In today's Zambia, neighbourhoods are a shadow of what they used to be. They have lost much of the shine of old, a shine a developed country would not have been ashamed of. The infrastructure built in the past, though dilapidated today, is still being used by a significant if not majority of the urban population, and though it should rightly have been phased out in a perpetual modernization process if the investment made by the first government had paid off, and the momentum set had been followed through, it is still in reasonable condition within the local framework, better than some modern era neighbourhoods.
Gone are the street lamps, the free and dedicated trash collection, the reliable water and electricity supply. Pre-installed geysers that hung on many a wall have all but been cast into the waste dumps as citizens found them impossible to maintain on low budgets. The roads have all but disappeared, replaced with rocky or overgrown terrain where they used to be.
People have responded to these changes by either reverting back to the ways of their ancestors who migrated into towns from the villages, inhabitants of thatched mud huts that knew no electricity or clean tap water. They have also adopted practices that do not do much for the visage of their neighbourhoods, or personal hygien or morale.
Due to the unreliability of water supply, people have resorted to buying drums to store water they can use in moments when the supply is cut off. Taking showers or dipping one's self in a warm bath tub are for the most part luxuries of a short lived past. The usual way to bath is by boiling water on a stove or charcoal burner. Having taken the water into the bathroom, most people simply squat, dip their hands into the bucket and splash it on their body.
Flashing a toilet can only be done from the tank when the water is flowing through the pipes. What happens most of the time is that people draw water by bucket from their water reserve that they either take with them before, or after they are done.
Medical care is no longer free. A visit to the doctor has to be paid for, and most of the better medication can only be had for cash at a local chemist. The amounts asked are not much, but in a third world country where 65% of the people live below the poverty line, this just means most people go without routine checkups, or a visit to the doctor when ill. Most simply self medicate, while others force themselves to go on. Self medication in an impoverished environment means buying cheap, usually stolen or expired medications.
For physical ailments such as tooth issues, most people simply ignore the problem until it gets out of hand. In almost all public places, be they frequented by the rich or poor, a decaying odor permeates, be this nasal or otherwise. Autopsies usually reveal gradual, undiagnosed harm that ate the individual from within, from which there must have been a lot of discomfort. I know a case of a man who lumbered on with a burst apendix until his lower abdomen was all rotten. He died sitting upright, waiting to be seen by a doctor. It is no surprise that dying suddenly is very common. In fact, most deaths I know of occured without warning. One moment the individual was up and about, the next they were gone.
Chemists and other vendors of medication, especially those selling natural remedies, are doind good business, seen very clearly in their proliferation.
Unsightly wall, hedge, wood or reed mat fences that are covered.with a remarkable layer of fine dust in the dry season have marred the appearance of the average neighbourhood. The practice of erecting all manner of fences is a reasonable response to a common feature of most African countries, which is the failure of the state apparatus, in this case the failure to provide security and enforce or foster a culture that respects privacy. The sad thing about this is people behind wall fences are virtually imprisoned in their own yards, without much of a view. Also, though having a wall fence is now seen as a sign of prosperity, they are an affront on an aesthetic sense, and, in the case of unkempt hedges and the like, the source of vermin. Without fencing, however, people would have to accept their yards becoming pathways for all manner of travellers, even at ungodly hours. Some people would not sleep a wink without these large brick walls around their domains for commotion and security concerns.
Households have resorted to burying garbage in their backyards when they cannot afford to have their trash collected. People are forced to dig multiple pits on their plots to keep up with the flow of waste. Most yards are filled to the brim with garbage, so that digging new pits is sure to run into old ones. All manner of either non bio-degradable and toxic waste lies buried beneath in the very places people live, where their children play. When it becomes impossible to throw waste in the backyard, most people simply throw it out in some nearby bush somewhere, usually not very far from human habitation, the result being that there is unsorted, ignored garbage lying around everywhere, a source of vermin, contamination, diseases, leaving a constant stench in the air.
Though there is now a continent wide attempt to rehabilitate roads that is being felt as I write this, whether the efforts will fill the shoes left by the first regime remains to be seen. Countries in the European Union, The World Bank's International Development Association, the Development Bank of South Africa, etc., are all pumping funds into this project, looking to build super-highways in the case of the last. However, Indications are that those receiving the funds and coordinating activities in the country are badly organized or too deliberate. Priorities are being overlooked for political reasons, as well as those based in ineptitude. For example, many of the roads that have thus far been rehabilitated are shoddy and not up to modern road building standards. They lack pavements in residential areas and use drainage that is outdated. They do nothing to combat the dust and dirt. Roads that could simply use maintenance to preserve them are being left to deteriorate further while new ones are laid elsewhere, especially in long neglected rural areas.
People await the outcome of the road rehabilitation and maintenance venture with scepticism, but, for the time being, the destroyed roads are a source for much discomfort and repair bills for motorists, a hindrance to commerce, but crucially they are a health hazard for the dust and dirt they generate. It is everywhere, constantly wafting up and covering everything. One shudders to think of the state of lungs exposed to the finer particles. Shoes have to get constantly polished, while, due to the jagged nature of most road surfaces, most people have wisely taken to wearing steel-toe boots. In the rainy season, the roads turn into mud pools.
The questions most people ask regarding the slide in standards are manifold. The salient ones include those from people who have gone to the extent of asking whether this was unavoidable under African (black) rule? Others blame it on the overspending habits of the first government. There are those who have reason not to entertain the idea Africans are inherently inferior, or that the previous regime was incompetent. Their question is whether our lives would have been more stable or turned out better had we not changed regimes for the sake of change.
The answer to the last group's question is a resounding "yes". Evidence of this we shall find in the dedication and organizational skills the previous government showed, and also in the state of bordering countries whose leaders may or may not have answered the call for multiparty democracy, or applied the World Bank or IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs as stringently. Many, such as Angola, Namibia, or Botswana, have made leaps and bounds in progress, including standards, while we have moved backwards.It is true that hardships have followed all African countries since the mid-1980's, but then, under the previous government, we may have belonged to the club of the impoverished, but were one of the leading economies in this group rather than one of the last as economic statistics clearly show about the present.
According to the CIA World Fact Book, the country's annual growth rate, that now stands at 6%, only matched 1987 growth rates of the same percentage point in 2007. This recovery had the competent leadership of Levy Mwanawasa to thank. This man's tenure was characterized at the onset by positive changes, including a fall in interest rates. They hit the single digit figure of 8%, the lowest since 1977.
Otherwise, all else has been a downward tumble since this government came to power. The country's GDP per capita that stood at $1400 in 2007 is a mere two-thirds that at independence, making Zambia one of the poorest countries in the world today. Social indicators have continued to decline, particularly in measurements of life expectancy at birth that now stands at 50 years, and maternal and infant mortality that is at 85 per 1000.
It is preposterous to blame this remarkable decline on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, while affirming that 6% economic growth cannot support the rapid population growth characteristic of Zambia, when the latter is a valuable resource and the former has failed to impact the latter in all but demographics. Obviously, the fault here lies squarely with an inability to devise an effective coping strategy as a response to real exigencies.
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