First: let’s establish the basics so you can see what I see. Chimfunshi is quite far from “civilization”. Once you are here, you don’t leave unless it’s necessary due to the road conditions (see previous blog entry). This vast sanctuary runs on solar power, which means when it runs out each night (around 8pm) you rely on your headlamp, the stars, or a bonfire. There are no TVs, no radios, no distractions. The Internet is available, but not reliable or fast. Our hot water is heated by two wood burning stone fireplaces connected to the water pipes. The fires are started around 4pm each day, and if you want a hot shower, you must bathe according to that schedule. This has become tricky for me since I teach a class at 5:30PM (after the workers are done for the day) so I have to get in a quick shower before walking to the school. Hot showers in the morning are out of the question. The toilets are small outhouses, with no doors, and live behind each main house. You walk in to a concrete enclosure, turn a corner, and see a raised concrete seat with a plastic toilet top to sit on. A deep hole lies under you. There is no flusher, just a wooden sign on the window that you flip over, which reads “vacant” or “occupied” when you’re inside. Many people have already forgotten to turn the sign over, so asking before you enter is wise. Laundry is hand washed and line dried, with the line running from the back of each house towards the toilets.
I live in a house that contains only three bedrooms. Mine is the smallest, and it has two twin beds (soft mattresses on metal springs), a dresser, and a night stand. One lone light bulb lives in the ceiling. No one wastes precious electricity here so the bulb only burns when it has to. I sleep under mosquito netting and my bed has two wool blankets on it for the cold nights. It's like sleeping in a hammock as there is no boxspring. This may have contributed to my sleepless hours in the middle of the night.
The temperature fluctuates between extremes daily. You wake up, bundled, and it’s around 50. By mid-day it’s in the 80’s and you're stripping off your layers. By evening, the temps are dropping again and you wished you brought a hat. In the middle of the night if you should wake up to use the toilet, you can see your breath in clouds of mist before you. Because we’re in the middle of the dry season, the air is quite lacking of any moisture. This does no favors for my skin or hair, which is starting to look a bit like the Scarecrow’s and not terribly flattering. No one wears makeup (I find this such a relief). Trash is burned, and ants on your food in the morning are not considered an emergency.
There are two kitchens: one for the volunteers and one for the researchers/staff. However, the one refrigerator we all share is in the big kitchen for the volunteers (because there are generally more of them on grounds at one time). I’ve gotten used to walking between kitchens to grab what I need. Breakfast is over at 8:30 each morning, when the cleaning crews of local women begin their sweeping and mopping and scrubbing. No sleeping in, or you’ll have to wait to use the facilities until they’re done, which is closer to lunchtime. Lunch is usually on an individual basis and you catch what you can. Dinner is a group endeavor when we all meet up, in the dark, to discuss our day. Last night’s dinner event was a game changer, which I’ll get to…
The students: there is a two-room school building down the road and two Zambian teachers handle about 100 kids ranging in age from 4-14. Each classroom is equipped with desks, chairs, and a white board plus a chalkboard. There is ample room to play outside the school, which I often see kids doing. A school bus picks up the kids from distant compounds, and the others who live closer walk. They all wear uniforms.
In the evenings, after a day of working with the chimpanzees and doing other necessary jobs, the local adult employees attend English Literacy classes. That’s where I come in. The (male) chimp keepers, farm workers, and general maintenance employees all need English (and all seem to want it). Their ages range from early 20s on up. The average level of education they’ve received previously is around the 8th grade. What happens after that, and why no one has seemed to have continued school past the age of 14 is still a mystery to me: one I plan to solve soon.
The wives and mothers of these men are a different story. They don’t seem to have received the same level of education and some don’t have first language literacy (meaning, they can only speak Bemba, the local dialect, but cannot write it). This will pose a much greater challenge for me, but I intend to teach them as well. I’ve inquired about having a translator present for those classes, and since they’re free during the daytime, that is when I’ll begin their classes sometime next week.
Last night I taught my first Adult English Literacy class alone with a group of five men: two keepers, two general workers, and one son of two sanctuary employees (ages: 19, 23, 28, 40 & 41). It blew my mind. So eager to learn, we spent an hour discussing the differences between statements and questions in English and how to use a grammatical formula to remember how to construct each type of sentence. Their Zambian teachers were surprised that they seemed not to know this already, but I think having a class conducted 100% in English is throwing them off: in a good way. Since I cannot use Bemba as a crutch, they are forced to focus much harder on my words, and I have to slow my speech down quite a bit. But that’s part of the job. I had them up and about, writing on the board and reading aloud. There are pronunciation hurdles (in Bemba the letter “r” does not exist for example, so it’s very hard for them to say), and gaps in knowledge. We had a great time. They were laughing, thinking, questioning, and fully engaged. At the end of the class when I asked them how often they’d like to meet with me, there was a resounding “Every day Madame!” Holy heck I’ve got my work cut out for me. I compromised with a 6 nights a week schedule as I'll be teaching other classes at other times for other workers, and very quickly be much busier than I am now.
I walked home from that class elated. Yesterday had been a rough one, but teaching always pulls me out of any funk. I encountered my first major culture clash moment earlier when the workers had climbed my roof to remove the bats that were calling it home (and defecating inside my bedroom). We’d asked for them to be relocated. However, that request was lost in translation. I came out of the Education Center (pictured in this post) to see two men on my roof and three women (researchers and staff) on the ground, frantically picking up small dark objects with sticks. The men were flicking the bats from their slumber onto the concrete below: killing most of them. Some died on impact. Others broke a wing and were trying desperately to escape. There were over twenty of these poor creatures littered all over the ground and the sanctuary dogs were having a field day picking them up in their teeth. The panic in the eyes of my fellow colleagues was evident. Since I had not received my rabies shots before departure (too expensive), I stayed away, watching in horror. We tried to tell the workers that we didn’t want the bats dead, just moved. They didn’t understand.
Bats poured from the sky and slammed to their hard fatal demise (Hani: if you’re reading this, I so wished you were there for help). It was awful. Eventually, we rounded up two groups of bat bodies: the ones that were still, and the ones still moving. The dead (or unconscious) bats had to be burned so as not to tempt the dogs. The moving bats we put in a box up high in a tree in case they could eventually fly away on their own. There were a few that were alive, but with little chance of survival covered in blood and clearly in distress. Those we had to kill before we set them on fire. Again, I stayed back, helping to transport the dead bats, but not getting near the ones who could possibly bite me. One of the researchers, a vegetarian from Germany, had the task of bludgeoning the badly injured ones to death as we figured death by burning would be worse than the suffering they were clearly enduring. All three of us shed tears as she pummeled them until they were still. Poor, tiny creatures. They did not deserve this. Bats are intelligent, useful animals and I never wanted to see them end up this way. All because the men brave enough to climb up to my roof to help a girl out from possibly ingesting feces didn’t understand English. Reason #1,876 why I’m here doing this work.
The rest of the afternoon I couldn’t forget about those tiny fractured bodies and how that whole situation could have gone so much differently had we had a translator present. Severe culture shock set in and I flopped onto my bed, unwilling to get up until I had to. This was the angry phase of culture shock when I realized how good I had it in Indonesia: my sleek black motorcycle to ride away from home and/or work at a moment’s notice; the city I was living in and all the amenities it offered; the ability to come and go as I pleased. I was spoiled rotten and had no idea. In fact, I recall being resentful then too. What an idiot. What a spoiled American fool I was.
I mustered enough effort to get myself together for my evening class and do my job. By the end of class, I had forgotten all about my pity party and was propelled by the energy and joy they gave me. Their gratitude was an elixir. I was so lucky to be here and hadn’t I worked hard for this chance? I almost wept with thanks, but instead just grinned up at the twinkly stars. Note to reader: this blogger cries a lot because the alternative is much worse. Deal with it.
I returned to the base with glee and met new visitors who had just arrived, plus the usual humans I see daily. A bonfire was scheduled for that evening, and everyone was grilling meats, veggies, and drinking wine and beer over a huge grilling station. WINE. AND. BEER. I had clearly arrived in heaven. Where did they get this beautiful liquid substance? Generous individuals offered me glasses of red wine and we sat down to a delicious dinner of steak, corn on the cob, and sweet potatoes: all cooked to decadent perfection. The volunteers, new arrivals (tourists), and staff sat around a roaring bonfire, full and happy. Music played while stories were told. Those circled around the blaze were from Australia, America, France, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, South Africa, and Zambia. Languages were spoken (Icelandic RULES) and jokes were cracked. I stayed up late and slept through the night. The whole night.
My last tidbit comes from the Zambian man who I met before the bonfire. He’s not an employee, but a traveler, at Chimfunshi as a tourist. He asked me how I liked my stay so far. I replied the hardest part was getting used to having zero distractions and living without instant gratification. No lightning fast Internet playing videos of Amy Schumer or previews of upcoming attractions or things to dream of buying online. No ordering out from my favorite Thai place. No going to a bar ten minutes away with friends or having to figure out what kind of shoes to wear. He watched me with a smile, paused, and asked: “You don’t need all that stuff anyway though, right? Isn’t it good to be without it?”
When you have bonfires, eager students, wine, and new friends from all over the world: indeed it is.
PHOTO DESCRIPTIONS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
-my little house
-the gondola in the center of the "base" where people eat and gather. The "base" = the Education Center, Gift Shop, bathrooms, kitchens, and housing (for staff, volunteers, researchers, etc.)
-a section of the base
-Education Centre sign
-Gift Shop (with solar panels to the left)
-my makeshift "office" located in the Education Center
-one of the toilets
-my bed
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