24 October 2003
It didn't make sense: Why hold a protest rally at a gas station?
(Assuming you're not protesting high gas prices.)
On Tuesday, I did some interviews at New Start, the biggest of Lusaka's VCT (that's voluntary counseling and testing for HIV) clinics. I briefly met Emmanuel, the guy who runs the clinic's Post Test Club, a sort of AIDS-awareness group for both positive and negative. Emmanuel mentioned offhandedly that the club's members would be having an HIV/AIDS rally Thursday morning at 9 a.m. to publicize the crisis and ask government to pay more attention. There would be some traditional dancing and drumming, he said, and some local celebs were supposed to show up. Kenneth Kaunda himself might make an appearance.
The location: a filling station called Ody's, on Kafue Road, south of the roundabout at Kamwala Market. I double-checked to make sure.
So about 8:15 this morning, I asked a taxi driver to take me to Ody's on Kafue Road. He seemed to know where it was, and a few minutes later, I was there.
No dancers, no drummers, no signs, no protesters.
Maybe I was early, I figured. So I wandered around the gas station, which is attached to a supermarket and a small cafeteria. Immediately, every passing cab driver started honking his horn at me. (Cabbies here assume any white person walking -- hell, standing -- is a fare waiting to happen.) The clock ticked closer and closer to 9. No sign of anyone.
I scanned over every African face I could find, thinking: "Does he look like an AIDS activist?" I looked in particular for Emmanuel, but unfortunately I barely remembered what he looked like from our brief meeting. I remembered he bore a resemblance to Avery Johnson -- that's about it.
(Maybe this is bad of me, but I find myself remembering some men's faces by comparing them mentally to NBA players. So I know lookalikes for Brendan Haywood, Gary Payton, and Jalen Rose. Oh, and Mos Def and Don Cheadle.)
Finally, this guy started walking up to me, striding with purpose. I figured maybe he was attached to the group. Then he called out to me: "You are very white!"
Yeah, I know.
Turns out Joseph (his name) just wanted to me to give him money so he could go move to the United States and work in a restaurant. He asked me if I would take him back to the U.S. with me. No build up (other than the comment on my paleness) -- just an expectation I'd put him up back in Dallas. I gently said no. I told Joseph about my situation. He said this place was indeed often used for protests and marches (why I still don't know -- it's a crappy location). But he didn't know anything about an HIV rally today.
I expected to see other reporters or news organizations at the gas station. After all, the local press doesn't do much other than cover events and speeches. (It's not the most aggressive, investigative media I've seen.) But I saw nothing.
Bored, I picked up copies of the three local papers (the Post, Times, and Mail). Newspapers here aren't sold in stores -- they're hawked exclusively by street vendors. Pelekelo explained a couple nights ago that they buy the papers for 1,600 kwacha (about 32 cents) and try to resell them for 2,000. Unfortunately, if they can't sell all their papers, they're stuck with a loss -- the papers' owners don't accept returns. So if a vendor buys 50 papers in the morning and sells 35 of them, he's actually lost 10,000 kwacha. Doesn't seem like a good business model for the vendors. So I'm always buying papers to help them out.
Nothing too exciting in the papers today, except for a minor update on the Big Brother House case. See, the people who produce Big Brother did an extremely popular version called Big Brother Africa, in which 20 or so folks from 20 different African nations vied for reality-television supremacy. In conservative Zambia, local ministers railed against the show, calling it an abomination (presumably because unmarried people shouldn't be living in such close quarters) and asking state-owned TV not to carry the show.
But then the Zambian woman on the show, Cherise, won the whole thing. Immediately, the nation turned around -- Cherise became a huge celebrity, and even the ministers were talking about how stirring her victory had been. The government made her an honorary ambassador. Everybody loves Cherise.
Anyway, last week, police in Ndola found 12 teenagers in a house where they were supposedly running a brothel and having wild orgies. The Times, never one to pass up an opportunity, named it the Big Brother House in Cherise's honor.
(It seems some days that half of all the stories in the local papers are about sex. I talked with a reporter at the Post who acknowledged it: "You won't see a serious issue on the front page often. It's sex and gossip that sells.")
By 10 a.m., I felt safe in assuming there had been some miscommunication. There would be no rally today, at least not here. I went back into town. There you have it, the perils of reporting in Zambia in a nutshell: miscommunications, trouble connecting, and time wasted. Since then I've spent three hours calling people and not reaching them. Tomorrow's a national holiday, so government folks all went home around noon, apparently including the people who keep the phone lines in working order -- I haven't gotten a call through in over an hour. And on top of that, Kaunda's people say he may be able to give me an interview -- but on Saturday, which means I may not be able to go to Livingstone after all. One of my reasons for going to Livingstone is that if I stay here, my time will be wasted because of the holiday weekend; now it may be wasted waiting for a phone call from Kenneth Kaunda. Frustration!
22 October 2003
The weather's turned here. The rainy season is trying its best to begin, spitting out sprinkles every morning with 20-minute thunderstorms some nights. Best of all is the temperature, which can get downright cool in the morning. Much better than the 95-degree standard set in week one.
I spend a decent portion of my day on Cairo Road, Lusaka's main commercial drag. It's where the Internet cafe I'm sending this from it located, and it's also where several of my interviews have taken place. (The name is a leftover from old man Cecil Rhodes' dream when he was running the show in these parts -- he wanted the British Union Jack to one day fly over a contiguous African empire stretching from Cape Town to Cairo. Cairo Road is part of the continent-long road that was supposed to connect that empire.)
Cairo Road is a nice, buzzing place, with lots of street traffic and pedestrians. But the other day I realized something: I've probably spent at least 20 minutes walking on Cairo Road every day since I've been here. But in that time, I've seen a total of one white person. (Other than my own pasty self.)
Where are the white folks? There are two explanations for that, one historical and one very modern:
- Historically, Zambia has never had many white folks. Britain's colonial aims never involved really developing what was then called Northern Rhodesia. Unlike in Zimbabwe and South Africa to the south, the Brits never committed to large-scale settlement -- Northern Rhodesia was an afterthought, used primarily as a labor source for neighboring colonies. So other than the folks who ran the mines in Zambia's north, few whites ever moved here.
And since Zambia gained its independence earlier than its neighbors (this Friday is the 39th anniversary of 1964's independence), many whites took the opportunity to scamper off to South Africa or Zimbabwe, which remained white-controlled until the 1990s and 1980s, respectively. I've seen one estimate that there are only about 3,000 white Zambians today, in a country of about 11 million.
- But here's the real scoop: All the white people are at the mall!
About five years ago, a retail revolution took place in Lusaka. Someone very smart (and, I presume, now with a fat bank account) decided to open Shoprite, the first supermarket in town, on Cairo Road. Zambians loved it, having suffered through tiny shops that offered little. The place boomed, and black Zambians still shop there in large numbers.
But a year or two later, some other smart developers realized there was a market for a good old American mall. They found a big tract of land outside town and built a shrine to commerce called the Manda Hill shopping center. It's immaculately clean, filled with upmarket shops (well, upmarket for Zambia at least), and accessible only by car.
I went there for the first time this weekend. White people everywhere! Here a white person, there a white person, all throughout the mall. (Actually, white people and Indians. Most of the shops I see in Lusaka are owned by Indians or Muslim Arabs.) The developers clearly thought of Manda Hill as an escape from old-style Lusaka commerce for the upper classes. It's an interesting divide -- you start to wonder how much interaction these whites have with blacks in their daily lives. Probably not much, other than in the role of employer.
Last night, I met up with Pelekolo, an editor at one of the local newspapers and a friend of a friend. He wanted to drive me around; he said he wanted to show me the "real Zambia." So he took me to O'Hagan's, the chain fake Irish pub at Manda Hill.
I suppose that's just as much the "real Zambia" as anything else -- including the "Club Manhattan" we went to after dinner, featuring cold Mosi and a really cool, six-inch-long frog in the parking lot. (I suppose my wildlife sightings have begun.)
Anyway, reporting's going well. I've had more success tracking people down, and I'm starting to see the pieces fall in to place for my main stories; keys are turning and locks unlocking. It's still difficult to get people to be honest about HIV here, but that's a subject for a later post. I'm trying to track down Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia's first president, for an interview -- I think that'll work out. And this morning I interviewed MC Wabwino, Zambia's No. 1 rapper/accountant, about child sexual abuse. I think I can confidently hold that over your collective head for a long time to come.
21 October 2003
Want a challenge? Try getting people on the phone in Zambia. I spent three hours this morning calling a list of about 20 people I want to talk to. I spoke to exactly one of them.
You really grow to appreciate things like voice mail, call transfers, and "Press 1 to continue" when you get to a place like this. Problems with either my cell network or the land lines left me out of touch off and on all morning. The Zambia phone book lists two, three, or even eight phone numbers for each major business -- since at any given moment, one or more of them might be out. About half the numbers I had were "not in service," despite being listed for major organizations in a 2002 phone book.
By afternoon, I just started showing up at offices unannounced. I got mostly confused receptions. All I have to show for my day is one interview set up for tomorrow and some worn shoe-leather.
(One thing I've noticed since I got here, and really noticed today: Either my hearing's shot or Zambians are very quiet talkers. And I know it's not the former, since the Bob Marley comes through loud and clear. [Actually, it's a lot of Dr. Dre and Snoop tonight, which is an improvement. As Snoop might say, Ain't nothin' but a Z-thang, baby. Belo is the company that pays me.] That and the thick Nyanja/Bemba/Lozi accents make this seem like a non-English-speaking country at times.)
For those curious about what to expect in the near future, I'm staying in Lusaka until Friday. I expect to then head south to Livingstone, home of massive Victoria Falls. I'll be splitting my time between great sadness (lots of orphans and dying kids -- Livingstone has the highest HIV rate of any city in Zambia) and (reader warning: approaching mood shift) silly joy.
See, one of my stories is a travel piece on Vic Falls' emergence as the "extreme sports" capital of Africa. The area around the falls has, among other things, the world's highest-rated raftable white water rapids and the world's tallest bungee jumps (from the amazing gorge railway bridge, more than 300 feet up). Among the other attractions: riverboarding, kayaking, jetboating, microlight/ultralight flights, and sky diving.
But what I'm really excited about is the the Zambezi swing. It's like a cross between a bungee jump and the world's largest tree swing -- with a running start. It sounds tremendous. (Please, no one tell my grandmother I'm doing this.)
There's a legitimate angle to the story, too -- how Zambia and Zimbabwe have always fought over Victoria Falls, and how Zimbabwe's historically won the battle (most people think they're in Zim when they're actually mostly in Zam, and most of the tourists have always gone to the Zim side). And how that's reversing now with Zimbabwe's "troubles" scaring away rich European white folks.
A perfectly legitimate story. But you and I know it'll mostly be about me screaming bloody murder and jumping off cliffs on a rubber band.
20 October 2003
I've only covered the courthouse beat a few times in my career, when other reporters have had the day off and I've had to fill in. But from the looks of the "From the Local Courts" page in the Sunday Mail, it's a Springeresque job in Lusaka. In this week's set of news briefs:
- "Woman fined for marriage interference": "A 26-year-old woman has been ordered by the Chingola local court to pay K400,000 (around US$80) as compensation for marriage interference...This was found after the court found [the 26-year-old] guilty of interfering in the marriage of [the wronged woman] by flirting with her husband."
- Two other stories I'll mention only by the headlines: "'I impregnated my friend's wife'" and "Two women claim one man as husband." (In the latter, one woman accuses the other of being an unfair temptress because she hung around the man in question while wearing a schoolgirl uniform. Zambian men, like their Japanese colleagues, apparently find schoolgirl uniforms extremely attractive -- this keeps coming up throughout my research.)
- And finally, my personal favorite: "Man vows never to reconcile with wife." I hope someday to write an opening paragraph this compelling:
"A man vowed not to reconcile with his wife because he does not know where she took his three underpants."
The story continues: "[Husband Borniface] Mwanza told the court that his wife was fond of going to her parents whenever they quarreled and that she stayed away for many weeks. He said that on one such occasion when his wife went to her parents, he discovered that his three underwear were missing. He said that no one bus his wife could have taken them.
"Mwanza said he also did not want to reconcile with [wife Lizzy] Mwewa because she was lazy and did not do domestic chores as would be expected of a wife. Mwanza said at one time his short went missing and that he found it with one of his wife's brothers."
Mwewa, for her part says hubby was "a womanizer who took women to their matrimonial home whenever she went out. Mwewa said Mwanza did not want her because she was thin and short. 'My husband told me that he wanted to marry a fat and tall woman. He packed my belongings and told me to go to my relatives,' she said."
Unsurprisingly, the court determined this marriage could not be saved and ordered Mwanza to pay his now ex-wife K1,500,000 (about $300) in alimony and child support.
Don't cry for Mwanza, though, as his quest for a hefty lady has apparently been successful: "He told the court that he did not marry another woman but he was in the process of doing so."
19 October 2003
If you want to get Internet access in Zambia, here's what you have to do:
- Call ZamTel, the national phone monopoly. Wait about five minutes for someone to answer the phone (with a simple "hello" and no indication you're calling a business). Say you want to buy an Internet account. The woman will make you repeat the word "Internet" four or five times, then seem to understand and say "Go to the main post office."
- Think about that, realize that post offices often play multiple roles in Third World countries, and head down to the corner of Church and Cairo roads, where the main post office is. Ask the man at the counter where to get Internet access, and he'll tell you the second floor.
- Walk up one flight of stairs to the second floor. Ask someone there if this is where you get Internet access. No, he'll say -- that's on the second floor.
- Remember that in Europe and her former colonies, the bottom floor of a building is often called the ground floor, and what we Yanks call the second floor is what they'd call the first floor. Go up one more flight of stairs, relieved at having decoded this small mystery.
- Find that the second/third floor is apparently used only for storage.
- Go back to the ground floor and ask Mr. Post Office again. Discover he is using second and third floor as interchangeable terms, perhaps aware of the transatlantic terminology gap. Notice that this time he tells you to go up a different stairway to, well, one of the floors above this one.
- Mentally count how many armed guards you've passed so far (five) and how many appeared to be sleeping (one).
- Curse yourself for wearing hiking boots with thick rubber soles today, as you listen to the symphony of squeaks they make on the tiled hallway floors.
- Ask on both the first/second and second/third floors. Finally reach someone who knows what the Internet is. Listen carefully as she tells you you're in the wrong building altogether, and watch as she points the correct building out from her second/third floor window.
- Try to walk to the new building. Find it is surrounded by an eight-foot concrete wall. Circumnavigate the building one and a half times looking for a public entrance, then decide to try your luck with the armed guard at the entrance marked "Staff Only! No Public Allowed Here!"
- Find the armed guard friendly, and go in. Climb stairs, go down halls, go down stairs, climb stairs. Wish Zambia had a stronger tradition of signage.
- Finally find a door marked "Internet Sales." Walk in and find five employees not doing much. (Zambia, as a formerly quasi-socialist state, is big into giving one person's job to five people.) Ask to get an Internet account.
- Fill out three forms, the third requiring the signatures of four witnesses and a process similar to notarization. Watch a woman pull out a huge ledger entry book -- perhaps two feet long and a foot tall closed -- and enter your name, email address, and password. Realize that every email address is Zambia is handwritten in this book. Wonder what would happen if that book got lost. Realize that no computers have been used in this process of getting Internet access.
- Go down three hallways and down two flights of stairs to a small room where you present your 214,000 kwacha (about US$45) for two months' Internet access.
- Go back to the office and ask what access numbers one dials to use this new Internet access. Watch the look of wonder come over the woman's face. Explain to her what an access number is; listen to her confusingly say "You'll have to talk to the technical staff for that information." Learn the technical staff is in another building, of course, and that you'll know which office is theirs because it has a "wooden wall."
- Walk to this other building; discover the whole building has "wooden walls." Ask around; find the techs; get the access numbers; go home.
I'm coming up to the end of week one in Zambia, and it's been a good start. I wish I'd been a bit more productive, but I've done about a dozen interviews and have a pretty solid understanding of what I need to do from here on out. I've narrowed myself to 10 stories -- three specifically about the impact of HIV/AIDS on Zambia's education system (which would likely run as a series), two others about AIDS in general, two about game preserves, one about agriculture, one about Polish refugees in the 1940s, and one about bungee jumping. (Whether my employer is interested in publishing them all is a separate matter. They might want to avoid Zambia overdose. Then again, by the end of this, I'll probably want to avoid Zambia overdose myself.)
I'm currently rereading one of my favorite books, The Granta Book of Travel. (Introduction here.) It's a compilation of pieces from Granta, the terrific British literary magazine. They're less about travel than about foreign correspondence -- writers trying to figure out the Sendero Luminoso in Peru (Nicholas Shakespeare), Idi Amin in Uganda (Patrick Marnham), or a coup in Benin (Bruce Chatwin). It's all first-person, and all about the journey a journalist takes when trying to figure out a place or a situation. (It's no coincidence that many of the pieces' titles start with phrases like "In Search of..." or "In Pursuit of...")
It's the sort of writing that got me interested in overseas works. It's a uniquely glamorous form of journalism: Writer puts himself in Dangerous Situation to find the Ultimate Truth. Each piece hangs on the obligatory moment where our fearless author discovers himself in deep trouble -- rebels about to pounce, the government about to detain him -- only to emerge unscathed through wit, good sense, and luck.
(It's also the sort of writing that can only be produced in quantity by writers from a former empire -- the Brits, in this case. There's a certain romanticized, colonial-office smell about them.)
They're terrific tales, great reading -- and tremendously sexy for newspaper folks who spend their days writing about curriculum reforms and the latest putsch at the Texas Education Agency. It's sort of a more vigorous, (dare I say manly, despite the presence of Isabel Hilton and Martha Gellhorn) version of the classic New Yorker long-form story.
Of course, they're also all about ego and self-aggrandizement. The reporter's always the star, not the story. In some ways, it's more honest -- putting the writer front and center puts authorial subjectivity on display. And by exposing the reporting process, it makes clear that we often don't know what the hell we're doing. (If a story is titled "In Search Of..." something, it almost invariably means the writer didn't find it.) And they usually don't tell the reader anything they couldn't figure out from reading a few New York Times articles. But damn, they sure are fun to read.
I'm not sure if I have a point here, except to recommend the book and the genre for distant travels. I wish I were able to pull something along those lines out of Zambia, but it's not looking good.
Finally: White folks who arrive in an African capital carrying only a backpack and an African drum -- and then proceed to play said drum drunk until 1 a.m. to show how truly real their African experience is -- should be shot on sight. In a nice way, of course.
A few technical notes:
- It appears that the cell phone number I gave you needs a slight tweak. From the U.S. of A., one drops the initial zero in the cell area code. So to call me, you'd dial 011 260 97 815475 (not 097 815475).
- If you would like to call, Trisarahtops found a cheap calling card to use. Nine cents a minute! Sarah confirms that it works, too, after you jump through a few hoops.
The best part: unlike in the States, it doesn't cost me minutes if you call my cell. So call away!
