The Differences between African and American Way of Life

Last Friday, I was invited to be a guest on the one and only radio station in Monze. You know you are in a remote area of the world when only one radio station comes in even on your short wave radio. The DJ and Radio Host Machamandu wanted to interview me on his "Friends of Our Country" radio show. Machamandu asked me questions about how I would compare Zambian way of life to America. We discussed the differences between our food, weather, friendships, the courtships between men and women, marriage, children and other facets of our different cultures. When Machamandu asked me if I was married and had children and I said "no" he could not even hold back on his shock. It was like I told him I have never been with a man before. He couldn't believe that a woman at my age wouldn't have at least 5 children by now. It is not comprehensible to most people here because throughout most of the African countries the most important purpose in their lives is getting married and having many children.

I had several in depth conversations with a few of my new guy friends who were born and raised in Zambia and they told me that they were raised to get married at a young age and their parents would tell them which families they should marry into. It isn't as strict as the arranged marriages in India, but it is similar. They went on to tell me that they were not necessarily "in love" with their wives at first, but they built on a friendship and parenthood bond that they feel is much stronger than the feeling of being madly in love with someone. I think I have been watching too many romance movies because even though I agree that a good friendship is an important element to a solid relationship/marriage, I also thought that being in love with someone is the most important ingredient to a great relationship/marriage. I am beginning to think that it might not be a bad idea to instill some of the African beliefs.

The biggest observation of cultural differences I have had is watching the kids play. Even though the kids here have next to nothing for material belongings in addition to not having any shoes and hardly enough food and water, they are always smiling, laughing and generally very happy. I hardly hear any of the children cry. If a child hurts themselves playing, he/she will put their head down and cry to themselves for a few mins and then pick themselves up wipe their own tears and go back to playing and laughing again. It is like they have learned naturally to not dwell on the negative and focus on the positive. It is amazing to see the pure joy in these kids faces and realize that they don't have anywhere near what our kids have access to in America. I guess ignorance is bliss in their case. The volunteers at BSI are the only ones that provide the kids with any sporting equipment. They don't even have one soccer ball to play futbol with. They end up making their own balls from bags and grass. It is so sad to take the ball away from all those kids when we are done playing with them at the end of the day. The good news is we just got a donation of 100 soccer balls and 100 t-shirts from Nike. The kids are so excited that we will be able to leave them with one ball in each compound to play with when we are not there to play with them. I have posted some of the pictures we took of them with all the balls.

Another big difference is that there is no such thing as credit or loans in most of Zambia. "No Cash, No Purchase". Maybe America should think about that concept. We might not be in the economic crisis we are in if we had that policy. Okay - I realize that is far fetched and without credit there would be no growth.

Shifting gears to some miscellaneous updates from my life in Monze. On Saturday, I went for a long run and I felt like Forrest Gump because many kids started running along with me and the amount of kids grew larger as the run went on. It was such a fun experience to see all those kids looking at me and smiling. I had a huge smile on my face the whole run. I can honestly say that is the best run I have ever had in my life.

On a scary note, I saw a snake on my walk home yesterday and I almost freaked out. Thank God I just turned around and walked away from it. What helped me remain calm is that I just had a long conversation with my friend Perry who told me what to do when I see certain types of snakes. We talked about it because my neighbor Marina had to kill 3 snakes in her backyard in the last 2 weeks. She said one was a cobra and the other 2 she thinks were black mumbas - which is the deadliest snake in the world. Those snakes come out mostly in the raining season. Thankfully, the snake I saw was neither it was probably a grass snake, but Perry told me it was a snake that can still bite you and you would need to get medical attention within 30 minutes to survive. I sure hope I do not see another snake while I am in Africa. I don't care what kind it is there is nothing I am more scared of than snakes! I think it is because when I was young I saw my dad get bitten by a snake and it was a horrifying experience for a young girl to go through.

As for the Kalundu OVC school project, we met with the school coordinators and the volunteer teachers yesterday. It was a very productive meeting. Francis, BSI Founder and I gave them the priorities to focus on first for building out the school. They have great vision, but they are going to need our management and business experience to organize the production of that school. It is going to be a long term process and we need to manage their expectations that they are not going to get everything all at once. It will take a year or longer to build this school out to provide for 400+ kids. They understand that this will be a long term relationship. What is great is that Francis has committed to me that BSI and all the 20+ volunteers will be managing this project when I go back to the US. So, all the money will be organized through Francis (who I trust with my life). He lives and breathes for helping kids. It is wonderful to see someone as passionate as he is for something that is helping so many people. As we were leaving the school all the kids starting running after us and wanting to hold our hands and say thank you. It was so cute when one of the school girls pulled me aside to personally thank me for buying her the school books and that she said that she will be sure to study hard. Thank you again for all of you who have donated. The kids will want to send you a thank you letter. So, send along your address to me via email.

In summary, what I have observed in the past 4 weeks is that even though the people of Zambia don't have any where near our material and financial wealth, they are incredibly rich spiritually and with their inner joy and happiness which is more important than any material or financial wealth.