30 January 2010

ZamLove: Closing thoughts

"Afternoon - 4 January 2010
".... After the market, we went to the Hope House to spend more time with the kids. I had a terrible sunburn on my back from the dress I was wearing, so I asked Mama Maureen if I could get a wet rag to put on it. She wet down her own face cloth & practically gave my burned back a sponge bath, then found some dry skin ointment in her bag and rubbed it in for me. She is the best person in the world. I talked with her and Mama Angela for a good bit - about home, about Zambia, and about the possibility of me coming to stay with them the next time that I'm here. I very much want to come back, and I very much don't want to go. My life in Chicago seems so fake compared to life here. I just don't even know what to make of it anymore...."
"6 January 2010
"It's disgusting to look at the date and to realize how soon it is that we leave here...."
"Evening - 6 January 2010
"One thing that I forgot to mention that happened last night: we were on our way home on the bus and Khongono was ahving me sing "Bonse Aba" for him. Then he looked at me and, in as serious a voice as he ever gets, told me that I was not an American, I was a Zambian....
".... I'm pretty tired. Kind of sad, this was our last time eating supper with our host family, which is why I don't want to go to sleep.... I know that I need my sleep as well. We shall see, we shall see."
"7 January 2010
"It's our last time home before we leave to start our journey back to America. I can't believe it's come to this. I wish I could just live here - forget about the travesty of American culture.... After everything was all packed up we went over to Hope House for supper.... Jeff and Jane prayed for us, and that we have a safe trip home, and that our families be blessed. It was really powerful. They definitely both have the gift of prayer. Now we're home. I just ate a big bowl of ice cream - real, delicious, Zambian ice cream; Roy caught a huge bug and scared the crap out of me; we're all just chilling in the living room.... I don't want to leave Zed, and it's making me anxious. I'm going to stop writing, now, though, so that I can be with my family here one last time before we go."
"8 January 2010
"I don't want to leave."
"9 January 2010
"I'm sitting alone in the back corner seat of a huge Kenya Airways plane, and I just watched Zambia pull away from me and get sucked up by a sea of white clouds. These last two weeks seem like a blur. It's as though they stretched out over a lifetime, but simultaneously went by too fast to count. I'm so uncertain about things right now, except that I know I am leaving and I know that I don't want to go..... This place has become my home."

I've decided that it's time to draw this blog to a close. Zambia was amazing, but I can't just keep reflecting on what has happened; right now I need to focus on letting it shape my present, and being present in my present. If there's one thing I learned from my time in Zambia, it was love. I chose the excerpts today to show the simplicity of love, and how much it draws you in. I didn't want to leave Zed because the love I felt there was overwhelming, and I was so much happier than I had been in ages. It's not to say that I never felt love before, because I certainly did, it's just that in Ndola the love was everywhere and permeated into everything. People were the sources of attention, not computers, not televisions, but your neighbor, your friend, your family. When someone I barely know can address me as "sister", and ask me what's wrong with such deep concern in their eyes; when a mother who is not my mother can take me under her wing and give me the best care possible, above and beyond my request; when a friend can look at me, and ignorant of skin color, clothing and birthplace, tell me that I am one of them; these are the times when you realize what love is. Really is. And that it really is. It is a lesson that I never want to forget.

Tomorrow morning I'll be taking my last malaria pill, and the crazy dreams and restless sleep that it brings Sunday night will be the last I'll have to endure, for now. But I'll walk myself down to Jesus House and celebrate with African voices the grace of Jesus and feel love; I'll eat food with my friends here - my Chicago family - and feel love. And in the days and weeks, months and years to come, I will write letters and receive them, make phone calls and answer them, give hugs and get them, love and be loved. God has been blessing me so much since I returned, and my eyes are more open to the good things he gives me each day than they ever were before. I have never felt such optimism in the face of difficulties. Perseverance, yes, I have rooted deep within the fiber of my being; but this is something new: something so uplifting that I can look over my struggles and trials with a smile and not just with tenacious strength. It's something that I was taught, because it's something that I had lost. It's something I learned to recognize, because it's something whose image I had forgotten. And there's really only one word that I can use to describe what I've gained, and hope never to lose.

ZamLove.

I love you all, and I thank you for reading, for praying, for supporting, for teaching, for telling, for sharing, for everything.
May the ZamLove of God be present and permeate through everything that you do, may the grace of Jesus be lived out in you through a strong sense of ubuntu - a focus on the people in your life instead of the things, and may you share these values with others so that we can see more clearly in this world how beautiful will be the next.

~Jaclynn

24 January 2010

Some more thoughts on ZamLife...

"Evening: 1 January 2010
"Today was epic, adn I don't mean that lightly. We waited so long for our ride today. It was supposed to be here at 11:00-ish, but it didn't show until 1:30pm. But today, Gift was our driver, and in the car, too. We talked him into bringing us into an ice cream shop. It was so good! Soft serve, in vanilla, banana, or strawberry, and all in bright pastel colors, for only 2000k a piece!..."
"2 January 2010
"We walked oer to a field where there were soccer nets set up and children were playing all manner of games. As we started to play, more and more children cam to join us - probably around 200 in all by the time we left. When we took pictures we would be swarmed by kids. Two girls, Mildred and Charity, came by with a cotton yarn and were crocheting with pieces of metal [which I later figured out were bike spokes; they were just too far removed from their usual state for me to recognize them]. They showed me how, and Charity let me work on hers. After I gave it back we were still standing there, and Mildred started saying Bemba words and telling me the English. After four, I realized that I needed to write these things down. Wow. I was surrounded by kids telling me words, and then Catherine Jere, a mother with a baby, joined in the fun. She was a beautiful woman, and every kind. After I had filled two pages, it was time for us to go. I walked back hand-in-hand with a girl named Juliet, and Mildred, and some other kids. At the orphanage, we were the last group to go, so when everyone was gone, the four of us from our house were chilling with the kids at the orphanage. One of them braided my hair, and they asked about our hair & what we do with it. They asked us about songs, & Michelle told them we actually knew a song in Bemba, then I started to sing it. Mama Maureen got excited by that. "Who!? Who taught you that!?" she asked. I told her that it was just a song that we sing, and she told me, "I think you should stay here. You belong here. You don't go back to Chicago. You tell your parents, you aren't going back to Chicago, you're staying here." When Gift got back with the car we headed out, and eh let us stop for grilled corn and to buy some mangos.... SUpper was at Mama Sylvia's last night, with tons of different food options. I successfully rolled my nshima and used it to scoop up my beans. I felt pretty proud.... This morning Ileana made us arepas - very filling & delicious...."

I didn't want to give any preempt for this excerpt, because I thought it spoke for itself. It's only been two weeks since I've been back in the States, and already it seems like Zambia happened ages ago. But I can tap into that feeling of belonging I had when I was there: like I was exactly where God wanted me to be, where I belonged. I can't begin to describe the kind of peace that thought would give me while we were there. I'm trying to somehow connect my life here with what I did there, how life was and how I felt, but I suppose the proper term for my findings would be "grasping for straws". It's a strange feeling.

As far as I know, I have not really suffered from culture shock in my past travel/mission trip experiences. I have decided that this is because I travelled and returned during the summer, which meant that when I got back I wasn't busy. Well, culture shock is definitely at work here: I'm so busy, all the time, and there's so much to do, and be done, and I feel like I'm going to go crazy. I've never been so stressed out over the little that I have to do before - and comparatively it is so much less work than last semester - but going from being anything BUT busy for two weeks into full-fledged American busy-centrism is enough to kill a man. Which is not to say that we should be worried about me, just that it's not been an easy adjustment to make.

One more thought before I end this post: while we were in Zambia, Michelle was reading a book called "The Blue Sweater", about doing aid-work in Africa, which eerily correlated with events and activities during our trip. But there was one quote that she read to us while we were sitting in the living room and I was writing up my above-quoted entry, a quote that I'd like to share with you because it struck me, enough so that I copied it down into the upper margin of my journal.

"I always wished my parents would visit East Africa so they could see the work for themselves. I knew that if they went, they'd realize how little there was to fear and how much there was to love." - from "The Blue Sweater", by Jacqueline Novogratz

I wholeheartedly agree.

21 January 2010

A New Year

While in Zambia, we had the wonderful and unique experience of celebrating the New Year with our church there. Awesome. Let me just say that I think everyone should get to ring in the new year this way. I'll give you a taste of what it felt like by posting some of my journal entry written that night.

"1 January 2010
"Happy new year! Happy 2010! Remember the LORD your God in this new year! Remember his word, the Bible, and the good things he has done for you! Tonight we had our first Zambian church experience. We took our naps and waited for the bus, but then the power went out! Ah! Musonda and Roy were both gone with their friends to a New Year's Eve party, and we didn't know what to do! Using Ileana's phone-light, we were able to locate a couple candles & matches (with the help of Michelle's prior knowledge from exploration earlier in the day) so that we were able to see. Eventually the bus came, and we all were picked up and brought to the church, where we could hear singing from inside the bus as we pulled up. In the church we sang and danced! My dancing is going to improve greatly while I'm here, I can just tell. The service was so beautiful, so joyful, and Ba Charles was right: an African preacher really does tell it like it is. The coolest part, aside from dancing in lines around the sanctuary, was that a man translated into Bemba everything that Ba Charles preached (and into English when he spoke Bemba) - it was fascinating."

Fact: my dancing did improve by the end of the trip. Fact: church in Zambia was an awesome experience. Fact: power outages in apartments with few windows on dark nights when the moon has not yet risen are rather frightening, but manageable.

If anyone knows me well, you'd know that I absolutely love power outages. So, when I got to experience one there, it made my day. I always take power outages as a good sign.

So, this is not a very reflective post, and I apologize if you were getting used to that. Maybe next time. I just wanted to share something joyful since, being a busy American now, I am feeling a bit stressed myself.

Until next time,

~Jaclynn

20 January 2010

Yesterday I saw everyone from my house over the course of the day. It was almost like normal. But not really. Reading through my journal, I'm going to put up what I wrote on our first full day in Zambia.

"Bedtime - 30 Dec 2009
"I just thought I'd make a brief entry about today. We continue to impress people with our handful of Bemba words, including Ba Charles when we met with him at Hope Ministries offices today. We had a late start this morning, but we eventually all arrived, were given lessons in Bemba & Zambian culture from Ba Charles, (Ubuntu***<-love this!), and had a PB&J lunch. We all went to the Naitonal Bank of Zambia branch in Ndola to exchange our money. It took so long. My $200 in spending money became a very fat 919,000 kwacha. I can not wait to spend it! We also went to the internet café and I was able to update my blog, quickly & briefly . Perhaps next time I should write it out ahead of time. Supper was at Ba Charles' tonight, and we got to hear their story, eat nshima, and learn a new way to eat delicious mango! :) I love it here. That'll do for now - it's bedtime, my mosquito net is pre-arranged (& I did a better job, & it's calling my name)."

Looking back on that first day, I remember being impressed by how simple everything was. Outdoors was beautiful, mornings were slow, food was good, people were friendly, Bemba was fun. There was no complicatedness, no outright busyness, no stress. Perhaps the most stressful thing was attempting to make a rapid blog entry, which apparently didn't even make it up there. Had I known, I don't think I would have been concerned - the blog seemed to be a very trivial thing once I was there. The need to update was just a side-note that was easily ignored and replaced with children, grilled corn, and good conversations.

A note about our experiences in the bank: Americans are REALLY loud. We had just learned about respectful vocal volume in Zambian culture, and it is not loud, let me tell you. So when we had fifteen people in line to change money with only two teller windows open in an echoey bank lobby - you can guess what was disregarded from our lessons. And I don't think that it's because we were being outrightly disrespectful of the lessons we had just learned, it's just really hard for Americans to be quiet, especially when you've already reached the point of utter loudness.

One thing I really loved in our ZamCulture lessons was the concept of ubuntu. Ubuntu is a word that means person, and the cultural concept is that the human being is the most important. When you get a visitor, they are the most important, and you drop whatever you're doing to focus on them and interact with them. In short, the emphasis in Zambian culture is placed on people, not material things. So when someone is talking and a television show is on, you turn down the volume on the tele instead of telling the chatterbox to pipe down. And this is not just an ideal, this is how it is. I experienced this my entire time in Zambia, among the older and younger generations. It was perhaps the best lesson I could learn from this trip, and I've tried to take it home with me. Little things, like dropping in on my friends just to chat for a little bit - without having to "plan time" for them. You plan time for homework and classes, not people, and certainly not your friends. This isn't to say that I'm condemning the making of plans, just the idea that hanging out can't happen without plans being made.

One last thing I want to mention, from my notes during our first ZamCulture lesson, is just a little quote from Ba Charles that I can post now that I'm back safe.

"In case there's a situation: don't die quietly."

This is perhaps the most hilarious bit of advice I have ever received. Serious. But hilarious, you must admit. Maybe you had to have been there. :)

Until next time!

~Jaclynn



"Most of you will return at some point because this is your home." - Ba Charles

17 January 2010

Back in the States... for now...

Ndola, Ndola: how much do I love you? Let me find the words...

My parents just left after a visit to me here at North Park University in cold, windy Chicago. They drove in today; I showed them my purchases from Zambia, my souvenirs; I gave them the gifts I had purchased for them; I showed them the video I had just finished to express my experiences; I went through my pictures from the trip and told them stories; and after a long day at Ikea, we settled in, bought a cooked chicken, and I cooked nshima and white beans, and relish, and we drank the closest thing to Mazoe I could find (it's a bit more syrupy, but it's got a similar flavor), and now they're headed back home and I'm back in the dorm room.

So what can I make of my experiences in Zambia? Looking back, what could I say to summarize my trip? Those two weeks went by so fast, and yet so much happened, and somehow it seems like I was there for a lifetime. Somehow it feels as though that was real life, and everything that happened before wasn't very real, and all that is happening now afterward is stemming from this point. Looking over the pictures, I notice, and others have told me that they notice, that I have not looked that happy in... years. The smile on my face in those photos is so genuine, so full of joy, and it makes me wonder where it was all this time? Where was it hiding? Why? And it's not just an outward joy - it's something I feel inside, too. It's something that, just to think of it, warms my heart and floods my soul. I have this new confidence, and I'm happier in general. Even the aspects of life that usually bring me down don't seem like they're all that bad when I hold them up under this new light. Even when I'm feeling yucky, or have a headache, or am expressly tired, I still feel joyful. I think I've finally gone crazy - and I hope I never go sane again!

The next step for this blog, I think, will be to post excerpts from my trip journal, and to reflect on them - maybe expound on our activities, maybe say how they affected me, or how I'm relating it to what I feel right now. I'll do that for a couple weeks - until I take my last malaria pill, and then I think this blog will be at a close - at least until the next time that I go to Zambia. And I don't doubt that I'll go back at some point. Hopefully sooner rather than later, but we'll see what God has in mind.

Today I went to Jesus House Chicago - an African church about a mile from campus. I thought about going before the end of the semester, but I wasn't quite sure, and I wasn't ready to go to a church alone yet, so I went with my friends to their church for the last few weeks of the semester, which was good. But today I decided that I wanted to check this place out. Especially in light of my positive experiences at the church services in Twapia, I was really curious to check out this church and see how it compared. Let me just say, that I think I found the church I can call my own here in Chicago. It's not the church of my sister, or my Kiko, or my friends, it's my church. From the moment I walked in the door, to my exit, this church just welcomed me in. The people were friendly and smiling, and they gave me an awesome welcome bag as a first-time visitor. We sang songs that I was somewhat familiar with, and even a song that we had sung at church in Zambia, which really made me feel like it was the right one. The theme for their 2010 was so similar to the theme for 2010 at Hope Fellowship in Twapia, and the message was good. But what really solidified it for me was when, with plenty of empty seats to pick from, a church member came in and sat in the seat next to me. Not down the row, not one over, but directly next to me. I knew in that moment that God had answered my prayer for a church here. I cannot wait for next Sunday to come around, and I'm considering attending the Wednesday night service if my schedule allows. We shall see.

But enough on all of this. I've gone on for a very long time, and I'm sure that this is somewhat tedious to read through. At least if you're like me you have issues reading lengthy things on computer screens. So I'll let this be the end of it. Expect excerpts and reflections over the next few weeks.

Until next time,

~Jaclynn

11 January 2010

From Ndola with Love (an entry that should be dated 30 December 2009)

Hello all!

We've made it! We're here! After toooo many hours on a plane, and not
enough sleep, we've finally arrived! We don't have too much time, so
I'm going to try and keep this as brief as possible.
So: four things to note about the flights. 1. I do not sleep well
after taking my malaria pill, and especially when I cannot achieve a
horizontal position. 2. My legs cannot stand to sit still for that
long. I've had RLS since about four hours into our first flight, and I
can only get it to stop by standing or lying down. Hopefully I'll be
100% over that in the next few days. 3. I got a blanket from
Continental and Kenyan Airways, and a good thing, because they're just
right for sleeping under in Ndola. 4. The first two flights had
televisions. Dad, I watched The Mentalist on my way to London, it was
an intense episode. Holly, you should know that Kenyan Airways' safety
video was dubbed in ASL. Awesome. I understood a decent amount of what
she was signing.

Ok, and just some quick things about here - more for later, but I've
got two minutes left. Mom, you would like to know this bit of
information that I learned today: Zambia is one of the most peaceful
countries in Africa, and many people from other countries actually
flee to here because it's known for its safety and peace.
We're using our Bemba, what little that we know, and picking up more
as we go, and the people love it. It's a fun language. :) I'm staying
with three other girls in a flat with Musonda, her baby Asia, and her
cousin Roy. I had my first experience sleeping under a mosquito net
last night. It was interesting. I also had my first bucket shower, I
just sat in the bucket (bring back any memories, Mom?) to clean
myself. It was fun, but I don't think I was very good at it. I'm sure
that I'll be an expert by the time I get back, though. You use so much
less water this way, and I'm considering doing that when I get back to
school. We'll see. Well, I should get going now. We wasted a lot of
time in the bank, so we're running out of time here. It's 4:13pm, and
I'm signing off. I hope this post finds you all well!

Until next time!

09 January 2010

On my way...

So, here's another brief entry, coming to you from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. We're currently waiting for our flight to London - have been waiting for quite some time now. We pulled into here at about 5:30pm Kenya time (4:30 pm for us coming from the CAT), and our flight doesn't leave until midnight tonight. :P Then it's nine hours to London, where we hopefully will be able to land and unload safely and quickly; then seven hours to Chicago, where we hope for the same. Long flights are tough, but I'm sleepy right now, so I'm thinking I'll be able to get some shut-eye on the Kenya->London flight, at least.

These two weeks have really just breezed by. I wish I would have been able to update a bit more often, but the time really wasn't there, and we really weren't in town very often. Regardless, I did a lot of journalling on my own, and I'll probably do several post-trip posts that will divulge some of what I wrote in my journal. I'm pretty proud, I used a fair amount of that thing in these two weeks.
I learned so much about Zambian culture, the Bemba language, and even how to cook Zamfood. It's been great, and delicious! Michael: I want you to know that not only did I try the fried catterpillars, I ate three of them, and some little chunks. :) Of course, whether or not I actually liked them is a completely different matter. ;) But I hope to make my friends and family a typical Zambian meal when I get back - I even bought the proper mwinko and pampa in order to do it!

I really, really, really enjoyed my time in Zambia, and I was sad to have to leave it so soon. I'm already trying to find a way to get back there. I was told so many times that I am a Zambian that it hurts to have to leave this place and go back to American culture, and speak English, and be on time for things, and be too busy. I'm hoping that if I learned anything from this trip, it is the idea of ubuntu - that people matter, more than things, more than television, more than facebook. People are what make this world go round, and it is the love of other people and love of Jesus that gives Zambians the amazing joy that they have.

Well, that's all for now. My $2 /10min is almost up, and I'd hate to go over. I need some money in case I should have to buy a snack or a drink or something in London.

Be back soon!

~Jaclynn

03 January 2010

Another rapid entry!

It's so hard to get to this place, so I have come once again for another quick entry. I'm just going to highlight some of the things I underlined in my journal.

31 December
We went to the Slave Tree in Ndola, an over 200-year-old tree where slaves used to be bought and sold. Here Ba Charles told us a bit about the history of Zambia. While we were waiting (the bus wasn't available that day, and we were making two trips in the cars) Mama Margaret took us to the mattress factory up the street, which the owner/manager actually gave us an impromptu tour of! It's really neat to see how those are made, I'd never thought about what goes into it before - both foam and spring. That is the only spring mattress-making factory in Zambia, so pretty neat that we got to see it.
We also got to see the kids at the orphanage for the first time, which was really neat. We saw both the old orphanage, and the new one that we'll be helping them move into this week. My Toms are a bit more reddish in color, now. :)

I have to rush, it's past time and everyone is waiting for me. :/ So, let me just say that New Year's Eve was awesome, and I think everyone should go to dancing church parties to bring in the new year. :) My Bemba is improving, or at least my vocabulary is! I've purchased my first African outfits - two dresses for K250,000, or about $40. Crazy.

Well, I wish I could say more, but I really have to go. I hope you all are doing fine.

Until next time!

~Jaclynn