(This post was written on January 22, 2014)
In Kaoma this evening; I got lucky on the way over this morning, picked up some Zambezi truffles. No kidding, we have truffles in Western Province and they are by their very nature the aromatic expression of a place I might have ever known. It's as if the sum of all the odor of this blasted xeric sand is condensed into a baseball-sized sphere of ... well, the words fail me, as it is too dense to be a mushroom. However, I'm certain that without a doubt should I travel across the universe, that smell would temporarily return me to Western Province.
Returned from a miraculous vacation in Kenya over the Christmas / New Years' Holiday; it gave me an opportunity to reflect (over numerous Tuskers and Whitecaps) on the life yamene.
"Yamene" is usually found twice in the Zambian colloquial repertoire, fortunately doubled on the waxed paper packs containing what is likely (by volume) Southern Africa's favorite drink, Chibuku ... the naming of which is another story. Chibuku is otherwise known as "Shake Shake", an indication of the action necessary during the consumption of the 1 liter "pack" to stir the chunky contents (ground maize) back into the liquid. "Yamene Yamene" is, as far as I can tell, the chiNyanja translation. Hence, life yamene ... "life shake" or as I prefer, "the shaken life" (to hell with figuring out the past perfect tense for Yamene).
So, "the shaken life" is one where you sometimes live outside of yourself in order to mentally withstand being in a faraway place for the long haul. I.e., constantly being a foreigner and/or stranger in a society; being the subject of what my friend Oliver Shao often referred to as positive racism; having a language capacity equivalent to looking through dirty glass; gastronomic monotony that reduces appetite to a somewhat distant and oft-ignored longing; the capriciousness of weather; seeing people (particularly children) who are desperately hungry working for a plate of cassava that has the nutritional value of paste; repeatedly reminding people not to repeat the same mistake; the distances from family, stoplights, good ice cream; aging; loneliness; the dog dying over New Years'; etc.
In response to the life yamene, you cope in strange ways. I pulled weeds for an hour after I found out the dog died, for example. Slash grass around the school conservation agriculture demo plot in 90F weather. Making bio-char when it's 110F (the feedstock gets very dry). Any repetitive task involving your hands (shelling seeds, making Teren ropes (to mark where to dig basins), etc.). Reading Guns, Germs, and Steel for the 38th time. Drinking beer whilst cheering on West Ham United. Drinking beer whilst crying over West Ham Utd.
The point is you try to stay out of your head in order to get things done, because it tends to be a big echo chamber up there of regrets, second-guessing, doubts, etc. Peer in, run it only on problems, set the great engine to working, then duck out. Psychologically, it's likely not healthy ... but psychologists are in short supply, and people have much worse problems. Hence "life yamene" ... and "Tarnished Armour".
