Chocolate or Vanilla?

I had a nice relaxing break from travel for 2.5 days and rested at the guest house. We now have a new group of mentors and trainers. Our group is now made up of Penelope, who I am mentoring on this trip. She comes from Samfya and co-manages the IT centre there called the SRC or Samfya Resource Centre. Sinakiwe (meaning Gift, which is what I call her, as I can easily remember it) has joined us from Zimbabwe and she is one of the mentors who will help to monitor the progress of the Cama groups. Ruth is from the Western province and will also mentor along side Gift. Mr. Rain, Gift and Penelope are in one vehicle, and Chanda, Ruth and the new driver, Justin, are in the second vehicle.

This morning we were supposed to leave very early to go to the Western province. The trip was supposed to last 9 hours, however, one of the vehicles in our convoy got a flat tire and the spare tire was flat. As if this did not slow us down enough, Justin drives like a blue-haired grandmother on heavy sedatives. So with the convoy slowed to a turtle’s pace, and the slow repair of the flat tire which then needed pumping, a 9-hour trip turned into 12 hours. Moreover, we stopped not in Senanga which was our final destination and where we were scheduled to meet the Cama group the following day, but in Mongu which is 1.5 hours short of Senanga.

That night I was sitting having dinner with Mr. Rain. By the time we sat down just short of 10 PM, they had nothing but chicken, chicken and more chicken. So I begged for the last sausage. I also order a side of fries. I shrewdly noticed that ordering the two separately saved me 4,000 Kwacha ($1.00). If I ordered fries with sausage as a single order it was 18,000 K but separately it was only 7,000 K for each. This really confused the waiter and after calling a huddle with 3 of his colleagues, they all decided the menu (and I) was right and they granted me the 4,000 K “discount”.

As I gobbled down the sadly small, shriveled sausage and soggy fries, I noticed a group of 4 white girls walk into the restaurant. They did a double-take and I echoed one right back at them, as it was always rare to stumble across another white person, especially out here in the sticks. As I contemplated what these 4 cute white girls were doing out here in the middle of nowhere, suddenly another 15 or so joined them and, just like that, the 5 black customers became the minority for what I would venture to guess was the first time in their dining history at this eating establishment.

The other thought that crossed my mind at the time was that these white girls looked so foreign to me. After 6 weeks in Zambia and only seeing one white woman, Jane the trainer, I realized that it seemed strange to once again gaze at a white girl’s features - or 20 white girls, for that matter. And without intending any offense to any white women who might be reading this, there was something very “vanilla” (pun sort of intended) about this group of exceptionally attractive young ladies. I mean some were gorgeous and very much the type I might go for back home. But I guess I have become so accustomed to white European features over my lifetime, that there was something relatively plain about these girls. The African women I had been seeing for the past month and a half seemed relatively much more new and exotic to me.

And now as I tried to remind myself that I will be retuning to Europe in 3 weeks I am acutely aware of the fact that I really have a new found appreciation and attraction to African women. They are exotic and very feminine and their movements seem to flow more easily than their light-skinned sisters. For now I observed the white girls’ movements and mannerisms almost as a little clumsy and awkward. This can at least partially be attributed to their relatively young age. Yet still, I could not help but notice a very tangible difference between the young African girls and the white girls I now observed in the small restaurant in which I sat.