Week 11- Cultural 13/4/12

Unbelievably, this is my penultimate blog. Our time here really is flying by, especially now in our final weeks. This week I decided to reflect on what I have learnt about the Zambian culture whilst being here. Strangely, this took a lot of thought and because we have settled in to life here so well, I almost feel like the cultural differences are difficult to identify now. But something which I have been meaning to write about since the beginning of our time here is the place of religion in the Zambian culture.

Throughout our stay in Livingstone, it has become very clear that religion is a huge part of the Zambian culture. Almost everyone here will ask you about your religious beliefs and are quick to share their own with you. I found this quite surprising as in Northern Ireland religion isn’t such a talked about topic, and it is almost surprising to some people if you attend church on a regular basis, whereas here it is quite the opposite, with the local people being appalled if you say you aren’t a church-goer.

I was excited to get an African experience of church and throughout my stay here I have attended quite a few different denominations. As with churches at home, there are a lot of differences between denominations and some of the churches I visited I felt very much at home in, whereas in others I didn’t really know what was going on most of the time. Most of the churches advertise the fact that all services are in English which makes visitors very welcome, and all of the churches I went to invited ‘visitors’ to the front to tell the congregation where they were from and a little about themselves and their time in Livingstone. Although I tried to avoid these situations, since standing up at the front of the church made me very nervous, it was quite difficult since I usually stuck out as one of the few white people there!

The churches I have visited here in Livingstone. 

The major difference that I found between our churches at home and churches here in Livingstone is the worship. Praise here is just so much more active and you can tell that people just let themselves go and praise in whatever way they feel comfortable, from jumping up and down, to shouting out and making a sound which I can only describe as yodelling. It is amazing to see this; people really enjoying themselves, and I found myself being a lot less reserved than I would be at home.

My favourite church service here was when I attended the local Presbyterian church (my home denomination) on Easter Sunday. The service was brilliant, from the extended worship, to the minister’s witty remarks during the sermon, to the children’s contribution which was a short drama about the life of Jesus; I barely saw two and a half hours pass by! The focus on Easter here seems to be a bit less than it is at home but I think this is just because of the absence of chocolate eggs and the ‘Easter bunny’. There isn’t the commercial side of Easter and the only Easter eggs we had were ones that came from Northern Ireland in preparation for Easter. This is quite nice in some ways as it makes it easier to focus on the true meaning of Easter.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences of church here in Livingstone. It has opened my eyes to the differences between denominations and also the core values which are integral to the Christian faith. I hope that I’ll have some more positive experiences as we travel on through Africa!

As we near the end of our stay here in Livingstone, we are suddenly trying to pack everything in to too little time. When we arrived here we were overwhelmed by how much there was to do and as time has passed we have gotten to do many of the things we planned and also much, much more. The best thing I think we learnt here was to not try to plan every minute of every day, because it was the spur of the moment decisions and meeting random people that got us the best opportunities (like seeing the cheetahs!). We have been very lucky with the things we have gotten to do and our ‘to-do list’ has been very well ticked off so far and we hope to tick off a few more during our last weeks in Africa.

We didn’t have much of a social life this week as it was taken over by our dissertation, so the highlight of our Friday night was popcorn, and our highlight of Saturday night was a feast of crisps, crackers and cheese and peanuts (we really do enjoy our food over here!). I indulged in a day off from writing on Saturday and had a nice day watching a movie and then doing some shopping at the Curio Markets. The markets are always quite an experience since everyone is trying to draw you into their shop because they are so desperate for the business. It is hard to believe they all do business since everyone basically sells the same items. I was quite impressed with my bargaining skills and anytime you ask how much something is you are told a ridiculously high price, but “prices are negotiable” so it is then up to you to suggest a price and then together come to a compromise. At first I was quite bad at this and you know you’ve failed when the seller agrees to the first price that you suggest. The best bargain of the day was paying $30 for something which had initially been $70.

Harriet and Patrick checking out the
damage caused by the elephants. 

We also visited the college this week and were shown the damage which had been done by the wild elephants at the end of last year. Stranmillis had collected some money for us to take over as a way of hopefully repairing some of the damage done. Patrick showed us where the walls had been broken down and together we made a plan of how the money could be used to repair these walls, since they are currently causing problems with local people having access to the college grounds and trespassing. Through this meeting with Patrick it became clear just how difficult it is to get a job done here. He spoke about the problem of getting people to do the labour- you can’t just look up the yellow pages and find a builder, and even when you do find someone you don’t know how reliable they will be. There seems to be major problems when it comes to money; ensuring the right amount is paid and that the money is deserved, which means that it could be a long time until the walls are actually fixed but Patrick has assured us that he will keep us updated on the situation.

Saying our goodbyes to Patrick!

Aside from still working hard at our dissertations in an effort to get them finished as soon as possible, we are now thinking about saying goodbye to people, shopping for presents from Livingstone for people at home, revisiting our favourite eating places, doing our favourite activities for the ‘last time’, and even packing. It seems ridiculous that it is nearly time to pack everything up again and say goodbye to ‘Giraffe’- our little hut, since in many ways it feels like just yesterday that Amazon delivered my rucksack and I assured my Mum that there was ‘NO WAY’ I was going to fit all of my stuff into it!

Our goodbyes have already started with us saying our final farewells to the children at school, the teachers, and also the children at the orphanage. All of these goodbyes were hard, especially when saying goodbye to the children, but we have both managed to not get too emotional! We left the orphanage with some brilliant news which gave us a happy ending rather than a sad one. One of our ‘favourites’- a little boy called Danny who was from the Congo, has now left the orphanage when his mother came to get him. We were both so pleased to hear this news and very glad to see such a beautiful, intelligent little boy getting home to his family.

 

 Saying goodbye to the children at the orphanage.  

I think it is very clear to anyone I have spoken to, that I have fallen in love with Africa, and have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Livingstone. This weekend will no doubt be an emotional one as we say our goodbyes but at the same time, we are very excited for the next part of our adventure! Next stop- South Luangwa for safari!