An Introduction to Computers in Fimpulu

Sometimes, in the line of duty, we servants of God and servants of others are required to stretch our knowledge and capacity in ways that we neither expect nor intend. And while for some this means going without food and water, or for others it means leaving behind family without ever seeing them again, for me this means one peculiar thing: teaching computer classes. And though nobody has ever accused me of being tech savvy, I have learned the material, begun to teach it alongside my other classes, and have seen how it represents some of the great problems and opportunities offered in this region.

As most of you know, I came here primarily as a teacher to focus on English, Maths, Civics, and whatever else I could as I became more familiar with the language and the community. When we arrived, the Grade 9 students were preparing for their final standardized examinations that would determine whether they are allowed to go to Grade 10. When we met with the headmaster and with students, they asked only for one subject again and again: computer proficiency classes. You see, in an effort to launch an entire generation of students into the modern world, the Zambian government just added a computer portion to the Grade 9 standardized exams. Students across the country now had to learn (and be taught) facts about computers and some basic tasks like word processing.

Though this goes without saying, in America we have the luxury of taking computer access for granted. From the youngest age, I remember gradually learning how to use a computer from the Macintosh box in 1^st Grade, to the Windows 95 hulk in my mom’s classroom, to the XP Desktop in my parents’ house, to the MacBook Pro that I am typing on now. For many in my generation, computers evolved alongside us and, in turn, became an extension of our bodies. Even for our parents, the transition has been adaptable even if not quite as seamless. And even if a computer does not sit in someone’s home, they have access to those at America’s great public library network.

It is understandable, then, that the Zambian government wants to try to catch its students up to the Global North’s level of proficiency. As with much of the world, the Zambian government’s initiatives strive resolutely to improve science and technology education, whether as a way to keep up with global education standards or simply to maintain their vast mining sector. As technology changes at what seems like an ever-increasing rate, it is both responsible and necessary for the national government to take this great leap forward now in requiring students to learn how to use computers.

Nevertheless, as always, the storm of progress hits the poor with the most fury. This is especially true when policy is made by those with wealth, power, and access to vast and diverse resources. Most students in Lusaka and the Copperbelt will not be unduly phased by this new requirement. Wireless internet streams across the larger cities, and Lusaka even opened an Apple store recently. Many Grade 9 students in those regions have computers in their homes or have used them for years.

On the other hand, in the rural areas, very few students have ever even seen a computer, much less used one personally. They are generally too expensive; they are difficult to maintain; they require electricity; they are a luxury. This list is repeated at the rural schools themselves, which generally do not have electricity and certainly do not have their own computers. In fact, only three weeks before the Grade 9 exams, our local primary school received a dozen laptops so that the ninety students could take their tests (thankfully, I was able to use one to teach the students during that short time). The students would be tested on basic definitions as well as using Windows 7 and printing a typed page from Microsoft Word. The computers we received in Fimpulu did not come with a printer, were mostly XP, and did not all already have Microsoft Office loaded. But in their frantic and honorable work, the teachers hooked up their diesel generator, loaded the right software, and acquired a printer from town. How other schools individually solved their systemic problems, I do not know. How other underprepared students completed the demands placed before them by their distant directors, I do not know. Such is life in the periphery.

But with all of these difficulties faced in the rural areas—all of the inefficiencies, all of the setbacks, all of the roadblocks, and all the demands of those in power, there is no question that computer access is important not only to fulfill a requirement but also because—even more now than it was 10 or 20 years ago—the computer offers a real tool for revolution in rural Africa, and specifically for the type of revolution required today in the neocolonies. The laptop especially is a profoundly democratizing and empowering tool, both for education and practice after the fact. Though its benefits are still not entirely in reach, logistical roadblocks to laptop access are slowly wearing down. Cellular phones are in almost every person’s hand here, as is a 2 or 4 GB MicroSD in that phone that provides a foundation for using and sharing information on a large scale. Electricity has gradually become less difficult to access, as solar panels become cheaper, easier to purchase, higher quality, and much more efficient. Despite the fact that the national electric grid has not reached Fimpulu, a laptop computer can get its 6 hours of charge off of an hour or two of sunshine. Along with cellular towers has come passable internet connectivity, so that you can buy an internet dongle and periodically reload it with data. Finally, as we all know, laptops themselves are becoming a better value. Although a laptop computer is still inaccessibly expensive for the average working person in a village, it is possible to purchase one only a short car or bicycle ride away. A netbook in Mansa costs about $300, which equals somewhere between two and six months wages for the average rural worker before they subtract the cost of raising a family and sustaining oneself. Largely, this cost problem is addressed through internet cafes that offer paid computer, downloading, and copy/print services. However, as access and knowledge about computers improves, it also opens the possibility of socialized ownership of one computer that can be divided like any public utility. One laptop or netbook, spread among twenty or fifty users, can still provide the amount of the resource needed by people in the village. Structured like a library, such access could, theoretically, help to spread the benefits of computers wide enough to make it both affordable and convenient.

With these hurdles on the way out, what then are the benefits of computers in the village? They are ones we all know, yet they have become much clearer to me here. For experienced users, the internet offers the whole world at their fingertips, whether for research, communication, or entertainment. While some material costs money, and all of it costs data, the extensive free material online offers an opportunity akin to the invention of the printing press in Europe. This is equally true for documents and essays already downloaded. I have an extensive collection of African, Africanist, philosophical, and religious books and articles on my computer and hard drive that can be copied for free forever. Though even in America I believe that intellectual property is public property, here it does not have to be defended so stridently; piracy is such a harsh word for social uplift. Thus, while books here are comparatively expensive and almost always must be imported, downloads are free and endlessly reproducible. When I held up a Micro SD, pointed to the bookshelves in the back of the room, and told my students that they could fit all those books on their phones, they were appropriately amazed, as we all should be. Especially for classroom materials and curriculums, digitization can (and will) profoundly improve the state of education in rural Zambia and other outlying places. Finally, digitization, like automation, offers the chance to significantly improve business and accounting abilities even on the village level. Whether for small businesspeople and shop owners or for farmers and co-ops, access to programs like Word and Excel or to internet research about farming practices clearly improves quality of life; shared communally, these benefits only increase.

With this in mind, I have eagerly accepted that strange responsibility that I did not expect or intend. For my own part, I tutored the Grade 9 students to the best of my ability with the resources we had available in our academic triage environment. I plan to teach them over the next year in more formal computer classes at the school, hopefully using both English and Bemba to better explain the concepts and controls. Currently, I am offering informal classes for both school-age and adult learners at Choshen Farm’s Learning Resource Center. These have been a pleasure to hold, especially for the adults who would have no other convenient and free opportunity to learn about and use a computer. The lesson on “how much data you can store in what” is equally amazing for the 15-year-old and the 50-year-old. I also already have a queue of requests for book downloads about Africa or by Kenneth Kaunda, their first president.

In the midst of all the negativity and fear coming out of Africa, or all of the false optimism that covers over the real struggles of the poor, there are some genuine moments of inspiration and opportunity. I will not pretend that there is not a hard long road ahead—Grade 9 students in poor communities will continue to struggle for lack of resources and time as they become the unsuspecting vanguard for development; technological progress, national policy, and the neo-liberal fight to privatize the commons will continue to erect new challenges. But as this technology and its benefits spread through the continent, those on the continent are increasingly better enabled to fight back and push forward.

I Will Weep For You

I will weep for you, abanobe abanandi, my friend.

I will weep for the systems that keep you downtrodden.

I will weep for the resources that should be yours, that are promised, that are allocated, but never seem to arrive.

I will weep for all of the times that your malady was obvious, and the treatment even more so, but “That umuti does not come from the district anymore.”

I will weep for the times when the diagnosis was wrong, when the umuti you were given calmed your anxious mind that yearned for relief but failed to heal your broken body. I will weep for the misdiagnosed illness that has progressed to this mournful point, and I will weep for you, because your health system has failed you, and so very soon your body will fail you too. I will weep for the family you leave behind. I weep for their anguish, and I weep for the fear that pervades your village and your province, for the fear that hisses of ancestors and spirits who loom in your hearts, masquerading somehow as bigger and stronger than your God.

I will weep for you.

But please, dear friend, will you weep for me?

Weep for my complicity in the broken subjugating systems.

Weep for my selfishness, for the speed at which I forget how very little my neighbors have, for the pride and arrogance that seeps in around my genuine desire to serve and help.

Weep for the times when my skills fail me. Weep for the times that wisdom has escaped my mind, sureness has fled my hands, and compassion has left my heart.

And my brother, please, weep for the times when the misdiagnosis is mine. Weep for the times I am wrong, have been wrong, will be wrong. Weep for the struggle between me and my God, my God who is Healer, my God who can fix all things, but sometimes doesn’t. Weep for the weight of the burden, and for the times that I must lay it down, and for the times I accidentally drop it. Weep at the task ahead of us, at this battle we are fighting together, you and I.

Weep with me, as I weep with you. But do not despair.

For not all weeping must be sorrow, and not all sorrow must last until morning. When your brothers and sisters gather on the tired concrete stoop of the clinic in the morning, perhaps some may need us to weep with them. But others will need us to dance. They will need us to laugh together at my atrociously minimal grasp of the Bemba language. They will need us to rejoice over the kilogram of gained weight. They will need us to smile with the declaration of a healthy blood pressure. They will need us to coo over pregnant bellies and joyfully distract terrified toddlers.

And if it happens that along the way someone needs to weep, then we will weep with them, you and I. We know how to do that. 

Voiceless

A few days ago, I woke up without a voice.

Without much of one, anyway.

I wasn’t particularly surprised, as I was several days into an epic battle with whatever monster had set up residence in my sinuses and throat.

But the thing about living amongst folk whose first language is not English is that talking kind of takes a back seat. There’s a lot of time for contemplation and thinking here in the bush. I think while I scrub my laundry. I think while I wash the dishes. I think while I explore the bush trails to figure out which ones are faster than the roads (basically none of them, at least for the places I want to get to). I think while the neighbor kids kick the living tar out of the single solitary soccer ball we own, whose days are surely numbered.

So somewhere in there, I started thinking about what it is to be Voiceless.

It’s kind of a buzzword in social justice. Unborn babies are Voiceless. Homeless families are Voiceless. Victims of abuse or trafficking are Voiceless. This week one of the neighbor kids was sick and needed medical attention outside of designated clinic hours (sigh, oh all of the sighing), and one could have referred to her as Voiceless. You might even call the kids who are currently climbing my mango tree—the kids whose access to education and healthcare and opportunity is obscenely limited compared to Western standards—Voiceless.

But let me tell you something.

They have voices.

OH, do they have voices.

Their voices are loudest between the hours of 1pm and 3pm, when Teresa is trying to sleep.

Their voices say kind things, but also unkind things, and so sometimes their voices tattle to tell me that others’ voices are “sulting” (insulting) them.

Their voices cry “Odi!” when they approach my front door, which is the verbal equivalent to “knock-knock,” and then their voices chatter happily back and forth as they deposit the bowl of tomatoes that their sweet mother sent to my tomato-deficient soul and return to give her my undying thanks.

Their voices sing songs whose words are lilting and unfamiliar to me, and their voices count to thirty when they play on the swings at the playpark, because EVERYONE wants to play on the swings and so after 30 pushes you have to get off and let someone else have a go.

Their voices are patient and only a little teasing when they slowly repeat that Bemba word over and over until I finally get it, and then their voices dance in laughter across the fields as I try out my new vocabulary on unsuspecting villagers.

They are NOT Voiceless.

But it is true that they, and others like them, are not always Heard.

So in all of my thinking this week, it occurred to me how twisted it is that we use that term for them: Voiceless. And I know there are all kinds of layers and connotations to the word, and that the term is at least partially more a commentary on a society that gags than it is on those who are silenced, but still… That word. As though they are the ones who lack something, who are deficient in their ability to speak or say or sing.  It occurred to me that perhaps the rest of us… the world’s 1%... maybe we should be the ones wearing the label. Maybe the tragedy is not that they are voiceless. Maybe the tragedy is that we do not listen. Their voices work. Our ears refuse to listen.

We are Deaf.

We’ve been in Fimpulu a bit over 2 weeks now. We try, daily, to be slow to speak and quick to listen. We have much to learn about life here and much to unlearn regarding patriarchal tendencies (no matter how unintentional) or misconceptions about Zambia(ns) we may have picked up in the past. We are surrounded now, on a daily basis, by obvious and undeniable need. Of course, we cannot meet them all. And I do not believe we are called to.  But one thing we can do is listen, and learn, and acknowledge the personhood and dignity (and sheer volume) of the voices.

Traveling Mercies

At 3pm on Monday Oct. 12th, dear friends scooped our suitcases and our family into their cars and caravanned to the airport. With the Cubs hitting some bizarre streak of luck this year, there was an unexpected game at 5 that night, so we fretted the whole way there that the traffic would make us late (we’re just not used to the Cubs still playing this late in the season…). But an easy hour later we were at our check-in counter at O’Hare, double-checking our suitcase count and parting ways with prayer and not a few tears.

Over the next couple hours, Teresa tested every single water-fountain in the airport. You’ll be delighted to know they are all in working order. She also managed to cute her way into free juice at the taco restaurant in terminal 5.

We had anticipated Teresa sleeping for most of the 13hr 40min overnight flight (fools, I know…), but flight attendants are nearly as helpful as nurses, poking and prodding and flashing lights and brushing past every hour or so just to liven things up. The cabin lights didn’t dim until roughly 11pm CST, and therefore neither did Teresa. She did, however, scream bloody murder from 9pm on just to alert all peoples in the stratosphere that it was in fact past her bedtime.

For the past year of her life, she has been very strictly a daddy’s girl. Either daddy puts her to bed, or she simply will not sleep.

UNTIL WE GOT ON THE AIRPLANE. Mommy had a Teresa-shaped sweat/drool stain down her front after holding/wrestling the little demanding diva for the whole night. No sleep for momma.

On a side note, Emirates gives these great toiletry bags and kid toys out on every flight, which is a huge bonus since they strictly weigh their carry-on bags, thereby reducing the amount of kid paraphernalia we were able to bring ourselves.

Tuesday about 7:15pm Dubai time (10:15am CST), we found ourselves on the tarmac in Dubai, thinking some mixture of “Dear sweet heavens it is hot” and “Praise the Lord for solid ground.” We received a series of conflicting instructions from multiple people at multiple points in the airport (which is massive and beautiful) regarding where and how to catch shuttle to the hotel. Up the hall, downstairs, ‘round the corner, go to that counter, no go to that counter, now wait outside for the shuttle with the lovely German couple who missed their flight, whoops go back inside to the designated chairs to wait because the shuttles only pick up people who are escorted by their personnel from the chairs, now wait another half hour, now click your heels 3 times and sing the hokey-pokey, and PRESTO!

The hotel was wonderful, especially in regards to the two large beds that we pushed together and sprawled out on, and the complimentary buffet that included the best paneer I have ever eaten (high praise). Teresa popped up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 2:45 am, long before our 6am wake-up call, so Daddy took her down to play in the lobby.

Fun story: David’s watch battery ran out some time ago, which is no big deal to fix, but is complicated significantly by the fact that the little knobbies that you use to change the position of the watch hands don’t work anymore—you can only move them about 10 min worth in either direction. He brought it with him on our journey anyway “just in case,” but basically, he needed to have his watch battery changed at precisely the time shown on the watch.

Which was, serendipitously, 2:45.

Thank you, dear Lord.

Wednesday morning at 7am Dubai time (10pm CST), our shuttle picked us up and deposited us back at the airport. We held our breath as Emirates weighed our carry-ons (again), then scurried up to find a place in line to go through screening and find our terminal. We chatted with a wonderful Australian couple who had opted to forego a wedding party in favor of a world-travel honeymoon. We swapped stories until it was our turn to talk to the very stern lady at the counter, who looked at our boarding passes and passports for half an eternity before pushing them back at us and, instead of waving us through to the other side, with no explanation as to why, directed us to “the fourth office down the hall,” which was labeled something to do with customs, passport issues, and fees. Yum. Again, we waited as the lady in front of us was fined $300 for some unknown transgression, then nervously waited while our boarding passes were reviewed, stamped, and returned to us.

Finally, at the very furthest terminal, we collapsed in some squeaky airport chairs and waited for boarding. Teresa made friends with two other toddlers, an Indian girl and an African boy, all of whom galloped like a herd of wild horses around and around the terminal. At one point the girl’s mother asked me if my kids were twins, which was confusing until I realized that Teresa was scurrying around so much that the woman thought there was two of her.

And finally, around 4pm Lusaka time (9am CST), we stumbled into the airport in Zambia, waited through the visa line at immigration, grabbed all 9 of our bags (which all arrived safely and intact), and hugged  the Colvins with all the exhausted sweaty airplane-smelling sleep-deprived joy we could muster.

A couple nights in Lusaka to tie up a few loose ends, then a long journey north truncated by another night with another truly delightful missionary family (by a lake so big and beautiful and ethereal that it hardly seems possible), then finally, finally, Home.

Never could I ever have imagined the magnitude of sheer joy that could come from something as simple as a house. We’re across road from both the clinic and the preschool (could that possibly be any more perfect?). I’m in love with the curtains in our sitting room. Teresa slept through the night for the first time since Monday (because Home). There’s a mango tree in our yard (which does not appear to be producing anything, but I love its scraggly little self anyway), and a house full of kids next door (two of whom have already played with every children’s book and puzzle that we own), and the stars!

Oh, the stars. They are only vaguely familiar to me, like the edge of a memory, or a dream you’ve all but forgotten when you wake. But I sit on the corner of our porch and wrap my fingers around a hot mug of tea and breathe in deeply the smell of the earth while my daughter runs and plays with the other village kids, and the disquiet in our souls that has refused us rest these past few years lays at peace, and though we are neither nursing nor teaching in any capacity at all yet (or even fully unpacked), we know, without a shadow of a doubt, that we are right where we are supposed to be.