Regina Jere-Malanda has just returned from her homeland, Zambia. She had been away for four years, and what she saw blew her mind. This is a fascinating story that somehow sums up the condition of Africa today.

For those who do not live in, or have never been to, the copper-rich country called Zambia, and their knowledge of it comes from the media (both local and international), the picture is so grim. Zambia is a no-go area, and there is neither hope nor room for improvement.

We read how the country, like all the other black-led African countries, is on its knees. There is only a litany of woes: economic mismanagement, corruption, abuse of power, and worst of all, HIV and Aids.

If such a cheerless portrait of your country is sold to you at every turn, even the most die-hard patriot living abroad is likely to think twice before returning home.

It was, therefore, with monumental apprehension that I recently returned to my country following the death of my beloved father. It had been four years since I last visited — four years during which, according to the international and local media, Zambia had become a terrible place to return to.

To be honest, for a week before the trip, I developed insomnia — terrified to my bones at the thought of going to see this broken Zambia. My state of despair was such that on the day of departure, I forgot to bring my plane tickets.

I have been travelling by air for many years, but I had never felt such torment before, not because of the real reason for the trip — my father’s death — but because I was so scared of what was awaiting me in Zambia — not just the economic hardship but people dropping dead from Aids or with poverty written all over their foreheads, etc. For the first time I became air-sick.

So it was a relief, at the end of the 12-hour flight (which looked like eternity), to hear the British Airways captain announce that we were descending into Lusaka International Airport. I couldn’t wait to breathe the fresh air of Zambia, and feel the sun; yes the sun!

But my excitement was quickly curtailed by what greeted me on the runway! Right in front of us, in the company of two Catholic nuns, was a group of about 300 children — I guessed all of them under the age of 10 — smartly dressed in matching white T-shirts, standing obediently in neat rows and anxious about something.

I walked up to one Zambian lady whom I assumed was the children’s teacher bringing them on an educational trip. My heart sunk when she said: “These are Aids orphans from Kasisi, Kabwata and Chilenje [all Lusaka suburbs]. British Airways has organised to give them a treat of their lives by offering them a free ride on the aircraft.”

My knees went wobbly, and believe me it wasn’t the airsickness. My worst fears were being confirmed! What next?, I worried.

The next day, the “orphans” BA trip to the southern tourist town of Livingstone, where they “flew over the famous Victoria Falls for a spectacular view” was front page news in most of the local papers. One, quoting a BA official wrote: “The Airline has decided to take an interest in the orphans as they are the less privileged, and the flight was one way of contributing to the community in which it operates.”

It was a bad start. But my goodness, what I saw on the way from the airport to my waiting relatives at home, told a different story.

Progress

I had read sometime during the four years I had been away, a piece from the website of a local newsletter, Lusaka Low-down, giving guidelines to visiting motorists on how to endure Zambia’s “potholed” roads.

The situation may have been true then, but the same foreign-owned, widely circulated newsletter has not gone back to tell its readers how Lusaka roads have never looked better than they are now.

I was awe-struck to see how good the Great East Road that links the airport and the city, looks. I had driven on this road for years, chasing “good” stories to feed my Western media bosses. I knew how bumpy a ride it was. But this time, it was as smooth as a baby’s skin.

As we drove deeper into the city, I began to feel much better, mentally and physically. I don’t remember how many times I said, “Wow, look at that!” Lusaka had never looked cleaner!

Most houses had been, or are being, renovated; many had had a new coat of paint, probably for the first time in 36 years — thanks to the government’s decision to sell houses to sitting tenants.

And there are new large-scale housing estates being developed too — something that had been absent for as long as I can remember. And the houses are not rudimentary ones but of top quality and standard that most Westerners only dream of. I live in Britain so I know!

House ownership has instilled a sense of responsibility and pride in many Zambians and the fruits are showing. Everyone who has bought or been offered a chance to buy a government house, is going to great lengths to make it look better than the next door neighbour’s.

Despite my ragged look, I ventured into the city centre the very afternoon of my arrival. I needed to make travel arrangements to Chipata in the Eastern Province en route to my father’s resting place and village.

I went into my old office to ask former colleagues about the best mode of transport, remembering the media reports about the hazards on the roads and buses.

“I really feel sorry for you. How will you travel to the village...the roads are so bad and dangerous, most buses have stopped making long distance trips. I don’t envy you, but good luck anyway,” was how one of my Zambian friends back in London had said her good byes when I told her about my plans to visit my father’s resting place.

But here I was in Lusaka, and didn’t need any good luck. The following day, I was on my way to Chipata on board a fully air-conditioned coach equipped with good music and VCR showing a good Nigerian film with an all-black cast of very good actors. I felt so proud!

Half of the stretch of the road to Chipata has been resurfaced, complete with yellow lines. Work on the other half was underway!

There are three main towns on the way to the provincial capital of Chipata — Nyimba, Petauke and Katete. The last time I passed through these towns was 15 years ago. I was, therefore, lost for words to see that these towns have not been wiped out by poverty but have actually improved.

The rural areas of Zambia are supposed to be the most ravaged by poverty. But here I was in Petauke where local businessmen and small-scale entrepreneurs looked so happy and telling me that things had never been better. Rural Petauke even has its own type of “stock market” and the business community here is so well organised.

I had been warned that the journey to Chipata would take at least 12 hours, but it took less than half that time to arrive there. And what surprise awaited me! This is the town were I did part of my primary school education and I know it very well. Yes, Chipata is definitely developing.

I later learnt, officially, that Chipata is one of the fastest growing towns in Zambia. And it shows!

Chipata even has its own internet cafes! When I e-mailed my editor (Good Old Baffour in London) from Chipata and he told my husband in Milton Keynes (UK), his first reaction was: “No, she can’t email from Chipata. It’s a small place. She just cannot email from there!” The poor man had been away for too long, and like me, had been reading too much of the doom and gloom stories about Zambia! Yes, I emailed from Chipata. I did, honestly.

Poverty

As I prepared to go to my father’s village, I thought it would be wise to buy basic necessities like soap, toothpaste, coffee, etc. How foolish I was. On arrival, I found it was not necessary. The village shop had everything! And the shopowner told me business was good, and people were very happy that the old days of travelling long distances to the main towns for basics like soap, were finally over. “For good!” he added, with pride in his eyes.

The people may not have everything that the Western society has or offers, but these are people who are very satisfied with what they have. Lacking the materialism found in the West does not equate to poverty, and to draw parallels between the two lifestyles is truly most unfair. After all, poverty is relative.

I have recently been watching, back in Britain, a series called “A Life of Grime” on BBC-1. The level of poverty under which some British people live, is horrendous. You must see “A life of Grime” to believe it.

As I was writing this piece back in Milton Keynes on 1 November, my attention was drawn to the second front-page lead story of the British daily, The Guardian (1 Nov 2000). It was headlined: “In [George] Bush’s Texas, industry thrives as the poor suffer. Is this the fate of the US?

Written by the paper’s former South African correspondent, Julian Borger, from Donna, Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the story said among other things:

“In a time of economic boom and record budget surpluses, the governor’s corporate allies have made a killing at the lucrative intersection of state government and business.

“Meanwhile, 45% of the population in the lower Rio Grande Valley live below the poverty line and pray that they never need medical help they cannot afford. It is an unforgiving place, unrecognisable from the progressive and tolerant state evoked in Mr Bush’s stump speeches...

“But unlike all his predecessors, he has never strayed into the huddled grids of dirt roads and shacks, so he cannot have smelt the dizzying odour of a thousand pit latrines and septic tanks when the rain begins to fall. ‘When it floods, it brings all that stuff’, Mrs Camarillo said. ‘It rises up and gets into people’s houses’.”

Can you imagine pit latrines in America?! The world’s richest country?!

I wish such documentaries and stories could also be shown in Africa. They would open eyes, and probably prompt Africans into appreciating that life is not all about materialism of the kind the West is famous for.

Yes, Westernisation is a major problem among many Zambians. At the village, I offended one of my cousins by calling him by his African name. “Don’t call me that”, he told me. He was so angry that I couldn’t bear to go back and say a proper goodbye before I left. Later he sent me a note with his address on it — his “name” was in capital letters: NIXON.

I later discovered that the majority of my relatives had actually dropped their African names for Western ones. The most enchanting change had been made by another cousin who was born Dindi. Translated into English, Dindi means Grave. Dindi is now called Grave Chipeta, instead of Dindi Chipeta!

To me this is no trivial or laughing matter. It is a sad indication of how far our society is discarding its African roots for the “civilised” things of the West. Most Zambians, particularly men, won’t be seen dead in an African attire. It is not fashionable because the Mzungu (the white man) does not dress that way. It is this Westernisation of our people that is at the core of the so-called unprecedented levels of poverty in Zambia.

Some may say, “look at a Zambian called Regina preaching about African names”. Yes, I admit that because of circumstances, it is difficult for some older Africans with “Christian” (read Western) names, like me, to drop them for African ones. But for us, in this 2,000th year of our Lord, to continue to give our children or ourselves Western names is a bit sad. My husband and I decided long ago never to put our children through this sad state of affairs. Today, we have two small children, and they have authentic African names.

Status symbol

While still in Lusaka, one day I was standing in a queue in the famous South African-run Shoprite supermarket, I couldn’t help but wonder why the queues were so long and almost everyone had a trolley-load. I had encountered the same long queues when I shopped at Shoprite in Chipata — even Chipata! If Zambians are as poor as we are told, how come these shops and supermarkets are full with happy shoppers? How do they afford the goods?

I glanced into the trolley of the woman (baby on the back) in front of me. Her shopping list had some interesting items: Cocoa (hot chocolate powder), frozen chips, Cerelac baby porridge, Romany cream biscuits [imported] and several cans of Coca-Cola which cost twice as much as a bottled, locally manufactured coke (sold in the same shop).

On the way out, I asked the woman how she found the economic situation in Zambia: “Things are really bad,” she said. “We are just surviving by the grace of God. Things are so expensive for us who do not work. We can’t even afford to eat a proper meal because mealie-meal (Zambia’s staple food) is very expensive.” I asked her why she chose to buy a tin of very expensive Cocoa (twice as expensive as a kilo of meat) and biscuits and frozen chips, instead of the essential mealie-meal.

She became coy. “But this is what you people eat in Europe,” she said defensively. “We also need them because they are nice.”

While we were talking, I saw a very smartly dressed man walking out of Shoprite with a pre-cooked lunch of chicken curry bought at a price that could buy a whole meal for his family. The trouble is, in Zambia buying such a lunch gives one status!

I asked the man: “What is cheaper — buying chicken curry or the ingredients to make a meal at home?

He looked at me. “But this is cool madam,” he laughed and excused himself to answer his mobile phone — another expensive accessory that has become a must for the “poor” Zambians. And mobile phones don’t come cheap in Zambia.

These two seemingly minor incidents ring deep. To many Zambians, living within their means is as good as being poverty-stricken. If I have a 16-inch TV set and my neighbour has a 20-inch set, it means I am poor.

Many Zambians keep housemaids and garden boys as a status symbol. If you don’t do your own housework in Lusaka because you have two housemaids, equates to affluence. Yet the same people complain, like an old grammaphone stuck in a grove, about poverty and how bad the economy is biting.

It is important to note here that the people who complain most are the “educated” urban dwellers, most of whom believe that the only jobs that befit their status are “white collar” ones that come complete with free accommodation and probably a car attached. No need guessing what their reaction would be if they saw jobs advertised at a Jobcentre in Britain, which have no frills attached.

In all this, rural people who have not been greatly exposed to Western materialism, live much more realistic, happier and healthier lives. But I worry this may not go on for much too long.

Recently, the British weekly, The Economist (yes, them again!), writing on Zimbabwe’s “economic misery”, said: “As belts tighten, tempers shorten. Those who cannot afford bread, currently eat sadza, a dull but filling maize paste.”

What a shame! Sadza (nsima in Zambia, and fufu in West Africa) is a centuries-old staple food eaten in many parts of Africa. What The Economist is suggesting is that bread is a better food because it has Western roots.

Other matters

I know I am going to be accused of trivialising the “suffering” of Zambians by scratching the surface of a deep-seated problem. I will be naive to deny the economic problems in Zambia. I can’t deny that salaries are pitifully low. That there is more the government can, and should, do to improve the economic situation.

That it is immoral for Zambia’s politicians to use the much-needed state funds to send their families on holidays to Europe, or for better medical treatment in South Africa, while our local hospitals are left to become “killing fields”.

That there is a need for a strong political opposition to challenge the ruling party, which in effect is running the country as a one-party state. There is so much pettiness and disorganisation in the opposition ranks that with about a year to go to the next elections, most of them have already been ruled out of contention.

But despite all this, Zambians have to stop believing that they are poor because they are not at the same material level as the developed Western societies.

A few months ago, when Zambian doctors went on strike demanding better working conditions and pay, I had a chat over the phone with one of my close friends about it. She sent my head spinning when she said that what Zambia needed was British re-colonisation! “Because we have failed to stand on our own two feet despite all the help the West has given us.”

This attitude is so ingrained that today Zambians are resigned to thinking that their salvation lies in Western intervention and lifestyle. Maybe once this feeling has been purged, Zambians may probably begin to understand what our president, Frederick Chiluba, said on his recent visit to China. He criticised the West for frustrating Africa’s efforts to develop, using double standard and unfair terms of trade.

“The rich nations,” he said, “will continue to frustrate the poor countries by many means unless we all gang up and change the status quo. We need a new international economic order that allows all countries, no matter their levels of development, to have a say on how to manage international economic relations to mutual advantage.”

Chiluba continued: “The current governance of the world economy has little accommodation for the Third World’s economic interest as market access for African exports are hindered... Although slavery has been abolished, circumstances still persist in which the developing world still subsidises consumption in rich nations... The existing structure is designed to consign us to perpetual poverty and underdevelopment.”

These are issues that Zambians will need to seriously ponder before resigning themselves to haplessness.

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