A weekend on the Busanga Plains

(Just a note about pictures on picasa, I'll upload the who lot from the trip as soon as I can, internet has been a bit slow, hopefully I can get into the office this weekend and just let 'em all go up. But for now, here's a few to go with my entry...)

Life on safari is a different pace. It accommodates, and sometimes even takes the shape of, the lives of the animals themselves. When they wake, we wake. When they eat, we go to watch. When they laze in the midday sun, we laze. And eat, and eat, and eat. Now that I’m a safari lodge expert, having stayed at two different lodges, I’ve realized that the formula is always the same: Wake at 6 am, morning game drive at 6:30, return around 10:30, brunch/lunch at 11, nap and relax, small afternoon snack and tea at 4, afternoon game drive at 4:30, including sundown drinks halfway through, usually on some hill overlooking a hippo pool, or herds of puku and lichwe, candlelit dinner at 8, sit by the campfire till you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. Life on safari is difficult I tell you.

As I walked through the front door of my house after returning from the airport on Monday afternoon, it felt odd to be inside. I realized that since I stepped off our tiny 6-seat charter plane on Thursday (we flew with Fly Mission, a charity organization that runs mission hospitals in the bush), I had not been inside since.

After a bit of a turbulent plane ride, as well as landing first at the wrong airstrip and being redirected to another, Rodney was waiting at Lufupa Airstrip for us. I could not have been happier or more excited to see him smiling and waving from the safari truck, our long awaited trip to the Busanga Plains had begun.

Kafue National Park itself is giant, about the size of Israel. the Busanga Plains are situated in the northwest corner, just a tiny piece and yet the plains feel vast. The flatness of it all puts the horizon at kilometers and kilometers away. Distances there can be deceiving. What seems like it should be a short walk can turn into an hour long journey, especially while trying to walk across uneven surfaces of trampled grasses and undulating mud hills shaped by the forces of water. These are the flood plains, and for many months of the year, completely under water. It is only during the dry season that we get the opportunity to visit the plains at all.

The nice thing about driving through Kafue National Park is that even if you’re not on an official “game drive,” even if you’re just driving to a destination, there are still animals to be seen. Our three-hour drive north through the forest and to the Busanga Plains included elephants, various types of antelope like puku, lechwe, kudu and oribis, in addition to countless birds. We drank beer and watched the sunset along a bend in the Lufupa River known as Crocodile Corner. In the darkness, it began to rain, the first heavy rain of the season on the plains. It made for an interesting final hour of the drive to the Plains Camp, in an open safari vehicle with only a canvas top. The glowing kerosene lamps of the camp in the distance welcomed us out of the wetness, to our home for the coming few days.

http://www.mukambi.com/?section=busangaplains

The camp itself is situated on an island. It’s not really an island as you would imagine it. In the dry season, sometimes it’s just a narrow, deepish, damp ditch separating it from the land around it. Nevertheless, once the rains begins, the water can surround it fairly quickly and so there is a long footbridge, a boardwalk of sorts, to get across to camp from where the vehicles park. The camp is delightfully small and intimate, with only four sleeping tents as well as the dining area. When I say tent, I mean a large safari tent with an additional canopy over it, complete with rugs, wooden four-poster beds, cushioned chairs and canvas- draped armoires. The bathrooms are found down bamboo-lined walkways, toilets and sinks with real plumbing, paradoxically outside. Sit on the toilet, brush your teeth, take a shower and watch the antelope graze in the distance. The dining area is a canopied deck overlooking the picturesque plains and two fig trees. There’s a bookcase tucked into the corner, built from an old wooden dugout canoe turned on its side with shelves added. There are books on wildlife, issues of Africa Geographic magazine, books by local authors.

On our first evening, in the dark, in the rain, I could not appreciate any of this. But there was candlelight, and wine, and good food, and friends, and laughing late into the night. I slept well.

Over the next four days, I went on several game drives and saw countless animals. The animals up and about on the morning drive can sometimes be completely different than those you start to notice at twilight. There are numerous types of antelope- puku, kudu, impala, lichwe, roan, and oribis. At first they are exciting to see, but soon become so common that you hardly notice them at all. It was interesting to learn the distinguishing features of each though. We saw crocs and hippos and elephants. We saw civets, ganets, and the elusive honey badger. Wildebeest, zebras, warthogs, bushbucks, waterbucks and my favorite name, the Lichtenstein Hartebeest. We saw countless, numerous birds, an ornithologists dream, I wish I could remember them all, but they include cattle egrots, saddle billed storks, kites, secretary birds, African fishing eagles, vultures, guineafowl, wattled cranes, crowned cranes, dikkops, grass owls, the lilac breasted roller, the cinnamon roller and honey guide. I think my favorite name is the Francolin. After a while, it was fun starting to combine names, like the scarlet breasted warbling cinnamon roll. An interesting fact about several of these birds is that they mate for life.

But the highlight of the animal viewing was the lions, especially since I hadn’t seen any on my last trip to Kafue National Park. There are two prides living in the area of the plains camp, the Busanga pride and the Papyrus pride. From Rodney’s stories, we had already heard that the Papyrus pride of six lions has taken a liking to the plains camp and visits fairly often. He’s even come to his tent on occasion to find them waiting for him by the door. This weekend was no exception. We were lucky enough to have many encounters with the lions, some perhaps a little closer than we expected.

The first encounter was at twilight, we passed another game vehicle who told us where to find them, and we came upon them lazing in the grass, cuddling and playing and rolling on their backs. In that setting, you can almost imagine them as large housecats, they certainly act that same way. In the safari vehicle, we could get fairly close, perhaps about 15 ft or so. They don’t have much reason to bother us if we don’t bother them. We all sat in silence for quite some time just watching.

The next evening, we again went looking for them at twilight, but we couldn’t find them. As true darkness set in and dinner time neared, we decided to give up our search and head back to camp. As we approached the road leading up to camp, there she was, in our headlights, the lioness sitting solidly in the middle of the road, blocking our way. Where there is one, there are more. Some quick assessment of the situation with the help of our spotlight identified the other five lions, off to the left, almost lined up single file, each further back into the field than the one before it. It seemed we had interrupted some lichwe stalking. Sometimes it can take them hours to situate themselves around a target, use one of them as a decoy and create a trap for some unsuspecting animal, about to be dinner. The lioness leading the hunt looked at us for a long time, then began to make some low grunting noises and stalked off to the right, then back, around the vehicle. Was she hunting us? Or just moving along? The other lions followed her, slowly, deliberately, taking time to plop down, rest, wrestle, play. We continued to count them. Six lions in sight. Six lions in sight. Eventually, after what seemed like a long time but was probably less than half an hour, our road block had cleared and we returned to camp.

As we were sitting down to dinner, they announced that the lions had been seen stalking across the footbridge towards camp. They were somewhere on the island. This would definitely be a good night to make sure you get an escort from the dining area back to your tent. The thought was there, but not at the forefront of my mind. A much anticipated dinner came, we dined, we enjoyed. As we were finishing dessert, Rodney suddenly raised his hand, shushed us all, and pointed a flashlight off the deck towards the campfire pit. There, less than 10 ft from the deck, was a lioness with several others not far behind her. In the distance, to the far side of the deck, our flashlights revealed a lichwe. It seems we interrupted yet another stalking/hunting session. She gave a decided growl and almost a mock charge, which sent several of us leaping further back into the dining area. It certainly gave me a bit of a rush. But I couldn’t have expected its effect on some of the other guests. A large, long-haired, older German woman with a boisterous, in your face personality, who had lived in Zambia for 40 years and was an old hat at safaris, sat hushed and dazed- looking in her chair, puffing away at a cigarette, tightly holding the hand of her small, mild-mannered Zambian husband.

After having most decidedly established their dominance, the lions didn’t stay long. They soon wandered away from the dining area, toward the sleeping tents and then around to the other side of camp, in search of another target. Minutes later, the staff reported the lions once again crossing over the bridge, leaving the island. This was not to be the last encounter however.

A couple hours later, Sarah K., Rodney and I were sitting by the glowing campfire, chatting, taking in the fabulous starry sky. Most of the camp had already gone to sleep. Quite suddenly, we heard a low grunting and a rustling in the grass. As had seemed to become the formula for the day, Rodney turned on the flashlight and there she was, the lioness in the grass, probably less than 20 ft away, watching us. “Alright,” he said, fairly matter-of-factly, “get over to the deck.” In one synchronized motion, Sarah and I were over and up onto the deck in about two large leaps. The lioness didn’t come any closer. Sarah and I sat crouched on the deck, recovering our breaths. In the light from the flashlight, she turned slowly and stalked away once again, back around the camp and presumably, off the island. That was the last we saw of the Papyrus pride for the night.

As we packed our bags on Sunday, with a strong wind blowing in across the plains, shaking our tent (Oooooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plains…), it felt too soon to be leaving. None of us were excited to head back to the smog and traffic of Lusaka. Somehow, through the wonders of spotty email access and miscommunication, we got our wish. We were meant to fly out of an airstrip that was closer to our camp, but the message never got through to the pilot. After nearly an hour and a half of waiting with no planes in sight, it seemed that our ride wasn’t coming. And if fact, as we found out later, once again, the pilot went to the wrong airstrip. I can’t say any of us were too disappointed to turn around, drive back through the forest and once again see the glowing kerosene lamps of the camp welcome us back to our home on the plains for one more night. So I had another chance to sleep in an amazingly comfortable bed, in a beautiful tent, under a marvelous night sky overflowing with stars, with the whistling wind lulling me to sleep. One more chance to brush my teeth while watching the grazing puku. It’s times like that when I think I should just go open a bed and breakfast somewhere far away and fabulous.

Alas, this time we managed to meet our pilot, and return to Lusaka, and come back to real life. Seems as if HIV and TB hasn’t really become a problem yet among the lions of the Busanga plains. But if it ever does, you better believe I’ll be one of the first people out there ready to lead any public health initiatives they may come up with.

Some Tuku, a bike ride, a book shop and a Stitch n’ Bitch

After three months here, my weeks have become routine and sometimes my weekends feel that way too. Sleeping late, ultimate frisbee, lounging by the pool, out to dinner, get togethers and potlucks, movies, big weekly food shopping at Shoprite. With limited forms of transportation, limited funds, and limited things to do in Lusaka, it’s hard to switch things up too much. But this weekend, with a little creativity, we managed to make it feel totally different.

It started off with a concert at the International School, given by the great Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi, a musician from Zimbabwe who sings Shona music. I can’t remember the last time I heard music performed in a high school gym, but it was easy to forget the setting when they finally came on stage. It was a night of clapping and dancing and fabulous music, late into the night.

Mary is an older, White, British woman who owns a house and property a bit outside of town, to the southeast, way down (and up!) Leopard’s Hill. From the entrance to her driveway at the top of the hill, indicated by the simple, hand-painted sign, you can just make out the two “skyscrapers” of Lusaka far off in the distance. They seem delightfully far away. This lovely, shaded, verdant piece of land is not only her home, but home to Mary’s Book Shop as well. She specializes in selling used books out of a large shipping container turned into a walk in book display area. Her range of books would amaze you. From historical classics to dime store mysteries, travel guides 15 years old to poetry anthologies, cook books, how-to guides, recent New York Times bestsellers, even old Jane Fonda exercise VHSs. I found a book about “Modern Israel” published in 1965. She also throws in the occasional new/unused book and novelty items. The Christmas season has begun, as I’m sure it has back in the states, and Mary had a full line of traditional holiday crackers (those large, paper wrapped, cardboard candy looking things with surprise toys inside) direct from England.

We wanted to get some books as a gift for Rodney and for the guest library at the Busanga Plains Camp we’re going to visit, and so it seemed like a good excuse for a visit to Mary’s and a nice long bike ride to get there. The physical distance from our house is probably not that many miles, but riding on a heavy, squeaky, partially-broken-gear Zambike, on the rough unevenness of the side of the road, alongside trucks chocking thick smoke, first through the craziness of Kalingalinga and then over the many hills of Leopards Hill (clearly misnamed), under the intense midday sun, it made for a good 1.5 hour adventure.

But we made it. The little signpost, the tree lined driveway and the little children selling bunches of flowers could not have been a more welcoming sight. In order to get to the actual shipping container/book shop, you must first walk through a tented, seating area, nestled alongside a grove, where old, white, expat couples sip tea and eat little cakes and biscuits. The whole setting felt so decidedly un-Zambian, I really had to remind myself where I was. Perhaps we stuck out just a bit in our sweaty athletic clothes and bike helmets. For most people, this is a leisurely weekend drive. If nothing else, they were impressed with our hard work to get there. “Where did you bike from?!”

Two hours later, stomachs full of our brown-bag lunches and Mary’s chocolate cake, bags full of books, feeling much revived, we ventured back the other way. The ride home was definitely easier. The good part about having gone slightly uphill the entire way out there was getting to go slightly downhill on the way home. The only adventure on the way home was attempting to buy bottles of water from the roadside shop, which turned out to be a bar, with many Zambian men hanging about who apparently started happy hour at least 6 hours early. It really got me thinking and wondering about mental health services and rates of alcoholism here, but that’s a discussion for another time.

This weekend also marked the first ever Stitch N’ Bitch Lusaka. What is a Stitch N’ Bitch you ask? Imagine those old groups in small towns, when women would sit around and quilt together, late into the evenings, away from their husbands. Now move that outside, to an Italian restaurant by edge of the polo fields. The women are younger. Most of them are knitting, but there was needle point and even some quilting too. They’re all sipping cold drinks under the hot sun, like iced coffee, beer, and pina coladas. And they just happen to be in Lusaka, Zambia. But no matter where it is, stiching and bitching will always be the same. I’ve learned how to knit. I finished my very first project, an iPod cozy, something no iPod should be without.

Amazingly, we are already halfway through this week. Friday is a holiday, Independence Day. Tomorrow we leave for our long awaited safari to the Busanga Plains. I can't wait!

Some thoughts on NGOs, incentives, sustainability and making a difference

I went to visit the TB-HIV peer educators for the first time since the training back in September. They’ve been on the job for more than a month now, submitted their first monthly reports, and it was time for a check in. After two afternoons and two dusty, bouncy, sweaty SUV rides along unpaved roads to two clinics, I am drained. I love them, but they drain me. Their hard work, creativity and proactiveness has inspired me and defied my expectations. They work hours well beyond what’s expected of them, and they are paid the same stipend regardless. They stand as proud role models for their peers, opening accepting and discussing their own HIV status in hopes of inspiring patients towards successful treatment. I almost can’t imagine reaching the point of acceptance and empowerment they have found, if I found out that I was HIV infected.

All on their own they have come up with additional projects to do. Stephen, one of the peers at George clinic came up with the idea to do an outbreak mapping of sorts. He mapped all the smear positive cases of TB in the community and determined where the clusters of active disease are. Then he organized teams of treatment supporters to go out to these neighborhood clusters to encourage further case finding and enrollment in TB care. This is certainly not in his job description. They also took it upon themselves to schedule the first meeting of a TB-HIV support group which we had vaguely discussed with them but about which we had never finalized plans. The first I heard about it was last week, when they told me it would be happening this week. They have been truly wonderful.

Despite all that, they have also lived up to the stereotypes of locals pushing to get as much as they can, from the NGO, from the mzungu, and I almost want to hate them for it, for the way they manipulate me and the way they make me feel almost guilty for who I am, where I come from, and what I am privileged to have.

To fully understand what’s going on here, you have to know a bit more about the history of NGOs in Africa, because I know at least a bit about that now. Over the years, new programs, new initiatives and new work to be done led the NGOs to create initiatives for people to do them. They range from larger initiatives, like overtime pay for nurses, to smaller things, like transport reimbursements for attending a meeting or training, and refreshments. Sure, throughout the world, everybody appreciates refreshments at any event. In school, it’s a lunchtime mantra, a guide to choosing which meetings to attend during lunch time, “Free food!”

But for people here, its importance has become to excess. It has come to the point that people will complain if there is none, or not enough, or even if it’s not what they wanted. After a perfectly satisfying, free lunch one day during the peer training back in September, where we had given them “chicken & chips,” they said to me, “Sarah, why did you give us chicken and chips? We wanted nshima instead of chips. Next time give us nshima!”

Here’s a lesson I’ve learned about tea breaks during meetings. If you put out a plate of biscuits, theoretically enough for everyone in the room, they will most likely be gone before everybody gets some. That’s because people will pile biscuits onto their plates like these are the last ones they’ll ever have. They’ll be more biscuits on their plate than you can imagine them comfortably eating in one sitting. And if, by some huge chance, there are any leftovers on the tray at the end of tea break, they will soon disappear into purses and bags. I know we’re not really that different at home, we still crowd and hustle for food, and take leftovers away, but maybe not quite to this extent, or perhaps with this much disregard for those around us. And if the food is gone, it’s gone. We don’t usually complain that there should have been more or that we didn’t approve of what was ordered, or that we’ll never come back because there wasn’t any food. So, if you don’t want your tea break biscuits to disappear before equitable consumption, what you need to do is this: prepare pre-wrapped, napkin covered packets of little piles of biscuits and hand them out, that way, everyone gets one.

Getting back to those incentives. I think I’ve written in the past how going to trainings is a big deal here. That’s partially because they do in fact teach people skills they do not have. For example, nurses who have never been trained to care for HIV patients get a fully paid for opportunity to learn how to do so. But it’s tricky. Because while we’re not paying them to attend per se, we give them money as lunch reimbursements, as travel reimbursements, which is often more than they would really spend on those things. Sometimes, they’ll go without lunch, just to be able to keep more of the money. It’s seen as an added income source. I’ve heard of people managing to get themselves into trainings in various topics, on a weekly basis, as a source of income, not because they really want to learn whatever the training is about.

The NGOs have shot themselves in the foot. We create these programs and incentives to do them, then we talk of sustainability and enabling local organizations and government offices to take over, and because of that, the incentives cannot continue. And when the incentives stop, so do the people who were willing to do these things before. Nurses paid overtime to help fulfill our TB/HIV integration of care initiatives have helped those practices become Ministry of Health standard of care, but the nurses still don’t consider it to be so. You take away the overtime pay and they won’t feel any obligation to do those jobs.

Alright, so what does all that have to do with the peers? When the peers informed me of support group meeting they planned, it was almost their demand that there be refreshments provided. I got a mouthful from both the peers and the TB corner nurse about this issue and I felt thrown to the lions.

“The first meeting is very important you know Sarah, people will not come again if there is no food. They come in the morning for their treatment, and they have to wait all afternoon until 2 pm for the meeting, what will they eat?!” This led to a discussion of the peers themselves, and what they would eat on any given day for lunch, whether they would bring it with them or buy something near the clinic. Apparently the peers do not eat lunch. And this is where they really pulled my heartstrings, this is where they left me almost crying but feeling so manipulated it hurt.

“I do not eat lunch Sarah. How can I? I have four children to feed. I only make XX kwacha per month. How can somebody live on that?! There is the rent to pay, and the school fees. I do not eat until dinner! My second child is 7 years old and HIV positive. She doesn’t understand it. How can I explain it to her? And if I tell her she got it from me, she will hate me. And my oldest child started feeling sick, and I brought him for VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) and he is also HIV positive. And why haven’t we been paid yet? And why are they taking so many taxes out of our pay. Tell me Sarah, how are we supposed to live?”

Yes it’s true, poverty is rampant, they are not paid enough to really live on, they are not always paid on time and they probably do need more food than they have. Those are all things beyond my control. If I could fix them all I would do it in a heartbeat. Yes I feel for them and the more time I spend here, the more I am so grateful for all I have been blessed with in my life. But they played it all up because I came alone to see them, because I’m mzungu and must therefore be rich and therefore they are entitled to what I have. They would never have made such a stink if my Zambian colleague Lillian had been there.

They made me feel guilty about drinking from my water bottle. And when it ran dry, and I was parched, they were very forthcoming about the fact that there were drinks for sale in the TB clinic. But that was likely because I couldn’t sit there, after having heard them talk about how they hadn’t eaten all day, and buy a drink and drink it in front of them, without offering to buy them one too. And so, I bought three drinks. They were each less than a dollar, totally meaningless in the grand scheme of my spending. On the one hand I was happy to do it, something little I could give them that day. But on the other hand, the more I think about it, I feel so conned and manipulated into having done it that’s it just the principle of it that makes me so mad.

There are around 40 people expected at the meeting. 40 people! At the first meeting! How fabulous and exciting is that, that there seems to be such interest and such a need for it. Just the thought of it makes me so excited about this project and its potential. And all of those people said they would come without being promised refreshments.

The fact of the matter is, none of the regular HIV support groups have refreshments. People come because of what it means to them. And I truly believe that if the TB-HIV support group means anything to these patients, they will come regardless of a napkin wrapped pile of biscuits. But I’m starting to lose faith that this rampant cycle of expectations and handouts can ever be broken. And we have a damn long way to go before we even begin to understand sustainability.

After work, I will go home to my walled in McMansion, with my swimming pool, my Western style kitchen, my satellite TV and a fridge full of food. And I’ll think about necessities and excesses. But I will not be made to feel guilty for who I am. I am here in Zambia, living so far away from everything and everyone I know, to do my part, but it’s such a tiny piece, I wonder if any one person could ever feel that impact. Or ever appreciate it.

Rain!

I woke up to a gray sky on Friday. This, in itself, was not so unusual. We’ve had many gray starts. It’s always a tease, a hope, a hint of what could be. But inevitably, the sun burns through and that’s that. But Friday morning, the gray clouds trapped in a humidity that hung just a bit heavier than usual. By the end of our early morning run, Liz and I were dripping with a sweat that would have made you think we had run at midday.

At the office, Linah glanced out the window, “It’s going to rain,” she said-matter of-factly. But Linah says a lot of things. And I hadn’t rained here since April. And rainy season doesn’t usually begin until November. And we get rainless gray mornings often.

But as the morning moved on, the grayness thickened. As we waited outside the office for transport, off to the east, across the fields and open spaces of the university campus, it looked as if a storm was brewing. The breeze was picking up, the trees in front of our building began to sway.

“It’s raining in Chelstone!” somebody said, getting off their phone. Indeed, that heavy grayness, the kind that brings the sky to the earth, where you can tell you’re watching a storm from the outside, was headed in our direction.

Last year, the rains came late, not until December. This year, October 10^th seemed as if it would mark the beginning.

It began with that intense smell, the imminent release of moisture. Then, the occasional drip, the kind where you’re not even sure if you feel it or just think you feel it, or want to feel it. But soon, it was undeniable. The sky opened up. Gentle at first and then heavier, big individual drops, plop plop plopping and spattering the windshield of our van. This being the debut rain of the season, just raindrops were clearly not enough. The sky peppered in a little hail, just for good measure. Cold, icy, bouncing pellets of hail. It came in gushes, softer at times, and then thoroughly soaking downpours. Small rivers began to form along the drainage ditches at the sides of the road. Children, caught unprepared, ran along taking shelter under their backpacks. Some had taken off their shoes, and hopped, from dry spot to dry spot, as if skipping across the stones of a river.

As October is meant to be the peak of the hot, dry season, the sun was not yet ready to give in. Despite the clouds, the grey, the rain, and the hail, the sun slowly burned its way through. Several hours after the darkness had descended, the rain continued through bright sunlight. And then it stopped, and the sky cleared. The newly created rivers ran their course. The dry land drank up the long awaited wetness. By the next morning, it was hard to tell it had ever rained. It was hot, clear and dry once again.

But the rain made its debut appearance. It may be gone for now, but it will return. There’s a lot more where that came from.

A Jewish New Year, Lusaka Style

The Jewish community of Lusaka, and yes, there is one, moves in waves. There are several kinds of Jews here. The majority, these days, are those like me: transient, here for one, two, three years at most, working for NGOs, or an embassy, or some short term business. A few others were grew up abroad but have lived in Zambia for many years, like Dr. Bush, an older British physician who has lived in Lusaka for 37 years. Finally there are the few who were born here and who have lived here their entire lives. They are all that remains of the once thriving Jewish population of Zambia, they are lone storytellers and historians to speak of what once was.

Some parts of the story are the same as the Jews of many American cities. Go to any downtown area and you will find the oldest synagogue in that city. Look in the museums there, the history books, and you’ll see old black and white photos of blocks and blocks of Jewish shops on streets that are present day Hispanic or Asian markets. One of my favorite pictures in The Jews of Boston is a photo of a little chassid boy standing on the corner of Prince Street and Salem Street in the North End, in front of a Jewish book shop. I love that picture because today, that bookshop is my favorite Italian bakery.

It is no different in Lusaka. The synagogue is right in the heart of downtown, in a business district, in a place where nobody lives anymore, not even many Zambians. It’s the kind of downtown that’s a financial district, busy with businessmen, government officials and shoppers during the day. They walk hurriedly past the unassuming synagogue gates, completely unaware of what is inside. I think even if you told them it’s a synagogue, they wouldn’t really know what that means. When Zambians ask me what church I attend, and I say I’m Jewish, I get questions like:

-What day of the week do you attend your church?

-Which books of the bible do you use?

-When do you celebrate Christmas?

-You must be from Israel then?

I’m not sure how shocking my answers are to them.

But back to the shul neighborhood. It’s the kind of downtown that closes at night, and there’s nothing but men walking around who you wouldn’t want to meet after dark. These days, the shops are all Zambian and Indian owned, with a smattering of fast food restaurants. But years ago, when Lusaka was just a tiny city compared with the much larger and more important cities on the Copper Belt and down in Livingstone, there was a kosher butcher, and kosher restaurants, and a bookshop, and more. In fact the Lusaka congregation was not even the largest one in Zambia. There were many more Jews involved in the mining in the copper belt and several congregations for them. The dedication in the front cover of the Rosh Hashanah machzor I picked up this morning read “To The Ndola Hebrew Congregation from Samuel and Aviva Ron, Jerusalem, 1964.” Independence and nationalization put a good dent in the Zambian Jewish community. They left in droves- to South Africa, to Israel, to the States. The shuls closed. The torahs and siddurim were given away. The small Lusaka congregation is all that remains.

The shul building itself is very pretty. Recently restored, it is white, spacious, and airy, with heavy, carved wooden doors and magen davids above the entryways. The entry hallway is in the middle of the building. To the right is the sanctuary. To the left is the social hall. Only it’s not a social hall anymore, it’s rented out as a school. The sanctuary has become the all purpose room. There is a big, old fashioned, heavy wooden carved bima in the center of the sanctuary, with rows of wooden benches facing it on either side. Once upon a time they told me, the entire sanctuary would be filled with benches, in a U shape all around the bima. Now, half the room is empty. On Monday night, it served as our dining room as well.

I walked into a room with a few small groups of people milling about. There were several young people my age, all NGO workers, several of them I had already met around town in various settings. Most of the rest were middle aged to older gentlemen, all dressed in the Israeli style of white button down shirts with the top few buttons open, no tie. Some of them were indeed Israelis, others spoke with accents of England, South Africa, and that general British Empire manner.

I finally met Lilac, an energetic and talkative Indian-Israeli girl somewhere around my age, who I had been speaking with on the phone. She’s here with her husband who works for the railroads, she did most of the cooking for the dinner and she helps organize social events for the synagogue. Her dinner, by the way, was amazing and included some traditional Indian Jewish Rosh Hashanah foods, like this cut up soft root vegetable that looked like apples but was spiced with cardamom. Like all Jewish women, she cooked absolutely too much food, and there loads of leftovers, which were given out to us and to the guards outside to enjoy.

The service was about 22 people strong, or maybe not so strong. Getting back to those waves of Jews who come through, apparently we’re at a nadir. Several families who had been pillars of the shul community in the past few years just left a few months ago. Of the 22, I counted 7, including myself, who were newly arrived NGO people. Without us, it would have been even smaller.

Coming into this service, I knew that I had to approach it with an open mind. Beggars can’t be choosers, I felt lucky enough to have found a shul and a Rosh Hashanah service in Lusaka. But there is something so powerful about tradition, about memory, about routine and about all of those things connected with the high holidays. And it’s hard to experience that spirituality with a service lacking those pieces I have come to rely on. For instance, I hear Unetane Tokef, sung passionately by the chazzan, and I know Rosh Hashanah is here. I didn’t get that here, exactly, so it was a struggle for me, both in the evening and morning services. The machzor we used was that of Liberal and Progressive Judaism out of the UK. I was surprised, actually, with how much Hebrew there was written in it. But we didn’t make very good use of it. To me, it felt more like a meeting than a prayer service. We took turns going around the room, reading out loud, mostly in English.

Whether he volunteered or was just pushed into it, Dr. Bush has become the informal leader, the all-purpose guy, of the congregation- the chazzan, the shofar blower, the torah reader. I give him full credit and respect. He tried very hard and did a good job. But his tradition and my tradition are so different to begin with, that his interpretation of that made it even harder for me to follow it. I don’t mean for this to sound at all judgmental. But it seems that for him, all of his knowledge comes from what he learned as a child, in Hebrew school, and leading up to his Bar Mitzvah. He was certainly opening and welcome to what we wanted to do, if anybody wanted to read out loud in Hebrew, or add a melody to a paragraph. I tried, whenever it was my turn, to do that. But there was little singing overall in the service and for me, that’s one of the most powerful parts. There was no opportunity to read quietly to ourselves and thus, it felt to me, little room for reflection.

For the morning service, I was very curious to see what would happen with torah reading, because there didn’t seem to be anybody there who would know how to do it. They did, in fact, take the torah out of the ark. They opened it, they lay it on the table, called the first person up for the aliyah and then, Dr. Bush proceeded to read in English from the torah portion as it was written in the machzor. From the depths of my memory, from the women’s tefillah I attended back in Stamford, from the times I learned the trop, I began to read to myself, hear the melody in my head and chanted it quietly. My coworker Lonny, who was at the service too, noticed me chanting and leaned over excitedly. “Do you remember that?” he whispered. “I would much rather have you chant it than listen to Dr. Bush read it in English.”

Dr. Bush noticed me too. After the torah reading was done, he asked if I could, if I would like to, read the haftarah, and I said I’d give it a try. So without ever having looked at the portion, or practiced the trop, I chanted my way through the haftarah as best as I could remember the trop was supposed to be. I could hear Mr. Soifer, who came into our 6^th grade classroom back at Bi- Cultural Day School to teach us the trop, singing in his gutteral voice, “mooooonaaaaach zakef.” It was a bit surreal to be standing there on the bima in a shul in Lusaka, trying to read a haftarah I didn’t know. The last time I read a haftarah at a service was probably 12 years ago. I guess you never know when those skills will prove important.

When it came time to blow shofar, Dr. Bush gave it his best effort. At first he could make no sound come out. As he kept trying, the sound improved. Back in his memory, he clearly knew that there was meant to be a tekiah, a shefarim, and a teruah. He was able to replicate the general sense of each one, in no particular order, although sometimes his teruahs, would die out prematurely. The usual series of 9 sounds at each portion of the mussaf service became something like 5.3. At one point though, he turned to me to ask me to clarify which sound was which, and what they should sound like. For the final set of 9, he did all 9 sounds, almost perfectly.

At the end of the service, I was filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I felt sad that it was nothing like a service I was used to, and that I needed to go home and daven myself, to try to make it a Rosh Hashanah I could identify with. But on the other hand, I felt happy to have met the Jews of Lusaka. I felt proud to have been able to read the haftarah, to have brought song to parts of the service that would not have had any, and to have reminded somebody how to blow shofar.

It also got me thinking a lot about communities. At home, back in the US, in the Northeast, in big cities, we are spoiled. To have so many Jews, to have strong communities, so know that the shul is there when we need it. Of course there are shuls that struggle with getting a minyan but in general, there are enough members of the community to fill the roles that need be filled. But here, every single Jew counts, I mean really counts. One person’s absence is felt by all, in numerous and untold ways. Somehow Judaism survives, but without that critical mass of knowledge and support, it’s easy to see how traditions are lost, changed and confused. At home, people have their choice, have the ability to find the type of Jewish community that fits them, because there are so many. Here, it’s either the one or nothing at all. And so it takes patience, and compromise, and putting aside of those age-old conflicts that separate orthodox from conservative from reform. It’s a reminder than in this country where we are not only a religious and cultural minority but an ethnic minority as well, we must set aside our difference and hold dear our common bonds.

So the tiny, transient, wave-like Jewish community of Lusaka pushes forward, losing and picking up pillars along the way, but always standing together, facing North (towards Jerusalem), in the little shul building on ChaChaCha Road.

A week at Bauleni

A week in the life of a clinic.

For the past seven days, I started my days at Bauleni Health Center, coordinating the patient waiting time survey in preparation for integration. The clinics open at 8, so I had to be there before that. Sometimes as early as 7 am, they begin to line up outside. Even when I arrived at 7:45, the waiting shed outside would be almost filled with people, waiting to rush in the doors as soon as they opened, to hand their patient cards into the registry, to be little further up the cue to see a doctor. They sit patiently though, for where else can they go, and what else is there to be doing? The chitenge wrapped babies make the occasional coo or hiccup, the toddlers waddle and wander, the women stroll back and forth, chat and laugh. The occasional elderly man or woman sits quietly, just watching. They make their way into the inside clinic waiting room when called, jam onto the benches, watch the loud Nigerian movies on the television. As the line moves forward, ever so slowly, they inch along the benches, one bit closer to the screening room, where they will have a doctor’s attention for perhaps three minutes. The registry staff works diligently. With Zambian music blasting in the background, while chatting politics, they take ID cards, fish through shelves of old files, stamp cards, mark times and weights, move the files forward. That’s all only the outpatient (OPD) clinic.

In the back, the ART clinic has an almost intimate feel. With its one short hallway, not nearly as crowded as OPD, it feels more private, more manageable. The staff knows them, because they return so often. There, too, they may sit for hours. But when they do get attention, it’s for longer. They have their vitals taken. They see the peers for adherence counseling. They see the doctor. They pick up their ARVs. They get health education talks while they’re waiting. In the back of the ART registry, a few patients each day spend a good half hour with one of the nurses, enrolling in the ART program. Space is at a premium though.

One day when I was in the one medium sized room of the ART registry, not only were the file clerks finding and putting away files, but one of the COs was seeing a patient, while a nurse enrolled a patient, while another very sick patient was being seen on the one cot/bed in the clinic.

Across the courtyard out back, the women crowd in masses at the doors of the MCH (maternal and child health) clinic. Some days are devoted to antenatal, others to under 5 pediatric visits. I could have sworn that every child in Lusaka was at the health center last Wednesday, and Bauleni is only a medium sized clinic. I couldn’t even figure out how all of the waiting patients could be seen before sunset.

In the building all the way to the back, women in labor push out new life, without making a sound, because it’s thought to be bad luck.

In the kitchen, the clinic cooks/cleaning ladies peel potatoes, scrape fish, boil beans, lunch for the staff and the women in Labor and Delivery. When I come to see what’s going on, they chatter in Nyanja, good heartedly laugh at my attempts and tell me they want to teach me to dance like a Zambian woman.

Patients like to come in waves. Even on Saturdays and Sundays, the masses start in the morning, and thin out as the morning goes on. By noon, it feels almost manageable again. But come afternoon, the waiting shed will once again be full. I usually leave by that time, completely drained by crowds, the heat, the effort put into my interactions. I imagine though, that only when the sun begins to set do the crowds clear out for good, at least until the next morning.

Adventure City

Lusaka never ceases to surprise me with all the western style things it has to offer. I mean really, what’s a good city without a water park? Adventure City is just that. Hidden away in the hills on the outskirts of town, it’s a lush oasis of sorts, winding paths between shady trees and thatched roofed shelters, and of course, swimming pools and water slides. These are not just any pools though, they are big, uneven shaped, lazy river type pools with waterfalls in the middle. The highlight is the two water slides. One of the curvy sort and the other of the straight, fast drop sort. They both descend from the same platform, into the same whirling pool. Unlike water parks at home, which hire bored high school kids to carefully regulate how many people climb up the stairs to the top of the slide and when each person can head on down, there is nobody watching. Children would push their way past me, running up the stairs. They’d go down two, three at a time, practically crashing into each other at times. Feet first, head first, backwards. Cheers would go up for some particularly daring leap down the slide. It was, interesting. But definitely loads of fun. I can’t remember the last time I darted down a water slide. I never imagined it would be here.

It got me thinking about what socioeconomic class somebody from Lusaka would have to be in to attend a place like that. With a K20,000 entry fee (about $6), it’s no Six Flags or Disney World, but for the cleaning lady at the clinic who told me she makes K260,000 per month for her and six children, a day at Adventure City seems very much out of reach.