Aldous Huxley once said that “experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.” In the last 5 weeks, we have had many experiences and they are all most definitely influencing our views.
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| A sign we stumbled aross in The Bush |
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| An African toilet |
On Saturday, after a busy week at school, we took a day trip to a nearby village called “Simonga”. The day didn’t exactly get off to the easiest start. We got, what we thought were, the buses that we had been told to get there. Our second bus pulled up to the side of the road in literally the middle of nowhere. When the driver assured us that we just had to walk down a long mud path to get there, we were pretty suspicious. We were under the impression that Simonga Village was quite a large, well-known, local village. We reluctantly got off the bus and literally the second we stepped off, the bus whizzed away, leaving us with no chance to turn around and get back on. As Amy and I looked around at the various trees and open grasslands, we heard a massive roar which at first, we assumed must belong to a wild elephant but we later found out that it was actually a cow.. ahem.. In shock we started walking as fast as we could in the direction we had been pointed. We didn’t pass any people or buildings but we did pass a warning sign with pictures of elephants and monkeys. Of course, this led us to presume we were surrounded by hungry lions and so we carried around large sticks, just in case. After saying about sixty times over “this is definitely not the village”, we arrived at a deserted lodge area where the only two workers assured us that “this is definitely not the village”. We were in fact about 2 km away from the village. The women used our mobile phone to call the son of the head of a closer village (It’s so weird that even in the villages of Zambia, they don’t sell milk but they sell phone credit?!?). He then met us and gave us a little guided tour of his village. Mostly, he just told us which mud huts belonged to his aunts and uncles and he pointed out the hole in the ground which acted as a toilet for the people of the village-so stinky!
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| Some of the cute kids in the Village |
Eventually, after our little detour, we were pointed in the direction of Simonga village and were introduced to a man called Martin who showed us around. If I am completely honest, my view of African life in villages was pretty distorted before we came here. In fact, my view of Africa in general was pretty stereotypical. In the same way that a lot of people would describe the clichéd view of Americans as being lazy, loud and overweight, I understood the African people to be fairly backwards. I suppose I thought that the men who lived completely off the land here all had several wives, that the women worshipped a different god for every part of nature and that the children were all severely malnourished. I suppose this view came from being given out to as a child as there were “starving children in African who would appreciate that meal” that I wouldn’t finish. When you watch all those ‘Concern’ ads, you can’t help but get the “poor African Orphans with Swollen bellies” syndrome.
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| An average Village hut |
In reality, the village that we visited was actually a lovely little place. The people are all so friendly and they seemed to all get on very well together. This particular village has a population of about 500 people and so, is pretty much a self-sufficient town. The village has a bar, a school, a pre-school, a village shop and even a clinic. There are a few buildings which are not made of just mud and sticks but all of these have been donated by westerners. The pre-school had a man-made, wooden playground and an interior that would rival any Northern Irish playschool. The clinic, sadly, had been built by westerners a few years previously but as there were no doctors or nurses, the building remained unused and empty.
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| The kids following us around Simonga |
As we walked around taking everything in, about two dozen children followed us, fighting to hold our hands and chattering away to us in as much English as they could manage. One 11 year old boy even told me of his dreams to go off to university and become a doctor. The day really just made me throw away all the stereotypes I had before.
I have noticed that Zambia is a very Christian nation and people would frown at the thought of someone who doesn’t attend church. Even our children in school get excited about memorising Psalms. Simonga village actually has numerous denominations of Christian churches and even 5 Muslim inhabitants. As such, people here do not all have several wives or do rain dances to make their crops grow. We did notice that a lot of the children’s bellies were quite swollen, but their families do their best to get nutrition into them. They boil nshima on charcoal and cook fish and leaves to the best of their ability without any electricity.
In saying that the village is far more advanced that I had thought it would be, I guess it’s relevant to mention that it was a railway town and so has had a lot of influence from the ‘Mzungos’. The book I’m reading at the moment is called “Things Fall Apart” and is by a Nigerian author called Chinua Achebe. It’s set in a tribal village around the time that British colonial rule came into place. Reading from the point of view of villager is really making me consider whether it was for the better of African people that their standards of living were improved by colonisation, with the sacrifice of their tradition and culture.
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| Most of the huts had a seperate kitchen outside where they cook food on charcoal and eat with their hands on the floor |
Altogether, the day just added to our various cultural interactions here. Zambian town life and Zambian Village life are definitely quite different though! I think for now, I prefer being able to bring our materials to a tailor to get dresses made and have lights to turn on at night time, even if there are regular power cuts!
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