Seed: Students for Education Empowerment and Development

Media coverage of Africa is often skewed toward negative stories: famine, HIV/AIDS, wars, child soldiers, orphans, poverty. And reading back on our blog entries, our coverage is similarly skewed. It’s not a conspiracy to “keep Africa down” or a deliberate effort to focus on the negatives though; it’s just that the ordinary in Africa is like the ordinary everywhere, and hence not so much worth mentioning or writing about.

For example, it really would surprise some people that Africa has satellite dishes, American TV shows, restaurants, malls, grocery stores, credit cards, private schools, bad modernist architecture, a middle-class with typical middle-class habits and ambitions … but can you imagine such headlines in newspapers, “New mall opens in Lusaka”? It’s not news. And hence the awkwardness I find in writing about such things, pointing out the obvious and the mundane.

But it’s also important to give a balanced portrayal of life here, so here are some things about our time here in Lusaka that may surprise you: Melanie and I have started following a South African soap opera, kept ridiculously informed on world news through the 24-hour BBC channel, and I have watched more episodes of CSI (New York and Miami!) here than I have back in Canada. Our grocery store is fond of playing Blondie and Coldplay. We have dined well at fancy restaurants in Lusaka. Our guest-house room comes with satellite TV, daily maid service and hot water (though sometimes you have to let it run for a bit before it gets hot). Internet access can be slow and spotty, but it is generally reliable. Cell-phone plans and services are (arguably) better and cheaper here than in Canada. So Zambia has all of these things: but it also has what we’ve written about before, in the compound, the street kids, the orphans.

An image that typifies the issue of class in Zambia for me is: satellite dishes held up by sticks, in Ng’ombe, surrounded by children running around with kites made of plastic bags and wire car toys.

Mary Yang
Overseas Intern – Zambia