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.

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?