Week one

For the first week in Zambia we have been staying in the University of Zambia. There are 27 of us from England, Canada, Holland, Hong Kong, Kenya and Uganda. We have small rooms with single beds and a challenge of mastering the art of foraging under a mosi net every night without letting anything in, pulling it down or getting your dirty feet on your sheets. Our bathroom is like a miniature zoo for insects. It is pretty grim. I have found that if I play take that and name the creatures as I wash that the whole experience is a lot less terrifying.

We have been training this week on Zambian culture and customs, languages and work place environments. There are some stark differences to the UK. The biggest education is in the bar in the evening. Zambian men are very forward and I have been using innovative ways to say NO to their various propositions.

This week we were invited to the British High Commissioners house for a reception. The canapes were a welcome change from the random meals we had been served all week including ox hooves, offal, fish heads and mapani worms. We managed between us to drink him dry of all of his wine supply and gin. A job well done.

We also had a walk to explore parts of Lusaka. There are a lot of townships as 60% of the population earn less than a dollar a day. As we walked through we had lots of kids running after us shouting greetings in Nianja and calling out Msungo msungo. It was a pretty saddening place to live with many children having swollen bellies from lack of food and certainly made me moan less about my warthog stew for dinner.

A few first impressions for you;
1. The country is far greener than I expected, lots of trees and green spaces. It is also unbelievably dusty. Lusaka, although the main city, has mainly mud roads which is particularly interesting to be driven on in the current raining season.
2. I am a millionaire. I earn about 2.2 million Kwacha a month which is about 260 pounds. This does not go very far here so we are on a serious budget.
3. There are 73 languages in Zambia. I am doing my best to learn Nianja which is spoken widely in Lusaka but I am laughed at every time I do.
4. I shall receive 35 days holiday a year. Only 24 of these can be taken when I want the rest are public holidays. The best part is I get an additional day each month, as all women do, for Mothers Day. I shall leave you to work that one out. I think it is a pioneering idea I shall try and reintroduce to the UK.

I move into my house in a few days and shall blog about that experience then.