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England Will Seem Strange
By
Claire Stein
My husband and I have
been in Zambia for 6 months now, doing missionary work and
travelling around Zambia. We have been reading the Lowdown ever
since we arrived and I would like to say thank you for all of its
information which have inspired trips away and for its amusing
articles about Zambia which we can now relate to. It has taken me 5
months to settle into Zambia and its strange ways and it will
probably take me another 5 months to settle back into life in
England. After this experience, England will seem strange.
We have met lots of
friendly Zambians but have found it hard to make friends. Back in
the UK I will get strange looks; I am a supply teacher and I can
imagine that in every staff room I walk into I will shake everyone’s
hand and say “How are you? Fine, thank you” (said all in one breath
without waiting for an answer).
Being a white person in
Zambia you really stick out. I remember the first school I went to
visit here. All the children exclaimed in their local languages and
the teacher had to settle them down. One child put her hand up and
said “She has a funny nose”. I didn’t visit many schools after that.
Whites are treated with respect and at first I felt quite
uncomfortable as I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. But we both
soon got to enjoy being at the front of a dinner queue, getting lots
of free drinks and sitting at the high table (well we didn’t quite
get to high table status but we were very close to it). I will feel
very lonely in England when I will be ignored in the street (even by
my own friends) and I will actually have to do something to gain
respect.
Our house in Lusaka has
been basic, though not as basic as some of my friends thought “Do
you live in a mud hut? Do you go to the toilet in a hole?” some
e-mails said. We have lived without a fridge (“but you have a
freezer” the landlord said), a dining room table, a duvet and
central heating (it was a cold winter here and I only brought my
summer clothes). We have had no car for most of the time; all the
taxi drivers in Lusaka seem to know us, where we live and our weekly
routine. Now as we walk past the Hotel Intercontinental a crowd of
taxi drivers mob us all wanting to drive us somewhere: “Are you
going to Tuesday Market today?”
One of the hardest
things I have had to live without and probably the source of all my
problems here is a lack of TV. I have been so bored. My husband and
I are now experts at Sudukos, codewords, word searches, and various
forms of Patience, also scrabble, snakes and ladders and other
strange games for 2 players (?). When I get home I am going to write
a book, I’m sure I can write something better than some of the trash
I’ve been reading here. I hope others will agree with me (my
husband doesn’t) there are times when you just want to relax and sit
in front of the TV. I can’t wait to watch TV again but I will have
missed the story on my favourite soaps and it will take me ages to
catch up.
We have now got used to
the money system here and it will be strange to go back to England
and have to deal with coins and a currency with only 1 or 2 digits.
The other day a Zambian friend asked if we could lend her 50 grand,
my British mind thought, we don’t even have half that. My husband
looked in his fat wallet and gave her one of our many notes; you
need to have loads of Zambian notes just to have the equivalent of
£100.
One of the first things
I found strange about Zambia were the street sellers at the traffic
lights (sorry, robots). I found it very strange that they would sell
live chickens. Can you imagine driving to work and stopping at the
lights and buying a chicken, putting it on your back seat and
driving on, maybe keeping it on your desk until you take it home for
your wife to kill (“oh a chicken! How romantic!”). Now I look at the
street sellers and sometimes feel tempted to buy something (although
not a chicken yet).
Minibuses were a
strange experience for us and one we never quite mastered. On our
first trip a conductor invited us into his bus, the bus left and we
paid our money, then he told us the bus wasn’t going to our
destination and we would have to get off at the next stop, we walked
the rest of the way. The next time we went on a bus we waited ages
at every stop while the bus driver tooted his horn incessantly and
the conductor whistled at people until the bus was full.
I experienced a
blessing service for a vehicle and was surprised that the Anglican
prayer book has a prayer written for vehicles. The church driver
told us not all cars are blessed, we decided minibuses and taxis
have never been prayed for.
Something I have found
interesting is the donor-receiver relationship. In England you may
give money to charity by putting loose change in a charity box in
town and getting a sticker (your money probably just pays for the
sticker). Some good Christians tithe 10% of their earnings, they may
have a standing order to a charity and don’t even think about where
the money has gone. In Zambia it is much more of a business
relationship. “We received money from donors and built this.” “This
building is not complete we will have to go back to the donors and
get some more money.” “We would like to start this project but we
need to get money from donors.” The locals seem proud to be
receiving money from charities. Our office printer has broken, how
will staff ever print out a letter to donors asking for money to get
a new one?
How would some western
donors feel if they really knew what their money was spent on? Donor
money can be spent on a vehicle to reach rural areas, but we usually
only see them driving around Lusaka. Money is spent on launch
parties with bands, marquees and food for the guests. Money is spent
on hiring a nice hotel for meetings, accommodation, meals and
transport money for the delegates. Zambian volunteers may need to be
paid or they may just run off with the money. People may sell the
things that donors have given. We have heard stories of corrupt
managers who beg for money from charities and then keep it for
themselves, leaving the project to run down and fail.
So when I go back to
England and donate money to Africa, I will be more careful about
where to give my money and check for evidence that it is being used
for a good cause. I will make sure that it is being used to help
teach people how to fend for themselves.
So thank you Zambia for
the experience you have given me. Thank you Lowdown for easing my
boredom a little. I would like to say sorry to the lion that we
disturbed while mating, sorry to the hippo for driving in your path,
sorry to the elephant for taking a photo of you. All three of you
had every right to charge at us and we will never forget you. I
arrived in Zambia and thought it was strange, now we’re going back
to England and will think that is strange.
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October
2006