Bush Routines

Every morning they sweep the whole compound...

Bamaaya (mother) washing dishes

Chimbusu (pit toilet) and bathing hut (right)

Bataata (father), Eunice and Phades (sisters)

My Hut during training..

Sisters

My sister said I could only carry one jug....

Phades.. Three jugs of water!

Sunday Morning breakfast... July 2014

Home Sweet Home

I'm getting used to the routines here in suburbia Zambia. The chickens running around the compound when I first get up, the cat begging for my breakfast each morning (and me sneaking the leftover of my boiled egg to him), the pieces of thatch that randomly fall from my roof in the middle of the night, my sisters cooking at the fire when I come home each evening, the boys yelling at the cows as they haul water back on the ox cart each afternoon, the songs coming from the darkness each night, and OH the stars!
I'm getting used to squatting; squatting to use a hole for a toilet, squatting to bathe, squatting to cook, squatting to write on the lowest part of the chalkboard (in a dress), squatting to repair my bicycle, and so on. The routines around here are mostly predictable but then again there is what I like to call ZamCulture and you never know who will join you by the fire at night, or stop by to ask for some veggies, or delay your path to talk for a while.
Even things like ducking to enter any enclosure have become routine habits. And the sweeping; my favorite exercise in futility! No matter how much you sweep there is more dirt/ thatch/ or bugs 5 minutes later, it doesn't matter if it is inside or outside.
These routines become common place, they become life- and at a surprisingly quick rate. I find that on those rare, still, and quiet nights when there are no jubilent songs drifting through the night air that the day somehow feels incomplete. Even as I write this I smile at the songs of the drunk man outside. It may not be as pretty as the normal hyms I hear but the music of the night has become routine and even the songs of the drunk are part of this crazy routine here in Zambia that I like to call life.