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.

Day 5 - I want to eat caterpillar!

Thurs 25th July

"Mmmm!" said one of the outreach workers to me in a conversation in the office today. "You will like grasshoppers very very much! They are delicious!"

He was teasing me however, because grasshoppers are not in season at the moment!

"We also like to eat caterpillars in Zambia," he continued.

"Are they also only available in the rainy season?" I asked.

"No, you can eat them all year round."

So now I have a mission! Let's see if I can manage to eat caterpillars before I leave Zambia!


Here's a couple of pictures of fried caterpillar:

Here's a picture of grasshopper on a plate with some of the national staple, nshima (which is just the same as ugali, i.e. pounded maize)

Day 4 - Friends of the Street Children success stories

Wed 24th July

Today I was mostly in the office getting to grips with the finances, which makes for a dull blog post. Yesterday however I joined the outreach workers and we bumped into 3 people who had been helped by Friends of the Street Children.


Shoes

One guy called out to us from behind a rug on the street bearing a load of shoes and came over with a cheery greeting. He had been a kid living on the street but Friends of the Street Children helped him, and he got an education and now buys shoes cheaply in Lusaka and sells them from the side of the street in Kitwe.

Perhaps he could help the priest from this cartoon?



Television

With modest and polite friendliness, one guy said hello to us as we crossed the road. He now works for ZNBC, the major radio and television broadcasting company in Zambia, where he does camera work and scriptwriting. It sounded pretty impressive to me, but the guy seemed to have quite a modest demeanour.




Plumber

Another cheery greeting came from a guy who spotted us as we walked down the street. After he was gone, the outreach worker told me that when this guy was in the Friends of the Street Children rehabilitation centre, he was always keen to get stuck in whenever there was an issue with the plumbing.

Since he now has a successful business as a plumber, I'm sure he was better than the guy in this cartoon!

Day 3 - Mobile money: Y'ello 21st century!

Tuesday 23rd July

Y'ello! Today I joined the 21st century, courtesy of forward-looking African technology! I created a bank account that exists purely on my Zambian mobile phone, using MTN Money.

I went to a kiosk that looked a bit like this one, and asked them how long it would take to set up an MTN Money account for me, and they said 5 minutes. I timed them. It took 6! Sadly they made a mistake (I should have known it wouldn't have gone smoothly) so I had to go to a shop and provide a photocopy of my passport, but that wasn't too time-consuming and then it was done.

I now have some money that is held much more securely than cash, and which is easily liquidated. I got the idea when I got chatting some guys in a restaurant in Nyabugogo in Kigali, Rwanda last year. They worked for Tigo (a competitor) and told me about Tigo cash. I realised that if the service was accessible to poor people living in remote farmsteads in Rwanda, it should be accessible to me too.

Day 2 - Meeting Angela on night outreach

Monday 22nd July

Today I was being introduced to Friends of the Street Children, which partly involved joining the outreach workers on night outreach. To maintain anonymity, I decided to mix and match different elements of different people’s stories and use a made-up name.

I didn't get Angela's permission to put her picture on my blog, so this the picture from a google image search that I thought most resembled her.

Angela

Angela was an outgoing and bubbly girl. When we bumped into her as we walked through the streets of Kitwe at night, she asked for her picture to be taken, and then looked at the image on the digital camera and exclaimed “Ah! I am beautiful!”

Her father died when she was young, and her family continued without the main breadwinner for some time, but eventually her mum became sick as well, and the family couldn’t afford to keep all the kids, so Angela ran away. She hung around in the town nearest her village for a while, but then she came to the copperbelt town of Kitwe because there’s a big mining industry here, and she heard there’s more wealth here.

Some time back, she was out one night in a group of street kids sniffing petrol. (High quality drugs aren’t really available on the streets of Zambia, so street kids mostly rely on fuel and glue sniffing) A fire broke out and they found themselves locked in. Her boyfriend had some bottles of petrol in his pockets; he died. She had burns on 60% of her body, but survived.

Friends of the Street Children provides Angela with the comfort of knowing that some responsible adults will look out for her and the other kids on the streets at night. She also drops into the office during the day for the opportunity to be in a safe environment. This relationship can then progress to being rehabilitated and returned to her family, all being well.

Day 1 – Brazenness

Sunday 21st July 2013

I think I’m developing my inner African “big man”! At the airport I saw everyone else starting to dutifully fill out their immigration forms. I just went straight up to the desk and asked if I was in the right place for a business visa. The lady happily started issuing me one, even though I hadn't filled out the required forms. (Result!)

I then discovered that I should have brought some dollars, so the lady at the desk told me that I should pop over to the bank and get some. When I went to do this, I realized that I would have to go past arrivals and that I wouldn’t be allowed back in. So as I was exiting I just told the security guard that the rules didn’t apply to me because it was very important for me to access dollars for visa purposes. The security guard told me I would have to go round and check in again at a separate entrance.

Having got my currency, I just brazenly disregarded his guidance and went back the way I came, and ignored the protests, or quickly dismissed them saying that I had already agreed this. I kept up my African big-man swagger throughout, and got away with it. I then walked right up to my lady at the visa desk, who now had a massive queue behind her, and went to the front of it to finish off the visa application that I had already started. It’s amazing how much you can get away with if you’re confident enough. Fortunately I was less brazen than this picture!

My flight was scheduled to arrive at 1425. I was out and ready to be picked up by my taxi driver at 1445. 

Pre-departure blog post

I'll be spending a couple of weeks from 22nd July to around 6th August working with Friends of the Street Children in Kitwe, Zambia. This has been arranged once again with the help of the wonderful AfID (Accounting for International Development). Here's a picture of me taken in a restaurant in Kigali on my last AfID trip:


Followers of my previous travel blogs will recognise that they have previously included the following themes:

Weddings

Weddings - I seem to have arrived at my previous destinations during the wedding season, which is rather convenient and totally by chance. I haven't checked about the wedding season in Zambia. Maybe I will stumble upon it again...

Haircuts - I often like to get my hair cut abroad. People sometimes ask why. I think the picture says it all!

Illness - I seem to have a 50/50 chance of getting ill, usually on arrival or after I've come back. This time I'm slightly ill before I even leave. Hurrah! I have done no checks on how good the healthcare system is in Zambia - let's hope it's fine. However according to Wikipedia (which is always right!) Zambia comes 176th out of 193 countries for life expectancy. I hope I don't end up like the guy in the cartoon!



Lastly a thank you to the guys at Street Child Africa. Street Child Africa is a funder of Friends of the Street Children. I was arranging this trip very much at the last minute, and SCA stepped in to help with the costs of the flight, which would have been exorbitant otherwise.