Muli bwanji

Muli bwanji is “How are you?” in Nyanja, the language most spoken in Lusaka. Though English is the official language of Zambia, everyone speaks one or two and often as many as five or six local languages as their first tongue. Nearly everyone seems to learn English in schools, and it is spoken with a distinctly Zambian accent that is a cross of British English (thanks, colonialism) and these languages indigenous to this part of the world. So though everyone does speak English, a traveller receives a much warmer welcome if she at least uses the local greetings. The shocked expression on people’s faces on hearing a mizungu (white person) say anything at all in Nyanja (not that I know much), is generally replaced with a giant smile and some level of appreciation that I gave it a shot. Or they just laugh at me. Fair enough.

Before I left UCSF, I learned from my professor Dana Rohde that her sister Shira would be here in Zambia this summer also. Shira is taking a year off from her job at Pfizer to finish setting up the Flip Flop Foundation, an organization that supports locally-run childrens’ programs with food and hygiene supplies. For more information see: http://www.flipflopfoundation.com/.

During my first couple of weeks here, I went on several distributions with Shira and FFF’s local staff, Elijah and Mwanza. (These guys were especially good language teachers! That's Mwanza in the photo with me.) I was excited to see some of Zambia, and I couldn’t really bear the idea of spending each and every day in a small office. So I packed up work to do in the evenings at home, and many afternoons I ran off with the Flip Flop crew.

During visits to schools, hospices, childrens’ programs, and an orphanage, it was clear how much need there is here. Schools had virtually no supplies and were heavily overcrowded. Classrooms were often closet-sized and dark (as in the photo to the right, where the teacher also has an infant tied onto her back), and several times we saw an arrangement in which two separate classes were taught side by side in the same small room, with each class facing its respective teacher in opposite directions. The principal at one school explained to us how much it helped to be able to feed the students one meal per day so that they would come to school and be able to pay attention to their studies.

The site that I struggled with the most was one which provided shelter to girls who had been victims of rape, often by a close relative, and were left pregnant. Though abortion is legal here, these girls are encouraged by this particular organization to keep their pregnancies, despite the fact that they will be completely ostracized and have absolutely no social or financial support for raising them. In addition, many of them contract HIV from their rapists, so now they have a baby, HIV, and nothing else. I left feeling terribly angry and torn between ideals of cultural respect and what my gut said about justice.

On a brighter note, one of my favorite partner organizations was a program called Tiyanjane that conveyed public health messages through theatre, dance, and music. They also seemed to have a sports program and various other activities. The kids were ridiculously excited to have “snaps” taken of them, so I have about a bazillion photos of beautiful Zambian children. (There is an unusual number of shockingly gorgeous people here; somehow they have cornered the genetic market on bone structure.) Tiyanjane will be performing in a couple of weeks, and I look forward to seeing their show.