Singa village.. plus some

Our last adventure in Zambia, was the three day home stay in a Zambians home close to Petauke. I went about 30 minutes away from Petauke with two other single girls to a village called Singa. No one from 40/40 had stayed in Singa before so we were all excited to be the first out there. We stayed with Margaret and Joseph and their two sons Jonny (7) and Freddie (3). Also at the house was their friend Rapson who was visiting so that he could translate some for us and take us around the village. Rapson was originally from Singa village but now live 5 Km away with his wife and son in another village. He said one day he would move back to Singa village with his family but first he had to finish paying the “bride” price for his wife. So he lives in his wife’s village. In Zambia, when a couple gets married the man must pay the family a price agreed on by both parties. Originally they would agree on how many cows they would give the family. In modern day, though they may still talk in cow terms, they find out the going rate of a cow and then pay cash.

 Rapson speaks English very well but there were still many awkward moments of miscommunication, no communication or compressed communication. An example, on the first day in Singa Rapson was so happy to have us there he wanted us to share our stories with a neighboring village across the road. So we all went over and found ourselves sitting on a reed mat in front of an older woman’s house. We told Paul’s story and then I told my own and I asked her if she had a story like mine. She could understand English but she could not speak it. She excitedly answered that she did have a story like mine and then went into great detail explaining it in Nianja. She talked for about 5 or more minutes. Than we looked over at Rapson, “what did she say?” I asked.  “She said, ‘Put Gd first.” That is the way most of our translation went in Singa. We had so much fun in Singa village though. I loved every awkward conversation and the long pauses in between when neither person knows what to say or how to say it to communicate it effectively with the other.

 Margaret was so gracious to us. Generally speaking, when you enter an Africans home they will not let you help with a thing. They are so hospitable and the take offense if you were to help them with dinner or to clear the dishes. They are proud of being hospitable. But we were there to learn about the culture and that meant we needed to do those things that generally would be shameful for a guest to do. Often in the past, 40/40 has had trouble convincing home stay host to allow their guest to help with daily task like cooking, cleaning, and fetching water. But not our host, she was eager to teach us all she knew. Margaret was only one year older then I am but she knew way more about keeping a home and feeding a family than I could hope to know any time soon. Everyday we took at least one trip to the well for water. The village well was an open well, everyone gathered around with their buckets on ropes and it was a great time dropping the bucket down and hauling it back up. This was the time to catch up on local news and greet neighbors. All the woman chatted as they worked. Once the buckets were full the women would carry them home on their heads. Some ladies are talented enough to do it without holding it with their hands.

At meal time, Margaret taught us how to make Nshema, the staple food in Zambia. Marie volunteered to help the first day and then became our chief for the week. Maybe it was because Marie was the youngest, or maybe just because she seemed most eager but every meal time Margaret called Marie over to begin cooking the Nshema. “coo-picka Nshema,” that’s what she’d say every day as she stirred the pot of ever thickening white paste.  On one occasion, after going to the field and picking the leaves of wild okra, we were shown how to make “African soda.” Rapson brought into the house a bowl of wet ashes from the fire. The bowl had holes in the bottom of it. Rapson placed an empty bowl underneath the ash bowl, then he poured water into the ash and caught the water that ran through. The result was a murky brown water that did kind of resemble a coke coloring. As Marie, Amanda and I watched, we would catch side way glances at each other. Rapson kept leaving the room for various reasons which gave us an opportunity to discuss what we were going to do. “I am not going to drink that!” was the first response. “No, No if they boil it we can technically consume it.” “You don’t know where that ash has been!” “Gd, if I can get it down, you keep it down!”  Soon both Rapson and Margaret were in the room pouring the African Soda and wild okra leaves into a pot. A mixture of relief and regret came over me when they began to boil it over a coal fire. Relief because it was boiled and therefore all the germs were dead. Regret because now I could not refuse it because it was “safe” to eat. The okra/soda relish was served with that evening Nshema. It was a lovely slimy consistency. I noticed they did not serve themselves any… I beginning to think they were just seeing what the Americans would actually eat.

That same day they tested our durability in another way. Rapson wanted to take us to his village. We asked if it was near or far (very relative terms in Africa), he assured us it was not very far. Later we learned we would need to take bike to get there. We agreed that this was okay so long as he could borrow enough bikes for the four of us. We watched as he collected bikes throughout the day. By afternoon we could see he still only had three bikes. He announced it was time to go and we nervously began our walk towards the main road. The men he was borrowing the other two bikes from did not leave, they were walking with the bikes. I began to realize what I had previously made myself think an impossibility. By “we are going to ride bikes to my village” Rapson meant, we ladies were going to ride and the men would peddle. We watched as a Zambian man and woman zoomed past us on a bike. She was perched uncomfortably on the back rack of the bike (meant for carrying a package) riding side saddle. Yes, side saddle, is there really another way to ride? Another whispered conversation between us ensued, “Can we really do this? We don’t even know what village we’re going too. How the heck do you ride a bike sidesaddle!” I thought this was an impossibility and for the first ten minutes of clinging to the bike with my fingers I still didn’t believe it. But eventually I did open my eyes and start breathing again and discovered, the country of Zambia is beautiful by bike. There were beautiful boulders with vines and bushes growing all over them. When we finally reached Rapson’s village, it was as if we stepped into another world. The children there were pressing in around us, they all wanted to touch us and shake our hands. I ate 8 times that day. At every house we visited they wanted us to eat something that they had prepared, from raw peanuts to an entire meal of Nshema. That day was amazing. As we clung to the bikes again for the 25 minute ride home, Rapson stopped at a kiosk to buy Marie a stick of sugar cane. The way home was even scarier as it was mainly up hill and my cyclist was rather wobbly, especially when the semis tried to blow us off the road. It was more fun than any person should be allowed to have.