So this post is in tribute to Mr Lang Imasiku, who just passed away here in Zambia.

In an earlier post I explored the concept of poverty and how to define and see it. In this post I want to talk a bit about the concept of livelihoods and vulnerability to shocks and stresses. Anyone who wants to look a bit more into livelihoods, I encourage you to look at ......

On the 23rd of August I travelled up to Ndola in the copper belt province. Ndola is the capital of the copper belt province and up until lately was a bustling city. Now, because the mines have started to move farther away and President Chiluba and the SAPS forced Privatisation of almost all government companies, most of the large industry that filled the industrial area have moved out, leaving huge areas of inactivity and many many people without jobs.

In Ndola, I stayed with my officemates brother, Mr Lang Imasiku, and his family. He owned a small civil engineering company and kept the family in upper middle class standing. Josephine Lang is a Payroll Officer at a company in Ndola. Of their many kids, only 2 were there when I was there, and 1 neice. This family was so nice to me, they took me around to see the sights, they fed me a ton of food, and they could just not do enough. I left Ndola on Friday the 30th of June to go to Siavonga for an EWB Retreat. What I didn’t know until later was that on Saturday Mr. Lang Imasiku was taken to hospital because he had a heart attack. On the next Wednesday they were optimistic about his health but by Thursday he had taken a turn for the worst and early on Friday morning he passed away.

What I think is important to discuss is not that he died, people die everywhere, but rather that the repercussions of his death on his family are significant. They have now lost the major money earner in the family setting them back in areas of finance. As far as I know there is no insurance plan set up for the family (if there is even such a thing in Zambia) and so they have to take the brunt of the loss. What this means is that the 2 children who are in university now, and the 2 that are in school still are in danger of losing their chance for education if someone else in their extended family doesn’t step up.

When you dig a bit deeper, the facts come out that actually Lang came from a family of 11 and his passing leaves 3 now. I don’t think I need to point out that some of these deaths were probably due to AIDS. So what does that leave? It leaves 3 families responsible for the children of 11. While it is possible to survive, and they probably will, the entire family is at an incredible risk to shocks in the future.

This brings me to the important question of chicken and egg significance, that which has to come first, available jobs and job security, or the infrastructure to lessen the shocks hitting families. Of course, this is the challenging question faced by NGO’s and governments in underdeveloped countries every day. When it comes down to the bare hard facts, a person who has a job, even a good one, and is educated well, cannot go forward if he/she has 17 dependants. However, even a great system cannot hold up if people can’t get jobs and therefore can’t raise any money. And either side of this debate is complicated by the fact that AIDS is putting stresses on every family in Zambia in some way or another.

What I think is ironic is that I thought coming to Zambia, I would be able to answer some of those hard development questions. Instead, all I can come up with are more questions, and I have serious doubts about there being answers or at least right answers.

Confusedly yours,

SJ