Progress and Development

Last weekend  was the Heroes and Unity long weekend, our major winter public holiday. We have just said farewell to another American Surgery Team who have spent the last week doing operations. The solar lights have been installed at Sikuzu School and the staff latrines there are complete, however, still minus their doors.


Our bank in its wisdom, decided that in their catch-all measures to prevent money-laundering and in the interests of customer service improvement, we now needed an ATM card to make withdrawals from the account we have had with them since 2004. It has taken over two weeks to get the card and has taken another three days of phone calls to get it activated. Actually by issuing everyone with ATM cards, I suspect all they will be doing is shifting the problem. So that now instead of patiently queuing behind 20 people inside the bank to reach the two overworked tellers, you will queue outside the bank behind a similar number of fatalistic customers trying to reach the single over-worked ATM machine!

For the first time in 20 years we now have drinking water in our house from a tap. Before this at Mwandi, we had taken river water and boiled it, then we had let the water cool and poured it into a metal water filter with ceramic elements that claimed to remove algae, rust, sediment and other suspended solids to say nothing of e-coli, shigella, giardia, salmonella and guinea worm! A Livingstone water pump and solar power business had an offer on a water purification system whose spare parts were low cost and easily available. The river water goes through spun fibre to remove solid particles, then carbon grains followed by a carbon block to remove organic material and odour, it then passes through ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and other microorganisms. It can produce 15 000 litres before needing to change the filters and yields 4 litres a minute.

At the beginning of the week ZESCO (Electricity Company) arrived and installed our domestic pre-pay meter. They gave us 50 units free as a starter till we could get to Livingstone and have the swipe card activated, so that we can pay for our electricity in advance. So, on Wednesday, from the bank, I next visited ZESCO, they said they would work on activating the account and return in the afternoon. This I did and after a short wait was able to put money into our account. You receive a till receipt with a number you punch into your meter which charges it with the number of units you have paid for. Interestingly, in all these developments - the solar panel, inverter, water filter and electric meter; the parts were Chinese-made. At least, our Shanghai Electric Company meters are being assembled in Zambia.

Finding decent jobs the world over is a major problem with so-called flexible forms of work with atypical or non-standard employment becoming more and more usual. These jobs are often part-time or are short fixed-term contracts with an on-call / zero-hours component. Those working in the Third Sector and Healthcare are only too well aware of this, with the health and safety dangers, the uncertainty, stress and risk of poverty that these jobs bring. With this type of employment it will not be difficult to fall into the trap of undeclared work.

Just as there is nothing illegal with tax avoidance, so there is nothing illegal in offering these forms of employment, but morally and ethically from a Christian point of view one has to ask is it right that ordinary people have no effective right to life in this world unless they can sell their skills and labour at the lowest price possible to a company whose only interest in them is to make the greatest profit possible out of them?

As Christians we see our efforts producing something that would otherwise not exist and we cooperate to support all human life: and in doing so, tackle dangers and difficulties and add to overall human happiness. In shops, mines, factories, schools, hospitals and offices people are organized to make the world a better place to live in, working with others on this world, God’s creation. Another value Christians discern is that working with others increases solidarity since what you are doing is done primarily for the good of others. We see society as a system of services in which we all take part. Work also brings dignity and allows people to put love in their lives. Our love and all it grows into in the new creation, we take with us into eternity, so fellow human beings are not just another commodity or natural resource to be exploited by a rapacious few. To deny someone decent working conditions is to offend against their humanity and against the image of God in them.

The arrogant, powerful and oppressive rich who make the law, then set themselves above it and use it deliberately to harm the poor will be held accountable one day. They actually condemn and murder innocent people who are not opposing them. The book of James says that they’ll need buckets for their tears when the crash comes, when the riches they relied on evaporate, the corrupt money, designer clothes and greedy luxuries. The excessive profits they made should have been used to pay fair wages to employees. All they will have to show for all their looting is a fatter corpse than normal.