Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

Today, I decided to take on a project – building a scoreboard for the sports teams to use at the camp. What was supposed to only take a morning, ended up taking a whole day… I went to see the carpenter who was building the board and spent a half hour haggling over the price, then to the market to buy the paint and the brushes. Mporokoso is funny because when you go to buy something, you never really know where to go. The shops are rarely consistent in what they have in stock and sometimes nobody has what you’re looking for. So, I ended up going to 4 or 5 shops before finding paint and brushes. What can make the process even more time consuming is that in each shop, you can be expected to greet the shopkeeper and have a bit of a chat, though this time I managed to get out of the shops with nothing more than a “Mulishani” (how are you) and a “bwino” (I’m fine).

Not to say that I don’t like this way of life. People are really friendly here and almost everyone knows my name. It’s a really relaxed lifestyle, with people just going about their business. Everyone you pass on the street says hello – not like the capital of Lusaka where you try to go from point A to point B with the least amount of human contact possible. I’m starting to think that maybe rural living could be the choice for me…. (well…).