Ambitions

When I was 7, I wanted to be a garbage collector. To hang by the side of that banged up truck that used t pass in front of my house and fling large black plastic bags filled with rubbish into a big heap of other garbage. To me, these men made our lives so much better, they were doing all the things no one else wanted to do. I used to run out every other evening to watch them at work. How noble and extremely styled they seemed doing it. Then at 8, I wanted to be a bus driver. Every morning I would see the lady driver turn the big huge wheel of the bus round and round and how easy she made it seem. She would pick us up all on time and deliver us back safely to our eager parents waiting every day at the end of the streets. For some time after that, I didn't quite know what I wanted to be. As i grew older, my ambitions changed many many times but there was always a similarity that existed between all of them. They were all driven by events that helped me or the people around me at the time;making it a lot easier for a lot of us to just live our daily lives.

So it's no surprise that as I grew up and watched more movies, and read more my ambition shifted from a human rights activist, to a rockstar to a genetic scientist then finally to a physiotherapist. These were all things that helped me throughout my life journey to be where i am here. And today, I am a physiotherapist helping people in my own way making their lives seem a little better every day.

I love my job no matter where i am, or who i'm treating but I have to admit that when I was in Zambia, Africa it was when i looked and touched the sexually abused kids that clinged to my baggy jeans that i felt an instant connection with. It was when I was in a rural clinic in Alor Setar, Kedah in Malaysia with hardly any physiotherapy equipment that I felt I finally belonged. These are the very little essential things that keep me going in this often cruel world.

It's hard to remain as optimistic for change as I would say I am reading what we all read in the papers, seeing all that we see everyday. But for some reason, probably out of sheer self motivation and by inspiring stories of the many individuals i live my life by , I've managed to salvage that optimism to want to bring some good to this world. To change what I think should be changed. Being a physiotherapist, I deal with too many "illnesses" that seem to be self inflicted either by lack of education, lack of motivation and the badly run systems in place governed by the state. Needless to say, I'm someone who wishes to achieve all that I possibly can! We need better policy makers, we need passionate people to put better systems in place.

I'm still always wanting to be something new, every day of my life and that's GREAT! I hope if everything else about me changes, that that does not.

Zero points if you don't believe.

Lusaka has been great to me. People are friendly and nice and extremely hospitable and humble. Pollution has to be at a minimum being although I'm living in a capital city. The weather is awesome, I love it! There are nice places to visit too although I've been only been to a few due to the unbelievable cost! =C

Over the weekend, my colleague invited me for a poetry slam here in Lusaka called Bittersweet. I've been to a few open mics/poetry slams in Malaysia and I am all up for any artsy event, so I was quick to say yes! We arrived at the Mulungushi Conference Center (I've been here once before for a friend's friend's wedding) only to discover like a whole bunch of people who seemed to be regulars with "Bittersweet" and "Please Don't Snap" T-Shirts. It was a nice cozy room with really good acoustics. We didn't wait long for the event to start. When it finally did, I was BLOWN AWAY with the talent that was there , on stage that night. The precision in what they said, their expressions, the poetry and the passion! There were also amazing singers, so young and just the most amazing voices accompanied with no music...I enjoyed that more than anything else that night.

It's been almost a year I've been in Lusaka, so by now I was used to the Jesus/Christian themed everything wherever I went. I told myself I'll concentrate on the deliverance of it all and that was what I did for the first 5 people that spoke about Jesus, being reborn, being saved, being loved.

People gave them standing ovations! Everyone stood from their chairs and oh no one clapped, too mainstream I think?...everyone snapped (their fingers)!

I'm no poet. I'm not a writer either. The most passionate I've been writing are on my blog and on Facebook. As I sat there watching these amazing young people recite their poems, what got me thinking was the passion that oozed from every single one of them , from their poems. They felt this deep connection with their religion/Jesus, sooo deep , something which of course I can't possibly fathom. Before taking the plunge to a full non-faith life, I never was very religious to begin with. But hey, I was cool with this. In a country with such a high unemployment and poverty rate, where people come from backgrounds of having no hope, of in fact a worst culture of voodoo and "black magic"...it's comforting that they have found hope, many have denounced such habits and feel loved and loved themselves. I was also happy to hear almost all of them condemn the churches for their greed in getting "donations" from the poor (If you want to open a church and make money, come to Africa. New churches sprout like mushrooms here). Almost all of them spoke about loving themselves too, which was awesome!

It was great till it neared the ending and a few people came up on stage and by now the atmosphere was getting more tense. People were fired up. The next act started off with condemnation of politicians, and I thought to myself, YES! I am going to love this. Then it slowly changed, they started condemning the women liberation movement. They called them "ungrateful". They questioned women who seek equality because they claim we were not made to be equal and that we should "shut up" and not be "stupid". The level of snaps around the room grew louder! Then they moved on to homophobia (of course this only seemed logical, Lusaka is way more homophobic than KL I think) calling homosexuals "fags" and asking why God would have made a man's seed full of life if it were to be wasted. MORE SNAPS! Then the final slash to my already beaten down consciousness, evolution. Scientists were filling our heads with lies they said, that there is no way we could have "come from monkeys" while still having monkeys around and that science had no explanation of how everything began. This was the final bit, everyone rose from their seats and snapped their fingers so hard and loud and were screaming in support!

Here we are again: from love and hope, to ending with hate. This was it. I wanted to go home. It was the end, thankfully for me. But at that moment, I felt completely alone. I looked around me and everyone was hugging each other patting each other on the back for the good job they've done. My colleague left with more hatred, more conviction for his hatred of the "gay kind" and the "believers of evolution"... I guess that included me.

I woke up the next morning to yet another whatsapp message he sent me on all the famous people who spoke openly about their atheism or made some joke about Jesus and then all died painful deaths. This has become almost routine for me, messages saying I'll be going to hell for sure. I take no offence to someone having so much faith in a God, I do however take offence when your faith promotes hatred towards others and you finding the need to condemn me and other people every chance you get. I might now need to  search for the holiest people who all died horrible deaths too , I'll probably include a message like "How you die has nothing to do with how religious/unreligous you are. Now let's spend some time and think about how we have trivialised and used people's horrible deaths (which must have left plenty of people around them sad and devastated) to prove a ridiculous point. "

My closest friends here are my colleagues. I spend the most time with them and share the most with them. Obviously I did not tell anyone I was an atheist when they asked me, but this grew harder and harder to conceal. While it was easy to say I'm Hindu when people asked me (which they always do within 5 minutes of meeting me; What are you?) It was impossible to support someone, or be in agreement with someone who openly condemned homosexuals or supported the very common act here of spying into houses with more than one male resident so they could report them to the police if they were up to "no good". It was also impossible to stand by and listen as people spoke about women and their duties in societies and in families that must be given priority before education or any other choice a woman makes. Also, the crazy support of tearing "skimpy" clothes off of women to teach them a lesson.

So some time back, my colleague and I had the talk...of religion, women and gay-ism. I was honest about my opinions and he seemed respectful of it. He ended it by saying "The greatest gift I can offer a friend, someone I love is the gift of Christ, so here *he handed me a glass of water* take this if you want to be saved because it's inevitable that you won't go to heaven if you don't believe in Christ." I was disappointed that he chose to say this even after knowing me and the goodness within and although I was pretty thirsty, I chuckled and said "No Thanks!" but since then, his quest of showing me the light has not ceased. I am constantly invited to go to church although I've said I have no interest in going to one (unless they had an authentic African choir singing) and the "righteous" whatsapp messages and then the constant comments of something chauvinistic and absurd every now and then just to see me react.

In the past year, I've learnt to conceal my true self. Well, re-learnt. It feels like being back in school: when saying you supported women's rights and were an atheist was taboo. I spent a few years breaking out of that and finally found great people (regardless of gender/religion) to surround myself with and I got to be who I was.

Being in Lusaka has taken me back to THAT time, so many years ago. It must be hard for the non-religious people who live here, more so if you're alone.  I never thought I'd say this but I especially miss being the atheist/feminist person I was/am in Malaysia, also not being hounded/provoked every other day just for a reaction.

Living cheap in Lusaka

So I think I may have finally figured out how to live cheap here! The bulk of my expenses now are on chocolate milk shakes, eating out, CAKES! and all these small snacks that i just cant resist especially on weekends.

So if you ever find yourself in Lusaka, then these may help you out:

1) Meat is expensive! Like reallly expensive and I never buy meat unless it's on sale and the good news is that meat often go on sale BUT i recently found out that the sales in the grocery stores here don't last even for a few days, it might only be just for that one day. So if you go to a store and find sausages, polony or bacon on sale; get it! And then just keep it and use it when you want to. I did that just a few days back, and now my lunch for the whole of October is settled, and I only spent slight less than RM 20 on it!

2) CAKES are expensive! The bakeries here trample over bakeries in Malaysia in a HEARTBEAT! Every single bakery I've been too has been awesome! The cookies and cakes and pies are all so fresh and tasty and truly home made. But the normal price for a cake in bakery would cost 20,000 K which is about 4 USD which is about RM12. Now that's a little too much for me. Recently, I've found that Pick N Pay, a supermarket all over Lusaka, kinda like the Giant in Malaysia sells big pieces of cakes as well in their bakery and for a fraction of the price which is 4,950 K which is slightly less than RM 3 and if you go at the right time; usually on weekdays at night; you would find these nice slices of chocolate cake with raspberry jam which are absolutely yummy! But every now and then if you wanted to go for pieces of cakes which are slightly more pricey with better variety then the bakery at Kabulonga Shopping Centre has tonnes of really amazing cakes and also Mint Cafe in Arcades Shopping Mall.

3) Milkshakes are like Milo here. Hardly any shop/cafe/restaurant sells hot chocolate or iced chocolate. Coffee is huge here. So anyway if you wanted something chocolatey; milkshakes are the way to go! I've been trying out milkshakes all over Lusaka to see which is the best. Now, I've been following the Lonely Planet's guide to discovering Lusaka in trying restaurants and cafes and also going to nice parks. It's been good so far; all the restaurants I've tried based on lonely planet has been nice and all the parks I've been to based on Lonely Planet has also been nice! But they got it wrong with the milkshakes! They suggested this small cafe in Arcades Shopping Mall called La Mimosa. I tried the milkshake there but not only was it expensive; 17,000 K but it was also so not chocolatey. The best milkshake so far in my opinion is the chocolate milkshake served at Sandy's Creation (a garden/park) for 15, 000 K. If you want something cheaper; then the milkshake at Steers (the McD of Zambia) is not too bad for 11, 000 K.

4) Chicken Shwarma's are the best bargain yet. These are like kebabs in these Lebanese bread kinda wraps but the nicest thing about this meal is that although it's cheap; it's soooo filling! They stuff it with cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, FRENCH FRIES, 3 different types of sauces and lots of grilled chicken meat (they are not selfish with the portions). The local restaurants sell this for 10, 000 K.

5) Always the biggest dilemma for me is when someone invites me to dinner around here. Sometimes I don't mind spending that minimum 50, 000 K on a meal just to try it out, but some days I want to save that money for something much better over the weekend. Now in Malaysia, mamaks are cheap. Well you should be able to assume that you don't get anything close to a mamak here, well at least not when another foreigner invites you out for dinner. You'd probably end up in a fancy foreigners-only restaurant where Indian food, Chinese food, Korean food and Zambian dishes are just so unreasonably priced. So the best thing to do is order Tea. It's so far the best value; only 6, 000 K and you get a whole pot, not just a glass as opposed to ordering coffee or Coke (which both costs more than tea). They usually serve this local brand called Five Roses tea with fresh milk and brown sugar, and it usually lasts me throughout the dinner.

6)  Veggies! Veggies are important. I need them anyway ever since I've been trying to cut down on my chicken meat, I've been trying to eat more vegetables. The only problem with vegetables are that they're harder to cook into tasting yummy, meat is easy! Also cause every month or so, my Korean doctor neighbours strangles a dog by the swing at the back of my apartment; in celebration of the month end I suppose but whatever the reason and however much I cant stand the thought of a poor dog suffocating to death and then being chopped up and grilled and eaten; that's not much worse or better in fact than the processed chicken meat we get from the store. At least they catch and kill their own meat. So with all of these reasons; veggies are now even more important!

Okay so, veggies are best bought straight from farms here which is totally amazing because it doesn't get any fresher than that. The best farm I've been to so far is Sugarbush Farm run by some white people. Their prices are very reasonable and they give you a whole big bag of each vege that you get. I bought from them once but it's really not practical if you're cooking for one so nowadays i buy veges from the other local markets around Lusaka. I just went for one called the Dutch Reformed Church Saturday Market that happens every last Saturday of the month. It's filled with veges, fruits, arts and crafts and glorious FOOD! I mostly sat down there and kept eating all kinds of things for the 2 hours, but on my way out I bought some fresh carrots, tomatoes and onions for a good price and they're fresh and they were sold by the locals!

Some other markets you can get fresh veges and spices are : Soweto Market, Tuesday Market and Thursday Market. It's like the pasar malam here just that they only sell stuff up to 6pm. This place goes dead at 6pm; after 6pm it's only the fancy foreigners that are out and about eating their fancy dinners at the fancy candle lit restaurants.

It's good to support the locals, so veges and fruits and all you could even buy them from the roadside vendors that sell pretty nice and fresh stuff if you spent some time looking.

7) Nshima (pronounced sheema) ! I can't stand beef, and I don't need to get hooked on another meat thank you very much but living here completely not eating beef is going to be a challenge so I've eaten my share of beef here. They seem to find requests of changing the beef to chicken somewhat rather strange. So anyway, the local cuisine here is Nshima. Now it's really not all that awesome; it's just a softer version of Idli and then they eat it with beef stew and some vegetable relish. If you need to try this, Pick N Pay sells it at a very cheap price (8,000 K). The portion is not that big but hey for a taste it would suffice. Now. for the real deal; I've found this awesome place nearby my place that has a Nshima buffet. They open every weekday from 1230 to 230pm but the food is usually only ready at about 130pm. It will cost you 30, 000 K but you get three scoops of Nshima (too much for me!) and then you get to choose your veges and from three different main dishes (village chicken, beef stew and fish). It's called Heritage Trails and it has my name written on it one of these days for lunch!

That's about all the cheap things I've discovered here. My hunt will continue for cheaper cheaper things!