Happy Ending

Wow! It's been a while.
Let me summarize the last month as quickly as possible :)
I had a great time in Botswana with my brother, Kai. We went to a premier camp (i.e. really fancy) in the Okavango Delta called Mombo. We basically drove around in high grass and looked at animals. It was fantastic! We even tracked some rhinos and I saw 25% of Botswana's black rhino population... meaning i saw one out four haha
Then I went back to South Africa and met Rae, Sophie and Amy for our Baz Bus trip! We drove in a small bus from Joburg to Cape Town with stops in the Drakensburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Storm's River and Wilderness. My cousin also came with us. We did some hiking in the mountains which was absolutely spectacular. In Durban, Sophie and I got a bit lost in their bus system when we tried to do the grocery shopping. On one really long day of driving (14 hours), Amy and I had a dance party... a bit difficult because we were sitting down, but I think we busted some pretty sweet moves regardless! We did a walk along the Otter Trail in Storm's river and canoed in Wilderness.

Cape Town was loads of fun. We were staying on Long Street, which we discovered has a very busy and noisy nightlife haha. It was great. We went shopping at the malls, visited the markets, toured Robben Island, checked out the Botanical Gardens, met some of the Baha'i students studying in the area... It was really great. Oh, and we got some body peircings! Amy and I got our noses pierced and Rae got her ear (scaffolding) pierced.

Then I had a few quiet days in Joburg before I flew home.
It's been good to be home. I haven't unpacked yet, which i think may be indicative of my subconscious fear that if I settle back into my life here, I'll never leave, or I'll loose what I gained from my year of service... or maybe I just can't be bothered!

Whatever the reason, I have a feeling that this happy ending isn't really an ending. My year of service has only set my up for a life of service. When I look around at the people I worked with in Zambia, and the people I'm surrounded by at home, I get really excited because I can see that there is so much good yet to be seen in this world. I must admit that while I've been adjusting to the reverse-culture shock of being home, I've felt really low, paralyzed maybe with my uncertainty about what to do with myself, with my own inaction. I think I just need to give myself a bit of time to arrive, to unpack, and hold on tight to everything I've learned by being away.

I can't wait for life!!!

Miss K - Aunty Karrie

Well, these are my last words from Banani. My next post wil most likely be from Botswana or South Africa. Yikes.
Yesterday I had my last music class with the grade 1-2s and at the end I told them I wouldn't be there next term and that I'd miss them. No response. So I had to ask them if they'd miss me, and they said they would. I can see that I'll miss them more than they'll miss me, the sweeties.

I'll really miss being called Miss K and Aunty Karrie.

We've all been hanging out with a young couple, Aaron and Sam, from the States who are working with the Pollock's development project. The other night we stayed over quite late and had to climb over the locked gate to get back to the dorms. It was very sneaky :)

Last week we spent an afternoon at a nearby lodge called Ibis with the group that has been deepening together with Taher. There should be a picture of us. Rae and I went to town together for the last time. We got a ride in with karen and we got to do some shopping with Aaron and Sam. I bought so much african material! We also finally bought a whole bunch of supplies for the primary school with the money that a Junior Youth group raised in Montreal!
This week is going to be a flurry of packing and cleaning and returning borrowed items. I feel stressed just thinking about it.

We're starting to get really excited for our trip to South Africa. I know we're going to have a wonderful time.

I feel like that because this is my last post during service, I should say something deep and meaningful. This self-imposed expectation is giving me writer's block! I think the most that I can say is that this has been the most challenging, fun, frustrating, eye-opening, heart-breaking and soul-moving 8 months of my life. My advice to anyone thinking about doing a period of service is this: stop thinking and just do it. It's worth it. I'm so glad I was able to come here, do what I did and meet the people I know now.
"Let your actions cry aloud to the world that you are indeed Baha'is, for it is actions that speak to the world and are the cause of the progress of humanity." ~ Abdu'l-Baha

Although my next month is more travelling than service, I'd like to dedicate it to the youth I've been serving with: Rae, Amy, Sophie, Anita, Mahnoosh, Shiva, Corinne and Neda. We are spiritual sisters now and I hope that you are confirmed and blessed in everything you do, and that you continue to bring happiness to everyone. Love you all!

Naw Ruz!

Happy Naw Ruz!
Naw Ruz is the Baha'i New Year, but it's also the Persian and Zoroastrian new year as well. Our 19 Day fast is over, and I'm eating as much as I can today hehehe

For the past few days, the youth have been working on a hip hop dance that we presented at the Naw Ruz party this morning. We also sang some songs and had a little play. Last night was a formal dinner at the school. It was really pretty. Most of the students have gone home for the Easter weekend, so I only hae about 10 girls in my dorm! It's nice and quiet.

We've also started playing Ultimate Frisbee almost every afternoon. During the fast, it was one way to keep you busy until supper time! Now it's just fun :)

It's been a really uneventful weekend apart from last night and this morning. Wait, no. The other night I had to extract a spider from our room because Shiva was scared. It was quite big as you can see... but not the dangerous kind.

I will be leaving Zambia in exactly two weeks! I can't get over it. I'm really going to miss hearing all the kids call me 'Miss K' or 'Aunty Karrie' when I leave. I should make a list of all the things I'll miss here so that for the next two weeks I really take time to appreciate them... these aren't in any order!
• The kids at the primary school
• My children's class
• The girls I serve with!!!
• The community
• Being woken up by the noisy gate of my dorm
• Shouting QUIET TIME and LIGHTS OUT each night
• Having toast for breakfast every day except weekends
• Hearing the doves and noises of the bush
• Having my back covered in flies (they just sit on your shirt)
• Youth deepenings
• The music here
• Being squished in a minibus
• Having sandy feet
• Everything...

I hope the pictures work!

Fasting

Sorry for the delay, it's the Baha'i month of fasting now so my brain activity is a bit slower than usual... I love fasting. As a Baha'i, for 19 days in March I don't eat while the sun is up, but before sunrise and after sunset I can eat as much as I want! I think my favorite part of fasting is being more conscientious about praying and meditating every day, and seeing the sunrise. It's just a very spiritual time, although it can be tiring. I think that the difficulties of fasting are also a reminder of our spiritual nature, so in a way, having it be a bit difficult is good :)

Last Friday we had an Ayyam-i-Ha party with the children's classes. We had a treasure hunt, a piñata, a water balloon fight and some arts+crafts! The kids had so much fun. I had so much fun watching the little kids take a swing at the piñata and miss. Every time. It was so cute.

This week passed quite uneventfully. I've discovered napping though - usually napping makes me grumpy, but I'm starting to really enjoy it!

Taher Taherzadeh, a Baha'i who recently moved to Lusaka and who's father is a well-known Baha'i scholar, has come two weeks in a row to Banani to host youth deepenings (studies). They've been really great. Yesterday we were asked to give 5-10min introductions to the Baha'i Faith just to practice speaking, and it was really interesting to see other people's styles of speaking. For the next few weeks we'll be studying about the Covenant, which I will tell you a bit more about when I understand it better!

Yesterday, Shiva arrived from South Africa. She's a new volunteer and she'll be living and working in my dorm with me. She's from Australia, Zimbabwe and Botswana and she's really nice. It'll be great to have another dorm mother with me!

The photos are of the Ayyam-i-Ha party, a dance party the volunteer's had in Rae's room during a power failure and Traditional Dress Day at the school.

VirtueSquad, Clinic and Dedication

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha! The Baha'i calendar is organized into 19 months of 19 days, which leaves 4 or 5 days left over. So in those 4 (or 5 days on a leap year) we have parties and do service projects. This also means that the Fast is coming up! 19 days of eating only when the sun isn't up. I love the Fast.

Ok! Lots of things to update! The midterm was a wonderful break. It passed slowly, but we kept busy with sewing our new handbags and practicing our VirtueSquad play for the fundraiser.
The primary school's performance at the arts festival was very haphazard. First, we weren't on the program because they never received a confirmation from the school. Luckily they squeezed us in in the end. Second, we were performing in a big gym, so the acoustics were terrible, the audience was noisy and there weren't good microphones... so essentially you couldn't hear the kids sing. But anyway, I could hear them and they sang well, and I'm sure the experience was good for them.

Saturday night was our fundraiser for the construction of the National Baha'i Center. It went really well! There was a small garage sale, a bake sale and a talent show. Some of the talents were really funny! The children's play was cute, but the kids forgot most of their lines and didn't talk loud enough... which was to be expected. I think they had more fun at the rehearsals anyway, but they were excited by their costumes! I sang 2 songs with Kawawa, they were fine... we did a remix of Queen of Carmel that wasn't as amazing as I'd hoped because the beatboxing threw me off a little. Karen did the funniest skit of a makeover, but her 'hands' were actually the arms of a person sitting behind her.... you get the picture!

Opening Sunday was gruelling! It was incredibly hot, and we were working hard searching through bags all day long....... we took exhaustion to a new level!

Being back at school is nice. Being busy makes time go by faster.

Amy and I went to Lusaka for our night off. We stayed with Musonda, a Baha'i there. We had a pizza supper, saw a movie (27 Dresses) and then slept at her place. In the morning, we left at about 7:30 and she dropped us at the shopping center. We shopped around, Amy got her ear pierced and then we went to Arcades (the other shopping center) to meet Farzin Rahmani, his wife and his friend who are in Zambia to support a health clinic about 45mins out of town, in a village near Chongwe. First, we went shopping for curtain rods for the clinic. We couldn't find anything small or cheap enough, so we settled for plastic pipes. Haha - whatever does the job right? Then we drove to the clinic - about 20 minutes of that drive was spent on bumpy dirt roads - and arrived at the clinic. We were supposed to meet the Chieftainness but she never arrived. We got a tour of the clinic, a pretty rudimentary arrangement of a few offices, and some wards. Suffice it to say that I do not have a burning desire to deliver my baby or get sick out in the villages, thanks.
What was interesting was that we got to sit in on a meeting between Farzin (who has basically adopted this clinic, and visits every year or so to improve it and give funds) and the headmen of the local villages. They were discussing plans for a daycare center that will be built for orphans to attend during the day so that their parent/grandparent can go out and work to earn money. It was interesting the way the headmen would talk together, and also to notice the different levels of initiative among the men... most of them are more laid-back, but a few were more go-getters. I could picture my parents doing their old work in rural hospitals in South Africa, I'm sure the situation looked similar to what I saw today.
Amy and I were very inspired and ready to go home and become doctors, even though Amy really doesn't like medicine! It's hard to know where to start. So you help one clinic... what about the rest of the world?
I think if everyone does a bit of good in whatever way they can (and there are SO many ways!) we'll get the world back on track.

We also spent a short time with Taher Taherzadeh. My family met him on pilgrimage in Haifa last year and he's since moved to Lusaka. We're really excited because he's offered to come and run classes for the youth here on different Baha'i topics. His father, Adib Taherzadeh, is a well-known Baha'i scholar.

Only 4 more days off! Actually, Tuesday was my 6 month anniversary of arriving at Banani. I'm going to dedicate the next month to the Baie D'Urfe Baha'i Community because I miss them and pray for their advancement in the field of service. There is a bright light in my town, it illumines the dark even all the way here in Zambia! Specifically, the junior youth group service projects that have raised over $400 for the primary school here, and of course the prayers I know have brought me confirmations here.
Love to you all!

(lots of pictures! 1)Kawawa and I and Ryan and Scott singing "Can you feel the love tonight", the kids were Timone and Poumba! 2)Picking guavas from the tree 3)At the arts festival with the Primary choir 4)A braai at Karen's with the new youth, Mahnoosh 5)Agents L, O, V and E from the VirtueSquad play 6) Ryan in his Robackbite costume with Rosie as the gangster, JustIce)

Midterm

Hi! It's midterm break now and we've been doing a lot of relaxing... and cooking! There are lemons on the trees now and we picked guavas from a tree behind our appartment! That was fun. Mostly we just read, watch movies or go to the pool. It's actually so relaxing it's almost boring. The power has been going out a lot still, so our cooking schedule is kind of "Quick! cook everything right now!" I cut Sophie's and Rae's hair the other day. I should start charging for haircuts... in chocolate :)

The last week of school went by really fast. Nothing very exciting happened. On Monday Sophie, Mambwe (a youth who lives at the Institute) and I went to Lusaka to do some shopping. We treated ourselves to ice cream and a movie! We saw 27 Dresses... I'm not sure when that came out in Canada, but we enjoyed it. Some of the things we've been doing is one night, we went to Karen and Garth Pollock's house for some games, we played things like "This is a pen, a what? A pen!" and Psychiartrist... I'll try and post a movie of some of it. We're also making handbags with Bonnie Moore, it's fun to be creative!

The youth are organizing a Fundraiser (to raise money for the Baha'i National Fund here, towards building a new National Baha'i Center) and it consists of a potluck supper and talent show. We've written a play for the children, similar to The Incredibles only our bad guys are called Anna Mossity, Robackbite and Jello-see. Our good guys are Consulstation, Uniteam and Just-Ice. I think it will be really funny if the kids learn their parts!

Actually, I made pita bread a few days ago! I was so impressed with myself because it had a pocket in it! I thought it would be really hard to make the pocket, but it did it by itself! I also made soda crackers. They were less successful because the power went out and they sat on the counter for a few hours, but they were ok. The catch: we left them in a tupperware on the counter and that afternoon, someone came in our open back door and STOLE the crackers! They vanished! It was upsetting because I'd even made hummus (not smooth at all... no blender) to go with them. grrrr.

Anyway, I'll post some more pictures of the children practicing their play when I get them.
I was thinking of the youth at NEBY (North Eastern Baha'i Youth Conference) this past weekend, hope you all had fun!

At What-i

I think I should talk a bit about phrases/words that Zambians use here. Here we go:

Ka: a prefix to designate something small. "Where is my ka-thing?" Sometimes they add 'ma' after 'ka'... for effect? "Behind the ka-ma-wall."
Chi: a prefix to designate something big.
At what-i: something close to the equivalent of "what?" Usually a question...
Sure: often used instead of "really?" i.e. "sure?"
Ay: to finish a question, an affirmation like "right?" ex: "You have my bag, ay?"
Iwe: means 'you'... often accompanied by 'ah-a' ex: "ah-a, iwe!" or "ah-a, youuuu"
umblella/ploblem/hory/kelly: umbrella/problem/holy/karrie... the r-ls get switched around often.
I'm asking for: instead of saying 'do you have' or 'can I have' the girls say "I'm asking for salt."
Even me: me too.
Penalt/caref/soverenity: penalty/careful/sovereignty ... lots of haplologies :) that's my word-of-the-day

Here are some pictures of my children's class, we learnt about unity and how Baha'u'llah says "Ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch." Here we are taking a unity walk, trying to find unified ants/flowers/fruits/leaves.