Well, so much for recovering from jet lag

I can’t sleep. It’s – actually, I have no idea what time it is. For years now I’ve had this goofy rule where, once it gets past 11.30 or midnight wherever I am, I won’t look at a clock. I even turn my alarm clock away from me as I’m climbing in to bed every night just on the chance that at some point I’ll roll over and accidentally catch a glimpse of some ungodly hour flashing. I used to do that thing where I’d lie there twitching, my breath coming in long, determined sighs, calculating the hours I’d get if I fell asleep rightnow. But now, I don’t want to know how much sleep it is I’m not getting. I just want to pretend it’s as much as I need. I’m very serious about this. And very disciplined. So disciplined that even tho’ that little blinking digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner of my computer’s sys tray is rightnowatthisveryminute taunting me, daring me to take a peek, I am not looking at it. It could be 2.30 in the morning; it could be 4 - I have no idea.

I’m anxious, obviously. (Duh.) We went to the CRS (Catholic Relief Services) headquarters today so that I could meet some of the other folks with whom Chris and Amy and the rest of the IHV team work. They all knew who I was before I was even introduced. “Ah! Yes! You are Kay-tee,” they say, smiling warmly, shaking my hand with both of theirs. “You are Chris’s sister! We have been waiting for you.”

Waiting for me? No, that can’t be right. And yet it is. Seems word of my data analysis/database development experience has gotten around and not only does Chilonga have a job for me, but so does Mukinge. (They think they want me to build them a database. From scratch. In two weeks.) And after I come back, Herbie (the Chief of I-Forget-What-His-Title-Is-But-He’s-the-Big-Boss-In-Charge-of-Everyone-at-CRS) already has a plan for me. “You will go to Chilonga and then to Mukinge with Chris and Amy and then, after that,” he says authoritatively, “you will separate from them probably, yes? And you will help us with the monitoring and evaluations?” He smiles then. I think he must be laughing. I think it’s the look of abject terror on my face he finds so funny. “Yes. After that, you will separate from them and work here, maybe?”

Monitoring and evaluations (or M&E) is essentially the same as QA/QI work, or program evaluation, which (as I understand it) is measuring the efficacy or success of a program by analyzing data. It’s basically statistics. I sort of kind of have a limited, self-taught (read: huge-gaping-holes-in-my-knowledge-base) understanding of statistics from my time at the CU Foundation. Which, in Africa, of course means I’m an expert on the subject.

So that gnawing ache in my belly that’s keeping me from sleep tonight? Well, maybe it’s hunger (although I just went and made myself a sandwich which I think violates all the rules for overcoming jetlag because I probably – remember, I don’t look at the clock – was feeding myself right around East Coast dinner time), but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s this sudden fear of meeting the expectations that have been set for me. What if I’ve somehow misrepresented myself and the skills I have to offer? What if I can’t do what they’ve asked me? What if I not only can’t help them where they most need help but end up slowing down their work? What if, what if, what if…

I don’t know. And now I’m too tired to think much more about it. And it’s light outside now, which means it was probably closer to 4am when I started this than it was to 2. So I probably should try to get some sleep.

I think I may have a future as a career criminal

Well, I’m here. Finally. After nearly five months of anticipation and 26 hours of travel on three connecting flights over two days, we arrived in Lusaka around 8pm local time on Wednesday, January 3. I have to keep asking Chris and Amy what time it is, what day it is, because the last three have just sort of dissolved into one another. But we arrived in one piece, with all of our luggage, and – to our great astonishment – secured me a visitor’s visa good for three years, and all in less time than it takes ride the shuttle to concourse B at DIA. I should mention: Chris was here 8 months, as a resident and official employee of a governmentally-recognized relief organization, before securing his work permit. It’s now been over ten months, and Amy still hasn’t been granted hers (she’s on Chris’s as simply “wife” which, if you know Amy, is no small offense).

This is how things work in Africa, which is to say – sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t (but usually they don’t, I’m told). Maybe the immigration official was having a particularly good day that day. Or maybe they’ve changed the application process, or loosened the restrictions. Or maybe (insert conspiratorial nod here) it was the two crisp fifties I threw down. We’d heard from everyone that a visa (valid for 30 days) would cost $100, so – y’know - we just assumed.

So we got in line and when it came my turn and they asked me the purpose and length of my stay, we told them. “She must pay?” the agent said to my brother, who until this point was doing all my talking for me. She wasn’t really asking, but this is the way one makes a statement in Zambia.

“Oh! Right!” I say and hand her my $100.

She takes my money and, as she’s stamping my passport, says, “Ok. Three years.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, unsure of my ears. “I – three years?” I probe, over Chris and Amy’s murmured, sides-of-their-mouths pleas of “Take it! Just take it!”

“I give you three years visa,” she says again.

“I – um…ok,” I say uncertainly, taking my passport from her. I feel that strange mix of guilt and giddiness that comes with getting away with something you know you shouldn’t.

We round the corner to baggage claim and Chris and Amy are atwitter. “I don’t believe it!” Amy breathes. “That never happens!”

And my brother, shaking his head: “No. It really doesn’t.” And then: “Unless…” he says, theorizing. “Maybe it was the hundred bucks. Y’know, I never actually asked how much it costs. And she never said...” He shakes his head, waffles. “Nah, I’m sure it’s not -” (beat) “But, well, then again...” He shrugs. “Yeah, you might have just bribed your way in to Zambia, Kate.”

I am giddy and guilty all over again.

*****

I’m doing my best to soak it all up here – and by that I don’t just mean the humidity (did I mention it’s rainy season?), I mean the experience of this new, strange place I now inhabit – but it’s a trifle overwhelming. I want to take note of everything - every smell, every sound, every trick of this new, African light. But I have to keep reminding myself to be patient, that I don’t have to “get it” all today. Besides, I’m so frakkin’ pooped that everything just kind of blurs before me anyway. Literally. I’ve been struggling a bit with dizzy spells, doing that hips-low-feet-apart-to-keep-myself-from-swaying thing. And blinking. Like I’ve got a speck in my eye. Like maybe I can blink away the blur the way I do a fine piece of dust.

So far, though, this is what I’ve noticed: the glut of foot traffic on all of the roads, and the slow, purposeful walk of the thin-boned Africans; how much more at home Chris and Amy seem here than in America, even after only ten months; the way my drinking glass sweats – a fine, beady mist - the instant it’s filled (my drinking glasses never sweat in Colorado); the way my flippies fart on the rust-brown-colored parquet floors upstairs in the IHV house where we’re staying (it’s charcoal tile downstairs, but my flippies don’t fart downstairs); the ubiquitous uniformed guards at the gates of all the homes in the wealthy Lusaka neighborhood where the IHV house is; and the quiet, gentle way all Zambians seem to talk, so low you have to bend forward, shortening the distance between you - relinquishing the “personal space” we Americans covet so jealously - just to hear them. I feel awkward saying “what” and "excuse me" so many times; it seems impolite.

We went shopping today, for food for the weekend (we’ll shop again in a couple days for the food we’ll bring out to the bush). It was a little like being in an alternate universe, where the basic paradigm is the same (shopping center with a discount store, grocery store, cell phone store, coffee shop, etc…) but the details are different (instead of Target, it’s called Game; instead of Safeway it’s Spar or Shop-rite; instead of a Starbucks, there’s a Vasilis – or Vasillis, depending on which sign you read – Patisserie; instead of Verizon, it’s CellCity). Inside the Game store I felt like I did when I was at the dollar store I used to frequent in New Haven when I was in college. Not because of the prices (9 US dollars for a bottle of mouthwash??) but because you know how when you’re at the dollar store you know that what you’re looking at is still glass cleaner or a sponge or a bag of potato chips, but it’s not called Windex® or Scotch-Brite® or Lays®? It’s called, like, GlassoSpectaculo or Soak-‘Em-Ups or Chippy Crisps? It’s kind of like that. At Game (or at Spar or Shop-rite), you can still find many of the name brands familiar to us in America but, for the most part, it’s the Zambian (or, more accurately, South African – which is where most of what stocks the shelves comes from) version of soap or potato chips or orange juice that you see.

This, of course, is only in the city. In the bush, I imagine it will feel less like an “alternate” universe and more like a completely different world. We head out on Monday, incidentally. We go first to Chilonga, to the Chilonga Mission Hospital (also known as Our Lady’s Hospital), in the northwest province of Zambia; it’s about a seven-hour drive from Lusaka. We plan to be there about two weeks, which is about how long we plan to be at each of the bush hospitals we’ll be visiting for the first couple months we’re here. It’s still unclear exactly what it is we’ll be doing – Chris and Amy especially aren’t sure what each site will most need from them when they get there, but they figure they’ll be working in the clinics, evaluating the efficacy of the programs they helped to establish over the last year, and doing more teaching – but it looks like I may have my first assignment! Apparently, the folks at Chilonga have a new system for capturing patient data but as they’re still getting used to the idea of computers in general, they’re not sure how exactly this program works (or even how to do basic data entry). They’re hoping I’ll be able to make sense of it and then to train the user(s) in a way that allows them to maximize the use of it. Of course, this is all contingent on the hospital getting the computers, with the software installed, which we still haven't actually confirmed.

After Chilonga, it’s to Mukinge, which is on the opposite side of the country, in the Northeast province (a roughly 10-hour drive from Lusaka but about 15 from Chilonga). We have even less of an idea what we’ll be doing there, but Amy says it’s a site that employs many foreign nationals, so they’re accustomed to finding work for us. I may be cleaning out closets or organizing medical supplies in Mukinge, but – as with everything in Africa – we’ll figure it out when we get there.

Until then, I’ll be doing my best to recover from jet lag and take note of all that’s new around me. We won’t have any internet access in the bush, so unless I write again before we go, this maybe my last post for a while.

Picture 1: The driveway in to the complex where the IHV house is

Picture 2: Outside the IHV house

Picture 3: Foot traffic on Bishop Road, the nearest cross street to Sable, the road on which we live

Picture 4: Behind a lorry on Great North Road, heading out of the city

“Well. You’re gonna wanna rethink your shoe wardrobe.”

This was my brother’s advice when I first asked him what I should do to prepare for my impending six-month sojourn to Africa. Not that there’s all that much one can say that could actually “prepare” one for Africa, but I confess I was expecting something more along the lines of, say, a discourse on the geo-political ramifications of the tribal social construct and the attendant challenges facing white, middle-class Americans as they work to stem the tide of the African AIDS pandemic. After all, this has been his work for the last almost-year and, well, he went to Dartmouth.

But I’m sitting in my parents’ living room in Massachusetts, where I’ve spent the last nearly two weeks with my family, and though it’s been months since that conversation - and we’ve by now talked about more than just replacing my Manolos with Merrells (yeah, like I really have Manolo’s…or Merrells) - the fact that I’m leaving for Africa tomorrow - and for six months! – still hasn’t really sunk in.

For starters, it’s cold as f**k here. Not that we don’t get cold in Colorado. But Colorado cold is bright, sharp, quick; it stings and sets you in motion. Massachusetts cold is much more insidious. It’s damp and heavy and settles in your bones so permanently that even when it’s warm – as it actually was for a few days here – it still feels cold. This is not weather conducive to managing fibromyalgia - that goofy, annoying pain disorder I live with that some of you have heard me talk about (and look! now you know how to spell it!). I haven’t slept the night through since I got here twelve days ago and I ache from the top of my head to the tips of my toes; the joints in my shoulders and hips swell, my knees stiffen, my skin even hurts. I always forget how hard it is to come back here. I mean, there’s always the challenge of returning to your childhood home no longer a child and having to relate to your family (your-family-that-you-love-and-cherish-more-than-frigging-life-itself-and-for-whom-you-would-lie-down-in-traffic-just-watch-me-but-that-every-now-and-then-you-wonder-if-you-could-trade-in-but-only-for-a-little-while-i-swear) as the familiar strangers you now are. But the weather, man! Jeeminy Christmas! It will be worse in Africa, I’m sure. But at least – I tell myself – at least there it will be warm.

Anyhoo, so off I go to Africa. Tomorrow. (or, y’know, last week by the time most of you read this). And it still doesn’t seem real. I’ve gotten all of my shots, sublet my apartment, and purchased and packed my six-month supply of tampons (oh you laugh…), but I still can’t say that I feel ready. I never watched the films my brother ended up suggesting or made it through any of the books (although I am now finally reading Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and it’s friggin’ brilliant). But, shortly before I left Colorado, I did have a minor panic attack where I started to worry that IHV was going to administer some kind of entrance exam before they let me de-plane, so I printed off the MSN Encarta online encyclopedic entry for Zambia and did a little cramming: Location: South Central Africa; Capital City: Lusaka; Official Language: English (though collectively there are more than 70 African languages spoken); Currency: the kwacha; Government: Republic, with an elected president limited to two five-year terms; Climate: “Ummm…kind of like Colorado… (beat) Uh…I think,” I told someone in an exhausted delirium a couple days before I left (and then nodded my head vigorously in an attempt to demonstrate my authority on the subject). “Kind of like Colorado…?!” While I had a vague recollection of a cursory mention of high elevation in the Encarta entry (most of Zambia is high plateau with elevations between 3,500 and 4,500 feet), I was - clearly - talking out my ass. (Incidentally, the climate - for those of you interested - is considered “pleasantly subtropical.” The high elevation moderates the otherwise more extreme temperatures endured by other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Chris and Amy said the temperature hovered pretty consistently at 95-105 degrees in October and November - even at night - which they say are generally the hottest months; but Encarta claims January is the hottest month, so who knows what I should expect when I get there – oh, except rain. November to April is the rainy season, so there’ll definitely be a lot of rain).

I’ve been asked more than a few times if I’m scared. My answer, of course, is “Um, have you met me?” I’m terrified. But not of Africa. I don’t know enough to be scared of Africa. Outside of those few superficial facts detailed above (the currency, the climate, the capital city…), it remains a complete, dark mystery to me. Neither have I any clue what it is I’ll be doing when I get there (hopping from bush hospital to bush hospital with Chris and Amy? working for IHV in Lusaka as the in-country admin? training the office administrator in Malawi? some combination of the above?). Accordingly, I have no idea what it is I should fear. Sure, I worry a little about getting sick; and I worry a lot about violating social mores and inadvertently offending the people (and, consequently, embarrassing my brother and IHV). But most of what I fear has nothing to do with Africa and everything to do with me - I worry about the community I’m leaving behind, what I’ll miss out on by going, whether or not I’ll even be missed. And my biggest fear of all? My biggest fear is that I’ll return in six months (or seven, or however long I end up staying) unchanged. So, of course, I’ve tried to anticipate the ways in which I will – or at least hope to.

“Ah, don’t do that to yourself!” my friend Tory told me. “You’ll go, and it will change you – how can it not? – but never in the ways you’d imagine. And more than likely in ways you won’t see for months or even years after you come back. So don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself.” I laughed, then. Because Tory’s a new friend. He has no idea yet the kind of pressure I can put on myself.

It sounds silly, I’m sure. It is impossible to know what to expect and therefore impossible to plan for it. But I’ve never been good at operating without a plan. I’ve never been comfortable making choices or taking action where the outcome is unknown. Historically, I’ve been what they call in the investment industry “risk averse” - I may dream big, but I often “do” small (or at least safe); more often I don’t do at all – I get paralyzed by indecision, by my fear of the unknown. I try to anticipate the outcome and usually can’t so I remain stuck. But, like my good, noble, kind, wise dad always says, “You gotta sh*t or get off the pot.”

So, tomorrow (in a few scant hours, actually) when I board the plane for Africa, I will – metaphorically speaking – for once in my life, "get off the pot." I can't promise that I'll be diligent about it, but I hope to document as much as I can using this web page. Please feel free to leave comments here or email me directly. And keep me in your thoughts. I may think I don't know enough to be scared about anything in Africa, but I'm sure by day three I'll be curled in a fetal ball begging Chris and Amy to send me home!