“You people from Canada, you are rich, no? You people are richer than us Zambians, no?”
Me (thinking to myself): “Ummm, ummm…well, no…I mean yes, I mean I don’t know”
I was found pondering such a thought to myself on the first night of my stay in Aaron Mwansa’s living room in a village in Mkushi. Why am I struggling to come up with an answer? It should either be yes or no, black or white, left or right, yet I am stuttering over an answer and feel highly unconfident and guilty of my answer. Saying yes would be telling Mr. Mwansa that his assumptions were right, that Canadians and Westerners in general, including myself were rich. Saying no would be telling Mr. Mwansa that we Canadians were living lives like those of Zambians.
Me (thinking to myself): “But I am not rich and neither is my family. I am a ‘poor student’. I go to school full time and work part time to pay for such necessities as food and rent and such luxuries as a cell phone in order to communicate on the go”.
I am left wanting my answer to Mr. Mwansa to be as close to reality as possible yet staying respectful to him and not making him feel as though he has been corrected because he is wrong, isn’t he?
My conversation with Mr. Mwansa about the difference in wealth allocation came about when I asked of the whereabouts of his other children since I had met his wife and only two children. He went on to tell me that they were at school and how expensive it was getting for him to send 5 of his 7 eligible children to school.
After his comment which compared the wealth of us Canadians and Zambians in general, it really got me thinking not only about the way we live as Canadians and how different our lives are from that of Zambians but also why this was.
Us, Canadians, we are able to experience such ‘luxuries’ as healthcare, education and other social services at almost no cost but, are these services mainly considered to be ‘luxuries’ because other countries do not have them or are they ‘luxuries’ because we do? What I mean is, do people of developing countries see Westerners and use the work ‘rich’ to signify the difference of what we have and what they do not? But, if I were to compare Mr. Mwansa’s assets to that of mine, he would be much richer than me and many other Canadians, relatively speaking. He has about 20 hectares of land, cattle, a house and many other assets. I on the other hand have not acquired land or a house of my own yet.
Is there more of a cultural undercurrent to this? Here in Zambia, most people, especially in the rural areas, own land, mainly due to farming being their main livelihood so having land is a necessity. A majority of these people received their land from earlier generations of their family members such as their fathers. Owning land in Zambia seems to be more of a norm in the rural areas than in Canada. In Canada, it is something that does not come easily, but that people strive to gain later in life. But social services such as healthcare and education are a standard in Canada and something that is easily accessible and which we have great pride in. So, it is not that us Canadians are rich because we have access to these but because we value these over such things as personal land ownership while for Zambians it is seems to be the opposite. So is it that we Canadians just put more of our resources in strengthening our social services because they are first on our list and it is not as easy as just saying that we have more resources?
Having such a difficult question in front of me, I could not answer it on my own, so I had to ask Mr. Mwansa of what he thought of his question and his country.
Me: “So, Mr. Mwansa, do you not think Zambia has a lot of wealth and resources?”
Mr. Mwansa: “Yes, we do! In fact Zambia is the 3rd highest producer of copper”
Me: “Well than, Zambia and its people are rich, no?”
Mr. Mwansa: “Aay, no. Zambia has many many resources but the people are not rich.”
Mr. Mwansa assumed that since Canada was seen internationally to be a very wealthy country that all Canadians were rich, but that is very far from reality. Many Canadians are living on the street with nowhere to go for help or no food to eat. Lots of families go day-to-day not knowing if they will have a place to live next month. This is not the image of Canada that Mr. Mwansa sees or hears of rather the reality that some Canadians unfortunately live everyday.
Me: “Well, why aren’t most Zambians rich if their country is so rich”
Mr. Mwansa: “Aay, many reasons. The people do not see where this money goes. The government likes to satisfy their pockets more than do what is good for the people of Zambia.”
Me: “So, there is a mismanagement of resources?”
Mr. Mwansa: “Yes, very much so!”
After Mr. Mwansa’s last comment, I started to see something. It was not that us Canadians were rich but that we were lucky. We were lucky to feel secure, generally speaking, with the management of our resources.
Nonetheless, there is without a doubt a difference in standard of quality between the two nations. But to say that this implies that Canadians are richer than Zambians is not as clear as black or white, yes or no but the answer (if there is one) is more clear than it was at the beginning of our conversation. Zambia has a long way to go in terms of standard of living but to merely base that on their wealth allocation is not that easy. Zambia has great resources but the management of these resources by Zambians themselves is not very good. Since I have been here, national funds going missing have been a running headline on newspapers. A total of about 5 trillion kwacha has gone missing from government funds since the beginning of the year; the national budget is only 12 trillion kwacha. This may be a reason for the misconception that many Zambians have that they are poor; rather they are being cheated and taken advantage of as it seems.
1 comment:
Hey Hamdiya,
I've been reading your entries and it seems like you have been pondering about many things, which is great. The question of whether Canadians are richer than Zambians or other Africans is hard to answer. In a simple answer, I would say yes, that Canadians are richer in terms of material wealth measured in GDP or access to social services. But 'wealth' can be measured in other terms, depending on their culture and their values. Perhaps it's the number of goats or the acers of land one owns. In this case I would be extremely poor, like you mentioned. Many time the units in which we measure wealth are western standards, such as money that would render Africans to be poor. A self sufficient village might not exchane their goods among each other in currency, but barter and have all of their needs met and they are happy and satisfied. However, people might look at the village and claim that its people are poor because they do not have money.
It might be useful to distinguish between 'material poverty' and 'poverty of the spirit'. In this case people living in developing countries are poor material wise, but they are full of spirit and determination, which might be lacking in developed countries. We Canadian also face similar issues such as corruption, although maybe not to the extent of other countries. There are constant cases of government money gone missing or not spent on what it was intended for. But the difference may be that we have a relatively reliable institution which deals with these issues, which is the Canadian court system. A fair and impertial judicial system if sometimes lacking in may countries, which leaves the corrupt leaders unpunished.
This is a hard question to be asked, and I know that it comes up all the time, but it seems like you are giving it a great deal of thought. I hope you enjoy your last month in Zambia and I can't wait to hear stories when you get back.
Mari
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