Culture Shock
06-21-23
9:26 pm
Today was a very chill day, we went to some shops and ran some errands. My grandparents showed us where they used to live on this farm called Sugar Bush. I feel like that was the highlight of our outing today. The place has five different cottages on it that their friend rents out to people and corporations that wish to have a wonderful stay in Zambia. It also has a garden, a restaurant, a store with handmade jewelry, purses, clothes and furniture. The furniture was so beautiful and unique it’s called light bush and the wife of the man that owns it has a studio on the land where she makes it all. It was huge, a two story cottage type house. That inspired me because they have created so many jobs in opening that space for the local artisanal people to thrive as well as created a beautiful home for themselves and many others.
I took some videos on my handy-cam, I want to start editing my footage however I’ve just been so jet-lagged my mind just won’t allow me to do much but write honestly. Today drained me and we were only out from 10am-3pm, well that’s kinda long now that I see it. But honestly my wifi is so slow here I won’t be able to edit how I usually do. It’ll be more of just raw footage and a more cinematic type feel which is what I have been leaning towards anyway so that’s very much in alignment. Check out my YouTube at the link that will be at the end of this post! I’m just curating my own little world on there.
We went out to eat at this nice Zambian restaurant called Mpoto Yathu and ate so good. I had steak, salad and a bunch of different veggies. I eat steak here because their meat is grass fed and well taken care of here. It was soooo good, American steak is so trash in comparison, it’s so sad how low quality food is back home but it’s supposed to be one of the most developed countries. I had fufu too but they don’t call it that here they call it Cassava. I’ll be posting a video on that experience on TikTok either tonight or tomorrow. My phone literally keeps running out of storage and it’s so annoying because I deleted half my camera roll on the plane here. Oh and the whole meal for 6 people to eat was $90 US dollars.. insanity.
We went to one of the big malls today and it honestly looked just like an American mall. Except the security here don’t play at all, no thievery whatsoever is going on in there. I got a 1000 piece puzzle that I plan to finish while I am here at one of the shops too. They have a place that’s like Walmart but it’s called “Game”, and my uncle said “ I never thought I could be in a place that feels cheaper than Walmart. ” I thought that was funny cause it definitely gave Family Dollar mixed with Walmart.
I think I am actually getting used to the stares everywhere we go now. When I was in Ethiopia for my connecting flight people was staring me down and it made me so uncomfortable. I was eating my lil noodle soup minding my business at this cafe and the girl at the table across from me literally did not stop staring at me the whole time. The waitress also tried to finesse me but I just let her have the extra $10, I just chopped it up to paying it forward. Anyways, my grandmother told me they stare so hard because one I am pretty (duh) and two we’re American so they’re natural intrigued by us being in their country.
I also noticed that they don’t have the same social manners that we do. They don’t say excuse me when they bump into you or are in your personal space. The people was damn near breathing down my neck and that made me so uneasy traveling. On the plane a man bumped me hard while walking by and I said, “ You can say excuse me” and everybody around me looked at me like “oop, yea but we don’t do that.” I was sleepy and grumpy so I had a little bit of an attitude. Also, the cars don’t stop for pedestrians, they have very few street lights anywhere just roundabouts and four way stops. There are no stop signs, everybody just knows when it’s their turn. Makes me think that maybe Americans are just stupid because why don't we do that?
All in all It was a nice day and it’s been very interesting observing other people’s culture. This is one of the main reasons I love traveling. Expanding my horizons so I am not limited in my thinking and ways to western culture. Tomorrow we are going down town which is about an hour away, so I have to get up early. I am going to meet the shea butter lady my grandmother told me about so that’s exciting. My butt is hurting sitting in this hardwood chair my grandma let me use so I’m wrapping this up. Thank you for reading! Until next time.xoxo
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