Oswald, Part 1

This is my story of Oswald, the world's worst post office worker who still has a job. First, a few explanations of the Zambia Post Office are needed. In Lusaka, there aren't really individual mail boxes. No, scratch that. There are no individual mail boxes at houses. There are post office boxes at, as one might guess, the Post Office. I inquired into the cost of renting one such box. I am old fashioned in some ways, and I still enjoy sending and, especially while living the expat life, receiving snail mail. So, how much would it be to rent one? Exactly correct. 500,000 kwacha for the year, or, roughly $100 USD. I love letters, but really? $100? I just couldn't see any cost-benefit in that hefty price. However, one doesn't need to rent anything to receive packages. When I told my friends that I could receive parcel post but not letters, it wasn't a joke.

To receive such a package, I first had to visit the Main Post Office, at the corner of Cairo and Church Roads. One day before work, I went early and lined up. I explained the situation (I'd like to receive a package from the U.S. How do I do that?), and I was given the correct mailing address for my home. Interestingly, part of that address included my personal cell phone number. I laughed at my triumph, actually accomplishing what I set out to do, and walked to work.

The package receiving process works this way. Presumably, a package arrives with my name and address. The postal worker sees it, reads the phone number, and calls to inform me that I've received a package. Some time within the next two weeks, I search for a day when I can make it to my neighborhood post office before 4:30 p.m. and pick it up. I arrive, give my name, fake an NRC number, show I.D., sign 5 different lines, and pay a fee. At this point, the package is mine. Alternatively, there is also a delivery service, but I must be home at the time for the delivery boy to drop off the item. This only worked one time. Inexplicably, the delivery service does not include any fees.

Receiving a package from home is, for the foreign teacher, a way to get through the rough times. Just the fact that someone cares enough to go through the hassle of picking out items, carefully packing them, and paying to ship them to across the ocean makes you feel like your life matters to someone, even if it's not to anyone in your immediate vicinity. My sister is the best package sender ever. She deserves an award. She sent great boxes that included a glass jar of salsa, sheets, tortillas, magazines so I can pretend to keep up with fashion trends and celebrity gossip, art, scarves, and the essentials that couldn't make it into my 2-bag limit. I eagerly awaited the arrival of my first package from home in Zambia.

Enter Oswald.

Ah Oswald. Sometimes, life is too easy, so an instigator is sent to mess with you. This is the only explanation possible for the presence of Oswald in my Zamlife. Oswald's job, from what I gather, is searching the back room for parcels and handing the parcels to the customer. He also seems to be the one who is meant to call customers when a parcel has arrived for them. Additionally, he delivers parcels, on occasion.

I left work and walked home - a bounce in my step on the 1.5 hour walk down Church Road and Independence Avenue. I was going to the Woodlands Post Office to pick up my first package. Excitement hurried me on. I got there. I gave my name. The young guy went to the back to get the package. He put it on the counter. He didn't speak. What was I supposed to do? Could I just take it? "No, you have to sign for it," he said with sarcasm, a hint of a smile...perhaps a challenge? He gave me a look, a knowing look, as if he knew me. As if he ever could. My skin crawled. Give me my box already. I signed the line where he indicated. I waited. He stared. I waited longer. I had been in Zambia long enough to know how to play this game without getting frustrated, but I was still wary of his intentions. Could I take my box and leave? Slowly, he flipped through the pages and showed that I needed to sign some more lines. Good. Was it really that hard being a postal worker? Couldn't he have just showed me that to begin with? I promised myself not to show any outward signs of impatience, then wondered if he'd even be able to read them on a muzungu. I was finally granted ownership of the box, and I hurriedly carried it home. I forgot the strange encounter at the post office as I went through the box's contents. I sent a thank-you email, text, and facebook post. There is no such thing as superfluity when a sister mails a box to a foreign country. Oswald didn't dampen my happiness that day, but soon my dealings at the post-office would carry the twin emotions of excitment and dread.

"Opportunity", or, The Sour Taste of Promises Unkept

In case you happen to be unfamiliar with Sir Edward Rowland Sill's poem "Opportunity" (which is nearly impossible should you have been lucky enough to sit through Mrs. Well's 7th and 8th grade English classes at the academy), the opening line begins thus: "This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream, there spread a cloud of dust along a plain. And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged a furious battle." As I memorized and chanted these lines along with fellow classmates, I hardly expected the words to come back to me nearly 16 years later as I walked to my bus stop on the way to work in Zambia. If NMA was good for nothing else, it was good for our powers of memorization.

So it was, memorization powers refined, that I found myself reciting Sir Edward Rowland Sill's known work on a 15-minute walk down a dusty road that lead to my bus stop. Each morning began with this walk or with the long 1.5-hour walk all the way to school, depending on weather. Either way, I began to carefully watch my step. I plotted in advance the street crossings I would need to make. No goats? Safe to cross. No speeding trucks? Safe to cross. No people who will accost me on the other side while I wait for the bus? Safe to cross. No large puddles or patches of mud? Safe to cross. The walk wasn't that easy. One had to be cognizant of everything, if one wanted to arrive on time for her 8 a.m. class still somewhat professionally dressed and clean.

I somehow managed the trek to work through muddy season and learned to stay dry and clean, mostly. However, it was the 2011 Zambian presidential elections that foiled my newly-honed skill. Dear President Banda, may he rest in retirement, thought the way to win the elections, in addition to accepting bribes, probably, and selling out all of the country's natural resources to China, probably, was to build roads. Zambia does need roads, good ones, ones that last more than one season. And so, the Roads Commission got busy. In their haste (rare for the country) and excitement, old, decrepit, pot-hole strewn asphalt was torn up left and right through the capital. One such road was the small side street I took on my way to the Mosi-O-Tunya bus stop.

A person might wonder, and indeed, I heard many frequently wonder aloud, "Isn't this one of the reasons government exists?" Don't we give them a portion of our hard-earned, over-the-table earnings just so that we can drive and, or, walk down decent roads, and the like? Perhaps it was the intelligence of the Zambian electorate that they didn't buy into the roads-for-votes scheme, or perhaps it was the magnitude of Banda's failure to follow through on what he began that lead to his electoral demise. The Roads Commission, you see, did a brilliant job of tearing up old roads and grading them for future paving. However, at least on the many streets I walked, that paving never occurred. And so, I ventured to my daily bus-stop on a newly created dirt path. Since the old potholes had been done away with, the Zambians wealthy enough to afford vehicles took pleasure in powering down the dirt road without the need to touch the brake. The effect was eery to behold. Where there was blue sky just moments before, all I saw was brown swirl of earth in sky. I tried to avoid becoming drenched, but it simply wasn't possible. The other walkers and I would exchange sour looks, shake our heads, and continue on...dreaming of the day we too might enjoy the luxury of racing, windows-up, past the foot traffic.

All I can say, in retrospect, is thanks to the individual who taught me I didn't need to show up to work clean. Mr. Banda, it was a good lesson. Learning can happen, even when you're covered in dirt. But battles will rage on, as you found. Perhaps keeping promises is important after all. Here's to Sata - may he learn from his predecessor's mistakes, for the sake of all Zambians, especially the majority who travel on foot.

Newly Old

It's the new year, and I'm newly resolved to get back to updating this blog. However, this not an official New Year's resolution. I haven't made any, simply because I haven't even had a chance to slow down and be reflective since, oh, somewhere around mid-November.

I can't believe a whole calendar year has passed since I boarded a plane, destination Zambia. Last year sometimes feels like the lost year. I'm forever grateful that I finally got to experience life in sub-Saharan Africa and that I now have a better understanding of what it means to be Zambian - to be born there, educated there, and struggle to find ways to make it there. I know my insight is limited, and I've only scratched the surface, yet still, the year challenged me in ways I didn't expect and taught me things I never particularly wanted to learn (exhibit A: lying through your teeth with no qualms).

I'll reach back as far as my 30-year-old brain will allow in order to post post-humously some reflections on the adventure of 2011. Meanwhile, I'll try to capture my observations of life now as it actually happens.

Currently, culture shock has me in its death vice. I drive more slowly, and possibly more erratically, than my adorable French grandmother ever did. If you pass me on the road, please don't judge. Driving skill is honed by excessive practice (in the U.S.), and I've been sorely out of practice for three years. In addition to driving troubles, I'm constantly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice available in this country. It seems impossible to make decisions. Grocery store trips are leisurely outings that can take over an hour for just a few items. I think the Publix employees are extremely confused whenever they see me calmly wandering around.

Being overwhelmed by transport and food options is a classic reverse culture shock trait that most returning expats experience. Mention your difficulties, and you'll get knowing nods and smiles. But why doesn't anyone ever warn you about trying to actually talk to Americans when you return? I'm having the most difficulty, I think, with conversational norms and turn-taking. I'm guessing this is a result of several competing factors. First is the fact that in Zambia, I made great efforts to learn to communicate effectively with Zambians. This communication task may seem easy. "Isn't Zambia an English speaking country?" How many times have I heard this question? And yet, most of the expats I knew who lived in Zambia primarily communicated with locals who were used to the conversational norms of Americans and had adapted their own style of speech to what they'd observed. In my workplace however, I was frequently lost, and I had to truly work at being understood and avoiding miscommunication. This was partly due to the fact that Zamblish is its own dialect, different from British English and American English and equal in its own standards and rules. The communication difficulties were also partly due to the fact that most Zambians, even those who now speak better English than they do their mother tongues, blend the two (or three) languages in an exemplary melody of code-switching. So, yes, part of what they were speaking was English, but a large part wasn't. However, I did adapt, and I learned to change my English to Zamblish in order to be better understood.

A second factor may be that living abroad - for me, two years in China and a year in Zambia - forces same-language speakers to relate and bond to one another more quickly, and it shows in conversational patterns and norms. This reality is both annoying because I don't get to make friends at the slow pace I'm used to and comforting because it's always lonely being the foreigner on display somewhere. The result is that I look at everyone who speaks my language as a potential friend, even while I recognize that most of the people I meet probably already have all the friends they need and want.

I think I'm also having difficulty jumping to the end of people's sentences and thoughts before they have the time to get there. And I'm so excited to be talking to anyone at all (living alone does have its drawbacks. My cat doesn't talk back. At least, not really), that I respond a few seconds faster than a normal person. As someone who has (or used to have? I'm not sure) a hard time getting my thoughts out of my mouth, I know it can be frustrating to be around someone who talks too fast or responds too quickly. I hope these "returnee" quirks work themselves out soon.

Take Two

Apparently, it has been determined by the Fates that I shall not spend more than 3 years in any one place.  I'm hoping for at least two in the next country.  In late January or early February, I'll be moving to Zambia for a ten-month teaching project with a local public university there.  The job is grant-funded by the U.S. government, and the future possibilities are giving me a reason to be hopeful after the bleak outlook of job searching in the States.  

At the moment, there are visas to be obtained, phones to be called, contacts to be solidified, courses to be planned, and many other logistics to be handled before I can board the plane.  Two months does not seem like enough time.  

In my life, I have had exactly two dreams.  The first, becoming fluent in another language, has not yet happened.  The second will come true very, very soon.  As with anything that takes the title of BIG EVENT in life, my feet are feeling a bit cold.  I'm not worried, though.  I have no intention of turning around and running away.

So far, I have very few impressions of my next country of residence.  If I stare at the map long enough, it looks a bit like a peanut, or a seahorse maybe.  I can hardly wait to continue on in the "unknown-first impressions-vague familiarity-an almost home" cycle.

Elliot

Imported: 15 December 2009

This past weekend was supposed to be our big English Festival weekend, welcoming students and faculty from two other universities on the mainland, and one from Korea. Sadly, a student was confirmed to have a case of H1N1, so all events at the Great Hall had to be canceled or rescheduled. Besides being worried about the sick student, who does have more than a mild flu-like case of the disease, we are all incredibly disappointed at not having the opportunity to witness this year's festival until May. English Festival is sometimes funny, sometimes painful, but always a ton of work for everyone involved. I even volunteered in some small roles - judging semi-finals and coaching a speech contestant - in the hopes that I would be more committed to something if I was more invested in it. And I was. Students and faculty have been holding midnight rehearsals, giving and attending workshops on singing, checking scripts, lines, and acting abilitiy, and all the myriad of other things that go into pulling off this event. It's truly unfortunate to see their day spoiled and know that it's hanging over all our heads until next semester. I can't say that I'm happy to have gotten my very own "outbreak" experience here. SARS v. 2.0.

Coinage

From exhaustion comes hilarity, or at least weird slips of the brain/tongue. Most recent word formations:

"undergraduation"

"Plass clanning."