Cost of living

€ 1 = K 6450 (Damn Greeks!)

Prices:
K 300 SMS
K 500 Tomato
K 500 Banana
K 500 Frita
K 800 Egg
K 1 000 Apple
K 1 000 Orange
K 1 500 Avocado
K 2 000 Cabbage
K 2 500 0,33 l bottle of lemonade
K 3 000 Local newspaper
K 3 000 Minibus ride in Lusaka
K 3 000 0,5 l of milk
K 3 000 0,33 l of coke
K 3 800 Loaf of bread
K 7 500 90 g chocolate bar
K 8 000 Packet of good biscuits
K 8 000 2 yards of chitenge fabric
K 9 000 Hourly rate in an internet cafe
K 9 000 0,5 l of yoghurt
K 10 000 Second-hand dress
K 10 500 Cappuccino
K 12 000 250 g of real butter
K 12 000 6-inch sandwich at Subway
K 13 000 400 g of beef mince
K 20 000 Live chicken
K 26 000 2 l of cooking oil
K 32 500 The Economist
K 35 000 Medium sized pizza
K 35 000 Taxi to Kamwala South
K 35 000 Pair of second hand jeans
K 50 000 Chicken tikka with rice in an Indian restaurant
K 50 000 90 g of parma ham
K 60 000 10 kg of rice
K 60 000 Pair of new jeans (Made in China)
K 60 000 Dorm bed at a backpackers in Lusaka
K 65 000 25 kg of mealie meal (the ingredient of nsima)
K 150 000 Fixed rate water bill for a month (cheaper if there is a meter).
K 150 000 One-way bus ticket to Lilongwe, Malawi
K 150 000 Night in a lodge
K 400 000 Monthly rent for two rooms in Chawama
K 450 000 45 kg bale of second-hand dresses
K 1 200 000 Monthly rent for two rooms in Roma
K 4 000 000 Semester in UNZA without government bursary
K 10 000 000 Monthly rent for a three bedroom house in Kabulonga.
(The prices obviously vary a lot depending on the quality of the goods and where you buy them, so these are just examples.)

Monthly wages are harder to find. The following are according to JCTR but they seem a bit high compared to what I've heard. They get the data from unions and organizations. (They also publish a basic needs basket monthly.)
Guard: 250 000 – 850 000
Secretary: 1 390 500 – 1 900 000
Teacher: 1 300 300 – 2 200 600
Nurse: 1 300 000 – 3 450 000

If you take a good look at the prices, you'll notice that quite a few things are actually more expensive here than in Europe. Dairy products are particularly expensive as are many imported things: computers can cost double the amount they cost elsewhere. I was told that the reason is a monopoly / oligopoly in many products. So while many things are cheap, to have a “western” lifestyle, you need to pay western prices.

A minibus ride for 2000-3000 kwachas doesn't perhaps sound expensive. But if you stop to think of it for a while, it's about K 100 000 in a month. If you need to take two minibuses to get to work, the price doubles as there are no monthly tickets. In practice, you might end up paying more for public transport here than what you'd pay in Helsinki, where you can buy a monthly ticket. Based on means of transport, you can divide people into three income classes: those who walk to work, those who can afford to take a minibus, and those who have their own cars.

When looking at the wages, you might start wondering how do the poorest even manage to pay the rent (I still do). That's why there can be easily ten people living in two rooms. Extended families live together to keep the fixed costs smaller. This is common especially in Lusaka where housing is more expensive than elsewhere in Zambia.

Second-hand clothing

One of the things that surprised me when I came here was how almost everybody is wearing very Western clothing. The clothes look just like the clothes we wear. There is an obvious reason for that: they are our old clothes that we have donated to some organization. I tend to forget it but sometimes the clothes themselves remind me on that, for instance by having the text Hessischer Radfahrerverband, or SC Althüttendorf Frauensport in the back of a t-shirt.

So how do the clothes come here? What happens to the clothes after we chuck them to a UFF collection bin? According to UFF webpage two thirds of them are baled as such and sold onwards, I'd imagine that most of them end up somewhere in Africa. The rest is sorted already in Finland. Of these, a part will be sold in Finland (6 % from all clothes donated to UFF). Bigger share (15 %) is discarded as waste. And the rest is sold onwards as sorted quality.

The bales usually arrive first at Dar Es Salaam. There, the unsorted bales are opened, sorted and baled again. The sorted bales are then sold onwards again, for instance to Lusaka. In Lusaka, the second-hand clothes end up in Soweto (close to where I work). From there, the bales are again sold onwards. You can see lots of shops advertising 'Salaula' which means 'rummage through a pile' in Bemba. My way to work, Los Angeles road, is filled with vendors selling the lowest quality second-hand clothes. The clothes are on big tables and people can truly rummage through the piles.

Higher quality second-hand clothes are usually sold in proper shops. In fact, this is actually the sector where the father of my family works: he has his own shop in Soweto market selling second-hand clothes. It is actually pretty good business. It brings also a fair number of jobs: in sorting, selling and modifying the clothes. The lowest quality of second-hand clothes are very cheap, so even the poorest can afford to buy clothes.

Unfortunately, nothing is as simple as it might seem. The massive influx of second-hand clothes has had a devastating effect on the textile industry in many African countries, including Zambia. The jobs that have been lost were in formal sector whereas the new jobs are in the informal sector. Then again, a fair question is whether the Zambian textile industry would've been able to compete with Chinese imports. At least second-hand is environmentally sound and generates more jobs than new imports from China.

What would be the optimal solution to this? I don't know – if I knew, I would probably be doing something else than volunteering here. All I can say is that buying low quality clothes and dumping them to charity is a very bad idea, and that buying second-hand at home is a good idea. However, I think the whole issue illustrates well a problem in donating to development aid: The focus is not in the real needs of the poor. Instead, we just want to get rid of our old clothes and have a clean conscience for buying more stuff.


(The picture is from a market somewhere in the countryside. It doesn't quite look like this in Lusaka but Los Angeles road and Soweto market are not the places where I want to go and take photos.)

Dangers in Africa

The road to Chirundu is quite new: it was rebuilt only three years ago. It is still in a fairly good condition but it has sharp curves and since Chirundu is lower in altitude than Lusaka the descent is steep. There are a lot of trucks driving to Zimbabwe and they are not necessarily in the best possible condition. Because all of this, the road is quite dangerous and it's pretty common to see accidents there. I've seen an overturned fuel truck there twice. Both times, there were a lot of villagers there collecting the fuel. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it for the first time. There were even a few policemen watching the scene but they let the people continue (they probably got their share of it).

I was planning to blog about it when I saw it for the first time but eventually I forgot about it. Now, the recent news from a neighboring country reminded me of it again.

BBC News - DR Congo oil tanker blaze 'kills 220'

Who am I?

The most common stereotype of white people is that they live in Kabulonga, are rich and hang out with other people either there or at Manda Hill and Arcades. There are some other stereotypes and expectations that surface in different situations. So, who or what am I:

-Celebrity: Everybody knows me: I hear words like Kamwala South and Chawama often around me.

-Zoo animal: Some boys actually took photos of me in a minibus.

-Potential friend: A woman at Kuku market declared that she wants me to be her new best friend. Also asking my phone number is very popular. It doesn't even mean that they would call me but just having a white girl's number is something.

-Potential employer: I've been stopped a few times by women who have inquired whether I need a maid.

-Racist: I refused to shake hands with a man who seemed to me to be either drunken or crazy, so he concluded that I won't shake hands with him because he is black.

-Respected or scary?: I went to watch a performance of one of the cultural groups at KYP. When I was in the audience, there was a half a meter of space around me that no-one dared to break even though normally 'personal space' is an unknown concept.

-Donor: The performance was about malaria prevention. After the performance, a woman came to talk to us and asked how she is supposed to get a mosquito net. She was clearly expecting me to be giving them away. I've also been asked to start a college - and the person asking that was well-educated and smart.

-Backpacker: When I go to the intercity bus station, the men there always expect me to be going to Livingstone. When I get off a bus there, the taxi drivers suggest taking me to Chachacha Backpackers.

-Bank: I get asked for a loan way too often.

-Sight: I've lived here now for over four months. Still, all the children want to greet me when I pass by. While travelling, if the car stops in any rural area, it is very quickly surrounded by curious children staring at me.

-Status symbol: I was walking with a guy to Kanyama, and he wanted to stop by at all of his relatives and friends just to show me around.

-American: This is one of the funniest ones. Someone started a conversation with me by saying “America is a great country, isn't it?”. Some have assumed that I'm from Peace Corps.

-African: When I had my hair braided, I received an unimaginable amount of positive feedback. Not only friends and colleagues but also strangers in the streets and minibuses complimented me on my hair. Some also said that now I'm a real African.

Notes from minibuses

Sometimes the minibus journeys are plain frustrating but it's true that my life would be a lot more boring if I drove with my own car. I could have a blog where I'd explain only the funny things that have happened to me in a minibus but I want to share a few of them with you:

I was in a minibus going home after work, and our minibus had to stop because an MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres) car came behind us with emergency lights and sirens on. Two minibuses followed immediately after the MSF car. They had obviously seen their opportunity to pass all the other cars when they are giving way to the emergency vehicle.

…

One evening, I took a minibus from the Embassy supermarket to go home. There is no bus station there but usually there are people dropping off from the buses that come from town, so it's not difficult to catch a ride from there. I took the first minibus that I saw – or actually heard the familiar John Howard, Chawama shout. The minibus had only the conductor and the driver and no other passengers but they started driving anyway. Unfortunately they turned to the wrong direction. I got very worried, and it didn't help much when we turned to a small road where there were basically no people around. They explained me how they were just avoiding the police but as I hadn't seen the police car, it was hard to believe it. Eventually, after driving those small roads for a while, we started seeing more people and we got to a place that I recognized. They dropped me off at my usual stop and didn't even take any payment from me because they had delayed me.

…

I took a minibus to the Manda Hill mall. Because I don't go there often, I was unsure how much the ride should cost. That's why I asked from the girl sitting next to me whether she knew the price. It turned out that she was going there as well. She asked what I was planning to do there and I rambled about “nephew's” birthday and that I needed to buy him a present. Then I asked her plans and her answer was that she works there in a pizzeria. Duh. Served as a remainder that usually people going shopping in Manda Hill don't take a minibus.

…

During that same minibus journey, there was a man sitting on my other side. He told me that he had seen white people before but had never talked with one. He was very nice and polite but he had a question: he wanted to know whether white people have any culture. He told me how he can do wood carvings and then asked from me what I can do. This question took me first by surprise but I answered that I can knit, and that I learned it from my grandmother. Soon after that I came up with an even better example: I can do Finnish folk dances (I considered it safe enough to mention it as it's highly unlikely that I would ever be in a situation here where I would need to prove it – it's probably 15 years since the last time I've danced.) He was impressed after hearing this, so I succeeded in removing at least one misconception of the white people.

KYP city campus

The campus area is quite large, it is surrounded by walls, and there are quite a few trees in the yard, so it's nicely calm and peaceful in comparison with the hectic Los Angeles road.

The main building that was built rather recently with support from TEVETA:


The door on the left side leads to the tailoring workshop:


And from the tailoring workshop you can enter my office. Note the HIV/AIDS posters on the wall.


There are HIV/AIDS posters around the campus. This one is my favorite and right outside my door:


All the windows have bars:


There are also numerous animals in the campus:


In this building are the hotel & catering and auto mechanics classrooms. The auto mechanics workshop is behind the trees and the minibus:


In this building are the computer class and the accountant's office:


The computers are quite a mixed collection:

Food, part 2

A friend listed some ideas on what I should write about in my blog and one of them was food. This happened about three months ago, so in case you have any suggestions, it's a good idea to tell them immediately or otherwise I won't manage to write about them before leaving Lusaka.

Food here is basically synonymous with nsima, maize porridge, which is the staple food. Nsima doesn't have any taste at all, so it wasn't too hard to get used to eating it. We eat rice as well and occasionally also pasta. Rice is also cultivated in Zambia, especially in the Western province.

Typically we have some protein source and some vegetables with nsima. In my family, the protein source varies rather evenly between fish, sausages, beef, chicken, eggs and beans. The vegetables are often impwas, okra or some leafy greens such as pumpkin leaves, rape, sweet potato leaves or some others of which I don't know the names. My favorite food is eggplants with eggs.

The amount of meat is fairly small but we do eat it regularly. It might be beef heart though. However, there is a protein source that everybody in my family says they prefer over beef: caterpillars. They have a very high protein content, so in that way they are an important part of the traditional Zambian diet. I wasn't too enthusiastic about them but I closed my eyes and tasted a few. The taste isn't too bad but the mouthfeel doesn't allow you to forget what you're actually eating. They are not a big part of our diet though; during these three months we've had them twice and there was always something else besides them.

Fish is common in our household, either fresh or dried. I'm not a huge fan of fish since in my opinion nothing in this country happens that fast that you could have proper fresh fish in Lusaka. The dried fish is sold in the markets so I see daily the amount flies around the fish, which doesn't really increase my appetite. Then again, closer to water, the fish is often excellent. A specific type of fish is kapenta, which is a very tiny fish. It used to be one of the cheapest protein sources but apparently isn't anymore. Kapenta tastes like fish, so I prefer it over caterpillars (unlike the rest of the family) but I have the same prejudice against kapenta that I have for fish in general here.

Vegetables are almost always cooked. When I cooked for my family for the first time, I made some salad and the teenager of the family said that it was the first time ever she had salad.

Spices are not commonly used, in my home there were no spices besides salt, before I bought some. Salt is used a lot. I don't know is it the heat or what, but I've also developed a taste for salty food. Month ago I found myself adding salt to a toasted sandwich in a restaurant.

There are many customs related to eating. Before eating, we wash our hands. Classically this is done so, that there is a dish filled with water, and the man (the head of the house) washes his hands there first and then the rest in some sort of rank order. As the bacteria and diseases can actually spread that way, there has been campaigning against the custom, so instead we have a separate dish for fresh water, from which we can pour water on the hands.

Traditionally everything throughout the meal follows the rank order: men take food first, then women and the children last. Man is the one who brings the money to the house, so he gets also a lion's share of the food. There are also some other details that show the rank: For instance, I get a porcelain plate whereas the children eat from plastic plates. Traditionally also, the man would eat seated on a chair while everybody else sits on the floor. We have a dinner table but not all can fit around it at the same time, so some of the children usually have to sit on the floor. So did I for the first three months before we got the dinner table.

Nsima we eat with our fingers but rice or pasta we eat with forks or spoons (there are never enough forks for everyone). I had lunch with another mzungu in a restaurant, and we ate nsima with our fingers – not very exotic for either one of us after already spending a few months in Zambia. However, to the waiter this was apparently something special and afterwards he come to thank us for respecting their customs.

Admittedly, I don't eat nsima in a restaurant that often – once a day at home is quite enough for me. That time, the lunch restaurant had ran out of rice before we got there. Usually I go to Subway or to an Indian restaurant. Subway is cheap here, and it's nice to eat some fresh vegetables sometimes. Indian food isn't that cheap but there are quite a few Indians here so the Indian food is usually excellent. Then again, pizzas and hamburgers are hugely over-priced and not that good.