A Developing Country

I have recently realized first-hand what it means to live in a developing country. 

It might seem like a surprise that it has taken over 4 years to see. But certainly the definition of developing country is clear but not until you live in a developing country do you understand what that fully means.  At some point in the last 38 years, countries in poverty were changed from “third world countries” as I remember them being called to “developing countries”.

I see it now as I drive over paved (or tarred ) roads that used to be dirt. When I see a shopping center, a new grocery store, more electronics for sale, etc. 

The pot-hole filled dusty dirt road that takes me into Kabanana has been paved and what used to take 15-20 minutes to drive down takes 5 minutes. 

There was just one main grocery store, Shoprite at Manda Hill when we moved here.

Manda Hill was one of the two large shopping centres in Lusaka. In fact they were renovating it from an outdoor strip mall to an enclosed AIR CONDITIONED! Shopping Mall the first year we lived here. No OSHA approved saftey measures, I remember walking under scaffolding and over electrical wires to go from one store to the next, since they were proudly “still trading” during the renovations. 

Since that time, 2 other brand new shopping malls were built in various parts of town. New office and banking complexes. New hotels and lodges. New restaurants and movie theaters, giving off the feel of a developed, richer country. The city has had increased problems with traffic in the last year especially as more middle class Zambians have been buying cars more easily. 

When we moved here we bought a used Prado, actually fairly old. It came from South Africa and we had to pay about $7,000  USD in taxes just to get it into the country. 

Now there are a few companies in Lusaka that are able to import cars from Japan more cost efficiently and so there has been a boom of cars on the road and not enough roads to host them all. 

I drove by a restaurant we went to our first year here. It was nice, but I haven’t even thought twice about it now since newer restaurants, some chain ones out of South Africa have moved in. 

As I was taking my parents around to different places I often would say, this was just a dirt road when we moved here, or this shopping mall wasn’t even here, or we used to have to pay for our electricity here, but now there are 4 different paypoints more convenient to us.  All signs of growth and progress.

 Even just the access to food items now as opposed to before. We can find many things now that we couldn’t before. It just now becomes a matter of availability and cost. How much are you willing to spend on cream cheese?  8 USD for a block of it?  Frozen berries and sour cream. And the list goes on and on.

I can easily look at things and see that it is a bit more “comfortable” living here than it was when we first moved here. And that makes me think 2 things. 

First, the irrational. It’s almost like I want it to still “count” that we moved here when many of these things weren’t available. So it still matters that here we are in Africa where you can’t even get something that you can in America...boy its really rough. But thats not why we came, to deny ourselves access to anything and everything you could possibly ever think you might want. So that people would be impressed that we are still making it here, though outwardly it may not seem as difficult as it once did. 

We moved because we had a heart to come and work alongside the Zambians in the work we were involved in. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t find pesto sauce or parmesan cheese, whip cream and chocolate chips at the store. 

It didn’t matter that many of the roads we traveled on were dirty and dusty. We came because we knew that’s what we wanted and what we believed God had paved the way for us to do. So now that I can find those things at the store (except the parmesan cheese), does that make it any less important that those things are here, or that I am here for that matter? 

It is still difficult to deal with the corruption in legal systems and especially with the police. You are never quite sure when you see the police or a roadblock checkpoint if you are going to “get by” this time. We have been having more power outages than before. The internet though cheaper now than 5 years ago is slower because there is not enough bandwidth for the country. It’s like its developing in someways faster than it has the infrastructure for.

As my mom said, its almost better to just not have it than to expect it is working when it isn’t or it is so slow. Everyone has a cell phone now, because they just skipped over the whole landline era. Dad said it was very interesting to be sitting in a poor church with no electricity or running water and hear people’s cell phones going off.  It’s a strange picture and mix of technology and development. 

The second thing that this developing makes me think about is that it is surface and “comfort” changes. 

I still drive by the UN building a few times a week where it lists on the wall the goals, or visions of the UN. Reduce infant mortality and maternal death...Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 

And I stop right there. That is the one that always gets me. 

That there are degrees of hunger and degrees of poverty.  You can never rid a society of hunger and poverty, but the realistic goal to get rid of the EXTREME versions of that...

That for all the fancy hotels and shopping malls and paved roads I am now driving on,  there is still extreme poverty, short life spans, death, sickness and disease everywhere. 

And though the city may be “advancing”  and looking a bit more developed in some places, how many less kids are living on the streets now than 5 years ago. How many kids are now in school?  How many fewer people have died from cholera? On the whole are there more people who have access to clean water now and what are the statistics on that? 

And when its cold at night how many people have enough for warm blankets and fires.

Has the country’s health care improved so that the average person can now get good health care and be seen by a decent doctor or be attended to at a clean hospital?

Or are those things just now available for the wealthy?

I am glad there are nice(r) hospitals and clinics to go to now, if we need them. 

But how about the majority of the population that are still only able to go to the main hospital in town where many people say, you go there to die. Where women are daily giving birth to their babies on the floors of the hospital. 

I don’t really know how you go about developing a country, I have never claimed to be interested in or know much about politics or policies or public education available to all. I have heard that in Kenneth Kaunda’s day everyone was promised an egg a day. That didn’t last long, but it was a nice idea. 

I like driving on paved roads. I really like the ability to have dinner out at a nice restaurant. I really, really like being able to go to a nice grocery store a half mile from my house.  But, I don’t want those things to lull me into thinking that the country is better off now than it was before. 

I was reminded of this, just this week. I was meeting James for lunch and as I parked the car, a boy as young as Jackson came up to the car, raggedy, runny nose and coughing. He was asking for 2 kwacha. 35 cents.  I didn’t want to just give him money but told him after I finished maybe I would have something for him. I walked on and he lingered at my car then later during lunch with our friends he came up to the table begging and was shooed away by the management. I still planned to get something for him to eat after. For some reason he just impacted me, I was thinking about my boys. 

But lunch carried on and then I went to look at some DVD’s  and I didn’t see him at the car when I left, so I just carried on. As I drove away in the distance I could see him in my rearview mirror holding up his hands just looking at me.  I felt bad, but not enough to turn the car around get caught up in traffic and then try to buy some food to give to him. 

The next day I bought some extra juice, a roll and a banana at the store because I knew I would be passing by the same place I saw him, and this time I wanted to be ready. But he wasn’t there. I hope I see him again. The little ones sometimes are working for older kids or even parents who then take the money from them, so I figure if I at least can give a little food, that can take the edge off the hunger. It won’t eradicate the extreme hunger but it can make a little tummy not so empty. 

One of my boys came home from school this week and told me that their friend was absent today and the teacher mentioned to pray for him. The boy cut himself with a razor.  He was using a razor blade to cut something out of his toy car. Common method of sharpening pencils at school, using it to cut things etc. 

But, The thing about this specific razor blade was that it was just used by someone that had HIV/AIDS. 

And now an 8 year old boy used it and cut himself.  And my son was relaying the incident to me. There have been things I never expected my kids to encounter. But it is reality. And it is life.  I wanted to use the opportunity to encourage them yes lets pray. Let’s learn from this too, do you ever use a razor blade? No. And at the same time to teach them some balance in response to these situations. Not to fear or panic but to be wise.

These things happen in developed countries, certainly. 

I am concerned though that the semblance of outward development doesn’t really solve the problems or address the weightier issues of developing the people and their lives, the very heart of Zambia. And it’s really, really important. Because it’s a beautiful people.