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.

Full Hands and Hearts

Harvest Sunday. That’s what the St. Andrew’s congregation in Nchelenge, Zambia celebrated recently. They expressed their gratitude to God for the material blessings they had received in the past year. This festival is patterned after God’s command to the ancient Israelite community to keep three annual festivals to God: the Passover, the Feast of the Harvest (or Weeks), and the Feast of Ingathering (or Booths). (See Exodus 23 and 34, Leviticus 23, and Deuteronomy 16) The Feast of the Harvest entails people presenting God the best of the first crops they harvested.

On Harvest Sunday at St. Andrew’s, row by row, congregants sprang from their backless, wooden benches and began flailing arms, twirling, whooping, and singing with unbridled joy as they filed forward to physically present God the best of what they’d harvested. This was not a half-hearted “bring a can or two of something for the poor” deal. It was a whole-hearted big deal. Everyone contributed. Feeble old mamas hobbled, and lean young bucks shuffled along the bare concrete floor with hearts full of thanksgiving and hands full of their harvest best: pumpkins, whole sacks bulging with sweet potatoes or maize, bundles of ten-foot-long sugar cane stalks, cooking and palm oil, live chickens and geese, wood planks, and envelopes stuffed with Zambian kwacha.


Then it happened, again, more than once, during Sunday worship. I was blind-sided. No, not the usual, “You are welcome Rev. Bobe (Zambian for Bob!); we hope you will bless us with a word of encouragement today.” Translation: “We expect you to preach.” No, that’s not what blind-sided me. (I’ve actually gotten used to and expect that!) What snuck up on me was a tidal wave of emotion; I was suddenly choking back tears. I doubt it was just the spine-tingling harmonies of exuberant choir members swaying and clapping in unison while singing their hearts out in a GENUINE CELEBRATION of thanksgiving——and not just the adolescent young men accompanying them by extracting syncopated rhythms from hollowed out tree trunks clothed in taut animal skins. It couldn’t have been just the indescribable joy emanating from all those faces and bodies. No, it wasn’t just those things, but all of them——all of them infused with the fact of how little these people have materially, and how joyfully and willingly they were giving away the best of what God had blessed them with. It occurred to me that God might be quite pleased with their trust and obedience and the love they showed for neighbors in greater need than they——for that’s how these gifts would be used.


Are not these St. Andrew’s folks however, as spiritually rich as they are materially poor? They are not shackled by material wealth. What do they know that we don’t that enables them to radiate an inner joy and peace and freedom so few of us Westerners know——even as they give from what little they have?

As I made room for my bags in the back of our pick-up for the trip back to Kitwe, I noticed the heads of a couple live chickens peering out of a small cardboard box. I asked my colleague Richard what they were doing there. “There’s one for each of us,” he said, a gift of gratitude from the St. Andrew’s congregation——from the firstfruits they’d just collected. We were the beneficiaries of the congregation’s best gifts! Whew! I am grateful now, and certainly will give thanks again in November for having learned from sisters and brothers at St. Andrew’s in Nchelenge what it truly means to CELEBRATE thanksgiving.

Part II of St. Andrews’ Harvest Sunday will take place in September, at the completion of the harvest. Would you believe it will be an even greater celebration?

Harvest Time in Zam

The rain has passed and the nights are becoming increasingly cooler. I’ve even broken out my wool sweater a couple times. Early on damp, misty mornings brown leaves crunch under foot as I carefully choose my steps, running along the hard-packed dirt roads and footpaths embedded with rocks that snake behind the compounds that line my running route. It’s harvest time in Zambia, and except for some of the places where late heavy rains spoiled the maize on the stalks, it is shaping up to be a good one. The maize has been taken in and has, in places, already been replanted. Rolled hay bales stand watch over flat, straw-hued fields like giant pastries guarding a cookie sheet. The sun more or less rises and sets at six. Believe it or not, it’s looking and feeling a bit like autumn at home, very Indian Summerish.

On our travels we pass many roadside fruit and vegetable stands, where Zambian women compete vigorously to replace their produce with a few kwacha. They have perfected the art of arranging the healthy stuff into little fruit and veggie cairns that constitute what you get for the going price. The cabbage, okra, carrots, sweet potatoes, groundnuts (peanuts), watermelons, pumpkin leaves, and many varieties of pumpkins and squash they sell, they usually don’t grow, though it is likely that they toil at subsistence farming.

(WARNING: Digression. I have become quite a fan of okra, which tastes great boiled, then mixed with diced tomatoes and onions. It’s got great texture—but what is that goo that oozes from it, and where does it come from?!)

You could say that these are “middlewomen,” buying from local farmers and reselling. I’m told that one of the former Zambian presidents, a Mr. Chiluba, encouraged Zambians to adopt this buy and (re)sell approach to free enterprise. It was purported to be the path out of poverty for Zambians. Things seem not to have materialized as envisioned. Without no economies of scale, and no value added, Zambians compete against each other with undifferentiated commodities. Service (transport/delivery time) isn’t even a potential point of differentiation for these women since the only transportation that have is by foot. Thus they either collude on price or end up cutting each other’s throats. This almost surely locks one inside the house of poverty.

Just as the Egyptian pyramids remind me of God’s faithfulness in delivering the Israelites from their oppresors, the small pyramids of fresh produce and man-sized mounds of it remind me of God’s faithfulness in providing for us. Is it a matter of conscious trust in God’s providential promise or an assumption we take for granted, that harvests will be abundant, and that we’ll be able to enjoy them. In Genesis 8 God promised Noah,
As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night will never cease.

May it be out of trust in God’s goodness that we look forward to plentiful harvests, with thanksgiving in our hearts. Amen.

Dirty Jobs: Zambia

On a break from teaching in Mongu, in Zam’s Western Province, I decided to stretch my legs by trudging through the heavy, resistant sand outside the Lilelelo congregation’s church building. Although Mongu is about 120 miles west of Angola and its Kalahari Desert sands, I could easily have been convinced that I was smack dab in the middle of that desert, or on the beach at the Jersey shore. The previous week, a good hour’s drive south of Mongu, in Senanga, I’d snapped some youngsters who were looking my way. When I saw the pic - which I could've taken virtually anywhere in Senanga with the same result - I asked myself, "Does this not look like they're lounging on a beach?"

At Lilelelo though, as we were teaching I’d become aware of a grating, whirring sound buzzing from beyond the church—like an electric circular saw. As I passed by the opening in the church’s flimsy, straw-colored reed fence, I saw some folks hunched over a waist-high rectangular box. My curiosity aroused, I walked over to investigate.

A young woman and what might have been her daughter smoothed their fingers back and forth over the box, filled with maize. Soon I could see gaps in the maize that revealed shiny gray metal. Beneath the maize, the aluminum box bottom was dotted unsystematically with hundreds of holes that looked like they’d been randomly punched out with a Philip’s head screwdriver. Pebbles, twigs, and too-small maize kernels dropped down onto the camel-colored sand.

After sifting the maize, they poured what remained into a tightly woven white plastic sack and handed it over to the miller. He emptied the sack into his milling machine until the hopper was full, then hit an electric switch. Ah, that grating whir, the one I’d heard all day. The machine churned the hard, yellowy kernels into a fine powdery dust, spitting it into a white plastic sack. The whitish residue clung to everything in the miller’s outdoor shop. The workspace reminded me of the workshop my father used to have in our basement—after he’d been cutting wood with his radial-arm saw. I used to vacuum the sawdust that the jagged blades of that powerful saw spewed out. In the miller’s shop however, the maize and cassava dust looked, as a Zambian might say, “a bit” permanent! It also clung to the gap-toothed miller himself! In a funny way, this pleasant Zambian looked like the dirty job yang to the dirty job yin of a West Virginia coal miner—brown-skinned and covered from head to toe, with white dust. I shuddered to think how much of that fine dust was caked in the poor chap’s lungs. OSHA would have a field day.

In Senanga I spoke with a man who also milled rice. He dried the husks in the sun and sold them as chicken feed. The usable output for our maize miller is mealie-meal, the staple of the Zambian diet. The chalky miller processed others’ maize so he could buy or mill his own. The church, whose operation this was, employed him. Many Zambian churches engage in commercial enterprises to support their ministries. In addition to milling maize and cassava, these include making bricks, and cooking up a homemade liquid refreshment called munkoyo.

The church charged the equivalent of about 60 cents to mill a 25 kg. (60 lbs.) or so sack of maize. My miller friend said business was pretty slow. With revenue of 60 cents/bag—including his wage—he can’t be making much doing this dirty job.

Freedom!

Recently, as Americans observed a national holiday, Memorial Day, so did citizens of dozens of other countries observe a national holiday. Americans remembered those who died to secure their freedom, while Africans, continent-wide, celebrated their freedom from colonial masters.

Three weeks into our month-long swing through Zam’s Western, Central, and Lusaka Provinces, we found ourselves in the capital, Lusaka—on Africa Freedom Day. The city was relatively sleepy that morning, Lusakans apparently taking the liberty of sacking in. As my colleagues and I ran some errands, it occurred to me that this might be an opportunity to get a closer look at the “Freedom Statue” we’d driven by so many times when passing through Lusaka.

By the time we arrived at the statue, the Zambian president, Rupiah Banda, had already come for a wreath-laying ceremony, and gone. The first time I’d seen the statue, an image of a big, muscular, bare-chested man breaking free from the chains that bound him (Zambians call him "Ma Cheni, Ma Cheni," one breaking free from his chains) it was obvious that it was somehow tied up with the concept of freedom. Now, up close, any doubt about this was quickly resolved by the block letters—F R E E D O M—emblazoned on its base. The monument had a satiny, black sheen, and appeared to be supported by the strings of triangular flags strewn from it, the kind you see flapping in the breeze at car dealerships. The colors—green, copper, black, and red—borrowed from the Zambian flag, signify Zambia’s rich land, copper, people, and the blood the people shed for their freedom.

The monument stands in the midst of a green, close cut lawn, fenced in at the foot a Chinese-built Zambian government building. Hundreds of children laughed, screamed, and frolicked on the grass around the statue. When I began taking some “snaps” (as Zambians say) of the statue, it was as if a magnet lured those kids in front of my camera—jumping, smiling, shouting, and waving. When I stood before the statue for my colleague to snap me however, those children closed in on me like a rugby scrum, grabbing my arms and legs, jumping on my back. It was like a family get-together with my nieces and nephews, or a mugging! My Zambian colleague-photographer would have none of this, either concerned for my safety or about getting a more dignified snap! He sternly reprimanded the children, commanding them to stand back; he appointed one young boy as “captain,” to restrain the others. After one such “appeasement snap,” I told him it was okay for the kids to gather round.

What freedom children have in their innocence. I noticed this while in the Western Province. Visiting a headmistress at an elementary school, I was introduced to a first and second grade class—and snapped them. Free as birds even in their crisp blue school uniforms, they jostled and jockeyed for position in front of my lens—fresh faces, all bright eyes and beautiful white teeth.
Their raucous laughter crescendoed to cheers and screams at the burst of the camera’s flash. My colleague urged me to stop, saying I was causing “pandemonium.” Pandemonium. For some reason that word made me laugh, maybe because it was true, but nevertheless this was a pandemonium borne of childish innocence. Rich or poor, everywhere I’ve been in the world children are innocently free, at least they look and sound that way.

Back at the Freedom Statue, as we were leaving, scads of children followed me, clinging to my shirt and pants, holding my hands, grabbing my legs, and patting my back. In that moment I felt joy, and sadness—joy for the obvious reasons, and sadness, at first, because I wondered how many of them were so eager to touch me because they’d been conned into believing that it’s good luck to touch a muzungu. Moments later though, I was told that many of these were homeless, “street kids” possibly high from sniffing glue. How free then, were they, really?
I thought more about freedom. Am I free? What I am free from? What am I free for? What am I doing with my freedom? I thought about what Paul meant when he said “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Got freedom? Real freedom?

Working Hard at Hard Work

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Most Zambians survive however they can. Many scrape out a living with some sort of “business.” This often involves staking out some piece of property that no one else seems to have claimed—to grow something or produce something resourceful on or from the land. Over the last month or two a Zambian I met named Emmanuel (meaning “God with us”) has done just that. He makes bricks out of dirt from anthills. He chose a large unclaimed anthill just outside the gate that surrounds the campus where I live.


Emmanuel labors thirteen hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. Each day he makes three hundred bricks. Anthill soil is supposed to be the best for making strong, durable bricks because it is so fine. Emmanuel begins making a brick by first coating the inside of a rectangular metal box with some black oil, so that he’ll be able to remove the brick later. Then he shovels a heap of anthill dirt into the box. Next, he packs the dirt hard by pounding it with his shovelhead; he repeats the process piles more on and smacks it again. Finally, he activates a lever to release the brick from the box.
He ascends from the dirt pit to stage the bricks for drying. He covers his newly formed bricks with hay and lets them bake in the sun for three days. I forgot to ask Emmanuel what he charges for each brick. It can’t be much because the people who will buy them can’t afford to pay very much. Fortunately for Emmanuel he’s got almost no costs, though I don’t know how he markets his bricks.

There's not an ounce of fat on Emmanuel. For lunch he eats nshima, the porridge-like corn meal staple of most Zambians. He has no vegetable or meat to accompany this virtually nutritionless lump. Hooray for Emmanuel for taking the initiative to eke out an honest though very tough living.

(November to) April Showers Bring…

…explosions of color to Zambia, May flowers for sure. Lush green hills and grass color the landscape. Bright red wild poinsettias have been in full bloom since at least Palm Sunday (the week before Easter). The traffic circles and town center in Kitwe are bursting with color. The campus where I live is resplendent with color too.


The seasons are changing though. Most of the gauva have fallen from the tree in my yard. I've been enjoying walking out to pluck a lemon off my other tree when I'm preparing dinner,or looking to freshen up a gin and tonic! Some of the trees are losing their leaves as the “cold season” advances. When I run in the mornings, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, I see Zambians bundled up with plaid wool or acrylic blankets, and puffy quilted coats. For them, this is cold; most mornings it’s probably been in the high fifties or low sixties! While riding the minibus to and from town I've been choking on the staleness of the air in the vehicle. Zambians are quick to clamp those minibus windows shut to stay comfortable. Now I try to stake out one of the window seats. At night it has been cool enough for me to cover myself with a blanket as I slide into my linen mitten (the latter a favorite expression of my friend Russell).