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.