(Very Early) Realizations After Two Weeks in Zambia

Can you all believe that it’s already been two weeks since I arrived? For me, it’s been a non-stop flurry of new experiences, new food, new people, new languages, and a new landscape. Being here has given me a lot of time to think on a lot of things, so here are 10 of my (very early) realizations:

1. As Americans, we are shockingly disconnected from the systems which serve us. Transportation, sanitation, food supply, waste management, water…You name it, we’re disconnected from it. I’ll share an example regarding food supply: My bamaama (host mom) raises chickens on our compound, and it’s lovely to regularly eat their free-range eggs. Last week, we were sitting together planning my day off from PST, and she said that I’ll be killing a chicken for our lunch. Hold up—what?!! I did my best to respond as graciously as possible, but clearly conveyed that that was way out of my comfort zone. It gave me a chance to think on how many steps removed with are from the food we’d normally buy at the grocery store, and it just spiraled from there. I’ve become very conscious of just how much trash I produce, because I throw it into a pit behind my hut—even though that’s pretty similar to how it is back home (though on a much larger scale), it prompts me to think about what kind of impact it would have if everybody’s trash just stayed in their backyard.

2. Biking is terrible. It just is. I don’t understand why people willingly roll themselves down rocky, narrow paths as fast as possible. This is an issue, seeing as how biking is my main mode of transportation these days!

3. You haven’t seen the sky properly until you’ve come to Zambia. Most mornings, I manage to time brushing my teeth with looking out over the horizon at the bright red sun rising over the mountains. I bike home as the amber sun lazily begins to drop further and further. At night, I can see the MILKY WAY. The stars are so bright and so densely packed into the night sky; it’s truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life. I haven’t seen the full moon out yet, but I have a feeling I may just cry. After just a week or so at my homestay, I’m beginning to feel very connected to the sky and it’s rhythms.

4. Zambians are huge on greetings. There’s greetings for different times of the day, different activities, all kinds of things. You simply don’t walk past someone without greeting them. At first this felt overwhelming, but then I realized how beautiful it was that their culture ritualizes being excited to see one another. It always makes me smile. We barely even make eye contact or smile at people we walk past, let alone have a full-on exchange. Next time you walk past a stranger, I challenge you to smile and say hi to them—you’ll probably both love it.

5. I thought I was really going to miss showers, but being able to bathe outdoors at sunset every day is pretty nice.

6. I love the slower pace of life here in the village compared to home. Even though PST is busy and cram-packed, the rest of life…just isn’t. I can feel my body’s tempos slowing down to a really nice equilibrium. Slower pace=time for mindfulness and thoughtfulness in almost all tasks.

7. Going to bed early (generally before 21:00/9:00) and getting up early is AWESOME.

8. We discount water as a resource in the US in a gross way. If we wanted to, we could run the tap or the shower all day. Here in the village, we don’t have plumbing. Which means that my bacizyi (sisters) walk to the borehole to fetch water almost every day (Yes, they carry buckets of water on their heads, and YES, it is the most incredible thing to behold…the power of a woman.) Except right now, the borehole that my family pays to use is broken. And the next closest borehole’s water isn’t very clean. So they have to walk even further and spend even more time to bring home this resource. We have to use it very mindfully. Here in rural Zambia, there’s just not water to waste. I’m going to be placed in the Southern province for my service, which is currently experiencing extreme drought…which means that farmers can’t irrigate their fields to buy food for their family, boreholes and wells are drying up, and the landscape is dying. I’m never taking the embarrassingly long showers that I used to take again. Here, water is worth it’s weight in gold.

9. Zambia has some of the best-flavored potato chips I’ve ever had: Sweet Thai chili, Caribbean onion and balsamic vinegar, and spring onion and cheese. Dangerously good.

10. I’m falling in love with this country. Am I homesick? Obviously. Am I finding a new home in the friends that I’m making, my host family, and the common experiences we all share? Yes