It was the beginning of the century; I was in my early mid-twenties and decided, after exhausting other agendas, to travel with Habitat for Humanity Global Villages to Zambia, Africa. This was in order to build houses in the village of Kaoma, located centrally in the Western Province. It was made clear that there would be no electricity, no running water, no bathrooms and no communication with the outside world.
It happens every so often, an event is so strange that the only logical solution is that it didn’t actually happen. That’s how I felt the week before I left for Africa, the time I was in Africa and the week I came back, making it a full month before any sort impact began to find its way into my acknowledgement. It’s not as if I didn’t know I was going to go. Packing bags, putting in paperwork for my visa, buying the plane ticket, whatever the prep-work happened to be that day; it seemed that there was a cool kind of recognition and absolutely no fear.
I was not trying to be blasé about the work, but in my mind there was nothing but a frank acceptance of facts: I was going to build houses in Africa. It was a non-negotiable.
The only kind of anxiety came from two possible scenarios I had considered:
1. There is no toilet, there is a hole in the ground and I don’t know what to do.
2. I am trying to make the best of not having any kind of toilet, I am bitten by a Black Mamba and while in a compromising position, fall into the hole, no one finds me for three days. My last known photo is shown on the Today Show. It’s the one from Facebook that makes me look fat. I didn’t de-tag it before I left.
Spoiler alert: One of those scenarios happened. The other one didn’t.
After an 18 hour flight we touched down in Lusaka, a surprisingly westernized city. The group consisted of ten women and one man. We left in the morning for an 8 hour bus-ride to an area of the world that was unlike anywhere else I had ever been to. It was so beautiful, I was struck speechless. This is only significant because it is significantly against my nature.
I once had a work evaluation in which the only comment was “avid communicator” which is the most polite way of saying “never shuts the eff up” ever written.
I tried very hard to think of what it seemed like, which is typically pretty easy. For example:
Scotland (looks like) = The Pacific Northwest
Switzerland (looks like) = Colorado
Nevis (looks like) = Florida
But nothing was quite right.
However, for the sake of comparison, I’ll say the landscape was something akin to Ohio. It’s a lie, but it’s the lie that’s closest to the truth. Like when I say ‘Impala tastes like Venison’.
For days we labored in the brutal sun. Building two homes and digging a foundation without drawings, power tools, a grasp of the native language or, for better or worse, other men. As an aspiring architect, I have never felt closer to the material. The smell and feel of cold mortar, sun baked brick, the grit you clean out of your mouth, the cuts and bruises from bricks continually rubbing against your skin, it all was endless agony and excruciating ecstasy.
Finally, Louis Kahn made sense. He wrote “you have to ask the brick what it wants to be and the brick says ‘I want to be an arch’.” It means the material can become something more than the sum of its part, but in the end it will only ever be a brick, to be anything else is against its nature. A man can be a great and powerful, but in the end he will only ever be blood, bone and flesh. A home can be the jewel box for the soul, but it will only ever be cement, wood and brick.
It filled me with a kind of stern pride on the last day “American Women, they are brought up to do anything, how useful you all are.” My god, did I love the people of that Village.
I wanted to feel like what we did was significant, like it had solved a great problem. Maybe it did, but it probably didn’t.
Maybe this group of white women (or as we were known there ‘Makua’) coming in and doing manual labor for a few weeks was an event to be mocked, or worse, ignored. What did it matter when there was, is, and will always be so much more to do? Couldn’t you have just done this in Baltimore, where they would at least have drywall and a flushing toilet? Was this just a selfish endeavor to put on a resume?
These thoughts are the carbon monoxide of dreams.
It may not have been much, but two families were able to own their own homes. That will have to be enough.
It happens every so often, an event is so strange that the only logical solution is that it didn’t actually happen. That’s how I felt the week before I left for Africa, the time I was in Africa and the week I came back, making it a full month before any sort impact began to find its way into my acknowledgement. It’s not as if I didn’t know I was going to go. Packing bags, putting in paperwork for my visa, buying the plane ticket, whatever the prep-work happened to be that day; it seemed that there was a cool kind of recognition and absolutely no fear.
I was not trying to be blasé about the work, but in my mind there was nothing but a frank acceptance of facts: I was going to build houses in Africa. It was a non-negotiable.
The only kind of anxiety came from two possible scenarios I had considered:
1. There is no toilet, there is a hole in the ground and I don’t know what to do.
2. I am trying to make the best of not having any kind of toilet, I am bitten by a Black Mamba and while in a compromising position, fall into the hole, no one finds me for three days. My last known photo is shown on the Today Show. It’s the one from Facebook that makes me look fat. I didn’t de-tag it before I left.
Spoiler alert: One of those scenarios happened. The other one didn’t.
After an 18 hour flight we touched down in Lusaka, a surprisingly westernized city. The group consisted of ten women and one man. We left in the morning for an 8 hour bus-ride to an area of the world that was unlike anywhere else I had ever been to. It was so beautiful, I was struck speechless. This is only significant because it is significantly against my nature.
I once had a work evaluation in which the only comment was “avid communicator” which is the most polite way of saying “never shuts the eff up” ever written.
I tried very hard to think of what it seemed like, which is typically pretty easy. For example:
Scotland (looks like) = The Pacific Northwest
Switzerland (looks like) = Colorado
Nevis (looks like) = Florida
But nothing was quite right.
However, for the sake of comparison, I’ll say the landscape was something akin to Ohio. It’s a lie, but it’s the lie that’s closest to the truth. Like when I say ‘Impala tastes like Venison’.
For days we labored in the brutal sun. Building two homes and digging a foundation without drawings, power tools, a grasp of the native language or, for better or worse, other men. As an aspiring architect, I have never felt closer to the material. The smell and feel of cold mortar, sun baked brick, the grit you clean out of your mouth, the cuts and bruises from bricks continually rubbing against your skin, it all was endless agony and excruciating ecstasy.
Finally, Louis Kahn made sense. He wrote “you have to ask the brick what it wants to be and the brick says ‘I want to be an arch’.” It means the material can become something more than the sum of its part, but in the end it will only ever be a brick, to be anything else is against its nature. A man can be a great and powerful, but in the end he will only ever be blood, bone and flesh. A home can be the jewel box for the soul, but it will only ever be cement, wood and brick.
It filled me with a kind of stern pride on the last day “American Women, they are brought up to do anything, how useful you all are.” My god, did I love the people of that Village.
I wanted to feel like what we did was significant, like it had solved a great problem. Maybe it did, but it probably didn’t.
Maybe this group of white women (or as we were known there ‘Makua’) coming in and doing manual labor for a few weeks was an event to be mocked, or worse, ignored. What did it matter when there was, is, and will always be so much more to do? Couldn’t you have just done this in Baltimore, where they would at least have drywall and a flushing toilet? Was this just a selfish endeavor to put on a resume?
These thoughts are the carbon monoxide of dreams.
It may not have been much, but two families were able to own their own homes. That will have to be enough.
( Thanks to Pricilla for the pictures)
All this work was in strict contrast to another place, about 8 hours away, in Livingstone.
Built in 1904 for her royal highness of England, it was never actually visited by the illustrious monarch. The hotel looks directly onto the bridge from Zambia to Zimbabwe.
Having a place and a setting with such great disparity makes the Hotel become like Livingstone himself. Was it originated there? No. Has become an intricate and irremovable part of the culture? Yes.
I first saw this hotel as I was bungee-jumping off of the Zambia/Zimbabwe bridge. Here’s the way that went down:
“Yeah, I seem to remember my mom saying something like ‘If all the cool kids jumped off a bridge….something, something, something.’ Whatever. I can’t remember. Let’s go.”
Our last few days were spent on Safari. It was here that I fell in love with Botswana.
Somewhere in-between the vast emptiness of the western province and the opulence of Victoria Falls there were the houses and people which captured my heart. The homes were something like a baby that a ranch house and a bright-colored hacienda would have, if such a copulation and pregnancy were possible. The carved crisp forms and sharp, gallant color placed against a warm-grey-brown background reminded me of when I was young and first realized what colors went best together. It’s bold and humble at the same time. To know what I’m talking about I recommend looking into the HBO version of Alexander McCall Smith’s Books “The Number One Ladies Detective Agency.”
Now that I’m back home, working at my desk, buying groceries from CVS, picking up dry cleaning, I can’t help but think of leaning out of the top of a jeep, wind blowing your hair, watching a Leopard stalk its prey and thinking “Do people really do that? Did I?”
The answer is, of course, probably.
As the great innocent abroad once said “All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.”
Next stop. Meet Johenwarter and the Host in Boston. The City of My Great Defeat.
Damn this is well said. I wonder sometimes too if we were actually there. Then I look at my bank account and the spot on my ankle tattoo where a damn mosquito bit me and it's a little fk'ed up still and realize yeah man we were there!
ReplyDeleteThe insignificance of what we did, that's the key thing, I think.