Welcome to Zambia

We'd like to welcome all of you to Zambia! I'm guessing most, if not all of you have never been to Zambia before, and very few have been to Africa. We are the eyes and ears here on the ground, so we will try and share as much as we can about this beautiful culture.

First of all, Zambia is COMPLETELY different than England. We are currently in the "dry season" here, so we've seen clouds one, maybe two days, and the weather ranges from 70-80 during the day, and about 50's after dark, starting around 6:30 pm. It doesn't always feel like we are living in a developing country because of how nicely the embassy is treating us. We live in a little gated section of flats, nice kitchen and living room, bathroom, two bedrooms, and people come clean our apartment every day and do laundry twice a week. I'm trying to not get use to this, but guys, it's pretty nice. We have a gym and pool that we can use at any time. We also live in a more affluent area, so we don't often see the depth of poverty that is in Zambia unless we drive out a little further.  We don't have a car, so Joe gets picked up and dropped off from work every day. I know, it's hard.

Our flat

There is one grocery store that is only a 2 minute walk from our flat, so it has made quick shopping much easier than in Oxford, but it doesn't have much variation. I walk for about 25 minutes to get to Woodlands Shopping Mall, which has a much nicer grocery store with 4x the options. We only buy produce at the store, but there are people selling all sorts of things on almost any road.  I've heard the produce can be pretty good on the street, but you want to soak it in bleach before using it. So we are just playing it safe. The price of food is equivalent to the United States for many items, but people are making nowhere near the amount that Americans make. Food is expensive, but human labor is very cheap.

A few stalls, right across from our housing complex

The view on my walk to Woodlands Mall

When it comes to walking around Lusaka, I feel pretty safe during the day.  I was a little nervous the first few days just because it is a completely new area, but I have fewer hesitations now.  Walking down the street in Oxford was different - no one looked at you or made eye contact, they wouldn't even say "excuse me" - very reserved people. In Zambia, I feel like a bug under a microscope, for many reasons
1. I'm white. (Known as "muzungu" here)
2. We walk. There are other white people in Lusaka, but most have cars or take taxis. So I rarely see another white person walking on the street.. I wonder what the Africans think of us :)
3. I'm female. Women are viewed a little bit differently here... I guess you could say I'm a hot commodity because I am a young, american woman. Thankfully I have Joe here!!!!!

If I ever make eye contact and smile at someone, 95% of the time they say hello to me.  They are more chatty and want to talk as much as they can to us. I love how friendly they are!

7th grade classroom that I visited last week

Joe is at work until 6 pm most days, and by the time he gets home it is dark. So we take advantage of Friday Afternoon and Saturday to explore together. We have taken taxis several times because Lusaka is pretty big - population of 1.7 million people. We were naive our first few weeks in Lusaka, but we are learning how to barter for a taxi drive and what is a reasonable price. There are taxis everywhere - they are waiting at the gas station or grocery store, and even honk at us on the side of the street to see if we want a ride.  Usually, their minimum is 70 kwacha (about $7.00 usd) if not more. However, my friend the other day told me I shouldn't be paying more than 50 kwacha for most places I travel in the city. That first time, her friend got the taxi for me, for only 50 kwacha, and then I hopped in the front seat. I think the taxi driver was  little surprised :) Since then, I have pulled out my awesome bartering skills to pay for the price that they would charge another Zambian. Joe has a little tender heart, and doesn't like contention or confrontation. I have no problem with confrontation, on the other hand, so I barter more than Joe. Our last few taxi drives, all of the drivers have started at 70 kwacha, but we stay at a solid 50 kwacha, and they always take us.

Another prime example of how we are charged more than natives comes from our visit to the Kabwata Cultural Village on Friday. It's a little area that sells lots of handmade crafts, definitely made for tourists, but we thought we'd go check it out because it was recommended. I love nativities and want to start collecting them, so we asked one shop if he had any nativities. He brought back to nativities - one that was a dark wood which looked similar to the one I bought in Ghana, and then a more unique nativity that was made of twigs and thread. We expressed interest in the latter nativity and asked the shopkeeper for a price, and he said 750 Kwacha. That is SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS people. There was no way we were going to pay that kind of money. Joe and I both laughed and told him it was no where near worth that price. We moved on to another shop which had several of the thread nativities, and asked for a price. This shopkeeper said 200 Kwacha ($20.00). Still more than I would pay for it, but it was hilarious to see the difference between the shops. It's difficult because tourists often don't know what a reasonable price would be, so I think a lot of people are taken advantage of. So one piece of advice, always ask people before hand what something should cost, and then start with an even lower bartering price, and work your way to something you would pay.

Kabwata Cultural Village

Attending church here has been a unique experience in and of itself. The church is going rapidly throughout Africa, but Zambia has not seen as great of success. There are 14.54 million people in the country of Zambia (1.74 million in Lusaka, the capital). And there are only 3,577 church members total in all of Zambia. 1 stake and 2 districts. (Elder Andersen shared a story about a missionary in Zambia last conference! So neat https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/whoso-receiveth-them-receiveth-me?lang=eng)
Our ward is technically the largest in the stake regards to number of records, but it is smallest in attendance. Most Sundays, we only start with 10-15 people, but about 50 show up by the end of Sacrament meeting.  The first Sunday, I told the chorister I could play the piano - their piano is broken but they have a keyboard. So yesterday, they brought out the keyboard and played during sacrament meeting. They haven't had a pianist in a very long time, so several people commented to me how nice it was to have piano music again. I feel like one of those missionaries who is grateful they took piano lessons for so long so they could play the hymns in church - things mom :)
Our church building is a bit closer than Oxford, so it takes about 45-50 minutes to walk home

Gardens on our way to church

Joe and I want to strengthen this ward as much as possible in these short two months that we have here. We also have been having the elders over for dinner. The elders from our ward and the other ward came on Saturday for dinner and games. They are house-bound for six days because Zambia just held elections on Thursday, and we are still waiting to hear the final results. There is a concern for violence, so the missionaries are supposed to stay indoors until all of the hype is over. It was good we could get them out of the house for a few hours. After they shared a spiritual thought, Joe asked them each why they stayed active in the church. Three of the elders are finishing their missions in the next 2 months, so Joe also asked them if they were going to stay active once they returned home. I was surprised at how honest they were with us. All 4 missionaries come from families with inactive or excommunicated members, so it wasn't the easiest decision for any of them to come on missions. The first elder going home is from the UK - he said that was a difficult question. His father is inactive, but did serve a mission when he was younger and said it was one of the best experiences in his life, so this elder wanted to do the same. He told us it was hard to answer if he was going to stay active. The second elder going home soon is from Swaziland. He said he was absolutely going to stay active. His older brothers served missions, so he wanted to serve a mission as well. But he said it was his choices that led him to staying active in the church. The third elder going home is from Zimbabwe - he told us it would be hard to stay active going home. He originally stayed active in the church because his older brothers were active. He didn't always want to go to church growing up, but his brothers would lock the door and say he had to wait outside for 3 hours for them to come home if he didn't want to go to church :). I asked him if he would still stay active even if his brothers weren't active. He said it's hard because his brothers are all inactive now and the strongest was excommunicated.
My heart goes out to all of these elders. You would hope that all of these elders would say they would absolutely stay in the church once going home, but the reality is a lot of YSA struggle staying in the church. I realized these missionaries needed just as much strengthening as the members. I think we can all be better at supporting the missionaries in our areas. Joe and I both shared our thoughts on how to stay strong in the church, but I hope and pray these elders stay strong and active.

We are loving Zambia more and more every day! We feel so grateful to be here and for the internship Joe has been blessed with - he will tell you all more about the aid work he is doing next :)  We are trying to make the most of our time here as well by exploring different parts of Zambia - you never know if you'll ever be back in Africa (but knowing Joe and I, we probably will be ;)