Mwashavuka shaani,

So a short post today to let everyone know where I am at. I am off on a bus north to the copper belt province to do some investigative interviews for one of our projects, a timber kiln meant to provide a value adding service for small scale producers. This should hopefully get me out to see some of rural Zambia although that is only if plans don't fall through. I will go up to Ndola and stay for the weekend with my officemates brother. Then on Monday I will go to stay with Mr Enright who operates a timber kiln unit. He will hopefully have set me up some tours and interviews with some small scale timber providers so that I can see what the situation is for them and whether our project is feasible economically and logistically. Then on Thursday we will be seeing the kiln and viewing the design for ideas on how we can build one of our own. So then on Friday I will be back to Lusaka to leave right away to go to Siavonga in the south for an EWB retreat weekend. Finally I will get back to Lusaka on the 4th of July.

The other thing that is going on with me right now is that I have decided to move from my current house to another one. I liked the area, the distance from work, the family, and the house. What I was not so fond of was that the house was also the base for a pentacostal church which met 4 times a week. This means that over half the time I was there I was in church not integrating or in my room not integrating. Either was I was having a hard time getting close with my family, and so I decided I would have a better look at a Zambian family at another house. So now I am moving to another family in a different area. I have to take a bus to work and back, but the family is nice and they have assured me that they go to a church away from the house on Sundays. I will be moving in with them when I get back in on the 4th of July.

Sort of as an aside, I don't know whether the news caught this in Canada, but there has been a strike at UNZA where I work. Of course TDAU is not striking, but all the teachers are, which is causing problems for students who were supposed to have exams this week. SO for the last week and a half I have had to go home 4 times because the students were demonstrating at the university. Usually these are peaceful demonstrations, but there are times when it gets out of hand and so we have to leave work just in case. I just want to assure everyone, in case they have seen anything on the news, I am ok, and I have never been in any danger. But that doesn't mean it isn't a bit exciting to see the places I go everyday on the news!

Well I should go, so that I can get up to Ndola on time. I hope everyone has a good week and as I probably won't be able to get on before the 1st, HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!!

SJ

So before I start this post I want to make a comment directly to the Chapter Exec back in Manitoba. Holy did Apoorva ever show me up with a 6 page letter on her placement. I feel sort of inadequate now but hopefully my posts here are doing a good job of letting you know how and what I am doing.

First a disclaimer, Lusaka is a city. It is not more dangerous than Winnipeg and definitely not more dangerous than Toronto or Vancouver. However as a foreigner and someone who is very obviously different, my white skin can look sort of like a target for people who want all sorts of things, some not good. PS for anyone who didn’t know, I am of british lineage and yes I am naturally a pale fishbelly white colour. So don’t for a minute think that I am bashing Zambia as being a hyper dangerous place it is actually relatively safe in most places.

Lusaka is a city that is less about rules than about general best practices that you only know from being here. This makes for a very interesting free feeling environment that can be kind of scary or kind of liberating depending on the situation. For example when this is applied to traffic control, cars can look pretty damn scary. It means that it is very hard to do something wrong, just maybe easier to do something stupid.

When I walk in the compounds to my house, a lot of people want to talk to me. You actually wouldn’t believe how frustrating and flattering this can be. The cutest thing ever is little kids who will be running around with their friends and one of them won’t see me and keep playing while the other stop to stare. Then the shock on his or her face when they turn around and see to their surprise quite possible the first white person if not ever, then in this area at least. It is just like holy crap and then a quick blurted, “How are you” or “HI”.

My general keep safe practice for the first little while since I got here was that kids are safe, elderly are safe, women are safe, older men are generally safe. SO this leaves teenagers who are completely unpredictable, and men who are more likely to be interested for more than innocent reasons, especially if they are holding chibouku (the most horrible beer sickness I have ever seen). Not to say there aren’t exceptions, and I don’t like to paint all men, of any country, race, city with the same brush, just that I can’t say from looking at them that they are safe.

Guys who are in the between stage of teenagedom and twentisomethings were the most often scary for me for the first little while. Quite often a boy would see me as I was walking by, kind of like look me once over and then in a mounting excitement at seeing me say something that I totally couldn’t understand. They never seemed to be the same comments and because I didn’t know whether they were insulting or not I would keep walking. Often after I leave, the boy or boys will start laughing uproariously. When I was walking with the lady I live with the other day though, some guys did the same thing, and I asked what it was they said. She told me that they were so excited to see me that they weren’t saying anything; they couldn’t construct words in English or in their own language. That made me think, because to these boys I am sort of like a celebrity walking in their own compound and here I am assuming they are being mean or derogatory. Does that mean that it is my responsibility to pump up every boys ego that I see? Not really, and it is difficult with the common stereotypes of white women to be just a friendly figure.

Having said that, it can be tricky to figure out how people are going to react. A quick look in the eye can generally distinguish a mentally handicapped person, which is good because there are some who freely walk the streets but a sane person who is rude is not so easy. And a seemingly friendly person who wants to walk home with you now knows where you live. In a city where I am seen as being automatically rich because I am white, this makes my home a target for burglary. I have yet to feel physically unsafe in Zambia, but a target for muggings is common.

Well, now I am off to see Kalimba reptile farms, just outside of Lusaka. The people in my office say I can’t leave Zambia without seeing some of the sights so I am in the process of trying to see some of them. Wish me luck with the crodociles!

SJ

Hey Guys,

So the question that has been wandering around in my head for the last few days is What is Poverty? We had a session in our training that had us try to define it. I gave the answer that to be in poverty is to lack the ability to create your own chances and make your own choices. Or something along those lines anyways. Now that I am in Zambia though, I am trying to see it. Poverty, I have to say, is an elusive thing, a concept that is not easy to define in practice even if it is a bit easier in theory.

One of the things I notice in Zambia is that everyone seems to think that if you are living on a farm, you are much worse off than in Lusaka and most likely in the depths of poverty. I went on a trip to Mansa from Sunday till Tuesday this week, and before I started off, the reply from Lusakans was “oh that is nice, but just so you know, it is just a village”. Now I don’t know what JUST a village is, because I grew up in what they would call a village, but Mansa was really nice. The infrastructure was much better than Lusaka, the people were much more open and friendly, and you only had to travel a short way to see absolutely gorgeous country side.

So now my question to you is this, what is poverty? How do you see it? What markers can you use to say this person is in poverty? I know from Canada, you can use how much you live on a day, you can use access to clean drinking water, you can use the Gini index and things like that. But how do you see things like that. This morning I walked by a lady who smiled a really big genuine smile at me and in the process showed me all her missing teeth. Is that poverty? Is not being able to put your kids into school poverty, or is not putting your kids in school even though you are able poverty? How about living in Lusaka in the slums with more access to social programs and maybe better access to jobs and money as compared to living along the road to Mansa with a nice open yard, brick hut with a grass roof, land in the back to get food from, but less chance your children will be educated well leading them to a life exactly the same as your own. Does it change the picture if the person in either situation is happy, and hopeful?

Another question I have is how do I help when I don’t know what I am helping? Do I help that person on the roadside work hard so they can get their kids to Lusaka to live in the slums? Because I can only help them raise their standard of living, they get to choose what they want to do with their life after that, what they dream of for their children. I won’t lie to you, I am biased in that I grew up in a village, in better conditions than a village here I grant you, but small town life nonetheless. I can’t imagine wanting to live in poor conditions in Lusaka when I could live in a village. I don’t mean that people shouldn’t aspire to better education or better health care or social systems. What I mean is that living in Lusaka because of those things and living in Lusaka because it is better are two different things. The impression I get is that people in Lusaka and people out of Lusaka have the rankings of better living in society going from a village to Lusaka to Western living.

Well as you can see this post is a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. I will leave it now for you to consider and hopefully next time I will be able to post more answers than questions.

SJ

Mwashavuka Shaani (how did you sleep in Bemba)

So I want to illustrate the two Lusaka’s I know to you. I will call it the long trek home from work, and Lusaka in the morning

The long trek home from work starts, well, at work of course. I usually leave about 5 or 5:15. So the sun is starting to lower in its insanely quick descent. So I start by walking down the university road towards the field I cut across. Everyday I start out by thinking I am going to be nice today, I am going to integrate today! So I try to smile or at least acknowledge the people I walk by. This ussually works on the university grounds although I do get some dirty looks, I think pertaining to me being a threat in some way. My theory on that is not entirely formed. Anyways I cut across the field and I get a bit more attention but it is still restrained to good afternoon or Hello how are you. SO then I hit Kalingalinga. This is where it starts getting a bit more tricky. Keep in mind the people at the university and cutting through the field are generally university students and so are a bit more educated or at least older. In Kalingalinga, no such luck. There are Older people, there are younger people, there are poor people, there are not so poor people. I start getting not looks but stares once I cross the border and while some people are still nice, there are more staredowns, and dirty looks. There are still the nice people in the middle who say hi, but now there is the other extreme too where guys will make some more daring comments. Usually I try to avoid these type of guys, but if I can’t I say no thank you and keep walking. Then I have to pass the boys school. This is the biggest trial. The boys are ussually playing soccer in the open area by the school but sometimes will stop playing to holler at me. Of course it is all in a different language so I don’t know what they are saying, but a whole field of boys hollering is fairly intimidating. Then there are the straggler boys who will wait till I am by and then make comments and laugh outrageously behind my back. Or the groups of girls who will walk by me trying to stare me down and if I smile or say hi they will just laugh that laugh that crosses all cultures, you know the one, the evil school girl laugh. So by this time I am trying to get home as fast as I can without running. About this time it calms down except for a few groups of guys who would like me to come and visit with them, but I brush that off and keep going. Finally I reach home and the relief is evident. Now for some nsheema and some prayer dodging.

Lusaka in the morning
So I get up at about 7 (more like 7:15, I like my sleep) and get ready to go by about 7:30. I set out for my 25-minute walk. I leave the gate and enter this world of fresh new morning scenes. Helen Kaunda which I live in is a nice compound and so all the houses have walls. But these walls are usually nicely decorated and sometimes have flower gardens in the front. It is a nice quiet type of scenery. I start to meet people as I walk, mostly young school girls on their way to the school just west of the house. I guess they are still sort of asleep because most of them smile and say hi or good morning or sort of walk by in a daze. About this time I will walk by a dog or two relazing on the side of the road. Just hanging out, you know. I don’t pet it, because (according to Dr Wise) it has rabies, but it is kind of a nice reassuring sight for me. Now as I keep walking and start into Kalingalinga, the sun is still not fully up in its quick ascent and so everything still has that gorgeous hue that only the morning sun can give. I walk by the boys school, and the fields and grass are just brilliant in the sun. I cut across behind the catholic church towards the side of Kalingalinga and pass a really nice garden filled with I have no idea what kind of vegetables but overall it gives a kind of mystical quality to the garden and the house. In this alley I also pass groups of ducks, chickens, turkeys and their babies. It is hard to find something cuter than a whole group of baby chicks running after their mother. During this time there are families starting to come out of their houses and do house type chores. Mother fathers, children, and grandparents will call out good morning to me and send me on with a really nice smile. I smile and keep walking on my way to work. Once I am out of Kalingalinga I have to cross the road to get over to the short cut through the field. This can be a bit of a suspenseful time serving to jumpstart the heart because crossing the road in Lusaka is like taking your life in your hands. By the time I get to the field the sun is almost entirely up and it is getting nice and toasty. So my walk through the field filled with all kinds of vegetation you wouldn’t see in Canada mixed with some you would, is pretty relaxing. I meet some more people here, some on their way to work, some I don’t know where, but as a general rule they are pleasant and send me on with smiles that you feel to the bottom of your feet. I’m not sure why but there are almost never daring comments from guys in the morning, maybe because they are not yet awake. So I get to work, in a good mood and ready to start the day.

That is my best explanation to you of Lusaka. I hope you have a good day, and that your day is more like my morning than my long trek home.

Twalamonana (see you later)

SJ