Only In Zambia .. Part 1 (out of 4)

A reflection of the things I’ve experienced

On the Anniversary of my Two Years in Zambia,

January 26, 2008 - By Katie Price

 

1. Only in Zambia, do the same four songs come out your village neighbor’s tape player for the entire day, every single day for half of a year, until they have enough money to buy a new tape
   
2. Only in Zambia, does every other child have the name Mwape, Precious, or Chanda
   
3. Only in Zambia, do you find little girls as young as 2 wearing hair weaves that make them look like “Muppets” characters
   
4. Only in Zambia, do a group of young boys steal from you, and then you have to pay to transport them to the police
   
5. Only in Zambia do your friends tell you they’ll make you a cake for your going away party, if you pay them for it
   
6. Only in Zambia, because you’re leaving, does every single person you’ve ever met tell you that you need to give them a “remembrance” gift, forgetting that the deal goes two ways
   
7. Only in Zambia, when you teach health, do villagers ask you to pay them a “sitting allowance”
   
8. Only in Zambia, do twenty women come knocking at the window by your bedroom door at 2am, while drumming, wanting you to come out and dance by the moonlight
   
9. Only in Zambia, with your girlfriends, for fun, do you wash clothes and draw water from the spring
   
10. Only in Zambia, do you find a girl getting water from the spring while wearing a shirt, unknowingly, that says “I’d rather be shopping”
    
11. Only in Zambia, does every girl your age have at least 1 child, is married, and is a domestic housewife only (do I not relate to women my age or what? )
    
12. Only in Zambia, does every third man propose to you and say he will pay many cows to marry you
    
13. Only in Zambia, do you find yourself sitting on an overloaded bus traveling from Lusaka to your village, only to have suitcases come falling down, hitting your nose, and bloodying it
    
14. Only in Zambia, does a vehicle, once picking you up from town, never leave directly after. It must first pack the vehicle until people can’t exhale, then load everything from soybeans to bikes to chickens ontop of the car, until we can barely move we’re so overloaded, only to be stopped soon after by the road development agency
    
15. Only in Zambia, do mothers feed their one year olds cokes and lollipops (choking-nah!)
    
16. Only in Zambia, do mothers dress a baby in 3 layers of full body head to toe sweater sets on 98 degree days, not noticing the sweat beads accumulating on the child’s forehead
    
17. Only in Zambia, will you travel on a vehicle with a box in the middle of it, later to find out it’s a coffin with a dead person in it (MARCUS!)
    
18. Only in Zambia, are the mice bionic, chewing through suitcases, tupperware, bathing suits, and mosquito nets- somehow living through even eating poison as well
    
19. Only in Zambia will you find a grandpa cycling faster than you while carrying his wife, his grandson, and then asking you to pick him up and carry you with him, which he does, somehow
    
20. On in Zambia, do people who live on less than $1 a day singing and smiling all day long