Applying CoG Theory: How Do They Do That?

In grammar school we used to play a game called eraser tag. It took place in the classroom. One pupil would write another’s name on the blackboard- do they still use them? - then balance a chalk eraser on their head and dart to a far corner of the room. The pupil who saw their name on the board would zip forward, erase their name, place the eraser on their head, and attempt to tag their antagonist. I can still remember the name of one of those flat-headed pupils, or should I say skilled and talented pupils. Where’s he going with all this, you may be wondering.

I’ve extolled the virtues of Zambian women in this space numerous times before. One thing they do that never ceases to amaze me is carry everything but the kitchen sink on their heads. Actually, I shouldn’t rule out those sinks. On my morning run yesterday I saw a fiftyish woman walking along the road carrying a TABLE on her head! It was about four feet long and half as wide, with legs about a foot and a half high. Where was my camera then? I thought it would have been slightly more interesting if the table’s legs were facing down. Then I could tell you I saw a six-legged table walking down the street!

I would be quite satisfied with the ability to carry anything on my head, including hair! Zambian women though, you name it; they carry it. Very resourceful, don’t you think? Even more astonishing is that, as often as not, they’re carrying a baby in a chitenge on their back, and something in one or both hands. What’s more, I’ve never seen them drop anything. I saw one woman carrying a pot on her head that was so askew I was sure it would end up on the ground. No chance!

Zambian women who occupy the ranks of the middle class and above generally don’t carry assorted stuff on their heads. That may be because they've never had to do that. It may also be because they don’t have to or don’t want to do that anymore. I’d guess that most of the women seen carrying everything under the sun on their heads have not completed a high school education. I doubt they could explain the physical concept of center of gravity (CoG). Nevertheless, they know, intuitively it seems, that successfully balancing an object on one’s head does not necessarily mean placing its physical center over theirs.

It’s fun to watch the process these women go through to get themselves under the stuff they carry. First they place a pie-shaped cloth or chitenge on their head to cushion the load. They then stoop and effortlessly pick up, say, a sack of sweet potatoes weighing maybe fifty or more pounds, adjust it on their head like someone trying on a hat, and take off. And unlike most of us who were no good at eraser tag, they can turn their head smoothly to give themselves a full range of vision. I suppose this shows the value of practical experience.

Walking long distances to fetch firewood and water makes one rather resourceful. How many of us would even consider attempting to carry something on our head to save ourselves a trip? Last summer, in Chicago, about three blocks from our president's home, I and a gaggle of others helped a student move her belongings from one apartment to another one a block away. None of us used our heads for anything but blabbering! Can you imagine someone moving into or out of their house or apartment with their arms full and anything other than a hat on their head?! I never tire of watching these women do what we have to go to the circus to see. Last October after taking a seat subsequent to preaching at an outdoor retreat, a small six-year-old or so girl caught my eye. She was trying valiantly to balance a two-liter plastic soda bottle, containing water, on her head. Necessity begins at a young age here.

A week ago, during one of my two jaunts to Lusaka (about 230 miles from Kitwe), I asked a woman carrying a basin full of oranges on her head if I could take a snap of her. She was thrilled, and obliged. As she was walking away, I called her so she could see me feebly attempting to balance my daypack on my head while slowly and unsteadily walking toward her. She laughed so hard and so long she must have been precariously close to incontinence. By the way, men here also carry things on their heads, only it’s rare to see one who could say, “Look, no hands!”

What’s in a Name, or Should I Say, Thanks for the Memolies

One of my favorite places to stop in Zambia is a gas station and fast food joint run by the Continental Oil Company. It stands at a crossroads, where the Great North Road spurs a branch to the Copperbelt. It’s nothing much really. I guess what I like about it is that it’s always buzzing with activity, regardless of when you’re there. Women prance around hawking bananas and apples from the large straw-woven saucer-like trays they balance on their heads. Smooth-talking young men try enticing motorists with bootleg CDs, the first track of which is usually the only good one. One young women toting a typically cute baby in a chitenge approached me with her boiled peanuts. I wasn’t won over by the boiled peanuts I once had at a Charleston, SC minor league baseball game, and I find the soggy legumes no more appealing here in Zam. Besides I’d just bought some raw peanuts, which I love. I greeted the boiled peanut vendor through the open truck window, then drew two shrink-wrapped packs of raw nuts from my pocket and flashed them at her. She burst into laughter. I asked the age and name of her beautiful baby. Three months she said, and her baby’s name was “Memoly”. I was stumped. Had she said Emily, or was it some adaptation thereof? I asked her to repeat it, and again. Then I remembered. There is no “R” in the Bemba alphabet, and for whatever reason Bembas frequently interchange the letters “R” and “L”. Oh, I get it, this is “Memory”! (And you thought you caught a very public I misspelling in my headline, didn’t you? Gotcha’!) Yes, Memory’s mom said as she concentrated to pronounce the “R”. I can’t remember if I asked Memory’s mom her name, but do remember telling her I wouldn’t forget to remember Memory! In former days as a marketer I remember discussing communication strategies that were “aspirational.” Isn’t that exactly what so many Zambian forenames are, aspirational? I work with a Zambian man named Knowledge and have met others named Progress, Happy, Funny, Smart, Beauty, Precious, Purity, Lazarus, and of course, Memory! Perhaps we are a bit more familiar with another one of these aspirational names: Hope. And perhaps that is what these names give the Zambians who give and receive such names. This brings to mind the name Charles Revson, founder of the Revlon cosmetics company. Revson was quoted as saying something like, “I’m not in the beauty business; I’m in the business of selling hope.” I suspect the hope wrapped up in these Zambian names is a bit less superficial than what Revson offered.

Heifers, Sows, and Purses

Saturday, on our way back to Kitwe after teaching in Luanshya, at the largest United Church of Zambia congregation in the Copperbelt (~2,500 members), we gave a couple of course participants a lift. One, a middle-aged lady, elderly by Zambian standards, invited us into her living room. As we sat chatting, a younger woman entered the room, presumably our host’s daughter. Slung on her back was a ski-capped baby cradled in a chitenge. The mother carried a plastic bag containing a gallon-sized plastic jug—the kind anti-freeze comes in. Though the “cold season” in Zambia is discernibly cooler than the hot and rainy seasons, there’s no need for anti-freeze. The jug didn’t contain anti-freeze, just cold, fresh cow’s milk.

Our host explained that she is part of a widow’s cooperative that participates in a program called “Heifers International.” This organization supplies people in developing countries with animals that are, as she said, “gifts that keep on giving.” Through Heifer International this widow had a mature dairy cow, and a calf. She had fifteen pigs besides. I asked if she minded my taking a snap of her with “Mumolo,” her cow. She graciously obliged, unpacking an armful of fresh green cabbage leaves from a white plastic sack and throwing it on the ground at the far end of the pen—to lure the beast away from the gate so we could enter. I guess you could say that she was a farmer. This widow-farmer was giving my colleague Richard and I this gallon of milk as a token of appreciation for the course we had facilitated for her over the previous three days. This gives me even more reason to celebrate the Zambian national holiday “Farmer’s Day” on Monday, August 3.

This woman did not live in squalor, but materially speaking had very little. In addition to the young woman and the baby wrapped in the chitenge there were five others, two adolescent girls and three youngsters aged five to seven, all probably the woman’s “dependents.” I don’t think the youngest were wearing shoes. That notwithstanding, our host cheerfully gave us a gallon of milk she could have sold or given to her family. I was once again moved by Zambian hospitality.



I was also uplifted to witness firsthand that contributions to Heifers International are helping this widow and others like her. Perhaps I was vicariously encouraged on behalf of people I know who contribute to Heifers International. I had a similar experience at a Sunday worship service earlier this year. The pastor held up a Christmas-wrapped shoebox and admonished the parents present that what their children were about to receive was intended for them, and not their parents. He joked that he would hunt them down if he got wind of any parental pilferage! The shoeboxes had been collected and distributed by an organization called “Samaritan’s Purse.” I am familiar with the organization and may have packed a shoebox or two myself. In all candor, I don’t know how efficiently these organizations spend the monies they receive. Nevertheless, I was grateful and perhaps even a little relieved that various gifts given in love thousand of miles away were delivered to their intended recipients, bringing them joy and making a difference, ranging from small to tremendous, in their lives.