The first two weeks of our stay were mainly focussed on becoming acquainted with Zambia and her citizens. The culture shock was bigger than we expected. A major part of the population lives in so called ‘’informal settlements’’ in which the access to basic needs is poor. There is no sewerage, no waste collection and a bad infrastructure. However, the Zambian population is very friendly and welcoming.
When we arrived at the airport we were meeting Eddy, our contact person of the organization PPHPZ. He showed us around Lusaka so we would know the way and were prepared for our first days.
The first day was different than expected. The office was twenty square meter with ten working people and not air-conditioned. Fortunately we get very quickly used to the warmth. The people who work for PPHPZ are very friendly and helpful. It felt literally and figuratively like a warm welcome.
In the first two weeks we visited a lot different project to get an understanding of the work of PPHPZ and the housing problem in Lusaka. This housing problem became clear to us when we went to one of the informal settlement. The people who live here live in sheer poverty with houses in bad conditions. The building culture differs a lot in comparison with the Dutch building culture. Building materials are offered anywhere along the road. In this way people can buy their own building materials and start building by themselves. This results in a lot of unfinished houses, mostly due a lack of money.
PPHPZ focusses mainly on improving the housing conditions of the poor. They offer good toilets, do research into low cost building materials, create awareness about the problems and work together with the communities to address these problems. We helped one day with a garbage clean-up in an informal settlement in cooperation with the community members. The purpose was to create awareness and to show the advantages of waste collections.
We also visited the site where the Multipurpose Centre will be build, which we are going to design in the next weeks. Moreover, we will start with a research into cheaper building materials. To be continued!
Shalenipo!