touring the chibolya

Today I went out on errands with a driver from ZEHRP. We went to 2 of our sites & took a short cut to get to the second one. We usually drive on the paved roads as much as possible so as we drove along the bumpy dirt road I was wondering where exactly we were. I was also noticing that the area was a bit poorer than most of the areas I'd been in so far. Right about then the driver, Geoffrey said,
Have you ever been in this area before?
Um, I don't so
It is the most feared compound in Lusaka (compound is the Zambian word for ghettos)
Oh, yeah? Why is that?
This is where all the drugs are. The drug lords control it. The drug enforcement agency doesn't ever dare to come here. If they do, there are gun battles & they are killed.
Oh. (thinking, "Great. Why are we here again?")
Everything. Chamba, even the one you inject (chamba is weed)

Right about then I was distracted by seeing my 1st Zambian brothel. It was called the "Ghetto Lover". It was a tiny building - I'm sure they could only handle one customer at a time. The walls were mostly that plastic sheeting that has the strings through it arranged around a few wooden polls. Really classy.

Later one Geoffrey told me that we were actually only at the edge of Chibolya because if a car as nice as ours had gone inside they would have thrown rocks at it. Awesome. I feel so much better about it now.