Time goes by so quickly, doesn't it?
In two weeks, Ben and I will have been in Zambia for 5 months. In some ways, that's a long time, but in other ways, it's not really long at all, in fact, it's quite short. For example, it's a long time to go without a proper toilet, let alone a proper toilet seat, but in 5 months I still haven't been able to carry a full bucket of water on my head with no hands and no spilling.
In 5 months, my little neighbour boy has come to love me (and me him) and even cries sometimes when I leave for work in the morning. I know he's only 1 and has the same reaction when someone takes away the rock he's chewing on, but it still makes me feel good. In 5 months, I've learned enough local language to start a conversation, ask about basic bodily functions, and understand every third word from a worried bedsider or chattery passerby. I've also become amazingly good at charades, and can successfully act out how to care for and feed someone with a nasogastric tube. I've ridden 2km side-saddle on a bicycle taxi without falling, and bathe from a bucket in the dark with a candle, under the supervision of about 20 spiders. I've seen amazing sunrises and sunsets, gazed at millions of brilliant stars shining through a jet black sky, and felt the refreshing shade of a mango tree in the heat of the day. In 5 months, all these things have become normal, they are just another part of my day.
Other things have also become normal and part of my day, though they are not as romantic. In 5 months, I have lost count of the children who have died from malaria, diarrhea, and other preventable illnesses. I've met families with 9 children who will never be able to afford to send them all to school. I go to the hospital every day and see someone wasted away to nothing because of HIV and TB. I care for women in severe and often fatal kidney failure because of a toxic abortion cocktail given to them from their traditional healer. I've had to explain to families that the only thing that will save their daughter is blood, but we don't have any today so she's most likely going to die waiting. A nurse I work with proudly brought me to the special care baby unit meet his wife and first baby, and the very next day I watched his heart break when his new baby died. In 5 months, I have witnessed such incredible anguish and grief, I have seen the up-close-and-personal effects of poverty, seen pain in more forms than I thought could exist, and have even at times hoped for death in order to ease suffering.
The fact remains that all these things are part of my day. Suffering is part of everyone's day, it's part of life, it's... normal. Normal doesn't mean good or bad, it just means normal. Life is full of laughter, love, pain, hurt, death; life is full! If life wasn't full of these things, it wouldn't be life, would it? I guess what I'm getting at is that I can't change these things - these things that are a normal part of life are not in my power to change. I can't stop suffering, I can't get rid of poverty, I can't "save the world". I am experiencing life, and it is full.
Now I feel I should clarify a bit. Normal does not mean good or bad. Good or bad comes from interactions. Like name-calling. I call you an idiot and that makes you feel bad; the end result of that interaction is negative, therefore that has been a negative interaction, and I would say that was bad. Or conversely, I tell you how much I enjoy our friendship, that you are a great person and I admire your intelligence, and then I hug you; that makes both you and I feel good, the interaction was positive, therefore I think I can safely say that was good. We can extrapolate to bigger things like corruption, wars, environmental destruction, genocide, it all has to do with interactions. Same with the good - love, laughter, helping each other, hugs - interactions are the common factor. Dying a long painful death is still sucky, losing someone you love still hurts like crazy, but it's not necessarily an evil and unnatural thing. It's part of life, all the happy and sad parts. I don't have a "better" life than my neighbour in Zambia because I have more money, my family is still well, and I have enough tomatoes for dinner. We just have different lives. I'm not happier then her, and her not me. So what's the point then? If things that are good come from interactions, how can I make life better for us? I can give her a tomato for dinner. I can ask her to help me learn chichewa. We can help each other out. That makes sense to me, that seems right.
It's all pretty simple actually, but it has changed the way I look at life and the world. I feel as though I understand things a bit better now. I'm not really sure if this will change the way I do things, but I guess we'll see. It's been an interesting thing to think about…
