21 things that might happen to you while riding a minibus in Lusaka

1. The bus might not come to a complete stop, so you might have to board while the vehicle is still moving.

2. You might have to sit on someone's lap.

3. You might be given someone's child to hold while they climb on board and find a seat.

4. That same child, once given back to his mother, might stare at you the whole ride and keep touching your white skin to see if you, the muzungu, are actually real.

5. You might have to sit on a box or a bucket if there aren't any seats left.

6. You might have to pay twice the fare as everyone else. If you refuse, the conductor might ridicule you ("Imagine--the muzungu trying to pay local price!").

7. You might receive a marriage proposal.

8. You might be asked to give away your personal belongings, or at least trade your own hat for the conductor's.

9. You might be invited to someone's house. In one memorable instance, we were invited to go canoeing with a very funny Rastafarian man who also offered us his drugs. I told him that the proposition sounded terrifying, to which he replied, "No, don't scare, baby!"

10. A fellow passenger might try to sell you insurance.

11. You might have to wait up to 30 minutes after boarding for the conductor to decide the bus has enough passengers to leave the stop.

12. Once en route, the driver may pull into a gas station to fill up the tank.

13. You might be asked which country you are from, and probably also which football (soccer) team you support. You should reply wholeheartedly, "Chipolopolo!" Or at least Chelsea.

14. Your bus might pull off the main street and do some off-roading through a compound where chickens, goats, ditches and barefooted children are everywhere.

15. Your bus driver might use the shoulder as a lane. If traffic is very busy, some clever people might have set up camp on the shoulder laying out cinder blocks to create a "toll", preventing the minibuses from passing. Your driver might have to pay a few kwachas so that these people will move their cinder blocks and allow the bus to pass.

16. You might sit next to someone holding a cage of live chickens.

17. There might be someone singing. Others may join in.

18. You might have roadside vendors approach your window while the bus is idling at an intersection and try to sell you things--bananas, water bottles, newspapers, pants, talk time for your phone, inflatable pool toys, puppies...

19. You might talk with some helpful fellow passengers who tell you which bus stops are safe at night and which ones aren't.

20. You might see a grass fire spreading along the shoulder of the road.

21. Your driver might have his bus keys confiscated by the police, in which case you will have to exit the bus with everyone else and board a different bus.

CUREkids

While here, it has been amazing to see how all the NGO's are working together to promote real change for impoverished people here. They have no government to take care of them, they have no social system backups. Poverty is real and has real consequences for many. Unemployment is so high. And yet people are very happy still. It is now evident that many of those organisations that are always lobbying for money back at home actually have such tangible effects here where it matters. I think CURE does such an amazing job of linking donations to directly affect individuals here at the hospital.

One of our housemates is Amanda. She works for CURE as a CURE Kids Coordinator, which essentially looks like a photojournalist here. It is her job to discover the stories of the kids at CURE and publish them online. This allows donors to give to children in real time. For example, people can donate money towards a specific child's surgery and write messages of encouragement to a specific child in the hospital. They can follow children's lives even after their surgery, so that even though a child may only be here for one week then be discharged, if they come back a year later for follow-up, their story will continue and anyone who has interacted with the child online will be updated on his or her condition.

The cost of most surgeries generally comes to about $2000 USD (administrative, direct and indirect costs). If the money isn't raised upfront for a particular child, this doesn't mean they don't get treated. This figure just serves as a ballpark measure in the budget to show people what it costs to treat a patient.

A verse that comes to mind is this one, James 1:27:

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

CURE makes it easy to visit the orphans and widows here in Zambia (and around the world), even if you are not physically in the country. The online gallery of kids allows you to get to know the individuals here that have been treated. It allows you to pray for them specifically, see the impact on a specific life your donation will have, and send notes of encouragement to the mothers and the children themselves.

This makes it so easy to follow people and learn about what makes them unique. Not only what their medical condition is, but also who they are as an individual. Jesus gives us an example of getting to know the hearts of people. He went to Zacchaeus and made his story known. He went to the woman at the well and made her story known. The woman who washed his feet. He gets to know individuals. In fact, His compassion is so great that He came to the world as man to know men and allow men to know Him. Jesus said:

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. John 10:14

If you want to check out some of the stories of the children here specifically at the hospital in Zambia:
http://cure.org/curekids/list?country=zambia

And throughout all of the hospitals under the CURE umbrella:
http://cure.org/curekids

This is Rabecca, a 2 year old hydrocephalus patient, and her mother. Rabecca shrieks with delight any time you say her name. She had a VP shunt placement surgery this past week and is still on the ward recovering. (Photo by Amanda Goble, CURE Kids Coordinator)

-Mason

Mother's Day

I was at the bedside yesterday and I asked Davy, the charge nurse, if I could go with a child for a CT scan today at UTH (University Teaching Hospital). He said, "You didn't notice the schedule? You're MD tomorrow." He writes the letters 'MD' on a sheet of paper in the chart and waits for my response.

"Medical doctor?" I ask, terrified.

"No, Mother's Day," he says.

"Tomorrow is Mother's Day?" I ask.

"Yes."

"For everyone?" 

"No," he says, "just for you."

"But I'm not even a mother!" I laugh.

"It's okay," he says, laughing, "you can just call it Ladies Day."

"Seriously? But I want to work tomorrow!" 

"No," he says, "you should rest." He laughs at me some more because I'm not understanding.

We walk to the nurses station. "Davy says it's my Mother's Day tomorrow," I say to the others. "Is he joking?" They all laugh. "I'm literally not even a mother."

"No, it's not just for mothers," one explains. "Any woman can take MD each month."

"Every month?!" 

"Yes, Jasmine," says the matron. "Even me, I am in menopause already, but I can still take a day each month to rest." (???)

"Anyone who is with the moon can take their MD," says Davy. (?!?!?!)

Well there you go. That explains it. No confusion remaining. I had every intention yesterday after work to just go in today anyway. But after a frustrating evening of malfunctioning office supplies, lack of Internet, toads everywhere outside the guesthouse preventing me from walking to where there is Internet, and emotional exhaustion...I have now decided to enjoy this unexpected day off. 

***

I have ventured into the city by myself, feeling very proud until the conductor on the minibus had the whole bus laughing at the "mzungu who tried to pay only two kwachas (local price)"...he then charged me double the fare...

Funny things like Mother's Day happen here all the time. Like Monday when we had to get our visas extended...

So we have volunteer visas good for 90 days in the country. They have an expiration date of 6 months after we bought them in Canada at the embassy. We have been told by some customs officers here to check in at the Dept of Immigration at 30 days to get it re-stamped and valid for the next 30 days. Other customs officers here have told us it's okay, "no problem", your visa is good for 6 months. So we thought it best to visit and double check...

So after precisely looking up on Google maps where the Dept of Immigration is, we take a bus all the way across town and find the building that is not even on the same city block of the location we found on Google Maps. The security guard with a rifle told us to wait at reception, so we did. They have a whiteboard with a grid of many different possible visa-related fees written on it (single entry, double entry, extensions, late fees, etc.). After awhile the customs officer returns, looks at our passports and calmly says we're one day late, we are in the country illegally, and we need to remedy this today. We're like, "Yes, sir, sorry sir, thank you sir." So he tells us to go back across town to the "Regional Immigration Office" to get our visas stamped. We confirm with him that we cannot get our visas stamped here, in this beautifully maintained big office with a security guard and a whiteboard with many fees listed on it...No, we cannot...We take a taxi back across town. The taxi driver directs us down an alley. People come running at us: "Taxi, madame?" "Visa extension, boss?" We get directions from three different people before we arrive at the back door of the building that we have been most assured is the correct one. There is a guard at the front desk and he tells us to sign the book. So we do. Then he tells us to go to the second floor. There are no signs on any walls. We get to the second floor and an Indian man asks us, "Immigration?" and points us through an unmarked door. We go to the receptionist and explain what we need on our passports. She says, "Let me see," we give her the passports, and she immediately stamps them, no questions asked. Then she's back on her phone and we assume we can leave. So that was lucky...

The other night we went out for dinner and I ordered a Smirnoff 'Cider', as the menu read. It was only 9 kwachas, cheaper than water! Great, I thought. This is what I got: 

Two regular sized glasses, one containing ice cubes, and one containing maybe half a shot of pure Smirnoff vodka.

 

My date. We went to "Ocean Basket". Please consider the irony of such a place in Zambia.

This was me last week:

 I had a wicked stomach bug so the nurses insisted I come to the adult ward and get some IV fluids. The medical student said, "I think we need to rule out Ebola," but I think he was joking. So far no cases in Zambia.

This is what makes the headlines here in Lusaka...

This was the view from an overpass on our walk to church last week:

Idling cars at intersections attract people trying to sell just about anything...inflatable pool toys, newspapers, sunglasses... Note the guy trying to sell puppies through the window of the silver car. 

I think I'll sign off for now...happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers back home. Too bad y'all have to work today... :) 

Outreach

From September 23 to September 28, 2014 anything could have happened in the world - Canada could have been bombed, a cure for Ebola could have been found, Derek could have won the lottery - and we would have had no idea. We spent this week in the bush. Specifically, in a tiny village called Sichikali in Zambia's southern province, about a 6 hour drive away from our home at the hospital in Lusaka. Pastor Harold drove a minibus through the Zambian bush and it was the most terrifying ride of my life. He's a good driver, don't get me wrong. But picture a boxy bus flying down narrow roads where cattle can cross anywhere they please, fields are on fire in the distance, pairs of people emerge from the bush out of nowhere to cross the road without looking, transport trucks are spilled over in the ditch and crowds of people are scavenging through their contents, and the space separating us from passing transport trucks that have managed to stay on the road sometimes is an inch. I decided partway through that the ride would be much more enjoyable if I just closed my eyes, so it was Mason who captured this photo:

A pick-up truck carrying a mountain of bricks and humans on some of the narrowest "two-lane" highways I have ever seen in my life. Every time the truck in front of us hit a bump, the bricks would shake loose and the men would scamper around restacking the them. All this at about 100km/h.

After getting off the crazy highways, our bright blue bus did some off-roading up and down and around the termite hills on the sand roads that led to Sichikali. Surely it was a strange sight for all the local villagers in their far-off huts to see this bright blue bus with penguins on it and the words "healing changes everything" (CURE's motto) flying through the dust in the distance. This was the scene awaiting us as we arrived in the village:

Note the very boxy baby blue bus in the background. This was our off-roading vehicle. 

We set up camp for 5 nights here with our group of 4 guys from Lusaka, two pastors from the Beit CURE Hospital, 4 guys from Kalomo who could speak the local language (Tonga), the pastor at the church we camped next to, and 2 Swedish ladies, Anneli and Maria, who were volunteering at CURE for a few weeks. Anneli and Maria are with an organization called Hope 587 that aims to improve the quality of life for disabled children. They are active in Ukraine, Sweden and Zambia! Visit http://www.hope587.se/ if you're interested. I think they've posted some videos from this outreach as well.

The building to the right of the tents is the village church--it has no windows, no doors, and a dirt floor. Many of the villagers slept on that dirt floor all week just to be able to share meals with us while we were there.

About 1/4 of our outreach group. Each of the 4 groups walked out from our camp in different directions each morning to walk through neighbouring villages to people's homes. These morning walks were a fun time to get to know these guys we travelled with. 

The purpose of these outreaches that CURE does is partly to encourage the local churches in these rural areas, and partly to find children with surgically-treatable disabilities and provide free transport back to the Beit CURE Hospital on our bus. Many families otherwise could not afford to have their child receive the free surgery, simply because transport is not feasible. This trip we didn't bring any children back with us, so the main focus was on encouraging the Christians in Sichikali. We visited people in their homes, read scripture together, and prayed for people. 

Sichikali is a very spiritual place--in fact even Zambia as a whole, at least on some superficial level, has a culture of spirituality. Even on the tire flaps of transport trucks you will see written the words "Judge not" or "God heals" or "God is good" or simply "Psalms". To suggest here that God does not exist is to declare yourself a fool. You either worship this God or this one, but you don't deny the fact that people are spiritual in nature and there are things that are very real beyond the physical realm. On this outreach it was amazing to see how eager people were to attribute every good thing they receive to God's goodness, and how eager they were to pray and read the Bible together. Many times we were welcomed with song and dance when we arrived in different villages.

At night, after the village had eaten supper together, there was usually an impromptu dancing celebration with ngoro drumming in the background. Everyone knows how to drum, dance, and sing in harmony to a very large repertoire of Tonga songs. Each night we showed "the Jesus film" in the local Tonga language and invited people to come watch it. Often even people we had not visited and invited would walk from miles each night to see what the strange noise and light in the sky was, since they are not used to electricity. It was an amazing experience to be able to visit a totally different culture where almost nothing is familiar except for the name "Jesus" and be able to speak of a common faith with these people. We have this hope as Christians in the living God who forgives us and knows us, and it was an amazing experience to discover how universal this relationship with God is.

Banana trees

Beautiful red tree next to what appears to be a "little girls room"

These two twins were just standing here quiet and motionless beside this bush as we walked past them on our way to their family's home.

This man was 82 years old, and he didn't know how old his wife was. He said it wasn't an important thing to ask at the time when they got married. It's a common thing for people in the villages to not know how old they are. This old couple lived with their great-grand children. We as guests were given stools to sit on while they laid out maize bags on the ground to sit on. Often it would be the children who would bring us the stools to sit on.

When we visited homes in the mornings, as a white woman I was always given the best seat, as was Pastor Harold since he was the leader of our group. Once everyone in our group was seated (most of us on the small stools you see in the following photo), the host would greet us one by one. "Mwabuka buti," she would say ('good morning, how are you'). "Kabotu, mwabuka," we each replied ('fine, how are you'). I made the mistake once of eagerly wanting to practice some Tonga and greeted the host before I was greeted by her...I was later told in a very polite way that this was rude.

Pastor Harold in the grey shirt. We had just been welcomed by a woman to sit by her home. 

Pastor Harold showing us the fishing net hung up on the inside of a hut.

More nets and various cage-looking things hung up inside the open-air hut. These huts with no walls are used for cooking and having shade in the day. Most homes also have some straw huts with mud or brick walls for sleeping.

A family gathered under their hut.

One of the families we spent some time with. This particular family wanted to read the Bible together and we spent a considerable amount of time here talking with them. The young woman holding the baby is 21 and has 3 children. This family did not believe in receiving any kind of medical treatment for illnesses and had gone to see a traditional healer several times for various ailments. Some other people we had visited had what seemed like permanent nerve damage from tattoos and burn marks on the feet done by a traditional healer trying to heal arthritic pain.

Back in the village, there is a school near to the church we camped at. We visited it one morning and our Swedish friend Maria was introduced as "for sale" by Pastor Moses to the head teacher. Pastor Moses was adamant that Maria's bride price should be at least 6 cows. Pastor Harold thinks that when Mason and I return home in Canada, Mason should give my dad at least a few cows. He said I was also worth about 6.

This is the school very close to our tents by the church. It is a primary school up to grade 8.

Each classroom had at least one or two posters like this on the otherwise bare walls.

A grade 7 classroom.

Generally, life in the village was slow and by the time we had left we felt like we had lived there forever. The day began at 05:00 if you wanted to be up for prayer. 06:00 mostly everyone was awake, and many people were singing. 07:00 was when I usually emerged from the tent for breakfast (slice of bread with butter and tea), 07:30 was morning prayer and worship, and 08:00 departure for our morning walks to homes. 

If I wanted a "shower" in the morning, all I had to do was wait by the fire and eventually one of the women would bring me a basin of hot water with some ashes in it, and carry it to the straw-walled "shower" hut where I could have a sponge bath. When the groups departed each morning, the women of the village stayed behind and cooked lunch. This involved walking to the well, carrying buckets back on their heads, boiling water, and cooking nshima (which involves two women vigorously stirring a huge pot with wooden paddles until the maize is a thick paste).  Each lunch and supper consisted of nshima (the Zambian maize staple food, eaten with your hands and similar to mashed potatoes), greens, and either chicken or beans. Water has never tasted so good as it did in that hot, dry village. 

The women do all the work in the village. One afternoon during a church program we sat in on a marriage class for the villagers and much of it was focused on pushing the men to be more involved in family life, to have a job to lessen the burden placed on women to generate an income, and to be a part of raising children. All of these tasks and more seem to fall on the women, while the men spend the days on their own and come home to expect a meal ready for them. The women here are STRONG and even though often abused and forced to bear most of the village's burdens, they are so joyful. Always we were greeted with song and dance, laughter and gratitude. 

Our two favourite Swedes (Maria on the left, Anneli on the right) and a girl named Peace from the village. Peace asked us for a photo so that she could see what her face looked like.

The village women taught the three of us how to carry water on our heads (we got the smaller jugs to carry).

Maria and me

Chickens, goats and cattle just wander around everywhere, in and out of the huts.

I think this building was a bathroom of some kind. The toilet buildings usually have three walls with a roof and then a rectangular hole in the ground.

I was talking to these girls one day and they said to me, "Your husband is so beautiful!" The next day they asked for their photo with him.

Our last day in Sichikali was a Sunday. Here are some photos from the morning service at the church we camped at:

This is Pastor Moses and Maria. Pastor Moses was our main host while we were here, and the pastor of the church which we camped next to. He found out Maria was single and offered to marry her to one of his sons (a young teenage boy). He also told the head teacher at the school we visited that she was "for sale". Here men typically pay a bride price of several cows for their wife-to-be. The Zambian guys we travelled with now want to come to Canada to find "free" wives. Pastor Moses was a very funny man and very kind to us. Here Maria is giving him a Bible in English that the Swedes brought for each of the pastors on the outreach. 

The Swedes brought Bibles that people in the village could buy for a certain amount of maize. The maize collected from the sales was then given to the widows in the village. This was Pastor Harold's way of emphasizing the value of the Bible received, and also the importance of caring for the vulnerable people in their midst.

Our friend Gilbert on the ngoro drum. Everyone in the village is an amazing singer, drummer and dancer. 

Pastor Harold

A video of the villagers singing and dancing in celebration:

Before we returned to Lusaka from Sichikali, we spent a day with our group at Victoria Falls, about a 3 hour drive from Sichikali.

With our outreach group on our way to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls. Everyone was tired from our 06:00 departure.

Mason and the guys swimming at the top of Victoria Falls (waterfall cliff to the left, note the mist in the centre background from the main part of the Falls). This was the lowest some of the locals had every seen the Falls, which is why they were able to swim. In the rainy season, this is thunderous white water!

Mason at the falls. We had some Zambians take photos of us at various places. Zambians excel at friendships and relationships in general. As a result, photos taken seem to zoom in on human faces and exclude the surrounding scenery. Hence...the photos of the two of us here didn't show any of the Falls and showed way more close-up detail than you'd like to see.

Our group just before the bridge. In rainy season, this footbridge is verrrrrrrry slippery!

Maria and "the brazza" ('brothers', as they call themselves). This is the driest the Falls ever get. In rainy season, there is mist everywhere here.

Me and Mr. Baboon 

Baboons everywhere!

Victoria Falls

A video of the children trying to teach us a song when we first arrived. The little conductor was so cute:

A video from one of our sunset bus rides through some of the villages. The guys from Kalomo were leading us in a lively Tonga song: