Pre-trip Thoughts

-posted by Gabe
I've spent the past couple of weeks beginning to familiarize myself with Zambia through literature and film media. Melinda and Sonia have excellent suggestions, but the media have begun to impress upon me the enormous cultural gap we will face on this trip.

The film "T-Shirt Travels" traces the compelling stories of the clothes many Zambians wear. Only a tiny fraction of the clothes we donate to Good Will or other local agencies stay in the US. Some huge fraction goes overseas to places like Zambia, where entrepeneuring businessman buy bundles of used T-shirts, pants, coats, etc. and sell them in regional marketplaces for cash or trade. This film delves deeply into the economic woes faced by this country in massive debt to the World Bank, and the implications this debt has for even the most optimistic entrepeneurs, and the future of the country. When your options are limited to selling clothes produced outside your country, your future is not bright. In addition, when your country's commerce depends so much on outside industry, there is little chance for you to learn the skills which will be needed should our country ever pay off its debt. Sobering thoughts.

I've read two books centered on the Malawi/Zimbabwe/Zambia region. "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" is a very very uplifting story of a Mulawi resident whose experience with life threatening hunger inspires him to build a windmill in the hopes of powering a water well which could allow his family to raise their own crops, even in times of drought. The boy manifests persistence, ingenuity, and enormous faith in himself as he uses an old tractor fan, bambo, PVC drain pipe, and a host of other "junk" to run a dynamo attached to a bike wheel. A series of fortuitous happenstances occurs such that the windwheel is brought to the attention of some influential Africans, and the end result is that the boy climbed from obscurity to be recognized as a modern hero by most people who hear his story. The themes of science vs. culturally valued mysticism, of the value and also impediments to typical education, and just the hardships of life when your basic needs are not guaranteed are compelling. We live in a world where we struggle to deal with too much (too much stimulus, too much food, too much work to do), while he deals with a world of too little.

The second book is called "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight". It is also compelling but very different as this book chronicles the childhood of a musunga, or white foreignor, living in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia. The backdrop of this girl's childhood includes numerous wars related to overthrow of colonial rule (typically British) and therefore race relations is a big issue. It was interesting to compare and contrast race relations before and after independence in Africa vs. the US. What would it have been like to be a British colonialist in the US after 1776? This is somewhat analogous to this girl's position, although her family really has nothing to do with the colonial government. Even so, the musunga live in a relative position of power (economically for sure) relative to the native Africans. They have servants, toilets, electrical power, and less of a danger of starvation, relative to the boy in the previous book. And yet life is still hard for these white Africans, who are subject to the whims of corrupt local governments, border officials, terrorists, the weather, etc.

I don't really know where i am going with all this, except to say that i think the cultural gap we will experience is going to be huge. I will be much more aware of economic conditions, both now, and prospects for the future. I will be aware of the differing status of whites and blacks, and our very different status from whites living in the country. The cultural gap will be draining, but i'm sure the intensity of bridging that gap will make interactions memorable for the rest of my life.