Polo, the sport of ....er....Farmers - by John

A few days ago we went to see our first Polo game. A friend of ours from church belongs to a local team and we thought it would be fun to get out to the country and see the horses run. My preconceptions around Polo have been formed by media coverage of the British royal family and the people who wear a certain brand of golf shirt, so frankly I didn’t have any clue about what we were going to see.

It turns out that because of the economics of horse ownership in Zambia (as it was explained to me), you don’t have to be a zillionaire to play Polo, you just have to be farmer. So, instead of the mink and manure set of people with very refined English accents and more pedigrees than the horses they were riding, we watched a bunch of rough and ready white Zambian and ex-Zimbabwean farmers, with a couple of South Africans thrown in for good measure, riding local ponies and whooping it up.

Going over the boards, Polo style

What a game! The action was fast and furious, the horses were aggressive and amazingly fast, and the players were not averse to some serious jostling, often at full gallop and while swinging a very long mallet. It was pretty thrilling to watch all eight players and two referees galloping past amid the thunder of hoofbeats. Half the fun was the fans, screaming support and offering scathing and hilarious criticism of the on-field action, often at the expense of their spouses. Everyone was very friendly, a player on one team asked if we were “horse people”. I said “I can recognize a horse at a fair distance” and he said “Great, come out to practice next week”. I think I will spare the horses that kind of suffering. In the end, “our” team, the Lilay Lodge beat the team from Mazabuka by 13-12, hurrah.

Everyone after the ball!

I just had to throw in this next picture. I went for a bike ride and luckily I had my camera along. I just don’t know what to think and can come up with no reasonable explanation, other than to think that western history isn’t a subject that gets a lot of attention here.

And they serve what?

Observed along the way

After a very active early July with Vince, Stacey, Madison and Carter things have settled down into a bit of lethargy. The weather is warming up a bit, it now regularly hits the low thirties in the afternoon, but the mornings are still cool and comfortable. Small details of life in Lusaka are getting our attention, here are some examples:

1) I was recently driving through Kabanana compound with our friend Mr. Mpundu when I noticed a very nice house among the very much less nice houses. This house was very large, had a very nice painted wall around it, a big electric gate and most incongruously, a nice patch of golf course quality green grass outside the wall. When I expressed my wonder to Mr Mpundu, he explained that it belonged to a certain rich lawyer. I was still a little curious and so asked “Why would a rich lawyer build a fancy house in the middle of a compound (i.e.slum). “Ah”, Mr. Mpundu explained “the lawyer lives in town, this is for one of his wives”. All has now become clear! I guess if you are juggling multiple wives it’s good to be a lawyer.

2) I have been fortunate to inherit Stefan’s mountain bike until the next SALTers come, and I have been taking every opportunity to bike around Lusaka. With the crazy traffic, you have to ride both defensively (everyone is going to cut you off) and offensively (darting between mini-buses before they cut you off). One of the great parts of biking around is discovering new places, I found a lovely little valley filled with market gardens, only about two kilometers from our place, an oasis of green during our dry season. Another fun experience is greeting all the little kids. When they see a white guy riding by they all shout “Muzungu” and point, and then say “HOWAREYOU?” (pretty much as one word). The correct reply is “I AM FINE, HOW ARE YOU?” to which they are supposed to say “FINE”. When you are biking along and about a hundred kids a minute are greeting you, it ends up being a non stop travelling greetings festival, sort of like “HOW ARE YOU FINE HOW ARE YOU FINE, FINE, FINE, HOW ARE YOU…”, you get the idea. I used the bike to ride over to Chimwemwe where Stefan worked, and not only got the standard greeting but also lots of “HELLO STEFAN” and “MR. EEEEP”. I guess a white guy riding Stefan’s bike and wearing Stefan’s helmet looks a lot like Stefan.

3) Yoga has entered our lives in a big way. Before anyone gets worried that I will start wearing a loin cloth and a little red dot on my forehead, I should tell you that I am doing Yoga to increase my flexibility because I have a sore back, and I figure a little stretching wouldn’t hurt. Vince and Stacey brought us a couple of Yoga DVDs and Charlene and I have been doing the exercises very regularly. The DVDs feature some very attractive and flexible people doing Yoga in a park like setting (somewhere in BC I think), all to a super relaxing soundtrack somewhere between nature sounds and anesthesia. The teacher is incredibly buff and speaks with a blissed out voice peppered with phrases like “This should feel like someone is licking Ice Cream off your body” and “This should be shiver sweet”. Hmmm... you would think all of this would be very relaxing, eh? Meanwhile we are trying to do exercises in which we are told to touch our left ear with our right thigh and so on, and the soothing soundtrack doesn’t muffle our grunts, groans and the giggles of the girls watching our struggles. I think it’s making a difference, now I don’t notice the pain in my back because of the pain in my hips, thighs and abdomen.

4) Our IVEPers are on their way to North America. IVEP (International Volunteers Exchange Program) is a program of MCC where young adults from developing countries like Zambia spend a year in Canada or the U.S. This year MCC Zambia is sending two people, Alex and Ginah. We were going to send three, but for some mysterious reason the American visa process rejected Beverly, the other applicant. No rhyme or reason, just a form letter explaining that they have the right to reject applicants and you can’t really re-apply. We put Alex and Ginah on the plane on Thursday morning. Neither of them had ever been on an airplane before so they were nervous and to tell you the truth so were we, since they were routed through Jo’burg and London, two very big and busy airports. We are still waiting to find out that they have arrived at their orientation in Akron PA safe and sound. If you want a great experience, think about hosting an IVEPer for a year, you will get to know some great people and learn about another culture.

That's it for now, in a couple of weeks our new SALTers are coming and a new family (the Smiths, who are vaguely related to us in a fourth cousin by marriage kind of way) and who will be working in Kitwe. When everyone shows up, it will be busy and fun!