Please don't pee on my gate

A few weeks ago I was in Ndola, the northern part of Zambia in the Copperbelt on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ndola is a sleepy town with no much going on. There are a handful of bars, one nightclub, a supermarket and that is about it. Exciting news is the arrival of a cinema in coming months....... Anyway, a friend and I were in a bar enjoying a drink and a catch up. He nipped off to the bathroom and in seconds a Zambian man is at my side. Hardened to the routine I stare into the distance- not easy in a small bar- and pretend not to see him. However his opening line was not to ask me to buy him a drink as my white skin clearly means I have buckets of cash I wish to spend on those I do not know, he did not ask me for a job, my phone number, if I would marry him, his brother, cousin or uncle, nor did he ask me to sleep with him. Instead he asked:

‘Do you know what you are?’

I was stumped and was not sure if he was referring to my nation, gender, job etc

‘You are a musungo..... musungo means white person. I am sure you have just arrived so you may not know this yet but that is what you are’ all said very slowly as if my IQ was lower than an Essex girls blouse.

Little did this chap know but only that week I had celebrated the wonder that is World Toilet Day in one of the larger slum areas of Lusaka, a day in which I was well and truly musungo’d and if there was any doubt before hand that I was white there is not now! My colleagues and I arrived in Kanyama early in the morning, a marquee was set up and various performances took place drama, singing, dancing and a puppet show. All were aimed and teaching adults and kids about good toilet habits like not pooing in any receptacle you find and throwing out of the window or the importance of washing your hands with water and soap. We then had a dance competition on stage where the crowd would cheer for the best dancer and they would win a bar of soap. There are three things you can guarantee Zambians love: football, nshima and dancing. I am not going to lie to you, as an English person my hips literally lock at the thought of dancing to Zambian music. These guys just seem to relax everything and just shake their assets, not only can I not shake but my mataco or butt is not big enough to shake, nothing happens. Literally. These kids, some as young as 7 years were dancing their hearts out. Because of all the shaking it is the kind of dancing my mother would reprimand me for, even at 31years for being a little too sexy. The kids however loved it. Sadly after 5 hours of fun we had run out of soap and the games ended. Within minutes hundreds of kids were literally climbing up me screaming ‘sopa sopa’ which after some time I learnt was soap.

Much to the merriment of the entire township of Kanyama my factor 50 failed me and within hours I was more Jerry the Berry than Sarah the Musungo. As the best single handed freakshow in the whole of Lusaka I caused hours of entertainment as kids pressed my seriously sore skin to see what would happen. For those of you in cold climates who have forgotten what the sun looks like when you press sunburn you go really white. The kids had never seen anything like it and were mesmerised. In agony, I finally crawled home and bathed in after sun only to spend a whole week being asked by random locals why I was so red.....

So yes, man in Ndola bar, I know I am musungo.

 

So in other news I have quit the life of a poor volunteer to become a poor Director of an NGO. I was surprisingly and delightedly offered the post of Director for a paediatric HIV/Aids charity and have just completed my first week. It is such an exciting project as passing on HIV or Aids to the next generation can genuinely be stopped! The organisation does voluntary testing and counselling of kids and work with pregnant mothers with HIV or Aids to stop the gene from being passed on. I am sure I shall update you more on this in coming weeks.

Soooooo it is the most wonderful time of the year and just a week until Christmas. Our house has home made paper chains up, some interpretive mistletoe (which Zambians have never heard of but love the concept) and a stunningly decorated tree. Christmas songs have been on repeat for weeks in our little chateau and yet it is harder than ever to get into the Christmas spirit. Bob Geldof was most definitely right, there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time but things do grow and rains and rivers do flow, especially as it is rainy season making the mud pavements a menace to negotiate.

When it rains here it really rains. The paths disintegrate and moving around is near on impossible. As a true Brit I sat one morning contemplating my walk to work (no more blue buses- yey) and thought it rains all the time in England I should be fine with this and then remembered the little fact of concrete vs mud. Day four of the new job, I am halfway to work when I slip in the mud and cover one whole side of my body in dirty smelly mud. Apparently when a musungo falls over it is HILARIOUS and a small crowd gathered to share their amusement in Nyanja. I scooted back home, changed and went back to work pretending my dignity was still in tact.

On route home I find a man urinating at the side of my gate. I call the guard who comes running out, tries to chase said urinator. The culprit did not have time to slip his manhood back in his jeans whilst getting chased down my busy road. The guard tackles him and starts to reprimand him. It was this point I felt I had seen enough of the culprit sold told the guard to stop beating him but to ask him nicely not to use my wall as a urinal.