Alcohol

A few days ago, I was trying to flag down a taxi on the main road near my flat, and when a cab pulled over, a man got out of the passenger seat holding a beer bottle in his hand. It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

On Saturday night, a group of us approached some taxis parked in the corner of a gas station. Noticing that one of the men there had a bottle in his hand, we asked "Who's been drinking?" One quickly stepped forward and proudly announced, "I have been", while another stumbled away.

The trash piles are filled with cartons that an outsider might assume had been used for milk, except that in this part of the world, milk comes in bags. The local brew, a maize/millet beer called Chibuku Shake Shake, comes in the cartons.

It seems alcohol has a much greater presence and tighter hold on Zambia than it did on Rwanda.

Pitiful pets

Our pets are looking pretty pitiful right now. Both of the dogs and one of the cats were spayed and the other cat was hit by a car and had to have one of her legs amputated. So right now they're all wandering around the flats with giant cones around their necks. It's a pretty sad sight.

About ZEHRP

I realized that some of you may be wondering about my sudden move to Zambia, or perhaps why the organization for which I work has projects in Rwanda and Zambia, of all countries.

As I've mentioned previously (see 'About RZHRG and PSF' posted in September 2007), Projet San Francisco (PSF), where I was working in Kigali, Rwanda, was founded in 1986. Its sister project in Lusaka, Zambia, was later established in 1994, when Dr. Allen, the founder of the organization, and many of her staff fled to Zambia for safety during the Rwandan genocide. Rather than give up their work, those who made it to Zambia established a sister project here that is now known as the Zambia Emory HIV Research Group (ZEHRP).

Since 1994, the project has offered couples' voluntary counseling and testing (CVCT) services to over 20,000 couples in Lusaka. Among these 20,000 couples, over 13,000 HIV-infections have been diagnosed and 6,000 syphilis infections have been treated. Like PSF, ZERHP has couples' voluntary counseling and testing facilities, two medical clinics, laboratories and a pharmacy. The project employs around 150 Zambian medical and support staff and 5 to 10 expatriate staff.

The most recent news for ZEHRP was the awarding of a large grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to expand CVCT services to a greater number of clinics in Lusaka and throughout the southern province of Zambia. With this grant, CVCT services have expanded over the last couple months from three fixed sites in Lusaka to more than twelve district health centers and other sites in the region. As exciting as this expansion has been and as many people as are benefiting from the new CVCT services, it's created lots and lots of work for ZEHRP staff, which is the reason I've come down here from Kigali for a couple months. Hopefully I'll be able to help set up and organize some of the systems for this expansion and will then be able to return to Kigali to help do the same as we look forward to expansion there as well.

Winter

I don't know whether it's officially winter yet in Zambia, but it certainly feels like it. All week, the skies have been gray, the winds have been blowing and the temperature has been dropping. I think I'll be wearing the only three sweaters I have every single day until whenever I leave this country!

Zambia is not Rwanda

It’s true. Zambia is not Rwanda. In fact, in many ways, the two are about as different as night and day. I thought I would share a few comparisons:

Rwanda: With a population of over 10 million and a size of 26,798 sq. km., Rwanda has a population density of 343 people per square kilometer.
Zambia: With a population of 11 million and a size of 752,618 sq. km., Zambia has a population density of 16 people per square kilometer.

Rwanda: Flying into Kigali, you would hardly know you were about to land in a capital city of 850,000 people. From the plane window, the land below is green and fertile, covered with hills. The buildings of the city seem more like those of a small town, none higher than just a couple stories, and only visible just before landing.
Zambia: Approaching the city, the land below is brown and bare. The city itself is visible before you've even begun to prepare for landing. It stretches on and on in every direction with a central downtown area with tall buildings and a crowded grid of streets.

Rwanda: Only about 20 percent of the population lives in urban areas.
Zambia: Just over 35 percent of the population lives in urban areas.

Rwanda: After you've landed in the airport, you proceed inside to one of three small counters where there is no need to purchase a visa.
Zambia: At the airport, all Americans are charged a $135 visa fee.

Rwanda: Leaving the airport, the drive to the project takes about 15 minutes, maybe 20 if there is a lot of traffic. It's just about the longest possible drive across the city. Drive any farther and you'd be halfway to the next town before you knew it.
Zambia: From the airport to the project is a 40-45 minute drive and there's still much of the city remaining further ahead.

Rwanda: In Kigali, I live in a four-bedroom house with a nice yard and a garden. I live by myself.
Zambia: In Lusaka, I live in the third of four connected flats. Each flat has three bedrooms, so I live with a total of eleven other girls. The "yard" is a concrete driveway with a small patch of grass on the side.

Rwanda: My "pets" include fruit flies, lizards and a mouse.
Zambia: There are two dogs - Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim - that live at the flats.

Rwanda: At night, when I'm going to sleep, the neighborhood is usually silent.
Zambia: Every night of the week, it sounds like there's a dance club right outside my window.

Rwanda: Rwanda is home of a tropical climate that is warm and sunny with occasional rains year-round.
Zambia: May (just the time I arrived) through July (just the time I'll leave) is winter in Zambia - cold, dry, windy winter.

Rwanda: Kigali is the capital of a nation made up of two ethnic groups that both speak the same language (Kinyarwanda).
Zambia: Lusaka is the capital of a nation made up of at least 72 different groups, most of which speak one of nine languages (Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga, Tumbuka, Lunda, Luvale, Kaonde, Nkoya, Lozi).

Rwanda: The most common Western language is French.
Zambia: The most common Western language is English.

Rwanda: I hold my breathe every time I turn on the water, wondering if there will be any.
Zambia: I hold my breathe every time I turn on the lights, wondering if there will be electricity.

Rwanda: I shop for groceries at the local market or from women with baskets of fruit on their head.
Zambia: I shop for groceries at a South African supermarket in a strip mall.

Rwanda: I sleep on Rwandafoam, a squishy piece of foam approximately 4-6 inches thick.
Zambia: I sleep on a real mattress.

Rwanda: HIV prevalence is between 3.4 and 7.6 percent.
Zambia: HIV prevalence is between 13.5 and 20.0 percent.

Rwanda: There are 170,000 to 380,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.
Zambia: There are 730,000 to 1,100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

And a few ways in which the countries aren't all that different:

Rwanda: Approximately 60% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Zambia: Approximately 68% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Rwanda: Gross national income per capita is $1,270.
Zambia: Gross national income per capita is $1,000.

Rwanda: Life expectancy is 51 for males and 53 for females.
Zambia: Life expectancy is 42 for males and 43 for females.

Rwanda: For ever 1,000 live births, 160 children will die before their fifth birthday.
Zambia: For ever 1,000 live births, 182 children will die before their fifth birthday.