Death

Death sucks. I see a lot of very young kids (under five), and tons of teenagers and older. It's hard to judge the age of older people, but I see a fair amount of people with white in their hair. My host mother is one example, and I think she's 59. I haven't seen many people with a full head of white hair.

In the ~1 month I've stayed Kafue, 3 or 4 people have died with some connection to me. One person was killed in a car collision, who lives near my coworkers, and my counterpart Jairos helped extract the body from the car (came back to the office with blood on his pants). The next day I saw a broken windshield in the ditch next to a broken sign from a seperate accident, as well as a lorry with a crushed front that apparently destroyed a small car. Every once in a while, you see a totalled wreck of a minibus.

My host brother Aubree is pretty well-connected in town. His friend's cousin died yesterday. He said that during the maize harvest, some boy came and helped him without asking any questions. At the end of the day, Aubree gave him some food as payment.. and then a few days after I moved into my permanent accomodations, Aubree said that boy had died.

I was doing something in town with my host cousin Chipuna, and a big truck passed with the back full of maybe 30 women singing. I thought it was kinda cool until Chipuna said it was for a funeral.

I was in church on Sunday with my host mom, Mrs. Maplanga (should it be Ms. because she's a widow? Mr. Maplanga died from an asthma attack), and they asked people to contribute to the funeral fund for a recently deceased pastor. Today she said she attended a funeral but I don't know who it was for. Maybe Aubree's friends cousin, or the pastor, or someone else.

High birth rate, large families, high mortality.
Death sucks.

My own risk of mortality has become part of my experience here -- I've adjusted, somehow. When I get on the back of the motorbike to visit farmers, I know that there's a high risk of injury or death. It used to scare me, but I've accepted that I'm pretty helpless as long as I continue to work here. It's still freaky when lorries loaded with cement blocks or copper roar past and force you closer to the non-existent/shitty shoulders.

Minibuses are another story. Officially, this major form of public transit seats 15 or 16, and that law is actually enforced in Malawi. In Zambia there's no such restriction, so it's common to get on with 20 people and luggage and chickens. There's little padding over the steel-framed benches, and no inner upholstery or seatbelts. In an accident, I think pretty much everyone dies. Maybe the driver and passenger seat are safest, due to seatbelts. I only need to ride them to get to Lusaka, or get around Lusaka - I ride my bicycle or walk around Kafue. I'll probably visit Livingstone in July and I've heard there are only taxis there.

Oh, and the nurses have been on strike for almost 5 weeks, and the government just promised to fire them all if they don't show up for work on Tuesday. I doubt they'll return. The government is trying to guilt them to work based on the morals of their profession. I'm sure they understand that already! So they must have a damn good reason to be on strike. I've heard that there are more people dying because of reduced healthcare. The issue is complicated by the union leaders not representing the nurses properly. And the knowledge that like 28 billion kwacha (5ish million CAD) had been stolen from the ministry of health via corruption - that must mean there's money now, so the nurses deserve better wages! That seems to be the nursing point of view.