Stories of our Service: Change

                Today I’m in a bit of a hurry to get back to the village because my best friend Martyrs is harvesting his fish, a first for him. Lizzy and I are being battered by sand as we stand on the side of the great north road with our arms stretched out waiting for a ride. Our eyes are red, as we strain to keep them open against the bitterly cold wind from the south.  For whatever reason, no one wants to stop to pick us up. I begin to wonder if I should have shaved this week, or put on a clean shirt to look more appealing to the drivers who zoom by and pretend to not make eye contact with me.

                After about an hour, we finally flag down a semi-truck heading to Tanzania. I let Lizzy negotiate with the driver, because, quite honestly, she is extremely good at getting a free ride, unlike me, who is quick to open up my wallet.  Sure enough, she has convinced the driver that we should go for free. We lumber up into the expansive cab, and take off our sandals (customary for these types of rides) so that we don’t dirty up the driver’s bedroom. Immediately after the door closes I am bombarded with the smells of all the passengers. A distinct smell of urine emanates from the little boy on his mom’s lap, who clearly hasn’t had his pants changed in weeks, the older gentleman radiates a pungent body odor, likely the culprit of a long showerless day, and the security guard in the passenger seat smells like a combination of roses and watermelon, probably due to his dousing on of female perfume. This should be an enjoyable one hour ride with my five fellow bedmates, security guard, and driver.

                The Freightliner semi-truck we are riding in is like the Cadillac of the African trucking network. It has large windows, plenty of space to cram in passengers, and even a built in refrigerator.  Looking out of these large windows I see the high transmission lines paralleling the road, a testament to the modernization that is taking place here. Under many of these high power lines I notice mudhuts with their grass thatch roofs with inhabitants who will likely never benefit from the power lines that run over them.  Further along the journey, we have to stop in the middle of the highway as a herd of goats saunter along the asphalt. A herdsman comes running through the bush to shoo them off the road, and gives us a friendly smile and wave to make amends for the delay.

                This is something that always amazes me on a ride in Zambia, the mix of the old world with the new.  A country that has well paved roads that most people walk-on, and an electrical grid clearing that provides wood for villagers to cook with. Oddly though, progress seems to slowly be spreading here. I hope villagers like Dylan, because the times they are a-changin’.

Stomp Out Malaria Song

For those of you who know my love for making up silly jingles, it
should come as no surprise that I made up a song for malaria.

A brief lesson on malaria:

The female anopheles mosquito carries the parasite that causes
malaria, and transfers this deadly disease while feasting on humans.
Like most blood sucking creatures, it prefers to dine at night when
everything is dark and quite, usually between the hours of 10:00 pm
and 5:00 am.  Thus the reason for promoting sleeping under mosquito
nets in areas where malaria lurks.  Other recommendations we give are
wearing long sleeves and pants, filling in holes where puddles can
form and keeping the grass short near your home.  The long sleeves
(like the mosquito net) create a barrier and less surface area for the
mosquitoes to bite when you are out and about during peak dining
hours.  In Zambia the rainy season is when malaria runs rampant, this
is because the anopheles mosquito lays its babies in fresh standing
water.  Hence the reason for filling in holes where puddles form
creating the perfect place for the pesky offspring to develop. Lastly,
keeping your grass short provides a cleaner environment and a cleaner
environment means less bugs, especially the devilish anopheles
mosquito.

Bemba Lyrics                                   English Lyrics
Ukwisusha ifilindi                                Fill in holes
Ukukwempa iccani                               Cut the grass
Ukufwala ifitali, ifyakufwala            Wear long clothing
Lelo makamaka ukulala na ITN         But, most important sleep under a net
Pantu malaria it’s bad                         Because malaria it’s bad
Oh, malaria it kills                               Oh, malaria it kills
So…(repeat from the top)                    So…


Meet your choir:

Kanona Basic School is the main government school in my area.  Both
grades 8 and 6 have been two classes I have spent many days with
discussing the health issues in their community.

Muleya Community School is a small school ran by volunteers near where
Ben and I stay.  Ben teaches English there on a weekly basis and has
really fallen in love with the kid’s enthusiasm of learning.

The neighborhood health committee is the main group that I work with
here in Kanona.  They are all volunteers and their job is to go out to
the surrounding communities to make sure they all know of the health
facilities in the area and to educate on preventative measures.

Ben and I have lived on a family compound called, Kalula Farm, since
we moved here.  They are amazing people who I hope we have taught as
much as they have taught us.  There are three sisters and their
families and the matriarch, our Zambian grandmother.
Another Peace Corps Volunteer that lives a few hours south of us,
Patricia Muran, taught her village the song as well.  The very cute
little girls finished up the video.

Thanks for watching!

For more information on Malaria go to: www.stompoutmalaria.org



World Malaria Day

April 25^th marks ‘World Malaria Day’ which means little to the western world, but living in Sub-Saharan Africa I am able to see why a day is devoted to such a cause.  In my tiny village just since January of this year over 1000 cases of malaria have been treated at the rural health clinic, manned by one nurse and random volunteers some days.  In a place where 20% of maternal deaths and 40% of deaths to children under 5 are caused by malaria, this disease cannot be looked at lightly.  This is why for the past two years of my service I have made a point to celebrate World Malaria and use it as a springboard to get information to the public.

This year was a huge success, with over 500 people from the surrounding area coming to the event.  We had a disc jockey for a dance party, two different groups performed malaria related skits, a young girl’s dance/drill team performed, we played educational games and even had a relay race.  The event ended with everyone enjoying a local drink, munkoyo, made by the neighborhood health committees. 

I hope that my village will continue this tradition for the years to come after I leave in hopes of one day eliminating malaria once and for all!

Dance/Drill Group Performing while singing 'Prevention is Better than Cure'

Relay Race- Groups had to run three legged, fill in a dirt hole, run back to the mosquito nets and tuck themselves in, all while being timed.

For more information on Peace Corps work with malaria go to:
www.stompoutmalaria.org

Malaria and My Brother

At first I was annoyed that my little brother Joe was crying in the middle of the night. He obviously didn’t know that I wasn’t a baby anymore and that I had to go to school the next morning. Grade one isn’t all that hard, but when you have to walk seven kilometers first thing in the morning, it helps to have a good night’s rest, otherwise
you just fall asleep in class.  When you do fall asleep the teacher yells at you that you are lazy and stupid and embarrasses you in front of the other 40 students.  Plus, we ran out of corn last night, so there won’t be any breakfast, so I know I’ll be tired. Hopefully I’ll just grab some fruit from someone’s yard when they aren’t looking.
That always helps.


At the moment that I was just about to punch him and tell him to shut up I saw his face and I could tell something wasn’t right.  He looked like he was a zombie or something. His eyes were open but he just
looked into space, and his eyes were so funny looking. He must have been sleeping under the part of the roof that leaks, because his face was all wet. I got up off the dirt floor and ran to Ba Mommy’s room and told her that something was wrong with Joe. When I woke up in the morning, Ba Daddy was putting Joe on his bike.
Stupid Joe, why does he get to ride on Daddy’s bike? I’m the one that goes to school now, not him. He just plays in the dirt and cries all day long. Ba Mommy told me that Ba Daddy was taking Joe to the clinic
because the funny dressed American people told her it was important. What did they know about who should ride a bike? They both had two fancy bikes after all.


After school I saw Ba Daddy waiting for me with his bike. I knew he would let me ride it after all. We didn’t go very far though, we just went to the clinic together down the path. That’s where I saw Joe again. He was lying on a bed  with some plastic thing in his arm. I thought we must have been lucky because only people with money get to use beds. That’s when Ba Daddy told me that Joe was really sick. The plastic thing in his arm was putting medicine into his body so that he wouldn’t be so hot the nurse told me. The nurse said we were lucky. That this week alone two other children got really sick and died and went to heaven because of something called malaria. He said Joe would be better though. Lucky for us the nurse was right, Joe did get better. He came back a couple of days later and we were all really happy. We even had a chicken for dinner. Ba Mommy always said we only could have chicken when important people came to visit. I’m not sure who was so important, but I was happy to have my little brother back.

Malaria is a preventable and treatable disease that affects millions of people across the planet. In Zambia, 4 million people are affected annually. Over 50 percent of the malaria deaths are in children five years and younger.

This story is based on actual events, and is written to give a voice to the children of Zambia who suffer from this terrible disease. Please visit stompoutmalaria.org for more information.

Stories of our Service: The Road Home

Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. I am trudging along the great north road in Zambia with my wife Lizzy, trying to get home before dark. It’s our first month of twenty-seven months in Zambia, and I’ve never felt so helpless. Normally there are enough vehicles heading north that I can stick out my arm and grab a lift to my village, but today for whatever reason there is nothing.

            As I peer to my left and right I see the wild African grasses stretching a dozen feet into the air, creating an impenetrable wall that envelops both sides of the road. I look up and notice the sun nearing the western hills of the Makonda Valley where it makes its daily resting place. My heart begins to speed up a bit, and it appears the sun is doing the same. I wonder what will we do in our first night alone in the middle of the African bush?

An hour has passed and nothing has traveled our way. Its not like we can switch roads at the next intersection, because, unfortunately for us, there are no other roads for 300 miles. We both try and remain calm, but the looks on our face shows not calm, but desperation. Neither of us says it, but we are thinking of the snakes and insects, and even about the Mylan Brothers, the murderous set which stalks this area of central province.

Then just when we are about to give up, Africa works its magic. A semi-truck comes barreling down the road towards us. We nearly jump in the middle of the road to make sure this truck doesn’t pass by us, and when we see it slowing down, we begin to breath just a little easier. Before you know it, the driver’s brother gives up the passenger seat so that my wife can sit in the cab, and hops up on the top of the tarped load with me, as we cling to a rope and begin exchanging stories.

This is Africa. A land that is in beyond despair, yet somehow, miraculously, keeps a silver lining and a glimmer of hope.