It’s all about perspective…and short shorts!

It has been an eventful three weeks since I last updated my blog.
Time is just FLYING by here. I'm already well into my fifth week at
site, and, I've been in Zambia for three months and a week! I can't
believe it. I left my place this morning at 7:30 and zoomed to Serenje
so I could update my blog and go shopping. I'm also here on business:
I'm meeting with an official from the clinic here to talk about the
logistics of setting up a VCT (Volunteer Counseling and Testing)
clinic where can people come to get a free rapid HIV test. I hope to
have this clinic at my community's annual agricultural fair that is in
mid June because the event apparently draws a large crowd. I hope you
will send your prayers and positive thoughts my way for a successful
HIV/AIDS workshop and subsequent VCT clinic; the more people we can
"sensitize" in the area, the more empowered my community will be to
stop HIV dead in its tracks—it is, after all, a preventable disease.

There is still a lot of work to be done regarding stigma and
HIV/AIDS. Here in southern Africa, and Zambia in particular, people
are not infrequently disowned by friends and family when they come out
that they are HIV+. In addition, spousal abuse is chronic upon
discovering that one or both spouses are positive, and of course the
abuse is purely directed towards women. Another sad statistic that is
true all over the world but particularly in developing countries is
that women who are abused are less likely to get tested despite the
fact that abusive spouses are likelier to be promiscuous and thus have
HIV. According to the WHO (World Health Organisation),

"some 20 percent of African women who tested positive for HIV
experienced some sort of negative outcome if their husbands or
boyfriends found out. Some women were blamed for bringing the
infection into the relationship; others were beaten or thrown out of
their houses. Some 40 percent were afraid to tell their partners at
all." (Epstein's The Invisible Cure, p. 267).

On a more positive note, if you can convince couples to get tested at
the same time, statistics show that spousal abuse can be nipped in the
bud (although surely not entirely) through professional counseling
provided on-site upon finding that the couple is HIV+.

Moving right along, down my long list of things to write about, I am
settling in nicely to village life. It was rough at first, as I
started to miss home just a bit and really wonder if I should be here
at all and not, instead, be pursuing a graduate degree. But I've
decided I'm here for the long haul! As the school term started here
(albeit it a week and a half late), and as I started to sort through
the mire of paperwork and other PC-related things to think about, I
began to set goals and get back into my usual groove of positive
thinking and being productive—of working towards making a difference.
That is, after all, why I am here. I desire to make a difference.

Thus, as the title of my blog suggests, a positive Peace Corps
experience is all about a can-do perspective. Without that, you will
likely just scrape by and not be happy. I don't know about you, but I
can't be depressed for two years in the African bush where only a
select number of people speak any English and my Bemba, frankly,
sucks. It helped me to better see my niche here when I witnessed a
teacher aggressively pinch the cheeks of three students who arrived
late for an eighth grade English class (which started 25 minutes late
on account of the teacher himself—hypocritical if you ask me). I told
him something that Zambians rarely, if ever, hear from one another:
What you did made me feel sad inside. Zambians don't talk about their
feelings much.

Last week was a pretty good week, and the icing on the cake was when
the DEBS (District Board Education Secretary, equivalent to a
Superintendent of schools I suppose) visited our zone and gave an hour
long speech to the forty or so teachers from nine schools who decided
to join. In her lecture she condemned corporal punishment and
emphasized that a ban on physical abuse has been codified, and, there
can been no canes on the school property. Furthermore, she told us
that the Ministry of Education has decided that at all grade levels
pupils should be in class for a total of five hours per day, which is
an increase from Zambia's average of 3.5 hours of class per day—I
applauded her on that one!

At school, when we teachers meet as an aggregate group—which never
includes all the teachers because they will come if they feel like
it—we consistently hear that punctuality is important and that
starting and ending classes on time is a must. But I have not observed
one class that has started or ended on time. And, I have come across
countless classrooms that have no teacher at all; on several occasions
I jumped in and gave impromptu lessons to sixth, eighth, and ninth
graders who had no teacher that day. Yet the Peace Corps specifically
does not want me substitute teaching because it is not sustainable. So
this experience, the ones above, and others I haven't mentioned, have
all made me excited for the change I can potentially affect. The
teachers at the zonal-center school I'm working at this term have been
quite receptive to my coming and several teachers are eager to learn
from me. I will be having a lecture for the teachers which will be in
mid June. I will talk about what is (and what is not) learner
centeredness in the classroom, and, similar lectures will follow every
other week. I'm excited!

Yesterday school was closed to observe Africa Freedom Day. I spent it
by doing laundry, tutoring some students, and talking politics.
Laundry is self-explanatory, but I tutored six 9th grade girls who
needed help in English and math. I helped them to understand nouns,
adjectives, and verbs and their functions within a sentence. Also, in
math we covered the differences between right, acute, obtuse, reflex,
and straight angles. Afterwards, I talked with them about how they
should wait until they graduate from 12th grade before they get
married; marriage and pregnancy (and a lack of money to continue
education after 7th grade when the government no longer pays for
schooling) likely account for 90 percent of the reasons why girls drop
out before graduating from grade school. So my telling these girls
that they can make it and don't need to get married until after
graduation is an important part of my role beyond that of co-teacher
while I'm here.

I also asked the students what Africa Freedom Day means to them. They
were mute: they are never asked to think critically like this in the
classroom—ever. I told them that to me it means that they have
liberty, freedom. That is, that their government is no longer
controlled by Britain—that they have the freedom to govern themselves.
And I told them they have the freedom to live a lifestyle of their
choosing—that they are not slaves. Although, I did not tell them that
I believe poverty is a form of slavery and thus they are not truly
free (not to mention the Zambian government arrests people who speak
strongly out against the "ruling" President, Mr. Banda).

I was feeling a bit passionate yesterday about my frustration that
two gay men in Malawi were recently sentenced to 14 years in prison
for having had a public engagement ceremony last year, so I—most
certainly levelheadedly—asked nine Zambians their opinion on the
matter. After all, Zambian law also calls for up to 14 years in prison
for people convicted of homosexuality. One of the people I asked is a
teacher with whom I'll be coteaching 9th grade English—he also teaches
Civics. You might be surprised, or maybe you're not, that everyone I
spoke with thought the sentence was unfair. When I asked one student
about how many years the couple should spend in prison, he said two
but not 14. I then proceeded to tell him, and everyone else I talked
to, that five US States and Wa. DC permit gay marriage and that 11
other States permit domestic partnerships. Not one person responded
with judgment, although most were silent on this fact so maybe they
were withholding their disgust. I even got the teacher I mentioned
above to agree to teach the pupils how to write an essay in English
class, so that when he is instructing on Human Rights in Civics class
in July we can have the pupils write an opinion essay on whether they
think the 14 year sentence is fair and why!!!!

On average I have been observing three to four teachers per day in
the classroom, but I'm ready to start coteaching now I think. I'm in
the process this week of making coteaching contracts between the
teachers with whom I'll be teaching, and me. A couple highlights from
the contract are that we will do everything we can to start and stop
class on time; we want pupils to have a quality education which means
not turning pupils in to low-level knowledge reproducers but, rather,
critical thinkers who question authority; we choose to see pupils as
our partners, not as subordinates to boss around; and, we will never
give busy work but we will give relevant homework as frequently as
possible.

I have to confess, I have been visiting at least one volunteer every
weekend for the past four weeks. And this weekend and the next weekend
I have trips lined up as well. I call this a confession because, while
I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong (I'm not leaving my district,
which is a no-no), I am not spending full weekends at my site. It's
been nice to compare stories and have some good-eats, though! This
coming weekend we're visiting a place where I'll be able to pull
out—as the title of my blog suggests—my short shorts and swim in a
REAL pool! Exposing your "gateway" (i.e., your thighs) is particularly
taboo here, but at this place it's supposedly legit. Next week we have
what are called Provincials, which occur twice a year. It's when
everyone in the province gathers for a general meeting. During this
meeting I'm excited because we'll be getting our Visa cards from
Barclays (I'm broke as a joke right now). Although we are still in the
process of moving our PC provincial house to another, much larger
place down the road, so the more than twenty volunteers will have to
rough it a bit, I think. But I'm even more excited for what we're
doing once Provincials are over: we're headed back to Kundalila Falls
for two nights. I forget if I mentioned this place in my last blog,
but it. is. amazing! I have pics on my Facebook Zambia album.

I have some interesting stories to report from neighboring PCVs.
First, on his second day at site, a teacher at one of the schools my
PCV neighbor works at was beaten to death for sleeping with another
man's wife. On day one for this same PCV friend, he got to see a
nearly dead man who had been beaten severely for trying to sleep with
his daughter for the second or third time. Yikes! At the school of
another neighboring PCV, she was about to terminate her service after
having a horrible series of events. You must first know that she is
skilled in very progressive methods of teaching and, as you can
imagine, is unequivocally morally opposed to corporal punishment. Yet
she witnessed incident after incident of corporal punishment, among
other frustrations common here. She finally put her foot down and said
no more; she held a workshop on alternatives to corporal punishment
and why it is so bad. Good for her! For cinco de mayo and Mother's
Day, some volunteers and I got together to celebrate "Cinco de Bamayo"
(bamayo meaning mother in Bemba language). We had a nice feast!

This summer (for you, but winter for me) I hope to campaign for
people from home to send reading materials to me so I can distribute
them to the nine schools in my zone. We badly need British English
dictionaries (like Oxford), and, pupils do not have access to a
library—let alone textbooks. So please go through your bookshelves at
home, or consider buying some materials for this amazing cause:
literacy. Education and literacy are the key to development—the key to
lifting the bonds of poverty for rural Zambians. For anyone who wants
to send books that you already have, my address is below. For those
who have not yet purchased books but would like to help me, consider
purchasing dictionaries, children's books and middle school novels
from http://www.betterworldbooks.com. When you order from Better World
Books you can ship books directly to me (the address is below) for
only $3.97! That's right, they ship worldwide for only $3.97 (or if
you order from their public marketplace it's $7.97)!! Not to mention
Better World Books is an amazing non-profit organization that supports
literacy in developing countries.

One last thing before I head out for my meeting with the gentleman at
the clinic who is going to help me set up the HIV testing center in my
community next month, I'm gunna repeat it again (and again until you
follow through, haha): I really would love to be receiving letters
from you. Yes YOU! It's nice to get a letter from America. So far I've
only gotten four letters/cards, and two were from my parents. Pick up
the pace people! ;-)
Oh, wait, this really is the last thing: we will soon have access to
high speed satellite internet so I might be able to Skype with you,
not to mention more easily upload pics and videos—all for FREE! Right
now I pay to use the internet. Yay for progress, however slow!

Tukamonana ("we will meet again" in Bemba),
Marcus

Marcus Kendrick/PCV
P.O. Box 850010
Serenje, Central
Zambia