11/24/06

While in the New Lusaka, my thoughts are often found pondering the new economics of the place, it is not a surprise. Billboards are now ubiquitous, offering high capacity printing, AIDS prevention messages, mobile phones, new four-wheel drive vehicles, business solutions, bright shiny juices and butters, and household goods...and the Post newspaper. These massive signs point not only to marketing, but to the exponentially larger amount of money there must be here in the New Lusaka, money for the billboards, for the marketing budgets to lease the advertising space, for the scope of the economy to be so broad as to absorb these images and suggestions throughout the city.

If I were truly a businessman, I would revel in the undulating flows of cash here, but I am nagged by it instead. The rich are richer now, and there is a greater number of wealthy Zambians now. I'm glad of that. On the other hand, the number of the poor in Zambia has also increased, and to some degree unknown to me, they are poorer. Prices have increased, household sizes are the same or larger in the shantys, and wages are on par with the old Lusaka, in terms of purchasing power. So the same 100,000 Kwacha buys half of what it did five years ago, literally. Perhaps I'm overstating things - a result of a limited view in a narrow time frame, but while my proportions are not exact, the trends are sure.

We received word to completely curtail our blogs, for the sake of CIDRZ, to avoid misinterpretations that could occur, and political fallout that may occur, more to the point. I understand this concern, having lived through such fallout in '98-'99. The Wild West of that time has become more refined with the increased cash flows, maybe like New York was when it was finding its legs. We must mind sensibilities even more these days. Fortunately, it wasn't my blog that caught attention and caused the moratorium. Regardless, my hard drive crash preempted all this, and I couldn't delete what I've logged so far from here any way. I'll lay low and see if these words can find their way from Alabama. (They have, finally, on 20 November, 2005.) Being cognizant of the risk of broadcasting personal opinion here, I was slightly careful of my topic choices anyway. One can never be too sure of the misperceptions that can arise.