Living Locally in Lusaka

August 2, 2017

Since our Dialogue is designed to be totally immersive, it was extremely easy to meet many local people, primarily through our partnership with the University of Zambia Gender Studies Department. Through this partnership, we were able to spend time and work with a group of UNZA students a few times a week, and in the process learned a lot about them and their life in Zambia. They told us about the best places to eat, see movies, and do karaoke, and asked us all about living in the US. My service-learning site is in the middle of a local housing compound, made up entirely of low-income local people. Every day at Appleseed, I interact with the local kids, and all of the staff are from the area as well. There were many student volunteers close to my age who I spent a lot of time getting to know at service every morning.
I think everyone on my dialogue has struggled with keeping to a budget in Zambia. Supermarket and market prices are cheaper than in the US, but not significantly, and the exchange rate is ZMW 9.1 to USD $1. Because of the prices, students have been buying more than they need, and find out they are low on kwacha. Exchanging $100 USD and receiving 10 100 kwacha bills makes you feel like you have a lot of money, which leads you to spend more. Also, while traveling through local markets, it is difficult to remember to keep track of you’re spending when you’re so overwhelmed with people trying to sell and barter with you. I may have gotten some gifts for family at great prices, but at the end of the day I bought so much more than I intended to because I was drawn in by the prices which added up quickly. From that point on, I have been much more careful with my spending.

Written By

Maegan Cross

My name is Maegan, and I couldn't possibly be more excited to be embarking on this once-in-a-lifetime journey to Zambia with my peers and some truly incredible faculty members. I am a second year Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major with a minor in Human Services. My program on this DOC is Driving Social Change. Although I someday hope to work domestically in the fields of economic policy, income inequality, and human rights law, I know that this is going to be an invaluable experience for me because I will get hands-on experience in third-party intervention strategies. I, like so many other Northeastern students, want to work for the federal government so I can incite positive social change that will benefit the least-advantaged, oppressed, underrepresented members of our society. However, a huge factor in my ability to accomplish my goals is that I, as I am not myself a member of many of the populations I will be working to serve, am limited in my understanding of the needs of these people. This is why learning foreign intervention strategies is so important to me. My work developing programs for youths in a Zambian nonprofit will teach me best practice for understanding the needs of a community and implementing programs that will fulfill what the people need, not just what I, or any other person coming from a place of privilege, think they need. The skills I learn in Zambia will fuel my ability to advance the social and economic well-being of minority communities in my own country, and allow me to be the most positive ally I can possibly be.