Our home for the next two years, rent free!

September 13, 2011

“Why go all the way to Africa when there are people in the U.S. that need help?”   We were asked this a few times before departing for Zambia in February, 2011.  We tried to explain the hardships of those who live under $2 a day but none of this fully sunk in even for ourselves until we began our life here in Zambia.

In Zambia, approximately 81.5% of the population lives off of less than $2 a day while 64.3% survives off of less than $1.25 a day.  What does that mean? How can they buy their food and their houses?  Well, the simple answer to that is that they don’t.   Rural Zambians live off of what the land can provide them.  There is no such thing as buying a house if you live in rural Zambia.  You go to the village headman, who is the Chief’s local representative, and simply ask for a piece of land.  Under the traditional land tenure system, there are no fees or taxes to pay.  Once you get your plot, you then dig up some clay, preferably from the nearest anthill, and then form and fire some bricks.  Then, dry and cut some long grass for the roof, cut some poles for support beams, and then harvest some “lozi” bark as twine to tie it all together and you have yourself a house!  Not a single nail or dollar is needed to build the basic village hut (unless you want a strong door or a lock).  Everything can be made from what the forest can provide and mortgages not required.  This is exactly the sort of house that we will live in for the next two years.

Rather than going to supermarkets to buy ingredients, villagers set out for the fields each day to grow their food.  About 9 months out of every year, the rural Zambian family is working on some part of the production of their staple food; corn, or maize.  Maize is life.  It is ground to a flour and then added to boiling water to make nshima and then served with some sort of vegetable grown in their garden.  Maize is even the main ingredient to the main beverage, cibwantu (for Tongas, munkoyo for Bembas) which is essentially a more watered down version of nshima but has some extra roots added for extra flavour.

If a family member is unwell and can’t work in the fields, the entire family’s well-being is at risk.  If there is a drought or plague of locusts, it can be devastating.  It isn’t just that they can lose money from not having crops to sell, the family’s entire food supply for the year is lost as well as seed for future planting.  The average family would not have the money to go and purchase food.  That $2 a day that people speak of goes to school fees for the kids, cooking oil, salt and soap.

Zambians often ask what the staple food is in America and what we grow.  They almost seem sorry for us when I explain that the average American doesn’t grow their own food but buys it in a store.  I don’t even try to explain people eating package dinners.  My host family burst into laughter when I explained after twenty minutes of chasing our dinner chicken in vain that I have never had to catch or kill a chicken before.

For the most part, I am in awe of rural Zambians.  They are a strong, resourceful and resilient people and most of the time, it is them helping us survive.  The greatest contribution we can make to these communities is our critical thinking and our abilities to research.  Last month, we were setting up a table to give a cheese making demonstration at an Under 5 clinic.  One of our counterparts came over to inform us the clinic was cancelled due to a funeral.  A toddler had died due to diarrhoea in the next village.  This village is fortunate enough to have a dam ensuring their water supply but the large number of cattle unfortunately contaminated the water during the dry season when levels are low.  People were drawing water from the dam without treating the water before consuming it.  So tragically, people die from something as treatable as diarrhoea, which in the U.S. would be nothing more than a mild inconvenience.  I have heard before that in developing countries, there is a preference for big families to keep the number of working hands numerous in case some die.  That is insinuating that people are planning for a family member to die.  That idea was blown out of the water when I was at the funeral.  Hearing the screams and wailing of the mother who lost her baby was absolutely heart wrenching.  While sitting in the women’s circle, I began to ask mothers about their water treatment; there is none.  I also learned that the clinic is about 10 kilometers away and children are sometimes brought after it is too late, as was the case with this child.

So this past week at the next Under 5 clinic, we have a session on water boiling and a recipe to mix their own oral rehydration salts to administer when the child first gets diarrhoea and then get their child to the clinic.  Here, diarrhoea is usually a symptom for something more severe like malaria (the biggest killer in Africa) or parasites.  This session we gave at the clinic was something small.  It required no funding and no resources other than Google (Google saving lives!) but that is just one instance out of many which reminds us of why we should be here helping people.  A little bit goes a long way.  We may never have another chance to work with a group of people that are so appreciative for our help ever again.

I think I have literally drunk more milk tea today than I ever have in my life.  So far I have had eight cups and it isn’t dinner time yet.  We had a number of social calls which all required multiple cups of tea.  Our plan today was to learn about hunting with eagles but it ended up being so much more than that.  I woke up earlier than anyone outside the family, mostly because I couldn’t breathe.  I am apparently allergic to something in the house.  It could either be the fox pelts, the eagle, the dung fire, or perhaps the other furry animal that nobody seems to know the English name.  My money is on the smoky poo fire used for cooking.  Anyway, so I was awake from not being able to breathe and this is when I was offered my first cup of milk tea of the day along with baursak.  I was already on my third cup by the time the rest of our group was awake and at the table.  I then drank an additional cup while everyone began to fill their cups.

In a milk-induced stupor, I began chatting with the eagle.

After breakfast the eagle hunter brought his bird outside for us for pictures and put on his hunting outfit.  They explained that winter is the main time for hunting, hence the heavy fur coat and hat.  During winter, the feed the eagle very little and so they are quick to hunt and attack the first animal they encounter.  The hunters will go out for long hours with the eagle perched on their forearms.  I tried holding the bird and I could barely raise it; granted I am not very strong.  I couldn’t imagine carrying the eagle on my arm for 8 hours at a time and also riding a horse at the same time.

Trying my best to hold up the heavy eagle.

Later on in the day, Nurbol unexpectedly informed us that he needs to go to another household in this area.  Lauren, a Fulbright scholar who was living in this area and is also an eagle hunter, found a donor to fund a cleft palate corrective surgery for her host brother.  She had no way of contacting them as she was out of town, so we went out to find the family to give them the news.

We first went to the town about 12k away to stop and visit the eagle hunter’s daughter.  We then learned that the family that we were looking for was in town that day.  We started asking around and through this found his son-in-law.  The son-in-law said that the child was actually in Olgii right now having surgery.  We waited a bit longer to speak to the grandfather.  Apparently, an American group had come to town on a medical mission and successfully performed the surgery.  I’m sure his journey is not over yet.  He is 7 years old and still cannot speak so I would imagine he will need some time with a speech therapist.  But, it is still very good news and the family was pleased that yet another group was willing to help their child.

After speaking to them, we then went back to the daughter’s house.  She sang and played the dombra for us and I had another two cups of tea there.  On the way back towards the house, we stopped at the eagle hunter’s family burial ground and they said some prayers.  While here, we enquired about the eagle hunter’s father, and shockingly he is still alive.  We were surprised mostly because the man looks about 120 years old but we figured he must have been in his 70s.  Even more shocking was that the eagle hunter is really only 14 years older than Bobby!  They then offered for us to go and meet his father, who is a well-known eagle hunter in the area and we of course accepted.  Meeting the father, one would think they are brothers.  They look nearly the same age; if anything the father looks younger.

I had one cup of tea and followed the proper etiquette of placing my right hand over the cup and thanking the server.  She looked a bit surprised that I was finished after my first cup (really my 6^th of the day).  Moments later, Nurbol then commented that my cup was empty and offered more tea, which I replied no thanks and then the proceeded to pour it anyway.  At this point, I thought I would vomit if I drank another drop.  I drank about half and then experienced some lovely bile belches.

Digesting milk tea and spending time with the locals.

When we finished all of our social rounds and finally got back to the eagle hunters home I walked inside to put my bag down and saw the big cauldron of milk boiling away for our afternoon tea.  I ran out, willing to hide anywhere to avoid drinking another drop…at least not until the multiple cups that are sloshing around in my stomach have settled.   I found out they needed to go and fetch some water so I enthusiastically offered my professional water scooping services.  They took the vehicle to their water source, which was just a tiny flow of water and Bobby and I told them we would walk back.  This gave me the opportunity to digest some of the tea before the inevitable next cup arrives.  While walking over the hill to reach the house, children from the only other house around ran up to meet us.  They were very cute and curious little kids.  They were shy and just were observing us.

We walked back to the house and I was then ready to have my cup filled yet again.  The tea today reminded me a lot of the forced feeding in the Philippines.  We hated it when it was happening but we remember it so fondly now.  They do it out of kindness and hospitality.  Even if it is something that I don’t particularly care for, I am touched by the offer and try to accept anything offered to me with a smile.  And so, at the end of the day I gladly accepted my 9^th and final cup of the day.

An aerial view of Olgii, the provincial capital of Bayan Olgii, Mongolia.

Considering how the day began, it is pretty miraculous that I find myself sitting in a Turkish restaurant in Mongolia.  Our flight was originally scheduled to leave yesterday but was rescheduled for today because of a persistent drizzle.  It took them several hours to finally decide to cancel the flight and we just sat in the lobby listening to Joan Osbourne’s “What if God Was One of Us” playing on repeat.  It was cute for the first few hours yesterday but this morning I found it taunting.

A little past 8 am they finally opened the doors to let us enter the security inspection. For the first time in our trip, I felt like we were actually in Asia rather than a former Soviet republic because everyone crammed themselves towards the door rather than forming a queue.  If there was a small gap between our bags on the floor then two people would amazingly squeeze in somehow.  Regardless of how we pushed our bags through or how long we waited, we were perpetually at the end of the line.  Finally, we made it through the doors and were able to get our bags inspected and bring them to the “check in” which was nothing more than an office desk by a door leading outside.  Two men were waiting, one to fill in our tags and tickets by hand and the other to pass our bags through a small swing door and we then advanced to immigration.

I typically am in charge of our documents so I had all of our tickets, documents, and passports in hand and for some reason they wouldn’t let Bobby go with me and briskly escorted him to another cubby.  I kept telling the officers that I have his passport but ignored me and finally realized and then another office rushed to my cubby to demand his documents.  The officer who held my passport kept flipping through and asking “Mongolia Visa”.  I tried to explain that Americans don’t need visas for Mongolia.  This officer called her superior who then asked the same question and got the same response.  They then got another superior who spoke some English.  Again; same question, same response.  This time I took out the Lonely Planet book and showed her the visa section which clearly stated that Americans do not need visas to enter Mongolia.  Apparently, what caused all of the trouble was that last week an “American” had been turned away on the Mongolian side for not having a visa.  I didn’t really believe this because they think that all Caucasian non-Russian speaking foreigners are American.

She left us to investigate and left us standing in our segregated cubicles while the plane finished boarding.   I tried to keep my cool and made sure to smile at every officer that passed.  I figured that there wasn’t really anything more that I could do then reiterate that we don’t need visas and everything is in order.  The officer came back after a while and said that she called the Kazakh embassy in Mongolia and they didn’t know.  I explained to her that every country has different rules for people of different nations; Kazakhs may need a visa to enter but Americans do not and suggested that she call the American embassy.  She left us again for a while and then returned asking me for the contact number for the U.S. embassy but curiously didn’t bother to write the number down.    At that point we took it upon ourselves and Bobby called a contact that we have at the embassy to let him know the situation and to find out if there is any staff there since it is Saturday.  HE was going to look in to it and allegedly so were the immigration officers and the entire time while we were standing waiting, Joan Osbourne crooned, “if God had a name, what would it be?”  Thought provoking lyrics for a long wait.

Bobby got tired of standing in isolation and scandalously crossed the yellow line to sit down on the other side in the waiting area.  They were going to stop him and then I suppose realized that they can still see us and that we can’t really go anywhere.  They then gave me permission to sit as well.  Once I sat down, a different officer rushed towards me asking to see our tickets and then there was all sorts of shouting back and forth dva billet, two tickets; of course there are two tickets!  That was established an hour ago when we checked in and they took our names and gave us the tickets; you need to sort out our VISAS, not tickets!  More than an hour had passed and nearly simultaneously we got a text message from the embassy stating that we do not need a visa and the officer running over to us with our passports.  Bobby showed her the text, she nodded and handed us back our passports, fully stamped.  I grabbed our things and ran towards the door.  I felt terrible for holding up the flight for more than an hour for people who have been waiting since yesterday for this flight.  But I was just thankful that they weren’t going to force us to fly back to Astana to go to the Mongolian embassy to purchase a visa that we don’t even require simply to board a plane.

We boarded the plane to find it completely full, expect for two seats in the second row that were saved for us, even the front row was filled with luggage.  I actually saw my huge bag lying there in the pile just like a carry on.  The pilots were also the stewards and came over to us to give us some candy and gestured to throw my actual carry on anywhere.  I do believe the word he used was the Russian equivalent to “no problem”.  Even more surprising to me was that nobody seemed to care that we were the ones responsible for the big delay.  Everyone smiled at us as we passed and I beamed back; I was so thankful to have such patient and understanding people.  If this happened in the states I would be scared of the reception I would get in a similar situation.  The stewards then became pilots again and went into the cockpit.  I slept for most of the short flight and we quickly arrived to Western Mongolia.  The plane landed, our pilot/stewards said goodbye and Mongolian immigration officials boarded the plane with big smiles and in English welcomed us to Mongolia.

We were quickly stamped in, retrieved our bags, and cleared customs to find our guides, Nurbol and Bogy, from Blue Wolf Travel waiting for us.  First we went to meet Canat, who I had been making all of our arrangements with and after Nurbol took us to get set up in Mongolia; get our phone sim, ATM, hotel, and internet.  Olgii is a small town considering it is a provincial capital and easy to get around walking.  Everyone here has been exceptionally friendly greeting us with “Hello” in English.  While we were strolling along the streets, we stopped to look up at some birds flying overhead. A police officer came running over; my first instinct was to cringe since normally police officers approach us if they want something.  He reached us and asked in English “What are you doing? Are you ok?” We explained that we were just looking at the birds.  He thought this strange because to them, these huge soaring birds were their equivalent to our pigeons and laughingly shared this with a man sitting nearby.

Nurbol is also friends with some of the local Peace Corps Volunteers and invited us to come along with him to a dinner they are having tonight.  It is such a pleasant shock to have successfully made it to Mongolia.  We started the morning off in a tense situation but will end it relaxing and chatting with some friendly PCVs.  Just from the few hours we have spent it Mongolia thus far, I can already tell we are really going to enjoy our time here.

We are about to begin what will be our last big backpacking adventure… our “last hurrah”.  Strangely I do remember us saying the same thing about our Africa trip.  We are in a different position now; we may finish this trip to go straight to employment or Peace Corps.  As always, there is a great element of uncertainty and I’ve long ago stopped trying to predict where we will be in the next few months.  Even this trip started out with the idea of riding our bicycles from Florida to California.  After researching the cost of that trip and realizing how it expensive it would be we realized we could buy a clunker in London and drive to Mongolia for the same cost.   Since everything happened with the State Department, we stayed in the States a bit longer than expected so that was scrapped and now our plan is to just do Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China in the next four months, which seems a grueling pace also.

I don’t feel excited at this point.  I am still cautious as a lot can change and quickly.  Even now as we sit at the airport, we learned that our flight is delayed about two hours.  Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal but we only have a few hours in Moscow and we are really hoping to see the city.  We should have enough time to at least see the Kremlin.  Hopefully things will work out and we didn’t pay for that costly visa for nothing.

The lovely town of Essaouira will be one of our last cities in Morocco.

Today was monumental for a few reasons.  Firstly, we have successfully reached 100 days traveling with people who had been little more than strangers.  Secondly, today we made the decision to end our time here and move on to Europe.

David had inquired this morning whether we considered where we will get off.  Bobby and I started chatting about it while strolling around Essaouira and kicked around a few ideas, one of which was to go and see my grandmother.  We had heard from my mother that she had recently been hospitalized but I wanted to get to an internet café first and check with everyone to make sure it was alright.  We found an internet café that had Skype on it and we made all of the calls and found out it was good timing for everyone so we went ahead and booked tickets.

So it is official now, we are flying to Paris this Saturday and will be there at 2 pm in the afternoon.  We will stay with Pierre-Philippe and Emanuelle and Tuesday we will fly to Riga and then to Vilnius.  It all happened so fast, I don’t know what I think about it.  I feel a bit unprepared but that is how a lot of things in life seem to come about.  My other main concern is that we are going to Eastern Europe during winter and we haven’t got winter clothes.  Strolling around today, we fortuitously came across mittens, long johns and some ridiculously cheap sweaters at the supermarket.  It was just meant to be this way I suppose.

Oh, another main event that marked this day is that on this 100^th day, we finished our 1,000 sheet roll of toilet paper!  Everything really seemed to work out well, now we are just going to enjoy our last two days in Morocco!

No more famine; healthy looking kids running around

We left Zinder fairly late and arrived in Maradi for lunch.  While we were in the local hotel/restaurant we met a group of consultants for the UN.  It was not a surprise to see such a large presence of foreign aid workers here.  Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and the famine in 2005 caused by drought and a plague of locusts certainly did not help matters.  These consultants were all here advising on the crops since the famine to ensure they have sufficient amount of food.  Luckily, the harvests since have been good and there had been enough rainfall and the granaries are filling up.

They asked us if we were headed to Agadez, which we explained that we would like to but we were told at the embassy that it isn’t permitted.  One of the men was a Nigerien and he told us that we can go to Agadez but we will need a guide once we get there; as long as we are supervised it should be alright.  That changed our plans just knowing that we will at least be able to drive there and find out for ourselves.

The weather is fiercely hot.  Even with the windows open, the air hitting us was extremely uncomfortable. We pulled into a tourist camp in Birnin Koni for the night and of course as soon as we arrive all sorts of hawkers enter and start laying out their wares.  I was so dehydrated and potentially suffering from heat exhaustion and was truly not able to even feign interest in their goods.  Of course when you seem uninterested then they start lowering prices, which is still irrelevant when you don’t want anything.  I would have paid a fortune however, for a nice cold drink.  They luckily sold cold cokes, so I bought one while all the hawkers followed.  I kept on repeating to them, “I don’t want to talk business, I just want to drink my coke”.

There were plenty of granaries

At this campsite Bobby came across a magazine that wrote about the Cure Salée festival which should be happening now.  This is the event where the Tuareg and Wodaabe pastoralist tribes come together bringing their flocks to refresh themselves at the salt flats and watering holes and use this chance to exchange news and is a great event for cultural performances.  This is the event where the Wodaabe males adorn themselves in costume and performance as a part of a courtship ritual.  It would be remarkable to get a chance to witness this event.  With luck, we will make it!