“Long time, long time….You have not been seen”

(A Zambian expression usually made by someone you see everyday meaning: “Hello, I haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to?”)

For the past two months we’ve been distracted by a few visitors hence the lengthy silence. I apologise.

Visitor No. 1

Hanna turned up unannounced on May 1st, my birthday! Bless her! She came bearing gifts, not one, not two but three jars of pesto, kirby grips, the latest edition of Marie Clare, bday pressies and cards and soap from the airport hotel! We spent the whole day – just as you should on your birthday – eating and drinking. We ate a picnic lunch on the only patch of grass you can find in central Lusaka –Adventure Land – Zambia’s answer to a theme park complete with a Ferris Wheel you manually wind to make it go round!

The following day we travelled back to Chipata where everyone begins calling Hanna ‘Sally-Anne’ – she’s a small, young, white female, she must be me (no one seemed to notice she’s got flaming red hair!) Showing Hanna around my Zambian life was great and in a strange way made everything seem a bit more normal. That was until I ran a session for some of my peer educators and they all start confessing their sins giving examples of when they’d changed their behaviour in the past. Now I know how a Catholic priest must feel during confession…‘I was once a thief’, ‘I played truant’ ‘I used to drink a lot of beer’ and ‘I used to think sex was good!’ After all, peer educators shouldn’t be angels – realistic role models with ‘reformed souls’ is much better. Hanna’s own confession ‘I don’t say “what” anymore, instead, I say “sorry” or “pardon”’ and my ‘I’ve stopped asking Henry if he’s okay coz he finds it irritating’ seemed a bit pathetic.

We zipped across to Malawi for the weekend and drank beer from chilled tankards made in the pottery on the beach and learned to play Bao, Malawi’s answer to draughts. Over the past couple of weeks the wind has picked up in this part of the world so we got to play in some decent sized waves but had to move the tent to the shelter of the car park in the middle of the night as we were in danger of being blown over to Mozambique.

Enter visitors 2, 3 and 4
The following Friday Henry set off to meet his mum, aunt and sister in Lusaka and Hanna and I followed behind missioning it all the way through to Livingstone on the Saturday. We crawled onto the 5am bus in Chipata, caught a connection in Lusaka and stumbled into Livingstone at 10pm. It was all worth it for the free can of pineapple juice complete with floating bits we got on the second coach!

The Falls are spectacular at this time of year – full to the brim after the rainy season. We saw some hippos and a baby croc on the Zambezi. Hanna and Laura (Henry’s sister) flung themselves off the Gorge and Hanna played at being Peter Pan on the flying fox zip wire.

Back in Lusaka we said goodbye to Hanna and jumped on the sixth 6am bus in little over two weeks back to Chipata. A couple of days later Henry and his family went off to South Luangwa national park in search of some leopards whilst I got to stay at home with Jimmy and no electricity!

Visitor No. 4, 5 and 6: Hannah Gibbs and the parents.
Hannah number 2 (my Zambian colleagues and Henry’s family now think that all my friends are called Hannah) had coincidentally been in Lusaka for work and luckily I was passing through to meet my parents.

Henry waved his family off as the four of us took long bus journey No. 8 to Livingstone for another dose of adrenalin.

It was really lovely spending a day catching up with Hannah, reminiscing about Zimbabwe and comparing notes on HIV, Malaria and marvelling at how little Lusaka has to offer compared to Harare despite the troubles.

Visitor No. 7, Cousin (or sister according to Zambian family structures) Lucy
Lucy arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi on June 1st. The following morning she was greeted with a freak two hour down pour just as we were gearing up for a day of sunbathing. The rainy season in Malawi is supposed to finish in March! After swimming on horse back, a crash course in pot making, a couple of African braais, two lionesses with three tiny cubs, a Zambian pop concert, four long, tedious bus journeys, explaining repeatedly that two condoms are not better than one, lengthy theological discussions, a new wardrobe of chitenge outfits and a run in with an immigration office she’s now safely back in the UK and we’re once again home alone.

Putting HIV+ blood in the fridge WILL NOT cure AIDS

Last Friday I sat in on a group discussion that one of the peer educators had organised with a bunch of young people in his compound. They chose to focus their discussion on HIV & AIDS which initially I was a little disappointed about. The very fact that they’d chosen to take part in the discussion, I assumed, meant that they were more aware of the issues and possibly behaved more responsibly. Below are a few snippets of their discussion that demonstrate just how wrong I was.

The following questions were asked by two 20 year old male participants

Question asked during a discussion about the ways in which HIV can be transmitted: “If you were anaemic and your neighbour was a doctor and he wanted to get revenge on you they would give you a blood transfusion using blood infected with HIV?”

Answer given by peer educator and other participants: “All donated blood in Zambia is screened for HIV a minimum of three times. Only a qualified doctor at the hospital is allowed to give blood transfusions you should not get treatment for anaemia from your neighbour”

Apparently this young man’s concern was based on a real life situation that happened in 1995.

Question: “If donated blood is put in the fridge, will the ‘coldness’ kill the HIV”

Answer given by peer educator “There is no cure for HIV, putting blood in the fridge will not kill the Virus”

Question: “If you drink a bottle of Mosi (Zambian lager) before going for an HIV test will the HIV be undetectable”

Answer given by peer educator: “I’m not sure if having alcohol in your blood when you get tested for HIV means that the virus will be undetectable but most clinics won’t offer an HIV test if you are drink and THERE IS NO CURE FOR HIV”

Apparently some people also believe that if you wash yourself in beer after having unprotected sex the virus will be killed and you will avoid getting infected.

Question: About ten men a day are going to General Hospital to be circumcised becuase they believe this will either cure them from HIV or mean that they can't become infected. Is this true?

Answer: "THERE IS NO CURE FOR HIV. but...there have been studies doe that suggest that someone who is circumcised is at a lower risk of becomign infcted with HIV" Check out this bbc news story for more info. Although its an exciting development if we're not careful it could make matters worse, rumours have obviously already begun that circumcision is a cure and I wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to make money out of such a believe leading to unclean practices.

The scariest one of them all: “The problem of HIV has become like sitting your grade twelve exams. We have been learning about the subject for many years now so those who fail the exam (i.e. fail to avoid infection) must be stupid. It follows that the Pandemic will separate the stupid from the not so stupid and be of benefit to Zambia and the Zambian people!”

Answer given by peer educator and other participants: “People may become infected with HIV through no fault of their own, through mother to child transmission, through blood transfusions, through sexual assault or through not having the power to choose to use protection during sex. This is a very dangerous attitude.”

Lake Malawi Take Two

Filling in the gaps

I realise I haven’t written for a while and I’m not sure whether it’s because nothing much has happened or that I’ve just been feeling lazy. Actually, I’ve tried to upload some photos a few times but connections have been a bit slow recently – something to do with the end of the rainy season?!?

Anyway, here’s a quick round-up of what we’ve been up to over the past month or so (hopefully accompanied by photos but sorry if it hasn’t worked and you’ve just got a boring chunk of text to read).

A couple of weeks ago we were back in the medium-sized smoke (Lusaka) as I had to attend a HIV/AIDS sector workshop. I won’t bore you with the details but lets just say I’m glad that we weren’t paying!

Besides the workshop, Lusaka was good fun. Our trip coincided with a festival celebrating francophone Africa and finally after five months Henry finally got to see why I first fell in love with Africa…live music! Ba Cisekko was amazing. He’s a chora player from Guinea, West Africa. The drums looked like a giant, electronic hot cross bun and the drummer spent the entire show in a trance with his head cocked to one side, staring into the wings but was amazing. My thighs and back were aching for days afterwards from two hours non-stop dancing.

We had a go at recreating some of the rhythms the following night muscling in on the Lusaka based volunteers’ drumming lessons. There were no electronic hot crossed buns to practice on but the pots and pans were a good substitute. (Dan and Hannah – Luther would’ve been proud!)

Back in Chipata, Jimmy’s doubled in size and she’s still doing shark impressions which are a little more convincing now that her teeth have grown. The list of things she’s chewed up is growing – my sunglasses, Henry’s new sandals, a bracelet, my Birkenstocks, the arm of my cardigan and the VSO Zambia newsletter! The only thing she doesn’t seem to want to chew is the toy rope that we bought for that specific purpose. She is petrified of it – and doesn’t understand when we tell her it’s not a snake!

The rainy season’s all but finished which is great as my skirts will stay clean for more than one day. The sun is still scorching though and we’re told that the ‘windy’ season is fast approaching complete with mini-whirlwinds. I’m not feeling too confident about staying on my bike during a gale! Just in the past week I’ve managed to crash into a big bolder and provide morning entertainment for half of Chipata by wobbling off my bike during rush hour (pedestrian and bicycle traffic jams not motorised vehicles).

As for work, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck and de-motivated recently but I’m not going to launch into another rant – I’ll only wind myself into a tizzy and bore you some more.

Looking forward to the next couple of months is keeping me going. This weekend we’re off to chill out on the beach at Lake Malawi, next week we’re in Lusaka for our 6 month call-back workshop, 6 month anniversary party, another drumming lesson and probably a trip or two to the cinema. The first week of May we’re hoping to make it to Zimbabwe for the Harare International Festival of Arts, May 11th Henry’s family arrive and my parents fly in a couple of weeks later. Things will have quietened down by the end of June but that leaves us with only three full months of work! And before we know it Shoprite will be playing Christmas tunes and we’ll be on a plane home.

Not that I’m feeling homesick or anything!