Lunch– A Look at Cultural Minutiae

A quick “blog-let” (def: n: meaning small blog post)

Let me highlight culture norms through the example of lunch.  Culture norms greatly dictate lunchtime protocol.    Your job status and gender and marital status all play a part in where you eat. It is logistically necessary as we’re all eating nshima from communal bowls.  Only so many people can fit around a bowl of nshima and relish, but their are unspoken rules as for who can share with whom.  It’s highly amusing sometimes, and feels like high school again, where there are cliques and under no circumstances can one move from one to another. 

 Take where I work for example.   The sawmill men eat as a unit and separate from the sawmill women.   They’re kinda like the Varsity jocks.   The machinists  eat from their workshop. They’re like the rival Varsity team, and  allow the tinsmiths to join them but shun the sawmill men. Then there is a very intricate hierarchy within the tree nursery workers. The general laborers eat in two groups, the younger guys and the older men.  Let’s liken them to the band geeks. They definitely never eat with the jocks.  I have more status so I join the nursery supervisor and women who declare their elevated status (separate clique) by eating separately as well.  The one older woman in this department is paid respect and eats at her own table.   As most of my readers know, I was a band geek myself, but in actuality my job is more closely linked to the nursery than sawmill, so in both respects it makes sense where I fit. Then there’s the two Zambian managers who show off their elevated status by eating their own relish which is usually higher quality to the rest.  They can maybe be likened to the popular kids.   The boss and his wife eat separately as well. 

I am able to move more as a foreign person and thus regarded as outside the established order. It’s highly amusing sometimes, but I find it important to follow such things in order to be successful in my job as a Volunteer in a foreign culture.