into this water situation were fairly untenable. Not to mention that I smelled like cheese most of the time because we rarely had enough water for a bucket bath- sorry coworkers. Another plus for our new place is I live by two co workers who like to garden so we now have space to make a garden happen. Also our landlord is a Bemba woman about my age who just lost her husband in road accident, while that is terrible, she's been looking for friends. So she hung out with me while I unpacked (Scott was away for work) so now I've got a Zambian friend who's not a co worker- SUCCESS!

Anywho, more updates to come!

An Attempt-to-Be-Brief Overview of the last 5 months

Our apologies for the absence of updates so far! The first 3 months of training was devoid of internet but luckily the tides have turned and my trepidation about putting words to the experiences we’ve had so far is slowly abating. I’ll start off by saying I’m a bit unsure of how to write for a blog. Is it like a website? A diary? Facebook? Or is it some strange amalgamation of them all? I am going to choose the latter. Posts won’t be all long prose but at least for the next 15 minutes of your life it will be. If you’ve gotten an email from me in the past month some phrases may seem eerily familiar because my paucity of description and humor as well as shear lack of energy has forced me to abuse the copy-paste function. Don’t fret, though, that will probably wane over time… probably…

We got here after a very long but pleasant flight (only after almost being stranded in South Africa when my purse got left on the plane with my passport. That is a story to tell over a very large and very strong beer. Let’s just say if it were not for a drink cart attendant, we would both be wandering separately around South African immigration). Training is now over. It was… a struggle. Not difficult per se but after coming out of a fairly comprehensive Masters of Public Health program boredom and redundancy abounded. It also turns out that none of it really even applies to what we are doing because, due to our master’s background, we are going to be the first volunteers in the history of Peace Corps Zambia to be living in a “city” and working with NGOs. But, I digress. To sum it up, after training we have countless new friends, a limited grasp of Tonga (the language of Southern Province), a new Zambian family, and the experience of hut life.

Scott and I are now in our new home in the small city of Kalomo in Southern Province. We are very close to Livingston and the great Victoria Falls (about an hour and a half away). And, we are, in fact, in a duplex with electricity- much to every other volunteer’s chagrin. We don't have running water so we can claim an element of "roughing" it (more on daily living later). However, it is light years beyond what the other volunteers go through living in thatched mud huts in the far reaches of the bush. It isn't exactly what we signed up for. We had prepared and planned for life in the village and in the city we are missing out on a lot of the things we had hoped for like a close community, space for a garden, or other use of our appropriate technology training. I'm speaking with more animosity than necessary, though, because the work we will be doing has the potential to be even more fulfilling than what we even expected so we are getting used to putting away expectations and accepted our role as guinea pigs for the new phase of Peace Corps, Zambia.

We are doing well, so far- lots of milling around and meeting new people and explaining to them in Tonga that “no we can’t give you any money. We are volunteers, we have no money.” I'm working with an NGO called Saving Mother's Giving Life which is attempting to lower Zambia's maternal mortality rate by 50% (a lofty goal indeed). It has its perks/horrors. For instance, I watched a baby be born a few weeks ago (I’ll do a special segment on having a baby in Zambia). For the most part, we go out to mentor the staff of maternity wards in Kalomo district and train Safe Motherhood Action Groups (groups of community members that promote clinic delivery, family planning and antenatal care). There are 36 clinics over a 1,000+ kilometer area all of which have to be monitored by our group at least once a month. The only way to reach them is through the bush, so, we spend hours in cruisers blazing trails through the African bush on the daily. This sounds romantic until the 3 hour mark when your head is splitting from the constant hammering of your brain against the inside of your skull and your stomach is equally twisted from its contents' jostling. I go with a team of midwives who serve as mentors for the clinic staff- they basically come in and yell at people for the horrific conditions of their clinic and the abysmal state of their record keeping. I generally take notes and stand to the side. I talk with locals and with clinic workers a bit as well but I’m still in the “what possible programs can I start?” phase of things.

I’ll leave the majority of information on Scott’s job for him to explain because he has a much better grasp of it than I do. Scott is working with a group called AKROS on Clean Water and Sanitation issues. He is currently training community members all over Southern Province ( not to mention other parts of the country) on how to use a new tracking system for monitoring sanitation and diarrheal diseases. The past few weeks we have barely seen each other but hopefully once he whittles down the 14 additional trainings he has to do, that will change. He's been out to such isolated places, he's the first white person some of the villagers have ever seen. He's scared countless children who scream "ghost" as they flee. One 16 year old even punched his own mother in an effort to get away for the white witch. He claims to be exasperated by it but I think inside he enjoys instilling fear in the hearts of children.

Scott and I will trade off blog posts in the future. And they won’t all be this long and will be much more interesting, I promise! Just wanted to get the life recap out of the way before we talk about the important stuff.

Much love from Zambia!

Lion Mauls and Centipedes

Well friends we are at staging! If you can call it that- I mostly call it a stop over in Philadelphia. Not much to report just some general nonsense without many specifics. I think we were all more than disappointed when the markers and butcher paper came out. Instead of dialogue about what we would be doing in Zambia,what to expect and how to manage it, we got to perform 3rd grade skits and free form draw-your-feelings activities. "Draw your anxieties and your aspirations for Peace Corps" most of them revolved around anxieties with a few invariable themes- lions, bugs, snakes, disease, miscommunication and overall threats to life and success (and, of course, the animal threats were easiest to draw so they may have played an exaggerated role). Scott and I got little from the experience other than meeting our new Peace Corps class who seems to be a funny and fantastic group of people! I am supposed to be getting a quick 2 hour nap before we head by bus to JFK for our flight to Johannesburg but I feel compelled to at least establish this blog and rid my mind of these little pressing concerns. We will likely be able to update for a while so be looking for potential letters in the mail ;).

We love and miss you all without question! I want to thank those devoted souls who came in the absurd morning hours to see us off. It was a tearful and rushed goodbye- but perhaps saved us from some truly bitter tears. New experiences are exciting and invigorating but they come at a very great a price- the sacrifice of everyday interactions with our loved ones, colleagues and friends.  

Keep us in your thoughts because you are already in ours,
Much Love from our last US stop,
Carrie and Scott