Caterpillars and Culture

So here's the deal. I love Zambia. I never want to come home. I want to be African. I want to live the way they do and be who they are. It's kinda pathetic how obsessed I am with this place and these people. They are beautiful.

So here's a little culture crash course for you so you can understand my infatuation.

FOOD

Here is what an authentic Zambian meal is like: Nshima is the staple, it's ground up corn that looks like mashed potatoes. They eat it with everything, meat, sauce, and vegetables. No utensils of course.

They also eat capenta, which is little tiny super salty sardine-like fish. Eggplant apparently has some kind of relative called impwa which is more bitter. They have a dark leafy green vegetable called rape that they eat with most every meal. I was pretty lost when people would refer to it the first little while. The eat okra, sweet potato leaves, and meat on special occasions or whenever they have it. African bologna is quite the dish, the only thing I tried that I could barely muscle down. It is vegetarian, made out of ground nuts, mealie meal, and spices, with the consistency of flan or stiff jell-o-- not my fav. The fav: caterpillar. Well, not really as you can tell from this video.

And their CLOTHES:

I was very overwhelmed by the patterns and colors and just over stimulation of my eyes when we would go into the fabric shops. Fabric is ridiculously cheap compared to the states, and it is SO gorgeous. Audrey, homegirl, was able to put us in contact with her tailor so we were able to get quite a few things made between all of us. Everything they wear is so bright and happy, I love it. I realized that everything I wear is so boring (it may match, but boring). There is no such thing as clashing patterns here, they've got it figured out :)

CHURCH

So let me just say, these are some of the most humble, reliant, God-fearing people I have ever met. They are always singing about, talking about, praying, or worshiping God. It is incredible. They have so much faith in God and hope for a better future. Often I thought about how great their gratitude was in comparison to mine, and materially I have a lot more to be grateful for. They have taught me a lot about what it means to be dependent on God. We had several opportunities to go to church with some of our friends here. It was such a neat experience. There wasn't an LDS church for 8 hours so we were unable to attend ours. Their worship services were so full of singing and prayer, and praises. It was a lot louder than I am used to with LDS services :) I got kinda emotional during parts of the services, it was so obvious to me that they were God's children and so loved by Him. They were so welcoming to us: I think about every person came up to me and shook my hand, pretty different than church in the US. One of the pastors at a church we went to said to the group of us (4 Americans) right before we left, he said "testify to the people in your country that Africa is ready for Jesus and all that He will bring to us!" The look in his eye and the sincerity in his voice gave me chills. This is a great time for Africa!

LANGUAGE

The language here has been super fun to learn, but also really challenging to retain much of anything. I am someone who has to see it not just hear or speak to really have it stick. Most everyone speaks 4-7 languages as there are 72 languages here. Some are dialects, others indigenous languages. Nyanja

is the main language in Livingstone. I got the basic greeting phrases down and a few others that we used a lot on projects namely "how many cups of water do you drink a day?" My favorite thing to learn though, were the songs! They are so beautiful. Francis, one of the caretakers was my primary voice coach and lyric teacher :)