When negotiating my placement details I wasn't majorly enthused about
the idea of Kasama, it being a provincial town 840 clicks north of Lusaka the
capital. I was leaning towards the idea
of being based in Lusaka. That was more
than likely borne out of an insecurity of mine more than anything. Its natural to, in some ways, cling to your
comfort zone and Lusaka certainly offered me that. Much less of an adaptation and the security
of a life that’s in some way familiar. A
large foreign population and many of the western creature comforts were in
plentiful supply there.
But the experience that I was likely to get in Lusaka was gonna be
pretty half-arsed and if I was to spend one year of my life living in Africa, I
really should do it properly, immerse myself fully in Zambian life rather than
that of an ‘expat’ (that word makes me feel quesy). The other factor was that Irish Aid were the
donors for the Kasama project and they were keen that this was where I’d be
involved. The Irish Government have had
a long presence in the Northern Province (and Zambia generally) which I’ll go
into at a later date.
We took off on the 10 hour journey north towards Kasama in our Toyota
Hilux 4x4 that we’d been given for the year.
Us being Paul, a 28 year old Ugandan (doing Monitoring and Evaluation),
Laia (Auditor) also 28 a dutchie from Haarlem, Andrew (Socio-Economic Planner)
a 60 odd year old from Zimbabwe and Simon, the driver from Kasama. The four of us are working together for the
year and Simon driving us about. He’s a
pretty cool guy, a Gooner who lived in London for 7 years and a good guy to
have around. The fact that he lived in
Europe means that he appreciates the cultural difference that exists for
foreigners like myself.
Paul is also an Arsenal fan. In fact half of Zambia appears to be!
Easily, twice as many Arsenal jerseys about compared to any other team. Many say it’s the playing style, could also
be the strong African connection over the years (Kanu especially is an African
icon who transcends national boundaries) but others have said that it just
appears this way as the United fans have their jerseys well and truly hidden
away! We’ll see…
Eventually we arrived in Kasama and sought out Laia’s joint (she’s got
her own place and the three buckos were stuffed in together. Equality me
hoop!). Her house is quality, a nice old
colonial brick building with a massive garden (like 1200m2), with
all sorts of fruit trees, a small swimming pool and out-buildings for her 4
dogs to sleep in.
This was the third house I’d seen now where they’d housed people so it
was with a fair bit of optimism that I awaiting our arrival at my home for the
year. 3km later from Laia’s place (which
is close to the middle of town) we arrived at our gaff.
Optimism misplaced – fuckin shit pit it was !! Cos it was Kasama they
hadn’t actually come all the way up here to pick it but relied on some other
schmo’s to do it. It reminded me of one
of these really bog standard 80’s holiday bungalows in the west of Ireland that
are empty for 10 months of the year. The
joint was massive – 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms but a dining room with no windows
into it, a kitchen with a sink and a 1m2 workspace and no storage
and a sitting room the size of a warehouse which made our couch and two chairs
look like furniture from a dolls house!
The last 1km of the road was something I’d only experienced twice
before: the road from Siem Riep to the Thai border (in 2002) and La Paz to
Uyuni (2004) ie a lunar-like topography that requires every bit of the 4x4’s
manoeuvrability to negotiate. Ok I
admit, these were all first impressions and much has changed since. I got onto HQ in Lusaka a few days later and
let them know the score. They were
pretty apologetic and said there was no issue with changing if we found
somewhere else. Grand job, I’d get onto
it.
Next obstacle, Paul and Andrew said that unless I could guarantee them
en-suite bathrooms in the new place they weren’t prepared to move. “Eh wha ??” I’d never had a fuckin en-suite
in my goddam life and these two goons weren’t prepared to share a jacks! Paul confided that on his last placement in
Rwanda, he had lived with a Danish guy whose toilet habits had left him so
traumatised that he was close to quitting the job. Now Jesper the Dane must have been a nightly
guest at the only curry house in Kigali or I was dealing with one very precious
Ugandan !!
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| The Road to Perdition |
There was no convincing either of them. Out voted: Uganda-Zimbabwe
Alliance 2-1 Daly !!
I took it on the chin and got to work on the landlord. In fairness they’ve been good about it giving
us extra furniture and putting in a full kitchen which has been a major help in
making the joint habitable. I’ve put my
interior design skills to good use with my bedroom which is pretty decent at
this stage and I’m getting some extra furniture made to deck the place
out. It must be said that the area we
live in is very nice and leafy with a pleasant feel to the place and lots of
sociable friendly heads about.
As Zambian towns go Kasama in generally charming place to be. It has a population north of 200k but like
most developing countries (maybe due to their dense living environments) it
feels like a town of about 50k (but I’m pretty sure that it’ll bore the shite
out of me after a while). The centre was
well designed back in the day by the Anglo colonisers, it is easy to get about
and it’s full of life. Well when it’s
bright that is. Even though we’ve got
our own driver, I generally walk home from work and it really is a pleasant
experience. Maybe it’s due to the big
blue sky, the lushness of the greenery around or maybe it’s the warmth in the
evening air but it really brings me back to my teens and the summer evenings in
Ballyferriter in West Kerry strolling home after a day in Irish College.
Apart from the fresh air, the exercise and the nice scenery, my walks
home generally leave me grinning from ear to ear from the reactions and
interactions I have with people on the way.
It varies from situation to situation and the degree to which this
occurs will diminish over time as they get used to seeing me about.
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| The Stretch |
A very common scenario is one in which I’m about to walk past a group of kids who are all jabbering away together. All of a sudden one of them will see me and a blankness will pass over him, his face will lengthen and silence will slowly descend over the group (purely based on this kids reaction). The group will then slowly turn to see the apparition that this one kid has witnessed and then I will look over to see a gang of children just staring wide-eyed at me with a ‘what the FUCK is that thing’ look plastered across their mugs. One of them will have muttered Muzungu (whitey/honky etc) by this point.
To break the awkwardness of the situation I will (while struggling to
keep a straight face) wave at them.
Another 4 or 5 seconds will pass without even the blink of an eye, then
one of them will wave back. Then tension
generally eases at this point and by the time I’m well passed them they’ll
individually begin to shout at me “ow aaaah yoooooo, ow aaaah yoooooo” while
jumping up and down and laughing hysterically like I’m the funniest thing
they’ve ever laid eyes on. One evening
this happened when I was out jogging and a group of kids started legging it
after me laughing and shrieking uncontrollably (like ‘whats this guy running
away from’). I eventually stopped to say
“hello, whats your name?” etc. They also
stopped 20m back, but wouldn’t come near me.
This happened 3 or 4 more times until they decided to stop running after
me and went home.
The reaction I get completely depends on the audience. Usually parents of these kids will smile
warmly at me as their children have epileptic fits. Generally teenage guys will initially stare
at me in surprise then just play it completely cool and maybe muster a nod
towards me. But it’s always pleasant -
Zambians are very placid and warm people.
If I go for a jog there’s one decent route that I’m now kinda reluctant
to use. The last time two times I went
there I had a gang of kids join me and run along with me (12 the last time) for
about 10 minutes absolutely pissing with laughter. They react to me to in a way that reminds me
of my reaction when I’d see an ice-cream van turn slowly turn down our street
as a kid. It’s hilarious for me too but
I half feel like Mohammed Ali in When We
Were Kings training in Kinshasa (“Ali kum-bia, Ali kum-bia”) and half like
a complete tool!
I’m kinda hoping that if there’s some Zambian fella living in Cork going
out for jogs he doesn’t get 12 lads chasing him down the road. A man could get the wrong impression from something
like that !
The other thing that completely gets them is if I say a few words in
their local language. English is the
official language nationally but up here not everyone can speak it and mostly
they speak Bemba to each other. Mulishani basically means “hows the
form” (or “faaks it gaan kaaant” or “spiffing day old boy” to the Australians
and English among you). They’re amazed
at it and start laughing their asses off again, who’s this honky and whats he
doing speaking Bemba. Then they start
yabbering at me, asking me all sorts, at which point I smile blankly
understanding none of it and leg it….
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