Zambian food

Nshima is the staple food here. It is made from ground maize- what they call mealie meal - and then boiled until it is very thick. Think cream of wheat thickened until you can roll it into balls. The first time I saw someone cooking it I though it looked quite easy. Then I got my chance and learned that it is actually kind of an art-form. You have to add just the right amount of mealie meal and water, boil it just right, then stir and stir and stir until all the lumps are out. The first time I made it, it was the middle of the day so quite hot anyway, standing over a hot stove, and stirring this thick dough for several minutes, I was sweating profusely. Maria, the housekeeper was having quite a good time laughing at me. I'm sure inside she was thinking 'stupid American' but just kept telling me to stir harder! I think it turned out OK, I only tasted a couple of clumps. Nshima is eaten with your hands.

Other than Nshima they eat a lot of vegetables, namely leaves. There are pumpkin leaves, sweet potato leaves, cassava leaves, rape, cabbage, and others. You slice the leaves extremely thin (they laugh at me for my inability to cut them thin enough) then stew them in a bit of oil and water with onion and tomato. That's Zambian cooking for you, take a vegetable or meat, throw it in a pot with some water, oil, salt, tomato, and onion and cook until soft. It's actually quite good. My favorite is pumpkin leaves but the delicacy is sweet potato leaves. Sometimes they will mix some ground nuts in with the leaves which makes it a special treat.

Your typical meal requires nshima, vegetable, and some kind of protein. The protein is usually chicken or dried fish but we have had some beef. The chicken comes in the whole variety, none of our conveniently cut and packaged breasts (they actually don's like the breast, they think it is dry and without flavor, will go for a wing or thigh instead). I've cooked whole chickens before so this isn't totally new to me but here you get the WHOLE chicken. Meaning you have to clean off the extra skin, clean out the innards. Thank God they cut the head off for you, but that's about it. Now about the fish. Dried fish is, different. It has VERY strong flavor. To cook it they will just fry it up in some oil and serve whole. On the larger fish the head is considered the best part and if a child reaches for the head they will get their hand smacked. On the smaller fish, some people eat the head and tail, all eat the skin and suck the meat off the bones. The first time I ate one I didn't realize that they ate everything, so I picked around and only ate the meat leaving the head, bones, skin, tail, fins. I looked over and everyone else had cleaned theirs down to a few bones, so I put on a smile and kept eating. One of the varieties is called capenta. It is little tiny fish that are dried then fried. They are so tiny, it is like eating cole slaw but the bits of cabbage are whole fish. You eat them head, bones, and all, crunch crunch crunch. At home I love fish but it isn't my favorite here :)

All traditional Zambian meal are eaten with your hands. You take a small piece of Nshima and roll it into a ball, then grab some vegetable or meat with it and enjoy! The only time they use cutlery is when eating "fancy meal" or some British influenced dish that requires a fork.

Everyone has gardens. This means that they buy very little at the grocery store. They will go to the markets once a week to buy some fruit, fish or chicken but don't buy much at all from the grocery store. They don't really eat much that doesn't come from the ground or cant be killed. When we do go to the store it is to buy things like tea, sugar, milk, bread, and biscuits for tea time. Notice the British influence there? The only thing they need from the store is due to traditions that came from their time as a British Colony. I on the other hand buy yogurt, cereal, cheese and other things that help to remind me that I'm not living on another planet. Since nobody regularly buys these items they are very expensive and tend to be nearing expiration. Hmm, will definitely have to be changing my habits.

In addition to vegetable gardens, everyone has fruit trees!! Mangos are everywhere. It is the one fruit that isn't sold in the markets because there is an overabundance. I told them that it is an expensive fruit in the US and considered a special occasion type fruit and they laughed. They just walk out, pluck a mango from the ground and eat it like an apple on their way to work. Guavas and avocado are also very abundant. There are always 10 or 12 lying on the ground. It is not maize season yet but I can imagine that as soon as the maize is ready there will be maize (boiled, grilled, pounded, roasted) for every meal. Ill have to report back on that.

I'm starting to get used to the food, but I'd still kill for a High St sandwich, or even a nice salad made from lettuce rather than cabbage. Its amazing how much you miss your comfort foods. At least they have ice cream :)


A very small scoop of nshima with stewed pumpkin leaves and dried fish. For lunch a Zambian will eat about four times this amount of food but the nshima is so heavy I just cant do it.
















Nshima, sweet potato leaves, mushrooms, and beef innards. I see some lung in there, liver, and an artery?.















Close up of the intestines. If you know me well you know that this is the last thing on my favorite foods list.

Arrival in Zambia

I have arrived, and it is a whole new world. Everyday I am introduced to things completely new to me and challenged to do things differently than I'm used to. Simply existing is still a challenge since everything is done differently, so I'm looking forward to the day that things become familiar and I can do something as easy as having a cup of tea without having to ask 20 questions.

The flight was quite long, 15 hours but it was beautiful. Green plains for miles and miles, so much undeveloped land. I had a changeover in Ethiopia and almost missed my connecting flight. I was sitting at the gate for over an hour but when they started boarding I realized I didn't have the color coded boarding stickers like everyone else. Turns out you have to check in at a desk somewhere but it wasn't labeled and was on the other side of security...interesting. So I had to run there but still managed to get on the plane. Once in Africa, Ethiopian Airlines runs more of a hop on hop off "bus" type service, they stop in several cities and people get off, others get on. I was still not used to the accent so I had a hard time hearing where we were, luckily there was a very nice man sitting next to me also headed to Lusaka so he let me know when to disembark. He wanted to chat the whole way (of course I just wanted to sleep) and he ended up giving me his card and encouraged me to give him a call once I get a phone. Very friendly people.

Once in Lusaka, I was greeted by the Archbishop himself, another priest, and the airport chaplain who had a great big hug and kiss ready for me. She marched me right up to the front of the VIP/Dignitaries line for immigration and I could see everyone in the other line grumbling as the person running their booth came over to check my passport. What service!

The drive from the airport to my first night's accommodation was the real eye opener. I had expected to see these things but the reality of it was humbling. Swarms of people walking along the roads to their destination. Women carrying huge bundles on their head while having a baby strapped to their back. People looking for rides and piling into the backs of trucks. All of the houses have 10 foot cement or brick walls with barbed wire or broken glass on the top. Every property has a gate with an attendant to let you in. At first I thought, holy shit, what did I get myself into. I've since become accustomed to this and have realized that the walls and gates are not there for personal safety but to just keep thieves out. Tons of petty theft, people just looking for their next meal.

My first night the Archbishop arranged a feast for me. Some lovely food and my first taste of Nshima! Quite bland on its own but not too bad with some type of a veggie or sauce. It will take some getting used to but it better happen fast because they eat it every day. The next day I received a tour of the Cathedral then was dropped off with Sister Priscilla and her driver for the journey up to Kitwe. Again, this was another eye opener. Even more people walking along a beaten path next to the highway, people carrying live goats strapped to the back of their bicycle, farmers selling their produce along the road in droves, mud huts everywhere, poverty. It was amazing. I wasn't very talkative on the drive because I was too busy looking around and trying to keep my jaw off the floor.

I'm currently staying with Ms. Chilando, the principal of the Mpelembe Secondary School and her family. They are wonderful. When I arrived there were 3 of her kids staying there but since then two of them have gone off to boarding school. The other is working locally at Deloitte (which is not a good company to work for here) and plans to go to South Africa to get a second degree in February (yes I'm going with her to explore!). The Chilandos are all so welcoming and open, I have been made to feel extremely at home since I arrived. We're becoming comfortable enough with each other at this point that they will tell me when I'm doing something "very un-African" or to make fun of the Muzungus (whites) while I'm around.

The town I'm in, Kitwe, has a population of over 300,000 but you wouldn't know it by wandering around. Town itself is quite small, feels more like a town with 50,000 than 300,000. There are no large buildings, the central shopping area is 5 or 6 blocks. It is more like a collection of villages than a city, its a sprawling maze of neighborhoods, shops, and markets. This is necessary because most people rely on their own two feet to get around so going to town to buy groceries is not an easy option. There is a bus system (if you call privately run taxi van service running on a fixed route to town a bus system) but it seems that most can't afford the bus fare every time they need something from the store. So they walk. Everywhere.

The first few days I was able to relax and get situated. Went on a few walks on the school grounds (the house is on school grounds inside the wall) and then explored outside of the school grounds which can be quite scary at times. It's not scary because I feel in danger, but more that I don't know what is going on and am always the center of attention. The people are extremely friendly with big smiles on their faces. Everyone stops to meet you and tell you that they "want very much to be your friend". I'm uncomfortable with this because I still don't know if they are indeed being friendly or if they just want something from me. Kids run up to stare at me, people hang out of bus windows to wave, then the bus will stop and back up towards you, its really quite intimidating. I now know what it feels like to truly be a minority.

Over the weekend I went with a couple of Ms. Chilando's girls to "the farm". This is where her sister lives and the girls' cousin. Even though the farm isn't too far out of town it was quite a different experience. We were lucky that night that there was electricity, apparently this is quite a luxury for the electricity to be working all night long. We stayed up and watched pirated movies and eating Nshima and rooster. In the morning everyone bathed, literally took bathes since there is not a shower (this is quite commong) which was strange since I haven't taken a bath for the sole purpose of cleaning myself since I was probably 5 years old. Then we went out to explore the bush. They have a huge river running through their back yard which apparently is quite a problem. The river triples in size during the rainy season (now) then goes down in the dry season so they use that land to farm. The problem is that they cannot protect that side of the farm. They need to put up an electric fence to keep thieves from stealing their crops but you can imagine how well electric fences and rising rivers coexist. So, the thieves just come up in a boat in the middle of the night and help themselves to the maize, apparently 25% of the crop goes missing every year.

I started work on Monday morning. Man is there a lot of work to be done. The network is a disaster, labs are a mess and swarming with viruses, internet is up and down depending on the weather. I had been concerned that there wouldn't be enough to keep me busy for the length of time I wanted to be here but I have since changed my mind. On top of all this they want me to teach monthly technical seminars for the teachers to show them how to use technology in the classroom, and teach two sections of computer appreciation class (4 classes per week). Whew! So far we have managed to get half of the computers in the labs cleaned up and with updated antivirus (try doing that with a <5 kbps download) and I think today we may have figured out one of the major problems with the network. So far so good.

Now I am off to take a swim. The pool has a nice coating of algae so I consider it more of a swim in the lake than the pool, but it feels so nice to cool down at the end of a long hot sweaty day!

More pictures to come soon...