Blog Post 4

One unexpected challenge I’ve experienced is the limited wifi. I knew wifi would be limited coming to Zambia but not to this extent. The connection was weak at my organization and at times SAIPAR. There was not wifi at Abundant Life, the place we stayed after the month with the homestays. This led for my new office to be internet cafes. And the wifi didn’t always work their either. Another struggle was the limited hours on the weekends. Everything is empty on the weekends in Lusaka, compared to the U.S. and many of the cafes closed early or were not open at all. This is difficult, especially in the final weeks, because I needed to do work around this. To overcome this, I tried to plan my wifi time carefully and downloaded lots of reading to read offline.

One expected challenge I had had an unexpected solution. Before coming to Zambia, I was curious on how we would navigate to all of our interviews without using our phones. In the U.S. I am very dependent on GPS to get to places I have never been to. Also, there are not many road names and addresses to go off of.  We discovered our first line of defense was showing taxi drivers the address or a place nearby and seeing if they knew where it was. We were grateful that people were honest when they didn’t know, which I really appreciated.

Our second line of defense was keeping a list of places nearby the location we needed. Once the driver would get in the general area, he would pull over and start asking locals if they know where the place was. Having multiple places on hand helped. Everyone the driver asked was always happy to help, something that I never experienced in the U.S. Our third line of defense was having the number of person we wanted to interview on hand. Sometimes the locals don’t even know the location. On one of our interviews, the taxi dropped us off in the wrong place and having the number saved us. He was able to help us figure out where we were and gave us directions to where we needed to go. The person you are interviewing can also give directions to the taxi if needed.

Overall, getting to the interviews has gone smoothly and I am grateful for the opportunity. We have gotten to visit many unique places that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, like the University of Zambia. It’s also a great feeling when you complete a successful interview and can use it to further your project.