A New Way of Life

Erin and Brent Raska departed Kitwe yesterday morning, leaving Molly and me the lone muzungus (Westerners/white people) on the TEEZ staff. Everyone was very sad to see them go--they will be missed a great deal by many. The children especially were very sad at their leaving. One of the little boys, Benja (about 5), told Erin that he was going with her in her suitcase. Mwewa, a girl of about 8, told Erin she'd come to visit her in the US, and after Erin explained the high cost of airfare, Mwewa declared that she would take the bus. Despite mourning the loss of their friends Erin and Brent, the children have been very welcoming of Molly and me and are already making us feel at home, helping us to move furniture and boxes into our flat and escorting us to work every morning. You will no doubt see pictures of them here shortly.

Molly, Erin, Me and Brent at the Raskas' Farewell Dinner

At the farewell dinner TEEZ held for the Raskas on Sunday night, Erin told the group that Bob (the Global Ministry Fellow, or GMF, that preceeded them) once remarked that a distinguishing characteristic of the TEEZ office is the palpable joy that can be felt there, the joy everyone seems to take in their work. With tears in her eyes, she told us all that she found that to be true, and prayed that the TEEZ staff would never lose that joy. We too have been delighted at the joy we have encountered in the office, and the whole staff has been wonderfully welcoming of us. They greet us every morning in Bemba ("Mwashibukeni!"--Good morning! "Mwabuka shani?"--How did you rise?) and are teaching us as much of the language as we can handle.

The Raskas w/ some of the TEEZ staff: Rev. Banda, Esther, Phyllis, Henry & Charles

We are slowly but surely getting settled in here, learning our way around town and getting used to some of the differences between life here and life in the States. I have found that these differences are most evident to me in the morning; they start as soon as I wake up. We open our eyes and find that we are enveloped by a big white net, a mosquito net which is our first line of defense against malaria. Mosquitoes are mostly out from dusk until dawn, and so sleeping hours are prime time for contracting malaria.

Our Bed w/ Mosquito Net

The next difference is in my morning bathing routine; so far we do not have hot water, and the water that does run to our flat (when it's running--even that is sporadic) doesn't make it to the shower head, so we can only get water out of the shower faucet. We bend down and put our head under the faucet to wash our hair, and fill a bucket and use a hand towel to wash our bodies. When the cold season comes, we will likely heat up the water a bit on the stove before washing, but for now, at the start of hot season, a cold splash of water in the morning isn't so bad.

Our Shower Faucet (the red stuff on the walls is is copper)

If we want a drink of water with breakfast, we must use water that we have purified using our nifty Sawyer water purification system. Most of our predecessors had to filter and boil their water in order to make it potable, which is rather time consuming and uses lots of energy, but Brent and Erin managed to acquire this handy device, which is much quicker and more energy efficient. It runs by gravity--you fill the bucket with water and let the hose hang below it, and the water runs through the hose, through the filter, and into a bottle. This filters out the copper which is ubiquitous here on the Copperbelt (in the soil, in the water, etc.) as well as whatever little bacteria might be living in there waiting to make us sick.

Our Sawyer Water Purification System at Work

Every morning with our filtered water, we each take one tablet of doxycycline, our anti-malarial drug. Contrary to popular belief, anti-malarials do not actually prevent malaria, they just lessen the impact of the infection if (and most likely for us, when) we get it. To actually eliminate malaria once it is contracted, you have to take another drug which is not healthy to take over long periods of time.

Our Doxycycline Bottles

After breakfast comes the difference that is hardest to get used to for eco-freaks like Molly and me: we have to take our trash to the pit out back, where it is periodically burned. There is no garbage collection service in Kitwe, much less a recycling program, and so everyone burns all of their waste in a big heap. I try not to think too much about what inhalation of the smoke does to our bodies. We're trying to start a compost pile, but every morning I find that about half of it is gone, eaten by birds and cats. Eventually it should accumulate enough that we get a bona fide pile; some of our neighbors tell us they have managed, so we are hopeful.

The Trash Pit Behind Our House

Yes, life here in Zambia is different. But every day it becomes just a little bit easier, a little more normal, and today, I found myself walking to the office with a smile on my face, surrounded by adorable children, thinking to myself, "I think we're going to be alright."