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Saturday, October 28, 2006
Home sweet home
After spending most of the day shifting furniture back and forth on the roof of Richard’s Landrover, we finally moved into our very own house last Thursday. The excitement of our new found independence quickly vanished as we noticed every room came complete with a resident creepy crawly and we’d forgotten to buy bug spray! I think our ethical concerns might temporarily go out the window when we ask the bug exterminators to pay a visit soon. Spiders, cockroaches and giant crickets weren’t the only things making us feel uncomfortable, for the first time since arriving in Zambia we became acutely aware of the priveleges of being white.
In the weeks leading up to our arrival our kitchen has been gutted and re-built. During this time the ‘kitchen fitter’ and his wife and at least five small children had been living in a small crumbling shed in the backyard. As we struggled to get our mossie net up and prepared out first meal in our new home (beans on toast!) the family gathered their belongings, built a new bed from scratch and went off into the night to find somewhere else to stay. It took all our common sense not to offer them a room in our house – after all, we have got two huge spare bedrooms! But I really can't explain how crap iot felt, the two of us sitting in this huge house and seven or eight people staring through the curtain-less windows at the undeservedly priveleged muzungus
We did feel a little better thinking about the gardenee we'd employed earlier in the day. We’d met Mr Zulu a few times when we’d been back and forth to the house and he’d helped transport our fridge and cooker. What we hadn’t realised however was that he’d been employed to work on our garden just for September but had turned up a few days before we arrived and started work (unpaid) again in the hope that we’d employ him. Despite some difficulties in translation (he was insisting on working three days a week even though we’d decided to continue paying him his monthly wage for only two days work a week) we finally agreed. As he left he docked his hat and bowed his way out of the gate looking eternally grateful – which just made us feel even worse as we’d just agreed to pay him the equivalent of £2.50 a day.
The word has obviously got round that new muzungus are in town as we were woken this morning by an incessant tapping on the front gate and found a young man offering to do our laundry. A few hours later a lady stops by also asking for work. We are just reminding ourselves that expats employing everyone that comes knocking is not a sustainable answer to Zambia’s poverty and in any case we can’t afford to support everyone that comes knocking. Our allowance is 1.8million kwacha a month (only time I'm ever going to be a millionairre!) which is the equivalent of about 250pounds.
Since the first night's fiascos we're now settling into our house nicely. Our sofa is still being made so we’re using garden chairs in the meantime. We took a trip to Malawi last Wednesday and picked up a six seater wicker dining set, coffee table and three straw mats for less than a tenner! We’ve no hot water, but the way the weather is at the moment it’s blessing in disguise. Three more VSOs live just round the corner and they’ve got about four mango trees, an avocado tree and an orange tree in their back garden! Today we cycled to town and filled up our rucksacks with fresh fruit and veg and now we're sat in the local internet cafe, possibly off to a BBQ later and Henry can russle up one of his lovely curries. Sounds like a good saturday routine to me!
Photos of the house will follow soon.
Thanks so much all of you who are emailing me - I'll do my best to reply to you all soon. th einternet is quite slow and pretty expensive but I'll do my best.
In the weeks leading up to our arrival our kitchen has been gutted and re-built. During this time the ‘kitchen fitter’ and his wife and at least five small children had been living in a small crumbling shed in the backyard. As we struggled to get our mossie net up and prepared out first meal in our new home (beans on toast!) the family gathered their belongings, built a new bed from scratch and went off into the night to find somewhere else to stay. It took all our common sense not to offer them a room in our house – after all, we have got two huge spare bedrooms! But I really can't explain how crap iot felt, the two of us sitting in this huge house and seven or eight people staring through the curtain-less windows at the undeservedly priveleged muzungus
We did feel a little better thinking about the gardenee we'd employed earlier in the day. We’d met Mr Zulu a few times when we’d been back and forth to the house and he’d helped transport our fridge and cooker. What we hadn’t realised however was that he’d been employed to work on our garden just for September but had turned up a few days before we arrived and started work (unpaid) again in the hope that we’d employ him. Despite some difficulties in translation (he was insisting on working three days a week even though we’d decided to continue paying him his monthly wage for only two days work a week) we finally agreed. As he left he docked his hat and bowed his way out of the gate looking eternally grateful – which just made us feel even worse as we’d just agreed to pay him the equivalent of £2.50 a day.
The word has obviously got round that new muzungus are in town as we were woken this morning by an incessant tapping on the front gate and found a young man offering to do our laundry. A few hours later a lady stops by also asking for work. We are just reminding ourselves that expats employing everyone that comes knocking is not a sustainable answer to Zambia’s poverty and in any case we can’t afford to support everyone that comes knocking. Our allowance is 1.8million kwacha a month (only time I'm ever going to be a millionairre!) which is the equivalent of about 250pounds.
Since the first night's fiascos we're now settling into our house nicely. Our sofa is still being made so we’re using garden chairs in the meantime. We took a trip to Malawi last Wednesday and picked up a six seater wicker dining set, coffee table and three straw mats for less than a tenner! We’ve no hot water, but the way the weather is at the moment it’s blessing in disguise. Three more VSOs live just round the corner and they’ve got about four mango trees, an avocado tree and an orange tree in their back garden! Today we cycled to town and filled up our rucksacks with fresh fruit and veg and now we're sat in the local internet cafe, possibly off to a BBQ later and Henry can russle up one of his lovely curries. Sounds like a good saturday routine to me!
Photos of the house will follow soon.
Thanks so much all of you who are emailing me - I'll do my best to reply to you all soon. th einternet is quite slow and pretty expensive but I'll do my best.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Moving On...
Mwauke Bwanje... (Good Morning)
The last few days of the In-Country Induction went pretty smoothly. I felt like I was back at uni when we were taken through the political history of Zambia – it’s unbelievable that a country playing host to over 70 different tribes has managed to avoid descending into civil war especially since at least five out of its eight neighbouring countries have experienced violent conflict in the last 30 years. And the Zambian people have done little during our short stay to undermine their slogan ‘One nation One people’ , Henry and I are being stared at wherever we go but we haven’t once been harassed. Morocco, Mum you’ll be pleased to hear, Zambia is not.
Friday night VSO staged a Zambian cultural night for us volunteers and our employers who had arrived from all corners of the country to take us back to our placements. In the dinner queue I bumped into my three employers. I spotted Honester first wearing a blue peer educator’s t-shirt with ‘together we win’ emblazoned on the back, she squealed delightedly when I mentioned who I was and gave me the biggest hug.
Meeting Rebecca and Josephine followed a similar pattern. In a crowd full of male employers it was great to have three obviously committed women to meet me. In fact, it became a bit of a joke when the employers were introducing themselves during Saturday’s partners workshop that every new arrival was coming to meet me – although I’m not entirely sure whether having three employers makes me lucky or not we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not sure if I made a good first impression, especially after attempting to shake my hips like a true African woman!
The Journey to Chipata
Sunday morning our party of nine (Me, Henry, my three employers, Henry’s employer, Denis another VSO based in Chipata, Tom a VSO based near Chipata and Richard, an extremely helpful volunteer who also works for my employers) - set off early for Chipata.
Our first stop out of Lusaka was at a hot spring, almost boiling hot water spouting from the ground. Women and children were bathing and doing laundry in the stream although I wonder how far they’d walked as there didn’t seem to be a village or town anywhere nearby. An hour or so down the road one of the women shouted stop and out of nowhere a family appeared. They turned out to be related to one of my employers and we loaded up a basket or two onto the roof to take on to Chipata. Next stop – bag of chips and ketchup from a roadside market stall, strange but true. Descending into the Luwangwa river valley we narrowly missed a few baboons, goats and cows and stocked up on bananas, oranges, ready to eat maize corn and fresh ground nuts (monkey nuts to you, Dad!)
Every now and again along the road there were clusters of small round mud huts with straw roofs like the ones on the picture. You see the large cocoon looking seed in the same photo – apparently young boys are allocated one each and are told to cut them down when they have grown to the size they would like their penises to be. You can imagine there are some old stories about boys who forgot to chop theirs down!
Chipata!
We arrived in Chipata, our home town for the next year or so, early Sunday evening. Workmen are still putting the final touches to our house and furniture (or should I say mansion – it’s ridiculously huge!) so we’re staying with Richard ‘til Thursday. I think Henry described Chipata best when he said it looks like the Wild West. Only the main road through the city is tarmac, the rest are dusty red African soil tracks. It seems you can get basically anything here – including George Forman grills! There are two mosques to cater for the large Indian population and churches on every corner. It doesn’t feel much smaller than Oxford and is surrounded by small mountains. We went out to a small dam this afternoon and we could have been in Scotland if it wasn’t for the 30 degree heat!
Dancing at 8:30am
Monday morning, 8:30am, the peer educators at Chisomo Home Based Care (employer #1) put on a welcome performance of dance and drama. And during the ‘sugar sugar’ dance – a local euphemism for sex – Henry and I were dragged to the floor to shake our booties – if only Monday mornings were always this much fun. Chisomo is based in one of the poorer areas of town. They occupy a house where they have an agreement with the landlord that they can use the premises rent free if they renovate it. Only last week they put in concrete floors. There is no permanent roof, just beams and tin. It may sound ridiculous but I think I’m going to get along just fine, smart offices and air conditioning was never my cup of tea!
I briefly visited the other two organisations I’ll be working with: Tikondane Home Based Care and Kwacha Ku’mawa although their office spaces are slightly better they have hardly any funds.
The peer educators I’ve met so far seem lovely and really committed and enthusiastic. I still don’t really know what my exact job is but my basic brief is to inject some creativity and renewed energy into the peer education programmes, it’s going to be challenging but lots of fun and hopefully really rewarding. I should start work properly next Monday if all goes well with moving into the house this week.
The last few days of the In-Country Induction went pretty smoothly. I felt like I was back at uni when we were taken through the political history of Zambia – it’s unbelievable that a country playing host to over 70 different tribes has managed to avoid descending into civil war especially since at least five out of its eight neighbouring countries have experienced violent conflict in the last 30 years. And the Zambian people have done little during our short stay to undermine their slogan ‘One nation One people’ , Henry and I are being stared at wherever we go but we haven’t once been harassed. Morocco, Mum you’ll be pleased to hear, Zambia is not.
Friday night VSO staged a Zambian cultural night for us volunteers and our employers who had arrived from all corners of the country to take us back to our placements. In the dinner queue I bumped into my three employers. I spotted Honester first wearing a blue peer educator’s t-shirt with ‘together we win’ emblazoned on the back, she squealed delightedly when I mentioned who I was and gave me the biggest hug.
Meeting Rebecca and Josephine followed a similar pattern. In a crowd full of male employers it was great to have three obviously committed women to meet me. In fact, it became a bit of a joke when the employers were introducing themselves during Saturday’s partners workshop that every new arrival was coming to meet me – although I’m not entirely sure whether having three employers makes me lucky or not we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not sure if I made a good first impression, especially after attempting to shake my hips like a true African woman!The Journey to Chipata
Sunday morning our party of nine (Me, Henry, my three employers, Henry’s employer, Denis another VSO based in Chipata, Tom a VSO based near Chipata and Richard, an extremely helpful volunteer who also works for my employers) - set off early for Chipata.
Our first stop out of Lusaka was at a hot spring, almost boiling hot water spouting from the ground. Women and children were bathing and doing laundry in the stream although I wonder how far they’d walked as there didn’t seem to be a village or town anywhere nearby. An hour or so down the road one of the women shouted stop and out of nowhere a family appeared. They turned out to be related to one of my employers and we loaded up a basket or two onto the roof to take on to Chipata. Next stop – bag of chips and ketchup from a roadside market stall, strange but true. Descending into the Luwangwa river valley we narrowly missed a few baboons, goats and cows and stocked up on bananas, oranges, ready to eat maize corn and fresh ground nuts (monkey nuts to you, Dad!)
Every now and again along the road there were clusters of small round mud huts with straw roofs like the ones on the picture. You see the large cocoon looking seed in the same photo – apparently young boys are allocated one each and are told to cut them down when they have grown to the size they would like their penises to be. You can imagine there are some old stories about boys who forgot to chop theirs down!Chipata!
We arrived in Chipata, our home town for the next year or so, early Sunday evening. Workmen are still putting the final touches to our house and furniture (or should I say mansion – it’s ridiculously huge!) so we’re staying with Richard ‘til Thursday. I think Henry described Chipata best when he said it looks like the Wild West. Only the main road through the city is tarmac, the rest are dusty red African soil tracks. It seems you can get basically anything here – including George Forman grills! There are two mosques to cater for the large Indian population and churches on every corner. It doesn’t feel much smaller than Oxford and is surrounded by small mountains. We went out to a small dam this afternoon and we could have been in Scotland if it wasn’t for the 30 degree heat!
Dancing at 8:30am
Monday morning, 8:30am, the peer educators at Chisomo Home Based Care (employer #1) put on a welcome performance of dance and drama. And during the ‘sugar sugar’ dance – a local euphemism for sex – Henry and I were dragged to the floor to shake our booties – if only Monday mornings were always this much fun. Chisomo is based in one of the poorer areas of town. They occupy a house where they have an agreement with the landlord that they can use the premises rent free if they renovate it. Only last week they put in concrete floors. There is no permanent roof, just beams and tin. It may sound ridiculous but I think I’m going to get along just fine, smart offices and air conditioning was never my cup of tea!
I briefly visited the other two organisations I’ll be working with: Tikondane Home Based Care and Kwacha Ku’mawa although their office spaces are slightly better they have hardly any funds.
The peer educators I’ve met so far seem lovely and really committed and enthusiastic. I still don’t really know what my exact job is but my basic brief is to inject some creativity and renewed energy into the peer education programmes, it’s going to be challenging but lots of fun and hopefully really rewarding. I should start work properly next Monday if all goes well with moving into the house this week.
Friday, October 20, 2006
If my family were Zambian...
If my entire family were Zambian I’d have a total of 10 siblings! The nuclear family, inclusive only of parents and children is an alien concept to Zambians. Here, as in much of Africa the extended family including aunts and uncles, cousins and mother-in laws all form part of your immediate family.
My Zambian family looks something like this: Mum, Dad, and brother Matthew. My Mum’s sister, Nadine would also be my Mother. Her children Jessica and Lucy would be called my sisters, and be treated as such. My Dad’s brothers; Stephen, Gary and Chris would all be my fathers, and their children, seven in total, would also be my brothers and sisters. So, if we were a Zambian family I’d have two mothers and four fathers and ten siblings!
If I was to marry Henry (only as an example – don’t be getting too panicked or excited!) I would inherit three mother-in-laws; Henry’s Mum and her two sisters and so on and so on.
Although it sounds complicated, in a country with so many children being orphaned and so many parents being lost to HIV & AIDS it is a small comfort that tradition dictates that the responsibilities of the extended family be taken seriously. Unfortunately, growing western influence, families being broken up by the growing migration to urban centres and extreme levels of poverty are eroding these traditional structures and many orphans are being left with little or no support.
My Zambian family looks something like this: Mum, Dad, and brother Matthew. My Mum’s sister, Nadine would also be my Mother. Her children Jessica and Lucy would be called my sisters, and be treated as such. My Dad’s brothers; Stephen, Gary and Chris would all be my fathers, and their children, seven in total, would also be my brothers and sisters. So, if we were a Zambian family I’d have two mothers and four fathers and ten siblings!
If I was to marry Henry (only as an example – don’t be getting too panicked or excited!) I would inherit three mother-in-laws; Henry’s Mum and her two sisters and so on and so on.
Although it sounds complicated, in a country with so many children being orphaned and so many parents being lost to HIV & AIDS it is a small comfort that tradition dictates that the responsibilities of the extended family be taken seriously. Unfortunately, growing western influence, families being broken up by the growing migration to urban centres and extreme levels of poverty are eroding these traditional structures and many orphans are being left with little or no support.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Zambia at last!
I did end up packing everything bar the kitchen sink and somehow managed to get away with being 7 kilos over the limit – and that was after transferring everything I could into Henry’s bags – he’d chosen to take the minimalist traveller route!
After a pretty uneventful flight and stop over in Jo’burg we arrived smelly and shattered in Lusaka International Airport, Zambia. And immediately we were greeted by some of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen and taken step by step through immigration. I know it’s what everyone says about Africa – which in itself is so huge and diverse – but Zambia so far appears such a friendly place. Maurice, my Programme Manager with VSO Zambia, doesn’t stop smiling and whatever the meaning of his sentence they are almost always followed by a heartfelt giggle.
After a pretty uneventful flight and stop over in Jo’burg we arrived smelly and shattered in Lusaka International Airport, Zambia. And immediately we were greeted by some of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen and taken step by step through immigration. I know it’s what everyone says about Africa – which in itself is so huge and diverse – but Zambia so far appears such a friendly place. Maurice, my Programme Manager with VSO Zambia, doesn’t stop smiling and whatever the meaning of his sentence they are almost always followed by a heartfelt giggle.
For this week we are being eased slowly into life in Zambia at the Commonwealth Africa Youth Centre in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city. To minimise risk of homesickness they are offering us a breakfast of eggs and beans every morning. Henry and I are struggling with out first encounter with a mossie net – the safety pins from the travel sewing kit have already come in useful! Neither of us have been food for mosquitoes yet although the skies have just this moment opened and the little critters get vicious in the rain apparently.
So far, in-country induction has been largely stress free. We were introduced to the city of Lusaka from the seats of a safari style mini-bus. Driving through the high-density areas isn’t quite what I’d envisage and I must admit I didn’t feel entirely comfortable. However, we did provide what seemed to be welcome Sunday afternoon entertainment for the local kids who ran alongside the bus laughing hysterically at Henry’s ‘strange’ face whilst shouting ‘muzungu muzungu!’ Muzungu literally means ‘white person’ and translates throughout Africa.Another activity I wasn’t expecting and again didn’t feel entirely comfortable with was canapés at the British High Commissioner’s house. But when the director of VSO sneaked into her thank you speech something along the lines of ‘I hope Mr Commissioner that you will receive with open arms applications for funds from this new batch of volunteers,’ we quickly realised that hobnobbing has its purpose!
We are now ‘full-time’ Zambians with work permits, lifelong national registration cards and Zambian recipe book! I’ll post some recipes as soon as I’ve tried some out! All these privileges don’t come easy – we were waiting at immigration for nearly four hours. Henry and I got shouted at because Wegberg, our place of birth, is NOT in the UK (yep, we were born in the same place!) Getting our registration cards felt like something out of a Monty Python sketch we ran up and down a long corridor going in and out various doors picking up bits of paper, putting them down, having our photo taken (having it taken again when we blinked or laughed!) and waiting again for our mug shots to be laminated onto a piece of card!
We’ve just finished a day of workshops/lectures on gender and cultural issues in Zambia – I won’t bore you with the details but the quote of the week definitely goes to the trainer:
‘if women were supposed to be the sole carrier of the child and the only one to
do the laundry she would have been born a Kangaroo holding a bathtub!’
And with that thought I think I’ll leave it there.
Friday, October 06, 2006
One week and counting...
This time next week we'll have been in the air for almost an hour - hopefully having avoided any delays or fines for trying to pack everything bar the kitchen sink as they say.
Am I prepared? ummmm I'm getting there. I quit my temp job last Friday and my brain has slowly begun to recover from a summer's worth of numbness. I'm still a little frightened to start packing my bags in fear of finding I can't squeeze in half of what I'm planning to take. I might have to see how many t-shirts, skirts and knickers I can wear at once to free up some room!
On a more positive note, I've received a few emails from Richard, a VSO volunteer, who has been working for my soon-to-be employer since February. He informs me I'll be working for three organisations - Chisomo Home Based Care, Kwacha Kum'mawa and Tikondane Home Based Care alongside over 20 volunteer HIV peer educators. Apparently, I have a blank canvas to refresh the whole peer education programme, which seems like a hell of a challenge but I suppose I asked for it.
It seems Henry and I have been allocated a fairly large house on the outskirts of Chipata although we may have to settled for the minimalist interior look until we find time to furnish the place. Richard describes Chipata as 'a scruffy town' that has changed very little in the last forty years, where everyone is friendly and most importantly the two restaurants in town serve veggie curry - woo hoo!
Oooo I almost forgot I have bought a travel sewing kit - why is it that when you're going abroad you buy things you'd never dream of using in the UK - I can't remember the last time I picked up a needle and thread. Next on the shopping list is Pick-Up-Sticks...
Am I prepared? ummmm I'm getting there. I quit my temp job last Friday and my brain has slowly begun to recover from a summer's worth of numbness. I'm still a little frightened to start packing my bags in fear of finding I can't squeeze in half of what I'm planning to take. I might have to see how many t-shirts, skirts and knickers I can wear at once to free up some room!
On a more positive note, I've received a few emails from Richard, a VSO volunteer, who has been working for my soon-to-be employer since February. He informs me I'll be working for three organisations - Chisomo Home Based Care, Kwacha Kum'mawa and Tikondane Home Based Care alongside over 20 volunteer HIV peer educators. Apparently, I have a blank canvas to refresh the whole peer education programme, which seems like a hell of a challenge but I suppose I asked for it.
It seems Henry and I have been allocated a fairly large house on the outskirts of Chipata although we may have to settled for the minimalist interior look until we find time to furnish the place. Richard describes Chipata as 'a scruffy town' that has changed very little in the last forty years, where everyone is friendly and most importantly the two restaurants in town serve veggie curry - woo hoo!
Oooo I almost forgot I have bought a travel sewing kit - why is it that when you're going abroad you buy things you'd never dream of using in the UK - I can't remember the last time I picked up a needle and thread. Next on the shopping list is Pick-Up-Sticks...
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