The week after my 23rd birthday a group of us traveled to Zanzibar, an island you’ll find both off the coast of Tanzania as well as on your Windows wallpaper—-you know, the stock photo of the idyllic white sand beach with the single palm tree that you envision yourself in when you’re having a bad day. Or an average day. Or even a ridiculously good day, because you’d be able to fully observe your quality day if you were on that idyllic island. Yeah, well, I was just there in the flesh, along with four others: Tyler, Karen, Carolyn, and Courtney--a science teacher, two nurses, and a pilot. All single, all thirty and younger. We went to the island to bond with the Indian Ocean, our snorkel masks, succulent ethnic cuisine, and of course, each other.

I would tell you about the island itself, but it was just so perfect it gets boring/braggy after the first few sentences, so instead, I’ll tell you about interesting young Americans and Canadians and what aspects of life they discuss when they find themselves together on vacation in Africa.

Our conversations started with the past. First, the recent past: the 72-hour jolting train ride here we did yoga sessions on until it stopped dead for 10 hours (tracks broken ahead, rumor had it) and we were forced to give up and catch a bus for the remaining day of travel. But we could’t complain--the green Tanzanian hills we careened through on the bus are absolutely stunning.

Then the not-so-recent past, especially college, where people like me played normal things like flute and people like Courtney played full-contact rugby-style pool games with his “Mod.”
“Dude, some of us, as we were tackling each other for the ball underwater, got so we could hold our breath for like four minutes. Yeah, it’s possible.”

Then our conversations would move to the future, often switching to a serious tone as abruptly as the jolts on the train ride to Zanzibar.
“So what would you rather have: a tail that wags when you’re happy . . . or hair all over your face, even your eyelids? And no surgery or laser hair removal.”
Which switched to:
“Would you rather be with someone who talks too much or not enough?”
Which became:
“If you had two lives to live, would you want to be married in both?”

And in the dim 2 AM light, we searched each others’ hand gestures and eye movements for the answers to life questions.
“Should I go on now to become a doctor?”
“What if the editing job I applied for in the States falls through and I have nothing when I leave here? What do I do then?”

And, where we could, we made plans.
“MY kids will definitely have to play a sport.”
“Well, MINE will just have to find an activity they like.”
As if our future childrens’ outlines will solidify beside us as soon as we solidify our plans for them.

But for all the looking back and planning ahead, our toasts at dinner were to the now: to the sun, the waves, to Africa. We sat sunburned and jellyfish-stung under the crocodile constellation we named Mamba (Swahili for “crocodile”) that had gone previously unnoticed by all the ancient people groups. And we laughed the week away because we are each others’ community, each others’ jobs—-not until something like “marriage” or “stable employment” comes along, but now, because life is about nows, not about untils.

And one Zanzibari afternoon, a week into 23, when I walked on the beach alone locating crustaceans, and Karen called to me,
“Hey Amy, we’re watching the sunset from the ocean today. JUMP IN!”

I didn’t have to think twice about what I’d do.

And let me tell you, life sure does wup up on stock photos.

“When we listen carefully we begin to hear other sounds above the racket and roar of poverty. Poverty screeches and screams, but something behind it is singing.”
-Raymond Downing, medical missionary

It’s been strange and wonderful to have four sets of American eyes viewing my Zambia with me the past two weeks (a.k.a. Mom, Dad, bro Eric, friend Stacey). We of course got the touristy Vic Falls out of the way, but the most wonderful-—and psychologically challenging—-part of their trip for me was introducing them to Mumbwa, my home. In the course of two days they met so many people that my mom’s hand muscles became sore from all the handshakes.

And as expected, the social ills pushed their way into our conversations. Like a selfish child, Poverty and AIDS and Alcoholism demanded that my family address them, discuss them, and deal with them, as they’ve demanded of so many before who both live in and visit this place.

As we conversed both with each other and with thoughtful Zambians over these issues, I found myself in a mind-splitting “Yeah . . . BUT” dichotomy. Let me explain:

“So the life expectancy is 36, right? The second shortest in the world?”
“Yeah, BUT did you meet my Home Based Caregivers? They volunteer hours and hours each week caring for their neighbors with HIV/AIDS and TB.”

“So most of these kids are AIDS orphans, right?”
“Yeah, BUT did you notice Violet’s smile as she keeps peeking back at us in class? And with a mind like hers, she has so much potential.”

To be fair, my family members are all considerate and well-educated, perhaps able to perceive both the nuances and the big picture with more depth than I was in the first few months here. But as they gave me a refresher course on the American perspective on Africa, I realized how much I used to view this place through the lens of Numbers (36 years) and Labels (AIDS orphan) and Sad Stories and how little I do that now. Zambia is no longer statistics to me but instead friends and coworkers and role models.

So when I had my fam sit down to hear the Grace’s story, I hesitated to even disclose to them the sad parts.

“Ooo! Let me cook for them!” Grace said as soon as she learned my family was visiting. So over her delicious peanut vegetable dish, Grace told us who she is. She is the chairperson of CHD’s women entrepreneurship program, in charge of giving micro-enterprise loans to women to start businesses. Grace is also a businesswoman herself, owning both a food store and selling jewelry she makes from materials she buys in Lusaka. She loves her husband, visits hospitalized people every week, and, like most Zambians, raises orphans. She also sings louder than I do and tries to teach me Zambian dances.

“What doesn’t Grace do?!” Stacey asked me. Like me, Stace fell in love with Grace. Perhaps it’s her loud laugh that exposes her teeth like stars twinkling against her night-skin as she holds your hand, pulling you into the laugh with her. Perhaps it’s the passion and dedication she has for the community work she does, most of it volunteer. Whatever it is, it’s hard to not fall in love with this woman.

So it wasn’t until later that I told Stacey Grace’s status. She’s positive (she’s open about it and doesn’t mind that I’m writing this). But as everyone who knows Grace knows, that’s a side note in her life story, barely worth mentioning. To define her using a label like HIV would be like defining Handel’s Messiah by the breath marks or a sleek Ferrari by the exhaust it emits. It’s there, it’s a reality, but it has nothing to do with the essence of Grace. It has nothing to do with her love of life and others.

And so it is with other Zambians, especially those Mumbwa-ites who fill their community with agencies and organizations and hospitals and schools they then use to serve each other. As I’ve spent this year observing them and being loved by them, I always learn much more from them than I expect. I cringe now when I think of how I was so determined to “help” them, as if I knew how they should live their lives. I call it my latent maternalism. I wasn’t racist, but I condescendingly used to think (usually subconsciously) that my American methods were more efficient, and therefore more valuable and better. An “I’ll come and show you how it’s done around here” attitude.

Now, however, I’ve learned to listen more, and I think we must come here with an attitude of symbiotic exchange. For every workshop an American gives in Africa explaining how to run a business more efficiently or how to prevent the spread of AIDS, there should be a workshop run by Zambians for Americans on how to live in community or how to care for the environment or how to deal with death or how to build a culture where ideas like “anorexia” and “stress” are unknown concepts. Would that be so strange to take seriously the life lessons of the “least of these”?

Zambians are a patient people, a welcoming people, and above all, a strong people. And as for us in the States, Zambians like Grace could use our compassion, but not our pity. To define these people by their problems not only steals their humanity from them—-it also deafens us to the secrets they hold about life and love and death. Powerful secrets that at times put me and my American arrogance to shame.

Perhaps I’m idealizing this culture, and there are still days when I dislike living here, but perhaps some praise is overdue after all the time I’ve spent viewing Zambians as embodied social ills rather than equals and beautiful children of the same Father.

“We Africans are living in hard times,” a few Zambians told my family last week. They may be hard times, but these people have a lot to teach us about how to sing and laugh through the difficulties. There’s a lot we have to learn about how to live out tragedy with grace.