Hello Friends and Family
The following is my attempt to
stay in touch with you and to share a little of what is going on in my life
here in Makambwe village. There will be graphs, visual aids, rants, and details
of what the heck I am doing in Africa. Please email me about life in America or
anything you found interesting. I miss
you all and feel free to come and visit!
What I have been doing in country since February:
February 9th –May 6th- Live in
Chipembi, Zambia and study Zambian language, culture, and technical skills
May 6th- August 22nd- Stay within the
province of my village of Makambwe for community entry
Highs
Giving
a speech in Chinyanja at the US Ambassador’s house
Presenting
a live chicken to Chief Chamuka
Watching
Zambia win the Arica cup on a 12in TV in a village
Watching
the sunset in my outdoor shower
Not
watching the sunset from my indoor shower that I constructed
Getting the Sport Illustrated
Swimsuit Edition (with a special section on Zambia) in the mail (Gabe Chess, you have done
your country a great service).
Watching
Nyeow dancers (kind of like African cloggers with masks and drums) tight rope
walk, carried over a fire, and scare the crap out of children.
Lows
Living
in a house with four kittens
Crapping
my pants
Finding
a black Mamba in my hut
No microbrews for 6 months
Missing my friends and family on
their birthdays, weddings, and other events
First post
I soon figured out that Diarrhea
is not funny in Zambia. I theoretically understood this as, diarrhea is a huge
problem in the developing world, but I only fully comprehended how unfunny it
was when I crapped my own pants. Poop is only funny when it is someone else’s pants.
Americans think it’s funny when someone hurts themselves or is kind of sick
(like diarrhea) because we have access to medical care and can get most things
taken care of. The situation is different in Zambia and something that might be
routine in America could be serious here.
If I can’t rely on poop jokes
here then I knew I needed to figure out some other routine. Humor is an
important part of my life and helps smooth out awkwardness in social
interactions, which I imagine I will have a lot of. After lots of questioning
and prodding from locals I found some jokes that were funny, some frustrating,
but they all had something to say about Zambians find funny.
Just to warn you, Zambians don’t
follow what we have generally excepted as the classic joke structure: setup and
then punch line. Most of their jokes are only setup. For example, my language
teacher told me the following joke:
A man is biking to go to see his
girlfriend’s parents. He really has to go to the bathroom and sees that a storm
is coming. He decided that he will just pee on himself and when the rain makes
him wet, no one will be the wiser. The storm doesn’t end up coming and he goes
to his girlfriend’s house with pee on his pants…..
You may have been waiting for a
punch line, I was too, but there will be none of that business here. I think part of the problem is that a joke
translates into something funny in their minds and not a joke, complete with
setup and punch line all in a simple format. However, there was one joke I
found that actually did fit the normal mode:
A man is leaving a bar and really
has to go to the bathroom, so he stops next to a building and starts to pee. A
cop sees him and says “hey you can’t pee there, that will be a 10 pin fine” The
man doesn’t put up a fight. He finishes peeing and gives the policeman his last
20 pin bill. He is waiting for his change and the police man doesn’t give it to
him. Finally, he says “so what about my change?” and the policeman says “pee
again!”
Zambians think this is funny for a couple of
reasons. They think peeing in public is funny (I think everyone would agree
that it is funny, though not if you have to go to court for it). The whole
situation is funny because of the absurdity of it: how can the man pee again if
he just got done peeing? Where is the pee going to come from? I think this is
the heart of Zambian humor: absurdity. The third joke told to me also fits the
absurdity model.
A man and a woman are driving to
town and all of a sudden they get into a car wreck. Somehow, the man ends up
naked, on top of the woman and doing
nothing!
There are two layers here, how
did the man accidentaly end up on
top of the woman naked? And how can a man be on top of a woman while naked without doing anything? Zambians find
the idea of opposite sexes interacting as friends to be peculiar. Men and women
sit separately and do not seek each other’s company after dark, unless it is
romantic. This joke can be a hit or a miss with Zambians, but it still proves
the point.
Another big difference is the lack of reference humor. We
have a knowledge of popular culture that is constantly referenced with much
hilarity. You know exactly what I mean when I say “the bums lost, the bums will
always lose! My advice to you is to do as you father did and get a job sir”
However, few people here have seen many movies, so they have no popular
reference points that they can agree upon. You can’t just mention a line from
last night’s South Park or one of your favorite movies and get a laugh out of
people.
There is also more reluctance to tell a dirty joke or say
something inappropriate. I asked a man I was driving with to tell me what were
some dirty words in Nyanja and the only one the he would tell me was
“adultery”. Needless to say, I decided to stay away from my Aristrocrats
routine.
The Zambian people have a great sense of humor and love to
laugh at themselves and especially at
foreigners. I look forward to more research in this category and will hopefully
learn a dirtier word than adultery.
