This isn't blog post 1: Life Lessons from DJ Life

Life Lessons from DJ Life

I remember my first time - swim-moving my way through a throng of people who looked a bit like me but not entirely. When I got to the bus station, it was a chaos I didn't yet understand. Megaphones and flip-flops and bus after bus after bus, all demarcated only by the cheesy little phrases pasted on bumpers and windows. To the left was the "jealous people never win" bus, to the front, the "God's timing is best" bus, to the left, the "nothing is impossible" bus. I couldn't help but chuckle at the influx of unsolicited, cliché advice. It was exactly what I'd come to expect here: something just unusual enough to remind me I'm on the other side of the world.

But however trite, the phrases, or at least the fact that they were posted at all, were profound. They were a subtle reminder that Zambia had a lot to teach me - often in the most unexpected places. This week, for example, it's taught me a thing or two about patience.

At first, it bugged me how habitual my life is here. Before I began taking the minibus to work, Karl and I would hitch a ride from a relative of our host family. She was a joy to be around, dedicated to helping us navigate what would become our new home. She often reminded me of my old home too, though, because, as we found out during our 45-minute car rides, she was a big fan of country music. DJ Life, the radio DJ who catered to her sonic desires every morning at 8:30, was a staple of those rides to work, playing the familiar twings and twangs they only make in Texas and Tennessee. After a couple days of this, I realized the disappointing truth: DJ Life plays the same 5 country songs every day. He isn’t a DJ, I thought. He’s a button-pusher with a good memory.

Soon, my realization got me thinking about my time in Zambia so far. About how, when I ate my first meal with my host family, the restaurant played the same Christian rock song on replay for at least 30 minutes. About how each day I have the same routine: I sit at the same desk, reading from the same screen all day, before riding home to take pictures on the same plot of land and then watch one of a set of the same TLC shows, and top it all off with the same nshima dinner where I ask someone to teach me the same Nyanja phrase I’d learned the day before. The situation was clear: I’m now more predictable than I’ve ever been.

The odd thing, though, is that I’ve grown to enjoy it. It’s simple. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. At a place like Cornell, predictability is stagnation and stagnation is complacency and complacency means you’ll be left behind by the time you start looking for a job. And I can’t be unfair: there is excitement here, but it’s the kind you have to wait for. If nothing else, I’ve learned that enjoying the quiet moments and looking forward to the crazy ones is far more satisfying than compulsively fumbling to find a crazy one every day.