Grandma's Journal 10/21/08

Today I want to talk about my gardner. He works so hard with really crappy tools. I can't believe how much he has accomplised in this overgrown yard in the last week and a half. He has dug tree rings around all our trees (this is in Bermuda Grass mind you!), he has burned all the trash and leaves, he has cleared the ascending Bermuda Grass from the actual garden plots (of which there are 14. This is 14 times the size of my garden at home.) We are working on planting as the yard is plenty big enough to feed several families. I went early to the store today and brought him seeds; watermelon, onion, and cabbage, which was all I could find at the local store. I'll get more later. He came to me later on and told me he had a headache. I gave him 2 aspirin and told him to rest or sleep in the shade. He stayed for lunch (as Sarah the guard is usually in the mood to make him Nshema which is their staple). It's kind of like cream of wheat only with corn instead of wheat. Then he came to me again and said "Madame I don't have "power" to go home." I other words, which took me a few minutes and a few questions to understand, he was weak with a fever and couldn't walk all the way home. He asked for a ride. I had the car as I had taken Mike to work. I drove him home post haste hoping the whole time that he didn't have anything contageous. He said he thought he probably had Malaria, that he would get some medicine. I told him not to come tomorrow if he didn't feel well, all this stuff will wait. Anyway, he proceeded to give me directions to his home. Oh dear, it is so poor in his section of town out in the dusty, dry area. He's one of the "lucky" ones. He has a job and a cinder block house about the size of my dinning room. He makes k350,000 a month. That is about $105. He has a wife and 3 children. Mike's boss, Bob, has employed him for a long time and will pay him this month. We will start next month. We do give him tips every week, k20,000 here and there, but it's just sad. They are ready to have an election at the end of the month. The sitting president by the name of Sata, is president because he was vice and the president died of old age. They say the old president was pretty good. This Sata does not like foreigners. In fact he wants all foreigners to be paid the same as the Zambians. However, no one would come to teach them how to do everthing for such wages. It's insane. The man running against him is Banda. We hope he wins.