Zambian Home and Family

I am staying in a “compound” of Livingstone called Dambwa North [compounds are like neighborhoods]. It is not super close to “town” [the main part of L’stone], and probably takes about a half hour to walk. However, that’s where the joy of share taxies come in. A trip out to one of the compounds usually costs about 8000 Kwacha [about $2.20], however, there are certain locations you will find share taxies to one of the neighborhoods [each has a different taxi depot] and these taxies wait till they have four people ready to go and everyone pays 2000 kwacha. Then the taxi driver picks up people on his way back into town and it only cost 2000 kwacha no matter if you are the only one who ends up getting picked up or if the taxi is full. It’s a brilliant system, but as far as I know only L’stone does it, Lusaka runs on minibuses.

So I am staying with a Zambian family in Dambwa North. The head of the household is a fellow named Katalausha Shabeenzu [kat-a-loo-sha sha-baen-zoo], and he is a teacher at the Livingstone Primary school. He also is studying Math and Civics at the college here and wants to go to University of Zambia. He is married to Lidia, whose job it is to run the household. They have the most wonderful little girl [she turned two the day I am writing this] named Dorris but is more commonly reffered to by “Do-Do” [dough-dough]. But that’s not all! There is also Katalausha’s two younger sisters… Mutinta [both their names are Mutinta]. The older Mutinta has a couple of children also [Ruthie and Theresa] as well as Katalausha’s sister in-law, Sara [who is the oldest of the children]. Then throw in the mix the neighbours kids and well… that’s a lot of little Zambian girls running about underfoot. Also Katalausha’s cousin Brenda has been staying with us while she is selling fish here in L’stone. She has a little baby named Joseph… my namesake. Tyler is impossible for a Zambian to pronounce. Well, that’s not exactly true… they get something close eventually, but I am more commonly known here by my middle name [Joseph] as it is super easy. I usually introduce myself as Tyler Joseph and am just referred to as Joseph. However I didn’t do this at first so some people who have gotten used to the name Tyler won’t give it up. The younger kids in my family also call me uncle. So I have many names now! But basically I am Joseph Shabeenzu!

The family is absolutely fantastic. I really lucked out [credit to Josephine Tsui for finding the Shabeenzu family!]. I am slowly learning Tonga from them [Katalausha is from the Tonga tribe, Lidia is Nyanja]. The older women of the household like to say things to me in tonga/Nyanja [I can’t tell the difference unless I know what they are saying] and laugh that deep hearty laugh that so many Africans do when I am dumbfounded. The younger girls mostly just laugh when they have me wrap a chitenge [traditional piece of fabric worn around the waste like a skirt or, when dancing, folded so it is about a foot wide and wrapped around the hips] around my hips and they try and teach me the traditional dances.

The house does not have any electricity or running water. The previous renters ran off without paying the utility bills, so the property has an outstanding debt on it [something not uncommon here]. We get water from a hose from the neighbors house [with their permission… people take care of each other here]. There is a toilet [and not a squat toilet either] and we use a bucket to flush it. Baths remind me of when I was little and my family would go camping. We had these rubber basins that we would wash dishes in, and were also used to bath us little kids. Bathing here reminds me of that because it is done in basically the same size basins… only I am a lot bigger now! The sun sets around 18 hours [a.k.a. 6pm… Zambia runs on a 24 hour clock] so often I am having my bath by candlelight… how romantic! So if you were wondering how we deal without electricity… we don’t use flashlights [well I did but my MagLite bulb burnt out and I don’t have a replacement], we use candles. I still have the headlamp I brought, but I can’t remember the last time I used it. Candlelight is way more pleasant. And if you are just trying to find your way to the toilet in the middle of the night… the soft glow of the backlighting on my cell phone works just fine. Cooking is done on the brazier [its like a pot full of holes that you fill with charcoal and sit your cooking pots on top of]. And we eat lots of nshima. I will leave food for another post.