Zambia Journal - Experiences (the good, the bad, and the ugly)
MONEY:
Poor Charlie. He visited dozens of Banks, bureaux des change, and moneychangers all over Lusaka. You get different information from the same place twice and sometimes you hit limits. Sometimes you can use traveler’s checks and sometimes you can’t. Some machines spit out money using our own bankcards and others don’t – or at least not twice in a row. Our great hope for Thursday of depositing into the CWB account and having it clear for withdrawal in 3 days was dashed when the 3 turned into 30. He’s now using Western Union, actually the first one he tried didn’t have the amount of cash he needed. He deserves a medal and being treasurer has been a pretty full time job for this crew of 18 people plus cash for projects. Everything here is done in kwacha and lots of them. The exchange rate kwacha:dollar has varied from 5000:1 to 4260:1. That basically means that a soda costs KW3,000.
HEALTH:
Everyone has been remarkably healthy this trip. A few minor stomach bugs but nothing worse than in the US. I thank three things for that. All the small holes I had poked in me prior to our trip, the pills and popping while I’m here, and hand sanitizer – I’ll never travel without it again. There’s nothing quite like shaking the hands of a couple of dozen adults in each compound and countless children (the hand shake by the way is this triple move thing), and then being able to pull out a small bottle of sanitizer before you eat. If I forget mine someone else will always have theirs.
PLUMBING:
I just keep remembering what I used to say when I first moved to the US. Americans know how to do this plumbing thing.
WATER:
Thanks goodness for bottled water. We all use gallons of it for drinking and brushing teeth. Lots of places claim boiled water – but you never know and its not worth the risk, especially since the cup or glass they give it in may not have been in boiling water.
INCOMPLETE STUFF:
It also seems to be the Zambian tradition to start many projects and not finish any. If only they would just focus on finishing a project, before starting another. You see unfinished buildings everywhere, from large mausoleums in the shape of Africa right off the main airport road, to a tiny teachers house without a roof near a school.
SMILING FACES:
They are everywhere in these compounds. They are so glad to see us, and the children especially can’t help giggling when they see themselves on the screen of our digital cameras. White teeth, black faces, and shining eyes – these are some of the indelible memories I’ll be taking back with me.
DUST:
It is dry. No, it’s very, very dry. It last rained in April and will next rain in November. The dust gets everywhere. I am filthy most of the time. Some of us just have to go up to the chlorinated swimming pool once in a while just to get truly wet.
THE COMPOUNDS:
Soul shattering poverty. Dirt, dust and open latrines. Filthy, smiling children by the hundred. Dancing, singing, ululating women holding these communities together. Concrete bunkers with a door that pretend to be a home for a women and eight kids, five of which are orphans. Smelly sales carts with a meager supply of food and cleaning stuff in tiny amounts. Bars that sell it in bottles and taverns that sell it by the bucket. Men welding security doors made out of rebar by the roadside. Piles of charcoal of sale for cooking.
ZAMBIAN ACCOUNTING:
Medieval, and that’s generous.
THE SCENERY:
Brown, brown and brown, with a few patches of dusty brown set off against a sandy brown. Occasionally a few dust and sand covered trees will provide little extra color especially if they have some vivid red or purple flower topping them off. I can only imagine what its like in the wet season when the rain has washed the dust off the leaves and the grasses and other plant turn green again. It may just be beautiful except that then we’d be talking mud, mud, mud.
THE WOMEN:
The admiration I have for the women in the compounds cannot be overstated. We have seen so many women in the communities we are helping who take on 3,4 or 5 orphans in addition to their own three or four. Or perhaps they are grandmothers who have 8 children living with them some of whom are related and some are not. Income Generating Activities (IGA) is one of the mantras we hear every day. They are desperately looking for ways to bring in a few kwacha to pay for mealy meal – the staple diet of most people.
THE YOUTH:
They have grown up in dire poverty never sure were their next meal is coming from, falling asleep in school because they are malnourished. They have missed whole years of schooling. They may have lost both parents, and may be living with a distant relative or a non-relative. Yet many of them have persevered with their schooling. Managing to graduate high school at 21 or 22 and yet they still want to go to college and “make something of themselves”. And I have no doubt some of them will end up as lawyers, doctors and the like. Many of them are remarkably well spoken (in English) and are eloquent in their description of their life, their hardships and their dreams.
Poor Charlie. He visited dozens of Banks, bureaux des change, and moneychangers all over Lusaka. You get different information from the same place twice and sometimes you hit limits. Sometimes you can use traveler’s checks and sometimes you can’t. Some machines spit out money using our own bankcards and others don’t – or at least not twice in a row. Our great hope for Thursday of depositing into the CWB account and having it clear for withdrawal in 3 days was dashed when the 3 turned into 30. He’s now using Western Union, actually the first one he tried didn’t have the amount of cash he needed. He deserves a medal and being treasurer has been a pretty full time job for this crew of 18 people plus cash for projects. Everything here is done in kwacha and lots of them. The exchange rate kwacha:dollar has varied from 5000:1 to 4260:1. That basically means that a soda costs KW3,000.
HEALTH:
Everyone has been remarkably healthy this trip. A few minor stomach bugs but nothing worse than in the US. I thank three things for that. All the small holes I had poked in me prior to our trip, the pills and popping while I’m here, and hand sanitizer – I’ll never travel without it again. There’s nothing quite like shaking the hands of a couple of dozen adults in each compound and countless children (the hand shake by the way is this triple move thing), and then being able to pull out a small bottle of sanitizer before you eat. If I forget mine someone else will always have theirs.
PLUMBING:
I just keep remembering what I used to say when I first moved to the US. Americans know how to do this plumbing thing.
WATER:
Thanks goodness for bottled water. We all use gallons of it for drinking and brushing teeth. Lots of places claim boiled water – but you never know and its not worth the risk, especially since the cup or glass they give it in may not have been in boiling water.
INCOMPLETE STUFF:
It also seems to be the Zambian tradition to start many projects and not finish any. If only they would just focus on finishing a project, before starting another. You see unfinished buildings everywhere, from large mausoleums in the shape of Africa right off the main airport road, to a tiny teachers house without a roof near a school.
SMILING FACES:
They are everywhere in these compounds. They are so glad to see us, and the children especially can’t help giggling when they see themselves on the screen of our digital cameras. White teeth, black faces, and shining eyes – these are some of the indelible memories I’ll be taking back with me.
DUST:
It is dry. No, it’s very, very dry. It last rained in April and will next rain in November. The dust gets everywhere. I am filthy most of the time. Some of us just have to go up to the chlorinated swimming pool once in a while just to get truly wet.
THE COMPOUNDS:
Soul shattering poverty. Dirt, dust and open latrines. Filthy, smiling children by the hundred. Dancing, singing, ululating women holding these communities together. Concrete bunkers with a door that pretend to be a home for a women and eight kids, five of which are orphans. Smelly sales carts with a meager supply of food and cleaning stuff in tiny amounts. Bars that sell it in bottles and taverns that sell it by the bucket. Men welding security doors made out of rebar by the roadside. Piles of charcoal of sale for cooking.
ZAMBIAN ACCOUNTING:
Medieval, and that’s generous.
THE SCENERY:
Brown, brown and brown, with a few patches of dusty brown set off against a sandy brown. Occasionally a few dust and sand covered trees will provide little extra color especially if they have some vivid red or purple flower topping them off. I can only imagine what its like in the wet season when the rain has washed the dust off the leaves and the grasses and other plant turn green again. It may just be beautiful except that then we’d be talking mud, mud, mud.
THE WOMEN:
The admiration I have for the women in the compounds cannot be overstated. We have seen so many women in the communities we are helping who take on 3,4 or 5 orphans in addition to their own three or four. Or perhaps they are grandmothers who have 8 children living with them some of whom are related and some are not. Income Generating Activities (IGA) is one of the mantras we hear every day. They are desperately looking for ways to bring in a few kwacha to pay for mealy meal – the staple diet of most people.
THE YOUTH:
They have grown up in dire poverty never sure were their next meal is coming from, falling asleep in school because they are malnourished. They have missed whole years of schooling. They may have lost both parents, and may be living with a distant relative or a non-relative. Yet many of them have persevered with their schooling. Managing to graduate high school at 21 or 22 and yet they still want to go to college and “make something of themselves”. And I have no doubt some of them will end up as lawyers, doctors and the like. Many of them are remarkably well spoken (in English) and are eloquent in their description of their life, their hardships and their dreams.
posted by Rodney | 5:23 PM
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