The Energy of API

Tuesday, May 19, 2009
I walked right past Oliver, the manager at Shoprite who goes to our church, because I was blinded by the shiny metal of the new shopping carts in front of me. Oliver called me back to greet me and I expressed my personal thanks for the new “trolleys,” as they are called here. Whenever I went shopping, I would get an extra half hour workout battling the decrepit carts up and down the aisles. But the new carts glide around the store with only one hand steering it. Sheer bliss I tell you. There was a sense of camaraderie between all those pushing carts and we stopped to comment on life’s little blessings. The new carts brought together the community and there was an air of celebration in the store. Maybe I should start an NGO that advocates new shopping carts for world peace. As a bonus, the cashiers have new counters as well. It used to be that some of your groceries would fall to the feet of the cashier because there was no support between the counter and the scanner and the major crack would let items fall through. But it is a whole new Shoprite making it a pleasure to now search for the items you can’t find!

I just sifted out half a million worms out of a new bag of bread flour. At least I caught them before they went into the pizza dough. Last time Ashley came to visit, I failed to sift the flour before making the tortillas. The worms kept popping up as Ashley rolled out the tortillas. A bit gross, but we are veteran MCCers now and we couldn’t waste the flour, you know! Ashley picked each one out without even a grimace and proceeded like nothing was amiss. She rocks!

Thursday, May 21, 2009
I am really enjoying Africa Peacebuilding Institute (API) and the wonderful people it has brought together. I feel more connected to the group thanks to sitting in on classes, attending tea break, and having participants and facilitators over for dessert. We had two enjoyable evenings this week. Simon Lerefolo from South Africa is teaching “Elections and Good Governance” and Gopar Tapkida is teaching “Dealing with Church and Religious Organisational Conflicts.” They joined us Tuesday night and we had interesting conversations. Simon has been a blessing to our boys this week. Every afternoon, after teaching all day, he returns to the guest wing attached to our house and goes out to play a game of football with the boys. They eagerly anticipate his arrival in the afternoons. Tonight we had a lively group of participants, mostly from Uganda, Zimbabwe and Sudan with a Kenyan thrown in for good measure. I have no clue half the time they are talking because it is usually related to African politics but I am learning a lot and enjoy watching the dynamics of the group. It is also evident that they are learning from each other. Some of the Ugandans were surprised that there had been no food on the store shelves in Zimbabwe for a long time. The Zimbabweans were surprised to hear that almost none of the roads in Sudan have tarmac, even in the cities.

Last week was painful as the Thursday participant group was quiet and one person filled the silence with a lengthy monologue. At the end, one man was designated to pray (because you can’t leave until there is prayer) and he was obviously very uncomfortable with praying out loud. He tried to persuade the two extroverts on either side to bail him out but to no avail. The whole thing was excruciating as he squirmed and Peter and I squirmed with him. Ugh. But usually the evenings are very nice and several people have commented that it is a rare treat to be invited into someone’s home. Reverend Davou from Nigeria and Bishop James from Uganda have asked to borrow over the weekend the game they played here a few weeks ago. Bishop James wants to teach others to play the “corrupt” way. There is really not much by way of entertainment at MEF or in Kitwe so I’m glad this game will give them something to do together.

Friday, May 22, 2009
On Monday, Ms. Lubamba, the head teacher at Lechwe, asked me to give a short talk at the Friday assembly on how to help classmates who are grieving. This was prompted by teachers saying that students aren’t sure what to do with Justine after the death of her mother. I agreed to do something and set about thinking how I could do it in such a way that Justine is not in the spotlight once again. I decided to use the story of “The Lion King,” since it is one that nearly every child here knows. I had the children imagine that after his father’s death, Simba returned to school instead of running away. I then looked at different ways the animal classmates responded to Simba and had the children decide with me what responses were helpful. We looked at Curious (constantly asking Simba to tell what happened, something that was happening to Justine a lot) versus Compassion (saying something short and simple to show you care and I gave some examples). Then we talked about Rumours (especially rampant in the school and this small community) versus Respect (allowing privacy). Lastly, we looked at how classmates can Ignore (either because they don’t know what to say or do or because they feel that Simba is now different) versus Include (recognizing that Simba may choose not to join the group at one point but readily accept later). I used children from Jason’s class to hold up signs with these six words on them and different grades read the word aloud throughout the story. After each bit of story focused on one of the words, the kids would answer yes or no to the question of if it was a helpful response. The children seemed engaged and listening and I think it went well. At least that is the response that I got from various teachers and parents present. I hope that the kids will remember the story and have some ideas now as to how best respond to a classmate who has experienced a death in their family. It happens so much here that is important that they begin to learn how to respond.

Ms. Lubamba was pleased with my presentation and afterwards asked if I would be willing to give another presentation at the start of next school year. I can choose whatever topic I would like to address. I’m glad for the opportunity to have the chance to educate the kids a bit more in areas related to their emotional health. Now I just have to think about what on earth I want to say.

Sunday, May 24, 2009
We were delighted that Ashley Kraybill came to visit us again. She had a friend who was supposed to be in Ndola so they were going to hook up for part of the time but that didn’t work out so we didn’t have to share her! Our family fought for her time and attention as I wanted to visit with her but the boys felt it was her duty to teach them more field hockey and play soccer together. She managed to accommodate us all and even got some time on the internet as well. Chris Taylor, the other one-year SALTer, came up to Kitwe on Sunday and joined us for a Mexican Fiesta that night. There is always much to discuss and process as we continue to muddle our way through living cross-culturally. Tomorrow Ashley returns home and we don’t know when we will meet again. But I’m sure we will stay in touch as she has secured a firm place in our hearts. Chris will be here for a week, taking a class on refugees at API. Though he will stay in the dorms and take his meals in the dining hall, I’m sure we will get to see him more this week.

Thursday, May 28, 2009
I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on an API class on refugees and displaced persons this week. David Otim, a delightful Ugandan and excellent facilitator, started the class by having us all squeeze into one corner of the classroom. We were sharing chairs and trying not to bump our neighbor as David introduced himself and the content of the class. Our experience as “refugees” gave us compassion for those who live in crowded places for years upon years. Another exercise we did later in the week had most of the class again becoming refugees. Two classmates were designated as “accompaniment peacekeepers” and a few were armed militia. The peacekeepers were trying to help us cross rebel lines but as refugees, we were sick, hungry, tired, and some were even dying. It was hard for us to be patient, as we were advised, when we needed help immediately. The peacekeepers were doing their best to negotiate between the two groups but it seemed an impossible task. Our eyes were open to the difficulties in this situation. In the roleplay, I was trying to help Esperance, my friend from the trauma class in Lusaka, who was pretending to be sick and dying. She really got into it and nearly knocked me off my feet several times as she leaned on me and flailed her arms! It made me want to laugh until I realized that she has first hand experience of exactly this situation and knew better than most what it is really like.

I can’t even begin to tell you all that I learned, especially regarding the histories of conflicts in many African countries. Little by little, I am understanding the complexity of many of these conflicts. I was in a small group with Okello-Obote, the chief from Uganda. He was patiently explaining to me about Rwandan refugees in Uganda. What he was trying to make me understand is that Africans have a strong connection to their country of origin. Their identity and future are always tied back to their country, even if they live for 50 years in a different country. His conclusion was that you can never trust refugees and you must remain suspicious because they will take your resources and return to their country and perhaps try to overthrow the government in their country of origin, as it happened in 1994 with Rwanda. I don’t condone his conclusions but it gave me one more important piece of the puzzle. I have enjoyed interacting with the “Chief” as he is called here. When I greet him, I do a little curtsy with my handshake (I don’t kneel down as I would in the village). Once someone asked me what I normally do when I greet a chief. I had to laugh! It’s not like I usually meet chiefs so there is no “normal”!

Chief Okello-Obote

Saturday, May 30, 2009
The last 36 hours have been a whirlwind! I was planning on attending the last morning of class on refugees but was told on Thursday that Brendan had won an award and that I needed to attend the awards ceremony Friday morning. It is the weekend of the annual Agriculture and Trade Show and the art teacher worked hard at getting Lechwe students to submit entries into an art contest. Brendan won third place for his entry in the category of “Straight Lines.” Of course I had to nag him like crazy to finish the project last term but it paid off and he is very proud.

Pointing to his prize drawing

In the afternoon, MEF held the graduation for the API participants. The participants who were in the class entitled “Arts Approaches to Peacebuilding” presented their banners that they had made and also shared chants and poems. When the program was finished, I ran home and fetched the boys for the reception.

Since almost all of the participants had been in our home over the course of the month, the boys were acquainted with them and the participants wanted to have pictures taken with them. I was proud of Brendan and Jason who tirelessly shook hands with people and posed for pictures. Ben, one of the diploma students here for nine months, threw around a tennis ball with Brendan for part of the time too.

Jason and Brendan with Julianna and Rev. Davou from Nigeria

We hurried home and drove to Lechwe for a music recital. Any time there is an event involving art or music, I try to expose the kids. The students who were taking music examinations next week played their pieces for us. In the middle, Brendan was bored and wanted to go home but I made them stay. I feel like my father who would take me to the Fresno Philharmonic when I was a kid and I would fall asleep after the first half hour since the performances always started so late. I didn’t appreciate it at the time (sorry, Dad!) but now I am trying to expose my kids to the same thing.

We returned home to dinner prepared by Peter and then the power went out. It remained off all night until noon today. After 18 hours of no power and limited water, we were ready for it to work again. At least my fridge was defrosted in the process!

This morning we all went to the administration to say goodbye to the API participants who were to board a bus and travel to Lusaka. The plan was for Peter to travel with them to town on the MEF bus and make sure they all got on the same bus. I would follow in the car with the boys and do a bit of shopping and then pick up Peter. But there was no room for him with all the luggage and people. So the four of us sprinted back to our house, climbed into the car and tried to catch up with the group. They all boarded the bus and then Peter spent the rest of the afternoon communicating with them and a few other participants going to Ndola to make sure it all worked out. Late in the afternoon he received a call from one participant who remembered that he had left his passport under his pillow at MEF so Peter went in search of it. It was found and thankfully, one of the diploma students agreed to hop on a bus and make the five hour journey to Lusaka, spend the night with his uncle, and then hand off the passport in the morning before the group left for the airport. With that crisis averted, we sat down for dinner. The power went out again just as I was finishing preparing dinner but it didn’t stay off for long. A few moments after it came back on and we blew out the candles, we heard a knock on the door. Three men identified themselves as police and we took them at their word even though they weren’t in uniform and they didn’t bother to show us any identification. They had our neighbor’s worker with them and they wanted to know if King had stolen the bike that he had in possession. We had sold him Jason’s old bike earlier in the day and we verified that he had bought it instead of stealing it. We felt bad for King and were glad that he was released. It led to an interesting discussion at our dinner table on racial profiling in the US with our boys.

Thank goodness the DVDs with “The Amazing Race” that Ty and Annika sent arrived last week. We are exhausted by all the events of the last two days and are eager to relax and watch my favorite TV show.

Sunday, May 31, 2009
After enjoying teaching only the older kids last Sunday, I was back to 32 kids between the ages of 2 and 13 in Sunday School which means chaos. I was called on to give the “prayer of worship” but thankfully, I wasn’t too distracted to think of something to pray. The service started over 45 minutes late, more than usual, due to “unforeseen circumstances.” Like someone remembering that you have to have bread and juice if it is a communion service? I left church feeling less irritated and mostly exhausted. Is that progress?

The director of MEF has been asking when we will have him over for dinner, not only to me but also to Jenny, our neighbor. It seems that whenever we are available, he is out of town. But I caught him on Friday and invited him and his family for dinner tonight. I had planned on them being half an hour late at least, but when they were 45 minutes late, we tried calling to see if they were on their way but got no answer. We also left a text message hoping he would respond. It is normal to be late but we didn’t know how late so we kept waiting. The boys were starving so I finally fed them at 7:00. It would be awkward for them to arrive and see Peter and I already eating so we continued to wait. An hour and a half later Peter and I dug into our now cold lasagne and squeaky green beans. But it was still tasty, especially with my sourdough bread. As we were clearing the clean plates from the table, Peter commented, “This is the most dishes I haven’t had to wash in a long time!” That made me laugh. Maybe we will find out this week why we got stood up, but then again, maybe not.

Monday, June 1, 2009
“When the hyena falls into the ditch, it has nothing to say.” This was the proverb that Rev. Daka, the director, told me when he came by this morning to apologize. All day he had this feeling that he was supposed to do something but couldn’t remember what. He didn’t check his phone for missed calls or messages until 23:00 and he figured that was too late to come over (thank goodness!). We’ll have to try again another time!