Rules of the Road

Life in Lusaka is full of speed bumps. No, not metaphorical ones, real cement humps in the middle of the road. They’re everywhere, of varying size and degree of concealment. Seriously, I feel like they were intentionally made to be impossible to see; under the shade of a tree, around a sharp corner, with no distinguishing coloring or warning signs. At first, this made for some exciting and unpredictable car rides. You’re cruising down the road, mid conversation with the person in the passenger seat when “WHUMP” your heads are hitting the ceiling and the car is making all sorts of concerning sounds. The other day I realized, when I didn’t slam full speed into a particularly sneaky one on my ride home, I was actually getting a hang of where they were located. In fact, I feel like I’m learning how to avoid a lot of speed bumps (metaphorical ones this time) related to driving in this city. Here are some things I’ve discovered so far:

When backing up, don’t expect any consideration from other drivers other than helping you find your blind spots and test your brakes; they will find any way to cut behind you.

If you plan to meet someone or pick something up, even if you’ve confirmed, always, always call ahead; gas isn’t cheap so you risk wasting a lot more than time.

If someone flashes their high beams at you it’s easier to just make something up rather than try to figure out their reasoning. Are your high beams on? No. Maybe there’s a cop ahead? Probably not. Perhaps they’re commenting on the weather, or maybe they’re lonely and just want a little human contact. I was worried I was missing out on some Zambian driving code until someone flashed us when I was in a taxi and I asked the driver why. I had to laugh when he answered, “I have no idea.”

It’s important to realize that the colors of a traffic light have different meaning here. Green is go, yellow is go faster, and red is keep going until a car from the other direction physically blocks your path.

Passing is encouraged, often necessary with the sorry state of some of the cars here, but if you’re stuck behind a slow moving election campaign convoy, it’s best just to accept your fate and take the opportunity to admire the scenery.

Road rage, on the other hand, is frowned upon. If some cheating driver cuts a long line for a light, the typical Zambian will let not only him in, but also the ten other cars attempting the same move. A simple nonchalant wave of the hand out the window seems to excuse even the most thoughtless and dangerous driving decisions. You can imagine how frustrating this can get for someone from the ruthless world of Boston driving.

However, I did get put in my place the other day when attempting to reverse out of a parking space. After the third car mercilessly blocked my exit I lost my patience and laid on the horn. When the other driver got out of his car I braced for a verbal attack, but was surprised and humbled to hear instead, “Peace is the most important.” Needless to say, I let him pass, and have tried to always keep that in mind since then, even in the most maddening of situations. I guess switching sides of the road wasn’t the biggest adjustment to driving here.

Catching up: Two Busy Weeks in Lusaka

Two weeks ago I moved into my new place, and I feel like life has been in fast forward since then. This post may be a bit disjointed, but I want to write a little about what I’ve been up to before I lose any more time.

The end of the first week of August was the deadline for short listing our best applicants for the scholarship this year. This meant scrambling all week to make sure I had read and graded all one hundred and thirty or so applications from our partner basic schools. As most of our applicants come from very vulnerable backgrounds, this frequently proved to be a difficult task.  Judging on financial need alone, it would be impossible to pick only a handful from this pool. Because we are looking for exceptional academic achievement as well, it is possible to identify a group of students who fit both criteria. As in any case where you are using a narrow tool to address a wide need, it is difficult to put aside those who do not fit the criteria as well. However, after a long staff meeting to compare our picks, I have a really good feeling about the forty Grade 7’s we have selected to sit our exams. We’ll have to await the exam results to know for sure, but I’m confident there are some brilliant, driven students in that group who will make good use of this scholarship.

This past week was the beginning of KF’s Work Experience program, one of the programs I'm responsible for. Each year we find work placements for our Grade 10 students for a week during their August holiday. We try to place them at businesses or organisations in their field of interest where they can also get an idea of what working in an office is like, discover some of their talents and strengths and gain useful skills for the future. During this past week we had students at Nkanza Labs, a pathology laboratory; CIDRZ, a health organisation which is fighting HIV/AIDS through treatment, research and training; and Afri-Connect, one of the big internet providers in Zambia. 

(Martinho gets a lesson in blood clotting at Nkanza Labs)

(Ngosa attends a puppet show put on by CIDRZ in order to sensitize children about HIV/AIDS)

(Edson keeps an eye on the grid at Afri-Connect)

Ensuring everything went well meant a lot of driving around to visit students at their placements and getting up at 5:30 every morning. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this; it’s nice to see the sunrise and to feel like you’ve accomplished a lot by 9 in the morning. We’ll have to wait and see if I can manage to continue getting up early after the program ends. This week our other three Grade 10’s are going to Multi-Choice, one of Lusaka’s main TV providers; a cancer clinic at the University Teaching Hospital; and the WorldWide Fund for Nature. I am hoping these students will enjoy their placements as much as the first three seemed to.

Outside of work, things have been almost as busy. We’ve hosted some fun get-togethers at my new place already. We had an especially nice dinner last Tuesday where we cooked about 14 pounds of fresh crayfish from the farmers market and served that up alongside sautéed bok choy, delicious garlic mashed potatoes and capped off with Johanne’s now famous homemade chocolate cake rolls. 

(Lots of crayfish to be shelled)

Last week was also my first time playing rugby. Two of my roommates, former members of the national Zambian rugby team, are avid players. Luckily they are also patient teachers as I was starting from very close to zero knowledge about the sport. After gauging the size of some of our fellow players, I was pretty thankful we were playing touch rugby. The strategy is completely different from anything I’ve played before, especially the idea of only being able to pass backwards, but I think with some time and practice it could be pretty fun. The weekends have been a great combination of fun and relaxation. Two weekends ago we spent a lazy day enjoying a botanical garden just outside the city which also houses a wildlife reserves (pictures are up on Flickr). This past Saturday was another languid morning full of coffee and books before attending a marathon wedding anniversary for one of our mentors (and coincidentally, my friend’s landlord).

Other events from the past weeks include finally finishing the newsletter we send out to our mentors each term which is written and edited by the students (I can email you a copy if you’d like to see), meeting up with Erin, the other PiAf Fellow in Zambia during her twelve hour visit from Livingstone to Lusaka, and saying more goodbyes. Lusaka is losing one of the closest friends I've made here as she returns to Denmark to finish her masters, as well as our awesome intern Julian who heads back to school in Switzerland.

(Zambia PiAf Fellows!)

One story from last week; I’ve been meaning to buy a desk for my new room, but after doing some scoping on the roads where carpenters sell their goods, I was having trouble finding time to actually go make a purchase. I happened to be driving down that road one morning and, upon seeing a good choice, decided to just pull over and buy it on the spot. I negotiated a fair price (I think) but there was a catch; the desk wasn’t quite finished. Peter the carpenter offered to come finish it at my house, but I was actually on my way to work from a café. Not wanting to come back to this side of town later, I loaded the desk, Peter and all his tools into my car and drove to the café where he finished it up in the parking lot. We then brought it to my house before I dropped him off at home. It was just one of those moments that make you smile, made possible by so many elements that just wouldn’t happen at home. It was nice to buy something from the person who actually made it, and so far it’s been a great desk and good first step in my room-improvement plan.

In closing, I’d like to wish a late happy 34^th wedding anniversary to my parents, and an early happy 14^th birthday to my little sister Sophie; just because I’m not there doesn’t mean I’m not celebrating with you.

Homemade Pasta and Hugo the Hippo

The one month mark has come and gone. The fact that it slipped by unnoticed is a good sign; between a full work load and an eventful after work scene life has been pretty busy, but it’s been time well spent. Today is a new marker in my life here, one that’s a bit more noticeable. This will be the first night I spend away from my host family and in my new home. If you’re looking at a map of Lusaka, I’ve moved from way down in the bottom right corner up to the center-middle to an area called Kalundu. I’ll be living in a four bedroom house with two Zambians guys and an Australian girl. Having been able to spend time with them since arriving in June I know they are all great, hard-working people who are also a lot of fun. I actually got to know the two guys more while working as a photographer at a concert their production company, R&G Events, put on last weekend. I’m really looking forward to spending at least the next six months at this house. Most of all I’m excited to put down some roots, to finally unpack my suitcases, and to start cooking in my own kitchen.

(Working at the concert)

Before moving out of the Mwenye household, I cooked them a farewell dinner. I decided to go with an old standby; my interpretation of my Dad’s interpretation of my Grandmother’s unbelievable pasta sauce. I picked up fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic and parsley from the farmer’s market and was able to find most of the other ingredients at the grocery store. With some help from Aunt Paulina and Gertrude we managed to cook a pretty authentic version of the dish which was eyed warily at first as it bubbled in the pot, but was eventually enjoyed thoroughly by all.

(Gertrude enjoying her pasta)

This long weekend (today was Farmer’s Day) also contained another exciting event. It was my first time since getting here that I left the boundaries of Lusaka. A casual suggestion on Saturday morning came together quickly, and impressively, into a full blown overnight trip to Lake Kariba in the southeast of the country on the border with Zimbabwe. It’s hard to explain the full benefit of escaping from the dry crowded city into the rolling green hills and being close to a body of water for the first time in this land-locked country. While the road required some attentive driving, between overloaded trucks and sporadic potholes, the ride was only about two and a half hours and the scenery was captivating. The lake itself was massive; at 5,580 square kilometers it is the largest artificial lake in the world. It is the product of a dam that filled in a massive river valley along the Zambezi and which now supplies power to both Zambia and Zimbabwe. Unfortunately we were unable to swim due to the triple threat of bacteria, Nile crocodiles and the ever dangerous hippopotamus which call the lake home. We did, however, take a beautiful sunset cruise at night, and in the morning were able to go fishing. While as a team we failed to catch anything larger than my thumb, we did come very close to a troop of island baboons, and our guide managed to snag himself a tiger fish, which lives up to its namesake in the tooth department I must say.

(Sunset over Lake Kariba)

While the trip was on a whole extremely relaxing, we did find ourselves in a uniquely stressful situation after our sunset cruise. As we pulled up to shore we suddenly realized we had a rather large visitor in our campsite. Grazing his way toward our tents was the 5,000 lb resident of the area, Hugo the Hippo. It was very cool to see one outside of water and to really get a sense of their sheer mass; it’s much bigger than a cow and probably as tall as a horse. On the other hand, this bulk combined with their high aggression and territorial nature makes them one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. So it was with some trepidation that we approached to within thirty feet of Hugo to make our campfire and cook dinner. Having to walk past him to the bathroom sent my heart racing- every time he would raise his massive head from grazing and fix me with that unnerving stare it was all I could do not to sprint for the nearest building. We all breathed a little easier once he wandered off into the night, but I wasn’t the only one who later dreamed in his flimsy canvas tent of that massive beast meandering back through our site. Ultimately we survived our hippo encounter, and I came back to Lusaka today refreshed and ready for an important and busy week at work where we begin to narrow down this year’s applicant pool for the scholarships.