During a month’s volunteering with the Presentation Sisters in Zambia, I met some amazing people.

The people are real characters. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the notion that you can characterize an entire race of people in a few words. Probably because the Irish got stuck with drunken and nosey! Zambains can not be so easily categorized. As I left, they always asked me not to forget them. There’s certainly no chance of that.

Regina was one. A real dynamo of a woman, vivacious and friendly and buzzing all the time. She has TWENTY-FIVE CHILDREN, and that’s the conservative estimate. Many of them aren’t her natural born kids, but orphaned nieces, nephews and neighbours, all lined up like in adorable steps of stairs. Some of her children have children now too. And they all live, like some warped version of the Brady Bunch, in a teeny little shack. But, they are so inhumanly happy. One girl, Jennifer who must have been about 8, smiled at me like a movie star. She knew her medication by heart, spoke perfect English and was so sharp and contented you’d think she had the keys to the kingdom. Heck, maybe she has.

Then, there was Kestine who worked in the house. He was great, I think we clicked because we’re so similar in age, and yet our lives are so different. He’s hoping to start college soon. He rents a room in a house that’s (literally) a building site, so there are holes in the walls and ceiling. He has no mattress, sleeps on the bare floor and gets his blankets and clothes from the Sisters. He’s a big footie fan, doesn’t like Roy Keane (like everyone else, but me) and talked me into supporting Barcelona. Looking into his eyes, he reminded me of chocolate melting. Unbelievably sweet, but so vulnerable.

I think of Victoria too, who’s about 11 and whose toes are simply rotting off. I can’t even imagine the pain of that, but they will most likely need to be amputated. Sr Theresa said that Vitamin B6 and B Complex would really help her, like they do so many patients. But they’re expensive and hard to get. So, Victoria’s toes will need to be amputated. That annoys me. There’s a child in this world with no toes because simple vitamins which are IN MY SHAMPOO are too expensive and hard to access in Zambia. That angers me, and it upsets me.

Even as I type, I’m starting to realize the dangers and difficulties of returned volunteers. I think it’s one of those things that is completely different to experience, than it is to hear thousands of similar (and worse) stories. To relate the experience through words on a page seems, right now, almost impossible. Anyway, I try.

Families come in all guises. Often elderly impoverished grandparents are caring for local orphans. There was one man whose wife left him and he remarried. His wife then returned and his second wife refused to leave. Now, they’re living as a happy threesome and the wives get on great together.  The children are always smiling. They’re feet and hands are muddy, but they are always smiling and there are always so many of them.

I remember Betty, who came back from death’s door, and now worries so much that she gets migrane. Another man, a moderately more well off vet, who’d lost his right leg in a car accident. He’s the energetic sort and being confined to bed has made him depressed and lethargic. Another man lost both his legs in an industrial accident, leaving his three girls and wife, Virginia destitute.

We visited a tot suffering with malnutrition too. ‘Mama’ they called her. She wandered over to me when we arrived and left her siblings shyly petting their starving kitten. She was placid and warm and improved immeasurably in the few short weeks I was there. In a ravenous family of 11, where her parents have died from AIDS, she was forgotten. But because Sr Theresa was there, she’ll survive.

Hilda Long was another dynamo. Her English was perfect. She has three young children, including a heavy looking baby on her back. Her husband died a year ago, and her house was burnt down. She now lives with a woman who took pity on her. She’s obviously smart, capable and proud. She’s a leader in waiting, and as she said herself, the lives of her community are very unstable and need only a little capital to start off a self-sustaining enterprise.

The people have real ‘ordinary’ problems too, like we’d have here. One woman was divorced and her ex-husband refused to pay maintenance. Another man was in prison and his wife was starving. There were people with depression, people being attacked, raped and mistreated. There were some people suspected of witchcraft and others who have run away from home in a rebellious fit and refuse to return. There are single mothers and disabled children, corruption and disadvantage. It’s not such a different world, really.

Basically, they’re very very poor. Like everywhere, there are different levels of it. Some are better off than others but I didn’t meet anyone I’d consider ‘wealthy’. What struck me was the humanity of it, though. The human struggle is the same across continents, creeds and colours and the sheer struggle that those people endured would both warm and break your heart.

It’s a little spooky sometimes. There were times when patients or just villagers beared an uncanny resemblance to friends, family, people that I know. Their mannerisms, facial expressions or way of speaking reminded me of people that I missed from home. They’re not so different from any of us, it seems. Although they are endlessly positive, in every sense of the word.

And, that’s it.