Emily in Zambia

The travel

On the 15^th of august, I left Denmark for Zambia, after a day spent of re-doing my bag so that it would fit the right weight, and so that I could travel with no problem seeing the restrictions against terrorism that were in England. The travel was to be like this: train from Holsted to Hamburg, a flight Hamburg-Heathrow, and a flight Heathrow-Lusaka. I made a mistake in the details, I told everybody that I was to pass by Johannesburg, and that I was arriving on the Friday. The journey went with almost no difficulties. The only thing was that in the train from Padborg to Hamburg, I had no ticket, as the station was closed. I couldn't find the checker, and I couldn't speak German. When the woman found me, she was quite angry, I couldn't understand a word of what she was saying, but luckily, a young woman who could speak English helped me, and I had no fine.

When I went in the plane, the crew announced that the flight would be delayed because of mechanical problems. The right wing was to be fixed, and of course, my window was giving right on that wing, so that I spent the whole flight checking regularly on the wing. I swear, I was so panicked that at the departure, I was almost crying, and at the landing, I almost had an asthma crisis. Okay I'm exaggerating, but I really hate flying

The arrival in Zambia was very exciting. Once I had picked up my luggage and joined Christopher, who was waiting for me, we took a taxi and went to the bus station of Lusaka. Over there, it was incredible: people shouting everywhere, buses parked anywhere, and people slapping on the car and shouting: "Sista, Sista!". At the beginning, I found it quite funny, but it soon became a little scary. Christopher quickly installed me in a bus, and organised everything so that I wouldn't have any problem. It was a big and quite luxurious bus (TV, conditioned air…), and during the hour we had to wait before departure, many people were coming in to sale all kind of things, even a priest came to say some prayers and collect donations. The journey to Kabwe went on with no problem, and when I arrived, Eduard and Gerry, a volunteer who has been here for 7 months, welcomed me and made me visit the place.

Kabwe

Kabwe is a big town, according to the size of the places here. The town it self is not that big, full of shops of all sort, where you can find all sort of things. Money and alcohol are controlling the town, but it's still a very nice place. Actually, Kabwe is much bigger, because it's divided into clusters. More than the town, there are also five big clusters, with many compounds. These compounds can sometimes be huge and very very poor. Most of the houses are small huts, and the shops are small stands made of cardboard, plastic, plants, whatever they find, and where they sale all kind of food. These compounds are full of children, and during the day, you can mostly see women doing some housework, but no men, as they are at work or at the bar.

In Kabwe town, there are all sorts of people, from the rich, black or white, to the beggar or the street kid. To walk in Kabwe means for me all sort of marriage or friendship proposal, and when I go shopping, there are always many kids asking for food. There are not only shops; there are also people who stand in the street with whatever they have to sale. I often buy bananas from the women, because they are cheaper and that it is nicer than to buy them in the supermarket. Because there is a supermarket, the "Shoprite", and other shops that are big buildings where the cashiers stay behind a metal protections, and where it is not a self-service. To sum up, it's a lively town, very polluted also, with many people. Most of the people just hang around, because before, there were many mines in Kabwe, but now that they are closed, there is just a lot of unemployment. However, I like Kabwe.

The work

The DAPP Hope centre

The centre where we work is north of the town, on the main road from Lusaka to Ndola. It is situated behind another centre, with whom we don't really work, which does prevention against malaria. Our centre is made of two buildings: one with the administration offices, and the other one with a storeroom and the "counselling" room. Basically, the time we spend there is mainly to organise in which places we are going to work, to meet, and for people from the outside, to come and get information, or to be trained in advocacy courses. However, the environment is very nice, we have a vegetable garden where there are only herbs for the moment, a mango tree, a huge avocado tree, so it makes it a nice place to wait in the morning when the people are late.

There are mainly 8 people working there. Lily is the project leader, Anned, Martin and Orion are workers, Priscilla is the cashier, Kudzi is from Zimbabwe and is there for two years, Cherry who is, well… helping, and the last one I forgot his name, but he does the maintenance (cleaning and garden). To be added, Gerry, Eduard and me, DI's. 

The activities

The main activities, for the moment, are all based on a nutrition project that objective is to make families affected by HIV/AIDS to produce their own food, and even generate some income this way. This project is taking place for two years, but it has just started. So for the moment, the activities related to this are: the TOT (Training of Trainers), so that they can train the beneficiaries of the project. We also do food distribution, which is for these same beneficiaries, to support them before the big work starts. This starts next week. We do it only once, but there will be enough food for a month, even more. Soon, the training of the beneficiaries will start, and then, we will distribute them seeds so that they can start vegetable gardens, and later, we will distribute chickens to some support groups: once the chickens have reproduced themselves, they give back the equivalent of what they have received to DAPP, meaning 2 males and 5 females (I think), which will be given to another group, and so on. So me, for the moment, I mainly went to organisational meetings, to some graduations of TOT, I've prepared sacs of food, and next week, I'm going 5 days to the National College between Kabwe and Kapiri for another TOT session.

The extras

We do other things in this place: there is an area where some children suffer from severe skin diseases, so we heal and disinfect the wounds, and so far, the progresses are quite promising. We also started to give hygiene courses to the children, like how to wash their hands regularly, and to the mothers on how they should clean their babies. This works very well also. We also do some Home Based Care, to support HIV positive people who have AIDS, and in a general way, we visit people from the area. This is how I met a man who just had a daughter for whom he was looking for a name, and when I met him, he asked me if he could name her Emilie, which I accepted, honoured.

The little things to know

The weather

For the moment, it's the cold and dry season, which means that it never rains, it's always sun shining, and during the day, the temperatures go to 30°C as an average, and in the night, from 10 to 15°C. But as it's the end of the season, the temperatures tend to go higher every day, and as at the beginning it was very nice, now it can sometimes be quite hot. Apparently, September and October will be hell, until the rains start, and then the heat might calm down a little. And everything will get green, it will be beautiful.

The vegetation

There are all sorts of plants here. For the moment, most of them are totally dry, but some trees have flowers, with very bright colours, and there are plants that look like huge pineapples, and some trees start to have fruits. I started to dry some flowers, I don't know what it will look like; I hope that it will give a good impression. There are also trees with huge roots, it's beautiful. But I'm looking forward to the rainy season to see all this in more wonderful.

The animals

Nope, I didn't see giraffes or things like that! The only animals that I see are bugs of all kinds, sometimes surprising birds (I saw some with bright blue bodies!), lizards everywhere, and that's about it. The hens are different, as for the cows, even if I saw some like in Europe (Black and white), I also saw some that look more like wild animals, with bigger horns and different bodies. Goats are the same. If I see something new, I will tell you.

The people

The people are like everywhere, there are of all kinds. In a general way, they're friendly, and always happy that white people come to help them. I say this, but I mainly met people at work. I also met people in free time, and probably leading to some good friendships. First, there is Willie, with whom Gerry lives, so I'm often at their place. There is also Mercy, who is a student in social work at the National College of Kabwe town, and Zoë, who is a student in International Relations. She comes from South Africa, she lived one year in Sweden, so it's quite funny, as she is also in Zambia for 5 months like me, she will leave a bit before me. The other people I meet are guys in the street who are in love with me, and who want to marry me, but I barely stop to talk with them. And the street kids, these are very cool. If I go shopping, they usually come in to carry my goods, so I buy them biscuits or things like that. Sometimes Gerry cooks food for them at his place, and we play games together. I would like to do more with them, so that they can live in better conditions, but for the moment, I didn't find how, the Government not being helpful with this. Many people teach me Bemba, the local dialect, and they want to learn French. And I often have funny questions about France, Europe, to know how many kids I have, what magic is, why I'm not Christian, if I come from Swaziland, if I speak French, and it often leads to very interesting conversations. People also ask me also for advices about HIV/AIDS, and I think that in a way, they trust me more not only because I'm white, but also because I'm a woman and I talk openly of things.  

Other particularities

The currency is the Kwacha, it's only found in paper money, sometimes very damaged. 1 € is about 4 000 K. When they say the time, they don't say "o'clock", they say "hours". It can be confusing: "We meet in 7 hours" means, "we meet at 7". There are quotes from the Bible everywhere. The local buses are white and blue, often highly damaged, with 9 seats, but you can fit up to 20 persons in it. Alcohol is really everywhere, mostly with men. The music is always played very loud, and one of the songs that comes up all the time among the Zambians songs, is "Hips don't lie", by Shakira (I'm going to hate her). There are about 15000 different types of churches, I went in one of them, and it was a wonderful experience. People sing a lot when they have meetings, and pray a lot, so I pretend a lot, and I say "Amen" more often that I ever did in my whole life. And I behave like a perfect little white person who is discovering Zambia, I'm fully aware of this, but it's so cool! At the beginning, I thought I could never make it, it would be too hard for me, but now I believe that 5 months are definitely going to be too short. If it wasn't for the love and sake of my family, I wouldn't go back to Europe. I will, don't worry! I read all my emails even if I don't send many of them.

To be continued…