Pomp and ceremony

It's been so strange being away this week and missing out on the election furor. The ash cloud seems to have interrupted my supply of Guardian Weekly and I'm currently reading the 23rd April edition... Lots of Zambian friends and acquaintances have been keen to update me though (they have TVs and radios, and seem to be very interested in British politics) and are mostly big fans of David Cameron's. I've pointed out to a few people that he seems to me to be more style than substance, and this has caused some confusion. Style is incredibly important in Zambia, although it appears to me that this is sometimes at the expense of content.

This week Kenneth Kuanda, the first President of Zambia and generally-considered father of the nation, came to Livingstone to a discussion on how multiple concurrent partnerships are driving the HIV epidemic. As the event was being hosted by one of CTYA's funders, myself and a colleague were given VIP tickets to the event. There were lots of local and national dignitaries, and much focus on pomp and ceremony. Over the course of a 3-hour discussion led by 9 panelists with much audience participation, every single speaker sent 5 minutes stating how honoured they were to be in the presence of Dr. Kuanda. As the event was running late due to a power cut, this used up what was quite valuable time! The discussion was very interesting though, especially as there were 3 chiefs involved, talking about how traditional leaders have a role to play in the fight against HIV. What I found slightly strange is that the event closed with Dr. Kuanda giving the audience a slightly tuneless rendition of a lovesong that he had used to court his wife... very stylish I suppose but not what you expect from a dignified statesman!

Lots of my work seems to be a fight for substance over style. This week I've been working on updating the constitution for CTYA, which I now realise was copied straight from a different organisation, who have a totally different structure to us. The board are apparently elected by our members, but we don't actually have members, and our branches aren't included in the constitution at all despite operating under our name. The whole task is making me miss the NAS a bit, but I'm grateful that I've got some ideas and experience to fall back on as we work on finding a practical solution to our governance issues.

Other than that, this week's been pretty quiet with some frustrating days where not much work was done. I've been working to organise some Nyanga language lessons though which should be interesting, and am busy planning for my holiday. I leave for 2 weeks in Botswana and Namibia next week with some British friends, and can't wait to finally see an elephant at Chobe safari park. Maybe I'll even take some photos...