Tiyeni Tiimbe

I sing A LOT here in Zambia. My love of singing has been a great cultural bridge to get to know my community and to share myself with them. Sometime I just learn praise/gospel songs with a few guys in an empty classroom. Sometimes my sister will teach me songs while we are cooking dinner during power outages over the charcoal brazier. I am a member of Mighty Angels, the youth choir, and the Praise Team, which sings more contemporary gospel songs. Mighty Angels practices every Tuesday, Thursday, and most Saturdays. Praise Team sometimes practices on Friday and Saturday as well. That means only Monday and Wednesday are my days off from formal group singing.

A lot of the songs are in local languages. Luckily African language center on vowel sounds which is great for singing. Even though I can’t quite get the words down I can follow the general vowel sound and remember the tune so I blend right in with the choir. Unluckily for me, I’ve pretty much failed at learning the chinynaja language and this results in hours of my time every week mouthing words I don’t know and having NO IDEA what I or anyone else are saying.

Even when the songs are in English, I have trouble catching the words in a Zambian accent. The other week I asked a friend to confirm the lyrics and I was very surprised by his assertion.

“The words are: Jesus Christ, Breast Savior,” he said with a completely straight face.

“Breast Savior?” I repeated for confirmation.

“Yes, Breast Savior”” he verified with confidence.

I stood there for minute wondering if I had heard him correctly…Did he just say “breast?” What the heck is a Breast Savior? Is this some feminist Jesus I haven’t heard about before?

Then it clicked…The infamous L-R syndrome was at work here. Many Zambians have trouble hearing the difference between the L-sound and the R-sound and will easily confuse words like “rice” and “lice.” Mmmmm, I sure do love eating lice!

The words weren’t “Jesus Christ Breast Savior.” They were “Jesus Christ BLESSED Savior.” Ohhhhhh now I get it. And then I had a nice laugh.

Anyway, most of the songs are completely in vernacular. It takes constant effort to tune my ears to try to hear each consonant, and since I usually fail at that, I just focus on the vowels. Singing in vernacular is an interesting practice of relationship building and patience. It requires me to give up on understanding and just try to join and do.

There’s never time to learn the language from singing because I don’t want to interrupt formal practice time, nor prolong the already lengthy meetings. It’s not just a few words I’m fuzzy on. Explaining three verses of fours songs after singing for two hours usually seems like too much in the moment. So I’ve resigned to do my best to pronounce the best I can and relish in the community around me.

It takes a lot out of me to give up my control and understanding and attempt to match the mouths and movements of those around me. It takes a lot of concentration to try to remember what word comes next or guess by the shape of someone’s lips. It takes vigilance to make sure my arms and legs are moving in the right direction. It takes coordination to keep the dance step moving even as we move down the steps in the church hall. And it takes some serious fortitude to keep up the motivation to sing this much this often.

But I always muster the energy because my actions are an important symbol to myself and hopefully to those around me. Singing in my community is an act of camaraderie directed at the culture around me. Each time I get up to sing in front of the 80+ congregation I have no idea what song I will be singing or if I can remember the moves. I position myself in line with the sopranos as an act of faith, praying that I’ll remember enough and that my community will be forgiving of the misplaced dance move. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know it’s important that I do it. It’s important that I dance and sing with my Zambian friends. It’s important to learn to harmonize with humanity. It’s important to do things that are scary and out of your comfort zone. It’s important to give up on maintaining a flawless, perfect image. It’s important to let go and sing!

While I never know what I’m literally saying, I do know what I am personally saying. I am saying I care about this community and I want to be a part of it. I might not even agree with everything theologically coming out of my mouth, but this act of unity is more significant than any debate. The music coming from my soul is saying you are all my family and friends. Singing across cultures is an act of solidarity. I might not always understand you, but I’m with you.

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The Mighty Angels in uniform, after a CCAP competition

Teacher Mekelina

I got to tell Teacher Mekelina what I thought of her the first time we met when I visited her last week. I remembered her beautiful smile, with her gapped teeth. To me her smile communicated, “YES, I’m enjoying life! Want to join?” To a foreigner trying to gain footing in a new place, it was an invitation to let down my hair and live a little –Zambian style. Her warmth came from her eyes which told you instantly you were cared for. This was a woman of life, I thought.

After she passed away early in the morning this past Tuesday, I realized I can’t quite say that anymore. But my sentiments about my friend haven’t changed. Now I can say she was a woman of spirit. A joyful, loving, spirit of goodness.

Her death was a complete shock, despite my worries for her poor health. Her father had passed by the school the previous day and told me her health had improved greatly. She was walking! She was eating! “THANK GOD!” I thought. “I can stop worrying about her.” And so I did. For about thirty six hours, until the next morning when my sister stopped me in our hallway and told me she had some bad news.

“Teacher Mekelina is dead.”

First there was disbelief. No, she was doing better. No this was what I feared…it can’t be coming true. No, not dear, dear Teacher Mekelina.

Leaving my sister in the hallway, tea cup still in hand, I sobbed into the family’s workroom and kneeled by the window, looking up into the light as if praying.

There is so much injustice in my friend’s death. Teacher Mekelina just lost her mother a little over a month ago. All the family members at today’s funeral were all together burying someone else what feels just like yesterday. Teacher Mekelina is a mother of five. All of the pictures I have of her show her pregnant because her baby girl was just born this year. A woman should not be buried the same year she gives birth. A fiver year old, eight year old, twelve year old, and eighteen year old should not have to lose their mother. A husband shouldn’t have to bury his wife when she is only thirty-nine. A father shouldn’t have to bury his daughter mere months after burying his wife.

I wonder if Teacher Mekelina would have lived if she had gotten better health care. I wonder if we all relied on prayer too much in the end to recover her. I wonder what will become of her beautiful, beautiful children.

Life is precious and fragile all over the world. But you usually don’t realize it until tragedy strikes your own life. Americans can escape this privilege most of the time. That’s just not the case for Zambians. Poverty, poor health care, water and sanitation problems, HIV/AIDS and so much more result in a life marked by tragedy for Zambian’s. For me it’s resulted in a YAV year full of funerals.

My friend died this week and I am shaken and sad. I’m scared for what tragedy might be around the corner next. I’m scared to lose those I love. I’m scared.

But last night I arrived at the funeral house for the first time without a church or school entourage. It was just a grade nine student and myself. I was surprised to find Teacher Mekelina’s children walking around, no tears in their eyes, going about their business. I was surprised to find the woman seated on reed mats and mattresses inside calmly chatting and even bursting into occasional laughter.

The other times I visited a funeral house with big groups there was always a formal program of songs, speakers, and bible readings for the women seated inside. In turn the woman weep loud and forlorn. The scene quickly cuts to your heart. Honestly, it’s quite awful to experience. The tragedy of death is thick in the air and thick in your heart.

It makes sense, though, that the grieving family can’t live in that thickness for the three days the funeral lasts at the house. After the groups pay their respects, they dry their tears and visit with family and friends. They keep on. I finally got to see that part of the funeral house when I visited last night.

This week I saw my community confront death. They stared it in the face, wailing and weeping, feeling its sting. But then they dry their tears and take care of the five-month-old baby that still needs tending, to. They pick themselves up and call out a song as we drive home on the bus. They finish shoveling a mounded grave and then  get back to the market to make sure there is food on the table for their children. They go on.

I stuck a flower in my friend’s grave today. The dirt stained my hands. No matter how many times I tried brushing it off, my skin was a more Zambian shade after Teacher Mekelina touched my life. I wept with my teachers and students. I will miss Teacher Mekelina so much. But I too must go on.

Praying for the Sick

We had walked a mile or so, first on a main dirt road, almost dry after the rainy season, then winding past house after house through the unplanned compound. I still wasn’t quite sure whose house we were going. The older sister to a young woman in our CYF had collapsed outside the church the previous day and we had come to pray for her. The house was cramped, its walls lined with shelves and cupboards filled with the staple tin and ceramic dishes that every Zambian owns. The only light came from the sun shining through the door. In the darkness, I didn’t know where to sit. Luckily my friend gave up his seat, telling me to sit there; otherwise I had spied what looked to me to be an open spot, which invariably turned out to be the invalid laying down! Thank God I didn’t sit on her!

Our leader asked the mother what was wrong with our sister. I sat and listened to her speak in a local language, wondering what she could be saying. Then we sang some praise songs. Even eight months in, I’m surprised with songs I don’t know. After a few verses I can usually join in. Energy was rising. Voices were louder. Those sitting rocked back and forth a bit. Those standing marked time by stepping along with the music.

As far as I know, there’s no correct time to transition from song to intercessory prayer, but at some point people start talking to God while others continue the song. I still get surprised to find myself in a room where each person is speaking aloud, but not to each other. Their eyes are closed, bodies moving and gesturing.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I finally saw the motionless body lying opposite me. I didn’t know her condition, but there was something eerie and ominous about her stagnancy and I had visions of the worst.

As the voices lulled to quiet murmurs, a man got up and stood over the sick person and started shouting over her body.

“IN THE NAME OF JESUS RESTORE THIS VESSEL, OH JEHOVAH JIRAH. WE KNOW THIS IS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL, MIGHTY GOD. OH GOD OF HEALING, WE RENOUNCE ALL EVIL SPIRITS. WE RENOUNCE THE WORK OF SATAN. IN THE NAME OF JEEEESSSSSUS RESTORE THIS WOMAN, OUR SISTER, OH HOLY GOD, IN THE NAME OF JEESSSSUSS…”

The prayers finished, and she slowly sat up.

“Our prayers have been answered,” our leader said as he made his concluding and parting remarks.

On the walk home, I asked what the mother had said about the young woman’s condition. A man explained to me that the sickness had to do with the young woman being recently disowned by her uncle. She had been living with her uncle, but needed school fees for a post secondary school program. The uncle refused and didn’t even give the girl transport money to return to Chawama and her own mother.

“Counseling,” the man told me. “She needs counseling so she can understand that there are other ways to make money to get her degree. She could do piecework for a year to raise funds for school.”

To an American, a sickness and family or money problems are very separate entities. In an African context, they are related. Events, challenges, and disputes can result in physical ailments. The devil and witchcraft take hold of people’s physical bodies.

The next day, I finally went to visit a teacher that has been sick since January and recently lost her mother. She has been in the hospital for weeks, but no test showed anything wrong with her. And yet she remains weak, unable to walk or take much food and her chest remains congested.

I went with four other teachers. We found Teacher Mekelina’s kids, including her five-month-old daughter, playing outside the house. Her oldest daughter, probably around eighteen, was inside watching TV. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I was in this house, two months ago or so. Then I found Teacher Mekelina in that very room, sobbing and wailing at the loss of her mother. This time Teacher Mekelina was in the back room. She lay on a reed matt and a few blankets. Her chitenge couldn’t hide her skinny legs. I noticed she had lost a lot of weight.

But she still had a smile for us, with that beautiful gap in her front teeth. Her breathing was labored and you could hear the rasp in her voice.

Teacher Violet offered her words of comfort, “Whatever you do, don’t lose faith in God. God has a plan for everything and is in total control. Trust in him and he will make you well. Your sickness is the work of the devil, but you are not destined for sickness. Just wait in faith and God’s time will come. God’s time is the best.”

Then I told Teacher Mekelina that I remembered the first time I met her. I remembered her warm smile and laugh and cheerfulness. I remembered thinking—this woman is a woman of life.

And I’m still meditating on those thoughts. Teacher Mekelina is a gift of joy to this world. I am worried that an illness and the loss of her mother are keeping her from seeing how much she has to live for. I miss her presence at school and I ask for prayers from all over the world for the recovery of this mother and teacher and friend. She is a woman of life and her spirit spreads that life to those around her.

The family doesn’t plan to take her back to the hospital or clinic. They didn’t receive help there before, so they are convinced her ailment is simply the work of the devil. I am scared and worried for her and her family. But as we all ask her to have faith, I must have faith in her spirit to bring forth resilience and fight to live. I have faith in Teacher Mekelina.

As we finished our prayers and left the room, bugs scurried across the walls and around the cups on the end table. We passed her four daughters and nieces watching TV in the next room. Emma, in grade one, had finally stopped crying. She too has been sick lately.

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Yesterday, I finally visited UTH (University Teaching Hospital), the biggest and best hospital in all of Zambia. We were there to see Reverend Tembo’s Momma (Aunt) who has been sick for some time and in the hospital for a few weeks. She is seventy-seven years old and is suffering from heart failure and anemia. In the part of the hospital I visited there were no rooms, just wards—with six to ten people in each interconnected section. I noticed some people on mattresses on the floor. Reverend Tembo explained to me that there is so much congestion they have to put some patients on the floor. The disparities between American hospitals I’ve visited and this one hit me in the gut, taking the wind out of me, and silencing my mind in confusion about how inequality exists. If this isn’t fair, why hasn’t it changed?

I immediately got the sense that the section where Momma lay was full of seriously ill people. Some of the patients around her never opened their eyes. They were motionless and skinny. One woman to the left of Momma had bloodshot eyes that barely blinked and a tube down her throat. She was young and yet had a near-death look of fear and surprise on her face. Her breathing was fast and labored.

I couldn’t help but think of the one in ten Zambians living with HIV. I have no idea what was ailing this young woman, but I know AIDS can slowly take life from young people, making them look like the seventy-seven year old Momma in the bed next to her, but years too early for that young life.

Momma was quiet but alert in her bed, covered up with a fleece blanket decorated with dog prints. I greeted her for the first time, trying to convey as much compassion with my eyes, hoping that a random white person she never met before wasn’t going to be more distressing to her at this time. Her nieces and nephews surrounded her, but it seemed just breathing and lying there was all she could muster at the moment.

Then the sound of metal chains closing a curtain around the bed behind us reached my ears. The wailing started as I turned and saw some nurses dressed in blue, with white hats pinned to their heads, start covering a body with a brown fuzzy blanket I’ve seen in other people’s homes and at the market.

“They’ve passed on,” Reverend Tembo explained.

Someone just died behind me, I thought.

High-pitched sobs followed the bed as the nurses wheeled it out of the ward. It was actually a relief when I saw others staring at the scene like me. Showing deep emotion at death is expected in Zambian culture, but even to those around me this was tragic and startling. Someone just died behind me.

How quickly can life slip away? And yet life goes on. Patients fought on, despite seeing their comrade’s shell whisked away. A choir sang in the ward across the way. The grass was marvelously green outside, a rare sight in a dusty country. I was meeting Reverend Tembo’s younger sisters for the first time.

Reducing

The other day, I asked my host mom if there was anything interesting/challenging/surprising about my behavior living with the Tembo family in general. She said she was surprised by how easily I fit in. I’m just a part of everything, she said—even house chores and sleeping on the floor with the church communities. (And squatting over the same hole—my addition.) This made me smile. Her words affirmed my attempts at crossing cultures and showing Zambians I respect them and don’t put myself above them. But then she said something that broke my heart. She told me she was thankful that I was able to reduce myself to them.

Reduce myself.

It’s true that part of this year has been simple living, or living with less stuff. I’m not using a shower or a washing machine. The power goes out for even days at a time. Internet is expensive and sometimes slow. Many of the material things available to me in the States are not a part of my life. There has been a reduction of stuff in my life.

But when it comes to my very self and soul….when it comes to my friends and family and the people around me….I have been expanded, opened up, seen in new ways, and transformed into a new, more aware, more open person with a motivation for activism.

The phrase “reducing myself” just doesn’t cut it for what has happened to me here.

It was eye opening to realize my beautiful Zambian mother could think that me matching her day-to-day life here—her everyday experience—would be reducing myself. That insinuates that my white, privileged life is higher and worth more. That’s ingrained racism. Somehow views of American white privilege crept over and seeped into Zambia. My Zambian mother is a beautiful, strong woman who does chores in the morning, works full-time as a government schoolteacher and then works on the weekends doing the duties of the wife of a pastor. She’s superwoman. She can belt out a praise song and manages to support at least five dependent children, nieces, and nephews with her meager salary. She is self-assured and loves herself, and yet she still used that word “reducing.” My mother is confident I tell you.  I don’t want to insinuate that she or any Zambian I know is wallowing in self-pity. She doesn’t need me to know she is something. And yet when she put my identity in comparison to Zambians she used a word of hierarchical worth.

Multiple times my Zambian students and friends have blatantly told me they liked my skin color (white) or wished for it. That means they assign more worth to white skin.

I am not reflecting on these events to blame Zambians in anyway. I write these words so that white people can fully understand the results of white supremacy and however subtly or blatantly we perpetuate it. The result is people don’t see their own worth.

Try to think about this deeply for a moment. Cultural norms brought to us through movies, education, politics, stories, even religion make some people unconsciously think others are better than them. Culture tells us rich people are better. Culture tells us white people are better. Beautiful people are better. Men are better.

I’ve known this cultural dynamic for a while, but I usually come away from confronting this reality with the lesson that the rich, white, beautiful people shouldn’t be uppity or think too much of themselves. They are equal to everyone else. Can't we just be color blind?

Today I am very much aware of the opposite side of the coin. Those who don’t conform to the hetero-normative identity (those who are black, brown, poor, female, don’t see themselves as beautiful) actually can believe they are worth less than others.

So yeah… sort of a no-brainer revelation. Oppression keeps people down. Duh.

The revelation is that day-to-day here in Zambia I’m confronted with my whiteness and privilege. Day to day here I also see how beautiful Zambians are and how they have an inner light and motivation that is fighting for a better life. Day to day I am not reducing myself but trying to rise to meet them. I don’t want my friends and family and students here to think low of themselves for a single second. They are worthy. They are smart. They are powerful. I want them to know they have power to act and speak out. I want them to think they are beautiful. I want them to think that anyone should be able to sleep on the floor with them.  

But they might not always think these things. And that is an injustice. Not seeing your own worth is an injustice. More specifically, being kept from realizing your worth because of poverty and oppression is an injustice.

People who don’t fit the flashy cultural stereotypes of normal don’t always feel good about themselves. We need to change culture so people accept their difference as beautiful. We need to change ourselves so WE accept their difference as beautiful.

The world is too connected today for each and every one of us to NOT have a role in changing this. What we say out loud or on the internet, who we hang out with, what we eat, the clothes we wear, the stuff we buy, the jobs we have, the people we vote for, the causes we speak out for, the places you spend your time, who you donate to—ALL OF THIS MATTERS. We play a role in either oppressing or empowering others.

How we live our lives affects other people. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Whenever we read about or encounter a problem in this world we need to think about how our own decisions and actions contribute to that problem. Is everything your fault? Of course, not! But don’t act childish and pout in a corner and blame other people. Take responsibility for being a human and think about your own decisions. You can change personal actions.

Remember what my host mom said to me…that I’m reducing myself. My mother is a beautiful, worthy human being. She is a child of God. I can only rise to meet her.

How many people feel they aren’t worthy? How many think others are better than them?

We all do in some respect, in those moments of self-doubt. I believe that none of us are the sum of our actions or appearance. When we are born and breathe and our spirit comes alive, that spirit has automatic worth. To breath is to be worthy. To be alive is to deserve a chance.

A real chance necessitates that you see yourself as worthy of that chance. You must feel empowered. But all people don’t feel empowered in this world. And that’s a problem. People don’t realize they can change their lives. And some people have more challenges to climb to change their lives—that is the true injustice. 

Anyone who feels different can fall into this malicious trap. People feel different when they don’t fit in, when they don’t see themselves on TV shows, when they don’t see themselves in politicians, or when they can’t get the jobs or education they want. They feel different when their reality doesn’t fit affluent, white culture. They certainly feel different when they are stuck in poverty.

So feeling different is a culture issue, and we all contribute to this as creators and sustainers of culture globally and locally.

I’m not expecting us all to wake up one day and be the same. That would be impossible, and truly detrimental. I do hope, though, that one day people wake up and not feel that their difference is inferior or a reduction, or that someone else thinks so.

We can all help make a world that welcomes difference. We can all expand our visions of what is worthy and beautiful. We need to tell each other, too. We need to remind each other that we are worthy and beautiful people. Start with your friends and family. But they probably look just like you, so try to step out of your comfort zone and find someone who doesn’t look like you. Find someone who might be feeling different, who might feel they are bucking cultural norms and feel unworthy. Remind them they are worth every breath and every opportunity. Remind them to keep fighting for their right to be accepted. Accept them and fight for them, too.