Saturday, March 15, 2014

On the Nature of Humans...

Hello hello!  I am writing as I visit the provincial house after a few weeks back in the village.  Things have been busy, both positive and challenging in nature.  Our Nachibanga Health Post is being built quickly, which is wonderful to see.  However, I have learned through talking with many villagers about who is working hard and who is not.  One of our builders, the quiet younger builder, has been working nearly every day from sunrise to sunset.  The other builder (the one who was supposed to be "leading" the project) has barely been working at all, and makes constant excuses as to why he cannot show up for work.  He speaks down to people (and if we were in America the way in which he speaks to women would not be tolerated) and is incredibly negative.  We are running low on funds for the project (we are nearly out of cement), and we don't have enough to waste on paying a builder who is doing nothing.  I decided yesterday with some committee members that this builder needs to be fired.

But in Zambia, firing someone is not a clear-cut process.  Everyone is connected and related in some way, and I need to be careful.  I will have a meeting with the headmen and project committee to discuss the issue, which is going to be difficult as many underlying feelings will come up in the process.  At the end of the meeting, I will tell the headmen and committee that they need to call the builder and let him go, as this project is theirs.  I know that I am a very sensitive person, and I need to try my best to not get caught up in the feelings that will inevitably ensue.  This will be a big test of strength and personal growth, but I know that it is the right thing to do.  I cannot allow someone to take money from this project, which is going to benefit thousands of rural villagers. I also cannot pay two builders equally if only one is doing the work.

I have realized some important things in this process.  To trust people is a scary thing, but we do it because we need to.  We are all connected and need to rely on others to survive.  I personally trust because I believe that at our core, we as humans are inherently good.  However, everyone has different motivations for their actions.  Whether it is for survival, for love, for ego, for greed, we make choices in how we relate with others.  Some form mostly negative relationships, and many form positive ones.  As we get older, we hone our abilities to connect with like-minded people, people with similar spirits and motivations, but sometimes we must interact with people who we do not like.  We must find a way to maintain our stability, our sense of self, and our sense of purpose amidst these challenging interactions.

On a positive note, I made home-made peanut butter with my host sisters!  I bought a dollar worth of groundnuts (peanuts), roasted them, and then called Ba Judith and Ba Erin over to help me pound them with our wooden mortar and pestle.  It took about ten minutes of pounding, and the peanuts became peanut butter!  We didn't even need to add anything (just a bit of salt, and I also added a bit of honey) because the peanuts produced their own oil.  The kids came around to watch and taste, and my sisters told me they hadn't done this since their grandfather was alive.  It was a really meaningful passing-down of knowledge, and we also realized that we could sell peanut butter in the village once my family's groundnuts come up in April.  The 5kg of sunflower seeds I bought for my sister to plant are beginning to burst open into huge sunflowers, and next month we will press and sell home-made sunflower oil.  The fields of sunflowers we have in the village make me smile every time I pass them.

Love and light!