Day 12 - Bungee danger!

Thurs 1st Aug

I'm planning my trip to Victoria Falls this weekend. One of the activities there is bungee jumping, and apparently a girl did a jump there just over a year ago and the cord snapped!

Follow this link to the BBC news site if you want to see a video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16459489

Do I want to go bungee jumping at the same site...?

Day 11 - I am jealous!

Wed 31st July - I am jealous!

I was talking to a taxi driver from the Eastern province, and he told me that Sanje means jealous in Cheba, which is a language spoken in the East of Zambia.

Day 10 - Seduced by chicken

Tuesday 30th July

During chats with staff today I discovered that when street children chat with the people they know who still live at home, they will often encourage them to join them on the streets. They will say things like:

“Oh! We eat chicken, it is good!”

“ ‘We eat chicken?!’”I replied, uncomprehending of the allure of chicken. To me chicken is ubiquitous here, and it’s nothing special. I often eat at Barcelos (which is a bit like Nando’s – lots of chicken) or Zamchick (the clue’s in the name!) or a few other places that also have lots of chicken on offer. In many places, a meal of chicken and chips will cost around £1.

But my perspective is skewed by my obscene wealth.

Among the families that street children come from, it’s common for them to have less than that per day to feed a family of five, which might consist of four growing children and one sick mother. So they eat cheap food, like nshima (the national staple – it’s pounded maize, just like ugali) and capenta (very small fish) and perhaps some greens.

In fact, in some families children will take turns as to who gets to eat on which day, meaning that if it’s not their turn to eat, they go hungry all day.

Maybe it’s not so surprising that some of them run away from home, even though they have nowhere to go….

Day 9 - This placement is a rollercoaster ride!

Monday 29th July

What a rollercoaster experience this placement is turning out to be! Last week I wasn't even sure if the charity's finances were sustainable! Fortunately that was just based on a misunderstanding, and the worries I had turned out to be misplaced. There's still plenty more work to do though, and lots of discussions that will need to happen with the guys over here.

Day 8 - Was Jesus black?

Sunday 28th July - Church

The chairman of Friends of the Street Children kindly invited me to join him at church today, so I came along to the Church of Jesus of the Sacred Heart in central Kitwe. It seemed pretty much in line with what I might expect from a Catholic church service, but one thing struck me – the church was adorned with lots of images of Jesus just like the ones back home in Europe; in particular he was white.

Here’s what the BBC news website has to say about Jesus’s skin colour:

“there seem to be only two things about the debate that can be said with any degree of certainty.

First - if the past 2,000 years of Western art were the judge, Jesus would be white, handsome, probably with long hair and an ethereal glow.

Second - it can almost certainly be said that Jesus would not have been white. His hair was also probably cut short.”

I would have been happy to have seen a black Jesus depicted in that church, but I decided not to suggest it to the priest!

Day 7 - Walking on an unlit African street

Sat 27th July

When I walk from the bus stop back to my hotel after sunset, I’m going through a dirt track with no street lighting. In the darkness, the sounds become salient, and the auditory wallpaper of chirruping crickets is punctuated by the sound of loud bullfrogs in the ditches bellowing out their croaks in an attempt to attract a mate.

The other animal I occasionally hear is the metallic oil-fuelled beast whose headlights transform the uneven road surface into a dramatic chiaroscuro of lit mountain ranges and peaks against deep dark valleys of darkness; peaks and valleys that move with the gentle passing of the vehicle. When placing your steps, aim for the peaks. In those treacherous valleys of darkness there could be anything: animals, a ditch, or a deep dark hole in the road. Even absenting a hole, its depth is unknown, and could send a shudder up your body as you step onto ground that was lower than you thought.

In that darkness, the rare approaching passersby are reduced to walking silhouettes, as the blackness of the night robs them of the facial features that bring people to life. Like ghosts, they waft before the silhouettes of majestic trees that strike out bold shapes against the distant faint twilight of the night sky with its unfamiliar constellations.

When I reach the hotel, I knock on the massive metal gate, and the guard slowly creaks it open, leading me back to the land of light. Unless there’s a power cut! 

Day 6 - Drugs

Friday 26th July - Drugs

No, I didn't take any drugs today. Unless you count my malaria medication. In fact, I mostly spent time with Friends of the Street Children thinking about their financial position and discussing it with staff; this still wasn't enough to drive me to snort charlie. Instead I thought I would talk about the drugs used by the street children.

Again, I have not had permission from the street kids I met to even take pictures of them using drugs, let alone put them on my blog. The images used here are from a google search.

The main drugs used by the street kids are:

• Glue sniffing
• Jet fuel (seems to be the most common from what I saw; mostly sniffed from a bottle or rag)
• Marijuana (less common)

Apart from this, the kids also ferment their own drugs. In the old days they used to use human faeces a lot for this purpose. This was called Jenkem.

 

This doesn't seem to happen much any more - street kids often ferment other things, like chloroquine.

Lots of the drugs that we would expect to see back home – alcohol, cocaine, heroin – are not seen here. I would speculate that this is because of cost and availability.

The reasons given for drug use are therefore different. There is less reference to the high or pleasure that can be had from drug use. These drugs do have a hallucinogenic effect though. Perhaps more importantly, it helps the kids feel the cold less, which is useful at night time in the cold season.