Tidbits of Zambian Life

I've tried to pry myself out of bed early to go running. This is no easier here than it ever has been for me, and more often than not I reset my alarm for a more reasonable hour. When my willingness to leave my warm bed matches my ambition to run, I am never disappointed. Its almost like trail running. My feet certainly don't know the difference. Running along the di rt 'sidewalks' which the rainy season has transformed into gullies or gutters, jumping over the small potholes, and through the larger ones; maneuvering over roots and over trash, trying to focus on the flowers in the trees and the colors of the dawn clouds without loosing my footing. If it weren't for the semi-paved roads, smoke-belching cars, and shanty-town sprawl, could you forgive me for picturing the same dirt trail winding through a colorful mountain meadow?


People tend to look at me intently when I'm running, more so than they look at me normally. What could be mistaken for a scowl accompanies a stare that lacks understanding. Is it because they don't see Mzungu's (nyanja for white man) running down the street - I know that's not true. Is it because I'm in shorts and a T-shirt? Is it because I'm sweating like mad in shorts and a T-shirt, while they are bundled in jackets, scarves and hats in the depth of Zambian winter? Or instead is the look more insidious - a walking dollar sign? an imperialist invader? Usually a simple 'good morning' is all it takes to disarm the scowl and win a smile.


There is an abandoned minivan parked alongside a number of junked cars outside the market by my office. This van must have a special significance, however, because there are never less than 5 people inside. The van has no tires and no windows. Sitting on chalks, empty boxes and discarded wrappers spill out the doorways and windows onto the surrounding dirt and nearby vehicles. Music blares from somewhere - could it possibly be that the stereo still works? A raucous crowd inhabits the van, from morning until night, joking, laughing, staring at passersby.


Despite the dirt roads and sidewalks, everyone goes to work in suits or business attire, their shoes spotless and shiny. It took me a few days to figure out that everyone carries a rag to wipe the dirt off their shoes after reaching their destination.


If you are the only person taking a taxi, you sit in the passenger seat and strike up a conversation. Often, the first destination is the gas station. Whether or not you pay for the few liters of gas that go into the car is irrelevant, there is no apparent need to have the taxi gassed and ready to go. I've also never been in a taxi where the fuel needle isn't on empty, or where the driver puts in more than five or six liters at a time.


There are vendors that walk down the sides and middle of the streets at busy intersections - hawking everything from bootleg DVDs to cell phone chargers, maps of Africa to fresh fruit. The other day one of the vendors passed trying to sell slingshots. What?! I asked my Zambian compatriot what for? 'To rob you man!' I had my doubts - the very next vendor walked by selling machetes, the next, dish soap.


Clothes need to be ironed here. All of them. Sheets, towels, jeans, socks - yep. Otherwise - fly larvae could burrow under your skin and lay their eggs. After a few weeks and a nasty painful zit - a fly emerges and takes off! At first I thought it a wives tale told to foreigners and children - but no - the stories (and pictures...) have convinced me otherwise! Google 'Tumbu fly images' to see for yourself, if you dare...

'Major' Inconvenience

The 'inconveniences' here compared to the Western world pose occasional challenges. Every so often the hot water decides to stop being hot. Sometimes there is no water altogether. Well, if you know me at all, showers are over-rated and I constantly search for an excuse to drink beer rather than water anyways. As far as electricity goes, its a sign if important buildings have imposing looking generators outside that look like they've been needed once or twice. Really, these aren't inconveniences at all, they are the side effects of being incredibly fortunate. The majority of the country, both inside and outside the capital, faces much more than 'inconveniences' when it comes to water and power.

I've been trained to handle the outages of internet, and the painfully slow internet when it actually is available. Remember, I was weaned on dial-up. The fact that my parents graduated from dial-up not two months ago may hint at a strain of Luddite somewhere in my blood... I was spoiled by living with a beer connoisseur and dating a fantastic cook. The roosters that crow early in the morning and the neighbor's dogs who bark incessantly throughout the night give an essence of farm life that isn't too far down the street. Each of these minor inconveniences are friendly reminders that I'm no longer in Kansas, Toto.

There is one thing, however, that drives me crazy.

The subtle afterthought that gnaws at my soul, saps my patience, and feels like some sort of Chinese torture trick ... is my sink. It has a hot water tap on one side of the sink and a cold water tap on the other side of the sink. Let me repeat that, which, to the casual reader, who may never have experienced such a monstrosity, may sound completely benign. On one end of the sink, there is one faucet that only spouts scalding hot water. At the far, far, opposite end of the sink, is the other faucet, out of which flows only frigid cold water. The water on one side is hot enough to boil pasta. The water at the other end causes goose-bumps. Have you ever tried to wash your face with such a device? It must be a riddle, or some form of a practical joke. You have to cup the cold water in your hands, add a dabble of hot water that is too hot to touch without any cold water, but the cold water is mostly gone from your hands by the time you have gotten it over to the hot water side of the sink - ah, as you can tell, its exasperating. Well, I would think it were quaint and kind of funny - if I hadn't seen anything like it before...


I know exactly where this absurd twist on a normal bathroom appliance it came from: England. I had the same idiotic sink in my dormitory room in England. Of all the perils of colonization, the double faucet sink has to be up there on the list.

Dr. Livingston, I Presume?

I can only imagine Africa as Dr. Livingston saw it, 150 years ago. After seeing Victoria Falls and going on my first Safari this weekend, I can hardly imagine a continent as wild as the one he explored.

It was something driving through tall grass fields, around large bushes, not knowing what to expect on the other side - a group of grazing impalas, a heard of elephants, or a clan of baboons playing in the trees. We camped overnight in the park, inviting a second thought when getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night given the megafauna witnessed during the day.

Hippos, crocs, elephants, giraffes, leopards, impalas - we saw them all - and LOTS of them. An elephant or water buffalo just a few feet from the car would make a sudden move, inviting nervous screams from the girls in the open sided safari truck, drawing a friendly laugh from the guide - "Do not worry, no problem." I wonder what the driver of the car said to his guests later that day when a leopard jumped onto an empty seat in the vehicle, stared eye to eye with one of the tourists, and promptly jumped out the other side. I wonder what was going through the tourist's head. I wonder what was going through the leopard's head! Dinner?


The change in lifestyle from Livingston's day until now has been an interesting progression. Signs of progress and the lack thereof abound. There was a fascinating exhibit at the Livingston Museum about the transition from modern village life to modern city life. Unabashedly, the plaques read:

"With the passage of time the people of our village have found themselves alienated from their natural environment. Now they have to obtain a license to hunt for food, cut poles for their huts, cut trees for their canoes. Day by day they helplessly watch their environment being depleted of its natural resources by outsiders, people from afar, authorized from somewhere else without any recourse to them and at no benefit to them, in desperation, all they can do is offer manual labour, for a pittance."

"Transplanted from 'Our Village' and out of touch with ourselves, our living heritage, the alienated individual walks the world at the crossroads of cultures. Struggling to retain an identity, the only place he gets flashes of his culture is the museum though only as an abstraction."

If those are the 'politically correct' words to be found in a museum, I wonder how the people really feel...

Breaking the Bubble

They call Lusaka a 'soft landing' for expats. After being here for a week and a half, I am amazed at how easy it is to make a life here, and how easy it is to ignore the reality around the corner.

My temporary housing through my host organization, the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia is a furnished room in a four bedroom guesthouse. Complete with small pool and large yard with an exotic garden, the house is walled in from the outside world with a giant iron entry gate and 24 hour security guard. It doesn't come cheap. I am likely to pay as much as my last apartment three blocks from the sand in Newport Beach, California for a place with much less than the amenities of the guesthouse.

The number of aid workers here is astounding - almost everywhere in town you are likely to run into someone working for the Clinton Foundation, a fellow CIDRZ employee, the World Bicycle Relief Organization, or any number or other foundations. Everyone here is constantly cycling through Zambia it seems, on a contract for a year or two - and is outgoing, fun, and friendly. Western culture has been imported as a result. There are yoga and spinning classes, ultimate frisbee on Sunday mornings, and touch Rugby Mondays and Thursdays. The lack of tourist attractions within the city promotes a tight-knit group of friends always willing to welcome the new-comer to the daily activity or weekend plans. Food choices reflect the diverse expat scene - from Indian to Mexican, Italian to Thai.

Its easy to live life here in a bubble. Without trying, it would be easy to avoid the local traditions and food - nshima - a paste made with corn meal rolled into balls with your hands and used to scoop up dishes of beef stew, eggplant or spinach. Just outside the high walls of the expat houses, the streets are filled with signs of the other side of life - bafefoot kids and broken down minibuses stuffed to the brim with passengers. The further from the expat center of town you travel, the more you are reminded of the true nature of your location: cement block buildings with sheet metal roofs, held in place by large rocks. Grass fires burning along the side of pot-hole strewn roads - that may or may not be paved - pot-holes large enough to swallow small children. Trash strewn neighborhoods with women strolling down the street carrying all shapes and sizes of goods on their heads and a small child on their back in brightly colored cloth.

I'm told its winter here. That doesn't bode well for the summer, when I already I feel stifled by the mid-day heat, and nearly faint from a game of ultimate or a jog around town. The locals all dawn jackets and blankets - I'm surprised I haven't seen the down jackets popular with the Newport locals in January.

I can see my work here being very rewarding. We are setting up a data collection hierarchy, from the city center to the district offices, local clinics, and community health workers, instituting electronic correspondence between the person on foot in the village to the clinic. We are standardizing primary care, and hoping to make a drastic decrease in under-5 mortality. Im helping to implement everything technical - from software to hardware. Last week I had a crash course in solar power to figure out how to run our new data entry system off the power grid in the rural clinics. My current role draws a surprising number of similarities to my last role in project management for an unmanned helicopter - struggling against politics, bureaucracy, and the way things are 'typically' done to meet an ambitious schedule with limited resources. Substitute unmanned helicopters for electronic medical systems.

I can assure you my time here will be an adventure - and I invite you all to come and visit - enjoy some nshima and get a feel for a very different way of life.