The power of a bathroom quote

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."

------Reinhold Niebuhr

Every time an intake of volunteers closes their service, they are allowed to bow out by gracing us with a single quote written on the wall. My good friend wrote this one and it got me to thinking about my role as a "change agent" in this country.

I've thought about change in Zambia being organized this way. I'll reflect these thoughts openly .

 

What cannot be changed is the bit of culture that Zambians still have to hang on to. Because things cannot, or should not be changed, certain outcomes of the unchanged will continue to effect the country --good or bad. And as change agents we sometimes have to right or power to change them.

What cannot be changed is pieces of culture. Pieces of culture like women covering their thighs. Many people argue that women should be allowed to show their thighs for many valid reasons such as: girls should not have an underlying dress code, women should not have to cater to men and their lack of self control (the thighs are considered taboo and those who wear short skirts or leggings are seen as prostitutes or even accused as "asking" to be impregnated), we live in modern times and women should be able to dress as so. But for me, as an outsider-- I need to pick my battles, and this is one I choose not to pick. I cover my thighs, accept the culture, and focus on fighting for girls' education rather than girls' dress code. I just don't feel I have the time or capacity to change that.

What cannot be changed is time keeping. This, in my opinion SHOULD be changed. But I have adapted to it and no longer run my patience getting angry over it. Watches and clocks are rarely seen and people typically estimate the time by eyeballing at the sun. It's a problem because meetings don't start on time which in the time-is-money philosophy can intensely disrupt all programs for the rest of the day. Ideally, you can fit a series of programs into one day- heck you can even schedule all your monthly appointments on one day to get them all done and over with. Zambia does not fit that mold. The reasons are: no transport, chores at the home, waiting on other people's schedules, etc. I've learned to just schedule one meeting in a day and not rush it into another.
              The culture here is sitting, visiting, listening, caring. It is not appropriate to walk 3 kilometers to a meeting without greeting each person I pass or stopping to chat- that would be rude. So people show up late, things are not timely, but there are always good reasons, and even though it means development is a bit slower, it's nothing I have the power to change. It's within their culture, it's something they must change.

What should be changed in Zambia: nutrition, literacy, teaching, HIV, malaria, deforestation, soil conservation, food security, and ..... subsidizing maize!!!

Most of these changes are achievable although overwhelming. And there are a million ways that the NGO's, developed nations, missionaries, and government can reach out to make these changes. But with a young country that is still fresh, that has been molded and remolded, told this and that--- we need to be careful how we go about making change.

I can honestly say that all the issues I listed can be changed through education. Even government subsidies on maize. The action to be taken for this problem is to simply eliminate the yearly practice of giving out of millions and billions of Kwacha (Zambian currency)  for each bag of maize produced by each farmer. But people still need to be educated on alternative ideas of crop growing (maybe something that involves nutrition for a change). When you examine everything at the most basic of levels; people just don't know, don't understand, don't get it. Poor nutrition is a way of life. But people assume just because a belly is full from all the Nshima that was just eaten,  it means that person is healthy or fit. People assume just because they go to church, they are protected from HIV. They cannot see how conservation farming which involves patience and doing things just a little bit differently than traditionally carried out, will improve their soil, increase food security, and maintain the land they are farming on.  There is little thinking about the future, about how one action can affect the next.

As a "change agent,"as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am trying my best to use education whenever and wherever possible to carry out such changes. For example, I am helping my GLOW girls by telling them the facts and myths about HIV.  It's such a widely known disease but there is so little knowledge about where it comes from and what it does. People are scared of it and try to make it into something it's not to either a) scare others from it or b) make themselves feel better about how bad it really it. The power of education and ability to differentiate the realities from the lies is life saving.

What is unique about Zambia and other African countries is to also consider what has ALREADY been changed, and what needs to be re-changed after a mess of bad changes. Like...cleaning up after colonialism without re-committing colonialist actions. Not everything from colonialism or western influence has changed the country in a bad way. But the influence is there, and it's obvious, and almost irreversible. In Zambia, there is a church here, there, and everywhere- it is considered a Christian nation in the most in-your-face-way possible. On Sundays you can hear Gospel songs ringing out from every village, town, and city. We pray before every meal, every meeting, every school day. Even those households that have no literate residents, or no money to buy books- own a single bible. It's the only book in the nation that's printed in local languages.  Now that's the power of God (or the power of missionaries). 

Other examples include: BOMA's -- British Occupancy Military Area, something that was introduced to Zambia long ago and the name just stuck. Every district has it's own BOMA where all the ministry offices are held along with markets and transportation options. My BOMA for example, is Kasama. It's almost seen as a little oasis in the eyes of mere villagers- a place with lots of people! electricity! a place to buy bread! cold soft drinks! It's like a dreamland for village teachers who work hard making connections or finding ways to score a teaching position in the BOMA. 

Tea time is something I have never had the privilege of experiencing in America, but have fallen in love with in Zambia. There is a tea break (involves tea and some sort of a biscuit ) at every workshop and meeting (well not in the village). We do a lot of workshops in Peace Corps, each involving a morning tea break around 10:00 a.m, and an afternoon tea break around 14:00 p.m. They only last about 20 minutes each, but it is delightful!!! This is absolutely the doing of the British , and actually-- something I think America should adopt!

 

The changes that have been made which I see as necessary to be re-changed include:

The British concept of rote memorization in the classroom should be changed to critical thinking teaching and learning methodologies.

The culture of corporal punishment, which is also part original Zambian culture, needs to be changed into school environment which involves empathy.

Farming exploitation- white farmers coming in and promoting fertilizer as a necessity should be changed into  organic farming education for the sake of preserving Zambia's land and prosperity.

Well, that's all for now. I'm down to six months. Again, thank you all for the donations, support, letters, packages, and consideration in one way or another. The preschool is almost finished, I will write a final report with pictures when it's completed !

      Preschool building progress

 Mpulungu, Lake Tanganyika -- Outlook of the lake and Mbita Island at the water front bar

 Our second home

  My apologies for always posting almost only preschool pictures. They are just so darn cool!

 Structure finished!

 Our finished classroom structure with the workshop in front. Still need to cement floor and put up roof.

 Esther helping me fix my bike. One minute later she stuck all the repair patches on her face when I wasn't looking.

Playdough donated from USAID!

Babies!

Well, there goes another term and another term break. And here I am, with only eight months left in the village-- two school terms. I've been busy running around having too much fun. Mom and Meaghan came in July and we had a great time in the village, camping, hitching, and visiting Victoria Falls.



When I got back from vacation, I was welcomed by a new baby sister! Loveness Sampa was born on Saturday July 21--- the sixth girl of seven in the Sampa family.

My co-teacher also just had a baby girl and my GLOW teacher also just had a baby girl. I am thinking I can make a mini- GLOW club of under-one's.

I'm quite sure that my family's decision to expand is motivated by the hope of another boy to take up the family name. Gender balance is important here. Another important factor in the family structure is birth order. The most popular getting-to-know-you phrases seems to always be "what number in your family are you?" One always seems to get a nod of approval if you respond "first born."  They usually ask me how many boys, girls, and in what order. If my birth order matches up with their birth order-- we automatically have something awesome in common and we're best friends because Hey! We're second-borns!

Also, parents are selective with what name they give their first born.  By giving their child a name, they are also actually giving themselves a new name as parents. Once a mother gives birth to her first child---for example; her first child is named Chanda---- she is then referred to as mother-of-Chanda, (in Bemba Bana Chanda). Father-of-Chanda; BaciChanda. This is a Bemba thing and most Bembas have an English name which they use more formally and at school. Their Bemba name is primarily used at home and it usually one of the following; Mulenga, Chanda, Bwalya, Musonda, Mutale, Mwansa, Chilufya. My host sister, who was born first in her family has the Bemba name of Mutale but her English name is Prisca. Her mother calls her Mutale but her in school she writes Prisca on the top of her homework. Her mothers name is Matildah- but we call her BanaMutale and her father is Lesho but we call him BaciMutale. Get it?

So the actual nine months of Matildah's pregnancy with Loveness (Bemba name-Chanda) wasn't anything out of the ordinary, at least on the outside. She worked just as hard, carrying firewood on her head, harvesting groundnuts, maize, cassava. Bathing all of her kids, cooking for her family. And as she got bigger, she simply added more layers; three or four citenge now wrapped around her. And the alarming concept about pregnancy here is that nobody talks about it. Call it juju (withcraft), call it jealousy, or call it high infant mortality rate. But we don't talk about the big obvious belly in the room.

And because of all this, I had no idea my host mother was pregnant until the last two weeks before she had her baby.

But anyways, Loveness is here and she is beautiful! We call her Love for short. A little peanut...Groundnut! She just rests gently on the back of all my host sisters, wrapped in piles of blankets and citenge. She sleeps and cries, and we sing "all you need is Love." Esther is a pro at the "do do do do do do" part.

She is just like every baby brought fresh into the world. A canvas, clean of decisions, experiences, emotion, impurities. A little armful of life just waiting to unfold. She'll spend most of her three years perched in a citenge on her mother's back. She'll go to the fields, cook over the brazier, be carried to church- all before she will walk. Then she'll teeter around on the uneven earth, falling and tumbling and roughing up her skin. Reaching for a stick or a finger or a piece of charcoal to put in her mouth. Here there are no pacifiers, no soft toys, no playpens, no baby shoes. The motor skills are neglected and development relies on their limited environment. But they are preparing for the lifestyle they will soon walk and talk in.

I observe Trust, my 2 year old neighbor who has learned how to walk and talk in the same amount of time I've learned how to work and develop and adapt. I actually feel I can relate to him and the baby steps we take as we walk toward success. I am no different from him in some ways. When I arrived he was scarred of me, would scream when he saw me. But as the months went by he took his chances, started crawling, laughing, talking, growing. When I arrived I was just as scared, and have grown just as much.

The coolest part about Trust is how he's started to sit out simple English phrases at the same pace he's learning Bemba. Okay, he's learning Bemba faster but all these words only recently started coming out. And it's so cool! He'll say Muli Shani? But he'll also respond when I ask him "how are you?"

Anyways, I think babies are pretty cool . I'm already jealous of my replacement volunteers who gets to watch Loveness grown up. I wonder what her life will be like 20 years from now.




Hey so check out some pictures from the Linehan girl power vacation at http://s1134.photobucket.com/albums/m603/slinehan7/4th%20wallet%20vacation/#!cpZZ26QQtppZZ16


Only one camera survived the trip but the pictures are still pretty good! Also, here are some pictures of all the babies!!! babies!!


Also are some pictures of the preschool project. For those of you who aren't aware, my preschool is currently held in a large open insaka (like a gazebo). With the generosity of some of the lovely folks in America, several unexpected donations have allowed us to build a real building! Where we can store our teaching materials, hang up posters without them getting blown away, and upgrade from the dirt floor. We've also been blessed with books, toys, and learning materials from family and friends back home. What a special thing you've all done for us. I will keep you updated at the project progresses. Right now-- the parents have molded the bricks, cleared a plot of land, and dug a foundation. Our hopes are that the building will be up and ready before the rains come. And learning will start inside the building itself ASAP.

Prisca and baby Love

All you need is LOVE

                             

Our dog, Jungle

THis is what happens when you give kids stickers

                                    and baby chickens too!

sticker masks

Bamayoo's carrying the bricks that have been burned for preschool construction

Burn season. A not-so-effective method of setting fields of fire to clear for planting season.

Using tree branches to put out fires

Madam Nsofu and baby Judy

My old co teacher, Sharon and her newborn Judy

Carrying water from the river to make bricks with

thinking about critical thinking...

I recently went to my midterm conference in Lusaka where I was able to see my intake for the first time since August. It was good to see the old gang --a lot has happened to us individually and as a whole over the past eight months. Many ups and downs, issues in the village, progress in our schools... we've come a long way. Now, with tougher skin and having had grown in so many different ways we are second-years! Yet nothing has changed. Still playing our same undercover games during mandatory training sessions, still have that family like bond and still supporting each other regarding our position as a change agent in our communities.



One thing we talked about was critical thinking. We dissected this topic in every which way in order to analyze how to implement it more into our roles in the schools.


Critical thinking: being able to look at a problem and figuring out how to solve it. It's the question "why." It's drawing conclusions by recalling information or experience from different topics and figuring out how they work together. It's how you learned in grade school. It's a "question of the day," comparing/contrasting, brainstorming. It's planning your future, it's mapping out a route when you are lost, and it's used in our every day lives.


Yet in Zambia, or in the Zambian classroom, it's hard to find. Sometimes it is not used at all. For example, in a Civics class, pupils learn about human rights. I found this to be a popular topic. ANd it seems to me that the teacher could pull information from history class, teach on human rights from the civics perspective, and have pupils use the information to evaluate how human rights may effect them through a writing assignment. But in Zambia, it's like this: a teacher writes the notes on the board and the pupils copy, memorize, memorize, memorize, write word for word on their test paper, and then wipe that information from their mind, This isn't news and I think I've shared this before. But this term I am solo teaching English for grade eight and it is so hard to explain new ways of giving "exercises" without my co teacher here to say "okay kids, you are not going to do the same old questions from the book, Madam Shannon has something weird and different for you today." If I write a question starting with "In your own words..." they are unsure about how they are supposed to answer. After all, where is "their own words" in their notes? If it's not something that they can't put on paper using your photographic memory, they get confused. For reading comprehension I taught who, what, where, when, why, how. The first four are easy to scan through and spot and write down, But the "why?" and the "how?" No, it is not spelled out in the passage .



Why is critical thinking not emphasized? This is what set off a hefty discussion at our midterms. For one, it's the Zambian culture. There is less validity put on what our children think or say. The elders are often relied on for the answer, and believe me, even if the elders are grabbing the answer out of thin air (or hot and humid rainy season air), they are always considered right and it is rude to question them. It is also rude to question the teacher (you may get punished) and it's better to just say "Yes, Madam I understand" than to speak out and ask "Why?" because then your friends may laugh at you because it means you are the only one who does not get it. It's that fear of standing out, challenging something to create an answer or idea, and the safety of having one clear cut answer that matches one clear cut question. As if information is not presented as a puzzle piece, but rather a card in a memory game.



It's also the infrastructure in our classrooms. It is noisy and difficult to set up a debate or an open discussion 1) because it would mean to break the mold and for a teacher that can be scare and new and 2) with one hundred pupils it will be a bit chaotic (at first) to organize themselves and get over the excitement of a fun active exercise



Lack of critical thinking skills emphasized in middle childhood can influence a person forever. I recognize it in my staff room. Grown educated individuals who have gone through the same basic schools that they are teaching at now, cannot comprehend creating a lesson plan without a teacher's manual, page number, etc. etc. Yes, a teacher's manual is important and useful. But I was recently going through the syllabus with my co-teacher (who left already) and pointing out concepts that we should use in our lessons but tailor them more toward the actual level of our pupils, And she kept focusing on --where in the teacher's manual was the step by step lesson for such a proposal? I explained that there isn't one written out but we can go through the book to guide us and come up with a plan on our own . The teacher's manual bases it's lessons with the presumption that the grade 8 pupils are actually at the grade 8 level. And in our rural villages that simply is not the case. And it would do no good to assume so because then these lesson would be completely over their head, so Hey! Let's be creative. Let's make a class exercise of our own.
Teacher: "But there are no written out exercises for the lesson you have in mind"
Me:  "So- we'll make exercises up."
 ...... total confusion.



That's the difference between Zambian and American education system. Here I am sitting with a woman who went to college for teaching. Yet never gained the critical thinking skills that would make her teaching much more effective. And I, obtaining nothing of a teaching degree and being able to see that structuring a lesson plan based on observations of pupils' performance and a few different sources is much more effective. The reason being these skills need to be taught at middle childhood... it's needs to be part of your immediate thinking pattern. And that is the way that I learned at Apalachian elementary. Doing a science project, creative writing, Math puzzles.



Critical thinking goes a long, long way. It's 2012 and I think Zambia's old-school, black and white culture is adapting to the changing world. It's not everywhere, but I can see bits of it panono panono (slowly but surely). People are starting to take in information as a puzzle piece rather than a memory game. People are starting to question why. I know this from listening to the radio, listening to my head teacher, spending time with my girl's club, witnessing the change of government. People are opening up their minds and asking, questioning, challenging, rising up against corruption, standing up for their rights, demanding change, creating change, and fostering confidence. This is what it takes to develop a country. And it starts in the classroom.

In my Play Therapy internship we were taught not to ask questions with our clients (children) or to give praise. But to reflect, reflect, reflect. Instead of "Oh that's a beautiful picture" we would say: "You are spending a lot of time and using a lot of red in that picture," basically acknowledging what they are doing with the intention of prompting them to question themselves. This method of getting children to speak up and say: "Yea, I did a good job. Look- I used a lot of red because it's the color of my dress today" builds self-awareness and gets those wheels turning. But it requires patience, trial/error, and time. Lots of times I'll have my kids coloring in my Insaka and the older sister or brother may point out to her younger sister "Dogs are not red, your picture is wrong," and the small child will believe it and scribble it all out.



The truth is kids HAVE critical thinking skills . But they feel most comfortable with them outside of the classroom. I mean they'll dig through my garbage pit and find whatever they need to make a toy car, or they will compile a handful of D sized batteries and a bungee and some wire to get a tiny bulb- the size of a pea- to provide light at night.

I am trying my best to promote these skills in the classroom and the staff room. I've had the most success in my GLOW club. For example, I gave them a scenario of a teenage girl with a bright future, a boyfriend, high grades, etc. etc. The club members had to decide the future of this girl; what sort of decisions does she make with her boyfriend, what sort of friends does she hang out with, does she go to university? etc. etc. etc. And then I had them apply the same exercise to their own lives; where will they end up? How will they get there?

It's a slow process but if I can just work on that one concept in all my programs for the rest of my service I'll be happy.









Check out some snakes!

They are dead FYI. Found on my neighbors compound

GLOW club making friendship bracelets

Maayo's getting water to make bricks for the new preschool

YOu can carry just about anything on your head

Cinco Bamaayo!

Host mother. Ba Sylvia

THe new puppy--- Obama

Preschool! I gave them stickers and they all put them on their head

My new tattoo. It is the symbolic bemba crocodile with my given village name- Mulenga, which means the creative one.