Week 6- Cultural 9/3/12

Zambezi Basic School's Woman's Day group.

This week we got to take part in a brilliant cultural celebration for International Women’s Day. Woman’s Day is a very big deal in Zambia, it is a public holiday so that all the women can come together to take part in a huge parade which involves groups of women from businesses, schools, churches and other organisations parading down the main street. The traffic is stopped, children are off school, people come out to the street to watch, all the women have outfits made from the same material within each group, and there is an event organised at the end where some of the women perform, and there are speeches and prayers. As we experienced this day I couldn’t help but think there is no way that this would happen in Northern Ireland!

A group of policewomen parading.

The day started off a bit stressful when we couldn’t find any of the teachers from our school and we started to panic because we were twenty minutes after the 8am meeting time and thought maybe they had already started parading. However, when the first and second teacher arrived just after 9am (an hour late) we were asked “ohh did you come early?” Luckily we haven’t had too many bad experiences with ‘African time’ but I don’t think being here is going to help my punctuality!

Getting ready for Woman's Day!

The day was really empowering for women and the women greeted each other saying “happy women’s day” and they are all told to enjoy THEIR day. It is a day which allows women to feel important and one of the speeches noted how women are able to do everything that men can do (this seems to be quite a big issue here as we have also seen motivational signs in the school playground encouraging girls to compete with boys). The atmosphere was really lovely and there was a real togetherness and I was again reminded how proud a culture the Zambian one is. Many of the locals seemed excited to see ‘muzungus’ in the parade and we were embraced into the tradition with people shaking our hand and waving at us as though we were famous!

With our two 'favourite' teachers and
some policewomen!

Women’s Day also opened my eyes to what is seen as respectful in terms of dress in this culture. The print was chosen by the teachers and then we were given a number of styles to choose from. All the styles that we were shown ensured covered shoulders and knees and one of the other teachers who opted for a dress which went just below her knees was told it was a bit too short. I also found the teachers pulling my dress down over my knees when I sat down, always ensuring that I was well covered. This shows a very reserved culture and the way a person dresses can have a big reaction from other locals. Another example of this was when we were travelling on the bus to the orphanage this week and a man started shouting at a woman who was on the bus with her young children. They were speaking in different languages so apart from the odd sentence shouted in English we didn’t really know what was going on, but it seemed like something major and the arguing went on for at least twenty minutes. After asking another local we were informed that the man had been telling the woman how much of a disgrace she was for wearing make-up, that she was setting a bad example for her children and there was a lot of reference to the Bible and how the woman was sinning. This was quite shocking as at home a young woman wearing make-up would never have such a reaction from a stranger on a bus!

Signs in the school playground emphasising equality between boys and girls.

The day finished off with a teacher’s lunch, very different to one at home; we all sat together on the grass in the Civic Centre and ate chicken and chips from the local fast food restaurant ‘The Hungry Lion’ (the Zambian equivalent of KFC!). Overall, it was a lovely day and it was lovely to be a part of such an important day in the Zambian culture.

The teacher's lunch at the end of the celebration.

This week we had very little planned but this turned out to be a great thing since it allowed us to take any opportunity that came to us resulting in us attending our first Braai (and also another three!), spending some time getting to know local muzungus, going to ‘Margarita Wednesday’, and getting to do jet boating! Braais are a really common thing here and we were getting quite annoyed that after five weeks here we hadn’t had any braais, but we certainly made up for it this week attending four. It was also brilliant having someone else cooking for us five nights this week and definitely made our shopping bill much cheaper! After meeting one of the white muzungus we have now started socialising a lot more and meeting many more people other than just travellers passing through Jollyboys. It is good to meet people who are going to be staying around because it can be a bit sad when we meet someone that we get on with really well but then three days later they leave, and me and Harriet have discovered that we are both very alike in that we get attached to people very quickly!

Today we started off our weekend with some jet boating after school; not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon! We got a discounted rate too which was definitely a bonus (it pays to make friends with the locals!) and both really enjoyed the afternoon. We both get very excited about spending time in the river whether it’s to go swimming, rafting, jet boating, or just to sail on it for a cruise, so any opportunity to go and we are there!

Jet boating!

We have a nice long weekend ahead of us due to another bank holiday on Monday for Youth Day and then we are into our last four days at school. It’s hard to believe just how fast it is going and we have really settled into school life now so I think we will both be very sad to see the end of our placement next Friday. The time really is just flying in and we are now half way through our time in Livingstone! But we are really making the most of every opportunity here, loving every experience and we are definitely going by the quote given to me before I left by my Mum- “don’t count the days, make the days count”!