It felt good to get to Lusaka. Malawi had been a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, but I made it through and was sure Zambia would be easier. It’s much more developed, as evidenced by the Samsung Galaxy advertisements that dot the highway into town and the skinny jeans wearing teenagers that hangout at the shopping mall, which would make things, I presumed, a little easier and more comfortable. And most significantly, I had already done everything that had to be done. I had made a lot of mistakes on the first go of this work in Malawi, but I had learned a lot from that initial set up and was sure Zambia would go fairly smoothly. Sweet Lord, David, you foolish and naive piece of crap, have you learned anything in your three years working in developing countries?
Things started out innocently enough, but really took a turn for the worst on Monday when I started to feel pretty sick. It was a beautifully sunny 80 degrees and I had the chills. The only good thing about having a fever here is that the stupidly hot taxi rides, which usually leave you with a nasty ring of back sweat that creeps through your shirt, actually offered some relief as the baking inside of a 1980s Corolla felt pretty good when I was finding the outside temp to be too chilly for my depleting health. But at least you can self medicate in developing countries. And by self medicate, I mean take your medical advice from the Indian kid that looks about half your age standing behind the counter of the walk in pharmacy. Yes sir, I will take this alka seltzer/vitamin C combo that you have suggested and sold to me for $5.
So that’s what I did for the next three days, chug alka seltzer just to get through the busy work days before I could make it back to a shitty hotel room and collapse into bed at 6pm to try to sleep it off before the following morning. They were fitful nights, spent either shivering cold or sweltering hot, and as my physical health deteriorated by the day, my mental well being was shot by Tuesday. I won’t go into the details as to why (there’s just too much pain to relive), I’ll just say that feeling as if you’re constantly being misled or lied to is very, very hard to emotionally deal with. In any case, by Friday, I was at least physically feeling a little bit better, around 70%. At that point, with two data collectors hired and trained, I was nearing the home stretch. Just had to get the phones hooked up and send them to the wild.
Just get the phones hooked up. Shamie (one of the enumerators I hired who sports purplish hair and smacks her chewing gum during the interview), can you please give me the phone I gave you this morning, so that we may finish things up? Shamie? Where’s the $300 phone? How the f’ have you lost the phone within two hours of me giving it to you? You’ve got to be kidding me. Daggers fly out of my eyes and straight into her heart. I picture myself picking her up and lifting her above my head, spinning her around a few times before throwing her as hard as I can to the pavement, a quick kick to her midsection before leaving here there helpless. Instead, I just tell Shamie and Cuthbert, the other enumerator I hired, to go home while I figure out what next. My immediate next, after getting rid of both of them, was to find a bar. Two beers in, nursing my fever and emotional distress, boarding the next flight out of Lusaka and back to the US sounded like the best option for everyone involved.
But the following morning was a new day. I had decided that it was unlikely that Shamie stole the phone. I’ll never be 100% confident that that’s true, but I give her the benefit of the doubt for a lot of reasons, and though buying another phone in Lusaka wasn’t an option, I could leave her with my phone to get the job done. I called her and Cuthbert to meet up again in the afternoon for the final send-off. I spent the better part of the first 15 minutes of the meeting with Shamie lecturing about the seriousness of losing that phone, about making a sizeable deduction from her pay, about how disappointing it is to get started like this, and about how if something like this were to happen again, she’d be gone. And I spent the better part of the first 10 minutes of the meeting with Cuthbert lecturing about responsibility and timeliness after he showed up an hour and twenty minutes late. Not exactly the smooth start in Lusaka I had envisioned when I had arrived. Then I finished as quickly as I could, wishing them luck in the field, and getting rid of them as quickly as possible. I had better things to do with the afternoon.
I checked myself into the Southern Sun and spent the rest of the weekend reminding myself, with the help of the top notch staff, what it felt like to be in a place where things just work. No hassle, mental breakdowns, or frustration required. Checking into the hotel was me waving the white flag. Zambia wins. You are not easier than Malawi...not by a long shot. You are equally tough, maddening, and humbling. And as good as I thought it felt to arrive in your capital city, it’ll feel better to leave.
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