Girls, glue, taxi bosses ... through the naked eye

The biggest challenge is to let go of the patterns and stereotypes that have been ingrained in your mind throughout all your life, and to see a new place through the eyes of a child.

Making room in yourself to notice the hidden layers and power structures of the place that surrounds you ... Informal systems in place of set rules, discernible only to the local eye.

For example: the fact that the taxi drivers parked near the BP fuel station have a leader, and he should be the one answering a journalist's questions.

Or "street kids' and workers' turf". A bunch of men and boys gathered around a 15-year-old street girl we interviewed, shouting at her that if she lied to the camera, they would go after her.




Turns out that after a day of begging, the girls have togive guys part of their earnings if they don't want to get beaten up. They getvery cold and hungry at night and some sniff glue not to feel the cold.

I wouldn't have known any of this if my Zambian project partner hadn't explained it to me.

It is hard to forget this little girl who didn't have parents and didn't go to school. She's 15, but looks no more than 10.

Apparently, these girls on the streets get sexually abused, too.

I know we have similar problems in Canada, perhaps less visible to the naked eye, tucked away, out of sight. Here, poverty hits you more directly, I guess. I don't know why ... maybe it's because we are told about it so much that it is impossible not to notice it.

At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that there is growth and progress (in Zambia). But what a pity to come to a new place, seeing your surroundings through the lens of poverty, a lens often created for you without your knowledge