Snakes and devils – tragedy and religion

We have been in Southern Africa for three and a half weeks now. Each day is still full of new things to notice and learn – both similarities and differences. This post deals with some tough stuff, so I feel the need to say upfront, Zambia is a really enjoyable place. People are generous, cheerful, kind, intelligent, diverse and beautiful. Kids play, people hang out and laugh and sing and have fun. The sun shines. Etc. As I talked about in my last post though, there is incredible variety. There are also people working hard, people wishing they were working hard. There are people having a good time, and people having hard times. The stories of this post are not representative of my time, they are just something I thought was important to talk about.

We have experienced incredible and persistent hospitality from the teachers and executive of the Racecourse School. As we search for and test different ways to get involved and contribute to the school and the community my comfort level with the amount we can and can’t do has converged with the things to be done. As the students progress from grade to grade the amount of English instruction is supposed to increase so that by the end of grade seven they are ready to take their standard government exams in English. This transition makes it actually fairly natural and productive for the teachers to have some Anglophones around to increase the student’s exposure – especially in the classes where the teacher is not super comfortable trying to explain things in English. It is an interesting tension though to be trying to cram as much learning as possible into the already condensed time (currently each class is only getting 2.5 hours of instruction per day due to a shortage of space as the school transitions from using rented space throughout the community to its own buildings) while also trying to increase student’s proficiency in their second (or third or fourth) language English.

The reason that we have found ourselves more needed than we expected is sickness and tragedy. Imagine showing up to your staff room the first day after the holidays to find out that two of the 15 teachers (4 are away doing teachers training) have just lost brothers (one of them for the second time in as many weeks), and two others are away sick. To make it harder, one of these teachers is actually present still because he can’t afford the $10 or so to travel to his home community and be with his grieving family (he broke the bank covering the cost of the previous funeral). When I realize how common death is, the sick day for the other absent teachers suddenly seems a lot more serious. It was good to know that at least we would be able to help fill the gaps and try to teach some useful things (even if it is only practicing English) to the students anxiously waiting for their learning to recommence, but we would have given anything to not be needed in this way. If tragedy is going to happen it is good to be in a position to be useful, but it is still tragedy.

The really hard thing for me, is realizing that this is a pretty common predicament. What does it mean for a society to have a life expectancy in the thirties? What does it mean for almost every child to have lost a parent or uncle or aunt? What does it mean when almost everyone fortunate enough to reach the age of a grandparent has probably buried their spouse or one of their children (and some have buried all)? As I write these words I am reminded of walking through the rows and rows of matching white gravestones near world war two battle sites-calculating the ages and realizing they are my age, my brothers age – noting how they are all from the same few years. The two brothers of the racecourse teachers were lost due to illness, which may or may not mean HIV/AIDS, but that is not the only reason for the low life expectancy. Many people are lost to completely random and what should be unlikely accidents.

Mary, a sweet, cheerful, and funny woman from the new local clinic who is on the community executive was carrying a casual conversation with us as we waited to visit the homes of each executive member (at their insistence!). In this conversation we learned that she has two daughters attending a school for disabled children. Their legs were amputated after their house collapsed in a particularly heavy rainy season a few years ago. She now almost never sleeps through the months of rain. Apparently, although there are fairly high quality bricks being fired in giant piles all around us, the cost of these bricks is still out of reach for many in Racecourse. In these cases people have to resort to mud bricks baked in the hot sun of the current dry season. These brick wall and the makeshift plastic/tin/wood roof houses are at risk of collapsing every rainy season.

On that same day, Mary also told us casually about losing her husband. She had told Heather earlier that it was to HIV/AIDs, and after many tests herself she was glad to find that she tested negative. She explained to us that after his death his family claimed his possessions for themselves. They took all the contents of the home, the farm, and all the money from their shared bank account. She fought to keep the kids even though they were all crying uncontrollably at the thought of trying to find their next meal with everything gone. This is also a disturbingly common occurrence (Mr. Siame was walking with us and had a very similar story to explain the emptiness of his home we had just visited) which is incredibly hard for me to understand from outside the local culture. I was happy to learn that recently, some laws were put in place to allow for spouses and children to claim some inheritance after a parent’s death instead of it all going to the family of the deceased.

Death is one of the most challenging things we face as individuals, families, communities and societies. Many of us fear it and do not know how to support those dealing with loss, even when it is the loss of a grandparent who has lived a full and enjoyable life. What can I say to the sixth person this week who tells you about the loss of a close family member? Of course I say “I’m sorry” and sit in empathetic or sympathetic awkward silence for a bit. In the silence my mind spins - was it AIDS? Is it inappropriate to ask ‘what happened?’ as I would in Canada to show my shock, or ‘how are you doing?’ to show my concern? Am I becoming desensitized to death? Is this person desensitized? Is it easier or harder to grieve when it is so common? Can grieving be a skill? Etc.– none of these thoughts are clear or coherent or appropriate enough to break the silence so it drags until someone else does.

One thought I had that I wanted to try to say a bit more about here was “how does this frequency of tragedy affect people’s religious beliefs and the relative importance of religion in people’s lives?” The Zambia I have seen is certainly more religious than the Canada I know. We heard the beautiful Islamic call to prayer each evening and morning in Chipata. Every meeting type gathering at the Racecourse school begins and ends with a Christian prayer (I was asked to give one of these and I don’t think I quite measured up to expectations). I have been asked questions like “And what church do you go to? Would you like to come to my church? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal saviour? Have you met God? (child’s question) Do you have all night prayers in Canada?” in various casual conversations.

Church is a big part of life here, and people’s beliefs seem to be more literal and fervent than I am used to. Before commencing on our tour of the community and the homes of the Executive members it was brought up that there may be some “snakes and devils” along the way. I thought this was a reference to black mambas which inhabit the region and the men who may have been enjoying a “Chibuke Shake shake” (a strong alcohol made from maize meal which comes in a carton and must be shaken before opening to remix the thick liquid) this Saturday morning, giving them a bit more courage for shouting and other shenanigans. This may very well have been the case since no one thought me too strange for laughing out loud, but we did proceed to bow our heads in a prayer for protection from said snakes and devils. The fundamentalist type churches seem popular here, and even the United Church (which in Canada seems to me to be pretty warm and fuzzy and open to people of all backgrounds and any interpretation of scripture) services we have attended the last two weeks have been pretty raucous with shouting and fervent prayers and shouts of “Amen!” and similar things from the audience. I wonder if a more concrete concept of God and a more conscious submission to His ‘will’ can better prepare a person to deal with tragedy? I find the notion of a personal intervening God that still allows this type of tragedy is actually less comforting from a theoretical perspective. I am more comfortable with a notion of God as a more general force of good and sense of “something more”, not the old white man in the clouds responding to people’s individual prayers. This type of God seems more coherent with my experience of the world to this point but maybe it is too ambiguous and aloof to offer personal comfort in a time of tragedy. I have been fortunate enough to not have to find out yet.

A few people here have also mentioned being concerned that they’ve heard about a decline of religion in Canada and the US. I can understand their concern from the local context of frequent tragedy that we keep getting glimpses of. Would my ambiguous beliefs be adequate to cope with the loss of as many people as a Zambian my age has lost? Would the average person my age have the spiritual and emotional support they would need? What if most of the people in our communities and families were also dealing with their own losses as frequently as the Zambian families and communities I have glimpsed this week? Is the Zambian version of religion and spirituality any better prepared?

I suppose it is probably the responsibility of our religious leaders and institutions to remain in touch with and work to fulfill the needs of their communities. I wonder if our declining religious communities have enough support to do this though. What are the religious and spiritual needs of our society- and are our institutions, leaders, and communities meeting those needs? Are the Zambian ones faring any better? What do we have to learn from one another in this sense? I guess my attempts at a better world in this context will be to try to support the people and communities in my life dealing with tragedy - through friendship, hard work, my share of $10 for transport to a brother’s funeral, and some heavy conversations and heavier silences – and an attempt to learn and engage with religious and spiritual communities to help them stay in touch with the diverse needs of my family, friends and society..

I would love to peoples thoughts on this topic, and love to hear from people in general. Email me at justinwheler@yahoo.ca or call us at +26 0975759360. In peace,

Justin

Zambia Malawi Impressions and settling in

We have now been in Southern Africa for just over two weeks. This post is not about a specific attempt at a better world per se, it is more about getting settled in a place that I have often pictured when learning and acting on global justice issues in Canada. I hope my experience here will lead to me being a more truly global citizen. The first step though is to try to soak in as much as possible and test some of my assumptions and expectations.

Our itinerary to date: We landed in Lusaka, Zambia spent two days there with a friend of Heather’s. We then took a day-long bus ride to Lilongwe, Malawi via Chipata. In Malawi we met up with a bunch of the Engineers Without Borders long term volunteers and overseas staff. We had the privilege of joining our friend Graham on his trip to his former home village to say farewell to his host family and see where he had lived. We spent a couple days in a little resort in Cape McLear (sp?) right on Lake Malawi with our friend Thulasy (and Graham and Ka-Hay in the evenings), and a few days bumming around Lilongwe with Garret and Alynn and their host family – Mr and Mrs Adams who were very hospitable and understanding when Blake and I were both sick. For more detail travel journal type posts check out my brother Blake’s Blog at: http://blakeandcompany.blogspot.com/

Culture Shock?:
I guess the term for this rollercoaster of observations, thoughts and feelings and changing my mind daily on what it all means could be called culture shock – except it is not a shock. It is only when I look back that I realize that my thoughts or feelings have completely flipped. In each moment I just think and feel the way I do and forget I ever thought or felt any other way. It takes a lot of conscious effort to try to figure out how it all compares to what I expected or what it means for my perspectives on human development and how my fractured and incomplete world view has evolved.


I think I was bracing myself for a shock of climate and culture and people staring at me and shouting “Muzungu” (“Westerner/White person”) and trying to help or asking for things or trying to sell me things and getting crammed into buses and cabs in dangerously uncomfortable situations. This al happened a little bit, but more commonly what I found was calmness and friendliness or an almost indifference to my presence and very few shocks to the senses at all. We strolled off the plane onto the tarmac at the small, old and slightly dilapidated yet charming airport. There were some people smiling and waiting on the tarmac for other passengers but we walked by unnoticed. Everyone was incredibly relaxed and nonchalant. Kind of a fizzling transition from what I thought was a pretty epic two day journey (half way around the world 12 km in the sky at 1000 km/h looking down on vast and intriguing landscapes below, with people at home fretting or intrigued by the originality of it). This was not a disappointment or a shock either though, more of a pleasant difference from the expectation, maybe because we were just a little tired.


Even writing has been hard to sit down to do because I expected to be brimming with thoughts and feelings to try to articulate and share my experiences with people at home, but life just flows here and I am reminded that life is also flowing at home. I am assuming people are curious and will read what I write as long as it is not too long, frequent, or boring.
I think one of the buffers that have made the culture transition less shocking is the amazing variety here. For every piece of clothing that jumps out as being uniquely ‘African’ like a brightly patterned Obama “yes we can” shirt or a Chitenge skirt or a short fat neck tie, there are a hundred people in business wear, casual wear, and trendy fashions that you might see anywhere –amazingly beautiful and confident people. There are people trying to sell everything from taxi rides to flip flops but there are also way more people buying or passing by completely indifferent. There are people with loads balanced on their heads and babies on their backs, but many without, driving in cars, riding bikes strolling purposefully, briefcase in hand, etc. For every potential shock, a huge variety of counter ‘un-shocks’ allowing my sense of normal to shift unconsciously, smoothly and imperceptibly.


There is also a huge variety of industries and occupations – markets, farmers, brickmakers and masons, carpenters, furniture makers, people building toll bridges for shortcuts across the river in Malawi, hotel workers, store workers, banks, office buildings, cell phone repairs, shoe repairs, tailors and seamstresses, barbers, lumber mills, food processing, metal workers, miners, electricians, educators, health care workers, bartenders – as much or more variety than home. On our trip into the copperbelt – named for its primary industry of copper mining we drove through a huge area of what was clearly a softwood lumber industry complete with towering pine trees, cut blocks and an old school saw mill. There are universities and technical colleges. There are many dilapidated buildings – shadows of the good old days, just like you see in many small towns across Canada- but there are also exciting and not so exciting new things like shopping malls, clinics. Everything on the surface seems just as busy, efficient and productive but why is there no garbage collection, sewage treatment, enough teachers or schools or health care facilities and workers? People are speaking two or three or four languages, kids are making elaborate toys from wire and other random ‘garbage’, students work full time and go to school and spend at least a couple hours more per day on the food, water and household chores than the average Canadian. Why are there the poverty statistics that make my soul cry like the number of people with HIV AIDS, childhood mortality rates, or life expectancies half of Canada’s? We have seen very little indication of these challenges in the external world – it all happens behind closed doors and is not acceptable to talk about to new acquaintances other then in passing veiled references.


How can anyone pretend to come up with theories of development and economics that could encompass all this variety and complexity and lead to solutions that work for these people? Maybe that has been the problem – any explanations and theories simple enough for a development worker or leader to comprehend and act upon are too simple to actually deal with the variety and complexity of reality and as a result they don’t work. I am reminded of the first year physics experiment trying to test something basic like the rate of acceleration on an object due to the earth’s gravity. Any textbook will tell you the rate, but try to ‘prove’ it and the complexities of the experiment make it very challenging to get any useful information at all. Unlike the physical sciences, in development every component is also a living person with their own thought patterns, culture, instincts, etc. There is probably no explanation, no master plan that will work that can fit in one person’s, or even a whole profession’s or culture’s mind. I don’t know what this means for me and my world view yet. I still believe we have to challenge injustice when we see it and work to make incremental improvements within our spheres of influence, but I have to remember to still challenge my own assumptions and theories- to learn continuously but never expect to know exactly. What a discouraging yet exciting prospect – depending on your mood.

P.S. In other exciting news I will try to “tweet” about some updates on our adventures on twitter.com from my phone. Follow me at jwhel or just check back here for a summary of haiku microblogs (if I can get it working) :P

P.P.S. My wife Heather has accepted a dare to Bungee Jump at victoria falls from Blake in the Stephen Lewis Foundation "Dare to Care" campaign. Her fundraising goal is $10000!! Check it out here: Heather's Dare