Normality

I have learned a lot since arriving overseas relating to all kinds of topics; agriculture, development, water and sanitation, Zambian culture, government and a whole lot more. All of this has been really interesting, but the things that I have learned that have proved to be the most useful to me are the small trivial things of how to go about day-to-day life. The past two weekends, I've spent outside of town because of the Livingstone trip and going down to Lusaka this past weekend for the agriculture show. It has been a bit strange to go back and forth between the big, industrialized cities and the village and there has been some repeated adapting, but perhaps this will lessen the reverse culture shock once I get back to Canada. But anyways, in the past few months there are a few habits that I have adapted and things that I have grown to expect from life in Zambia.

Bus Stations

One of the big adjustments I found on arriving here was getting used to dealing with bus stations; let me paint you a picture…

You are arriving from Livingstone at the inter-city bus station in Lusaka. Before you even get off the bus, there are people knocking on the windows with car keys, asking if you want a taxi. You would like to leave for Kabwe today, but the chances of finding a bus that is full enough to leave and arrive in Kabwe before dark are slim. Probably better to just spend the night here. You find a taxi driver and bargain him down to K10 000 to take you to a hostel nearby and after collecting your bags from under the bus you follow him to his car, still with people asking if you want a taxi or a bus ticket somewhere. Upon arriving at the hostel, you get the cab driver’s phone number and arrange for him to pick you up early the next morning to take you back to the bus station.

The next morning, you get to the bus station bright and early. Before the taxi has even stopped, you are swarmed by men trying to find out where you are going and sell you tickets. “Copperbelt!” “Livingstone!” “Johannesburg!” You manage to find a few who are headed north through Kabwe and follow them to their buses, you want to get the earliest bus possible and even though everyone says that their bus is leaving “now, now”, you know that there are only a small handful of buses that leave at a specified time, the rest just leave when they are full.

You find a bus that is about ¾ full and decide that it is probably your best chance, so you stow your bags and set out to buy a small snack in the bus terminal. Although it’s early, the place is packed with people, many of whom spent the night there waiting for an early bus. After picking up a banana, fritter and boiled egg you make your way back to the bus and get ready to wait. After another hour, all the seats in the bus are full and you start off through the busy streets of Lusaka and northwards towards Kabwe.

Laundry

Doing laundry in Zambia is a pretty public thing, there isn’t any laundry machines to throw your clothes into and forget about for an hour, you wash them by hand and my attempts at washing were the cause for a lot of attention when I first arrived (to date, I haven’t managed to do a full load of washing myself, someone always comes to help and make sure that at least a few things get washed properly). The essentials for doing laundry are:

• Boom paste or some similar laundry paste/powder. I'm a fan of boom, it's a blue paste that smells pretty good and is awesome for getting out tough stains (though avoiding white clothes is generally a good idea just so that you can go a bit longer without washing).
• Two or three basins half-full of water. One full of nice sudsy water and two for rinsing.
• A handful of clothes pegs. There aren't a huge amount of pegs to go around, so each one will probably hold up the corner of two pieces of clothing plus perhaps a sock. During the cold season the wind helps to dry, but fast-drying clothes are still a very good thing.
• Oh, and dirty clothes and a stool to sit on.

Something I discovered early on was that it isn’t appropriate for others to see you washing your underwear. Thanks to some fellow EWB volunteers, I discovered the best method for washing underwear ever. Essentially, you wash it while you are bathing and this way you can get by with max three pairs; one to wear, one to dry, and one clean pair ready for the next day.

I'd say that the bottom half of the body is a lot more taboo than the top. Maybe that isn't that big of news for men, but I've had women apologize for accidentally letting their skirt hitch up above their knee whereas it is completely normal to see a woman breastfeeding on the bus or while waiting in line to pay for her groceries.

Bargaining

I hadn't had much previous practice at bargaining but unless you do here, you're going to get super ripped off. There are always areas where prices are set, like in the stores, but street vendors and taxi drivers are definite grounds for bargaining. The tricky part is trying to figure out when you are being ripped off and when you are ripping them off. You will get all kinds of saddened looks and accounts of children to send to school but at the end of the day, people won't sell you anything if the price isn't at least marginally beneficial to them.

I found it really amusing at the curio (souvenir) market in Livingstone that vendors would ask you for things to trade. After agreeing to trade a pen for a wooden carving (good deal, no?) I was asked for money on top. I wonder if the pen actually brought down the price of the carving at all. Vendors were also wanting to do trades for my hair elastic, bracelet and asking me to come back with t-shirts to trade.

And for the question... what parts of life would you find hardest/easiest to adopt if you were living in Zambia?

That's it for me for now. Apologies for the lack of pictures in this post, I've got some coming in the next post. I'm getting into the final stretch of my placement and time is going extremely quickly so I'm trying to wrap things up, learn a few last things and spent some quality time with the friends and family I have made.

Cheers!