Muddy Toes

A few hours ago the mud was oozing between their toes. They held hands and giggled as they moved their feet ever so slightly so as to push the dark, gooey earth into the tiny spaces between the big toe and that next toe. The rains had finally stopped, for today at least, and the Zambian sun was poking through the clouds, attempting to evaporate the temporary lakes that sprout up around the compounds of Lusaka that time of year.

They both wore tattered clothes, perfect for playing. The kind that just invite you to jump in puddles, roll around in the dirt, and play catch with whatever garbage you can find. She had been wearing the garments since Tuesday, but his were fresh despite their appearance. He had just changed out of his school uniform.

While he learned his ABCs with Catholic sisters, she learned how to wash the mountains of clothes that gave their family work, but not a living wage. While he was mastering the Zambian National Anthem,  she was mastering the latest pop song from the slurred words of a neighbor drinking a fermented corn drink at the local one room pub. While he learned the days of the week, she learned that more people in the market on Mondays and Fridays meant more people to ask for money. While one had a round belly from plenty of nshima and relish, the other had a round belly from malnutrition. While he walked home with notebooks in his backpack, she walked home with her baby sister on her back, exhausted from being left to care for her all day.

But in that beautiful, muddy moment they stood the same, equal distances from each other’s front door. The open area between their homes was their playground, their meeting place…common ground.

Game on!

They splashed in puddles. They pulled their toy cars made out of paper alcoholic beverage containers. They jumped into the garbage pit behind the nearby school, painted blue, to scavenge for playthings. They chased each other through the big boys playing football. They told each other secrets as the woman in a brightly colored chitenge passed, muscles flexed, holding water on her head. They belted out songs about Jesus as they lay in the dirt, drawing pictures with sticks. They chased the chickens around his house and then they chased the chickens around her house. They joined a circle game with other children, holding hands, running, and chanting at the top of their lungs. They stood back to back to see who was taller, each stretching onto their tippy-toes, chins to the sky.

But it was no use.

They were the same.

Until the call…always from his big sister. She shouted his name, telling him to return home. He waved to her and turned to run.

It had gotten dark, but there was enough light to watch him bound the fifty yards into his sister’s waiting arms. A big wind whipped the unraveling hem of her dress and she felt a chill as she heard his wooden door slam. A soft thundering in the distance couldn’t cover up the rumbling in her stomach. Kicking stones as she walked, she returned home.

Nothing waited for her there. Her parents hadn’t paid the electric bills in months so she rummaged around to find a match and candle. With this slight illumination, she could see the charcoal brazier cold and unused. The table was empty, the cupboards bare as can be. Standing in her front doorway, she looked down the street filled with tiny snack shops and makeshift hair salons, looking for the familiar image of a woman walking with her wash. There was no sign of her mother.

Needing something to pass the time she wandered back to her playground, this time alone. A mangy-looking dog, who obviously had already had her share of pups, growled from the corner by the bore hole and water spicket. Wanting to get out its way, she kept walking until she found herself in front of a wooden door. His door.

She tip-toed toward it until her nose rested right in that miniscule channel between door and doorframe. Odors of Nshima, the Zambian staple food, and salty, oily, green relish wafted her way. And what else? She sniffed. Chicken. Definitely a nice plump village chicken, usually only saved for special occasions and holidays.

She heard an “amen”, and then the rush of water into a metal bowl, washing the hands of his family. Then there was the scraping of plates, picked up and passed around the table. She heard the clank of metal lids uncovering the delicacies within the tin dishes. She closed her eyes and started stroking the fingers of her right hand onto her palm, the familiar motion used to roll nshima in one’s hand before taking a bite. Hearty laughter from within woke her from her dream, causing her to jump and hit her head on the doorknob.

With one hand rubbing the newly sore spot on her skull, she cleared her throat and yelled in her high-pitched voice, “Odi!” This was the greeting yelled at Zambian entrances, asking for permission to enter. Again, she cried, louder this time, “ODI!”

The chatter from within hushed before his mother answered her, “Yeo!”

Slowly the door creaked and she stepped into the hallway lit up from the excess light of the nearby dining room. Pulling the green, fake silk curtain hung in the doorway, she immediately fell on her kneels before the wooden table. Six well-fed people stared back. Her eyes barely reached over the big piece of furniture, but her eyes still met his.

This, too, was a meeting place, but instead of hand in hand, she was knee to ground and he was raised above her on the comfy chair at the head of the table. Her mouth asked his mother for two kwatha, the equivalent of 30 cents, but her eyes stayed locked on his. They stared into each other eyes, remembering the warmth of the other’s hand and the cool of the mud on their toes. They used same eyes as before, but this time their places had changed. She waited expectantly.

Explanatory Note: This is a work of fiction inspired by my life here in Zambia.

Every few months or so a neighbor girl, whose mother helps wash our family’s clothes, knocks on our door at dinnertime. She kneels down in front of our table heaped with food and asks for money. When it happened this week, it struck me that this girl had just been playing with my host-brother a few hours ago. A short time ago they were just children, equal children, having fun outside. Then at dinnertime there was shift. He went to a table filled with food. She went to beg. I wonder how this makes each of them feel. How does it feel to come beg at your friend’s dinner table? How does it feel to be swallowing food but seeing your friend at her knees? Poverty is all around Zambia and the compounds, but I’m also struck by the interconnection of people at various levels of financial security. Those children coming from families that are doing pretty well—relatively no food insecurity, have bigger houses, even nice televisions—play in the same spaces and wear the same type of play clothes as the children coming from families who are living dangerously on the edge of survival. I imagine this type of close relationship to have its pain in apparent and felt inequality between friends (ie. episodes of begging at a dinner table). And yet, I wonder what transformation can come from these relationships. I wonder if affluent people might share more if they had children knocking on their door at dinnertime. Would it inspire sharing, community organizing and social change if our childhood friends weren’t just from our own economic sector of society, but included people from all sorts of backgrounds?