Where is my luggage? First days in Zambia!

Where is my backpack?
After a long flight to Lusaka I am standing at the airport, exhausted by the heat and the journey, looking for my luggage. It is not there! It was the first time that such thing happened to me. I was lucky enough that a steward from BA helped me with the arrangements and that George (one of the officials at the NGO), who was meant to pick me up from the airport, was patient enough. When I finally was outside of the terminal, I was still shivering and totally overwhelmed by everything that just happened during the last 30 minutes. A new continent, new culture, no sleep for days, first encounters with people I will work with and ...NO luggage!
George did not seem very surprised and took it quiet easy whereas I was already thinking in terms of having lost all my stuff that is in the backpack. I am hoping to get it with the next flight from London to Lusaka, which arrives Saturday morning.

George and a friend took me to the house of the organization. On the way I could get the first impressions of how Zambia is like. It rains...a lot! The streets are in very bad conditions, people walk along the roads and carry with them whatever they have to transport; vegetables, bags, children....everything. In general, it is hard to describe the misery and/or living condition in which most of the Zambians live. It is both shocking and impressive since it contains the impact and power of poverty as well as a certain calm in the faces of the people. Everybody seems so relaxed, so joyful, and so calm. The ride takes about 30 minutes and during that time it started and stopped to rain 4 times. The rain leaves its impacts on the roads and on the fields. "you picked the best time of the year to come...everything is so green", a woman told me in the airplane. And she was right....The contrast of the "red loamy" roads and the green bushes and trees are what you always heard and imagined when talking about Africa. The bad condition of the roads and big puddles are the other side of the coin.

We arrive at the house and I meet Andy. He is somewhat project manager at SIA (Sport in Action) and a really nice guy. He and his girl stay at the house as well as a friend of his. Right now there are also two Norwegian girls staying for a month who work with another project of a partner organization. I am tired...I can barely stand on my feet. The heat is getting on me and my frustration about the backpack still bothers me. The house itself is really sophisticated, with a shared bathroom, my own big room, a kitchen, a living room with big screen and stereo and a patio. A typical feature of Zambia appears to be the high walls that separate the properties from each other. Even though Zambia is argued to be very friendly and peaceful, it seems that people did their best to make it as hard as possible for anybody to become a criminal.

I take a nap which turned out to last over 2 hours...Andy did not go into office and told me that we would do some shopping (since I needed some basic stuff for the days I am without luggage). Andy, Vivian (his girl) and 2 drivers took me to a mall. The ride was funny since everybody is so keen and has such a great sense of humor. They took care of me from the very first moment and I felt the positive energy that people have immediately. At the mall I got 2.000.000 Kwacha (400$) and I got 40 bills which hardly fit into my wallet. Andy laughed at me and told me that I would get used to the big numbers and the amount of bills. In the mall I had to laugh because the supermarket I was about to enter was "Superspar", one of the most common German supermarkets in Germany. I had to travel thousands of miles in order to buy my African bread and the Knorr-Soups in a suburb of Lusaka. The bill of 200.000 Kwacha was not as chocking when I translated it into dollars (5000 Kwacha = 1 dollar). I also bought a Sim card (for a dollar) so that I am available on a Zambian phone number. During the shopping I realized that people were looking at me and were probably wondering what I was doing in their neighborhood. Some were friendly and greeted me right away; others gave me rather telling looks.

The next stop was the hospital....in that case I was only passively involved since Vivian was having an appointment or was about to get some medicine. This was the first and probably the best example of time management in Zambia. From "we will be back in 10 minutes" to "10 more minutes", me and the two drivers waited almost 2 hours in the car at the parking lot of the private hospital. I started to chat with the drivers who were real locals and, thus, spoke mostly in the traditional language. They taught me how to say "nice to meet you" and I got a round of applause when I welcomed Andy and Vivian back in the car with "Tschaoama po onana" (something like that)
We stopped twice to get some more food. People buy their food either directly in the store in the malls or they stop at one of the many little wagons at the street to buy some "fresh" vegetables, fruits, spices etc. It is a chaotic picture of people on their way to where every they are going to, and people living right next to the streets, and a traffic that is anything but clear.
The time with the four made me forget about the trouble I had in the morning and I realized that if you drink enough water, your body thanks you for that. It is 5.00 pm now and I am already tired. I have some sleep to catch up. We watched Rambo 4 and I have the feeling that it wont be the last movie they are watching tonight. I am going to make some pasta later, install the mosquito net, and tomorrow I will get to the office the first time in order to meet everybody and to get first "instructions" of how my stay is going to look like.