One adventure I had was my experience in Africa. I went with the program Mothers Without Borders. It was absolutely... hm, what is the word I'm looking for... amazing, difficult, exhausting, draining, miraculous, eyeopening.... Yeah, eyeopening would be my word of choice. It was absolutely eyeopening.
I left the day after my high school graduation, missing a senior trip to Hawaii, all expenses paid with my favorite girlfriends. My purpose in going to Africa was to do a humanitarian service project for, no, not 2 weeks or something, 3 months! I had no idea what was coming. I just wanted bragging rights that I got to go to Africa, the most exotic place on earth....
Shell shocked, culture shocked, shocked in any way you can be is the best way to put it. I lived in the Philippines when I was young and saw dreadful things there but this was a whole new experience. Not one white person. Not one. The program director there picked me up from the airport and took me to headquarters I'm sure it was one of the nicest places in the whole country at least the top 5%, okay 1%. Here it would be ranked in the low, lower class.
We stayed there for a day or two acclimating and just when I was getting somewhat comfortable they told me that I needed to get to the farm and start my service. Um... hello! Wasn't I already doing that? Aren't I already here? I mean living in a sub par house was enough of a service, right? No, it's not.
Off to the farm we went. Now, the farm was about 6 miles outside of the city. Down a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, I mean, Africa. My group consisted of Me, my friend Maren, Amy and Heidi- sisters from somewhere around the Logan area, and the directors two daughters.
Can I just mention that we were the very first group to go. We were the guinea pigs. We had no idea what to do and neither did the directors really.
Okay, sorry, back to the farm. Middle of nowhere, down a dirt road, farmland. When we arrived in the van and 12 children came bolting toward us. The first thing they did was start playing with my hair. it is blond and they had never seen blond hair before. They were stroking my white skin too.
There was the cutest couple Faith and George who didn't have any children of their own but adopted 12 children through this program. Faith and George also ran the farm. There was Laston, a worker who helped manage the farm, I bet he was 20, and, last but not least, there was "grandma". She spoke no English at all and I still have no idea where she came from, who she was actually related too or how she ended up at the farm. She was in her 50's but looked like she was 90 year old. It is rare to see older people in Africa. In fact "grandma" was the oldest person I saw.
Here are some statistics that might help you realize the severity of Africa's situation:
- More than 36 million children under 15 are orphaned in Sub-Saharan Africa today.
- Every 14 seconds, a child is orphaned as a result of AIDS.
- It is feared that there may be more than 80 million orphans in India and Asia
It is hard to give or receive love because death is so constant. You can't get close to anyone because it hurts when they do leave. The younger children were very physical because they were never held, or sang to or loved because they are orphans. The older kids were more stand offish but you could tell they longed to be loved. Most children in Africa have zero direction. Zero help. They just need to figure out how to survive as best they can. I think that is why they literally ran to us as soon as we arrived. The whole three months I was there there was always a child in my arms.
We lived at the farm. Everything we ate, we grew ourselves or killed ourselves. Each meal was the same except we got to eat different proteins every once in awhile. The plates were divided into three sections. The large section had n'shima, that is corn starch, water and salt. It is mixed up over an open fire until it thickens and hardens. It tastes as good as it sounds. The first week I could hardly swallow it. once you can't stand it any longer you start eating it out of necessity instead of pleasure.
Section two was always cabbage. We cut the cabbage extremely thin so one cabbage could feed all 22 of us and sautéed it with tomatoes to give it a little flavor and salt. We could only have one cabbage per meal, or 2 per day because we would run out of it if not.
The last section was a protein of some sort. This ranged from pinto beans to dried sardines that had zero meat on them, it was like eating dried skin and bones of a fish. We had black mopane worms that are thick, black worms that have a tar-like goop inside of them that you suck out (I'm not lying, this is a real thing). If we were lucky we got chicken but again, we would get 2 chickens between the 22 of us so it was seriously like one bite. And we had to kill it ourselves, pluck it, wash it, etc... after the first few times I actually enjoyed doing it because I knew we would get to eat chicken!!! Sorry, that is the truth. Once we got beef and it was a miracle. One bite of course, but, I savored that bite for days.
The farm did have running water. It was freezing cold unlike our neighbors who had to collect water from wells. We all got to bathe 1 to 2 times per week. We all shared the water. Luckily, they let us go first a lot of the time. On days we didn't shower we stayed clean with the 3 gallon hand sanitizer jug I brought from the US. Every night we would lather ourselves in it. So sue me.
I remember one day, I had been there about 2 months, I couldn't take it, I broke down and needed a bath - by myself - with my own water. I boiled 2 huge pans full of water so I could take a nice somewhat not freezing bath and get clean for once. I got a little tea candle poured the boiling water into the freezing water tub, turned off the lights, lit the candle and just relaxed for about 10 minutes. It was so wonderful to feel clean.
The light was super dim and when I opened my eyes I could see something moving in the water. I reached my arm up and flipped on the light. The whole surface of the water was swarming with a thick layer of live bugs stuck on the surface of the water. I jumped out and the bugs got stuck on my wet body. I was screaming obviously. My mom, Faith, ran to the door and was yelling, don't turn off the lights!!! I wish I would have known that prior to my one chance at a relaxing, clean moment.
I guess the bugs were attracted to the candlelight and the humidity of the water pulled them toward the surface. Yeah, it was a nightmare.
So, when I arrived in Africa it took me 3 weeks to connect to my family back home. Mind you, I was 18 and was born and raised in Park City, Utah in a beautiful home with unlimited food on the table, clothes in my dresser, money in the bank. When I did get to talk with my mom she wasn't even nervous. She knew I was fine. What the Hell!? I wasn't fine. This was like the whirlwind of my life people. Dirty, starving, heartbroken, devastated, tired...exhausted, sunburned, etc. She just laughed and told me it would be fine. I wonder if she would be as lighthearted if she had actually been in my position. I wish I just wouldn't have called her the whole time to make her wonder about me until she was so nervous she would have to just come and rescue me herself. The truth is, if I hadn't called her, I'm sure she still wouldn't have been nervous. Ugh.
Our neighbors caught a gang stealing crops from their land. The punishment for theft is cutting off their hand, so that is what they did. The gang member returned to his gang. So to get back at our neighbors the gang lit the whole crop on fire. I know, right? Can't we just resolve our issues a better way here? Destroying a crop is like killing someone slowly and miserably. If the farm doesn't produce then they starve.
Well our farm and their farm touch. When the gang lit the crop on fire, the neighbors knew that they might try to destroy the crop so they set up fire breaks throughout their property, we didn't. The wind was blowing pretty hard and the fire was coming straight for our farm.
Around midnight, Laston woke me and the other girls up to come help put the fire out. They gave us rubber boots... um, worse decision ever... handkerchiefs to wrap around our faces to block the smoke and flames, and huge branches full of leaves. Those were the only 3 things we were equipped with against a flaming fire that was out of control.
So, yeah, it was terrifying but, absolutely necessary we all help to get it out. I mean, if we didn't, we would all die. I'm serious here. Sometimes in life our natural cave women instincts take over and you just do what you have to do, like killing a chicken or putting out a ginormous fire with a branch.
So our plan was to create a fire break on our land so when the fire hit it would reach the break and die out. So we started a fire. I don't know why but it just seemed like a terrible idea. Plus, I'm sorry but the team you have is Laston, the couple, grandma and a bunch of crazy American girls who have no idea what they were doing!!!!! I mean, our options were slim anyway so I guess we did the best with what we have. The short version of this story is that the neighbors fire died when it hit all of his firebreaks that we had no idea about, again something I wish we would have known, and our fire, the one that we started thinking it was a good idea, quickly went berserk and fast.
At one point I was stuck in a huge thorn bush with thorns that were the size of my fingers. The fire started to surround me, I was literally ripping my clothes off to escape the thrones, was praying like crazy, thinking that this was actually an epic way to die and singing the national anthem all simultaneously.
Laston literally charged at me, rammed me out of the bush and onto the ground like a ram, like a real, live ram and saved my life. And I had no clothes on.
One day we went into town and got ingredients for sugar cookies. We came back, made sugar cookies and the children freaked out! They had never tried sugar, let alone anything other than what we grew or killed on the farm. Nothing! I was bawling as the children tried them for the first time. I couldn't help but think that a sugar cookie could be so new to someone. Such a simple thing we take for granted.
Our weekly schedule was as follows:
Monday: School One
Tuesday: School Two
Wednesday: School One
Thursday: School Two
Friday: The Hospital
Saturday: Day off
Sunday: Day off
School One was about 3 miles from the house. We went there Monday's and Wednesday's. It was nice to get out and teach, see all the kids, serve and learn to love. We mainly taught AIDS awareness, math and gym. And when I say math, it was like 5+5 and 3-1, nothing crazy.
School Two was about the same but, it was 3.5 miles away. It was older kids so we were able to play tons of fun games and relate with them. One thing that broke my heart everyday was that most kids got one meal a day and that was at school. Most kids are orphans and have no home either, so school was one place they did belong. The meal they got was N'shema but watered down so it wasn't a thick mush cake thing, it was more like watered down oatmeal but watered down corn starch. Heartbreaking.
The hospital was insane. I mean, literally insane. There were only 2 incubators so they would rotate this children around. Every Friday morning when we arrived there would be a cloth bag full of babies that didn't make it through the night. This was the most devastating thing for me. I didn't understand why God would allow something like this to happen. If they didn't make it they didn't make it. 90% of the children in the hospital we served were orphans. With time I started to understand that the babies that didn't make it were the lucky ones. They were going to a better place while the strong ones, who pulled through, had a life of set backs waiting for them. Parentless, friendless, and just trying to survive.
Church on Sunday was an all day event. It took about 2 hours to get to church and 2 hours to get home since we all had to walk there. It was 5 miles away and the children would walk with us. We walked everywhere so it wasn't a big deal but, thinking about it now, holy crap! It was so stinking difficult. It was a sacrifice. We would take turns carrying the kids that were younger than 3. The rest had to walk along side us. The 12 kids were all different ages ranging from 12 to 1.
Driving around Zambia is interesting because you don't see older people walking around much, it's usually children and dogs roaming the streets. On the way into town from the farm there are miles and miles of dirt and rock mounds, unmarked graves. Death is just another thing they have to do. They have to eat, they have to sleep, they have to survive. They don't do much for pleasure. However with all of the death and "surviving" there is so much happiness. I rarely saw sad children. I wonder at times if they just don't know what they are missing. They have no idea what we have here. If they saw for one moment what they could have I wonder if they would be so happy. I tend to think they would.
The biggest lesson I learned in Africa was that money does not equal happiness. It has absolutely nothing to do with happiness. Happiness is a choice. It is choosing to look on the bright side of life. Choosing to be grateful for what you do have no matter how little it may be.
The last three weeks I was there, my Dad and little brother Sam came to do humanitarian work too. They spent their first week hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro! Amazing! The second week they spent doing humanitarian work with me on the farm helping to start the square foot gardening project. The last week we were able to all travel to Zimbabwe. We went to Victoria Falls and took a Cruise down the Zambezi river. We were able to tour around and go on a Safari as well! This is what I had in mind when I started out! Little did I know that this experience would shape my life.
(This is not my picture.)
One quick story before I end this super long blog post, While we were at the falls Sam, my dad, my friend Maren and I did the Bridge Swing. Yes, the bridge swing, that doesn't sound too dangerous or scary and the link shows it but 10 years ago when we did this it was way different! The ropes were way older and scarier and it was super ghetto.
Pretty much you jump off of this ledge, free fall for 5 seconds, but it seems like 5 days, and then the rope catches you and you swing across this huge ravine and they slowly lower you until you reach the bottom. Um... it was the scariest thing I have ever done. You can do it alone or with someone and I chose to go with Maren. She is fearless so as we are on the ledge and they are counting down 3... 2... I'm the kind of person who stays on the ledge and everyone has to count down like 500 times before I jump, like even off of the diving board, the lowest one. I'm a totally wuss. and ...1, I'm connected to Maren remember, she just goes for it! I totally get yanked down, I'm cussing the whole way down and my life again, passes before my eyes. Once the rope caught us, my crotch was literally ripped out of me as we start swinging through the air. The harness was so tight! I'm actually surprised I even got a cuss out since I could barely breath.
On our way home from Africa we stopped in England for a few days to sightsee and visit one of my dad's mates up in Gloucester. We went to see the crowned Jewels and I was disgusted that jewels were sitting in a glass case and we paid to see them while there are literally thousands of children hankering on the edge of death.
Coming home I was changed. It was hard to see my house, visit with family and eat normal food again. I felt guilty. I couldn't believe that God has blessed me so much. Who am I? Am I any different than the child in Africa on the street? No! I'm not. I am God's child and I can honor my fellow siblings who have less than nothing by serving others, being grateful for the things I have and choosing to be happy.
I hope we don't get so caught up in our 1st world problems that we forget our blessings!
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