Um. My Mistake(s).

She unrolled the window, about to throw the used water bottle onto the ground. “Oh, I’ll take that,” I quickly said, hoping to nonchalantly save the world from one more piece of litter. She turned to me with a quizzical look. “Why? Do you need it?” I was now distinctly uncomfortable. “No. It’s just that I have a bag for trash here. I’ll put it in and throw it away later.” She shook her head, “No, that’s fine. I can toss it here.” I was still undeterred. “But isn’t that littering?” I asked. Usually, I would have have held my tongue, but Emelia was a good friend, and I was surprised by the conversation. 

She smiled at me, finally understanding. “No. Watch what happens. One of those boys over there will take the bottle in less than a minute. They use them. It is a waste to throw them away.” With that, she tossed the bottle out of the window of our parked truck. Within two minutes, a small boy had darted over, grabbed the prize, and run back to his friends. I was embarrassed. “Wow. I really didn’t know that.” I had been so high and mighty about the litter, with my garbage bag in the back seat, full of empty water bottles. But Emelia, my Zambian friend, knew that sometimes, the best thing to do is toss an empty bottle from the truck window.

It took seventeen hours of driving to reach Muyombe. The last seven were driven over two track dirt paths, and I was frequently thrown to the roof of the cab as we hit enormous pits. We passed two broken down trucks on that path, and only one other moving vehicle. Along the way, we faced traffic jams from herds of cattle blocking the path, and an occasional ox-drawn cart. The car was swarmed by tsetse flies, which carry the dreaded sleeping sickness, so we drove with our windows up, despite scorching heat and broken AC. Covered in sweat, constantly jostled, like a roller coaster that would not end, and very hungry, the four of us finally arrived in Muyombe, and settled into a very, very basic rest house.

Over the next few days, as we paid for food and lodging, I asked for receipts. Our treasurer in Lusaka needed them in order to reconcile the trip budget, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. But over and over again, the workers refused. I was frustrated, but finally realized that they probably did not have pen and paper. I handed over a blank sheet and writing utensil to my friend. “Could you please ask them to write what we have purchased, the cost, and then sign it?” I figured she might have better luck. Emelia took off to go and find the workers.

A few hours later, when I asked about the receipt, she shook her head. “None of them can read or write. They looked all over, but not one of the workers knows how to write. Only the owner, and he is gone.” Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. She handed me back the paper, covered in words and numbers. “I just wrote it out. I hope that will be good enough.” I nodded, embarrassed again. Yet another time I had simply not understood. I was frustrated that it was so hard to get a receipt, not thinking for a minute about the frustration of those who could not write or read a receipt.

My lack of awareness, after two years of living in Zambia, and many, many travels in rural areas, reminds me of a game that we played after just a few months of living here. Frankie and Johnny like Checkers, and we did not have a Checker board. So, they spent days collecting bottle caps - Fanta and Coke - to serve as checkers, and they colored a piece of paper to make a board. 

Other children gathered around them when the game was finally ready. All the kids took turns playing, but after a little while, Frankie came over to me with a look of frustration on his face. He whispered to me that the other kids were cheating. He was bitterly disappointed, as he had so looked forward to these Checker games. Joel watched a bit and then nodded towards me. It was true, he confirmed. The other kids were cheating. My boys were sad and stopped playing after awhile. Their Zambian friends were confused, but kept on playing among themselves.

Months later, we saw some adult friends playing Checkers. We asked them about the game, and discovered that it was not Checkers at all. It was a game called Draft that looks just like Checkers. The pieces and the board look very much the same, but there are different rules. We realized that the other children had not been cheating; they had simply been playing a different game with different rules. While our kids were playing Checkers, they were playing Draft.

I wonder how often this happens in life, and we don’t realize it. I saw a friend throw a bottle out the window and immediately assumed she was littering. A woman refused to give me a receipt, and I became frustrated that she wouldn’t do such a simple thing. Some boys played a game with my children, and we were sure they were cheating. But they were not cheating, they were simply playing with different rules. And Emelia was not littering, she was providing some children with a useful bottle. And the woman at the guest house was not being difficult, she was offering all that she could. It is so easy to assume that we are all playing the same game, and to become angry, frustrated, or judgmental when we think someone else is breaking the rules.

I hope that next time I am ready to judge, I stop and consider that the other person may be playing a different game. Whether they are from a different culture, different socio-economic situation, different country, different religion, or even if they look like me and seem to be similar to me, perhaps there is a different game going on, and perhaps that is worth exploring.

Sometimes, I like being wrong. And that is fortunate, because I am wrong so often, as the above stories illustrate! But being wrong gives us a chance to learn new games, to learn new rules, to open our eyes to different cultures, different ideas, different ways of living in this world. And I am honored to have people around me who love me even when I am wrong, even when I am embarrassed. They simply invite me in, to play along with them. And, wow! I really do like that game.