Contraceptive Chats

Yesterday we had such a boring day that I didn’t think it was worth writing about. Kenneth dropped round in the morning to tell us that Pennias, the leader of the drama group and the co-ordinator of many of the SAPEP groups in Mazabuka, would pick us up at 1pm to go to a women’s talk group. When it got to 5pm and we’d still heard nothing (we were going slightly mental from being stuck in and around our lodge for two days) we went to visit Bernadette at work to see if she knew what was happening. She called Kenneth, who couldn’t understand why nothing had happened, but he said Pennias would call again tomorrow. Meanwhile we sat and chatted with Bernadette for a bit, and unexpectedly got given a meal of nshima, relish and chicken (I say unexpected in the sense that we hadn’t asked for it, but we have come to realise the extraordinary generosity of people here so it shouldn’t have been too much of a shock). What was rather more shocking is that we both actually quite enjoyed it!

Today we waited again for Pennias – it got to 2pm and we were losing hope. However he did eventually arrive, and so we walked to where the women’s group were meeting, in on of the shanty compounds. It was about a 45 minute walk, and rather hot, but on the way we were reminded how different these towns are from the tourist cities of Livingstone and Lusaka – never mind our cities back home. There were stagnant pools in the shade, rubbish everywhere and a rather dubious smell, and yet these are the living conditions of thousands of people. We made our way to a woman’s garden where the meeting was to be held, and on the way Pennias explained the purpose of the group. The women had been educated by SAPEP about family planning, AIDS prevention and treatment, and many other issues which women in the community were affected by. This group had then gone out into their compound and formed discussion groups to educate women and spread the information. The meeting with Pennias was just to provide feedback to SAPEP and discover whether the programme was working. They gave interesting comments, including that women found it easier and more comfortable to talk to them than to health professionals at the clinics. This is obviously beneficial, as it means that women who would not have sought advice before could receive the correct information – as long as it was given to them correctly. For this reason, Pennias checked what they were saying about contraceptives (down to the fine details of how to put on a condom) and the HIV anti-retroviral treatment – it was a very interesting conversation.

Pennias giving his condom talk

It was really inspirational to see a group of women who were so keen to learn and share information, and I couldn’t help asking them whether they thought there was a similar need for education about the law, especially on the issues which affected them: abortion, contraception and domestic violence. They snapped up the idea, and before Eva and I knew what was happening, we were being told that we’d formed a new community group which we were the leaders of. Here I’m embarrassed to say we had to do a bit of backtracking – although we’re law students, we have no idea about the details of Zambian law and our efforts to find out have been somewhat fruitless. The women seemed slightly disappointed about this, but I suggested that SAPEP find some volunteers from a Zambian university to give legal workshops. At least by giving the suggestion, I felt that perhaps we’d got the ball rolling. In the mean time, we’ve offered to give a human rights workshop when we’re back from the OVC camp next week (Zambia have supposedly signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, but they are not actually legally bound to enforce it).

us with our new legal education group

This weekend we had nothing planned, but felt a desperate urge to get out and about after being cooped up. So our South African friends from Lusaka have offered to give us a lift up to the capital for the weekend. At least it will be a change of scenery!

We hope everyone has a good weekend, loads of love from us.

today's amusement: this is attached to the prison, which I found hilarious. Apparently it's only for staff and visitors...

Also, I haven’t forgotten about uploading the pictures from Livingstone, I just thought I’d wait and use the free internet in the hotel. Unfortunately, this doesn’t actually work most of the time – as soon as an opportune moment comes along, I will seize it!