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….
We can say that this represent the direction of changing society. Zamchick is a symbol of globalization- modernization and in fact chicken is pleasure for children on the streets (not only).
ReplyDelete2ndly- rapid urbanization in Zambia. People are moving to big cities without any control or restriction. Government finding it hard to provide infrastructure and basic needs to these families. As there is no future waiting for the children, they try to create they own future by running away from their families and staying on the street...hmmm...it shouldn't be like this.