The UN office is cool and clean. I’m here to talk about maternal fistula – a dreadful consequence of childbirth going wrong. Sometimes the infant is too big to pass through the birth canal and, if there is no emergency C. section or forceps delivery, the mother can die in labour. Or, if she’s lucky, be left with dribbling from her bladder and bowel. I saw this problem when I worked at Chilonga and well remember the consequences. The UNFPA is now putting money into training doctors to treat the problem and increasing awareness among women that treatment is available - that they no longer have to live with incontinence. The UN executives I meet are kindly and knowledgable but somehow appear distant from the problem.
And, as I sit in the cool clean air of the UN office, I can't help but think of Garden township with its dried dusty earth, no rain for six months, a few plants struggle through but when you have to carry water from a communal tap that is often shut off during daytime hours, gardening is hard.
A few market stalls, run by those with entrepreneurial spirit sell small packs of mealy meal, charcoal, tomatoes, oils, greens – and even popcorn from a machine plugged into a small generator.
When I return to the hotel I have a beer, still thinking about the VK project and Elsie and Peter. I want to cry for them but how can I feel sorry for people who don’t feel sorry for themselves – it’s irrational. Then there is Inonge with her elfin face that was almost angelic, and her movement that disturbed little but was decisive. She came close to crying while telling her story, and my own throat swelled with tears. But I knew I couldn’t cry. If she could keep back tears, then I had no right to them.
But I care, I can’t help it. While Elsie talked of the debts and the work they do, I should have been planning my story. Instead, I was thinking about what I could do to help VK. I offered to sell the greetings cards they make. I’d take home at least a hundred – but who to sell them to, how to transfer the money back – maybe via VSO- not very journalistic, I know.
Tuesday 31 July 2007
Monday 30 July 2007
Garden Township and the amazing volunteers
Garden Township sits in Northeast Lusaka, self-built brick homes on government land, a few communal water taps, drainage ditches fed by nearby sewage works. I wanted a story on Zambians helping Zambians, and VSO showed me that today. Elsie is a young nurse with three children, a single parent, but she runs a clinic in Garden township. She started the clinic after her sister was diagnosed with AIDS and she realized that caring for her at home was far better than sending her to an overstretched hospital. Others were interested in caring for their relatives, so Elsie taught them basic nursing care. She started up the clinic and now trains volunteers to care for their neighbours.
Elsie takes no salary but gets support from her ex-husband. Her assistant Peter has a family with grown up children and worked with a German charity for 25 years. But when his son was diagnosed with AIDS he knew he had to do more. Peter coordinates who needs help with finding a good source of assistance. Like Elsie, he takes no salary, and is supported by his wife, who works in a lab.
What really impressed me about Elsie and Peter are their devotion – volunteers both of them and not a word about God. They are helping because they feel they must – they have to – they are called! So many reasons that sound too clichéd to describe the notion of not earning an income because you are helping your fellow man.
The west is full of images of poor Africans with their hands out. But Elsie and Peter are too busy helping people to have their hands out. Yes, they would like an income, but they would probably use it to buy a fridge to store medicines, or for tools to help the youth they’ve trained in carpentry. But their hands aren’t out, they are much too busy.
I’m realizing that the HIV story is not about sex and condoms – it’s about the human spirt’s ability to rise to meet a massive challenge. There are big international conferences that branch into continental, national, regional discussions where a huge amount of money is spent in hosting delegates who wring their hands in as they use terminology such as consortiums and stakeholders. But at the end of the day it is the work of people like Elsie and Peter that really affects people’s lives. The only time Peter grew angry was when he talked of big charities and their 4X4 vehicles.
Peter and Elsie were both originally motivated by HIV in their families, but their work hasn’t stopped there.
They now want to help the teenage orphans of AIDS. They don’t want to live in orphanages but, like teenagers around the world, without supervision they are at risk of falling into destructive habits. Elsie and Peter have a young woman staying at the centre. Inonge was 14 when her parents died of AIDS. She was sent to stay with an aunt, but her uncle raped her. When she told the aunt, she didn’t believe Inonge and sent the girl to other relatives. They treated her like a slave and, knowing food was an issue, Inonge ate as little as possible. Finally she ran away and was taken in by Elsie. She has been trained in tailoring and now makes clothes. She has earned enough to buy herself an electric sewing machine. The clothes she makes have beautifully cut swirls and are firmly African.
Peter takes me out for a tour of Garden township. We stop and visit Lomance, a widow with seven children and five orphans under her guardianship. Mrs Phiri sells what she grows in her dusty garden, takes in sewing and does whatever she can to feed the children in her care. But everyday Lomance visits five AIDS sufferers and feeds and bathes them.
“I nursed my husband when he died of TB and wanted to learn to give that care to others,” she said.
Next we visit Justina, a widow with two children. She lives in a one room home which she shares with her mother and eight orphans that were left with her after relatives died of AIDS. Justina takes in laundry from middle class Zambians, and she sells whatever she can grow from her garden. But like Lomance, Justina steps away from her difficult life and volunteers to care for three neighbors suffering from AIDS. She bathes, feeds and ensures they take their medicines.
I feel overwhelmed at the generosity of these people and fight back tears. But I also have to leave. I have an appointment at the UNFPA office to talk about maternal mortality.
Elsie walks me out to find a taxi. A few young men with cars offer to drive me for a fee, but I tell Elsie I would like to take an official taxi. We wait in the dusty heat as blue minibuses screech past. I promise Elsie she will hear from me again, and I feel her sense that she would like support from the outside world.
Elsie takes no salary but gets support from her ex-husband. Her assistant Peter has a family with grown up children and worked with a German charity for 25 years. But when his son was diagnosed with AIDS he knew he had to do more. Peter coordinates who needs help with finding a good source of assistance. Like Elsie, he takes no salary, and is supported by his wife, who works in a lab.
What really impressed me about Elsie and Peter are their devotion – volunteers both of them and not a word about God. They are helping because they feel they must – they have to – they are called! So many reasons that sound too clichéd to describe the notion of not earning an income because you are helping your fellow man.
The west is full of images of poor Africans with their hands out. But Elsie and Peter are too busy helping people to have their hands out. Yes, they would like an income, but they would probably use it to buy a fridge to store medicines, or for tools to help the youth they’ve trained in carpentry. But their hands aren’t out, they are much too busy.
I’m realizing that the HIV story is not about sex and condoms – it’s about the human spirt’s ability to rise to meet a massive challenge. There are big international conferences that branch into continental, national, regional discussions where a huge amount of money is spent in hosting delegates who wring their hands in as they use terminology such as consortiums and stakeholders. But at the end of the day it is the work of people like Elsie and Peter that really affects people’s lives. The only time Peter grew angry was when he talked of big charities and their 4X4 vehicles.
Peter and Elsie were both originally motivated by HIV in their families, but their work hasn’t stopped there.
They now want to help the teenage orphans of AIDS. They don’t want to live in orphanages but, like teenagers around the world, without supervision they are at risk of falling into destructive habits. Elsie and Peter have a young woman staying at the centre. Inonge was 14 when her parents died of AIDS. She was sent to stay with an aunt, but her uncle raped her. When she told the aunt, she didn’t believe Inonge and sent the girl to other relatives. They treated her like a slave and, knowing food was an issue, Inonge ate as little as possible. Finally she ran away and was taken in by Elsie. She has been trained in tailoring and now makes clothes. She has earned enough to buy herself an electric sewing machine. The clothes she makes have beautifully cut swirls and are firmly African.
Peter takes me out for a tour of Garden township. We stop and visit Lomance, a widow with seven children and five orphans under her guardianship. Mrs Phiri sells what she grows in her dusty garden, takes in sewing and does whatever she can to feed the children in her care. But everyday Lomance visits five AIDS sufferers and feeds and bathes them.
“I nursed my husband when he died of TB and wanted to learn to give that care to others,” she said.
Next we visit Justina, a widow with two children. She lives in a one room home which she shares with her mother and eight orphans that were left with her after relatives died of AIDS. Justina takes in laundry from middle class Zambians, and she sells whatever she can grow from her garden. But like Lomance, Justina steps away from her difficult life and volunteers to care for three neighbors suffering from AIDS. She bathes, feeds and ensures they take their medicines.
I feel overwhelmed at the generosity of these people and fight back tears. But I also have to leave. I have an appointment at the UNFPA office to talk about maternal mortality.
Elsie walks me out to find a taxi. A few young men with cars offer to drive me for a fee, but I tell Elsie I would like to take an official taxi. We wait in the dusty heat as blue minibuses screech past. I promise Elsie she will hear from me again, and I feel her sense that she would like support from the outside world.
Friday 27 July 2007
Russians in Lusaka
One week alone. No one here knows me as a mother or a wife – it’s oddly disengaging – like being cast adrift with no flag of identity.
I could be anyone with a history created by my imagination – my wanabee me! But I’m happy with the history I have – growing up poor in Glasgow, cast adrift by tumultuous parents, raised by a strict grandmother and being desperate to travel overseas.
And I did. Now I’m alone and vaguely at ease in a hotel in downtown Lusaka. I’m able to be friendly even though the waiter may think I’m flirting. I’ve traveled far – but I do know who I am.
I go to the hotel pool to sit in the sun and read some notes. A blond woman, heavily pregnant approachs me as I read home-grown guides to living with HIV.
“Excuse me!” She says in an accent stilted toward Russia. “Have you heard about our facial and massage service at the hotel?”
I try not to peer at her spots but doubt I would trust her to give me any cosmetic treatment. “I know there is a spa, but I don’t know any details.”
“We asked the hotel to put cards – blue cards – in the hotel rooms.” She holds her hands in a five inch by five inch square to indicate the size of the cards.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t remember seeing them.”
She casts her eyes to the dull gray concrete path, and I feel sorry for her – pregnant, overseas and touting for beauty business.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“One year!”
“Do you like Africa?”
She looks up. “Well, I miss my homeland.”
I want to know more – why, who, what had brought her here. But her eyes are sad.
“I knew a Russian woman in Lusaka once – a long time ago.”
The pregnant woman smiles. “What was her name?”
“Vera – Vera Maguswi. She was married to a Zambian doctor – but he had affairs, many of them and was one of the first to die of AIDS. She went home about 20 years ago.”
It is too long ago to be of interest to this young woman. The story of the beautiful Vera – the fairy book princess who married a dog of a man.
I could be anyone with a history created by my imagination – my wanabee me! But I’m happy with the history I have – growing up poor in Glasgow, cast adrift by tumultuous parents, raised by a strict grandmother and being desperate to travel overseas.
And I did. Now I’m alone and vaguely at ease in a hotel in downtown Lusaka. I’m able to be friendly even though the waiter may think I’m flirting. I’ve traveled far – but I do know who I am.
I go to the hotel pool to sit in the sun and read some notes. A blond woman, heavily pregnant approachs me as I read home-grown guides to living with HIV.
“Excuse me!” She says in an accent stilted toward Russia. “Have you heard about our facial and massage service at the hotel?”
I try not to peer at her spots but doubt I would trust her to give me any cosmetic treatment. “I know there is a spa, but I don’t know any details.”
“We asked the hotel to put cards – blue cards – in the hotel rooms.” She holds her hands in a five inch by five inch square to indicate the size of the cards.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t remember seeing them.”
She casts her eyes to the dull gray concrete path, and I feel sorry for her – pregnant, overseas and touting for beauty business.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“One year!”
“Do you like Africa?”
She looks up. “Well, I miss my homeland.”
I want to know more – why, who, what had brought her here. But her eyes are sad.
“I knew a Russian woman in Lusaka once – a long time ago.”
The pregnant woman smiles. “What was her name?”
“Vera – Vera Maguswi. She was married to a Zambian doctor – but he had affairs, many of them and was one of the first to die of AIDS. She went home about 20 years ago.”
It is too long ago to be of interest to this young woman. The story of the beautiful Vera – the fairy book princess who married a dog of a man.
Thursday 26 July 2007
Lusaka market
City market west of Freedom Way is where the grassroots Zambian goes to shop. Roadside blankets spread with dried fish, fruit, green beg, corn and secondhand clothes. Behind the squatting women who sell these wares are decrepit mini vans that act as local buses. They stream through shoppers and stop, it seems at random spots. But commuters seem to know exactly where to get their bus, and they bustle with their wares through the narrow gaps between vehicles where young men hiss, whistle and whisper in my ear; “Take me to your country.”
This is the city market where narrow stalls tail off in long tight lanes. The stall I want is in the pink section. A newspaper ad seeks to help nurses and midwives wanting to work overseas. I want to talk to those behind the ad about the brain drain of nurses here.
I peer down the lane of stalls, tightly packed with shoppers, tradesmen and those with no jobs and nothing to do. A few people watch me as I head into the lane – I can’t see the end – the area where the yellow zone ends and the pink zone, where I am headed, begins. I look back out to the bus zone and can’t see the road beyond. A young man hisses sharply in my ear and I move fast, back out toward the buses, the roadside and the shop traders of Freedom Way. I thought I was brave enough to visit Yanos Foundation Homes in person, but suddenly their mobile phone number sounds apt – it’s not what Michael Palin would have done, but he had a camera crew.
I chicken out, but this market doesn’t seem like the type of place that would house a reputable agency truly taking young Zambian nurses overseas. I call their mobile number and a man answers. I say I have a young friend interested in their service. He said they organize visas and jobs and charge 100,000 Kwacha for the forms, 25,000 Kwacha for regulations and they will post out a package within three weeks of receiving the money. I ask what is in the package? Why? I have a friend, she wants to go to UK, but she wants to know what she is paying for. The telephone line goes dead.
This is the city market where narrow stalls tail off in long tight lanes. The stall I want is in the pink section. A newspaper ad seeks to help nurses and midwives wanting to work overseas. I want to talk to those behind the ad about the brain drain of nurses here.
I peer down the lane of stalls, tightly packed with shoppers, tradesmen and those with no jobs and nothing to do. A few people watch me as I head into the lane – I can’t see the end – the area where the yellow zone ends and the pink zone, where I am headed, begins. I look back out to the bus zone and can’t see the road beyond. A young man hisses sharply in my ear and I move fast, back out toward the buses, the roadside and the shop traders of Freedom Way. I thought I was brave enough to visit Yanos Foundation Homes in person, but suddenly their mobile phone number sounds apt – it’s not what Michael Palin would have done, but he had a camera crew.
I chicken out, but this market doesn’t seem like the type of place that would house a reputable agency truly taking young Zambian nurses overseas. I call their mobile number and a man answers. I say I have a young friend interested in their service. He said they organize visas and jobs and charge 100,000 Kwacha for the forms, 25,000 Kwacha for regulations and they will post out a package within three weeks of receiving the money. I ask what is in the package? Why? I have a friend, she wants to go to UK, but she wants to know what she is paying for. The telephone line goes dead.
Wednesday 25 July 2007
AIDS meeting
There are nine mormons at breakfast – all at the table in their black suits, white shirts, ties and badges – at first I thought they were a conference of waiters – I almost asked one for coffee!
But what are they doing here? Going door to door at the home so of the Zambian upper and middle classes will be hard with all the high walls and fences. The only people to greet them with be gardeners or maids. And the poorer folks whose homes are more accessible, surely the Mormon Church won’t expect tithes – that would be 10 percent of their income! Out of the mouths of the poor!
But I watch the young men in their black suits and, even in the air-conditioned restaurant, they look sweltered. The two oldest men – Elders, I guess – have lost their jackets and look cool in short shirt sleeves. Maybe they have served their time, brought in some disciples and no longer have to suffer the heat.
I watch as an elder’s wife goes back for her third serving at the breakfast buffet – all that converting must be hungry work.
I take a taxi to the VSO office, I’d made email contact with the office before leaving home, and I’ve brought chocolates as a gift. The office is in a posher building than before, but it’s still a network of small, badly painted rooms cooled with desktop fans. But there are changes. When I was with VSO we were all young white kids with idealism but no experience. Well, today the volunteers come from Uganda, Kenya, India, Phillipines, Holland, Canada and Australia – along with a few Brits, this makes a veritable UN.
I am talking with two Indian VSO’s when a young woman from the Phillipines comes in. She complains of diarrhea and blames the drinking water. But the young Indian men tell her it isn’t the water – just Zambia belly.
The VSO office is run by Zambians who seem tuned to the country’s needs. Unlike my time when the field director was an expat wife, a Scottish teacher, who had never lived in the bush or worked in the field. A lovely guy arrived as her assistant. Paul Hitchen had spent three years in Sri Lanka as an agricuttural volunteer, but he learned about Zambia at much the same pace as we did.
Like other developing countries, Zambia has grown into a land where charities – Non Governmental Organizations – are a major employer perhaps employing more people than tourism. The charities all seem to own at least one 4x4 vehicle and a driver. I imagine that getting a foot in NGO employment door can be a great career path.
But it is also an amazing quagmire of bureaucracy that could send Kafka carazy with its alphabet soup of acronyms. A Canadian agriculturalist I meet says he could create whole sentences out of acronyms, and colleagues would know exactly what he was talking about – I wish I’d written some down.
The VSO director has arranged for me to visit some HIV projects, and I go out with an Australian volunteer who facilitates action for a number of self-help groups.
Sitting in a room full of people who are HIV positive challenges your knowledge of the disease.
It’s so easy to mock those who fear the AIDS virus – the she school board in Midwest America who sent home a child who contracted the disease through a blood transfusion, the relative who refuses to shake an AIDS sufferer’s hand. But when you yourself sit in a room, you find yourself challenged. These people harbour a deadly disease that kills more than 3 million people worldwide each year. Its minute cells seep via blood, semen, tears, breast milk and saliva to invade the next victim – could that be me? It’s totally irrational thinking, I know. I am, in reality, sitting in a room with people who have a treatable but incurable disease while they talk about petitioning the government for more help. There is no way I am in danger. But in our instinct for survival – logic isn’t always applied.
The Zambian government has begun providing free Anti-Retroviral treatment to all those testing positive for HIV. This group are all urban, professional and seeking more in support – perhaps even recognition.
The meeting breaks up and I talk to Musondah. She is a young mother who found she had the disease after her husband became sick. When he found out he was positive, she got depressed. “I told my husband ‘You got this disease, you brought it here.” But I myself was ignorant. I was very fat and thought maybe only those who are thin have the disease.”
But when her own test came back positive, Musondah knew she had much to learn. She said she was advised to eat well but wasn’t put on Anti-Retroviral treatment because her CD4 count was high.
I wonder what a CD4 count is as Musondah tells me that her son tested negative – and that was her biggest boost.
I ask about sex with her husband, and she says they know they must always use condoms or they risk reinfecting each other with differing strains of HIV.
Despite a better diet, she said she became weak and needed to begin drug therapy. Musondah is plump and has beautiful shiny skin. No one need ever know she is HIV positive. Because of the therapy, her husband is now back at work and supporting his family. “AIDS is like diabetes or TB,” she says. “You can’t cure it, but you can treat it.”
Clementine is single and older, 43. She’s a bright spark in the group – the chair who said she wants free medical care for those who are HIV positive. She was infected by an old boyfriend but only discovered she had the virus after repeated bouts of TB. “I’d been aware that a number of boyfriends had died, but love is blind – at times you forget to use condoms. Plus, you think you are in a monogamous relationship.”
Her diagnosis came before free treatment, and the cost of Anti-Retrovirals was 5million kwacha a month – more than $100 – her salary couldn’t sustain that cost. She sold a huge amount from her house until there was nothing else to sell. Her doctor told her she couldn’t stop therapy but, “I couldn’t afford it anymore.”
When the government announced free ARV therapy, she said she called up to God, “Free at last!”
But stopping the earlier therapy means she is now resistant to some of the medicines and must take a more complex, and costly, cocktail of drugs.
I ask her about dating. “I date – I go out for dinner, we drink – I want to be happy and want men to get to know me before I tell them – I want for him to say what he thinks about us before I tell him my status.” She frowns. “I’ve had two – but now they’re gone.”
I touch her arm, and she reaches out with a hug.
Guess what – I hugged back.
But what are they doing here? Going door to door at the home so of the Zambian upper and middle classes will be hard with all the high walls and fences. The only people to greet them with be gardeners or maids. And the poorer folks whose homes are more accessible, surely the Mormon Church won’t expect tithes – that would be 10 percent of their income! Out of the mouths of the poor!
But I watch the young men in their black suits and, even in the air-conditioned restaurant, they look sweltered. The two oldest men – Elders, I guess – have lost their jackets and look cool in short shirt sleeves. Maybe they have served their time, brought in some disciples and no longer have to suffer the heat.
I watch as an elder’s wife goes back for her third serving at the breakfast buffet – all that converting must be hungry work.
I take a taxi to the VSO office, I’d made email contact with the office before leaving home, and I’ve brought chocolates as a gift. The office is in a posher building than before, but it’s still a network of small, badly painted rooms cooled with desktop fans. But there are changes. When I was with VSO we were all young white kids with idealism but no experience. Well, today the volunteers come from Uganda, Kenya, India, Phillipines, Holland, Canada and Australia – along with a few Brits, this makes a veritable UN.
I am talking with two Indian VSO’s when a young woman from the Phillipines comes in. She complains of diarrhea and blames the drinking water. But the young Indian men tell her it isn’t the water – just Zambia belly.
The VSO office is run by Zambians who seem tuned to the country’s needs. Unlike my time when the field director was an expat wife, a Scottish teacher, who had never lived in the bush or worked in the field. A lovely guy arrived as her assistant. Paul Hitchen had spent three years in Sri Lanka as an agricuttural volunteer, but he learned about Zambia at much the same pace as we did.
Like other developing countries, Zambia has grown into a land where charities – Non Governmental Organizations – are a major employer perhaps employing more people than tourism. The charities all seem to own at least one 4x4 vehicle and a driver. I imagine that getting a foot in NGO employment door can be a great career path.
But it is also an amazing quagmire of bureaucracy that could send Kafka carazy with its alphabet soup of acronyms. A Canadian agriculturalist I meet says he could create whole sentences out of acronyms, and colleagues would know exactly what he was talking about – I wish I’d written some down.
The VSO director has arranged for me to visit some HIV projects, and I go out with an Australian volunteer who facilitates action for a number of self-help groups.
Sitting in a room full of people who are HIV positive challenges your knowledge of the disease.
It’s so easy to mock those who fear the AIDS virus – the she school board in Midwest America who sent home a child who contracted the disease through a blood transfusion, the relative who refuses to shake an AIDS sufferer’s hand. But when you yourself sit in a room, you find yourself challenged. These people harbour a deadly disease that kills more than 3 million people worldwide each year. Its minute cells seep via blood, semen, tears, breast milk and saliva to invade the next victim – could that be me? It’s totally irrational thinking, I know. I am, in reality, sitting in a room with people who have a treatable but incurable disease while they talk about petitioning the government for more help. There is no way I am in danger. But in our instinct for survival – logic isn’t always applied.
The Zambian government has begun providing free Anti-Retroviral treatment to all those testing positive for HIV. This group are all urban, professional and seeking more in support – perhaps even recognition.
The meeting breaks up and I talk to Musondah. She is a young mother who found she had the disease after her husband became sick. When he found out he was positive, she got depressed. “I told my husband ‘You got this disease, you brought it here.” But I myself was ignorant. I was very fat and thought maybe only those who are thin have the disease.”
But when her own test came back positive, Musondah knew she had much to learn. She said she was advised to eat well but wasn’t put on Anti-Retroviral treatment because her CD4 count was high.
I wonder what a CD4 count is as Musondah tells me that her son tested negative – and that was her biggest boost.
I ask about sex with her husband, and she says they know they must always use condoms or they risk reinfecting each other with differing strains of HIV.
Despite a better diet, she said she became weak and needed to begin drug therapy. Musondah is plump and has beautiful shiny skin. No one need ever know she is HIV positive. Because of the therapy, her husband is now back at work and supporting his family. “AIDS is like diabetes or TB,” she says. “You can’t cure it, but you can treat it.”
Clementine is single and older, 43. She’s a bright spark in the group – the chair who said she wants free medical care for those who are HIV positive. She was infected by an old boyfriend but only discovered she had the virus after repeated bouts of TB. “I’d been aware that a number of boyfriends had died, but love is blind – at times you forget to use condoms. Plus, you think you are in a monogamous relationship.”
Her diagnosis came before free treatment, and the cost of Anti-Retrovirals was 5million kwacha a month – more than $100 – her salary couldn’t sustain that cost. She sold a huge amount from her house until there was nothing else to sell. Her doctor told her she couldn’t stop therapy but, “I couldn’t afford it anymore.”
When the government announced free ARV therapy, she said she called up to God, “Free at last!”
But stopping the earlier therapy means she is now resistant to some of the medicines and must take a more complex, and costly, cocktail of drugs.
I ask her about dating. “I date – I go out for dinner, we drink – I want to be happy and want men to get to know me before I tell them – I want for him to say what he thinks about us before I tell him my status.” She frowns. “I’ve had two – but now they’re gone.”
I touch her arm, and she reaches out with a hug.
Guess what – I hugged back.
Tuesday 24 July 2007
Alone in Lusaka
M. left for a conference in South Africa, and I moved to hotel. She said I could stay, her sister was moving in to take care of the girls. But I’m ready to step out on my own. Although now I’m in the hotel I feel like I’ve left Zambian life and entered the world of the expat where Zambians become receptionists and waiters rather than friends and acquaintances.
I sit in the lobby listening to groups of NGOs discuss the country’s problems while the waiter brings them coffee. I watch one group – an EU male, two Asian women and two Zambian women. The four women listen while the man talks. “I don’t think they’ve analysed….” “I talked with the minister…” The Asian women eventually enter the conversation, but the Zambian women stay silent. This feels like the old country, not the Zambia I visited at the weekend. But we are less than five miles from where M.’s friends discussed Darfur, Muslim extremism and the crime rates of South Africa, and I listened while they debated the solution to Zambia’s problems and came up with solutions such as no 4x4, stabilise business tax so that companies aren’t afraid of investment, make it easier to have contract staff rather than casual labour, and paying farmers early and giving them the same rate paid for imported maize so they can invest in the next year. It all made so much sense, and it was Zambian – all home grown.
Up in the hotel room there are British and American television programmes, but I watch the Zambian channel. There are great some great African soaps – A young Malawian man regrets bringing his sister to the city when she goes astray – a Nigerian comedy about four young bachelors living together – and a Burkino Faso film that focuses on religious parents who realize they must talk to their teens about HIV.
The Zambian news has a single camera and poor echoing sound, but I love watching its rawness. There is no teleprompter, and the anchor has to read and look at the viewer.
Down at the restaurant, I have my first Mosi beer since ’82 – tastes great, but is clear, no sediment and the bottle has a label. When I was here before, Mosi was the only beer available and it didn’t need a label. We bought it by the crateload – usually a crate a week. And then there were the weekends at our bush parties. Professional Zambians and whites all had an account at the IRDP clubhouse – but there was only one drink to buy – Mosi – it was warm, but we didn’t care.
Mosi left us with a lot of hangovers and occasionally worse – a bad batch of beer that came from the bottom of a dirty barrel and you’d feel the gastric effects for several days.
The Pamodzi Hotel is such a different world from M.’s house, and I suddenly feel lonely. There is no one to talk other than the waiters and I worry that they think I’m flirting with them – I’m not – I’m just social.
I could talk to the other whites but, as I listen to them drone on about their trips – “We had great showers, not just a barrel but a good flow of water.” “The animal just wanted water.”
Who wants to listen to this? They almost sound like the happy Valley Crew.
I sit in the lobby listening to groups of NGOs discuss the country’s problems while the waiter brings them coffee. I watch one group – an EU male, two Asian women and two Zambian women. The four women listen while the man talks. “I don’t think they’ve analysed….” “I talked with the minister…” The Asian women eventually enter the conversation, but the Zambian women stay silent. This feels like the old country, not the Zambia I visited at the weekend. But we are less than five miles from where M.’s friends discussed Darfur, Muslim extremism and the crime rates of South Africa, and I listened while they debated the solution to Zambia’s problems and came up with solutions such as no 4x4, stabilise business tax so that companies aren’t afraid of investment, make it easier to have contract staff rather than casual labour, and paying farmers early and giving them the same rate paid for imported maize so they can invest in the next year. It all made so much sense, and it was Zambian – all home grown.
Up in the hotel room there are British and American television programmes, but I watch the Zambian channel. There are great some great African soaps – A young Malawian man regrets bringing his sister to the city when she goes astray – a Nigerian comedy about four young bachelors living together – and a Burkino Faso film that focuses on religious parents who realize they must talk to their teens about HIV.
The Zambian news has a single camera and poor echoing sound, but I love watching its rawness. There is no teleprompter, and the anchor has to read and look at the viewer.
Down at the restaurant, I have my first Mosi beer since ’82 – tastes great, but is clear, no sediment and the bottle has a label. When I was here before, Mosi was the only beer available and it didn’t need a label. We bought it by the crateload – usually a crate a week. And then there were the weekends at our bush parties. Professional Zambians and whites all had an account at the IRDP clubhouse – but there was only one drink to buy – Mosi – it was warm, but we didn’t care.
Mosi left us with a lot of hangovers and occasionally worse – a bad batch of beer that came from the bottom of a dirty barrel and you’d feel the gastric effects for several days.
The Pamodzi Hotel is such a different world from M.’s house, and I suddenly feel lonely. There is no one to talk other than the waiters and I worry that they think I’m flirting with them – I’m not – I’m just social.
I could talk to the other whites but, as I listen to them drone on about their trips – “We had great showers, not just a barrel but a good flow of water.” “The animal just wanted water.”
Who wants to listen to this? They almost sound like the happy Valley Crew.
Monday 23 July 2007
Zambia home life
Back at the house, M.’s kids watch TV from am until bed – Disney channel, Nickalodean. It’s all American teen comedies and cartoons – far more than I had expected and I wonder how M.’s kids view the world.
The last time I was in Zambia, the only TV I saw was at the Yugoslav camp. They had a TV showing videos so they could watch reruns of Yugoslavian variety shows. Jasko and his friends would talk with pride about the singers who came from their region. Tito was dead, but belief in the council of that ran the country was strong. Patriotism swelled, especially around the Yugoslav basketball team. This was only ten years before Yugoslav factions were at war raping each other’s mothers and sisters.
Occasionally, a film reel would arrive at Mpika and huge gatherings would throng at the British agricultural compound. Chairs, chitenges and cushions were laid out while electrical extension cords were lined between a wall plug and the outdoor sheet that acted as a screen.
The first film was Halloween – the African kids watched a plastic faced creature scare white teens in the dead of night. Their laughter resounded alongside screams of fear.
The second film was The Posiedon Adventure – which created confusion in a landlocked country where few people have seen a ship never mind an ocean. But everyone held their breath when Shelley Winter dived between walls, and cheered when a connection was made through the upturned hull.
But this new generation of Zambian kids is so much more sophisticated. We arrived home while the girls were watching The Incredibles. ‘Have you seen it before?’ I asked.
‘Many times,’ said Luse.
This is the modern Zambia.
No one walks up to a house and knocks on the door – everyone, at least in middle and upper class neighbourhoods, live behind high walls. Visits are announced with a heavy toot on a car horn, and the gardener, guard or maid hurries to unlock the gate or check with the home owner that a visitor may enter.
Mornings are a cocophany of honking horns as people pick colleagues up for work. You lie in bed wondering is that a visitor or next door’s driver picking him up for work.
Zambian women seem to be doing well – but maybe that’s just my impression – which has been coloured by M. In her office, women work at desks while the men sit waiting to drive them to the next appointment or pick at the weeds in the garden and plant in a way that will please the women of the office.
But in her work, M. sees the other side – the men as powerful cheats, forcing female staff to oral sex, giving wives HIV, raping female children in a futile attempt to rid themselves of AIDS.
“Zambian men as so bad,” M. says.
Maybe she is right.
The last time I was in Zambia, the only TV I saw was at the Yugoslav camp. They had a TV showing videos so they could watch reruns of Yugoslavian variety shows. Jasko and his friends would talk with pride about the singers who came from their region. Tito was dead, but belief in the council of that ran the country was strong. Patriotism swelled, especially around the Yugoslav basketball team. This was only ten years before Yugoslav factions were at war raping each other’s mothers and sisters.
Occasionally, a film reel would arrive at Mpika and huge gatherings would throng at the British agricultural compound. Chairs, chitenges and cushions were laid out while electrical extension cords were lined between a wall plug and the outdoor sheet that acted as a screen.
The first film was Halloween – the African kids watched a plastic faced creature scare white teens in the dead of night. Their laughter resounded alongside screams of fear.
The second film was The Posiedon Adventure – which created confusion in a landlocked country where few people have seen a ship never mind an ocean. But everyone held their breath when Shelley Winter dived between walls, and cheered when a connection was made through the upturned hull.
But this new generation of Zambian kids is so much more sophisticated. We arrived home while the girls were watching The Incredibles. ‘Have you seen it before?’ I asked.
‘Many times,’ said Luse.
This is the modern Zambia.
No one walks up to a house and knocks on the door – everyone, at least in middle and upper class neighbourhoods, live behind high walls. Visits are announced with a heavy toot on a car horn, and the gardener, guard or maid hurries to unlock the gate or check with the home owner that a visitor may enter.
Mornings are a cocophany of honking horns as people pick colleagues up for work. You lie in bed wondering is that a visitor or next door’s driver picking him up for work.
Zambian women seem to be doing well – but maybe that’s just my impression – which has been coloured by M. In her office, women work at desks while the men sit waiting to drive them to the next appointment or pick at the weeds in the garden and plant in a way that will please the women of the office.
But in her work, M. sees the other side – the men as powerful cheats, forcing female staff to oral sex, giving wives HIV, raping female children in a futile attempt to rid themselves of AIDS.
“Zambian men as so bad,” M. says.
Maybe she is right.
Zambian Buddhism
The fast chant vibrates the air, while all eyes are on the gilded temple.
Vertical blinds flop in the mild breeze, and the yellow walls feel clean and clinical. As the metal foldaway chair digs deep into my bottom I am reminded of long-winded PTA meetings at my children’s school.
This is so different from the last time I was in Zambian Church. Then a spontaneous a’cappella choir filled the church. The high notes rose through the air while the lower voices stayed earthbound. There were no musical instruments, just uninhibited voices escaping through the thatch roof.
But now the voices beat out a toneless chant, while on stage the director leads the chant with a large drum.
M. is now Buddhist. She believes it gives her energy and self-help – she makes no prayers to an unknown god and instead gains the wisdom to solve or accept her own problems. Compared to Christianity, which relies on prayer to another being, she believes Buddhism make her more self reliant.
M. says Buddhism has helped her cope with work and family, and that the chanting provides relaxation while the philosophy helps ease the stress of her high-powered job.
All around me middle class Zambians are escaping the stresses of their own lives.
The director halts the drumming suddenly and turns to his congregation. A few women pull out pens and notebooks. As the director begins his sermon, I watch as M. scribbles down his wisdom:
Accept suffering in your heart.
Charity is acting with courage – attain enlightenment from within not from without – we can summon faith
A young boy slips out to play in the sun. Other children, catching his flight, look appealingly to their parents and then follow.
Ask what I can do to make sure each child is raised in happiness.
The director is a genteel Bemba man who studied at Birmingham University and found Buddhism in Glasgow in 1976. He brought its philosophy to Zambia the very next year and says the congregation is somewhere in the hundreds, although he refuses to be specific.
Praise is the Buddha that is yourself – suffer what there is to suffer – enjoy what there is to enjoy.
The women scribble his phrases like they are dictates on wisdom itself. But the midday heat is growing oppressive. A young man brings out two electric fans and aims one to the male side of the room, and points the other at the women. The breeze makes the heavy lady in front draw in a deep breath.
The director pulls forward a large screen television and announces a film. The children hurry inside, and we watch a black and white video on Shintoism in Japan
I long for some movement, some singing and dancing – the jovial abandon of the churches I remember. If this is development, then I want to go back to the past.
A Japanese woman in a chitenge dress with ‘Africa’ printed across her tiny busom stands up to give a sermon. She speaks English, but I understand not a word and wonder how the Zambians around me are coping.
Finally there is a song, and the director is joined by four other men, but the musical lilts are carefully measured, as though too much would be a bad thing and self-control the one true aim.
On the way back to M.’s house the road is blocked by police. M. thinks President Levy Mwanawasa might be ready to pass. We have to detour, but M worries that she doesn’t know which way to go. We take a right toward Kalingalinga, a poor township on outskirts of Lusaka. Along the roadside huge signs announce churches with labels as diverse as Jesus Christ Baptist, Divine, Jehovah – even Messianic which appeals to Christians and Jews who love Israel. There is so much room for belief here and I have to wonder why??
The road through Kalingalinga is lined by market stalls selling everything from potatoes to charcoal. Children in tattered clothes hold out their goods as we drive past. This is the Africa I knew, the Africa I haven’t seen at M.’s house.
We stop at Manda Hill for groceries and enter Shoprite, a South African supermarket. It sells everything, even fruit wrapped in cling film – none of the torn off sheets of newspaper that shopkeepers used to use. At the back of the store, in a cold room behind the refrigerated meat counter, young people hack at meat for packaging. A line of people stand at the door hoping for special cuts. M. wants a bone for the dog – but everyone is turned away.
The toy aisle is tightly packed with bright playthings – four shelves are given over to dolls and all of them are white or pink. In this African nation, not a black or brown or doll is for sale. No wonder M.’s daughter loved her black Barbie-lookalike.
I try to pay for M.’s groceries, but the shop assistant thinks I’m a fool when I a 5,000 kwacha note for a 23,000 bill. I thought it was 50,000 – just so many zeros. I feel like an idiot, but M. laughs.
Vertical blinds flop in the mild breeze, and the yellow walls feel clean and clinical. As the metal foldaway chair digs deep into my bottom I am reminded of long-winded PTA meetings at my children’s school.
This is so different from the last time I was in Zambian Church. Then a spontaneous a’cappella choir filled the church. The high notes rose through the air while the lower voices stayed earthbound. There were no musical instruments, just uninhibited voices escaping through the thatch roof.
But now the voices beat out a toneless chant, while on stage the director leads the chant with a large drum.
M. is now Buddhist. She believes it gives her energy and self-help – she makes no prayers to an unknown god and instead gains the wisdom to solve or accept her own problems. Compared to Christianity, which relies on prayer to another being, she believes Buddhism make her more self reliant.
M. says Buddhism has helped her cope with work and family, and that the chanting provides relaxation while the philosophy helps ease the stress of her high-powered job.
All around me middle class Zambians are escaping the stresses of their own lives.
The director halts the drumming suddenly and turns to his congregation. A few women pull out pens and notebooks. As the director begins his sermon, I watch as M. scribbles down his wisdom:
Accept suffering in your heart.
Charity is acting with courage – attain enlightenment from within not from without – we can summon faith
A young boy slips out to play in the sun. Other children, catching his flight, look appealingly to their parents and then follow.
Ask what I can do to make sure each child is raised in happiness.
The director is a genteel Bemba man who studied at Birmingham University and found Buddhism in Glasgow in 1976. He brought its philosophy to Zambia the very next year and says the congregation is somewhere in the hundreds, although he refuses to be specific.
Praise is the Buddha that is yourself – suffer what there is to suffer – enjoy what there is to enjoy.
The women scribble his phrases like they are dictates on wisdom itself. But the midday heat is growing oppressive. A young man brings out two electric fans and aims one to the male side of the room, and points the other at the women. The breeze makes the heavy lady in front draw in a deep breath.
The director pulls forward a large screen television and announces a film. The children hurry inside, and we watch a black and white video on Shintoism in Japan
I long for some movement, some singing and dancing – the jovial abandon of the churches I remember. If this is development, then I want to go back to the past.
A Japanese woman in a chitenge dress with ‘Africa’ printed across her tiny busom stands up to give a sermon. She speaks English, but I understand not a word and wonder how the Zambians around me are coping.
Finally there is a song, and the director is joined by four other men, but the musical lilts are carefully measured, as though too much would be a bad thing and self-control the one true aim.
On the way back to M.’s house the road is blocked by police. M. thinks President Levy Mwanawasa might be ready to pass. We have to detour, but M worries that she doesn’t know which way to go. We take a right toward Kalingalinga, a poor township on outskirts of Lusaka. Along the roadside huge signs announce churches with labels as diverse as Jesus Christ Baptist, Divine, Jehovah – even Messianic which appeals to Christians and Jews who love Israel. There is so much room for belief here and I have to wonder why??
The road through Kalingalinga is lined by market stalls selling everything from potatoes to charcoal. Children in tattered clothes hold out their goods as we drive past. This is the Africa I knew, the Africa I haven’t seen at M.’s house.
We stop at Manda Hill for groceries and enter Shoprite, a South African supermarket. It sells everything, even fruit wrapped in cling film – none of the torn off sheets of newspaper that shopkeepers used to use. At the back of the store, in a cold room behind the refrigerated meat counter, young people hack at meat for packaging. A line of people stand at the door hoping for special cuts. M. wants a bone for the dog – but everyone is turned away.
The toy aisle is tightly packed with bright playthings – four shelves are given over to dolls and all of them are white or pink. In this African nation, not a black or brown or doll is for sale. No wonder M.’s daughter loved her black Barbie-lookalike.
I try to pay for M.’s groceries, but the shop assistant thinks I’m a fool when I a 5,000 kwacha note for a 23,000 bill. I thought it was 50,000 – just so many zeros. I feel like an idiot, but M. laughs.
Wednesday 18 July 2007
A surprise visit
M. meets me at the Intercontinental, and says an aunt, would like to meet us. I imagine we’ll have coffee in the hotel, and we sit in the foyer watching cars approach the curved entrance. Finally, a white Mercedes pulls up with two passengers.
“That’s her,” M. says and hurries out.
I follow, surprised when she climbs into the back seat. There is nothing else to do but climb in after her. After quick introductions I shake hands with her Aunt Loveness, Uncle Lovelace, and her cousin whose name I missed.
As the car drives off, I listen to them talk in a mixture of English and Tonga about family and one of Matrine’s relatives, who heads a political opposition party. Uncle Lovelace drives to Kabulonga, a smart part of town and I imagine we’re going to the aunt’s house for tea – maybe she doesn’t like hotel tea.
We turn into an avenue of large walls, and I know that the houses must be large and plush to be so well hidden. But the walls here aren’t topped in broken glass like in M.’s neighbourhood. Here, the walls have lush bougainvillea, and security comes from guards who stand outside.
We pull up outside one of the gates.
“Maybe we won’t get in,” says Uncle Lovelace.
The aunt lets out a deep “tsssh!” and gives him a wary look.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Uncle Lovelace laughs. “You have not been briefed!”
“We are going to see the next President,” Aunt Loveness says.
“Kaunda lives there!” Uncle Lovelace points next door, and I realize this must be the home of the first Zambian president. “Chiluba!” he says, referring to the second Zambian president, “lives up there.” I look up the road seeing only high walls and guards while a security man takes our names.
“Will they let me in?” I ask.
Aunt Loveness turns from the front seat. “Of course, you are family,”
When the gate opens we drive slowly down a paved driveway between lush landscape that suggests water enough for floral gardening. A swimming pool lies to the rear, while white fake storks decorate the garden to the front.
I’m still holding a plastic bag that contain the roughly hewn pots I’d bought at Kabwata earlier. If I take them with me, they’ll be misconstrued as gifts and probably disdained in this grand house.
“Can I leave my pots?” I ask Uncle Lovelace.
He laughs with his nod. “I think it would be best.”
As we step from the car we are met by a tiny fluffy dog that is clearly not for protection.
HH is a handsome man, and his tiny wife looks exotic in a long red robe with a slight metallic sheen. My brown t-shirt and H & M skirt had been fine for Kabwata Cultural Market, but not for visiting a future president and his wife.
The furniture is gilt edged. We sit as HH’s daughters bring us soft drinks. Uncle Lovelace asks about work, and HH launches into a speech on how much money could be saved if members of parliament changed from having four-wheel drive vehicles to regular cars.
“They don’t need 4 by 4’s” he says. “They never go out into the country.” He says that savings in this change alone could provide sewage pipes for all the townships around Lusaka. As he talks about improving water supply to the townships, he uses words and phrases my husband would use and I realize he must be an engineer.
Aunt Loveness asks about the family farm.
Again HH sits upright, keen to talk about plans to ship, what is expected to be a record harvest, to the government depots for sale and distribution.
I sit back feeling privileged to be hear informed debate about this country and happy to hear positive talk about Zambia – and by Zambians.
“That’s her,” M. says and hurries out.
I follow, surprised when she climbs into the back seat. There is nothing else to do but climb in after her. After quick introductions I shake hands with her Aunt Loveness, Uncle Lovelace, and her cousin whose name I missed.
As the car drives off, I listen to them talk in a mixture of English and Tonga about family and one of Matrine’s relatives, who heads a political opposition party. Uncle Lovelace drives to Kabulonga, a smart part of town and I imagine we’re going to the aunt’s house for tea – maybe she doesn’t like hotel tea.
We turn into an avenue of large walls, and I know that the houses must be large and plush to be so well hidden. But the walls here aren’t topped in broken glass like in M.’s neighbourhood. Here, the walls have lush bougainvillea, and security comes from guards who stand outside.
We pull up outside one of the gates.
“Maybe we won’t get in,” says Uncle Lovelace.
The aunt lets out a deep “tsssh!” and gives him a wary look.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Uncle Lovelace laughs. “You have not been briefed!”
“We are going to see the next President,” Aunt Loveness says.
“Kaunda lives there!” Uncle Lovelace points next door, and I realize this must be the home of the first Zambian president. “Chiluba!” he says, referring to the second Zambian president, “lives up there.” I look up the road seeing only high walls and guards while a security man takes our names.
“Will they let me in?” I ask.
Aunt Loveness turns from the front seat. “Of course, you are family,”
When the gate opens we drive slowly down a paved driveway between lush landscape that suggests water enough for floral gardening. A swimming pool lies to the rear, while white fake storks decorate the garden to the front.
I’m still holding a plastic bag that contain the roughly hewn pots I’d bought at Kabwata earlier. If I take them with me, they’ll be misconstrued as gifts and probably disdained in this grand house.
“Can I leave my pots?” I ask Uncle Lovelace.
He laughs with his nod. “I think it would be best.”
As we step from the car we are met by a tiny fluffy dog that is clearly not for protection.
HH is a handsome man, and his tiny wife looks exotic in a long red robe with a slight metallic sheen. My brown t-shirt and H & M skirt had been fine for Kabwata Cultural Market, but not for visiting a future president and his wife.
The furniture is gilt edged. We sit as HH’s daughters bring us soft drinks. Uncle Lovelace asks about work, and HH launches into a speech on how much money could be saved if members of parliament changed from having four-wheel drive vehicles to regular cars.
“They don’t need 4 by 4’s” he says. “They never go out into the country.” He says that savings in this change alone could provide sewage pipes for all the townships around Lusaka. As he talks about improving water supply to the townships, he uses words and phrases my husband would use and I realize he must be an engineer.
Aunt Loveness asks about the family farm.
Again HH sits upright, keen to talk about plans to ship, what is expected to be a record harvest, to the government depots for sale and distribution.
I sit back feeling privileged to be hear informed debate about this country and happy to hear positive talk about Zambia – and by Zambians.
Tuesday 17 July 2007
Lusaka life
M. goes to get her hair plaited and drops me off at Kabwata Cultural Centre, a residential centre where young people are encouraged in traditional arts. At the centre of the community, around eight small huts display every shape of wood carving, soapstone and metal sculpture. There are tables in each hut crammed with carved goods. Each table belongs to a craftsman, and in each hut, carvings are thrust into my hands for admiration.
It is early morning and I realize that I am the only shopper.
There are nice things, some traditional African – some more abstract. But having the goods thrust into my hands feels oppressive, and I knew I have to be firm. “I am only looking just now. I just want to see your style. I will come back in a few weeks, before I leave.”
In one hut the radio is tuned to a talkshow. The artisans lean in to listen keenly and give me little attention.
“Mugabe is a true African. Mugabe is on the right track,” a radio voice announces.
“Who is that?” I ask.
An intent listener looks up with a smile. “Michael Sata – our next President.”
“We must push out these foreign investors – these infestors!” He announces. The men in the hut laugh, and I leave feeling suddenly unwelcome.
But I do buy something. Two roughly hewn bowls from a woman who is clearly pregnant and has a child with pale kwashiorkor hair and a nose etched in green snot. The woman and child remind me of the Zambia I used to know – poor green-nosed children, women in chitenges – and not a mobile phone in sight.
I hurry out of the market and pause at the Salaula stalls that line the road. These sell the clothes that are shipped from our charity shops – all items worn, most donated to local high street shops. I see football jerseys, ladies jackets, bras and trousers. Women sift intently through the fabrics. I’d like to go and browse, but after hearing Michael Sata’s comments about ‘foreign infesters’, I feel I should move on.
Along Burma Road, the minivan drivers toot their horns as I walk, but again I am seeking a taxi. I need to go to the car rental office at the Intercontinental Hotel in the embassy section of town. Somehow I don’t think that’s on the mini van route.
I follow the dusty track toward Nationalist Road and the University Teaching Hospital. The last time I walked this road was 25 years ago, and I’d met Maggie Chisulu. We’d been friends up at my old hospital in Northern Province. She was a Registered Nurse and had hated rural living – it had ruffled her modern feathers and Maggie was a very up-to-date woman.
She loved to talk about the plans for her white wedding to her businessman fiancé, and I loved to tease her. “Oh, these businessmen, you can’t marry one of them – they have women in every town.”
But Maggie would smile “No, no, he is a Christian!” The two of us would laugh when she said this, although I was never sure why.
Maggie’s ward was across from mine. She was in charge of men’s surgical. The light was dimmer there and the air staler. But when Rosalie or the other nuns grew irksome, I would cross to Maggie’s ward and sound off on my frustrations. Sometimes, I let off too much steam and called the nuns names that would make Maggie’s eyes grow wide. But she would let me spit and fume and, when I was through, Maggie would giggle and I would laugh and feel so much better.
And then Maggie would ask a question on English wedding protocol – she so wanted her day to be right.
But I was the worst person to ask. “Marriage, Maggie, is for women who want to loose their freedom.”
She would shake her head. “No, no, my fiancé is a good man – he is a Christian.”
And then the two of us would really laugh.
But the most unique thing about Maggie was her faith – not in God, but in me! She thought I could do anything. One evening she and her housemate, Ruth, heard noises outside their door. The next morning she told me of her fear and said, “But, it was alright because I looked out the window and saw you saying goodbye to a friend and I knew you would not let anything happen to me.”
Another day Melitta and I had some Yugoslav engineers visit. We’d met them the night before at a bar Melitta’s boyfriend had taken us to. None of the Yugoslavs spoke English, but one did have some knowledge of German, so he would translate his friend’s words from Serbo-Croat to German; while Melitta would translate the statement me.
Maggie had seen their vehicle outside our house and came by to ask if our friends would give her a lift to Mpika, 30 kilometres away.
With Melitta translating to German and the engineer translating to Serbo-Croat, our guests agreed.
But their journey wasn’t a straight one. They took a detour off the tar road and headed far into the bush along a narrow dust track. They told Maggie in Serbo-Croat that they had to stop and check an electrical generator, but she couldn’t understand a word.
The next day she told me that she held onto her seat imagining rape and murder. But, she said with a big smile on her face, “I kept reminding myself that Yvonne knows where I am and Yvonne will not let anything happen to me.”
But I’d met Maggie on this road by accident after she was married. She had been posted to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka so she could live with her husband. I was visiting the VSO house and going to market when I saw her heading out of the hospital.
When we saw each other we laughed so hard. She invited me back to her flat, and we both giggled together as she showed me her rooms, her furnishings and, of course, her wedding photos. I was thrilled for Maggie. I never did meet her husband, but I’ve always hoped he was good to her.
Nationalist Road feels tighter than before, and I want to peer through the gates to find the VSO house. This was like a youth hostel for volunteers and a great place for conversation. Paul was our host – Paul who sat up late many nights listening as I complained about the nuns. But Paul is dead now, shot by robbers in Uganda, the posting he had taken after Zambia.
I pause at the old VSO house, but mini vans coming from the hospital toot their horns almost repeatedly to get my custom, and I feel guarded. I don’t want to be seen looking for something, like a stranger who doesn’t know the neighbourhood. So I keep a brisk pace and look ahead until I see a blue cab and I flag him down.
The taxi is old, no outside door handle, and the worn seats are covered with crocheted lace. The driver, an older, cheery man, asks how I am. I love these greetings – the words sound sincere – like people really want to know how you are.
“I am very well,” I say. “And you?”
He nods. “The rains will come soon, and we will have a good harvest on my brother’s farm.”
As we drive past the hospital, I tell him that I once knew this road so well, but it has changed – more buildings!
“Ah, it is getting old now – and overcrowded.”
We pause at a red light and four young boys stop at my window with their hands out. Their faces are dusty and their look firm, almost defiant as they held out their hands for money. I look at the driver for direction. “They are orphans?” I ask.
He shrugs and moves the car forward as the light changes, and my decision to give or not is taken away.
“What do you think we should do about the orphans?” I ask him.
“Madam, if I knew the answer to that question, then they would make me president.”
His answer is evasive, and we both know the question wasn’t fair. Too many parents have died, and too many people are raising their off-spring. The country is now saturated with what is known in political-speak as ‘orphans and vulnerable young people’. Statistics put the number at about 20 percent of all children. I think about the four boys faces – they weren’t cute, but they were hungry and I now wished I had given them money.
The InterContinental is cool and spacious after the dusty streets. The car rental office has a closed sign on its door, so I head to the restaurant for lunch. It’s my first meal of the day. M. by her own admission, is not a cook and goes for long periods with little food. I have been following her example, but suddenly I have a headache and know I need something to eat.
My eyes scan the menu – pizza, pasta, the usual fare aimed at the western palate. An omelette sounds good – protein, which I’m sure I need – and the fries that come with it sound so attractive. But what if the eggs aren’t cooked through?
I look at the meat option and worry that it might by old.
A cheese sandwich sounds safe, but I need the protein. And some iron – I have my period.
In a fit of daring, I settle on lasagne. But the waiter looks at me in surprise. As he hurries off I wonder if I’ve chosen something that has sat in the kitchen for a while – like a lucky antique that everyone has grown fond of.
The food takes a long time, so I eat the bread and hope the lasagna is being made from scratch. When it finally arrives, it tastes odd – old or maybe just tasteless. I peer into the tomato sauce and can see no signs of green leaf to indicate basil or oregano. I pick at the dish until my stomach feels sated but not full.
I have a habit of never finishing what’s on my plate – call it rebellion left over from childhood. I often heard those catchphrases on ‘starving Africans’, but I always knew that finishing my dinner would never help them. I simply don’t’ have a massive appetite – small and frequent has been my habit. In restaurants at home, chef’s have come out from kitchens to ask if there was something wrong with the food, and I’ve always shaken my head. The food was good, I just don’t like that feeling of fullness. Maybe we ply our plates too high – abundance can be a bad thing, especially when those who go without are far away.
But here in Zambia it’s different. There is no denying the hungry children – I just saw them.
I feel the waiter’s wide-eyed stare as he arrives at my table. “Madam, was the food to your satisfaction?”
“Yes,” I nod and smile my assurance. “It was very filling.” But I feel guilty. The starving children are out there – and the waiter knows it.
It is early morning and I realize that I am the only shopper.
There are nice things, some traditional African – some more abstract. But having the goods thrust into my hands feels oppressive, and I knew I have to be firm. “I am only looking just now. I just want to see your style. I will come back in a few weeks, before I leave.”
In one hut the radio is tuned to a talkshow. The artisans lean in to listen keenly and give me little attention.
“Mugabe is a true African. Mugabe is on the right track,” a radio voice announces.
“Who is that?” I ask.
An intent listener looks up with a smile. “Michael Sata – our next President.”
“We must push out these foreign investors – these infestors!” He announces. The men in the hut laugh, and I leave feeling suddenly unwelcome.
But I do buy something. Two roughly hewn bowls from a woman who is clearly pregnant and has a child with pale kwashiorkor hair and a nose etched in green snot. The woman and child remind me of the Zambia I used to know – poor green-nosed children, women in chitenges – and not a mobile phone in sight.
I hurry out of the market and pause at the Salaula stalls that line the road. These sell the clothes that are shipped from our charity shops – all items worn, most donated to local high street shops. I see football jerseys, ladies jackets, bras and trousers. Women sift intently through the fabrics. I’d like to go and browse, but after hearing Michael Sata’s comments about ‘foreign infesters’, I feel I should move on.
Along Burma Road, the minivan drivers toot their horns as I walk, but again I am seeking a taxi. I need to go to the car rental office at the Intercontinental Hotel in the embassy section of town. Somehow I don’t think that’s on the mini van route.
I follow the dusty track toward Nationalist Road and the University Teaching Hospital. The last time I walked this road was 25 years ago, and I’d met Maggie Chisulu. We’d been friends up at my old hospital in Northern Province. She was a Registered Nurse and had hated rural living – it had ruffled her modern feathers and Maggie was a very up-to-date woman.
She loved to talk about the plans for her white wedding to her businessman fiancé, and I loved to tease her. “Oh, these businessmen, you can’t marry one of them – they have women in every town.”
But Maggie would smile “No, no, he is a Christian!” The two of us would laugh when she said this, although I was never sure why.
Maggie’s ward was across from mine. She was in charge of men’s surgical. The light was dimmer there and the air staler. But when Rosalie or the other nuns grew irksome, I would cross to Maggie’s ward and sound off on my frustrations. Sometimes, I let off too much steam and called the nuns names that would make Maggie’s eyes grow wide. But she would let me spit and fume and, when I was through, Maggie would giggle and I would laugh and feel so much better.
And then Maggie would ask a question on English wedding protocol – she so wanted her day to be right.
But I was the worst person to ask. “Marriage, Maggie, is for women who want to loose their freedom.”
She would shake her head. “No, no, my fiancé is a good man – he is a Christian.”
And then the two of us would really laugh.
But the most unique thing about Maggie was her faith – not in God, but in me! She thought I could do anything. One evening she and her housemate, Ruth, heard noises outside their door. The next morning she told me of her fear and said, “But, it was alright because I looked out the window and saw you saying goodbye to a friend and I knew you would not let anything happen to me.”
Another day Melitta and I had some Yugoslav engineers visit. We’d met them the night before at a bar Melitta’s boyfriend had taken us to. None of the Yugoslavs spoke English, but one did have some knowledge of German, so he would translate his friend’s words from Serbo-Croat to German; while Melitta would translate the statement me.
Maggie had seen their vehicle outside our house and came by to ask if our friends would give her a lift to Mpika, 30 kilometres away.
With Melitta translating to German and the engineer translating to Serbo-Croat, our guests agreed.
But their journey wasn’t a straight one. They took a detour off the tar road and headed far into the bush along a narrow dust track. They told Maggie in Serbo-Croat that they had to stop and check an electrical generator, but she couldn’t understand a word.
The next day she told me that she held onto her seat imagining rape and murder. But, she said with a big smile on her face, “I kept reminding myself that Yvonne knows where I am and Yvonne will not let anything happen to me.”
But I’d met Maggie on this road by accident after she was married. She had been posted to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka so she could live with her husband. I was visiting the VSO house and going to market when I saw her heading out of the hospital.
When we saw each other we laughed so hard. She invited me back to her flat, and we both giggled together as she showed me her rooms, her furnishings and, of course, her wedding photos. I was thrilled for Maggie. I never did meet her husband, but I’ve always hoped he was good to her.
Nationalist Road feels tighter than before, and I want to peer through the gates to find the VSO house. This was like a youth hostel for volunteers and a great place for conversation. Paul was our host – Paul who sat up late many nights listening as I complained about the nuns. But Paul is dead now, shot by robbers in Uganda, the posting he had taken after Zambia.
I pause at the old VSO house, but mini vans coming from the hospital toot their horns almost repeatedly to get my custom, and I feel guarded. I don’t want to be seen looking for something, like a stranger who doesn’t know the neighbourhood. So I keep a brisk pace and look ahead until I see a blue cab and I flag him down.
The taxi is old, no outside door handle, and the worn seats are covered with crocheted lace. The driver, an older, cheery man, asks how I am. I love these greetings – the words sound sincere – like people really want to know how you are.
“I am very well,” I say. “And you?”
He nods. “The rains will come soon, and we will have a good harvest on my brother’s farm.”
As we drive past the hospital, I tell him that I once knew this road so well, but it has changed – more buildings!
“Ah, it is getting old now – and overcrowded.”
We pause at a red light and four young boys stop at my window with their hands out. Their faces are dusty and their look firm, almost defiant as they held out their hands for money. I look at the driver for direction. “They are orphans?” I ask.
He shrugs and moves the car forward as the light changes, and my decision to give or not is taken away.
“What do you think we should do about the orphans?” I ask him.
“Madam, if I knew the answer to that question, then they would make me president.”
His answer is evasive, and we both know the question wasn’t fair. Too many parents have died, and too many people are raising their off-spring. The country is now saturated with what is known in political-speak as ‘orphans and vulnerable young people’. Statistics put the number at about 20 percent of all children. I think about the four boys faces – they weren’t cute, but they were hungry and I now wished I had given them money.
The InterContinental is cool and spacious after the dusty streets. The car rental office has a closed sign on its door, so I head to the restaurant for lunch. It’s my first meal of the day. M. by her own admission, is not a cook and goes for long periods with little food. I have been following her example, but suddenly I have a headache and know I need something to eat.
My eyes scan the menu – pizza, pasta, the usual fare aimed at the western palate. An omelette sounds good – protein, which I’m sure I need – and the fries that come with it sound so attractive. But what if the eggs aren’t cooked through?
I look at the meat option and worry that it might by old.
A cheese sandwich sounds safe, but I need the protein. And some iron – I have my period.
In a fit of daring, I settle on lasagne. But the waiter looks at me in surprise. As he hurries off I wonder if I’ve chosen something that has sat in the kitchen for a while – like a lucky antique that everyone has grown fond of.
The food takes a long time, so I eat the bread and hope the lasagna is being made from scratch. When it finally arrives, it tastes odd – old or maybe just tasteless. I peer into the tomato sauce and can see no signs of green leaf to indicate basil or oregano. I pick at the dish until my stomach feels sated but not full.
I have a habit of never finishing what’s on my plate – call it rebellion left over from childhood. I often heard those catchphrases on ‘starving Africans’, but I always knew that finishing my dinner would never help them. I simply don’t’ have a massive appetite – small and frequent has been my habit. In restaurants at home, chef’s have come out from kitchens to ask if there was something wrong with the food, and I’ve always shaken my head. The food was good, I just don’t like that feeling of fullness. Maybe we ply our plates too high – abundance can be a bad thing, especially when those who go without are far away.
But here in Zambia it’s different. There is no denying the hungry children – I just saw them.
I feel the waiter’s wide-eyed stare as he arrives at my table. “Madam, was the food to your satisfaction?”
“Yes,” I nod and smile my assurance. “It was very filling.” But I feel guilty. The starving children are out there – and the waiter knows it.
Monday 16 July 2007
First AIDS orientation
I want to look at the AIDS problem. When I lived in Zambia AIDS was a strange disease we read about in the western press; a disease that attacked gay men and IV drug users in the United States.
We had no idea it was heading this way, and we did what we always had. We soaked needles in disinfectant before reusing them; autoclaved surgical gloves and wore them until the rubber popped and delivered babies with our bare hands.
But after I left, the disease traveled fast. The long-distance lorry drivers who carry goods 2000 miles to and from the coast are believed to have helped it spread like a plague. As a result, news reports have shown an Africa I don’t recognize – poor weakened folk with their hands out appealing for help. I have hated those images, and the reporters who brought them, including Saint Bob Geldof. I’d find myself peering into television looking for signs of the vibrant, humorous people I remembered; the people who had bolstered me when I felt overwhelmed. But the newsreel would always grow more miserable as the journalist’s voice grew sympathetic at the plight of these poor people.
The stats are harsh, around 17 percent infection rate, although no one knows exactly as that’s only a percentage of those who agree to be tested.
Last year, Zambia became one of the first southern Africa countries to offer free antiretroviral therapy to those testing positive. It’s an expensive programme paid for by international funds, and I’m keen to see how it’s working.
M. suggests I visit a friend of hers, a doctor working to prevent HIV. I telephone expecting to be given an appointment for an interview in a week’s time. Instead Dr. Kasonde says she can chat over lunch.
She’s a small woman who apologises for having back pain. The clinic is private, treating middle-class Zambians who can afford to pay, but Dr. Kasonde spends only part of her professional life here. In her other job she visits workplaces to lecture on AIDS. She grows immediately heated when I ask about this work and talks quickly.
Too many Zambian men think they don’t need to be tested, she says. And there have been too many conferences at hotels and civic centres where the audience sleep while doctors lecture on the dangers of HIV.
“No more,” she says.
Dr. Kasonde goes to factories, mines, farms and barracks timing her visits for lunchtimes, shift changes and, to catch the military and police, she turns up during parade times.
She asks them if they know how HIV is contracted.
They always nod, she says.
Do you know your status, she asks them?
They shake their heads.
Do you know the status of your partner, she asks?
They shake their heads and look away.
“To me, the message until now has been too general,” she says. “We need to challenge them!”
The anti-HIV slogan in Zambia is ABC – Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms.
“That’s too far too general,” Dr. Kasonde says, and the old men criticize mention of condoms as promoting promiscuity.
When it comes to being faithful, many men ask her, “Doctor, what do I do if my wife goes out of town?”
“So, I have to say – if you can’t be faithful, then use a condom. They start giggling, but I have to bring the message home.”
The country is recovering, she says. The death rate is falling and the sick are coming for treatment.
Importantly, the rate of infection among the under 25s has dropped. “The message is getting through.”
The key is the workplace because people spend so much time at work, she says. But still too many of Zambia’s rich and famous go overseas for testing and treatment to avoid the stigma.
Dr. Kasonde’s hands find her painful back and she looks at her watch. I know I must leave her enough time for rest before her next patient. In the waiting room are several men in their twenties – I wonder, immediately, about their HIV status.
I step outside wondering which direction to go. Mr Mutale had dropped me off at Dr. Kasonde’s clinic, and I had told him I would find my own way back. He had pointed to the clinic corner saying it was the best place to find a taxi. But I stand at the corner watching only private cars pass. I decide to walk to the junction with the Great East Road. The road is busy with traffic. There’s been no rain for six months so the dust rises and blows into my face with each passing vehicle. There are plenty of blue cars but none with the red license plate of a registered taxi driver. Blue minivans that act as local buses slow down and their young drivers honk and point to the nearest bus stop.
I look away and feel a little desperate. An elderly woman approaches from the direction of the clinic. She’s dressed in a blue blazer, red blouse and pleated skirt. She watches me and somehow I know she will help. As she gets close I ask where I might find a taxi.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“The British Council Building on Cairo Road.”
She points to one of the blue minivans in the parking bay, and a young man rushes out the side door and toward us. They talk quickly in a local language.
“He will take you to Cairo Road,” she said. “It’ll cost about 1,000.”
I shake my head, knowing that I have one million kwacha in my purse and I can’t take it out in any public place. “I think I should take a taxi.”
From somewhere a blue taxi appears. The old lady puts her head through the passenger window and talks with the driver.
Eventually she looks up at me. “He will take you for 10,000 – don’t let him charge you anymore.” She pokes her head back toward the driver. “Remember! 10,000 you charge her.”
That lady was a gift – and that was the cheapest taxi ride I ever had in Lusaka.
But the office I want to visit is closed, so I walk along Cairo Road looking for a small café.
I see small bars selling chicken and nshima, but I want something with more taste. Cairo Road is the main commercial road, and it still looks the same as it did 25 years ago – lots of small shops with barred windows dwarfed by large banks and public offices. Everything is shut, but a few small traders have hung men’s suits from shop awnings and laid out shoes on the pavement. I see a small man try on a pinstripe jacket – his grin tells his aspirations even though there is no mirror to reflect admiration. He takes off the jacket to show a dusty torn t-shirt underneath.
My stomach is growling and I find a hotel foyer. I step into its air-conditioned hallway, and my feet lead me to the restaurant. It’s empty except for three white men with laptops. A pretty young girl brings me the menu. Chips sound heavenly. I wonder what to have with them. Chicken, hamburger, curry? I decide to play safe and opt for a toasted cheese sandwich.
I really do have to be more adventurous. In Pret-a-manger on Chelsea’s Kings Road I used to watch people scrutinize the racks of sandwiches before making a choice. They’d peer through cellophane wrappers as if looking for bugs. I remember one woman examining a salad so closely its cellophane misted under her breath. Another peered at the rows of juice bottles, finally taking one from the back. A man examined the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches as if counting the strips of meat.
I used to wonder what they were looking for? What are any of us looking for in a sandwich? In Chelsea it certainly isn’t sustenance. I don’t have a weight problem. In fact I come in below the ideal weight, according to the NHS. But in trendy Chelsea I look like I ate all the pies.
At yoga class, my 55 kilo frame looks fleshy and plump compared to the meager limbs that surround me. In downward dog – where we use our bodies to make an up-side-down V – I’m self-conscious as my tum sags loosely toward the floor.
I feel stares from the skinny girls around me and want to yell, “I’ve given birth to two hefty boys.”
After class, no one ever talked to this pudgy girl. But when I travel back to our village in Cambridgeshire, I seem to shrink in size. Out there I’m known as ‘petite’, and other mothers ask how I stay so trim.
But Cambridgeshire and Chelsea are so far away from the Protea Hotel on Lusaka’s Cairo Road. The toasted sandwich and fries have filled my belly and the three businessmen pack away their laptops to leave. As I finish the last chip on my plate, I feel very alone.
We had no idea it was heading this way, and we did what we always had. We soaked needles in disinfectant before reusing them; autoclaved surgical gloves and wore them until the rubber popped and delivered babies with our bare hands.
But after I left, the disease traveled fast. The long-distance lorry drivers who carry goods 2000 miles to and from the coast are believed to have helped it spread like a plague. As a result, news reports have shown an Africa I don’t recognize – poor weakened folk with their hands out appealing for help. I have hated those images, and the reporters who brought them, including Saint Bob Geldof. I’d find myself peering into television looking for signs of the vibrant, humorous people I remembered; the people who had bolstered me when I felt overwhelmed. But the newsreel would always grow more miserable as the journalist’s voice grew sympathetic at the plight of these poor people.
The stats are harsh, around 17 percent infection rate, although no one knows exactly as that’s only a percentage of those who agree to be tested.
Last year, Zambia became one of the first southern Africa countries to offer free antiretroviral therapy to those testing positive. It’s an expensive programme paid for by international funds, and I’m keen to see how it’s working.
M. suggests I visit a friend of hers, a doctor working to prevent HIV. I telephone expecting to be given an appointment for an interview in a week’s time. Instead Dr. Kasonde says she can chat over lunch.
She’s a small woman who apologises for having back pain. The clinic is private, treating middle-class Zambians who can afford to pay, but Dr. Kasonde spends only part of her professional life here. In her other job she visits workplaces to lecture on AIDS. She grows immediately heated when I ask about this work and talks quickly.
Too many Zambian men think they don’t need to be tested, she says. And there have been too many conferences at hotels and civic centres where the audience sleep while doctors lecture on the dangers of HIV.
“No more,” she says.
Dr. Kasonde goes to factories, mines, farms and barracks timing her visits for lunchtimes, shift changes and, to catch the military and police, she turns up during parade times.
She asks them if they know how HIV is contracted.
They always nod, she says.
Do you know your status, she asks them?
They shake their heads.
Do you know the status of your partner, she asks?
They shake their heads and look away.
“To me, the message until now has been too general,” she says. “We need to challenge them!”
The anti-HIV slogan in Zambia is ABC – Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms.
“That’s too far too general,” Dr. Kasonde says, and the old men criticize mention of condoms as promoting promiscuity.
When it comes to being faithful, many men ask her, “Doctor, what do I do if my wife goes out of town?”
“So, I have to say – if you can’t be faithful, then use a condom. They start giggling, but I have to bring the message home.”
The country is recovering, she says. The death rate is falling and the sick are coming for treatment.
Importantly, the rate of infection among the under 25s has dropped. “The message is getting through.”
The key is the workplace because people spend so much time at work, she says. But still too many of Zambia’s rich and famous go overseas for testing and treatment to avoid the stigma.
Dr. Kasonde’s hands find her painful back and she looks at her watch. I know I must leave her enough time for rest before her next patient. In the waiting room are several men in their twenties – I wonder, immediately, about their HIV status.
I step outside wondering which direction to go. Mr Mutale had dropped me off at Dr. Kasonde’s clinic, and I had told him I would find my own way back. He had pointed to the clinic corner saying it was the best place to find a taxi. But I stand at the corner watching only private cars pass. I decide to walk to the junction with the Great East Road. The road is busy with traffic. There’s been no rain for six months so the dust rises and blows into my face with each passing vehicle. There are plenty of blue cars but none with the red license plate of a registered taxi driver. Blue minivans that act as local buses slow down and their young drivers honk and point to the nearest bus stop.
I look away and feel a little desperate. An elderly woman approaches from the direction of the clinic. She’s dressed in a blue blazer, red blouse and pleated skirt. She watches me and somehow I know she will help. As she gets close I ask where I might find a taxi.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“The British Council Building on Cairo Road.”
She points to one of the blue minivans in the parking bay, and a young man rushes out the side door and toward us. They talk quickly in a local language.
“He will take you to Cairo Road,” she said. “It’ll cost about 1,000.”
I shake my head, knowing that I have one million kwacha in my purse and I can’t take it out in any public place. “I think I should take a taxi.”
From somewhere a blue taxi appears. The old lady puts her head through the passenger window and talks with the driver.
Eventually she looks up at me. “He will take you for 10,000 – don’t let him charge you anymore.” She pokes her head back toward the driver. “Remember! 10,000 you charge her.”
That lady was a gift – and that was the cheapest taxi ride I ever had in Lusaka.
But the office I want to visit is closed, so I walk along Cairo Road looking for a small café.
I see small bars selling chicken and nshima, but I want something with more taste. Cairo Road is the main commercial road, and it still looks the same as it did 25 years ago – lots of small shops with barred windows dwarfed by large banks and public offices. Everything is shut, but a few small traders have hung men’s suits from shop awnings and laid out shoes on the pavement. I see a small man try on a pinstripe jacket – his grin tells his aspirations even though there is no mirror to reflect admiration. He takes off the jacket to show a dusty torn t-shirt underneath.
My stomach is growling and I find a hotel foyer. I step into its air-conditioned hallway, and my feet lead me to the restaurant. It’s empty except for three white men with laptops. A pretty young girl brings me the menu. Chips sound heavenly. I wonder what to have with them. Chicken, hamburger, curry? I decide to play safe and opt for a toasted cheese sandwich.
I really do have to be more adventurous. In Pret-a-manger on Chelsea’s Kings Road I used to watch people scrutinize the racks of sandwiches before making a choice. They’d peer through cellophane wrappers as if looking for bugs. I remember one woman examining a salad so closely its cellophane misted under her breath. Another peered at the rows of juice bottles, finally taking one from the back. A man examined the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches as if counting the strips of meat.
I used to wonder what they were looking for? What are any of us looking for in a sandwich? In Chelsea it certainly isn’t sustenance. I don’t have a weight problem. In fact I come in below the ideal weight, according to the NHS. But in trendy Chelsea I look like I ate all the pies.
At yoga class, my 55 kilo frame looks fleshy and plump compared to the meager limbs that surround me. In downward dog – where we use our bodies to make an up-side-down V – I’m self-conscious as my tum sags loosely toward the floor.
I feel stares from the skinny girls around me and want to yell, “I’ve given birth to two hefty boys.”
After class, no one ever talked to this pudgy girl. But when I travel back to our village in Cambridgeshire, I seem to shrink in size. Out there I’m known as ‘petite’, and other mothers ask how I stay so trim.
But Cambridgeshire and Chelsea are so far away from the Protea Hotel on Lusaka’s Cairo Road. The toasted sandwich and fries have filled my belly and the three businessmen pack away their laptops to leave. As I finish the last chip on my plate, I feel very alone.
Sunday 15 July 2007
Fast awakening
I awake in morning and see a dim light peek above the curtains. In the distance a car honks. I remember where I am – M.’s home – 5,0000 miles from my safe life in Cambridgeshire and Chelsea.
My watch says 7.40 am – 6.40 am in England. D. will be having a shower before heading to work. My boys will still be in bed – or just getting there after a night out!
I’d like to get up but don’t hear anyone moving around. I roll over and doze until a knock rattles my door. The clock reads 8am, and I hobble across the floor because my feet are always sore in the morning. M. tells me her aunt is visiting and would like to meet me.
I point to my pink floral pygamas, bought at the last minute when I realized I might need something to wear in bed. “Can I meet her like this?”
She laughs. “Of course!”
My feet loosen up as I hurry down the long hallway. M.’s aunt stands to greet me. I reach out my hand, but she pulls me into a tight hug.
I apologize for my pygamas, but she waves the words away. “You are so welcome here.”
We sit and they talk politics – mocking an opposition leader. But I’ve had no coffee and my brain cells are weak. They shake their heads. “It will be a sad day for the country if that man ever wins,” says M.’s aunt.
She keeps her headscarf neatly tied around her crown, like an African matron. After a few minutes, she rises and we walk her to the back door where relatives wait in car. I wave them all off knowing I can finally make coffee.
But M. drinks tea and tells me how to boil the coffee in a pot and pour it through a strainer. The milk is reconstituted powder that comes in bags – it looks unpalatable even in coffee. She offers me cornflakes. I’d expected nshima porridge. I shake my head. I’ll skip breakfast.
After a quick shower, we drive to M.’s office which is a large suburban house. Outside, a gardener works on the dried earth teasing sculpted plants to life. Inside is a large sitting room with a fireplace and lots of space for books and files. At the far side sits a receptionist. Other rooms that would be bedrooms are offices.
I need to go to a bank, and M.’s driver says he will drive me to Manda Hill. It’s a strip mall with a supermarket and a long line of shops selling furniture, televisions, cell phones and clothes. A huge plot of land has been tarred over and painted with well-marked parking bays, but there is a traffic jam as vehicles butt toward the few vacant places. It is worse than Bluewater at Christmastime. Mr Mutale drops me off while still looking for a parking spot, and I hurry to the bank for my first contact with Kwacha for many years.
My monthly salary 25 years ago was 200 kwacha, and I lived well. We had a house girl, a weekly crate of beer and extra money left over that could be accrued toward a holiday.
I push my bank card into the machine and am offered 100,000 kwacha, 250,000 kwacha, 500,000 kwacha, 750,000 kwacha or 1,000,000 kwacha.
The exchange rate is now around 7,000 kwacha to the pound. I try to calculate how much I need and do the math by deducting zeros. But my brain drowns in zeros and I feel suddenly dyslexic. I hit the button for a million kwacha calculating that it is just over £100 but worrying that I might be taking out closer to £1,000. A wad of notes so thick it almost plugs up the machine is pushed out, and I doubt my math – maybe I have taken £1,000. The armed guard gives me a wary look as I run out of the bank to Mr Mutale’s car.
My watch says 7.40 am – 6.40 am in England. D. will be having a shower before heading to work. My boys will still be in bed – or just getting there after a night out!
I’d like to get up but don’t hear anyone moving around. I roll over and doze until a knock rattles my door. The clock reads 8am, and I hobble across the floor because my feet are always sore in the morning. M. tells me her aunt is visiting and would like to meet me.
I point to my pink floral pygamas, bought at the last minute when I realized I might need something to wear in bed. “Can I meet her like this?”
She laughs. “Of course!”
My feet loosen up as I hurry down the long hallway. M.’s aunt stands to greet me. I reach out my hand, but she pulls me into a tight hug.
I apologize for my pygamas, but she waves the words away. “You are so welcome here.”
We sit and they talk politics – mocking an opposition leader. But I’ve had no coffee and my brain cells are weak. They shake their heads. “It will be a sad day for the country if that man ever wins,” says M.’s aunt.
She keeps her headscarf neatly tied around her crown, like an African matron. After a few minutes, she rises and we walk her to the back door where relatives wait in car. I wave them all off knowing I can finally make coffee.
But M. drinks tea and tells me how to boil the coffee in a pot and pour it through a strainer. The milk is reconstituted powder that comes in bags – it looks unpalatable even in coffee. She offers me cornflakes. I’d expected nshima porridge. I shake my head. I’ll skip breakfast.
After a quick shower, we drive to M.’s office which is a large suburban house. Outside, a gardener works on the dried earth teasing sculpted plants to life. Inside is a large sitting room with a fireplace and lots of space for books and files. At the far side sits a receptionist. Other rooms that would be bedrooms are offices.
I need to go to a bank, and M.’s driver says he will drive me to Manda Hill. It’s a strip mall with a supermarket and a long line of shops selling furniture, televisions, cell phones and clothes. A huge plot of land has been tarred over and painted with well-marked parking bays, but there is a traffic jam as vehicles butt toward the few vacant places. It is worse than Bluewater at Christmastime. Mr Mutale drops me off while still looking for a parking spot, and I hurry to the bank for my first contact with Kwacha for many years.
My monthly salary 25 years ago was 200 kwacha, and I lived well. We had a house girl, a weekly crate of beer and extra money left over that could be accrued toward a holiday.
I push my bank card into the machine and am offered 100,000 kwacha, 250,000 kwacha, 500,000 kwacha, 750,000 kwacha or 1,000,000 kwacha.
The exchange rate is now around 7,000 kwacha to the pound. I try to calculate how much I need and do the math by deducting zeros. But my brain drowns in zeros and I feel suddenly dyslexic. I hit the button for a million kwacha calculating that it is just over £100 but worrying that I might be taking out closer to £1,000. A wad of notes so thick it almost plugs up the machine is pushed out, and I doubt my math – maybe I have taken £1,000. The armed guard gives me a wary look as I run out of the bank to Mr Mutale’s car.
Friday 13 July 2007
Catch up
M. wants to know about the war on terrorism, while I’m keen to talk about Zambia and how women are faring on issues such as widows’ inheritance, marital rape laws and divorce settlements. I’d been reading up women’s issues on M’s legal website. We flit through topics like small girls move through Barbie’s closet.
M’s not changed – a little older naturally. But she still has an easy laugh.
We talk about a mutual friend – Vera – a beautiful Russian girl who had married a young Zambian doctor. On visits to Lusaka from my bush hospital, I’d meet with Vera and she’d tell me the latest saga in her marriage, the latest woman in her husband’s life. One day I’d told M. about Vera, and she’d stopped me mid-sentence. “I know this man – he is dating one of my friends.”
Vera and M. became friends, while I went home, had children, became busy with my new life and lost touch with the old.
I ask about Vera.
M. shakes her head. “Her husband was one of the first to go.”
I know she means AIDS.
“I think Vera went back to Russia.”
We both nod, happy to believe this – happy to think she escaped the disease.
I am tired but M. takes me out for a drive. On the streets, the cars look new and everyone is in smart clothes. I remember women wearing chitenges - African wraps around their waist – often with the President’s face woven into the pattern.
I ask M. about the two former presidents. When I lived here Kenneth Kaunda had declared a one party state. M. says he was forced into elections by peaceful protests and conceded defeat as soon as he saw the votes were against him. He still lives in Lusaka. His successor Frederick Chiluba was elected to two terms and tried to change the constitution to run for a third, but again peaceful protests forced him to change his mind. M. said they called the protests “Green Fridays”. Everyone wore green ribbons to work, and Dr Chiluba soon got the message that green was for go.
The city looks clean and rich. We pass shopping malls and fast food chains such as Subway. “The South Africa influence,” M. says. Dr Chiluba sold off state industries in the mid-1990s, and invited foreign investors to develop what they could.
The small Indian traders have been squeezed out, and the South African chains have imported televisions, mobile phones, furniture and oh so many clothes. When I was here, clothes were produced cookie-cutter style, the same styles from the same fabrics. The only distinctive clothes came from the tailors who took special orders and worked at sewing machines from the porch of an Indian shop.
M. drives home and we find her three girls watching the Nickelodeon and Disney channels on a big screen television.
I tell the girls that I’m impressed by their shops. “When I was last here Bata shoes sold only four models – mens, womens, childrens and flip-flops!”
They laugh unable to believe their country was ever so unsophisticated.
Friends of M. stop by. The husband was an Air Force pilot and on almost continual alert against the Rhodesians in the 1970s. When he could finally take off time owed he had several years due and used it to study for a law degree. M. refers to him as “The General”. He asks about Tony Blair and his unpopularity among the British electorate and the rise of homegrown terrorists. I ask about modern Africa, and AIDS. They say they are all paying for the upkeep of orphaned relatives – M. bought her sister’s children a house and pays for their education – the General calls it the African version of “Making Poverty History”.
For dinner, M makes Zambian traditional food with nshima, beans and kapenta. Nshima is the Zambian stable – maize flour cooked with a little oil and water to form a sticky high-carbohydrate mound. Kapenta is tiny sardine-like fish. The nearest lakes are hundreds of miles away and transport slow. So the fish are dried at the waterside and trucked without refrigeration to markets all over this vast country.
My stomach grows queasy as M. boils the beans and fish. Even though I’m hungry, the heavy smell isn’t appetizing,. M. says I should eat the nshima with my hands, in the traditional way. She brings a bowl of water so we can wash.
The girls throw disdainful looks at their mother. They hate nshima, M. says. Potatoes are better, says the oldest child.
The nshima sticks to my fingers and, although I try to bind it into a tight ball, it just doesn’t hold my bean sauce. M. scoops hers through the beans and kapenta easily clearing her plate. All I get is dry nshima. I’d forgotten how bland and tasteless this stuff could be. I eat the minimum to stave off hunger and hope my stomach will be fine in the morning.
M’s not changed – a little older naturally. But she still has an easy laugh.
We talk about a mutual friend – Vera – a beautiful Russian girl who had married a young Zambian doctor. On visits to Lusaka from my bush hospital, I’d meet with Vera and she’d tell me the latest saga in her marriage, the latest woman in her husband’s life. One day I’d told M. about Vera, and she’d stopped me mid-sentence. “I know this man – he is dating one of my friends.”
Vera and M. became friends, while I went home, had children, became busy with my new life and lost touch with the old.
I ask about Vera.
M. shakes her head. “Her husband was one of the first to go.”
I know she means AIDS.
“I think Vera went back to Russia.”
We both nod, happy to believe this – happy to think she escaped the disease.
I am tired but M. takes me out for a drive. On the streets, the cars look new and everyone is in smart clothes. I remember women wearing chitenges - African wraps around their waist – often with the President’s face woven into the pattern.
I ask M. about the two former presidents. When I lived here Kenneth Kaunda had declared a one party state. M. says he was forced into elections by peaceful protests and conceded defeat as soon as he saw the votes were against him. He still lives in Lusaka. His successor Frederick Chiluba was elected to two terms and tried to change the constitution to run for a third, but again peaceful protests forced him to change his mind. M. said they called the protests “Green Fridays”. Everyone wore green ribbons to work, and Dr Chiluba soon got the message that green was for go.
The city looks clean and rich. We pass shopping malls and fast food chains such as Subway. “The South Africa influence,” M. says. Dr Chiluba sold off state industries in the mid-1990s, and invited foreign investors to develop what they could.
The small Indian traders have been squeezed out, and the South African chains have imported televisions, mobile phones, furniture and oh so many clothes. When I was here, clothes were produced cookie-cutter style, the same styles from the same fabrics. The only distinctive clothes came from the tailors who took special orders and worked at sewing machines from the porch of an Indian shop.
M. drives home and we find her three girls watching the Nickelodeon and Disney channels on a big screen television.
I tell the girls that I’m impressed by their shops. “When I was last here Bata shoes sold only four models – mens, womens, childrens and flip-flops!”
They laugh unable to believe their country was ever so unsophisticated.
Friends of M. stop by. The husband was an Air Force pilot and on almost continual alert against the Rhodesians in the 1970s. When he could finally take off time owed he had several years due and used it to study for a law degree. M. refers to him as “The General”. He asks about Tony Blair and his unpopularity among the British electorate and the rise of homegrown terrorists. I ask about modern Africa, and AIDS. They say they are all paying for the upkeep of orphaned relatives – M. bought her sister’s children a house and pays for their education – the General calls it the African version of “Making Poverty History”.
For dinner, M makes Zambian traditional food with nshima, beans and kapenta. Nshima is the Zambian stable – maize flour cooked with a little oil and water to form a sticky high-carbohydrate mound. Kapenta is tiny sardine-like fish. The nearest lakes are hundreds of miles away and transport slow. So the fish are dried at the waterside and trucked without refrigeration to markets all over this vast country.
My stomach grows queasy as M. boils the beans and fish. Even though I’m hungry, the heavy smell isn’t appetizing,. M. says I should eat the nshima with my hands, in the traditional way. She brings a bowl of water so we can wash.
The girls throw disdainful looks at their mother. They hate nshima, M. says. Potatoes are better, says the oldest child.
The nshima sticks to my fingers and, although I try to bind it into a tight ball, it just doesn’t hold my bean sauce. M. scoops hers through the beans and kapenta easily clearing her plate. All I get is dry nshima. I’d forgotten how bland and tasteless this stuff could be. I eat the minimum to stave off hunger and hope my stomach will be fine in the morning.
Thursday 12 July 2007
Arrival
One long flight, one sleepless night, and I arrive in Lusaka.
I take a taxi to M.’s house. We haven’t seen each other for 25 years, haven’t been in communication for 18 years, and she’d laughed with surprise when I tracked her down. “Yvonne, I still tell people about you!”
It had been a new friendship for both of us. We were in our early twenties. She was an intense young lawyer, and I was an idealist who thought I could change the world with hard work and a good attitude.
What will she make of me now? I have left midwifery for journalism and keep busy with freelance work, but my principle role has been raising my boys. M. takes on legal battles for the women of southern Africa – forcing change through the courts and out into the international arena. In addition to taking on the problems of African women, she is also the single bread-winner for her three daughters.
I worry that she might find me trite and irresponsible? A let down to women!
The taxi driver stops outside a high wall topped with broken bottles. He toots his horn, but it’s 7.30 in the morning and I worry about the neighbours. We see a shadow pass through a gap in the tall gate. An older woman appears wearing an African chitenge around her hips. As she pulls open the gateway, the taxi driver climbs out to help her. “Mama, we have been waiting,” he calls.
I step out the car and peer at the woman as she fixes the latch, trying to find signs of my old friend. The serious eyes look like it could be her, but the face is so much rounder. What if I greet her and it’s the housemaid. M. would never forgive me. I’d be banished before my trip even began.
But the woman opens her arms, and I see her grin as she reaches out to hug me. “Yvonne, you have not changed at all!”
“Neither have you!” I giggle and squeeze her tight. We pull apart and laugh like young girls.
I take a taxi to M.’s house. We haven’t seen each other for 25 years, haven’t been in communication for 18 years, and she’d laughed with surprise when I tracked her down. “Yvonne, I still tell people about you!”
It had been a new friendship for both of us. We were in our early twenties. She was an intense young lawyer, and I was an idealist who thought I could change the world with hard work and a good attitude.
What will she make of me now? I have left midwifery for journalism and keep busy with freelance work, but my principle role has been raising my boys. M. takes on legal battles for the women of southern Africa – forcing change through the courts and out into the international arena. In addition to taking on the problems of African women, she is also the single bread-winner for her three daughters.
I worry that she might find me trite and irresponsible? A let down to women!
The taxi driver stops outside a high wall topped with broken bottles. He toots his horn, but it’s 7.30 in the morning and I worry about the neighbours. We see a shadow pass through a gap in the tall gate. An older woman appears wearing an African chitenge around her hips. As she pulls open the gateway, the taxi driver climbs out to help her. “Mama, we have been waiting,” he calls.
I step out the car and peer at the woman as she fixes the latch, trying to find signs of my old friend. The serious eyes look like it could be her, but the face is so much rounder. What if I greet her and it’s the housemaid. M. would never forgive me. I’d be banished before my trip even began.
But the woman opens her arms, and I see her grin as she reaches out to hug me. “Yvonne, you have not changed at all!”
“Neither have you!” I giggle and squeeze her tight. We pull apart and laugh like young girls.
Wednesday 11 July 2007
A first challenge
I have said goodbye to my two sons, kissed my husband and can’t wait to set off on my own adventure.
I’m almost 50 and the last two decades have been sedate. I used to be a daring girl who backpacked along the med, spent a summer at an archeological dig in Israel, and tried and failed at grape-picking in France. The pinnacle was Zambia – two years with Voluntary Services Overseas at a mission hospital in the rural north.
But these days I visit the same places, eat the same foods – I even cook from the same goddamned recipes! I’ve become so dull that I won’t even try a new sandwich bar in case the hygiene isn’t good and the food upsets my stomach.
It wasn’t always like this, and certainly not when it came to food. Growing up nothing fazed my palate. I ate everything my Scottish Granny put before me – including tripe, tongue and cloutie dumpling. As I began to travel, I tried all the oddities that came my way. The stale canapés behind the counter in Italian bars looked appealing just because of their colour. And street food – any street food - had to be eaten just because it was there. I’ve dined on caterpillars in Africa and even won an octopus eating competition in Greece. If I was hungry I ate what was available – roasted vegetables at a roadside market, plate sized mushrooms that fed two for an easy meal and fishballs at a Thai stall (do fish have testicles?). I ate the lot with little thought of getting sick.
Hygiene was never a strong point for me. When I set out for a two years with VSO I forgot to empty the fridge before I left. Now a scan of those cold shelves takes place at least once a week.
I suppose it was raising children that made me more discerning. Hygiene is now so important that I stay away from prawns, tuna and even chicken at London sandwich bars. I approach our local greasy spoon with reluctance and sniff haughtily when my husband suggests I try their sausages. I refuse to buy meat from anyone but a reputable store and throw away packets of unopened food the day before the sell-by date. I have walked out of restaurants because the menu was dirty, and I scrutinize the rubber belts at supermarket check outs for food stains – and cover them with a newspaper to protect my groceries.
And I won’t do hotels that offer full board because they have every incentive to serve leftovers again and again.
How did I become such a fastidious scaredy cat?
I hate that I carry around packets of nuts in case the food I’m presented with looks grim. Friends stare as I shuffle their tender undercooked meat under some salad. I try to distract them with entertaining talk and hope they don’t notice that I’ve limited myself to safe bread and maybe a few green beans.
I’m a food wimp and fear I’ll grow into the old lady who uses a clean handkerchief to hold onto bus railings – do you know how many people touch those things?
My fears have to be confronted before I become desperately abnormal. I’ve had more than 20 years in a relatively clean kitchen but it’s time to step out of my cosy environment where even a sandwich from Pret is a gastric challenge and a new lunch venue is a step too far.
So I am returning to my adventurous days, to the world that gave me malaria, pneumonia and, of course, dysentery.
I’m heading back to Zambia.
I’m almost 50 and the last two decades have been sedate. I used to be a daring girl who backpacked along the med, spent a summer at an archeological dig in Israel, and tried and failed at grape-picking in France. The pinnacle was Zambia – two years with Voluntary Services Overseas at a mission hospital in the rural north.
But these days I visit the same places, eat the same foods – I even cook from the same goddamned recipes! I’ve become so dull that I won’t even try a new sandwich bar in case the hygiene isn’t good and the food upsets my stomach.
It wasn’t always like this, and certainly not when it came to food. Growing up nothing fazed my palate. I ate everything my Scottish Granny put before me – including tripe, tongue and cloutie dumpling. As I began to travel, I tried all the oddities that came my way. The stale canapés behind the counter in Italian bars looked appealing just because of their colour. And street food – any street food - had to be eaten just because it was there. I’ve dined on caterpillars in Africa and even won an octopus eating competition in Greece. If I was hungry I ate what was available – roasted vegetables at a roadside market, plate sized mushrooms that fed two for an easy meal and fishballs at a Thai stall (do fish have testicles?). I ate the lot with little thought of getting sick.
Hygiene was never a strong point for me. When I set out for a two years with VSO I forgot to empty the fridge before I left. Now a scan of those cold shelves takes place at least once a week.
I suppose it was raising children that made me more discerning. Hygiene is now so important that I stay away from prawns, tuna and even chicken at London sandwich bars. I approach our local greasy spoon with reluctance and sniff haughtily when my husband suggests I try their sausages. I refuse to buy meat from anyone but a reputable store and throw away packets of unopened food the day before the sell-by date. I have walked out of restaurants because the menu was dirty, and I scrutinize the rubber belts at supermarket check outs for food stains – and cover them with a newspaper to protect my groceries.
And I won’t do hotels that offer full board because they have every incentive to serve leftovers again and again.
How did I become such a fastidious scaredy cat?
I hate that I carry around packets of nuts in case the food I’m presented with looks grim. Friends stare as I shuffle their tender undercooked meat under some salad. I try to distract them with entertaining talk and hope they don’t notice that I’ve limited myself to safe bread and maybe a few green beans.
I’m a food wimp and fear I’ll grow into the old lady who uses a clean handkerchief to hold onto bus railings – do you know how many people touch those things?
My fears have to be confronted before I become desperately abnormal. I’ve had more than 20 years in a relatively clean kitchen but it’s time to step out of my cosy environment where even a sandwich from Pret is a gastric challenge and a new lunch venue is a step too far.
So I am returning to my adventurous days, to the world that gave me malaria, pneumonia and, of course, dysentery.
I’m heading back to Zambia.
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