The American embassy held a barbecue last night at the "Marine House" to brief U.S. citizens living in Lusaka about the upcoming presidential elections. There's been some tension/worry about the peacefulness of the elections as riots broke out in downtown Lusaka on Thursday. The U.S. ambassador to Zambia (a tall, tall woman) gave us a short briefing reassuring us that elections would most likely go off without a hitch and that results would be announced about 72 hours after Sep. 28.
After that, a fellow expact friend of mine and my Zambian supervisor friend went out to "Pete's" a steakhouse/pub for some drinks. We were supposed to meet up with some of Zambian colleagues from the social marketing NGO but my contact never called me back.
Those are my formal thoughts.
Informal thoughts:
- Certain American expat children disgust me; they are some of the most worst-behaved, selfish, and greedy children I have ever seen. But... it's not surprising given that the expat American families live the same lifestyle in Lusaka that they would have lived in America. They all drive SUVs [argh, hate SUVs], they all live in a posh area of Lusaka which my friend nicknamed "Little America", and their soccer-mom-mothers all hang out and eat at the same restaurants.
- However, there's also a nice smattering of hardcore missionaries. I met two Southern Baptist missionary couples who had lived in the Zambian bush for about 15-20 years. It's so unbelievably cool to hear that deep Southern twang in the middle of Zambia -- "Y'all take care now, ya hear?"-- awesome. They invited me and my friend to their "expat" bible study, which I'm going to definitely take them up on.
- The "Marine House" ... (I guess a place where the Marines stay?..) is basically a frat house. There's a pool table, bar, grill, big movie projector, etc. It's really weird to see all that in the middle of an African city.
- I really like Zambian bar-hopping nightlife. So far, all my bar/nightlife experiences have been very positive; no loud, violent drunkards, a calm, relaxing atmosphere, always interesting Zambian men to talk to [usually mostly males, obviously], and great selection of alcohol. I like drinking the ciders, specifically Redd's.
- Yeah, so educated Zambians know more about America and the world than we do. We Americans are just... sheltered and spoiled. period.
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the "expat" lifestyle is definitely something that i have some issues with. it's certainly had a long history - americans and europeans spending any significant time abroad in less-developed countries have always historically found their own enclaves, both in terms of physical as well as social space. here in china, my chinese is a bit better than some of my colleagues - and thus i'm blessed to be able to actually be close to my local coworkers. but, some of the other diplomats kind of shy away. i think they're missing out.
also - the marine house? it's exactly MEANT to be a frat house. marine houses at embassies all over the world are just like that. unfortunately guangzhou doesn't get marines yet... when the new consulate is built there'll be one.
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