Everyone knows someone who's died

So it turns out Zambia has the third lowest life expectancy in the world, next to Swaziland and Angola. That means it's lower than war-torn countries like Sudan, DRC, and Afghanistan. Living in Lusaka, that doesn't feel real most of the time, because what you see are people shopping in Super Spar, driving cars, and going to University. When you feel it, though, is when you talk to people here in Lusaka about their families scattered around Zambia, all of whom have suffered a major loss. Everyone has a sister in Copperbelt who has died, or a nephew who didn't survive his third birthday, or a parent who has passed away. One of my roommates just heard that her young sister in Mansa (in Luapula province, the hardest hit by malaria) had passed away. "How many are you?" I asked. "We are now six," she replied. Everyone has large families, with chunks cut out of them by disease. The driver for one of the NGOs I work with, Peter, was telling me about his nephew, a 21-year-old, who became Peter's dependent after his faher, Peter's brother, passed away. The boy had HIV, but refused to take his medication because his friends told him the medication made him sick, not the virus. On Wednesday when I spoke to Peter, the boy's viral load was high, and Peter's wife was pleading with him to start taking his meds again. By next Monday, the boy had died. Here in Zambia, losing people is as much a part of the way of life as tilling fields of maize.