T. I. A.

Greetings,

      T. I. A. This Is Africa. That thought was running through my mind multiple times during this last week. Whether it was the riding on the back of a truck going down a path that was meant for walking or beheading several chickens, this was what I had in mind when I was thinking about going to an African village.

      Between my last post and our trip to the village our summer team was allowed to go and play basketball with the team at UNZA. Jon Chen had befriended a few of the team members last year when he was here and so he contacted him and asked him if we would be able to play with them one night for fun. We ended up playing for a couple hours in their gym that was nothing by our standards but they were thrilled and loved the game. Afterwards we were talking with Richard who is our main contact on the team and he was interested in several of us playing for their team in the tournament that they play in. This week we will be unable to make it to practice and so we will be missing the game but Dan, Nathan and I are on the team’s official roster for the tournament. They have plenty of small and quick guards but they said they could use some forwards. So I am officially on a college basketball team. Who cares where that team is? Not me.

      Our trip to Mumbwa began on a Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning. The city bus that we had chartered had arrived and we were loading all of our food, clothes, and kitchen equipment. Once we set off we only had to make a few stops for some fresh food and gas but it was only three hours of American music later that we reached the village. The village of Mumbwa is located a ten minute drive on a rough dirt road away from the town of Mumbwa.
     
     While at the village, we stayed at a church that was located in the middle of nowhere. There were some huts around but only two other homes were within eye sight. We set up our four tents in the side yard of the church next to several small huts known as insakas. The insakas were used for fires, group gatherings, and cooking. The church was made in a similar fashion to many buildings in the area which is brick with a coating of concrete on the outside with a metal roof.

       For the first time in my life I was truly outside of my comfort zone. This was not camping. This was not vacation. This was not home. This was not with anyone that I knew very well. I had known Dan from the one day orientation that we had before the trip and the 8-10 days that we had been on the trip. Jon Chen was on our team and despite going to Purdue with him and being with him a lot I knew very little about him. I somewhat knew Ngambo and Gershom from the week before we left but the other four members of our team I did not know at all. I did not even find out Chiti’s name until halfway through the week. The person that I know the best here is Bryce and he went to Chibombo (another village).

      People say that you find things out about yourself when you get out of your comfort zone. That is completely true. During the time that we spent in Mumbwa, I found out much about myself as God revealed to me the arrogance and sense of self worth that I had. It is amazing that it took me this long to see that I looked down on these people for no reason. Day after day I was shown that in no way am I better than the people that strive every day in the village for their food and carry tons of water just to have something to drink. The rest of the lessons that I learned I will keep to myself but I feel that it was an experience that would benefit virtually every person around my age and make them into a better and more well-balanced individual.

       Speaking of getting water. Before leaving the states I was given so many warnings about the water and told all the ways that I should be keeping my water clean and how to survive without getting extremely sick. I took these things into account and drank bottled water that we were able to bring with us for the first two days. All the water that we cooked with for the trip came from a borehole or well that was about two to three hundred yards away. That distance is nothing when only walking there carrying the empty water jugs. The way back is a different story. Carrying forty liters (or litres as it is spelled here) of water is no simple task for that distance. The containers were manageable only when you took a couple breaks to allow your hands to rest on the way. The containers that the women fill and balance on their heads are smaller but there is no doubt that is brutal work. My respect for them as they do that and cook nshima (which is a task that wears my arms out) is extensive. There are even small kids that tote around large amounts of water with the help of bicycles. After the first two days I was able to drink water directly from the pumps which made things much easier.

        It would make sense to talk about food immediately after water so here goes. It ranged from delicious to atrocious. That is the best way that I can put it. Breakfasts usually consisted of cornflakes mixed with peanut butter and/or hard boiled eggs with a cup of hot cacao (not hot chocolate for sure; far more bitter). The first lunch consisted of bread and sandwiches that contained all combinations of mayonnaise, cheese, and jam (not the most usual combinations but alright nonetheless). Most of the other lunches would be either nshima, rice, or pasta served with the gravy and cooked cabbage. Those were not bad at all and nshima actually became something that I enjoyed by the end. Some of the highlights of the food were fritters (fried balls of dough about the size of a baseball), some mutton stew from our friend Thaddeus the sheep, fried chicken, a couple new fruits that I had never tasted, roasted maize, and the gravy. Lydia who was in charge of the gravy during the trip made some heavenly tasting stuff that I would have seconds and thirds of. Now on the opposite side of the scale stands Capenta. Without a doubt it was the worst tasting thing that I have eaten and I have eaten grubs, entire crawfish in one bite, and I believe once as a kid I ate a leaf off of our sweat gum tree in our backyard because the name made it sound tasty somehow. When they were thrown into the pot of grease I knew it was not going to go over well. To put it simply, they exuded the odor of death and as it works with most foods, they tasted like they smelled. In my time here I will not again touch those fish. Never.

         One thing that we had not planned out overly well was allotting time to cook and prepare the food. Similar but far more exaggerated to camping, everything began from scratch and literally from scratch. We had to cut every tomato that we ate (and that was no small amount), every onion, every carrot, all of the rape (terrible name for a food but oh well), and all the cabbage. That was not the major time consumer though. The meat took far longer to get ready with the exception of the capenta and other fish that we just fried. After the first two or three days I walked into the church to where our supplies were stored and saw a box with seven chickens inside. We also had to start from scratch on the one sheep that we had which as I mentioned before was named Thaddeus by Kayi (another member of our team from Zambia but studying in Canada). I was given the "privilege" of beheading one of the first three chickens as was Dan and Iden. The second time around I was stuck with two more. While I did not enjoy it necessarily it did not bother me and I did not have to dress (or undress would make more sense?) them afterwards. None of our team was awake for the killing of poor Thaddeus as it was the day after an all-night "prayer" meeting that will be discussed later on.

         The language barrier in the village was far worse than it has been in Lusaka. While there were still many that spoke English, it was usually those that were in the age range of 20-30. Much older than that and they might not be able to communicate more than a few sentences. The children were also too young to know any English at all which made things very frustrating. Many of the people did not speak English there but the number of languages in which some were fluent was amazing. One man who was called Bishop Wiseman, had a mental condition that hindered his motor skills and his speech but he could speak fluently in six languages. He truly was an amazing man that had his entire life straightened out. He was the one person that I talked to the most and he was able to change my impressions of village people and even help me to change my own life. Never will I forget Bishop Wiseman.

         Since we were staying by the church and were there on church business, many of the members really wanted to hear what we had to say. They even called two special services so that we would have more time to share with them. From our summer team, Dan and Jon both gave lessons/sermons. Jon spoke twice; one about how having met God changes your life, and one about discipleship. Dan spoke at the all night prayer service about renewing our strength through suffering. Their messages were so much more powerful than some of the "motivational speeches" that were given by the members of the church.

          The all night prayer meeting that I have been talking about was one of the memories that will stick with me even though I was cringing and plugging my ears for much of it. It was similar to other services that we experienced in Mumbwa but was far longer. I think that preach has a different interpretation here because I am not used to the yelling that was going on. The church was able to rent a generator, keyboard, and microphones and I do not think they knew how to use them correctly. The speakers were turned up the entire way the entire time to the point that many of our team was either plugging our ears or putting toilet paper in them to muffle the sound. It did not help when the person using the microphone would yell into it as if it was not loud enough. The prayers would even be like that from time to time and they focused mainly on defending the church and the people in it from demons. At one point when we were all asked to kneel in prayer, most of our team of Navs fell asleep and did not get back up when he said amen and his response was do not let the devil make you sleep. Normally I would have no trouble staying awake especially with the sound so loud but when the service lasts eight hours I could not resist nodding off a little bit.

         One of the main highlights of the meeting was the trip there and back as well as Dan’s message and the portion of the service that most of our team left the church and sat and talked around the fire. The mode of transportation that we used to get from our church to the church that was hosting was a big flatbed truck that had a railing around the outside. The coolest thing about it was we would be driving down the road and stop and keep picking up other people until we had around fifty people loaded up. The trip consisted of trying to talk over the sound of the wind in your ears and singing praise songs. The fire outside was where our team was so tired that we lost all inhibitions about what we were saying and we just talked about all the different parts of the service that we found crazy or annoying even though there were some church members out there with us. At that point we had heard enough.

         The churches were not the only organizations that wanted to have us go and speak to them. We were asked to speak at a boarding school in Mumbwa and a youth training facility that allowed members of the younger generation that were unable to find jobs to be trained in certain fields such as agriculture, catering, computers, and brick laying. At the boarding school I was asked to speak about bullying while other members of our team covered topics such as furthering your education, balancing your life with Christ, and the hand illustration (an illustration used by Navigators to teach how to study the Bible). Afterwards we split up the boys and girls and allowed them to ask any questions that they had. They were very open with their questions and I believe we were able to make an impact on their lives. The youth center gave us less time so we had talks about the bridge (another illustration that allows you to share the Gospel using only one verse) and how to manage your time.

        The children were an absolute blast to play with. We brought a Frisbee disc to give away but we did not expect the response from them. Soccer dominates their sport life but these kids would play with the Frisbee from dawn until dusk without slowing down at all. It took them some time to learn how to throw it but with time they were picking it up. One day I was able to give away all of the toys that I brought which included hot wheel cars, squirt guns, stickers, and bubbles. I ran out almost immediately once they figured out that the big white man was handing out the good stuff. One child in particular was my favorite though. During the church service on Sunday, she was with her mom and she was not scared of me at all. We played peek-a-boo for much of the service and then afterwards I gave her my first gift of bubbles. From that point on she would yell "mazungu" which means white person at me and then we would both point at each other. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen.

        Since this post is already ridiculously long, I will draw it to a close with how our trip ended in magnificent and crazy fashion. We were going back using the same bus that took us there but it showed up more than two hours late. When we finally set off, it was only fifteen minutes before the engine began to smoke. It had leaked oil from a pipe so they worked on that for a little bit then poured some water on it that we got from a club on the side of the road called FM Clubhouse where we met a guy who "loovvvesssshhh mussshic" (obviously drunk) who danced away. The fix evidently was not sufficient because another ten minutes led to the same smoke coming from the engine. The second stop was at another club where we stopped and got even more water. The fix finally worked and we were off again. We were able to make decent time for a little bit then but we were stopped outside of Lusaka at a police checkpoint for "having luggage on the back seats" and that we could go on if we paid a fine of 270,000 kwacha which is around $60. The true reason for the stop was that they saw Dan and I in the bus and thought we would get frustrated and just pay it. They even told our driver and Gershom (team leader) that they should just have the "mazungus" on the bus get off and pay it and they could get going. We were not going to pay the price so we just waited them out. Once we finally made it to town we were out of gas and the first two places that we stopped were not pumping so we had to wait while the driver and his partners went and bought fuel at the next place which took another 20 minutes at least. In total the trip which would normally take 3 hours took 6. But we made it eventually.
　
Until next time,
Aaron Spesard