Young People

Youth is a very different time in Zambia than in Canada. In church, for example, the youth group extends from early teens up until one gets married - whether this happens at 18 or 25 or 30. Considering the life expectancy in Zambia is 39 this means that one has, potentially, nine years of adulthood. Better pack it all in in a hurry!

The thing that I find quite strange about youth here, though, is that they don't do anything. After graduating from high school they sit around at home for two or three years, not working, not schooling, just sitting around. From the Western cultural lens through which I view the world, I cannot help but see this as laziness and mooching taken to the maximum. Clearly I am missing something, and it is far more acceptable here than in Canada, where one would be told fairly quickly to either get to school or get a job. I guess on one hand there aren't a whole lot of jobs to be had (although people don't exactly look for them either). On the other hand, I am told that Zambians have certain expectations about the kind of jobs that they want and, if one is a high school grad, certain jobs are just beneath you.

My host family is fairly middle class - perhaps verging on upper middle class. Currently we have two of the young 20s crowd who have graduated from high school but are in this in-between stage. They help with the house work and other than that sort of wander aimlessly and talk in vague platitudes about their next step in life. Its not as if they have to work to support the family (I wonder if it would be different in a poorer family which needed the income) so they just sit around.

I must be missing something. Has it always been like this, I wonder? How long does this period normally last? What is enjoyable about it (they often complain of boredom)? Why don't they want to get on with their life? Ah, maybe it is time that I stop making Western value judgements and start just accepting.