My friend Besta

I went out this Saturday night with two Zambian girls who are of a similar age to me [a refreshing change from the adults and toddlers I am normally surrounded by]. They both live in my neighbourhood, and I know them through my family. One’s name is Lweendo, and the other is Besta, and it’s Besta who this story is mostly about.

We went to one of their favourite hang-outs: The Livingstone Safari Lodge. It’s a lodge [hotel/hostel] and campground for tourists but it has a very nice, open air bar/resteraunt under the high thatched roof which characterizes lodges in Zambia. We see an old classmate of Besta’s, with her little girl, talking with Besta and the girl’s old teacher. Despite the presence of the child, the encounter seems to be romantic. Besta tells us how he broke her arm once in class because he was drunk, though I get the impression it wasn’t more than a strain. She didn’t have him arrested, she chose to forgive and forget.

Lweendo and Besta drink sparkling white South African wine while I sip a coke from the glass bottles that you aren’t allowed to take from the places you bought the coke and thus have to carry an empty bottle to trade if you want to take it to go. I was continuing my abstinence from alcohol which I later relented and drank a glass of red wine. After the initial giddiness had passed as the alcohol went straight to my head from not drinking for a while, it made me just feel sick and reaffirmed my decision to stop drinking.
We played pool (seemingly the most popular activity in Zambia, bar football (proper football, as in soccer, not American football)] or just sat and talked. Somehow we got on the subject of her planned trip to the UK, which made me ask Why the UK? This brought out the very sensitive subject, which underlay the rest of the evening, of how her British boyfriend/fiancée had dumped her this last week over something so trivial that I am convinced he lost interest for one reason or another and just needed an excuse. On her hand I can see the band of surprisingly pale skin where the ring used to be. The issue of westerners engaging in frivolous relationships with Africans while traveling, only to have the twp perceptions of how serious the relationship is grossly distant apart, becomes an awful reality watching a beautiful, sweet Zambian girl blink away tears as you listen to her choked words. I don’t even know if my idea of a broken heart comes close to what she is dealing with as I hear how devoted she was to him, how much she gave, and how little was returned. I am faced with the awe inspiring ability of a Zambian women to be devoted to a man even when getting nothing in return. She tells me she thought white men didn’t fling relationships aside so easily, that she thought it was a behavior exclusive to black men. I assure her it is a universal human capacity to hurt, though I a not sure that it is in any way “assuring”. She would be attending college here in Livingstone this year except her ex-boyfriend convinced her not to with promises that his family was going to bring her to the UK to study there.
During the periods of happier small talk, I cope with hearing about her situation by trying to come to a conclusion on whether these thatched lodges are really “Zambian” or, like so much of the “Zambian” carvings for sale, not rooted in the culture but in what tourists think African culture is. The thatched roof is what all the poor villages use. Ironically, while all Zambians are striving for the corrugated metal roof which the British brought as it is a sign of wealth despite turning the house into an oven, tourists, most of which sound British to compound the irony, are paying top dollar to stay in safari lodges with thatched roofs. In the villages I have seen women binding and cleaning the thatch which they sell to lodge owners at a small price which I don’t know if it’s reasonable or not given the work involved. I wonder if tourists appreciate the level of authenticity when they stay in these lodges.

We go back to Besta’s place for dinner and tea. And despite her being roughly my age the place is hers, both her parents have passed away years before. I am afraid to ask from what because the answer might be aids. She has an array of DVDs and we watch the movie “Honey” with Jessica Alba. In Canada I had head this movie referred to as a “Dick Flick” [being the cleverly named reciprocal of a “chick flick”, with not much substance and lots of “T & A”]. But to Besta it’s a lot more. She has an enormous passion for dancing, and even teaches dancing [the main theme of the movie. She has watched this DVD so many times I am convinced most of the skips are not from scratches but from simply being worn out. This film is filled with, what in Canada I would consider, a cheesy uplifting story about inner city, troubled youth finding salvation in their love for Hip Hop dance but which here in Zambia is something else entirely. It means the world to her, and its uplifting story I am sure contributes to that incredible strength I see in her which holds together her fragile life. She cries at the feel-good ending every time. Besta’s daughter from the boyfriend before the British one ones around the house, even happier and more full of energy than my DoDo. I’d guess her to be between one and two years old. Besta assures me, without my solicitation for assurance, that her daughter is an incredible blessing for her. I wonder if both, or either, will actually get to go to school. But I am looking forward to going out with them again next weekend, and being taught how to dance by someone who actually teaches dance. We’ll be celebrating Besta’s 20th birthday. A fact which makes me wonder if those adults I mentioned spending my time with are really that old…

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I warned you that was a dark one. I’ve written this after I had gone home from Besta’s, and after I lay in bed a while, failing to not construct these lines. Having written them down, I’ve been tossing and turning in bed, ironically just as sleepless as before. [while I type the words up, somehow they don’t seem to capture the emotion which kept me up last night, and has weighed on my chest all day]. Desperate for sleep I will make myself a cup of NeoCitran to help me sleep with cold water from my nalgene water bottle sitting on my little table by my books. For me this was a haunting experience, made all the more so by how much light I see in Besta. I can’t imagine how you are feeling reading gthis in Canada. Perhaps you’re at your office or on a laptop, perhaps sipping a three and a half dollar starbucks concoction [a scenario which problem comes to mind because if our roles were reversed I would be sitting in Wicked Café, Vancouver, sipping on of Arthur’s cappuccinos which are so good I readily liken them to liquid crack]. I’m not trying to depress you with this story, though I may have. I debated sharing this experience on so public a medium as a blog, and considered it may be more appropriate for an email to a select few who don’t mind shouldering the darker experiences. But as you can see I have decided otherwise. That’s because I wanted to remind you I am not traveling in a place of sunshine, rainbows and kittens [well actually I have seen all three, but you know what I mean]. Because I want to remind you of why members of Engineers Without Borders (perhaps you are among them) are working so hard for change.