“How Many Times Can My Mouth Say ‘Thanks’?”

This is what the village leader said Sunday morning at church after our three hour service. We travelled back to Mutala, where we went for the singing that first weekend. Once again, the people were so gracious and so grateful for us to be there. They even praised our impromptu singing performance, which I guarantee you paled in comparison to the Tongan groups who sang before us! We stood up and introduced ourselves, and as we sang and shook hands outside the building, many of them greeted us by name. The count came to over 130 in a one-room building no bigger than the size of the average American’s kitchen. There were 46 kids, and many of them walked back to the bus with us afterwards, waved as we climbed on, and ran after us as we drove away. What if we gave each visitor such a welcome? What a difference it might make.

Let me back up to recount the rest of the weekend. Friday afternoon we cancelled all our clinic/Haven plans for the university mission graduation (of the students who finished classes in May). During morning classes I accompanied Ba Donna, Ba LouAnn, and Mariah into town to pick up a crate of fruit for our lunch. On the way back we stopped in the road to pick up several Zambians gesturing (the signal to flag a ride is a waving motion towards the ground) for a ride. I opened the back door of the Land Cruiser, and in piled four men, three women, two children, and two huge loads that had been settled on the women’s heads, in beside Mariah and me! I was clutching a crate of eggs in my lap and trying to brace them against the rutted dirt road while our knees all knocked together and sweat rolled down the backs of our legs-yes it was about as exciting as it sounded, but how glad those individuals were for not having to walk an hour’s worth of time to the Johnson building where the graduation ceremony was!

Graduation was supposedly starting at 1p.m., so we waited until 2p.m. to show up. The room was crowded with the choir, families and friends, and the graduates who were hovering in the doorway. Streamers were looped on either side of the wooden benches, and a paper banner hung at the front, congratulating the 16th graduating class of George Benson Christian College of Education. At 3p.m. when the ceremony actually got underway, Tonga music was played over the loudspeaker as the students danced (literally) down the aisle to their assigned benches. The teachers sat on the stage in oversized green armchairs. It was unusual in several ways, but what I noticed most was that the speaker (the chancellor of another university) was referred to in all the preceding speeches. He seemed to be greater emphasized than the graduates themselves, and was constantly called the guest of honor. Some of our students sang with the choir, and when the “man of the hour” got up to speak, he started with this comment: “Our God is always Almighty and always surprising. Today the surprise is that there are white people singing with the choir!”. I counted three times that the students were given the charge to “stay away from HIV/AIDS” or “we will all be attending your funeral next year”. My favorite moment by far was when four students out of the class were recognized for outstanding accomplishments-two were given blankets while the other two were awarded pink flowery twin-sized mattresses! When the diplomas were given out, the families created mass chaos by pushing their way to the stage, showing their graduate the gift they had brought, and then returning to their seat still holding the gift (which they would actually hand over to be opened after the ceremony). By the time the graduates waved their certificates in the air and danced back down the aisle, the whole thing had lasted about two and a half hours-again that fluid concept of time.

Friday night was movie night on the porch. I was the last one in the house pre-movie when I heard our night guard Webster yelling by the window “snake snake!”. I lifted the curtain up (the windows are bars with screens) and asked him what he was talking about. He repeated that there was a snake in front of the house, and for some reason I thought he was joking (I think because he was smiling when he said it). Once he finally convinced me he was serious he told me to come look at it. I made certain there was no breakdown in communication that he had already killed it before I stepped foot outside the house. He led me to the path off the porch and pointed out the now-dead cobra in the dirt. I told him I had been about to leave to walk that way for the movie and that he had saved me from being eaten by the snake. He thought that was hilarious! Regardless, I was glad he was around :).

Saturday was a free day so seven of us decided to walk into town for the day. And believe me, it took all day. We left after breakfast and headed down the dirt road into town. I’m sure that we were a sight to see, makuas spread out across the path traipsing in and out of pot holes in our skirts and chacos. We got to town around midmorning and stopped at a “restaurant” (an open porch with picnic tables and a walk-up window for ordering) to get something to drink. We decided at that point to go ahead and put in our orders for lunch, because they require several hours to prepare the food on their menu. After that was taken care of we wandered to the bank to get kwacha and then further into the market stalls to search for chitange material to make purses, etc. We weaved in and out of the rickety booths, practicing our Tonga and looking at the colorful fabrics. Some time later we walked back to the restaurant and waited another 20 minutes for our food-it was worth it. We all had chipati (handmade Zambian tortillas) stuffed with chicken, tomatoes and onions. It was wonderful. We even had soft-serve vanilla ice cream afterwards before we started the long trek home. A group of kids began running after us a few minutes onto the road yelling “we love you! We want to be American!”. Round trip we walked a little over 10 miles, and despite the Band-Aids and sunscreen we were all blistered and sunburnt when we finally got back in time for dinner, but we all slept really well that night!

The remainder of Sunday (post-Mutala service) was spent by several of us at the Haven. Tori (one of the PA students) and I had one of the Aunties help us secure toddlers on our back in chitanges so we would have our hands free to carry around some of the other children pulling on our dresses seeking attention. We played for awhile, and then a group of the Aunties sat down around the wooden table in the main room and beckoned for us to come over. Two of them gave up their seats for us, and they asked us to pray for them and their work with the children. It was a humbling experience.

Three more babies from the Haven died over the weekend: Request, Ellie, and Luseko. That brings the total to five in the past two weeks, not to mention the one whose funeral we attended. Everyone has been struck closely by these deaths, because they are babies that we play with and love on and coax with formula and fold washrag diapers for. The reality is that children die all the time in the United States, but here there is always the frustration with the lack of resources. There is the inability to even run simple tests that would give you a lead on how to treat the babies, or at least give you closure about why they didn’t make it. And with these children at the Haven, while we are here we are their family and they are ours. It is also a reflection of the absolute culture of poverty here-everyone has seen death and there is often a fatalistic stigma attached to it. Also, AIDS is so pervasive that some parents bring their children to the Haven expecting that they nor their child will be alive much longer.

Despite the difficulties and frustration, the point is that we are not here for ourselves. The purpose is that we are able to love the children while they are here, and ensure that they are not forgotten when they are gone. There are four new babies from the last few days, and so we begin to turn our time and effort towards them. Three boys and one girl. The little girl, only three days old, came in this morning and I examined her with the students doing rounds with me. I was payed the highest compliment I could imagine by Kathy (the missionary who started the Haven) when I found out later that she named the baby “Jessica” after me.

Classes this week with clinic, Outreach, and the Haven interspersed. This weekend all the girls are invited to a “kitchen party” (Zambian wedding shower) for the missionaries’ adopted daughter, so I’m sure there will be plenty more to write about before long! If you are still with me, thanks for reading this far :).