Zambericans

After meeting with WaterAid on Thursday, we hurried back to the hotel after lunch in order to meet a group of Zambian youth from different organizations. Scrambling into the conference room late, we found them dressed in suits, collared shirts, and generally nicer clothes. I remember looking down at myself with a t-shirt and jeans and felt embarrassed, hoping that I didn’t seem like the typical American, rude and sloppy. We sat down, and started talking to each other loudly, laughing together in the previously quiet room. That probably didn’t really lessen the contrast between the Americans and the Zambians.

We began with introduction of names and ages. I was slightly intimidated to learn of the age gap between the two groups. They put our names and ages up on the board. On one side were our ages, 13-18, and on the other side were theirs, 20-23. There were youth from several organizations, though they all seemed to be linked through a common facilitator, Walu. We conducted an ice-breaker (three truths and a lie), then another from the Zambians, which involved one person generating a random question, then a random answer. After, we opened it up to a question and answer session between the two groups.

One thing that came out immediately was how everyone on the Zambian side was Christian, and strongly so. the American side there was a high percentage of religious people (most Christian, to the best of my knowledge), but not all of us. To point out the difference between us, the Zambians were surprised we had not started out the meeting with a prayer. Also, another thing that was apparent from the introductions and even the ice-breakers was that the other groups’ focus was on HIV/AIDS. Their strategy on prevention seemed to stem from abstinence rather than condom use, which is different than the teaching methods I’ve been exposed to. Although, as a disclaimer, I’ve read that there are many programs that advocate abstinence in the U.S.

The last activity we did was a discussion about views about the other country. The Zambians put what conceptions they had about U.S., and the Americans put what misconceptions they had about Zambia. I wish we had actually done this before the Q and A session, because it opened up a lot of discussion, especially about their views of the United States. Unfortunately, the talk about our previous misconceptions about Zambia didn’t bear much fruit since we listed and they addressed the things that we’d already found to be untrue, like that Africa is all desert, that most people live in tribes, etc.

I was very glad to meet with them. Even though they weren’t precisely our age, they were also youth and just exchanging information about our different lives with them was incredibly valuable in learning about other lives.