Miscellaneous information and facts about Zambia and the Zambians

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Miscellaneous information and facts about Zambia and Zambians

Northern Rhodesia became Republic of Zambia in 1964, after 100 years of colonial rule. The credit for the smooth transition from authoritarian rule to multiparty democracy belongs mostly to the Zambian people. I met a couple and their grown daughter from England who used to live and work in Zambia, they were back on a visit. They said there could never be a war in Zambia because the Zambians simply wouldn't engage in a war. Zambia's colonial period ended quite peacefully and race relations have remained quite amicable.

The country is very poor and there is 90 per cent unemployment. Many of the unskilled jobs are taken by college grads because there are no professional jobs for them. One of the Zambians explained to me that the first president after colonial rule ended, built a lot of industry that was government run. This provided many jobs for people. The next president sold the industries to private industry. Private industry, looking at their bottom line, rid itself of many people they didn't think they needed. Thus ended many job opportunities.

Traveling through Lusaka and the surrounding countryside you see many people working hard to make a meager living. One of the things people do is make gravel by hand. It is called illegal mining and outside of Lusaka you can see this very clearly. I will try to put some photos up to show you. There are fields of rock, people burn tires on the rock to soften it enough to chip off big hunks of rock. They then take the rocks and chip away at them to make gravel. This is done by the side of the road. You see both men and women doing this. They either put the gravel in piles or in little bags to sell. Trucks pull up to them and load what they need onto the trucks. Can you imagine sitting on the ground all day long in the hot sun chipping away at a rock? The fields have deep holes in them where the rocks came from, when the rains come the holes are filled and many people trying to make their way over this land, drown every year.

There are little stands of vegetables along the roadside everywhere you go. A few tomatoes, some onion and other vegetables. Closer to Zambia are bigger markets with stands side by side.

We had a problem with a bathroom and needed a plunger. Sure enough, we were driving in Lusaka and there was a man carrying several plungers for sale. He ran up to the bus and sold us a plunger through the window.

A new center for the children is being built, more on that later, but Philip (Kathy's husband) is in charge and he has to find the tools and building materials . He says there is no hardware store where he can get everything he wants in one place. In fact, what one store has one day, it won't have the next day. He may have to go all over Lusaka to find what he needs on any given day.

You can see woman sweeping the streets clean everywhere you go in Lusaka.

If you see crossed sticks with gloves on the sticks, that means the man sitting beside it is a plumber. There are crossed sticks directly in front of the car in the photo below.

Cephus is buying clementines for our bus. The woman is balancing several layers of eggs on her head.

The electricity may go off at any time. It is called load shedding. South Africa was a power provider for Zambia and two other countries, when the World Cup was held there they cut the power to those countries. The morning we left we had to leave in the dark with all our luggage. One of the volunteers waited til morning to pack up, so she had to do it in the dark. Thank goodness for our headlamps.

The bush is the tall grass that is out in the fields. Some of it is called elephant grass. You don't go in the bush because there are cobra and pythons awaiting you. You stick to the cleared paths.

The Bush

Big is good in Zambia, the bigger the butt the better. It is not considered an insult to be called fat, it is a complement. One of our girls was a bit on the heavy side, one of the workers at the new center saw her and said, "Ah, you are fat. That is good." She was embarassed but she was very gracious about it. Unfortunately, it happened to her more than once and it didn't sit to well with her after awhile. I wonder if it is because there aren't very many fat people in Zambia, probably not, I think it is just a cultural thing.

Things move very, very slowly in Zambia. BJ took a whole day to get some business done that should have taken a couple of hours. Places close down, you get directed to another place, everything take a long time. You just have to adjust to it.

That is it for now, just some interesting tidbits on Zambia and Zambian life. There will probably be more. Next I will write about the Super Kids Camp that we brought to a village new to MWB