Poverty in the village is a tricky thing to cope with. I must constantly tell myself not to feel guilty. Though I do live in a mud hut, fetch water and cook with charcoal just like every other villager, I am undoubtedly different. I make more than sufficient kwacha (Zambian currency) each month for transport and food, and can save a bit for vacation as well. I rarely have to worry about having enough. I get to spend four nights each month at our cozy provincial house in Choma town (this is in fact necessary for my mental health) with electricity, computers, hot showers, clean sheets, my American friends, and Grey's Anatomy DVDs. I can buy broccoli (sometimes) and apples from the grocery store when I come to town. And, in one year from now, I get to go back to America and get a Master's degree.
In my village, there are none of these luxuries. In my village, poverty has a name and a face. It is my brother Ba Sanford who works from sunrise to sunset herding the cows and working in the field, but does not have thread to sew the 10th hole in his pants (he uses recycled threads from a mealie-meal sack). It is my sister Ba Edith who has to walk five kilometers barefoot to the clinic each month to have her newborn Noah weighed and vaccinated. It is the malnourished baby (usually at least ten each week) who I weigh at the clinic.
It is difficult to draw a line in terms of "helping." I can write a grant for a mother's delivery shelter, form a Neighborhood Health Committee and Anti-AIDS Club at our village school. But I cannot ensure that the rains will fall properly this year to produce a plentiful maize harvest. I can help pay for my neighbor Eric's school fees through the exchange of his help with projects at my house so he can finish grade 12, or give oil and sugar to his mother Ba Erin when she is in need. But I cannot do these things for everyone. As much as I tell myself not to feel guilty, some days these harsh realities slap me in the face 50 times in a row. I cannot ignore them, and must accept that there are days when I feel absolutely helpless...
And then I see the bright smile of Ba Sanford as he greets me each day, hear the giggles of my village nieces and nephews and the Sunday evening drumming and dancing happening outside a nearby hut, or witness the love-gaze between my host sister and her young daughter-- and I know that everything is, as we say here, "just okay."
