Back to the village
Last Sunday I went back to my old village, Mambilima, to visit for the 1st time since I left in early April. I got the chance because my boss was going to Mkushi for the day and could take my bike in the back of the truck. So I dropped at my old turn off and biked the 17km of my old shortcut to my former home. It was a little weird but mostly nice. Nice to be leisurely biking there, without a big heavy bag on the back, without chores to come back to. I finally stopped to take pictures along the way. It's not the most beautiful time of year, but close enough. It was still nice to capture a bit of the beauty of my bush bike ride.
It was fun to see people awkwardly greet the strange muzungu on the road then to see them realize it was me and get excited.
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| Getting close, take the left fork. |
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| Almost there |
I went straight to my best friend Betty's house. She RAN out and gave me a huge hug. Then hugs from her mom and dad too (the head teacher and his wife). Sadly her son, Baby B (Brian Blair Chewe), doesn't like strange people anyway and definitely isn't used to me, a strange muzungu, so we're not friends yet. Lots of crying. He'll be a year old on Oct 5 so he doesn't yet know that he should love me because I'm his muzungu auntie and namesake.
But I had a delicious lunch of nshima with rape (leaves) and beans. I realized (after having rape cooked on a stove with sunflower or olive oil) that village prepared rape over a fire with cheap cooking oil and tons of salt is by far the best rape there is. And Zam-style beans are soooo good. Betty is a good cook.
This is one wall of Betty's family's house. The highlight of the photo is actually that small photo on the right (the Mobley family Christmas card)
I met up with Steve, my replacement PCV, at my favorite teacher, Mr. Silungwe's house. Steve's doing great, despite the challenges of the living situation. Which is a relief. He has a garden, a beautiful demo plot of planting basins for conservation farming, and has cooked a giant pot of nshima. Showing me up right and left. Which is awesome. I'm glad people are impressed that he's strong. I would 100% much rather people say Steve is better than me than to say I was better than his is. It's his site and his home now.
I actually miss my little grass roofed hut. Not so much it's location or the leaks in rainy season, but now that it's hot, I miss how it was always nice and cool. And it was mine. Living alone is nice.
I almost sent Steve a text to tell Mr. Silungwe that I wanted my hat that he promised to make for me. No need. Mr. Silungwe knew I would ask for it and so got up early in the morning to make it for me.
It's a traditional 'head sock' as they say, made from the bark of the mutondo tree. I guess you'd call it bark cloth and I think it was one of the things people used for clothes before us whiteys showed up. Silungwe says it'll keep my head dry if I wear it in the rain. I'll add that to the reasons why Mutondo is one of my favorite trees: 1. I can identify it, 2. it has pretty bark, 3. it's an important 'bee tree' providing nectar and pollen to bees which then provide honey and income to beekeepers, 4. it makes good firewood, 5. it's the preferred home of big bright green caterpillars that people eat and can sell, and now 6. you can make a hat from it's bark! as well as other garments. Next time I visit he said he'll make me a skirt. That seriously might be the most motivating reason to visit again.
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| Timo (Timothy) beating down the mutondo bark for another hat. It's just a tube of hammered down bark closed at one end to make a hat. |
After visiting Mambilima, more than ever I feel like it's my home in Zambia. It's still MY bike ride that goes through MY stretch of bush. And it's much nicer than where I live now, much more pleasant. So many more trees.
But, that's because it's farther from the paved road, farther from town, has worse roads and fewer cows with which to pull ox carts full of charcoal. That's the constant traffic on the road at my current place, oxcarts full of charcoal from the ever decreasing forest, to sell at the roadside.
Such a dilemma. Everyone wants development, right? Better roads mean development. And they mean destruction of the forest for charcoal and farmland as land becomes more valuable with increased accessibility because of a better road. Mambilima is nice because it still has plenty of trees, because it's less developed, and I think, at least partially, because its road is terrible. People at Mambilima would love a nice road. People at Chilunga (near where I stay now) would love a bridge across the Mulungushi River so they are no longer cut off during rainy season. I dread such developments because they're like a death sentence for the forest. Ok, maybe that's a little dramatic, and I don't have evidence that would happen, but I'm pretty confident it would. But a nice road and a bridge would of course provide lots of benefits, too.
People need to cut down trees for their livelihoods here--for income from charcoal, firewood for cooking, construction materials. They need to clear new fields to expand and develop their farms. But there's no alternative for when those trees are gone.
But I digress...
This visit was half of a double whammy of regret for not keeping a good journal during my time in Zambia. The next day a Zambian lady said to me, You are writing a book about your experience here, aren't you? You must. It would be a very good and important book. Mr. Silungwe used to say something like that to me all the time.
Now, plenty of PCVs have written books about their experiences. I wouldn't actually write one, especially not one good enough to penetrate that saturated market. It's still a shame I haven't recorded my stories as they happened.
So here's a blog post attempting to do just that.
