A state in mourning

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

As this is my first foray into the world of blogging, you’ll have to bear with me as I orient myself and settle into some kind of routine. I am writing from Lusaka, Zambia, where I have just begun a CIDA-funded internship with the Zambian Campaign to Ban Landmines. The program is administered by Mines Action Canada, a coalition of Canadian NGOs devoted to stopping the use and addressing the humanitarian costs of landmines and cluster bombs.

I arrived in Lusaka a week ago last night, and found myself immersed in the nation-wide mourning of a well-regarded late president, Levy Mwanawasa, who died on August 19 after six weeks of critical care following a second stroke. The Zambian national football team postponed its World Cup qualifier with Togo; shops, restaurants and bars are forbidden from playing pop music – Christian gospel is all that can be heard; newspapers and billboards seem to contain more messages of condolence from local companies than news articles or ads. Driving in from the airport, I passed a Batman-like beam of light apparently emanating from the president’s yet-to-be-buried body.

But on Wednesday, the day that would have been his sixtieth birthday, the president was finally buried. Tomorrow, September 8, marks the end of a three-week period of national mourning, and life is expected to resume its normal course – or rather, all the events and activities that have been put on hold will pile one above the other, and, parallel with fast-approaching elections in Canada and the US, the race for the Zambian presidency will begin in full swing. (Also – probably the topic of my next post – the Zambian football team plays Togo and I reserved tickets!)

My first impressions of Lusaka have been entirely positive. Compared to Nairobi, where I lived for six months last year as a UNHCR intern, Lusaka is smaller, quieter and cleaner. It still has the familiar orangy-red dirt sidewalks and dust-filled air, and the sweet smell of burning garbage brings back memories, but the diesel fumes are less pervasive, the traffic less infuriating, and the persistent touts nowhere in sight. Further, Zambia lacks an African language that is spoken by more than 20-odd percent of the people (unlike Swahili in Kenya), making English the most widely-spoken language in the country – I have yet to come across a Zambian who couldn’t utter at least a few words to send me in the right direction.

Of course, this expatriate perspective does not cover the expansive ‘compounds’ that surround Lusaka, bearing an all-too-close resemblance to Nairobi’s infamous slums. I have not yet encountered signs of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zambia, where well over a million people currently live with the virus. I understand that regular funerals are a part of life here. My work, though focused on landmines and cluster bombs, will spill over into the many interconnected projects that comprise Zambian civil society and address problems of health and development in the country.

In my first week here, I met many of the people I will be working with, all involved in some way or another with landmine and disability work: social activists, medical practitioners, journalists, landmine survivors and public servants, few of whom are limited to one of these categories. My supervisor, Dr. Bob Mtonga, is a regional leader in countless major campaigns, traveling the world advocating against nuclear weapons, landmines, cluster bombs and small arms, publishing on all of these issues in Zambia’s national newspaper, all the while working as a medical doctor addressing HIV/AIDS among youth, diabetes, and landmine victim assistance, among other issues. I understand that he also writes poetry and enjoys fixing things – to pass the time, you know. It’s a pleasure to work with him.

Closing in on the end of my inaugural blog post, I already see that I’m going to have to work harder at filtering down my experience – so much has already been left out. Let this be an introduction. In the coming months, I hope to share with you the perspective of an ordinary Canadian on this exciting and fast-changing African city, and hopefully nearby areas and countries as well. Most importantly, I will write of my experience working with Dr. Bob and the mine action movement in Zambia, which I am so fortunate to be a part of. Please feel free to share your thoughts – I and others would love to hear them!

Louis