Last Day

Today was my final day in Africa. This morning was one of those beautiful unexpected mornings that unfold themselves into perfection; better than anything you could have planned. I knew we were going to the orphanage. I had arranged it with James, a lab tech at Chreso who runs the orphanage out of his house. He started taking in neighborhood children as their parents were dying, and getting donations from whites to feed them. He now has two staff and they are building a house for the children that is almost complete. Kevin and I had a difficult conversation the night before, and were still not knowing what to say to each other, and we were nearly half asleep as we drove over. James and another man were waiting at the church on the corner of Kalingalinga to drive us over. There are no street signs here so you are dependent on people and landmarks. We were late and I felt bad to keep them waiting. We arrived at the house and all the children were sitting on a big straw mat under the shade. If you saw their smiles you would take home bundles of them, I promise you. It breaks whatever is left of your heart. Maybe that’s why you don’t want to leave Africa, your heart is here, broken into a thousand pieces and there’s no way to put it back together to take it home with you. You’ll never have the same heart again.
I introduced us to another man who greeted us when we arrived, a teacher from the local school. Today he was there helping enroll one of the children for school in January. I introduced us as "Laur-ren and Kel-vin" and followed them into the living room. We are very familiar with these sort of introductions now. I’ll teach you all the secret handshake that means,"You and I are equals" and the other one that says, "I respect you" when I get home. They gave us a tour of the home, the kitchen, the room inside for the very young ones, and the outside room with bunkbeds for the older ones. Though by older I mean 10-13. Oh the children! You’d just die if you met them. I asked James what he thought I should do after the introductions and tour. Should I work on the children one on one? Have them do the techniques on each other? Where should we go? Can they speak English? They were just standing their looking at me. So I improvised, though I’d done this over and over again, every time it felt a little new. I got down on my knees, and I had them sit down and we started tapping. You can see the pictures. It was so fun and rewarding, and though they were putting their hands in the wrong places and making mistakes, I had to trust that the intention was there and the balancing would take place. It would have taken me over 2 hours to work on them individually. They were so cute. And all the adults present, including James’ wife, did the techniques with us, all the while the teacher was translating into N’anja so the little ones could understand. Again I had to decide what to say in very few words, with just seconds to think what they would understand. But it worked, and I had a lovely time. Again I could never have done this without Robb getting me into Chreso. Without medical approval, everything I do would be dismissed as traditional, superstitious, or worse, witchcraft.
After BodyTalk Access I pulled Kevin into the circle and we dumped out bags of pencils, paper, stickers, accessories and candy. The children were shy at first, but Kevin went to work making animals out of trash (he’s very good at this) and we were teaching them to sharpen pencils, and encouraging them to draw and play with these fun worksheets we brought. The adults stood around, and eventually we moved into the shade as the children got going. The stickers turned into body art, and the hairties into bracelets, and the trash into bracelets (really, why waste anything?) and eventually the English they did know came out as we worked on naming animals and the days of the week and sucked on strawberry candies. It was so fun. I could have stayed all day, but it was lunchtime, and we got a call it was time to go with Robb to immigration, so we sadly left. It killed me to leave right as they opened up to us. This is what Kevin told me Africa is used to. White people coming in, becoming their friend, and then disappearing, never to return. In a society based on relationships, this is confusing and sad. Things only really start to happen when you’ve been with a group of people for a week and a half to two weeks. That is my observation, of course. So we left, and drove out through the brown neighborhood, with red cell phone booths, and bits of green trees, and beautiful black faces, and purple and yellow shetenges blowing in the breeze and drying in the sun.
By the way, if anyone would like to donate money to one of the orphanages I visited, I will add in USD account information to this site in a few days. This money will go directly to food and shelter for the children.
Later that afternoon I went to Chreso to say goodbye to everyone I had worked with. Everyone was tired, because they only had Sunday off, since they worked at events all day Saturday for World AIDS Day. I met with Ester, to say goodbye, and confirm the BodyTalk Access training we will do for the nurses in July. I’ll have to get some advice from Robb on how to fund my next trip. I don’t know if Chreso can provide anything, but hopefully I can at least get some housing and get them to pay for the manuals. We’ll see. It’s so tricky in an area where their money is worthless in the world market, and your earning power is enormous in comparison. You might as well just pay for everything yourself, but then, when things are free to those who are working, and can afford to pay something, there’s no value placed in your work. I’ll have to think more about this. It was exciting to confirm things with her, but yet, I don’t want to get too excited until it all really happens. Their new location in Livingstone will be open when I get back, so we confirmed I will do a training there as well. The Falls will be full then, and it will be winter then, and nice and cool. Anyone itching to go to Africa?
After that we went by immigration, and after being rerouted to another immigration office, we were reminded of the pros and cons of the Zambian government. Few have the right information, and there’s no confirmation that anything will work, but their kindness combined with sometimes loose government regulation enables the impossible to happen, and other time consuming tasks to take mere seconds. You never know what you’ll get here. You surrender to the adventure, to who you’ll meet in line, where you’ll go, how you’ll spend your day. It’s all apart of the adventure of life.
Following our adventures in immigration, Kevin, Charlie and I followed Robb over to CRS where we helped organize a storage closet. It was a mess, and there were boxes of medication that had gone to waste because they weren’t refrigerated or they had expired. Even in areas where waste seems inconceivable with all the need, it is there. I was glad to help Robb with the project since he had done so much for me. That evening I packed and the household that had grown to number six, made a lovely dinner for my last night, with steak and wine and ice cream. It was very nice. When you’re with personalities that naturally lack warmth and emotional connection, you have to read their actions and acts of service, to know how they feel. Kevin who had been unfriendly and distant the last week, was open and friendly again. He blames the stress of being in Macha on his poor attitude this last week. Humans are complex and hard to understand. Honesty really is the best, even when it feels difficult and inconvenient. I hope I’ve learned this lesson this time around. There’s a very visible light behind his eyes again, and he made me a cd, which again, his is way of showing friendship and warmth.
I sat outside after dinner, and took in one last breath of evening air, ripe with mango and rain and sage and dust. Then hurried in to escape the mosquitoes who had rushed in to say their final fairwell. "I’ll be back" I told them, "I’ve only just begun." And I climbed the stairs, turned out the lights and lay in bed waiting to dream of Africa.