It is yet another typical sunny Sunday afternoon – sitting in my backyard under a giant blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds, eating an orange, with my laundry blowing in the wind. I'm feeling content. While not much has changed in my life since last week, I think I've had a lot of time to think about what I want to do. I now have a plan: stay if certain things happen; don't stay if it doesn't.
For most of the week, I was facilitating a Lusaka zone teachers' workshop consisting of all the teachers from the community schools we support in Lusaka. I am generally disgruntled when it comes to workshops here, but since the focus of this particular workshop was planning what teachers will do in their schools, I am hopeful that something will actually come out of it. It was a significant moment when a teacher stood up and said to fellow teachers that they know what to do and the disconnect is the actually doing. We talked about everything from why teachers do not write lesson plans to why teachers do not follow up on disclosure of child abuse. Countless workshops have iterated the procedures for both, but maybe this time addressing motivations and practicing the steps may make at least a few teachers put things into action.
Some memorable comments for me from the workshop:
-You must eat your cupcakes! (Because four cupcakes were budgeted per person per day (don't ask me why), I accumulated a lot of cupcakes after three days, which I smuggled out and gave to the guards and miscellaneous children in my compound.)
- I can write my lessons, but do not.
- I am motivated to plan my lesson when you are here. You should marry me and I will always write my lesson!
- I will come to your office on Monday and bring the money to marry you.
- I thank God for this workshop and God bless you! (In which case, God owes me money for talk time and photocopying).
I think I've been thinking a lot more about what makes me happy here and while I'm currently feeling the contented lazy kind of happy, I wouldn't mind a few moments of being deliriously happy. This, I think is a sign I need a vacation. So, what is special about living and working in Zambia? After all, it was completely my decision. I had a dream that I went to sleep in Zambia and woke up in suburban Canada, driving an SUV, with a golden retriever in backseat, and buying Costco (wholesale) sized products. I wanted to drive away to the distant mountainous horizon, but I wasn't allowed to change my path and the SUV had a voice that kept asking me why I would want to leave my suburban dream. I think if I could think of a complete opposite to my life now, it would be that. I appreciate what a suburban life in Canada offers – it's conveniences and comforts. For a brief moment this morning, I was secretly wishing for a Shopper's Drug Mart so I could buy new lip gloss. What it comes down to is the chance to experience a certain unpredictability and intensity of everyday life here.
It is not one of the other for me. For now, I am happy for the opportunity to be in Zambia. Simple experiences like walking down the street can suddenly turn into so much more – good and bad. I found this scrawled in a notebook. I'm can't recall when or where I copied it down, but I am finding it profoundly true here:
People say that we're searching for the meaning of life. I don't think that is it at all. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purest physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
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