Living in Two Worlds

Our first impression of Zambia we had already in the train. The rural areas were just as underdeveloped as in Tanzania. At every village we passed, running children accompanied the train, screaming and waving their hands. For them it was the event of the week and they were happy when we waved back. You clearly saw that there was no infrastructure at all and that life has not changed so much in the last several hundred years.

We arrived at Kapiri Mposhi, a town in the Copperbelt. Northern Zambia is rich in copper and cobalt so with its mines, this region is slightly wealthier than the rest of the country. However, its economy and the well-being of the people highly depends on the world copper price. From there, we took a minibus – which was loaded like a normal bus – to the capital Lusaka. For more than 3 hours, we sat cramped on the vehicle and every time we passed the police checkpoints, one of the local passengers had to get out and pass the checkpoint walking, and the driver gave the policemen a bribe so they did not see we were completely overloaded. Regarding Lusaka, we were expecting everything. Moloch, chaos, dirt, poverty, we even were prepared to make our way through the streets with a machete, but not for what was actually to come.

After a chaotic search for a hostel, we asked for the nearest supermarket to buy the ingredients for dinner. We walked ten minutes through an upper-class area and ended up at a huge, super modern mall. We stood with our mouths open in the food market, astonished and happy. They had everything you could wish for here, vegetables, fruits, French cheese, different wines, Italian olive oil, Greek yoghurt, dairy products and a big bakery. After weeks in remote, dusty Western Tanzania, which culinary is “without form and void”, this felt like falling into Garden of Eden. Not so heavenly were the prices. They are at European level and in the mall we saw dozens of expats. Yet the majority of the customers are rich local people, many of whom demonstrated that you can use an iPad and iPhone simultaneously without any difficulties. This is not the only mall in Zambia’s capital, but there are lots of them. In the past years, Lusaka received a lot of investment – especially from South-Africa – and has developed at an enormous pace. In the center you have wide roads, big designer shops, banks, fast-food restaurants, and on the streets you see more BMWs and Mercedes-Benz cars than on the entire world-trip together. It feels like a city in the US: in Lusaka, you can easily forget you are in Africa.

At least in the guest-houses with their steep prices, the mentality is really different from what we had experienced so far. People do not let you wait, the standard procedures are known and they give you the feeling that your issues matter. For instance, the electric socket in our room was broken. We asked at the reception and guess what they did? They called and electrician! And they did not simply call him, but he even came, and immediately, and he was able to repair it without looking at it for an hour with a desperate hope it would fix itself. Probably you can imagine how surprised we were about such a story ….

But still, this world is just a small part of Zambia. Thanks to Damaris and Joachim, friends of Steffen who have lived in Zambia for a few years, we were able to experience the other part. They made the contact to Nancy and Serge, two Canadian missionaries, who are in Zambia for more than 10 years now. We met them in the mall and had an interesting (German translation for: so incredibly wonderful) time sitting together at breakfast and talking about their experiences and work. Afterwards, they organized a trip to the “Village of Hope” in Chongwe, half an hour drive away from Lusaka. In the “Village of Hope”, orphans and other children from problematic backgrounds find a new home and good education opportunities. There are many of them in several countries of Eastern Africa and Nancy and Serge work hard and travel a lot to help keeping things running and to expand this network.

In the “Village of Hope”, we got a very warm welcome. First, the manager led us around the facilities and showed us the school and the simple but lovely chalets where 8 children live together with one “Mum”. Then the children performed some singing, dancing and praying for us, which was so nice and cute that Eli almost had tears in her eyes. The discipline is quite high but the children really seem to be happy, they enjoy the playing hours and have a fair behavior towards each other. After the official program, we joined them in their free time. While Eli talked to the girls about school, their future jobs, African capitals and was taught how to make African braids, Steffen and I had some serious things to do: we played a slightly disorganized but anyway great football match with the boys. We all had lots of fun and we are grateful for the opportunity to having made such an enriching experience and got a glimpse of both worlds in Zambia.