Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dear All,

Merry Christmas and Have a Wonderful Safe New Year!  Hope everyone enjoyed a magnificent Thanksgiving with friends and family!  I am so grateful for all of you and what you have shared in my life!

I can not believe that I have already been in Zambia 7 months and certainly can not believe that it is already Christmas! 

I have been fortunate to go to Victoria Falls, Chobe Safari in Botswana, Devil’s Pool and I walked with the Lion’s in Livingston.  I am sure that you have seen the pictures on facebook.  It was great fun walking with the lion’s, there was one Lion named “Terry,” and I thought that was hilarious!

Since August when I posted last, I went back to the US for 10 days in October.  I just went to Virginia to visit with family and 2 of my PCV friends from Uganda, Linda and Shelley!  We had some Tiki Time at Terry's.  I really had a great time, but it went too fast.

The ZCAHRD/BU Office moved to Choma while I was in the US.  They moved because Choma has become the provincial capital for the Southern province and all the major offices are moving there.  So I commuted the month of November until they found me a place to live in Choma.  Since everyone was moving to Choma, housing is hard to find.  But I have a nice place with a small yard for Kristie and it has a fence around it.  Which is good, because when I was in the US Kristie became a woman and went into heat!  I am currently looking for a vet to get her spaded, but have not found one in Choma.  One was recommended in Mazabuka, however that is 2 hours away and I need to get her there.  So I am still looking.  I would like to do that in January when I will be here for her recovery.

I was just approved to go to Mozambique for Christmas.  I will leave on Dec. 23^rd and fly back Dec. 30^th.  Mozambique PCV’s were just on Standfast for the elections, so no other PCV from another country was allow to enter until the violence calmed down.  Standfast is part of the emergency disaster plan, which means a volunteer in that country can not leave their site to go anywhere except their village.  So we just got word that the volunteers are now off standfast and we can enter the country.  Since we are still PCV’s, the Country Director of whatever country we go to is responsible for us while we are in their county.  So another response volunteer and myself have a little chalet on the Indian Ocean, it will be a relaxing and a quite Christmas!

I really don’t get that much down time here except for my weekends.  Before I left Kalomo I was able to go 2 weekends to the Haven Orphanage, (children from 1 month old up to 7 years old).  Most of the children are 1 to 3 years of age.  I showed them the movie, “Finding Nemo.”  

It was great fun to see their faces during the movie.  I don’t think that they understood the words at all, but the different colors and fishes were fascinating to them. 

I hope in Choma I can also get involved with teaching HIV, STD and Reproductive Health to the primary school across from our office.

Otherwise, most of the time I am in the field (different villages) visiting rural health centers.

My Small Project Grant of $5,000 was approved by the US gov and I will be putting up fences and gates with a lock around the rubbish pits at the health center.  You may not realize it because we are so fortunate to have garbage collection once or twice a week and incinerator’s at the hospitals.  But Health Centers here have a horrible waste management problem.  The majority of rural health centers dig a pit next to the health center and throw all the waste and garbage into the pit.  They burn it every so often, but dogs, other animals and children go into the pits and pull things out.  Yes, this includes some needles and bloody gauze.  Some center will throw needles down the pit latrine’s, as well as placenta’s from mother’s after birth.  The Ministry of Health requires every center to have an incinerator and a gated fenced rubbish pit, but none have them.  So that $5000 will only fence 15 out of the 35 centers…but at least it is something.  I really wanted to build incinerators, however they are much too expensive for any of the small grants.

Alittle about language expression that the Zambian’s say verses how we say things are interesting.  Like, “I don’t know how you think about that,” instead of saying “what do you think?”  Or “is it not so” when you are asking, “really.”  They also say, “Are we together,” when they are asking you if you understand.  Or how about “isn’t it,” when they mean “Yes.”    Everyday there is another saying that is really different.    They say, “Me, I am really suffering,” whenever they are talking about anything that might be confusing to them, studying, writing a paper or any work.  I got stuck in the rain the other day and that was the first thing they said to me, “You are really suffering.”  I had to think to myself, wow that is not suffering at all!  But everything is suffering to them.  When I ride my bike to work they say, “You are suffering, riding your bike in the heat.”

Zambians are just like the Ugandans when it comes to manners.  The men will walk right in front of the line, or just but in front of you no matter who you are; you can be carrying on a conversation with a Zambian and if another Zambian comes up they start talking to them and you have not even finished.  It is not unusual to see a man and a women walking down the street and the man is not carrying anything; however, the women has a baby on her back, pots and groceries on her head and both hands are filled with heavy supplies.  Again, I am so thankful for the male courtesy in the US!  

You can ask them a question and they totally ignore you, especially when they clearly hear you.

Gender Based balance is suppose to be a government millennium goal, but it has a long way to go.  I was so upset the other day when we went to this one health center and they brought a 26 year old women to the center that was unconscious because she had been beaten by the husband.  She was one of 3 wife’s and she had 1 child.  What happened was that the husband had just taken wife number 3 and she wanted a blanket to put over her.  The husband gave her a blanket that was the other wife’s blanket.  The other wife said that the third wife could not have the blanket because she had bought it out of her own money and was going to use it.  The husband got mad and beat her unconscious.  All because she wanted her own blanket!  We ended up taking her to the hospital that was 45 kms away.  Gender based violence is still really bad here.   

It still amazes me how dilapidated the health center’s are, however the government always say’s that there is no money to improve them.  They really rely on donors to fund everything.  Remember the Mother’s shelters that I talked about in August.  They are small structures with dirt floors and open windows that the mother’s to be sleep in while waiting for delivery.  They are really not fit for mother’s to sleep in them.   

The health center staff is suppose to get the community to build the mother’s shelters for there facility, the Zambian Ministry of Health says that they do not have the money to build the shelters.  So again it falls back on donors.  Right now Merck for Mother’s is doing an assessment and estimates of all the mother shelters to see what they can build to get them decent.   Like Uganda, Zambia depends on donors to provide funding, buildings, drugs, research and a lot of other things for them.  Things will never be sustainable as long as the mind set here is to receive everything from the donors.  I guess it is just like us in the US with welfare.

We had a conversation in the truck the other day going to one of the health centers about free education, free health care and medication in Zambia.  The conversation started with the Obama health care.  The Zambian‘s could not believe that we have to pay for health care in the US, not only pay premiums for health insurance, but also pay when we are sick, have x-rays, scans or when we are hospitalized.  That we pay for college and University education.  We pay taxes.  Zambians do not pay for any of that.  They are getting aid and money, equipment, jobs, drugs and supplies from all the other countries i.e. Britain, US, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Australia, Italy etc.  What is amazing to me is that they expect it too!  It seems they run the county on everyone else’s aid and money.  With the dependence on other countries and the corruption in Zambia, no wonder they are still a third world country.  The people are victims of their environment, and all we can do is pray and help where we can.

There is still so much to do here as far as international development and I quess I have not grown tired of it yet.  I just hope I can do some small amount and make a little difference in someone’s life.

Kristie is doing well and filling out like a little women that she is!  I have started working on ways to get her back to the US.  Just don’t know if she is going to VA with me first or to CA.

I think that is all for now!  I want to wish each of you a Happy, Holy, Joyous Christmas!

Stay Safe and Be Happy!

Love & Light,

Mari

“Lushomo”