For the “diasporic” Zambian, there’s need to understand that the Zambia we left behind no longer exists. I am a ‘diasporic Zambian’, who has lived outside this land for the greater part of 9 years. My daughter has grown up in foreign lands, like an Israelite in Egypt, and like Moses, speaks like an Egyptian.

To her, everything will look foreign and even more than they do me, certain things will irritate. Yes, a lot of things have changed; friends and family are married, others are being born, and so many have died. That’s probably the hardest part for me but the dead are gone, with nothing but their eternity before them, their fates are sealed. What worries me now, is this Zambia that is emerging, different in so many ways to my childhood Zambia, yet so similar.

Our new Zambia has less trees, more buildings and less rain, less food, more load shedding, more retrenched miners, more corruption, and a greater Chinese presence that challenges my racial bias (yes, you heard right, I have to fight the racist in me, every time I get on that plane with so many chinese nationals, who I doubt mean well in Zambia, based on previous record, and sometimes, the racist wins). Is that a justification for my bias? No! I worry at the greater US presence here, the increase in foriegn investment and plainly,  how things are done. Where people see development, I see exploitation and unsustainable development, and maybe I’m just a tad bit pessimistic, but I worry for those being left behind in the boom and what sort of Zambia we shall leave behind, and just like I ask, my father’s why they would leave things this bad, I fear my children will ask me the same over a worse Zambia.

I am a diasporic Zambian, and part of being Zambian is accepting this new Zambia for what it is, not looking at it through a rose coloured lense, but accepting that our home has changed, even people and their values have changed; but then our Zambia is just that–home–with all that’s going on, with all that’s changed, just as we too have changed, it’s still beautiful.