Happy birthday . . . to me!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Several weeks ago I met a local artist at a craft fair. I was admiring his paintings with the bright colors and his depictions of Zambian people. But all of his paintings were of traditional village life, something that is interesting to us but not really reflective of our experience here in Zambia. So I asked him if he ever painted scenes from the Bible, but set in this context. He had done a few before and was willing to paint a few for me and then I would have the option to purchase it or decline. We talked about a few ideas of Jesus in the gospels and he agreed to experiment and then come and show me. This afternoon he came with three paintings that were so absolutely brilliant that I couldn’t stop gushing. In one painting, the artist, Christopher Kasongo, depicted Jesus as a Zambian elder teaching his disciples and a large following under a village tree. In another, Jesus is blessing the children who have gathered around him and you see the women bringing their babies, carrying them on their backs just like we see every day. In the last one, Jesus is feeding the five thousand with bread and fish and the landscape and people are straight out of our world here. I love that Jesus is wearing flip flops like you buy in the market. And the women are in bright chitenges and one of the guys has a patch on the seat of his pants. They are exquisite. I was only planning on buying one but there was no way I could choose just one. Peter came to see them and tried to help me negotiate a good price. But I am hopeless at bargaining because it was obvious to Ba Kasongo that I loved the pictures and that I wanted all three of them. I was so overwhelmed by the paintings that I didn’t care about getting a bargain, plus I wanted to pay him fairly for his handiwork. They exceeded my highest hopes and I LOVE them!!!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

When it is your first year, you have no idea what to expect in each new season. It seems that, in our case, Zambia has three seasons: wet season, dry season, and API. API, Africa Peacebuilding Institute, runs for six weeks in May and June. MCC programs from all over Africa send people who have been working in peacebuilding or who have shown interest in this area to Mindolo for six weeks of intense training and reflection. It is an exciting and energizing time as these people come together to share their stories and learn together. Having never been through the “API season” Peter and I didn’t know what to expect. We are learning quickly that this season has its blessings and curses. Peter has been working extremely hard as the administrator of this event. Since the Peace Coordinator left and the secretary was hired after API last year, nobody knew much of anything. Peter felt competent in those areas in which he had control, but towards the end and especially when it came to visas and immigration, he felt responsible yet helpless. The week leading up to API was very stressful for Peter and he was often sleepless at night and then finally getting out of bed to continue problem-solving and attending to details. We had hoped that after the big push to get API going, things would slow down a bit and Peter could grade papers from previous classes, attend to his research students, prepare for his next two classes in May and June, and finish his dissertation. But API continues to keep him hopping as two new facilitators come in each week to teach and there are little glitches along the way. Peter has nothing to compare it to, this being his first year, but others have commented that this is the smoothest start to API they have ever seen. So he is doing a marvelous job but it is taking its toll.

The blessing of API is all the wonderful people who come to our little corner of Zambia. Carl Stauffer, MCC Regional Peace Coordinator for Southern Africa and based in Johannesburg, arrived last Tuesday. He came for meetings that didn’t materialize which meant that we had a bit more time with him. He joined us for our meals which was a joy for our whole family. Our MCC Rep, Lois and her daughter Katrina, came Wednesday night and left Friday morning. Lois, Carl, and Peter met with the MEF Director to discuss a few important issues while Katrina and the boys had a great time playing together. I did my best to feed Carl’s coffee addiction, keep the children happy, and all of us well-fed. Amy Erickson, MCC Peace Coordinator from Akron PA, arrived Saturday night and stayed with us until Wednesday morning when both she and Carl departed. We had connected with Amy during orientation and it was good to host her in our home and visit a bit between her meetings.

Saturday ended up busier than expected with our church friend, Richard, coming by to tune our piano. When he sat down to play, he discovered that middle C didn’t play, something that I had learned to work around by playing as much as I could in the key of D. Richard spent the morning taking the piano apart and trying to figure out how to replace the broken parts without any spare parts. He was very inventive, taking some parts from lower notes that I never touch, and using a lot of string. He finally got it too work which I found utterly amazing. He also noticed that it sounded like my sustaining pedal was constantly down, something that I had also learned to live with. He took that apart as well and the piano no longer rings for several seconds after each note is played. Richard joined us for lunch and then launched into tuning the piano, the very thing he had initially came to do. He was running out of time, having already spent five hours in our home, so he only tuned the four central octaves. I was thankful for his hard work and for all that I learned in the process. However, my gratitude was stretched a bit when I sat down to play later in the evening. I found that the piano didn’t ring incessantly, but the sustaining pedal didn’t work at all so it wouldn’t ring even when I wanted it to. And the D note an octave above middle C is so badly out of tune, even the male members of my family notice it and cringe. I think I will be spending another Saturday with Richard.

We ditched church Sunday morning as Peter was busy running to and fro welcoming people, hounding workers who did not do what was asked of them, and taking deep breaths. I was busy serving tea and coffee, and boiling water to keep people well supplied. Bishop John from the Anglican seminary dropped by in the afternoon to consult with Peter on a few things and then Carl and Amy came over with the two gentleman who they were in meetings with. Gopar is Carl’s MCC counterpart for West Africa and is from Nigeria. Fred is a consultant from the DRC who was helping them strategize about MCC’s peace initiatives in Africa. More coffee was served along with sweets. By the time they all left, it was time to fix dinner but just as I was about to start, the power went out. I was very thankful that all our guests were eating their dinner in the dining hall instead of with us. We used our little propane stove for the first time, to heat up soup. Jason was thrilled to no end to finally use the little stove.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Well, here is something you don’t see every day. I was taking the boys to school in the morning and I was puzzled by a crowd of men on the side of the road where the road descends into a bit of a gully. The water that sits at the bottom doesn’t really qualify as a river but maybe a stream (at least after the rainy season). To my great surprise, in the middle of this crowd, there was a full-grown crocodile! Right there on the side of the road!

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Peter took a break from all the craziness of API to participate in birthday festivities this weekend. Adrian, Carmen and I were pleased to discover that our birthdays are all very close together with Adrian turning 50 on May 9 and Carmen sharing May 11 as our birthdays, only she was turning 30 and I am now 37. We’ve been scheming for weeks how to best celebrate our birthdays. We decided to have a joint birthday party Friday night and invite a few friends. Some friends couldn’t make it but then were able to at the last moment so we had to be flexible. Not only that, but when the boys and I returned from Mindolo Dam, the power was off. Thankfully, the roast that Adrian requested (being a dairy farmer this was the meal he craved) had cooked all morning in the crockpot and was done by the time the power went off. Carmen had texted me in the afternoon to say a few more people were coming but she didn’t have enough potatoes for her dish so I picked some up on the way home. Around 5:00, power came back on across the street but still not at our place. I took the potatoes and my sourdough bread to Jenny’s to see if I could borrow her oven. I also brought over a few zucchini from my garden, and since our extra friends were vegetarian, Jenny whipped up a zucchini soufflé. I kept praying the power would come back on, but alas, it was not to be. I sliced the roast beef wearing Peter’s headlamp and managed to get everything on the table in the dark. Jenny and Carmen contributed a few extra candles so we all sat around in the candlelight and enjoyed our roast dinner. Thankfully, I made the chocolate cake in the morning because it would have been dreadful if the power outage had prevented us from having our favorite chocolate cake!

On Sunday, Carmen and my birthday, Adrian, Carmen and our family piled into our car and we headed farther north in Zambia to a chimpanzee refuge where we spent a delightful day together. Our expectations for Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage (http://www.chimfunshi.org.za) were quite low given the negative review in our guidebook but a friend had gone recently and recommended it to us. Things have definitely changed since the review was written. We were greeted by the daughter of the original founders and she made us feel very welcome. Sylvia Siddle now runs the refuge and has vast experience and expertise with chimpanzees.

There are two areas to the refuge: an orphanage and the trust land. The orphanage is where the new chimps and the troublemakers are housed. The new chimpanzees are closely monitored and then formed into family groups. The workers work long and hard at the process of forming communities where the chimps all get along. Once a family group has been formed, then they are released into large enclosures where they reside on 500 acres of land. The come to the feeding house from 11:30 to 1:30 where they are given fruit and vegetables and where they usually nap before heading out into the bush again. There are currently two enclosures on this trust land and they are hoping to build another. Each enclosure is surrounded by an electric fence powered by solar energy. There is so much space for them that the only time you are able to see the chimps is at feeding time.

We were blown away by how beautiful these chimpanzees were. The baby chimps were adorable and the males showed off for us by running around and hollering. One older chimp who wanted the worker to give him a special treat, kept making kissing sounds at him. It was amazing to be so close to these wonderful creatures, taking in the details of their fingers and looking into their beautiful faces. So incredible.

The workers were very knowledgable and shared information freely with us. We learned so much about chimpanzees, poachers, chimp intelligence, mannerisms, etc. After visiting the chimpanzees at the two large enclosures, we went back to the orphanage and had a picnic lunch before the next feeding. While we were eating, Billy the hippo lumbered over near to where we were eating. Thankfully, there was a metal gate between her and us. Billy was orphaned as a baby and now permanently resides at Chimfunshi. She spends most of the day in the now uninhabited fish pond. When she is on the move, everyone moves behind a fence so that she has ample room to waddle around. We had to park our cars in an enclosed area because Billy likes to lean against cars and can do quite a bit of damage. Once Billy wandered off, then we could leave the gated area and walk around again. I’ve never been that close to a hippo before. The boys thought she could use a shave.

The new chimps and the babies got a bottle feeding after lunch. We were introduced to Dominique, named after the worker who was giving him a bottle. But actually, Dominque is Sylvia’s baby. After visiting hours, she puts a diaper on him and lets him swing and run around the house. He even sleeps with her. Once all the other guests had left, Sylvia brought out Dominique to play with us. Peter grabbed onto his hands and was swinging him around. Dominique was most interested in playing with our boys but since he is four times as strong as they were, we didn’t allow Dominique to come too close to them.

There was also a vervet monkey who was fascinated by Brendan and Jason. He crawled all over them which was fun for a little bit but then Jason got freaked out when the monkey began play-biting Jason’s cheek. I would have freaked out too!

Adrian wore a birthday pin that played “Celebrate good times, come on!” when you pushed a button. Jason would dance something that looked like a cross between Riverdance (Celtic jigs) and John Cena (pro-wrestler). This definitely added to the festive feeling of the day. It was a wonderful day, a birthday that we will all definitely remember!