My Majina-Namesake

Life in the village has been pretty entertaining lately! Somehow I've managed to keep my self very busy. I know I've been busy based on the number of books I get read in a week and my last 2 weeks in the village, I haven't read ANY books, well other than my "Nutrition and Diet Therapy" textbook I recently acquired from another volunteer. Between living in the bush, having dreds, and my newly found borderline obsession with nutrition I'm becoming quite the little tree hugger:) But to my fellow Kansans who might be reading: don't worry I don't think I'll ever reach the vegetarian status!

But on to more exciting topics. The coolest thing that has happened in my life recently was having a baby named after me. There is one family who lives in a neighboring village that I work with whom I absolutely adore. They treat me like one of their own and in all reality, I don't think I would have been able to stick out my time here without them. The father is my closest counterpart and closest friend in the village, and the mother is a sweetheart.

So Mama was pregnant and due in July. I was hoping she would have a boy because out of their 6 kids, only one boy so far and he was the first born. I also assumed the baby would have a religious type name because of the line-up of kids already. They have a Blessings, Gospel, Glorify & Thanks already. So when I returned from my vacation with Mom,Dad, Gma & Gpa, I was suprised to find a little baby girl, born on July 2 (3 days away from my birthday) named Tamra.

In Zambia, having a baby named after you is a really big honor actually. Usually here when a baby is named after someone they take the baby to that person a day or so after the birth and have a celebration in honor of that namesake or in Lunda they call it majina. But I wasn't around until about a week or two after the birth, so they didn't show off baby Tamra until I came back! Then we had a small celebration, killed a chicken, and drank some monkoyo, which is like a sweet maize drink.

It is cool to know that I've been able to make at least a small impact on someone's life, little as it may be, its somewhere to start.