From Ferguson To Zambia

Today I heard the news that the Missouri grand jury—made up of 9 white and three black members—made no recommendation to charge Darren Wilson, the white police officer that shot Black, 18-year-old Michael Brown.  NPR has compiled a list of documents used as evidence before the jury you can see here. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that Brown charged Wilson and that Wilson acted out of self-defense. That’s the information the court heard.  Those are the documents.

But that’s not the truth.

We need to stop accepting the dominant cultural narrative as the truth. We need to stop accepting the information that gets to the courtroom, the major newsrooms, or the cultural creators of the world that are defined by capital and by whiteness. In contrast the voices of Ferguson, MO and Chawama, Zambia remain silent. We hear Darren Wilson’s side of the story, but we can’t hear from Michael Brown because he is lying cold with not one, but six holes in his body.

As the drama and flashiness of this verdict, trial, and even the protests continues, I hope we don’t get bogged down with deciding the truth about the character of either Michael Brown or Darren Wilson. Take a moment and look at the truth in your own life. Look at your own character.

How many of your friends are people of color? How many have you invited to your home? How many have invited you to their home? Have you lived in poverty? Have you experienced police brutality? Does history show your ancestors as slaves?  How many friends or relatives are or have been incarcerated? Are you enjoying privilege? Are you working for justice?

Let me answer these questions myself and let me answer them as I would have before I came to Zambia.

How many of your friends are people of color? Honestly, not many. My friends and family and the majority of people I interact with daily, let alone meaningfully, are white.

How many have you invited to your home? I can barely think of any instances.

How many have invited you to their home? College friends and colleagues.

Have you lived in poverty? No.

Have you experienced police brutality? Never. Even though I cried getting my first (and only!) speeding ticket.

Does history show your ancestors as slaves?  Nope.

How many friends or relatives are or have been incarcerated? Nada.

 Are you enjoying privilege? Yes.

Are you working for justice? Not hard enough.

My life is segregated. My life is different than many Black Americans, who compared to whites are more likely to live in poverty, experience police brutality, and are incarcerated. Every action has a reaction. Every piece of the pie I take, leaves less for the rest. My privilege comes at a cost.

Let Ferguson remind me of this. And not accept the injustice I am living.

My answers to these questions have certainly changed since coming to Zambia. Now I go weeks without seeing another white person. I experience poverty everyday, though I can’t say I live it compared to most of my students. The sad thing is I had to travel halfway around the world to change my segregated, privileged life. I could have driven fifteen minutes into inner city Milwaukee. Will I do that when I get home?

To all, but especially my white family and friends, don’t ignore Michael Brown. Don’t ignore Ferguson. But I think more importantly don’t ignore your own life, your own privilege, your own segregation.

It’s quite humbling and disheartening to come to a different country and then realize how broken your own homeland is.

Please read this blog to find out ways whites can respond to Ferguson.

Demons

We were finishing our normal prayer time at CCAP’s Chawama Prayer House when it happened. But this was no average prayer time for a muzungu who grew up in the PCUSA. Prayer time here starts with song. The leader comes to the front of the church and begins a call and response type song that is typical of Zambian music. After a song or two or beautiful, belting harmonies, the prayer begins. First here. Then there. As the song fades, speaking voices grow one after the other. Pretty soon the room is booming with layer upon layer of words of thanksgiving, petition, and praise. People pace the room. Hands and arms shake. Where a few moments before there was harmony, now there is the dissonance of sixty voices speaking on top of each other. Normally prayer time comes to a close once again with song. The leader sings out a melody and soon the voices fade back into song.

But this Sunday one voice did not. One man kept talking and talking and talking, rather agitated as it were. Not being able to understand his language, I was totally lost as members in the congregation slowly pulled his arms leading him into the vestry, or back room of the church. As the pastor, began his sermon, a few more people sauntered into the vestry. Soon the pastor had to speak louder to stifle the shouts coming from there.

He turned to his congregation and said, “Not all spirits are from the Lord.”

Turns out I was in the presence of a demon.

Weeks later, my good friend invited me to her baptism at her Apostolic Church. It was a very special day in which I traveled with her and some in her congregation, traversing the rain and hail on the roads, to the Kafue River where the sun peaked out to shine on those who waded into the great stream and submitted themselves to the water for baptism.  We left after a church service, which ended in deliverance. Again, this prayer/act began with song, but pretty soon people were surrounding those overcome with something. The possessed’s eyes were closed. They would fall to the ground, one quite painfully with his body completely straight. The pastor would yell, “What do you want with her?” And the person/demon would say, “A gift.” Then people would yell, “Fire, Fire! In the name of Jesus, come out!”

                                                                  My friend praying

My friend then asked me if I would like to be prayed for. I agreed and together we went up to the pastor. He took my hands and in his fiery speech, he prayed and periodically shook my arms. I felt the urge to follow his lead and as he shook my arms, I released the tension in my body and let my body shake with his tremors. When he finished, an older man took my arm and led me to my knees. He then grabbed my head and began to move it around and around in circles. Hands were on my shoulders and I could sense a crowd of people gathering around me. My eyes were closed and the song continued all around me. Pretty soon my arms were in the air. It was at this point that my friend photographed me.

I had taken some pictures of the deliverance a few minutes earlier. My friend was adamant that I do so, so I joined another man walking around snapping pictures.  This was against my inclination. I didn’t want to identify myself as the stranger in the room more than my skin color already showed. Also, I categorize religious experience as a very personal. To each her own as far as I’m concerned and I didn’t want to intrude. The times in prayer I have felt closest to God have been through the silence and meditative songs of the Taize worship style. Something I can do by myself, or silently with others. But this was no Taize worship service. When I look at the picture my friend snapped of me: this woman, kneeling on the floor, hands in the air, being delivered… I don’t recognize myself. The first time I looked at the picture, I snapped my camera off within seconds, feeling embarrassed. I worry about prayer and even religion being showy or self-important. IEach week at my church here I have trouble praying because it feels like I would be yelling at God, even performing for those around me. I believe that volume, eloquence, and duration in and of prayer don’t necessarily make a difference.

I believe all this, but none of that was my motive as I submitted myself to deliverance last Sunday. I had been welcomed into the church of a dear friend, and her dear, dear community welcomed me with open arms, shaking with passion. They offered me a most precious gift to them: their prayers. The greatest way to thank them was to humbly accept. So I put myself at their mercy. I surrendered my body as they moved me this way and that, so much that I was sore hours later. And much to my surprise I felt something in their prayer. A spirit? God? I don’t feel the need to use those terms although I certainly could. I felt like the people around me were offering me their energy and in return I was giving them back the only thing I could: myself. I felt the presence of those around me. I could see their shadows from behind my eyelids. I could hear their voices all around me.  There was a community surrounding me, and they were choosing to put their focus into me. I could feel emotions rising. When it ended and the pastor asked me how I felt, I simply said, “I feel loved.”

So many things are different here in Zambia. Demons are real. People speak in tongues. There is witchcraft. There is Satanism. People talk about the devil. There have been times that I honestly feel like I had left Planet Earth. What book did I enter? Where am I? But I am on the same Earth I have always lived. This is reality.

I’m not here to scientifically prove or convince anyone, even myself. When I say, these things are real I mean that they are beliefs, and therefore forces, that actually affect people here in Zambia. I am here to be in relationship with Zambians so I have chosen not to judge and attempt to meet those around me just where they are. They live in a world with demons and I want to know them, so I live in a world where they experience demons too.

In my first weeks in Zambia taking culture classes at FENZA, we heard from an amazing Catholic Father who researches demons and spirits and has experience with them in his ministry. He found that when his parishioners come to him complaining of a demon he hears everything they have to say but then asks questions to name and classify the person’s suffering. He accepts the demon, and then seeks understanding of the earthly manifestations of human suffering that might be behind the spirit.  He sees the person as someone in pain and then as he gets to know the person he asks to bring in people around the possessed person, usually their family members, to solve the problem relationally. He told us that the Catholic Church used to have an Exorcism Department in Zambia, but the lines were so long each day, they had to close the office. His relational method works wonders.

I think Father Bernhard is doing good work in Zambia. He meets people where they are, with the terms they use, and works to build and save relationships. When I saw deliverance taking place at my friend’s baptism service, I watched a woman surrounded by others. In the moment, the focus of those around her was not on themselves, their energy was directed at her, they were giving their minds and spirits, their voices.

When talking with Father Bernhard and in that moment, it struck me how things like depression, grief, low self-esteem, and mental illness can be demons. To me, this is more figurative, but I can understand how those very real problems can become something classified as true and real demon. Call it what you will, persistent problems are real. In the service of deliverance, I imagined this woman as bogged down with the dispirits of depression, of feeling lower than low, of having something hanging over her that she couldn’t shake, holding her back, keeping her from being her true and free self. And around her were people… People who wanted to pull that madness out of her. People in her community danced vigil with her and waited for her self to return.  People loved her.

It makes me think, what demons are in my own life? And who will be there to help deliver them out?

Finally, all this musing brings me back to YAV orientation back in Stony Point, NY, when we looked at Mark 5:1-20, in which Jesus casts out the demon, “Legion” from the Gerosene Demoniac. Usually when I read this story I thick, “Oh boy, one of those bible stories!” On the surface, it’s a story of magic; a story of the spirit world crossed over into this world, a reality I certainly have not experienced in this life. In the story, Jesus casts the demon into a herd of pigs, driving the swine into the sea where they meet their death. In the past I’ve read this as an unexplainable miracle in which Jesus shows some wicked Hogwarts-like skills. With the help of some Biblical history, our leader told us that the story takes place in a location occupied by the Roman army and that the swine are the food source for the soldiers. Jews certainly would not be eating pork. With this reading, Jesus’ act becomes not a display, but a subversive act of defiance and protest of the Roman Army: Jesus’s Boston Tea Party, so to speak. Whether he waved a wand or physically moved the pigs himself seems like a lesser point to the fact that Jesus committed a very political act, sticking it to an oppressive military regime. It seems there is a lot more to these demon stories than meets the eye. So what else is behind the demons people experience here? Demons aren’t just the modern manifestation of African Traditional Religion, they are found in the Bible. They are even found in the lyrics and title of Imagine Dragon’s hit song: “Don’t get to close, it’s dark inside. It’s where my demons hide. It’s where my demons hide. “

Demons are real here in Zambia. Where are they real in your life?

                                                                  At the Kafue River

Manzi (Water)

I live in a house with no running water. It took me two hours to realize the extra work living with no running water creates compared to living with it, but it took me over a month to get sore muscles from fetching it. For the first month, someone was living with us who did the whole job of fetching water from a pump a few hundred yards from our house and then filling the buckets that sit outside the toilet, bathing room, and those under the sink in the kitchen. After he moved out, the job was left to my host mom at first and then later my sister.

After watching my sister sweat it out over this work, I told her the next time she went to fetch water she needed to tell me. And so she did. And that is how I found myself on an empty stomach leaving a warm dinner on the table to go carry extremely heavy buckets of water that I had to stop to rest every hundred yards or so, in the dark at 8pm, and getting sweaty after I had just bathed.

There is a pump in a walled community of houses directly next to our house and also one across a field next to the school. We pay the homes to use their water. We fill the big buckets first, which need two people to carry them. After the smaller one have been filled, we begin to take the buckets and leave them right outside the front door. The process is slow. It takes time to fill each bucket and then time to move the buckets outside the house. And then more time to take the buckets into the house and to their respective places. Each bucket has its place, which I have had to learn. The time lends itself to socializing. The waterspouts are places people gather. We, or mostly my sister and cousin, chat with our neighbors and each other. My little brother usually comes, too. One memorable scene he burst into tears as we waited for our buckets to fill because my sister acted like she had found a cockroach and put it on his body. There was nothing in her hands, but he did not know that.

We’ve frequented the spout in the walled in community more because it is closer to our back door. You must move over a step, quite fun with a heavy water bucket in your hand, into the walled in community and then navigate your way in the dark between the wall and the house, trying not to step in the mud created by splashing water. My flip flops, or slippers as Zambians call them, has gotten stuck a few times in the muck. Then sometimes you have to dodge a clothesline full of drying clothes. Doors open at varying times as women in chitenges throw their dirty dishwater onto the mud or plants outside. Often they come and sit and wait with us.

Many times I’ve found myself wanting to find ways to streamline the process. My instinct is to grab the next bucket as soon as it is filled, and then even bring the bucket right into the house to its final resting place. I want to get it done as soon as possible. Especially when dinner is waiting for me. I’ve had to tell myself to hold my horses. Out of respect, I wait to see how they do things and try to do my part in the labor. It’s hard work after an already long day, but it’s better to do it at night than in the blistering Zambian sun. When my instinct to hurry bubbles up, I ask myself, what am I rushing for? Breathe. Fast or slow, the work will get done. As this chore becomes a routine as I do this every two or three days, my wish to hurry lessens. I’m just going to have to do this again, so why not take it easy and enjoy myself as much as I can.

Watching the buckets empty day by day has become a signal to prepare myself for the next round of fetching. I can’t help but be slightly disheartened. Didn’t we just do all this work? Now we have to do it again? The answer is yes. Yes, we do. We need water. And it is amazing to feel its weight literally in your arms and then hours afterward from soreness.

This morning I started singing one of my favorite Taize songs. The lyrics are:

Let all who are thirsty come; let all who wish receive, the water of life freely. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

I was struck by the poignancy of these words here in Zambia. I’ve always loved how the lyrics offer lovely imagery of God’s love as water, something we can drink in, fill us, and sustain us. In the American Midwest, full of lakes great and small, full of homes with running water, water is a substance of abundance. In this context, the abundance of water seems to match the abundance of God’s love. But then there is Zambia, where water is not abundant. So does that mean God’s love is not abundant here? That certainly is not right. Hmm. Thinking of God’s love as water in Zambia might not be a metaphor for abundance. Instead water becomes this amazing, special gift that we seek, that we work for, that sustains us, that we need desperately. The rains become a blessing. A full bucket under the kitchen is a blessing. Water in my cup, a blessing. The Taize song still brings out imagery of the abundant and sustaining nature of God’s love, but in the Zambian context, I am reminded that God’s kingdom—driven by justice, love, compassion, kindness, and equality—has not yet come. There are places that struggle and must work for water. There are places that struggle and must work for justice, struggle and work for equality. People choose to drink exploitation and ignorance instead of love and kindness. May a new type of world come. Where the rains fall and fill everyone’s cup. Where justice falls down like a mighty stream.

Let all who are thirsty come to this world. May they be filled. May all who wish receive. May all who receive, share. The water of life. Freely. Amen.

Nshima, Nshima, and More Nshima!

“You don’t have mealie meal in the US?”

No, I said, looking into a frowning brow of disapproval.

“Teacher ________________, Hannah just said they don’t have mealie meal in the US.”

The other teacher matched her colleague’s furrowed brow and gave the Zambian grunt of displeasure.

I had never heard of nshima before I had my YAV interview to come to Zambia. Nshima is dried maize (corn), pounded into a very fine powder. To cook it, you fill a pot with water nearly to the top. When the water boils, you start pouring the powder into the pot. You let the milky white water heat for another ten minutes or so and then pour more mealie meal into the pot by the bowlful. This must be done while stirring rapidly, yet carefully, so as not to push any of the mush out of the full pot. This step is extremely tricky, at least for me, because I always seem to stir too fast and spill all over the stove, and at the same time, I also stir too slowly because my nshima turns out clumpy. An expert nshima cook, aka all Zambian women over the age of 12, know exactly how to push the long, flat wooden spoon back and forth to remove all clumps while not spilling a thing. After the nshima has been stirred and is at the right consistency, the pot is covered, and it cooks for another ten or fifteen minutes. Then again, the big spoon pushes the nshima back and forth, now quite heavy, until it is thick and ready. Then another utensil is used to spoon the thick mush into ovalular globs set into a silver dish with a matching lid that all Zambian families seem to own.

Nshima, at the village stay, in the open dish with a red rim

At the table, Zambians wash their hands before eating. This is important in a dusty surrounding and when no utensils are used to eat. A Zambian usually takes one to three globs of nshima on their plate. That is a lot of nshima, let me tell you. One rips off a large piece and rolls it in their right hand. Once in a ball, the nshima is used to pick up a leafy green relish, or a bit of fish or chicken.

Meal times are usually around 1pm and then 7:30pm. Meals are late, spread out, and then fairly large to accommodate this eating schedule. Once one has eaten nshima, one doesn’t feel like they need to eat for a very long time.

My first time eating nshima, I found the experience quite fun. I felt rebellious getting my hands messy at the dinner table. Touching one’s food with their bare hands is a very interesting and intimate experience. I’ve never really thought about how forks and knives create distance, but they do. How often have you felt, I mean, really felt your vegetables? Or the sinews of your chicken, or the bones of your fish?

Early on in my time in Zambia I talked with a CCAP pastor about how much time Americans spend just deciding what to eat. I am notorious for this myself. When I go into a restaurant I have to read the entire menu and then really examine how I am feeling, what else I have eaten that day, what I plan to eat later, and what I plan to do later, before I choose the perfect meal that is delectable, nutritious, and practical at the same time. And that’s not even mentioning how much time I can spend in the aisles of a grocery store deciding what food to bring home. I wonder what else I could do with this abundant time I have the privilege to spend on food. Not time spent growing, harvesting, preparing, or cleaning up after said food…just time deciding what I want.

Zambians don’t have this issue. No one asks, “What’s for lunch?” Everyone knows the answer is nshima. “What’s for dinner?” You guessed it! Nshima!

A good friend told me that if she hasn’t eaten nshima, she feels like she hasn’t eaten. This is why my fellow teachers were literally in disbelief that my country does not cook nor sell mealie meal to make nshima. As far as I know, you can’t buy the stuff in the US, and making nshima with cornmeal, which I tried last year, does not yield the same dish.

In my interview for YAV, my site coordinator described nshima and asked if I would be able to eat a foreign substance everyday. Considering myself an adventurous eater who now thanks my mother for instilling the “no-thank-you-bite” for every dish put on your plate, I answered that I was excited to try something new. There’s not much I don’t like, so why should this nshima stuff be a problem. Now I know that because of my cultural perspective I really didn’t have the means to fathom nshima culture.

My experience with nshima has been a blessing and a challenge. I’ve shared common bowls with strangers and friends. It is always offered in abundance. I’ve spent dark evenings during the many power outages in Lusaka learning worship songs with my sister, Precious, as she stirs a pot over a charcoal fire. There would be no Zambia without nshima and so I embrace it.

But I don’t always eat it. After weeks of feeling bloated and too full for my own comfort, I’ve had to learn how to be a thankful guest while also realizing how important food is to our souls, moods, and bodies, and therefore feeding the soul, mood, and body that I have personally been bestowed. It has meant introducing the concept of raw vegetables to some of my friends and it means reassuring them over and over again, that yes, I am satisfied. I’m still figuring this out and I oftentimes feel guilty and out of place eating separate food. What comes first—solidarity or health?

Breakfast has become a cherished time of solitude and delicious nourishment. I treat myself to having yogurt and granola stocked in the kitchen as often as I can. Before school or taking my time on a weekend morning, breakfast has become my time to eat what I love, read and reflect, and start my day right. This morning, my six-year-old brother loitered around me as I set out of my foodstuffs. Despite his cuteness, I’ve recently had a serious problem with him respecting my privacy and I found my feelings of annoyance growing inside me. Can’t I have my time of peace? But how could I serve myself and not serve him? What could I give this young, budding child? I searched for what he normally eats for breakfast. The corn flakes were out. No white bread, either. There was only my food. Only my abundant and healthy food. I honestly did not want to give it to him at first. This food had come to symbolize my comfort. I looked at what has become my comfort: this healthy, abundant food—available to me, but not to others…not to my family that I live with, and I thought once more about how much privilege I have. I have the privilege of an education and health system that taught me what is good for my body. I have enough wealth to secure this lifestyle for myself. Many times we think of privilege as luxury—diamonds and fancy cars—but in reality privilege actually comes in the basic form of healthy eating and even exercise.

I shared my food… and my brother enjoyed his granola, yogurt, and milk. But don’t think of me as some sort of saint. If I am quite honest, I was in a situation in which I could not ignore the unfairness of how much I have compared to others. I sat at the table across from my brother, food all around me, nothing around him, and the feelings of guilt and discomfort got so great, that I shared. I hope I can have the strength to share in a more profound and widespread way when the table I sit is no longer physical but figurative, when I am back in the United States and my brother sits in here in Lusaka. I hope I can give freely without guilt, without discomfort, and I hope I can put my comfort in things that are not in effect indirect exploitation or unequal.

Even as I eat and watch others eat nshima every day, I have trouble fathoming Zambia’s culture of food that is so narrow, yet profuse. Nshima is cheap and abundant so it fits in a nation where sixty percent of the population is officially considered poor. Nutritious, abundant, and varied food is certainly a privilege.  Don’t forget it.

Ps. Today is my little brother’s birthday. Had no idea…