Random notes from my first weeks in Lusaka

Before coming here I searched for material about Zambia. I found one brochure from the internet that had some pictures on the front cover. One of the pictures showed Victoria Falls, and another one showed a perfectly normal road in a good condition. I guess the picture was supposed to show how Zambia is a modern country with good roads, but somehow it did the opposite. I remembered this thought on monday, my first day here, after we had been driving around Lusaka on perfectly good roads for some time. I had noticed that too few lanes seemed to be a bigger problem than the condition of the roads. Immediately after that thought came to my mind, we turned to a smaller road, to the road that takes me home. That was in such a bad condition that I would've never believed possible. The driver managed extremely well but at times I was really worried as there was also a lot of water on the road.

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Good news: My name seems to be difficult to remember (and I mean my first name as with my surname that's no real surprise). I am really bad with names and I find it always embarrassing when I don't remember other people's names so it is actually a relief.

Sometimes this leads to funny situations. Couple of times, something like this has happened when someone has tried to start a conversation with me on my way to work:
-What's your name?
-Anu
-What?
-Anu
-Why can't you tell me your name?

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I knew that one of the topics that the earlier volunteers had taught was communication skills, but I was really hoping that I wouldn't need to teach that. The reasons for that are numerous: I don't consider myself very good in that, I don't have that much information, and communication is so culture dependent that it is difficult to teach the others what they should do - the risk is they might even believe what I say. So, I went to organize the computer classes with one the teachers. The discussion went something like this (it was in reality longer and had probably a lot more misunderstandings):
-Will you be teaching also communication skills?
-Well, I would prefer not, because it is so culture-dependent.
-So when do you want to teach the communication skills? We could make space for that for fridays.
-[???]
-Do you want to teach also the older class?
-I've seen what Maiju has done with them, and I think she has gone through the most important points with them, so I don't think it is necessary.
-So you'll teach them also.
-[???]
So, yes, I will be teaching communication skills.

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The work permit can only be paid by check, so I had to organize that. I thought that it would be a simple thing of just going to a bank, paying, and then receiving a check immediately. First glimpse of that there might be more to this was when I heard meantioned how last time it went really fast because it took only one day. Therefore we went to the same bank. However, this time it didn't happen quite that swiftly: I had to wait for the check for one week, and even then there was a mistake. It also costed 80 000 kwachas to prepare a check for 500 000 kwachas.

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Zambian immigration office has USAID computers. The office is also full of posters warning of corruption.

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My hair is very popular with the children of the family. From a Finnish perspective there is nothing interesting in my hair: it's long but not that long. However, here it is exceptionally long, as it is altogether my own hair. The children are envious, as their hair just simply doesn't grow that long and also my hair is a lot smoother.