A Zambian Hen Party!

I recently had the pleasure of being invited to a ‘kitchen party’, which is a type of Zambian hen party. Although I didn’t actually know the engaged couple, my friend Holly works with the groom and had been encouraged to bring a friend. It was a very interesting and fun experience.

Apparently kitchen parties are usually held before the wedding, like hen parties are in the UK. However, sometimes they are held during the actual wedding day. On this occasion, there was a church service in the morning followed by a kitchen party in the afternoon and then a ceremony in the evening. I was told that the church service and evening ceremony are more similar to wedding celebrations in the UK, whereas the kitchen party is quite different.

This type of event is called a Kitchen Party because guests are expected to bring a gift for the bride and groom’s new kitchen. Guests are informed of the colour scheme beforehand (black, white and apple green in this case) but not which particular item to buy. I think the bride at the party I went to received at least five kettles and four crockery sets! Bringing and presenting a present is a big part of the event. People are very generous, and spend a large amount when you consider local salaries. Some guests at the party gave the bride kitchen units, tables and chairs. At a kitchen party there are usually several opportunities to give money. We had been advised to empty our purses of all but small notes before we went!

Gifts to stock the couple's kitchen

We arrived at the party two hours after it was due to start, to find that the location had changed from the original details on the invitation. As the only white people at the party, we were ushered to seats in the front row, which I felt was rather crazy considering I didn’t know the bride! We then waited another hour before the party started. The bride had a particular dress which was especially for the kitchen party, and it matched the green and orange colour scheme of the party. Ladies played the drums whilst other guests stood and clapped as the bride entered. In fact, her entrance involved her crawling in on her hands and knees with two members of her family, concealed under a large piece of fabric!

The bride's entrance!

There were at least 200 ladies gathered at the party. Imagine having all your female friends and family together dancing, eating and generally having a good time, yet not being allowed to smile! That’s what is expected of the bride here in Zambia. Someone told me it is a tradition that shows she is taking it seriously. It must be quite a challenge. I struggled not to smile when I was part of a group photo!

Lots of guests gathered

Large helpings of meat, rice, potato and salad for lunch

Presenting the gifts took a long time. When a present is held up, the person who brought it takes it to the bride and explains what it is (whilst she continues to keep a serious, straight face!). It is unwrapped by the lady leading the proceedings, rather than the bride. After handing over the present, the person giving it then has to dance in front of everyone! Zambians of all ages seem to be natural dancers, so Holly and I must have looked pretty ridiculous attempting to dance like them. There was a lot of laughter. We noticed that following the dancing, the person who had given the gift would then lie on the floor and turn over to lie on the other side. Apparently this is a sign of respect, so we joined in when it was our turn, which all the ladies found hilarious.

Dancing after giving a gift

Holly and me

Unlike traditional hen parties in the UK, the groom has a role to play in the kitchen party. Towards the end of the party, he proceeds in to meet the bride with a group of friends or family gathered closely around him. Holly and I were also persuaded to join in with this bit, even though we had no idea of what was going on or what would happen next. Fortunately it meant just walking in as part of the group and then a bit more dancing at the front.

The groom meeting the bride

The groom then meets the bride (still not smiling) and their mothers are invited to sit at the front. The bride and groom greet the mothers, and this is followed by respectfully lying on the floor in front of them and then more dancing all together. 

As well as being lots of fun, the kitchen party was a completely different experience to anything I've been to before. It was a great introduction to some of the cultural traditions that form part of a Zambian wedding.

Mothers of the bride and groom

The bride caught smiling!

Power cuts here, there and everywhere

Power cuts in Zambia - I imagined them to be just an occasional inconvenience, and probably standard for a real African experience.

Well that’s how it first seemed. We would randomly lose power, normally for a few hours at a time and only every couple of weeks. Because no power also means no water for us living here in Kaniki, we soon learned to keep large containers of water around the house. We made sure that torches, candles and matches were left somewhere easy to find. We even begrudgingly accepted that the toilet could only be flushed if it really had to be! And other than that, we carried on with life as normal. After all, this is Africa!

Walking round the house with a candle during a power cut made me feel like I was in the Victorian times and the first time I cooked dinner on a gas stove using a head torch was quite an entertaining experience. One particular night, I was eating at a restaurant in town when the power suddenly went down. The restaurant reduced the menu to food options that could be cooked in a gas or pizza oven, and we ate by candlelight. Many businesses, including Baluba Farm which is just across the road from where we live, were forced to use generators so that they could continue to function whilst the power was off.

Dinner by candlelight

  

Unfortunately these occasional power cuts have become a much more regular, and now prolonged, daily experience. Zesco, the company which generates and supplies electricity to Zambia, is a public utility which means it is owned by the Zambian government. Zesco’s slogan ‘Powering the nation’ now seems a little ironic! Zambian energy is largely hydroelectric, and produced by Kariba Dam which is a hydroelectric dam in the Zambezi river basin between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Zambezi River at the Zimbabwe/Zambia border

In June we heard that there was a problem with the dam, because of the low rainfall this year. We then heard that the problem was that the dam was in fact damaged. At one point we even heard that Zesco were still exporting electricity to other countries, although they claim that they weren’t. It’s quite hard to know what is true.

‘Load shedding’ was introduced in June. This means that country-wide power cuts are scheduled to reduce electricity and shed the load on a wider scale, in order to prevent a collapse of the power system. Load shedding began to be scheduled several times a week and this was quickly increased to five hours a day, either 5-10pm, 10am-3pm or 3-9pm. Although these power cuts were inconvenient, they became a lot more manageable because we knew when they would occur.

It is easy to moan but I haven’t actually found the recent load shedding as bad as I expected. Having advanced warning means that I can charge my phone and laptop in preparation, and work out the best time in the day to have a shower. A gas oven solved the problem of how to cook, until the gas ran out too! After a couple of trips into town, I was finally able to get a small canister refilled with gas, although there was not enough to fill anything larger.

Evenings in candlelight

I suppose that I have experienced just a few ill effects of the power problem. However Zambia is the second biggest copper producer in Africa, so load shedding is having a very negative impact on the mines. They have had to cut jobs and reduce their power usage and try to make up for the deficit by buying imports which are more expensive. Businesses and farms have to rely on generators, which puts their costs up and this means that the price of food is rising. The kwacha (the Zambian currency) has plunged against the dollar, which suggests that an economic crisis may be looming.

Over the last couple of weeks our load shedding has been increased to eight hours of power cuts a day (5am-1pm or 1pm-9pm) and we have heard that it may increase to 12 hours at a time! As the sun sets at 6pm every evening, we are spending many more evenings in darkness. It reminds me that I am having an authentic third world experience but I also wonder what longer term impact this situation is going to have on the country. Excuse the pun but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of light at the end of the tunnel!

Life and Death

One Thursday afternoon, I went with one of our Zambian Arise volunteers to visit a grandmother who is a guardian for four Arise orphans. She used to work as a secretary so she had a good understanding of English, even though she spoke in Bemba. When we arrived at her home, I noticed several cars parked near the house - quite unusual as the people we support through Arise are unable to afford cars.

Sadly, the reason the cars were there was because the lady’s family and friends were gathering for a funeral. She explained that one of her own children had died just the day before. He was just 32 years old, the same age as me. As he had only been ill for a couple of weeks, it was quite a shock when he passed away.  I found out that the lady originally had 8 of her own children but only two of them are still alive.

Since I moved to Zambia, a number of people I know here have had to deal with death and attend family funerals. My teaching assistant's niece, who was only in her twenties, died recently.  Another colleague's sister died earlier in the year. One of the pastors we know here led a funeral for his 11 year old nephew who died from malaria, and another friend’s relative died in childbirth. Then last month one of the Arise boys in Grade 12 died from tuberculosis. These were all children or adults under forty.

Kansenshi Cemetery, Ndola

I’ve found that people here deal with death in a more matter-of-fact way than I am used to. This isn’t because they're not sad, because when I talk to them I know that they are. People still grieve and sometimes this is actually shown in a more extreme way than what we might expect. For example, you can spot women at the airport who have flown in for a funeral - they often wail loudly when they greet the people who have come to collect them and sometimes they collapse on the ground.

I guess the matter-of-fact manner that I’ve seen here probably comes from having to face the tragedy of death more often than many people do in more developed countries like the UK . I've learned that in Zambia it's polite to ask someone what happened when you hear that someone has died. It's more acceptable to ask after them even if you don't know what to say in response.

Large numbers of family and friends gather for funerals here. They all eat together at the home of the deceased, so it can put a considerable financial burden on the immediate family. Women wear traditional chitenges (bright fabric wrapped around the waist) and often an open coffin means people can view the body. The gathering at the home is referred to as the funeral and then the burial happens afterwards. Most people here don't approve of cremation.

We drive past a large cemetery on our way in to Ndola town. One day the traffic was really slow going past, and it turned out to be because a huge crowd of people were gathering for a burial. I wondered if it was someone well known in the area as there were so many people there. Music that sounded like a brass band was playing loudly. 

Sometimes life seems very short, and this is even more apparent in Zambia. I believe we feel like this because God designed us to live for eternity and what we see around us now is not all there is. There are so many unanswered questions and things that don't make sense to us as humans but I am encouraged to 'live by faith and not by sight' (2 Corinthians 5:7). We should also remember my sister Rachel's favourite saying… 'We're here for a good time, not a long time!'

Birthdays in Zambia

Some of my Zambian friends celebrate their birthdays with friends and family like we would in England. However, this is not representative of most Zambian people. A lot of the children we teach don’t even know when their birthday is, and not because they are too young to remember. Sometimes their parents or guardians don’t know the child's date of birth! If the child was born at home rather than at the clinic or hospital, then they don't have a birth certificate. In fact, it’s interesting how many children at school were born on the 1st January, according to their application forms!

I suppose that because birthdays aren’t such ‘a thing’ here, the children don’t know any different so they’re not really missing out. However, I think birthdays are a great reason to celebrate a person, and a good excuse to have fun. Yesterday I turned 33 and had a really lovely day celebrating. In true Zambian style, my day started with a power cut and boiling water on the gas stove so I could wash in a bucket (I can assure you that this was not the lovely part!). In the morning, I Skyped my parents and then one of my friends from home. A friend here then took me out for brunch. In the afternoon I spent some time being pampered, as my auntie kindly treated me to a massage, manicure and pedicure for my birthday! I have discovered a very nice salon in the centre of Ndola,quite similar to ones at home – not the mud hut my sister Rach said she imagined when I was telling her about it. In the evening, I went out with some friends for a meal in town, and then I Skyped my sisters and my parents again when I got home.

A big thank you to everyone who sent me cards, presents and messages for my birthday. I very much appreciated hearing from lots of people at home and am thankful for all the birthday love!

A full English breakfast!

Birthday pampering

Michaelangelo's Restaurant, Ndola

Me, Rosie & Holly

It’s All Relative

Zanzibar is a very beautiful island off the coast of Tanzania. Lots of expats and missionaries who I've met in Zambia recommended going there, so it was the location my sisters and I chose for our summer holiday destination.

My sister very generously contributed to my share of the accommodation as an early birthday present for me. It meant there was no need for camping; in fact we stayed in a rather luxurious place (my sister Rach is a bit fussy, or has ‘high standards’ as she puts it!). ‘Next Paradise Boutique Resort ’, where we stayed, is very aptly named. There are only 20 rooms in a large, beautiful space. We spent 12 peaceful, fun and relaxing days there. I would thoroughly recommend it!

Most of our time was spent at the beach, swimming in the pool, reading in the sun, snorkelling or playing Bananagrams (a game a bit like Scrabble). We had a guided tour around Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar, where we learned more about the history of the slave trade and bartered in some of the local markets. We also walked around the local area and learned some Swahili from the waiters and resident Masaai warriors (the security guards at our resort).

We Cross sisters love travelling and holidaying in new places. In the last few years we have enjoyed visiting St Lucia, Sri Lanka and Cuba together. Organising this year was slightly different with me living in Zambia on a tight budget, but we decided to book something so that I would get to see Rach and Rhi during my year away. Since Rhi is due to move to the States in the next few months, I don't know when I will next see her. So it was great fun for the three of us to be reunited again.

In some ways for me it felt different travelling to this luxurious destination. Rather than working hard and saving up all year in the UK, I've been surrounded by poverty in Zambia. I interact with people struggling to make ends meet on a daily basis. I could ask myself how I can justify spending the money (either mine or my sister’s!) to go on such a nice holiday when I know people who don’t always have enough to eat. It can be hard to know how to hold these things in tension.

One of the things that helps me is realising that everything is relative. Some people who live in Kaniki have a family, a job, food, friends, a church community and a happy life. I'm not sure that they need all the 'luxuries' we are used to at home, such as Wi-Fi and dishwashers! At the other end of the scale, there are some people who live in huge mansions and only holiday on private islands. And in the same way, I don't need those luxuries in order to enjoy my life. These things are all relative depending on the situation you’re in.

I guess we can get used to a certain standard of living (like grubby kitchens with endless piles of washing up in student digs!) but it doesn't mean it is necessarily what everyone else wants or needs. Not everyone I know at home would relish the thought of living here among the dirt and insects, enduring constant power cuts (more on this topic in another blog post…). But I think that’s ok; we’re all different. 

This doesn't provide an adequate answer for how to fully live with the tension between poverty and wealth. But I'm learning that there are many complex issues involved in changing communities. One person denying themselves treats or luxuries does not necessarily go very far in solving anything, although on the other hand, it is good to be generous. I am reminded of the serenity prayer: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference’.

Funnily enough, there is also a type of materialism that exists in Africa. I’ve noticed some people who have TV sets in their houses even though they don’t have a job, just because they want to be seen to have a television. Someone I was talking to here recently didn’t understand why I would prefer to walk somewhere instead of drive, because travelling by car is seen as superior to walking! Although we’re all different, there also seem to also be some commonalties, even across cultures.

A Trip into Town

Where I live in Kaniki is approximately 15km from the city of Ndola, and most of the journey to get there takes you straight along a really long road called Mufilira Road. Although there are a few vegetable stalls nearby and our local farm sells a small selection of foods, most of our shopping has to be done in Ndola. This means a trip into ‘town’ at least once a week, as well as other trips there for church, restaurants, sports etc. As this has become a regular part of my routine, I thought I’d give you a flavour of what Zambia’s third largest city is like.

If you've read my previous blog posts, you may have noticed that the roads here are bumpy and full of potholes! Some areas are particularly bad and the potholes also gets worse after rain. On our journey to town there are two roadblocks where the police stop people to check insurance or the condition of their vehicle and so on. However, you will not find any police there if it's raining!

A roadblock along Mufilira Road

Ndola itself has a population of over 450,000 and is reasonably built up. The main road in the city is called President's Avenue. There are lots of local shops, selling everything from food, clothes and chemists to hardware, car parts and wigs. There are also two big shopping centres which are more similar to the shops we would visit at home. They are called Kafubu Mall or Jackaranda Mall and are where we go if we want to feel at home.

Ndola city centre

There is quite a variety of places to eat out within Ndola, some of which you would recognise. These include Nandos, Subway and Hungry Lion, which is pretty similar to KFC. One of my favourite places is a restaurant called Bojangles which only opened at the beginning of the year. In fact, most of the development within Ndola has happened in the last five years.

A recent visit to Bojangles

Another favourite place in town is Gigibonita ice cream parlour. This is run by an Italian charity called 'Rainbow' who support orphans. One of the girls in my class is sponsored by them and had a heart condition, so the charity paid for her to travel to Italy for surgery when she was younger. As many of you know, I am very happy to eat ice cream, and even more so if it supports a good cause! There's lots of choice...

Working my way through all the flavours...

When I first arrived in Zambia, I heard that at the beginning of the month you often can't get cash out of the ATM machines here. Apparently this is because this is the time when most people get paid their wages, so many of them take their money out and the banks run out of cash. I didn't quite believe this until I tried to get cash out, can now confirm that it’s true!

A trip into town usually takes us a whole afternoon since the journey itself is a good half an hour drive either way. We also find that regardless of what we go into town for in the first place, everything takes longer here so shopping is not as straightforward or efficient as we are used to. This is quite different from my usual two minute walk into town back in the UK, as my flat is in the city centre! However, as living in Kaniki can sometimes feel quite out of the way, it is great to still be able to ‘pop’ into town and access so many of the facilities that Ndola has to offer. 

Guest Blog - A Visit from Rhi

Rhi, my younger sister, recently came to visit me in Kaniki. I asked her to write a post about her experience...

Most people who know me would be able to tell you how much I love my job as an Occupational Therapist. I have the privilege of visiting patients in their own homes and helping them find ways of improving their independence and quality of life. So I was very excited to have the opportunity to join Ellie and Rosie on some of their regular visits to people supported by Arise during my time in Kaniki.

Twice a week, Ellie and/or Rosie drive out to the surrounding areas to visit the families who are part of the Arise project. As they only have about two hours each time and there are over 80 families in the project, they get to meet about three or four families per visit. Either Lister or Evangeline, the two Arise volunteers, joins them to help translate between English and Bemba. These visits allow the Arise team to see how the families are, find out what challenges they are currently facing and offer encouragement and support. It also means that the Arise team can ensure that the money being donated to the charity is used for the most urgent needs.

Eva, Rosie, Ellie and Lister

I found the Arise visits both encouraging and incredibly humbling. Over the past year Zambia has faced a poor rainfall, so many families have been unable to harvest enough food for the coming months. Understandably, this was often mentioned as the biggest challenge that the families face. We also met families with other needs, such as an elderly lady caring for her orphaned granddaughter who didn’t even own a pair of shoes, and an orphaned child living with her grandparents who didn’t have a coat, despite the fact that it can get very cold at night and in the mornings. Being face-to-face with such extreme need can feel uncomfortable, especially when you have four pairs of flip-flops in your suitcase and lots of coats hanging up at home, not to mention seven supermarkets within a mile of your home in England. It is difficult not to jump in straight away and buy them whatever they ask for. But this level of need is on such a large scale, and so wisdom is required when providing support. Ellie and Rosie try to find out what the most urgent needs are and ensure the families know that the Arise project is there for support during desperate times.

Visiting an Arise guardian

The most memorable family that we visited during my time in Kaniki was a lady called Charity and her three sons. Charity is malnourished and bedbound, suffering from a very severe and undiagnosed condition which results in open, weeping sores on her hands, head, face and feet. She also has Herpes which has similar effects on other areas of her body. In England, if a patient is bedbound we would be able to provide them with a pressure-relieving mattress, equipment for moving them, toileting equipment, and sometimes a profiling hospital bed. In Charity’s case, she lives in a small mud hut and sleeps on a single wooden bed with a worn blanket and a bowl underneath for toileting. Charity’s teenage sons live with her and are the only family she has nearby. In England the family would receive help from carers to meet Charity’s care needs and to help with domestic tasks. Her sons would receive support from local organisations and at school, and the family would receive the financial benefits that they would be entitled to. In reality the family relies solely on the generosity of donations from the Arise project to provide their food, and fortnightly visits from the Arise team to provide encouragement and support. Rosie and Ellie have been trying to get support from the local clinic and church, but at present Charity’s sons are expected to wash her, care for her, run the household, provide the meals and go to school. The boys are very hardworking, but aren’t able to earn the money needed to sustain the family.

Rhi showing the boys how to treat Charity's hands

It is difficult to put into words the frustration and helplessness that I as an Occupational Therapist felt visiting Charity and her boys. In England there would be so many solutions and avenues of support that I could offer to them. In Kaniki, I felt powerless. It was in feeling like this that I noticed the one thing we were able to offer them is the one thing I am not allowed to offer to patients in the UK; God. We sang and prayed with Charity and her sons, and the peace and hope that defies all unfair, desperate situations was tangible in her home. Charity was joyful, dancing in her bed, whilst singing to God. She seemed a different woman from the one we found crying out in distress when we arrived.

Seeing first-hand the amazing work that Ellie, Rosie and others are doing through the Arise project was exciting. There is so much need out there, and they are using whatever resources are at their disposal to meet it as best they can. The Arise project brings love and support to people who have nowhere else to turn, and through the Arise sponsorship programme they are giving children and young adults opportunities for education and training that would otherwise be beyond their grasp. To say that I am proud of my sister would be a massive understatement.

Ellie, Rosie and Rhi

P.S. The elderly lady got some shoes and the child got a coat! 

A new coat!