Lessons in Collaboration and Grace
I have learned two major lessons from our Zambian hosts in the last few weeks. The first is that collaboration not only improves the lives of the Zambian people, but it also saves the lives of the Zambian people. One of the organizations that we have worked with is called RAPIDS (Reaching AIDS Affected People with Integrated Development and Support). They are the umbrella group that works with private, government, non-profit, and faith-based organizations to deliver care to people infected in rural areas.
For example, they help World Bike Relief streamline the process by which caregivers are identified and given bikes. They go into each of Zambia's nine provinces and identify the organization that has the strongest network in a specific region and use them to distribute the bikes. In the Southern province the Salvation Army is the strongest and they were a big part of our bike distribution last week in Monze.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel in each province, RAPIDS works to make existing programs stronger. They do not get caught up in the competitive political antics that diminish the amount of money and services that can reach the community that is meant to be served. As a result, the Zambian government and relief organizations are able to do a decent job of reaching people with HIV/AIDS. While they are in dire straits by western standards (the average life expectancy is for adults is 37 and babies who are born with the virus rarely make it past their second birthday), they are able to counsel and reach more people than they would if they did not use collaborative ways to bridge the gap in the cultures of the African people and western doctors and aid workers.
At the Moorings campsite, we met with Thea, a Dutch doctor, who runs a small clinic for her 300 employee farm and is in charge of coordinating HIV/AIDS programs for the Southern province. She said that when she first started trying to test and counsel the workers on her farm, she was met with resistance. Her first obstacle was convincing the community that they needed to be tested. Her second obstacle was that she had to learn how to deliver the news, once people were identified as being positive. She was able to overcome the first barrier by providing ARV's (anti-retroviral medication) to the farm community. Once members of the community understood that the medication could improve their health, they were willing to be diagnosed and treated.
She was able to overcome the second obstacle once she understood the culture of the Zambian people. She said that her western understanding of the disease led her to make a rather dramatic delivery of the news. The Zambians, however, are not a dramatic people. Once she started to use Zambian counselors, she learned that her patients simply wanted the news and time to be sad. Once they had time to adjust to their new circumstance, they picked up the pieces and moved on with their lives. They did not want to wallow or lament, they simply wanted to move on to the best of their ability. The number of people infected on the farm is significant. Thea estimates that 30% of her 300 employees are infected. The national is average is said to be 15%, but this statistic is thought to be low due to the high number of people nationwide who have not been tested and identified for treatment.
This ability to overcome obstacles and live life to the fullest despite personal circumstances is the second lesson that I take away from this trip. I have never met more gracious people in my entire life. In a country that has an average per capita income of $921 and a 50% unemployment rate, the educators and community builders with whom we have worked have made a difference in their neighbors' lives. They care for ailing family members, work hard as seasonal farm labor to provide for their families, teach under tin roofs and on dirt floors, and welcome strangers from afar into their world. Although they are grateful for the teaching items we have carried in our suitcases, I think they are mostly happy that we wanted to share a small piece of their life. While I came bearing teaching materials and lesson plans, I leave with a heavy heart knowing that I should have done more and need to do more to help. As I sit in my last night in a developing country that is losing an entire generation of people to a brutal virus, I cannot help but wonder what my own industrialized and healthy country could accomplish if we only fostered a community spirit that was more collaborative and gracious.
So, in the final blog posting written in Zambia, I would like to begin my personal exit goal of collaborating with my neighbors and community more by saying how much I have enjoyed working on the blog with everyone who participated in LSZ '08. Unlike most of the program participants who have yet to see the blog, I was able to spend some time each night with the writers as they worked on providing a snapshot of what we experienced that day. It was a great experience and I enjoyed seeing how our diverse group of students and teachers interpreted and described each day's activities.
Finally, I would like to say that Rachel Johns and Ambria Archibald had the enormous task of sorting through hundreds of pictures each night to provide the images to share with all of you. They deserve big Zambian thank you for the hours they spent providing the complete picture!