The Five Worst Smells in Lusaka

1. Grade 7 Classroom, Chimwemwe Trust School

Add 65 adolescent kids + one small room + little ventilation + kids sitting three to a desk + hot weather and what do you get? One heck of a stink. This pungent odor is not something I look forward to when I go into their room for their weekly computer lesson. One can fall victim to the stench even when not in the room - just standing in the vicinity is dangerous as the odour oozes into the nearby passageway.

2. Toilets, Aisha School

Well the word toilet may bring up the wrong connotations because there is nothing that would resemble a western toilet any where near the facility. Think more of a hole in the ground, usually with the remains of a kid's poop lying around the edges and then with urine all over the floor. Now mix that with some hot days (every day) and one can imagine the overwhelming nature of this odour pollution!

3. Gold Band Margarine

Zambians buy crappy margarine. Most aren't too bad - they may go by names like "Medium Fat Spread" (can you imagine that selling well in Canada? At least, I guess, it's honest) and will at least add some reasonable fascimile of margarine taste to bread. Then there is Gold Band. That stuff smells so bad that I can't stand to have it open on the same table as me. When I used it (I have now stopped, preferring plain bread to that stuff) I would hold it out as far away from me as I could and then get as little as possible on my knife to put on the bread. Then I would quickly make sure that the lid was shut. Finally I could breathe again. There was still the problem of the margarine on my bread, but at least that was in a small enough quantity that I could manage.

4. Garbage containers

Most people just throw their garbage wherever the spirit leads them and there are lots of impromptu garbage dumps around. Occasionally one finds a city council garbage bin. This is a great idea, except that I can't say that I've ever seen evidence that they are emptied. The garbage just piles up higher and higher and then spreads to the surrounding area. There is one downtown that is particularly pungent. Again: Garbage + Heat + Time = GROSS

5. Me

Well, not all the time. But I do know that from time to time I am contributing to the body odour problem that this city has. The problem is this. Some mornings I wake up with too little time to bathe and then, even if there is time, there is no water in the bucket. If this happens a few days in a row (or if there is no water at all for several days) then I go without a bath. Combined with wearing trousers and long-sleeved tops, cycling for two hours a day, and participating in the occasional sporting event and I build up a bit of a stink. I am by no means the worst. Not even close. But I do admit that my standards of cleanliness are well below former standards.