I recently read The In Between World of Vikram Lall and I highly recommend it to anyone wondering about Kenyan history, the life of Indian people in Africa, or just wanting to think and learn and be swept away. All I have to say is that the book begins “My name is Vikram Lall and I am the most corrupt man in Africa.” Talk about an opening line!! This post is more related to our recent journey by bus from Kitwe to Johannesburg via Botswana than anything to do with the book, but it is the book that accompanied me and I wanted to steal the title and highly recommend it (also, the author is Canadian, for you English teachers at heart).
We were mid-way into our time in Southern Africa, and I needed to digest and shake up what I had been learning and thinking after three pretty mentally intense weeks in Kitwe and Racecourse, so the trip fell at a great time. We went to the museum in Lusaka (underfunded but interesting and somehow proud still) and spent a day mooching about before heading on to Livingstone. Every person in Zambia who enquires about your itinerary in your country asks “…and have you been to Livingstone and Victoria falls yet?” even though a significant portion of them have not. People don’t seem to begrudge this fact although some feel free to ask to be taken there, they are mostly proud to have a natural wonder like the falls in there country. Since it is the end of the dry season the falls were much smaller than normal and you could see the bare cliffs and stand where in just a few short months enormous amounts of water would be flowing. Perhaps not the most spectacular time to visit but the site was still plenty spectacular for me, and another reminder of how much things change with the seasons here. We had to stop our taxi and wait almost ten minutes for a laissez-faire herd of elephants to cross the road back to town. As we spent a few days in livingstone carousing with westerners coming from and going to all sorts of places on their interesting journeys we were trying to determine our travel plans to Jo’burg, and for our intended three weeks of travel after my conference there.
Just like the guidebooks though, no-one could recommend anything to do or see in Botswana, other than maybe a safari. Imagine a whole country that is completely safe that noone wants to visit?? “I hear its expensive”, “I would consider spending extra time here in Livingstone or on safari and then flying straight to jo-burg”, “Our bus was 24 hours straight through so we didn’t see anything.” At least our friend Thulasy said, “I hear it has more elephants than people so maybe you’ll see some wildlife from the road” and she seemed interested. We knew from our African history courses and our guidebook that Botswana was one of the better-off countries in Africa, owing mainly to rich natural resources that were discovered mostly after colonial times – fuelling economic growth rather than war, corruption, exploitation or other nastiness that natural resource wealth - ‘the resource curse’ as it is sometimes known- seems to have brought to places like Nigeria, the DRC, Sierra Leone and others. The combination of people ignoring it, it being expensive, and it seeming to have figured something out in terms of ‘development’ all made Botswana more intriguing to Heather and I. We decided to travel through by bus and spend one night in Francistown and one in Gabarone, the capital. The first surprises of Botswana were right at the border, first there were hippos, and rain drops. Once we passed through the border crossing and waited for the bus and other passengers, there was no one wanting to change money (we had turned down about fifty offers on the other side because we needed enough Zambian Kwacha to get back if anything went wrong). There were some marketers in the area where we were waiting, but they were somehow different. All had chairs and umbrellas and big coolers, and bought goods for resale. None had babies or small children. They did not call out to us or notice us any more than any other passenger.
I am still unsure of what I would consider development but I have thought of a few measures I might use. I know it is certainly more than Gross Domestic Product per capita, or big buildings and big industries and big consumption as capitalism seems to imply. As we traveled through northern Botswana watching excitedly for the occasionally appearing elephants and giraffe I realized that space for wildlife and environmental integrity is certainly one measure I value in which Canada, Botswana and Zambia all seem to be blessed, and have preserved (maybe more easily partially because of low population density, and varied landscapes not all suitable for farming or resource extraction). The bus trip to Chipata in Eastern Zambia had also been a feast for the eyes of natural beauty and untouched land so this was not a big change, except now not a single piece of garbage was tossed out the bus window to pollute this wonderful resource.
As we spent our time in Botswana I thought more about what was noticeable about the country, my conceptions of development, and how glad I was that we had made the trip. The people we saw in Botswana seemed more confident and relaxed than in Zambia. There was no crowd of cab drivers pressuring us and fighting over us when we arrived – maybe the number of drivers is closer matched to the number of customers, and they are able to make an easier living as a result? Maybe it is illegal to pressure customers? I am not sure of the reason but it was refreshing, and might be one measure of development. People in general took little notice of us unless we approached them in which case they were polite and helpful and then went on with their own business.
People’s confidence was particularly noticeable in gender relations, which I realized was also one of my implicit measures of development. Women were doing everything men were doing (driving trucks and buses, conducting buses, security gaurds, etc) and had the attitude of being equal, which was surprisingly surprising, given that I had rarely been uncomfortable with how women are treated and how they act in Zambia. Women did not hesitate to joke or argue with men and vice versa, aside from the flirting, everyone seemed to interact the same regardless of sex.
Even the prices were somewhat refreshing. Bus transport was still reasonable but both food and lodging were significantly more expensive than Zambia and Malawi. Instead of dividing by 4500 to convert to dollars we were dividing by 6. It was a good reminder that the reason Zambia is cheap to travel for a Canadian is because there is a huge disparity between the economies in all other respects as well.
It was good for us to have to suddenly reconsider things that in Zambia seem to be ‘just the way things are,’ a culture shock without the racism implicit in the culture shock of traveling between continents. So my attempt at a better world for the remainder of our time here is to think of everything as fluid, as possible to change. None of the disparities between Canada and Zambia, or the frustrating things in Zambia have to be that way. At the same time development is not a straight line, we all have things to learn from one another and each person and society can, and must actively choose the ways they want to improve their own situation, and the overall situation of humanity. A better world is more than possible, it is right here- each new place being better in its own way, waiting for others to learn from it.
The best thing about Botswana was turning upside down so many of the little frustrations and characteristics of Zambia that I had become a bit desensitized to: littering, desperate competition for business or charity or attention, gender discriminations and disparities, etc. Again I feel I should emphasize that there are a lot of great things about Zambia too, beauty and character and hope. It was just great to shake things up a bit.
