a few things you should know before you move to Zambia :)

1) No matter how strongly you feel about having your children secured in their car seats, there will be times when you have to put personal preference aside and squeeze more folks in.  Because ‘you can always fit one more’ is the byword of Zambian transportation theory, and when you happen to own one of the only vehicles for miles, lots of people will be asking for rides to church, hospital, shopping, etc.

2) There is no rubbish collection, and you have to burn your bags of trash.  (I'm no good at starting fires so I delegate this responsibility to my hired house help, or to my husband.)  :)  Anything that’s not burnable is generally ‘recyclable’ – that is, we wash it and give it away to the local staff and students who can use all sorts of things – tin cans, plastic milk jugs, and bottles and containers of all shapes and sizes, for all sorts of things – even catching rodents so that they don’t go hungry.

3) The cleanliness of your kitchen has no relation to whether or not you have cockroaches in your kitchen.  They live here, too.  Regardless of how much you scrub and spray and how horrid you think they are, they are present.

4) Greetings are very, very important in Zambian culture.  But asking ‘politely’ is not.  Our Western mindset leads us to teach our children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ before they can even talk!  But here, that is not important and indeed it’s never done.  The word ‘please’ is virtually not found in conversation.  If you want something, you say, ‘Give me that,’ or ‘I want that.’  It’s not considered rude here!  It can be rather jarring and takes some adjustment in our American minds – as we meanwhile refuse to give our toddler something until they have asked ‘nicely.’  :)  Thankfully they do use ‘Thank you’ extensively!

5) Zambians find our Western habit of ‘taking a walk’ for recreation very amusing.  They can’t understand it, because they would never do it.  Walking is something you do because you have to, here.  But we do it because we like it, and because we want ‘exercise,’ or a chance to talk. Marjanne and I take a walk together every weekday afternoon at 4pm, which has been christened a ‘chat-walk’ by our amused colleagues.  We both really enjoy these walks because it gives us a chance to get some fresh air, clear our heads after each long and sometimes rather stressful day, and visit together when otherwise we wouldn’t see much of each other if we didn’t carve out this time to walk.

Just a few things I thought I’d share with you!  It's funny how after living somewhere for a couple of years you get used to little things like this, and don't think about them as much, until one day you realize that if you share it with your friends, they will find it really interesting and amusing - because it's different from where you are from.