0:00 - Introduction to Identity
3:39 - Exploring Ethnic Background
10:25 - Childhood Memories and Upbringing
11:27 - Relationships with Siblings
16:23 - Parenting and Discipline
18:33 - Communication with Parents
27:25 - Reflection on Family Dynamics
38:07 - Early Romantic Experiences
42:23 - Move to the UK
47:00 - Yearning for Africa
49:16 - Wanting a Free-Range Childhood
51:14 - Thoughts on Freedom and Bureaucracy
52:58 - Comparing Cultures and Systems
55:06 - Scheduling Life in the West
55:25 - Cultural Perspectives on Zambia
1:03:23 - Health and Safety Concerns
1:13:06 - The Minority Experience
1:21:57 - Childhood Freedom vs. Security
1:30:18 - Emotional Support and Family Ties
1:30:27 - The Challenge of Relocation
1:39:34 - Navigating Cultural Values for Children
1:49:00 - Reflection and Future Planning
The conversation opens with the host, Stefan, engaging with a caller who has a rich background involving diverse cultural experiences. The caller shares insights about their life journey, beginning with their upbringing in Zambia until the age of 17 when their family moved to the UK. This transition marked the beginning of a complex exploration of identity, as the caller expresses feelings of not fully belonging to any specific ethnic group due to their mixed heritage. Their father is described as having a combination of white and Indian ancestry, while their mother also comes from a mix of backgrounds, leading to a nostalgic yet perplexing discussion about identity and how it shaped their familial experience.
Stefan and the caller dive into the intricacies of race and upbringing, with the caller reflecting on how moving to the UK altered perceptions of their identity. The term "muzungu," used in Zambia to refer to white individuals, contrasts sharply with the racial dynamics they encountered in the UK. They share anecdotes about childhood experiences that illustrate the complexities of growing up mixed-race in different cultural contexts. The discussion touches on the impact of visible differences in skin color among siblings, which provides a humorous yet poignant look at the unpredictability of genetic heritage.
As the conversation progresses, the caller fondly recalls their self-governing childhood full of outdoor adventures and deep connections, albeit with an acknowledgment of some underlying tensions within the family dynamics, particularly regarding a lack of emotional expression among family members. They describe a strict upbringing rooted in emotional distance, where affection was rarely communicated verbally, contrasting this with their desire to foster a more open atmosphere for their children today.
Once the caller details their adult life, including their marriage and children, the focus shifts to a more pressing matter — potential relocation back to Zambia. The caller describes developing feelings of wanting to return to their roots, spurred by the frustrations of raising children in the often gray, oppressive environment of the UK. This longing for a free-roam childhood for their sons and the benefits of raising them among relatives back in Zambia form the crux of a significant decision. The psychological burden of a life constrained by bureaucracy and societal expectations weighs heavily, leading to contemplations of personal fulfillment away from Western societal constraints.
Stefan and the caller parse through the logistics and emotional implications of such a move. The caller’s wife, being of Italian-British descent, expresses concerns regarding cultural adjustment, safety, healthcare, and the overall quality of life in Zambia compared to the UK. The discussion touches on the practicalities of living in Zambia versus the Western world, including issues such as electricity reliability, healthcare systems, and social support networks. The potential cultural shock for the wife, being a minority in a society largely populated by Zambians, also arises, pointing to the complexities of identity and belonging in cross-cultural contexts.
Both delve into various practical aspects of moving, contemplating the implications for their children. The school systems and existing cultural values that would influence their children's upbringing are highlighted, particularly the contrasting attitudes towards women and respect across different cultures. The thought-provoking comparison of raising children in a different cultural milieu leads to a deeper understanding of the assumptions and values the couple wishes to impart.
Gathering various insights from their discussion, Stefan underscores the importance of open communication between the caller and his wife regarding their apprehensions and wishes about relocation. Stefan prompts the caller to consider the long-term implications for their children's value systems and cultural integration. He urges the caller to research and discuss all facets of the move candidly, ensuring both partners feel confident in the decision-making process.
The conversation concludes with a positive note on the importance of adaptability, shared values, and the dream of exploring their mixed cultural heritage through life in Zambia. The caller expresses gratitude for the platform to share their thoughts, highlighting the zenith of their reflections on family, identity, and the ever-present tug of home, wherever that may be.
[0:00] Hello hello how you doing.
[0:01] Hello hello i am well how are you i'm.
[0:04] Well i'm well thanks i'm well nice to chat with you thanks for starting a little bit early so.
[0:09] Yeah i'm.
[0:10] I'm all ears uh lay it on me.
[0:13] Okay all right great um hit the ground running i suppose um yeah so as i mentioned in my in my in my initial uh email and my question i've got a i could give you a brief background of you know who i am and where where how i got to where i am today uh it would that would that be perhaps and then lead on to the question itself yeah.
[0:36] Go for it.
[0:37] So i was born and raised in a country in africa and i lived there up until i was 17 years old at which point my family and i'm family of origin, moved over to the uk it was myself my younger brother and my younger sister um i'm the oldest of three and sorry i never i never assume.
[0:58] You know people say i was born in south africa i never assume ethnicity so what is your ethnicity.
[1:03] That's a good question i and you know and it's probably an important part of why i did not feel like i belong in any particular area because even in the country i was born in in zambia i'm not quite like black african if you will it's it's still like mixed i'm sort of like mixed mixed race but so what so mixed uh so if i start with my parents my dad is mixed white and well my dad is he's mixed white and mixed indian i would say so he's mixed you would say you're not no i do know just like you're just like rule.
[1:39] Of thumb this is like me when i try.
[1:40] To get paint done at the store.
[1:42] I'm like brown ish green ish white ish i don't know so what do you mean.
[1:46] Yeah kind of i mean because his dad was from the uk so i know he was white but his mom is i think also mixed like like his mom is is mixed of black african and and indian so his mom is a mix of indian and african so half.
[2:05] Black quarter white quarter indian is it something like that.
[2:09] That's right that's that's that's so that's my dad so my dad has got a mixed like uh light skin complexion type of thing you know he almost looks arabic in some Some people think he looks like he's from Egypt or something, or Egyptian, right? And my mother, again, is also mixed. She's neither black nor white, but her parents are both mixed as well. So it's, you know, they're... And then, yeah, I don't know exactly. So my mom's mom was a mixture of... I think black african and also a european uh from belgium so white and black african, and then um my grandmother's father on my mom's side was i think just black african.
[2:56] Holy crap i mean you send in your request for a dna analysis and the computers just explode right that's just like.
[3:02] And i did i did do that i've done the my heritage thing and it's just like yeah it's over 19 pages back on your my hair more or less um but yeah it turns out i'm more european than i am gypsy some.
[3:15] Space alien yeah okay.
[3:16] Got it yeah i'm viking in there you know throw it all in there so it's yeah i'm like 50.50.2 percent european and then 49 point whatever percent um african and even within africa there's subdivisions of you know there's mixtures in there different tribes and what have you like there's nigerian this kenyan and you know that's the.
[3:38] Koi and oh yeah no.
[3:39] It's a lot of different yeah yeah that's right exactly that and you know being from south africa yourself you know about all the tribes that and the movements and all that so so myself being yeah i'm i'm in my complexion i'm sort of like fairly you know lights not light well light-skinned i'm not black i'm not white i'm in between no.
[3:56] No the real question as you know is the hair.
[3:58] Yeah well good good observation i have none of it left anymore because you know it's it's kind of gone but the my hair was you know kind of like afro-ish you know it definitely wasn't straight it was water repellent so it um you know i could i could grow it out curly um you know coarse i would say when i did have it i did and i did grow it to an afro at one point during my university days so yeah that um and then but but it's it's crazy because you look at me and then my brother for instance he looks like he's from bangladesh right so this is this this goes back to the true mixture of our genes is that my brother i.
[4:40] Think there was sorry to interrupt there was some indian guy who shaved his head down and pretended to be black and got away with a scholarship and stuff like that so yeah it's a.
[4:48] Yeah it's real nice roll.
[4:49] These days but sorry go ahead.
[4:50] Yeah so no no problem And, yeah, so he looks like he's from straight out of Bangladesh. Like, it's crazy. Like, a lot of people when we were growing up, they were like, oh, man, he's a brother Indian. Is he your brother? Yes, he is, my brother. And he looks like a spitting image of my dad when he was younger. Just he's darker skin than me. He's a bit darker. And then my sister, she's now, she's fairer skinned. She's got, like, not straight hair, not like European hair, but straighter than mine.
[5:15] And it's a funny thing about the mixed-race families, of course, that you get siblings who can be quite a scattershot, right? Right, of the various ingredients. And that's, you know, it's like one baker bakes 12 muffins and they all look different. And it's like, but it's the same recipe, kind of. But yeah, that's a challenge, right?
[5:33] Absolutely and you hit the nail on the head there i couldn't put a better analogy myself so it's exactly like that we we used to call my like we called it like a throwback gene or something i don't know um for my for.
[5:44] My brother i don't know if you've seen those uh i'm sure you have these sort of memes where like you know some white guy has kids with an asian woman and it's like bro's genes didn't even try because like the kids are just like 100 asian and they just don't even try whereas you know it could go the other way as well so.
[6:00] Yeah and it's funny because my well my wife is european and so my our two two children they're more on the fairest skin side like they're almost you know you could almost say that they were pretty much white there i mean my they both have curly curly hair but you know kind of like blondish brown type thing uh brown eyes but but yeah very fair skinned so but they i i guess they would undoubtedly be classed as mixed as well i mean to.
[6:30] The untrained either because you know given the you know you could say horrendous bias uh towards the lighter skin even two siblings could be considered higher lowest status based on i don't know if you if you've heard this it's a rather bitter joke about this kind of stuff where people get so tired of the bias against white skin that they're like you know what everyone's just going to be painted blue right everyone's going to be painted blue but the the lighter blues get to sit at the front of the bus and it's just like it just goes right back to that so yeah that's a it's a it's a sort of a bitter joke about this kind of prejudice so yeah even within the simplest if there's a difference in skin color it can have an effect on perceived status.
[7:07] Yes yeah so going back to when i was in africa it was funny like i used to be called a muzungu which in african means like a white man right and i wasn't i wasn't even white.
[7:16] I'm sure that's just a title of love and affection though yeah.
[7:20] It was like a in some of endearment perhaps right But.
[7:24] Yeah.
[7:24] So I used to be called white boy, basically, but I wasn't white. And then I moved to the UK and now I'm considered black, even though I mean, everything that's not white, I guess is black, right? In some forms. If you're not white, you're black. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, that wasn't really an issue or anything for me growing up. Like, I just noticed it, you know, like, being a different skin color would mean that you were kind of like, thought of to be like, if you because, you know, in Africa, the Zambia, I'm just gonna say is the country I'm from. Is a poor country and i guess anybody who was like lighter skinned or, thought to be from you know like a well-to-do family or something so there was a bit of prejudice thinking like against you that you were you know like considered to be from a higher status family or what have you.
[8:19] Oh yeah it's a funny thing of course i mean what age roughly are you you don't have to tell me your exact age but like 30s 40s something else yeah.
[8:27] Yeah around the 38 mark.
[8:28] Yeah so i mean i'm old enough to remember when the dream was sort of like not to be obsessed about race uh and and we were kind of getting close to that and then unfortunately the um the wall street protests like the occupied wall street protests happened and everybody got programmed about race stuff but yeah i mean my best friend in boarding school was an indian fellow who was great and and we were just aiming towards this generally not so race race-obsessed society. And it's funny, though, because, of course, as you know much better than I do, but when you travel to places like Africa or India, like the obsession with skin color is not small. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, you know, the West is so race-conscious. It's like, well, that's kind of provoked in a way, but man, other countries and cultures, whew, I mean, they are just all over that stuff and so incredibly race-conscious that it would be almost incomprehensible to a lot of Westerners.
[9:23] Yeah, absolutely. It is quite palpable in those countries. And yeah, even more so than I think in the West, it's a bit more tangible. It's noticeable in those countries. And I guess it doesn't really get talked about as much as everything is like, oh, in the West, they're the ones that are more prejudiced and what have you. But it does happen in Africa as well.
[9:47] Oh yeah and.
[9:48] So yeah and and so i grew up over there i lived there till you know i was almost 18 and then moved over obviously my siblings were were younger than me when.
[9:58] All right you know you know we can't just go zero to 18 right you know that right no i mean it's a bit of a childhood childhood childhood show a bit of a childhood show so uh in general i i don't quite like that fast that big squeal fast forward and uh i feel like i never like watching the movie halfway way through, right? What the hell happened?
[10:18] Oh, no.
[10:19] So yeah, tell me a little bit about your upbringing and what it was like and how you were parented and all that kind of good stuff.
[10:26] Yeah. I generally, I had, I have really fond memories of, of growing up and it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies and rainbows and all of that. Whatever the analogy is but i i have fond memories because um i obviously had my parents and um we, we we lived in start off with we lived in a sort of small flat and eventually moved into like a bigger house with with a swimming pool and so my my childhood was filled with you know making friends with my next door neighbors and you know the self so the sort of like self-governing type of childhood where you you were free to make friends and you could you could spend all day out with them riding bicycles and that whole kind of like oh yeah the kids these days have no.
[11:08] Concept of the glories of sublime parental indifference that characterized most of our childhoods where you know like my mom.
[11:15] Would literally.
[11:15] Lean out the window with a cowbell when it was time for dinner and if we were in if we were even remotely within earshot we might get some food uh but.
[11:22] Yeah no i mean that's like off you go like parenting.
[11:25] Is so kind of obsessively involved these days that no one do.
[11:28] People don't have many kids yeah ah i mean i and we can touch on that later on when it comes to like how um i'm dealing well my wife and i deal with our two young ones because it's so intense but we can yeah we'll circle back to that and so yeah my upbringing was very much about that you know self-governing we're making friends with like the next door neighbors we go on adventures and you know um people uh didn't like conform to you know um well i wouldn't say conform but if somebody was just being a dick for no reason then there was that ostracism of you know weeding out people that were the bad actors and all the rest of it and that and and and yeah so that that's pretty much how we how my my my childhood was oriented i wasn't very close to my two siblings though growing up which is i don't know kind of weird when i think about it because i think well why wasn't i close to them as as as much and and that kind of like bleeds on to my our adult life we're not we're not really close in our adult life well.
[12:29] But when i was a kid and of course you know we different different people but maybe this has some relevance when i was a kid so the less involved the parents are the more there is sex segregation among childhood play i mean when i was a kid like we played war and like sort of these really intense games i honestly have no idea what the girls were doing, but they weren't doing it with us. And so, yeah, the less that the parents are involved, in other words, the more sort of free-flowing or free-form the childhood is, the more there tends to be sex segregation among the kids' plays.
[13:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I mean, so for my, you know, don't get me wrong, there's only a, like under two year gap between my brother and me. So we were fairly close in age. And then there's a six year gap between me and my sister. So that gap is a little bigger. And so my brother, don't get me wrong.
[13:25] Sorry to interrupt. So your brother did not really play with you and your friends?
[13:31] We did no so i was going to say yeah like on uh converse like even though we went that close they we we still did get involved together it would just be like i i'll say more towards when we started like getting into high school is where the real rift started coming in but before that we were you know relatively close i suppose we we we played with the same friends we we did kind of the same things you know we'd go swimming together we'd ride bikes and all that kind of thing so i think in the younger years probably from ages i don't know from what i can remember from like maybe three to 10 or 12 the closeness was there and and then once once puberty hit and once uh we started going well once i went to high school because i i i volunteered to go to boarding school and I oh.
[14:24] Sorry at what age like around puberty.
[14:26] At around yeah around age 13 14 somewhere there yeah okay because I started off, When I moved to high school, I started off being like a day scholar. And then I was like, oh, talking to all my friends and stuff like that. And just heard all the stories of the things that they used to get up to in the boarding hostels and all the different adventures they had on the weekends. And I thought, man, home life is boring compared to this. I just, I want to get stuck into this. And I just made that decision and I requested it. But from my parents, I was like, look, I want to try boarding school. And they were like, fine, yeah, you can go ahead and do that.
[15:06] Um uh what else about my childhood so we had maids and stuff like that growing up in the house so you know parents didn't really have to do a lot when it came to our upbringing they were obviously there um but one thing as well that i notice and i think about nowadays is there wasn't really a lot of like affection that was like pda between my parents or anything like that there wasn't ever the i love you or like how we i tell my i try to tell my children like i love you and stuff like that that that word wasn't really said you know it's kind of like i don't know if it's like something that's typical about like african um african parents and stuff like that that that kind of like showing of emotion just wasn't really wasn't really there uh growing up you know so we didn't really say those type of things to each other and i guess that's why you know i don't really say it that often as an adult i find it kind of hard to say those those words sometimes, in in just my relationships my close relationships at the moment and but yeah so growing up we didn't read we didn't have that i didn't say that to my my siblings or anything like that we didn't say like oh good night i love you and all that kind of stuff right you know um there was obviously the.
[16:24] The uh as most african parents do it and you know i'm not going to say all i'm not speaking for parents but we we did have the you know punishment through spanking type thing as well so i mean, my experience wasn't terrible like compared to some people's experiences uh you know i didn't really get belts or anything like that you know it was more just like spanking on you know on the backside that kind of thing um it wasn't to the degree that some of the other poor kids used to get they used to get you know tree branches belts and they're you know all sorts of things that oh.
[16:58] The uh the pick.
[16:59] Your switch parents right yeah yeah that's right um but you know it it happened to me and and you know whatever effect that may have had um maybe we can uncover it but But I generally was a good child. So not very often, probably, I don't know, maybe once or twice.
[17:22] I generally wasn't a good child.
[17:24] No, I generally was. I was, sorry, my apologies.
[17:27] Sorry if I got that wrong. Okay, so you were kind of obedient in that way, right? So not too often.
[17:32] I was, yes. Yes, I was very obedient. Yeah, probably, yeah, once a year or once every six months or something like that. I can't even remember how often it happened.
[17:41] And what else would happen when your parents would disagree with what you did?
[17:46] Um they would sometimes they would be um shouting um it would be shouting and, threats of being hit um or it would just be like sort of like it you know dismissing it and saying it's it's got to be this way because i said so that type of thing not so much like there were there was negotiation at times but i think it's where they just wanted something to be there way where you know there was no avenue to to have a discussion about things it was you know had to do it their way type of thing right so you know it wasn't it wasn't the worst but it could have it you know there was room for improvement i suppose and it was sorry what.
[18:33] About um being close to your parents.
[18:39] Yeah good question i think i was but close in what way though in in the sense that you could tell them everything like that no not telling them stuff.
[18:51] Uh although i'm sure that that's helpful by close i mean did they sort of work on teaching you how to live give you good advice feedback wisdom you know so you don't have to invent everything yourself.
[19:02] No there wasn't really that the closeness those type of feedback through wisdom was kind of just like the scare tactics oh don't do this because this would happen you'll get somebody pregnant or what have you i remember the first sort of like real sex talk that i got from sex education talk that i got from my mother was she noticed that i was getting sort of like really friendly with a female cousin of mine, and she just used that opportunity to say to me.
[19:31] Make sure you don't do anything with her or something like that like i can't really remember but i just remember thinking it was really strange because one of my cousins had actually, got impregnated um by her stepbrother so she was just kind of yeah trying to make an example say remember what happened to her you know you don't want make sure you don't and that was like kind of the only like you know the the talk if you will it never really happened anything anything other than that like it was just that like don't do it with your cousin and that was it like you know it was always kind of just like scaring you to not do certain things um so i don't think i can't recall there being a lot of that kind of closeness where it's like oh this is how things work and explaining why you know how they could um they could they could you know feedback some of their world experience to me it was kind of just like i i learned it through boarding school and and i'm kind of glad that i took it upon myself to say i want to go and experience that because it did teach me a lot of independence and and other and self-reliance and and i can notice the difference that it made in me like when i compare myself to my my brother who at the moment is just kind of just like a nomad who just doesn't really do anything and he has really struggled to integrate into this society.
[20:56] He has Asperger's, so he is kind of on the spectrum. But I noticed the stark... Yeah, he's got high function in autism. I think that's what it is. But I noticed the stark differences... Between me and him and you know we're not all um we're not all prepared to go into the world the same way i suppose is what i'm trying to say is that some people find it way more difficult like i can just see it's just very it's just very different it's so is like socially awkward and and all that kind of stuff and there was also aspect of bullying as well that happened at school i'm not going to say it was like a perfect you know childhood there was bullying there was some bullying at school and and also my brother was a victim of it and was that one of those of.
[21:40] The asparagus or something else.
[21:41] I think it was probably yeah and also again because of the complexion you know you kind of targeted because you're not really you're different right so um it was definitely probably part and because nobody in zambia really understands what that is and especially at that time there there wasn't any type of like thought of if you know asperges or anything like that there was just if you're not doing something a certain way then you're a bad child that you know they didn't have the same open-mindedness that you have here in the west where it's like oh you you gotta think about all these different personality traits and all the rest of it like it was just there's it's just one way you gotta conform and and that's it if you're not doing it it's because you're unruly or there's something wrong with you um, I'm sure you probably understand what I mean when I say that. There wasn't the same type of... Yeah, there just wasn't, I guess, not as much research done over there as it is over here.
[22:41] And how did it show up for him?
[22:47] He was generally socially awkward. How did it show up for him? As a child?
[22:56] Yeah. Yes.
[22:58] Growing up yeah like you said yeah i mean i.
[23:01] Assume he got diagnosed or something so there must have been some behavior that he was manifesting that.
[23:05] Yeah that that diagnosis only happened as an adult whilst whilst we were here in the west but if i think back to when we were growing up what he was like um i don't know he just had he had strengths in other areas he was creative he he was good at art and and drawing he was good at um at you know like music and um he was quite bright but he didn't do well academically because things needed to be explained to him a certain way i i believe and um it could have all been fixed with like tuition private tuition, which I received but I don't know quite why my, siblings didn't receive it but I did for certain subjects so I believe like you know if he had the one to one attention he could have you know been better academically how else did it show up he, I mean, generally with his family members and stuff, he was very playful, open, happy in general, inquisitive, curious.
[24:18] I think where it started to sort of go downhill was, yeah, again, in the high school when there was the bullying and stuff like that. His clothes were kind of like hand-me-downs from me. So he looked a bit awkward with these huge trousers that he had to wear almost up to his nipples. And so he just you know he was just like a goofy looking type of child you know he he didn't really care too much about his appearance uh you know being smart or anything like that um you know but as a child really you don't really care too much about that um so i'm not criticizing him there but that's that's generally how it would show up it would be things like he'll be forgetful, you know my dad i can always remember my dad just like admonishing him for being forgetful and leaving things at school or not remembering what he did with something. So yeah, things like that is how it would show up. And now that continues into his adult life where...
[25:19] Uh i don't know he's really hyper analytical about a lot of stuff and i get it because we're you know like myself i'm very curious and i want to know how things work and i'll do research and i'll and i'll not just i'll not just trust what what's said in the mainstream i'm very much into like looking at alternative sources of information and you know and and your show as well has just been a huge just like light bulb moment of just like wow you know when you hear how you uncover and explain complex topics and, oh, taxation is theft and all these things. And I've been listening to you since I think I first heard about you on the Joe Rogan podcast. And that's how I've since been listening since then.
[26:01] Wow.
[26:03] And when you just hear people talk like that and you think, oh, man, this just makes so much sense. So he is like he is open-minded but he tends to get over-analytical where it's always like ready ready aim but never fire type of thing you know it's always just like just always just bogged down in the details and to the point where you know he was really bright he started university he he was doing really well at first and then just kind of just had like a mental breakdown and just ended up doing all sorts of wacky stuff there was you know substance abuse there involved as well and he just ended up falling out of university um couldn't really get any traction with any jobs and kind of just like he's just and you know fast forward to now he's just kind of like in and out of homelessness right yeah like he just he will he puts himself in these really tough because he really tough situations he almost thinks that to be successful you have to go through all these hardships you have to and I this is part of like I don't know where this this mentality has come from because.
[27:16] He's kind of got to the point where he's like, I have to, maybe it's partly because he doesn't want to be a disappointment to our parents.
[27:25] And there was always this kind of like, and especially for me, I remember growing up and also when I went to university, you don't want to disappoint your parents. You always wanted to come across as, oh yeah, I've actually done something. I'm successful. I've passed. But there was never any like congratulations or acknowledging. I remember actually when growing up that, oh, you've done this really well. Well done. That's really good of you doing that.
[27:52] That's amazing. Or that's beautiful what you've drawn. Or keep going. There wasn't really that encouragement or boost. And I used to notice other parents giving their children that type of encouragement. But we didn't really receive that. We kind of were just told like, you got to do well and then that's it. And however you do it but you just got to do well there wasn't really like oh you're on the right track this is this is really good what you're doing so stemming from that my like in his adult life he feels like because you know looking around at at people and and seeing how some people have come from adversity and then adversity and then managed to go on to do really great things he's kind of thinking like oh i need to i need to do that because clearly i've missed the trick here i've just had like a privileged life where i haven't really been going through any hardships i have to create hardships and that's only the the only real way for me to, to progress or to to to become something and when i talk about hardships it's like.
[28:58] Things that are pretty wild like he'll just he'll he'll he'll do things like i i don't know he'll hike 10 miles to go and uh collect firewood and then hike it back and and and you know things like that that are just totally unnecessary and really put his body through really hard times um he doesn't have to be homeless but he would he would and another thing part of his personality is that he has really hard time, discerning people's personalities like he will befriend all sorts of people and people who are you know bad people he will befriend because, in his mind he thinks that if I can just be nice to this person they won't take advantage of me and time and time again he's just been taken advantage of so when I say homeless yeah he'll Hill.
[29:55] He would stay with my parents, but then he would have enough of them trying to tell him what to do, and it should be this way, and just trying to control him. And then he will flee the household, and he'll start off just wild camping and just living rough because, A, he hasn't got a job. Or when he does have a job, it's something that's not really a sustainable type of thing. He'll just do odd jobs here and there and really tough jobs as well, like things that further push him down that spiral where he's having to habituate with people that don't have the best intentions. He'll always find himself in those scenarios where it's a poor paying job or just making friends with people that just somehow just always take advantage of him. And then just lead him to go in so far down that spiral where he's almost like he gets to a desperate point where he's just not quite on death's door, although that has happened before.
[31:09] He will just get to a point where he's suffering so much that he eventually has to snap out of it and be like, oh my God, what's going on? And then he'll return to my parents' house, go back and live there for a little while. And sort of you think that he's recovering, you think that, okay, he's going to stop with the craziness now. And then the cycle repeats itself. And it's been like that for the past...
[31:33] Geez at least 10 to 15 years wow he's just been going through this this this cycle, of just yeah just a downward cycle he there was a time he ran away to um colombia and he told all of us that he was just in a neighboring country here in in in the uk he said he was in wales but he was actually in colombia living you know just like in the wild kind of thing like doing god knows what but he was out there for like nine months until he got to a point where again he was he he was almost bone thin uh he had infections from drinking you know contaminated water and he had to come back because he was literally if he didn't come back he needed medical attention, and then you know he got back and he he nursed himself back to health and everything and and And there's a period where you think, oh, actually, he's actually starting to listen. He's actually taking people's advice on board and he's not going to do this anymore. He's done that. He's learned his lesson. And then, yeah, the cycle, like I said, the cycle will repeat itself.
[32:43] But what does he, this is always a fascinating thing to me, is that what does he live on? Like, how does he get money? So when I was a kid, money was like the thing. I mean, you couldn't do anything without money. like you could end up on the street like what is he living on?
[32:57] Yeah, well, he doesn't have a lot of money, and there's the welfare system.
[33:00] No, no, but does he get money from the government, like disability?
[33:03] Yes, well, unemployment, I think.
[33:06] Oh, isn't that terrible?
[33:08] Yes, yeah, that's right. When he's capable of doing way more than he gives himself credit for. So, yeah, that's kind of, I mean, he doesn't have a lot of money, and what he does have he he squanders um he uses it on uh i think he he spends most of his money on just you know like essentials like just food and and that's it um because he'll he'll he'll end up you know he doesn't tell us what he's doing as well because he knows that, my parents don't approve of what he's doing and they're kind of just like done with trying to tell him otherwise because no matter what they say to him he will do the complete opposite, of what they tell him and it's almost like he i don't know if it's like an f you to them kind of thing as well um well i guess he has.
[34:04] Some tendencies towards unreality and that has really gotten bad because he doesn't have to get grounded in reality by having a job and needing to earn an income and stuff.
[34:17] Yeah yeah but again he does like to delve into the i wouldn't say conspiracy theories but he does like to delve into you know the the the reason behind certain things like you know the the vaccinations for it for instance he'll he'll go into that and talk about like all the the drawbacks and everything like that which you know there are some...
[34:41] Yeah, I don't know that that's highly conspiracy theory territory anymore.
[34:47] It's not, exactly. So this is why I'm... Yeah, so there are... Exactly. So he is bright in that sense, in that, he can do all of this and he's aware of all of this but yet chooses to go down this road of, and i wouldn't say it's like MGTOW because this is kind of like i don't think he's even had a relationship ever or maybe it is MGTOW maybe it's his own different way of i mean what choice.
[35:14] Does he have right.
[35:14] Yeah i.
[35:16] Mean is he ever dated.
[35:17] Uh not that i know of not that i know of right no but he has i don't know maybe had short-term relationships but no no no dated no dating, um nothing like oh bringing her home to meet my parents or anything like that, and i think yeah out of all my siblings i'm the only one that's had that experience of dating and bringing them home to my family and introducing them my sister hasn't done that she's she's got this long-term relationship with somebody across the world halfway across the world and he we know who he is like my parents know who he is but he's just never even had the decency to like fly over here to come and to come and see her to come and meet her to come meet my parents she's always going over there and this has been like you know 10 years now they've been had it have had this relationship um this.
[36:13] Has had a long distance relationship for 10 years.
[36:15] For 10 years more yeah for yeah about 10 years i would say and so this there's so this is part of like the the closeness when that you referring to earlier there doesn't seem to be that closeness in in our family where we can you know sort of like want to bring people back to be like like like girlfriends or boyfriends back to say oh look yeah this is my girlfriend this is my boyfriend i just you know for me i i i did it anyway because i was just like uh you know screw it i'm just gonna i'm just gonna do it and if they approve then they approve and if they don't then whatever um and but for them there hasn't been that and you know i'm not gonna say that my dating track record is is spotless because there were times when my parents did have some valid contradictions. I mean, valid criticisms because there was a time that I was dating a single mother of three children by two different dads, and I was only 18 or 19 or something like that.
[37:26] And my dad was like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah. So when I was around 18... Um actually was i 18 yeah or 19 around there maybe 20.
[37:40] Um i went through a period of dating um uh yeah single mom that had three three kids she was a bit older than me probably only a couple years and by three different three different um fathers and yeah it was at a time like you know growing up like my self-esteem wasn't great and you know i think that's also something that my siblings share is that growing up, we didn't really have strong self-esteem.
[38:07] We didn't think that we were worthy. There was always this feeling of just being unworthy. And I can relate to that because growing up, I dated this girl because I thought I wasn't worthy of anything better at the time. I just thought, man, this is the best I can do. And yet I'm only 18. So I don't know how i could have come to that decision when there was just so much more um options out there that i could have i i didn't even stop to think like wow like what are you doing you're cutting you're selling yourself short here you're selling yourself short by doing this and one thing that you know i'll say that my parents were actually or my dad rather said to me look man you're you're making what the hell are you doing like you shouldn't be you shouldn't be dating this this girl and And yeah.
[39:01] So I actually think it must have been very little.
[39:05] They yeah they were they were at the time yeah i mean the eldest was probably about three or four three years old so.
[39:13] She had a kid a year for three years with two different dads.
[39:19] Yes yes okay.
[39:20] How pretty was she.
[39:21] Uh three maybe bro yeah i did yeah exactly so i'm not gonna say that my my dating history was spot you know the best but your.
[39:34] Parents say like why don't you think you can do better or what are you doing you know with this this kind of woman or.
[39:40] Yeah yeah because it was kind of like at first it was i didn't i didn't i it was a secretive thing it was something that i was doing kind of just like wow like just offer.
[39:51] A teenage boy sex.
[39:52] Yes okay.
[39:55] So you're like okay this this this food has fell off the truck i don't have to go hunting.
[40:01] Yeah exactly yeah i got it and the way it happened was like stuff that you only see in movies i was like oh man this shit actually happens in real life like you you're at a nightclub and some girl just says oh you want to come back to my place and wow and then the next thing you know yeah, it's happening and i just got yeah the the v the v canon right i don't think that those are movies.
[40:23] That have an excessive amount of plot, but okay.
[40:27] No, but it just felt like it was a movie to me. Like I was just like, because it was unbelievable.
[40:31] And so your parents hadn't prepared you at all for predatory females.
[40:37] No.
[40:38] Okay. Do you think that's because they're naive? Do you think that they don't know that there are predatory females? Because this was some dangerous shit. You could have been rolled, robbed, blackmailed, STDs. She might have been wanting another pregnancy. Like, could be any number of things, right?
[40:52] Yes. And I'm so fortunate that none of that stuff actually happened because, I mean, that's exactly what she had tried to do with the previous partners that she had.
[41:03] And they didn't get away unscathed. But somehow, here I am. You know naive as anything still kind of like fresh from a new country still getting settled into the western way of living and still trying to acclimatize and all of that kind of stuff and then i'm just hit by this and i'm like whoa this is this is insane like you can you know just meet somebody and then it's like a one-night stand and and then all of a sudden you've just been hit with a v-canon all the time and yeah yeah so i was just caught up in it and i kept it a secret because i knew deep down like oh man and you know the place she took me to was kind of like in the projects you would say or the ghetto or what have you so you know because she was on she was on welfare so you know the government had given her all sorts of stuff and she would shower me with gifts because she had money she had loads of disposable cash i would shout i was almost like she was almost like a sugar mommy type thing sugar baby mommy right and and yeah and so my dad kind of just bumped they my parents didn't know about this relationship for the longest time until my dad just kind of like bumped into us one day in the middle of town and i was like oh man what's he got he's like he and he kind of looked at looked at me and looked at her.
[42:23] And really didn't say anything and then just kind of just walked back home walked i so sorry just walked on his way and i knew to myself i was like oh this is going to be repercussions for this i know when i go home i was kind of almost even gearing myself up to have a fight with him because i thought it was going to get physical where he's going to be like what that what are you actually doing like you i've told you because i think they had suspicions that i was doing this because i had told like some of my relatives and they had probably told my aunties who had then conveyed this so they had kind of like word of mouth that something was going on but probably didn't want to believe that it was happening until they saw the actual physical evidence um but yeah i mean eventually i managed to ditch it ditch that relationship i mean it was and i'm and glad i did because it was getting to the point where you know things were starting to escalate in terms of um i could see how manipulative like predatory basically you know i i was i was being groomed in a way and and you know and she wasn't even there was a time that i also found out that she was being unfaithful not that it matters really because i mean it wasn't going to be a long-term relationship anyway but i found out that she was being unfaithful she tried to lie about it i um i found out all the details and everything like that by by looking at her computer and all the messages that she was having with this certain person so yeah i mean i could have been exposed to all sorts of like you know like like you say diseases or infections or or what just the crazy the.
[43:52] The the crazy access right that the.
[43:55] Dad's yeah kids yeah yeah yes yeah um but yeah so um move on from that i and this was around about the time so i i moved to the uk in in in 2004 and when i moved here we i i couldn't really start school straight away because i just finished, gcses as you would call it i suppose over uh over here i just finished that in in zambia when i moved over here i was now due to start what's called a levels which is which is like a two-year course where it's kind of like um you yeah you just it's like at a college or something but i couldn't i couldn't do that immediately because at the time that i moved the the submit the the the school term starts in september and we moved in january so when i first moved to the uk i i started working um in a factory i got um you know so i started working pretty early on and then.
[44:57] Did that for nine months until i could start college um in in the fall and yeah did that did my a levels out of college graduated um well yeah i say graduated and then took a year out which is called like a gap year i suppose is it yeah a gap year and went traveling to australia did the whole backpack thing before coming back and then going to university um and i yeah i started at university for four years and then just started my work in life after that and met my wife, around 2012 yeah so yeah wow coming on what is that 13 years 10 13 years ago is that right is my math off there uh oh i mean it's.
[45:55] The right at the beginning of 2025 so you know anywhere from 13 to.
[45:59] 50 yeah yeah yes and uh yeah so we've been together since then We've been married for about five years and have two wonderful sons, aged three and one, so still very young. And um yeah so this kind of i don't know if this brings me to the point where what uh where my question kind of comes in um where recently i've just kind of like started developing feelings for feelings or thoughts should i say for wanting to to move back to africa, And I'm just trying to uncover as to what could be the source of these feelings and whether or not it's, is it just purely just because it's coming from some kind of fantasy where I think the grass is kind of greener on the other side?
[47:00] Or is it maybe because I've grown to dislike some of the things that are happening in the West and that I see happening, whether it's through, I don't know, increasing government power or the UK itself being sort of like a semi-socialist type of nation.
[47:24] The weather comes into it as well. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah i mean i we're just i mean you probably get colder winters where you are there but we're coming out of like a really cold spell where it got to about minus 10, um and that's probably the coldest it's it's been for a long time but i i know canada gets even way crazier colder than that no no it's.
[47:46] Not the cold because the cold the cold in england is in your bones like it's just foggy clammy gray the cold.
[47:52] In canada like you're.
[47:54] You're going down a ski slope or even just to bargaining in the blinding sunshine it's cool cold it's.
[47:59] Fun the british just.
[48:00] Like it's just like being in a slow motion laundry chilly horrible little thing so i prefer the canadian cold.
[48:06] 100 it's exactly like that it's it's it's the worst thing ever it's like it can't make its mind up it just has to be this perpetual grayness all the time it's just like yeah like you're living in a in.
[48:19] A sort of a chilled out ping pong ball.
[48:22] Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you really have to cherish the days when there's blue sky and the sun shining. And I document those days and say, wow, look, the sun's actually out.
[48:33] Yeah, the old yoga in England, summer comes on a Wednesday. One day. Why do you think we all left the country? Anyway, went to Africa, get some sun.
[48:44] Yeah, exactly. And when summer does come around you, you're always filled with the hope of like, okay, this is going to be a great summer. Woohoo, here we go. And it just disappoints you year after year. I mean, you may get a week of like where it's like actually really decent, nice hot weather, not raining, anything like that. And yeah, you get led into that false hope. And then the following week is just back to like rain and gray skies and wind. And that really, I mean, that it's really been getting to me, especially because I have children now.
[49:16] And I get so frustrated with being cooped up indoors. And I think back to my childhood where we would always have these awesome adventures with friends and we could go out and just play for what seemed like an endless amount of hours and come up with so many games and we could go swimming. And it was just the best thing. You could go outside. You could be outside most of the time.
[49:41] And I have the two small boys and we cooped up in this house. And there's almost there's only so much like willpower that i find i have and my wife has like to create like stimulating creative games to keep them occupied and i know they're still very young and so they they they kind of depend on that sure and but i just wish that i could be able i can't even you know it takes about five hours to get ready to go outside just to have a 10-minute walk because then we put in coats on welly boots on yeah you know just to get ready to go outside and then when we are outside it's wow what can we do just like splashing a few puddles and then we get soaked and cold and we have to go back in and warm up again it's just, it's it's it's frustrating for me because i i feel like i i want them to have that experience that i had in a way of yeah you want them to have.
[50:38] A free roam childhood right.
[50:39] A free roam childhood exactly and i don't think that that's going to happen here i mean they they might be able to do that for a month two months out of the year but yeah i just i just feel like it's uh and and i have relatives back back home and i i went to visit with my two with my family last year and they kind of were exposed to that a little bit and i'm planning hopefully to go maybe this year again just because the younger one is a bit older now and he can run around and stuff and just to get a feel for it again and just to see and try and maybe.
[51:14] See if there is something that can be like if it is even feasible for for a move like that to happen, and i basically i'm at that point where yeah my my thoughts are just fixated on on that where i can't help but think what am i what am i doing here and i and i almost don't see myself being able to keep paying a mortgage for a place that i don't really want to be in and and and carry on living you know in this perpetual viking you know whether i've just been in one continuous episode of the vikings or something you know um and and then come to the end of it like you know 30 years from now and just be like oh i've paid off a mortgage for a place where i don't you know essentially i don't really have many freedoms and i think it also comes down to freedom, um and oh yeah like if you're listening.
[52:11] To a show like this uh england is not necessarily the most hospitable place for i mean it used to be the world center of free speech and critical.
[52:19] Thinking and.
[52:19] All of that and uh yeah that's.
[52:21] All that's.
[52:21] All gone by the wayside of course as these things.
[52:23] Exactly yeah exactly and i i feel like i know africa is not you know the great place i know everything but you know the country i'm from is relatively peaceful and it's it's uh no but But Africa has.
[52:34] The great advantage of chaos, incompetence, and bribery.
[52:39] It does have that.
[52:40] Come on, tell me I'm not right.
[52:42] You are right.
[52:43] The problem with the West is there's all of these fairly efficient bureaucrats who want to stifle your freedoms, whereas in other countries and other cultures, they're just not that obsessed with trying to control you. And it's just like, yeah, these are kind of the rules.
[52:58] Give me five bucks or a wink and a nod and all of that kind of stuff. So, in a lot of ways, there are a lot more freedoms outside the West because there isn't this relentless anal bureaucratic efficiency that disciples you.
[53:12] Hyper-regulation.
[53:13] Yeah, yeah, hyper-regulation. And apparently, people really care about it in the bureaucracy. It's not just an excuse to, you know, either harass people to get money or whatever it is. Like, they really, like, they care about it. And and and you know so yeah third world permits are usually just exercises in in bribery but but in the west it's like no no it's really important that you get a permit if you want to build a deck behind your house it's super important yes really care about it and it's like can you not can't you just be like every other bureaucrat in the world and just harass people for money and then you get a lot more freedom by default in in that way no.
[53:51] I know and exactly speaking to that it's just like Like you need, everything is so formal to go to a park, you know, and you're paying for parking and everything has to, you have to fit in this lane and you have to, you know, it costs so much just to do stuff that should be for free. Like, you know, just, just being able to enjoy the outdoors kind of thing. Like it's just really. Formal should i say it's uh and you know for maybe there are good things about that because you know it's it's it's good to like wait in line and don't push in and all the rest of it yeah um but i think so you know as part of that there still comes like a bit of an element of it just becomes so stifled um you know it just feels like there's just so many roadblocks that are preventing you from doing stuff that you want to do oh no like i.
[54:39] Remember um when i was traveling in i went to belize and and guatemala and mexico and places like that and you know every checkpoint you know it was all just so lazy like nobody cared and and and it's like oh how lovely oh.
[54:56] Yeah good people who don't take their.
[54:58] Stifling job seriously can we get a little bit more of that but no oh, everybody's got to be conscientious and so thoughtful. It really matters. It's so important. Anyway.
[55:07] Exactly. And even that falls back, that even goes into like even wanting to see friends and like family members, everything has to be so like scheduled and there's no- Oh.
[55:18] No drop-ins. Yeah, drop-ins are not bad.
[55:20] Yeah, no drop-ins. Yeah, that kind of thing. You know, I remember growing up, drop-ins were a regular thing.
[55:25] People just used to turn up and, you know, you'd hang out. there wasn't ever all of this like formalizing it we got a call we got to schedule this date and then you know the date eventually comes and then something happens and you don't end up meeting anyway because.
[55:39] Maybe oh yeah god help you i mean there was no such thing when i was a kid as a play day yeah yes it did not there was no you just went over and you know knocked on people's houses you know i i love a high conscientious society like britain is very much that way a high conscientious society is really good in the private sector.
[56:01] Yes.
[56:02] Right. In the public sector, the high conscientious society gets really stifling really quickly. And that was one of the things that I, I didn't like.
[56:12] Yeah. And so this leads me to think like, I think there are opportunities that, um, I could, uh, I could take up some opportunity. There are opportunities there for me to do something abroad.
[56:25] Oh, there you mean like in Zambia, right?
[56:26] In Zambia, yes. Because I still have a bunch of family members over there, a bunch of contacts, people that have been in the industry that I'm in at the moment. I feel like I can bring some of the good aspects and the good practices that I've learned over here.
[56:43] Well, you're multilingual, you've got Western experience and Western education. I mean, yeah, it's no question that you would be very valuable in Africa. I think that's a given. so you don't have to sell me on on a warmer climate you know that's yeah i'm i'm with you there brother i i get all of that the problem of course is your wife yes because are you saying that the i mean okay how european is she because europe is a big ass place right and you've got like the swarthy sicilians all the way up to the you know the ice blue norwegian so where's she on that.
[57:17] Um she's half italian half british or yeah should i.
[57:25] Say well yes which half one.
[57:30] Um i'd say probably the british slash irish because i think there's there is some irish in there as well.
[57:35] Right yeah you're taking one of the most sun allergic species i'm just kidding right um yeah but uh so i mean has she been with you to zambia i mean what does she think.
[57:46] Yes yeah she came with me for the first time last year and she was kind of like i mean we've been to you know other third world countries well you like we've been to cuba and stuff so she's seen, she's seen should i say poverty in some you know.
[58:02] No it's not no it's not the poverty i don't think i'm not going to speak for her but i don't think it's the poverty that's the major issue because you would just live in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood right yes.
[58:12] Yes yes that's right.
[58:14] That so it's not poverty i'm i think i know what it might be but but go on um.
[58:19] She she well for the most part i think she enjoyed it she she really liked it she was pleasantly surprised by how, well she could get like i mean her idea of it was just like there's going to be cholera everywhere you have to you have to um really be really careful where you eat and all i mean and and yes you do but it's not like she her thoughts were like you know everything you touch straight away you got to have antibacterial cream or just be in this like sort of protective bubble at all times and well.
[58:51] That's really quite the dark continent perspective she's got going on there right.
[58:54] Yes exactly no no there are really.
[58:57] Civilized lovely places in africa which which is uh uh anyway but go on.
[59:01] Yes they are civilized places in africa and i think she was pleasantly surprised by that because she the the picture that she had built up in her mind was like oh this is just all gonna be yeah just like a quagmire or i don't know what like just i mean she.
[59:15] Knows that there are white neighborhoods you don't want to touch things in right you've got some you know hoarder trailer park and it's like yeah i don't want to sit anywhere.
[59:22] Yes and there are places like that here and you know exactly and um so yeah i mean i can't i don't really know what her criticisms really were of them i i of the of zambia i i probably need to ask her the question but the main thing was probably just because she would be far away from her family, would be an issue that would be a big issue yeah i mean that's what's.
[59:50] The flight length.
[59:52] Oh uh 17 hours yeah.
[59:55] Yeah okay so yeah that's that's that's a whole and a half but okay what else.
[1:00:01] So it would be being far away from her family um i think she would be she didn't like the fact that there was like um power cuts so you know you don't get regular consistent electricity which you know that is problematic oh and that's like even.
[1:00:19] In the like is that that sort of country-wide or grid-wide like it's not like these neighborhoods but like so you'd have to have a generator or something like that.
[1:00:27] Because the energy is inconsistent right it's unreliable yeah exactly yeah that is pretty but you can you can.
[1:00:32] Get uh you can work around that to some degree.
[1:00:35] Yes yes i mean i have friends who live in the country.
[1:00:37] And they just have a generator.
[1:00:40] Exactly they are workarounds and there's ample sunlight there for solar you know as you know that the solar can is is a big thing over there as well so yes you know.
[1:00:51] Also that that you know i've been to africa as you know a couple of times south africa and unfortunately there is that bacon sizzling sound of irish fresh being fried by the african.
[1:01:01] Sun but uh you know but but she can i mean i'm.
[1:01:04] A little bit on the dark irish side so i tan pretty well so i can end up in the tropics i can end up uh pretty much okay.
[1:01:11] After a month yes yes and her italian genes come through with that because she can yeah she can tan really well and and and you know um she loves the sun she loves it yeah um for sure and um so weather's fine what i think yeah so she doesn't like the the the fact that there's unreliable electricity she's petrified of malaria of getting malaria, so that's that's you know oh malaria as.
[1:01:39] You know can be a real bitch.
[1:01:41] Yeah yeah i mean i've had it for the rest of.
[1:01:44] Your life sort of stuff as far as what i've heard.
[1:01:46] Yes yes um but there are ways around that as well because you know my mom who lived in Zambia for a long time, you know, pretty much all of our life, never, ever had malaria. I think there's certain blood types as well that are a bit more predisposed to it. But I think we have a bit of like sickle cell anemia in my family. So I think that's a little less prone to get in. You're a little less prone to get in malaria if you have that trait.
[1:02:16] I think.
[1:02:17] But don't quote me on that. So, yeah, I mean, but that doesn't stop people that, you know, there are Europeans that live in Zambia and have moved to Zambia from Europe that are living there. And I don't think they live on anti-malarial tablets because there's only so much you can take of that. And then you have to eventually stop doing that. And you become acclimatized. And that's not to say that you don't take precautions because you still would. There's certain parts of cities that are virtually malaria-free. It's only when you start going to the bush and areas like that where you're a bit more susceptible to, or a bit more prone to getting infected.
[1:03:00] Oh, I mean, I remember when I first went to Africa at the age of six, and I was just, well, I just remember the giant black wasps. They were just completely terrifying to me. They would float around the, because we went deep into the bush and all that, because my father was a geologist, and I remember that. And I also remember that the tsetse flies, right? Tsetse flies?
[1:03:21] Yes. I'm not sure how they would be pronounced in other places. Yes.
[1:03:23] Also quite alarming because you know something that small is sleeping sickness or malaria or things like that um that that was all pretty pretty alarming so i mean but of course she's been there before and she knows you grew up there so you'd have a lot of uh expertise and familiarity with the whole environment right.
[1:03:40] Exactly i mean um a lot of my family over there rarely ever get if ever get malaria um and again it could be just be down to like you know spraying spraying the house at night time before you go to bed, having mosquito nets, you know, using, repellent if you're going to like bushy areas and stuff like that so it's it's and and there's pretty good treatment as well for malaria over there if you do get it i mean especially these days the testing is is pretty good it's it's it's fast you can get tested and get a result the same day and you can start treatments i mean it's come a long way yeah i'm.
[1:04:19] Sure that the illness has something to do with it but that's probably not the essence of it.
[1:04:25] That probably has something to do with it yes um healthcare as well um but i think mainly she probably is worried about pension as well i think like when it comes to if she if she was to move over there what would sustain her in a in her later years because that's one thing that she's, she's she's told me she's made you know she's vocalized to me is that because she's a stay at home mom she hasn't been working for well she is working now even though she is a stay at home mom she works from home anyway and the type of job that she does as well is is not dependent on geography because we can be anywhere in the world that has an internet connection and she can do what she does. My job isn't like that at the moment. I mean, although I do work remotely, I still have to go in every so often to the office. But for the most part, both of us are stay-at-home parents. And that's been beautiful, being able to be close to them, my children, as they're seeing them grow up in these young years, in their early years. So I think that's one side of it as well is I'm trying to come to what it is that you're thinking.
[1:05:55] Is your family around Lusaka or Copperbelt or other places?
[1:06:00] Yeah, a bit in Lusaka, mostly in the Copperbelt.
[1:06:04] And where would you think you would settle?
[1:06:08] I'm open to where I grew up in the Copper Belt or Lusaka as well because that is Lusaka really is almost, in terms of things that you you can you can buy and like in the shops and everything is pretty much the same as you would get here in in in england like other than you know a few bumpy roads here and there i mean you have access to pretty much everything you have high speed internet you have electronics you have gadgets you have you know food shops you have all the restaurants you you pretty much have everything that you would get or enjoy over here yeah yeah Yeah.
[1:06:49] For sure.
[1:06:51] And I think Lusaka is really developing at a rapid speed. I think there's a lot more opportunities there. So I would be open to being there. But also, I have family members still in the Copper Belt. So there would be more. And that's where I have family members with children that are around the same age as my two boys. So there'd be a lot more opportunity for them to grow up with their cousins. And play together and share the same schools and things like that, so I think so financially maybe she's concerned I think there could be some financial concerns about moving there definitely being far away from her family is an issue the unreliable electricity, the diseases maybe as well are a factor yeah, What else? What else?
[1:07:51] Really? What else? Really?
[1:07:55] I mean, is it like blindingly, glaringly obvious?
[1:08:00] Percent of people in Zambia who were white.
[1:08:04] White, yes. That is also another one. Yes, yes. I somehow thought about that. I somehow thought about that, but yeah, just... Yeah, so she would be a huge minority. She would be in the minority.
[1:08:16] Zero, are you ready? Are you ready for some zeros?
[1:08:18] Yep hit me with it 0.002.
[1:08:23] So out of the 20 mil in zambia about 40 000 europeans and mostly in um zaka and copper bell.
[1:08:32] Yeah yes so it would yeah i.
[1:08:36] Mean now honestly of course this i mean she's not racist so i'm not trying to sort of say anything like that yeah but it can be i mean i i'm sure you've experienced this to some degree but you know when you it can be a little bit odd for some people where it's like nobody around me looks like me.
[1:08:54] Yeah well i feel that well i don't really feel that way about me being here.
[1:08:59] Right but.
[1:08:59] I know i understand what you're saying yeah because when i was in boarding school nobody looked like me there was like one other guy maybe a couple of other asian people.
[1:09:07] Oh yeah like you know sorry but i was in boarding school and my best friend was an Indian guy. It was like 500 white boys and one Indian guy. And, you know, it was tough for him. I guess nothing to do with racism. It's just, you know, we're not really programmed to, you know, we all grew up in the same tribes and so on. So there's just kind of like a sense of like, We evolved to have people around us who look like us, right? And that's just maybe, I don't know, this may be something to do it, but that's quite a big change for her, right?
[1:09:40] Oh, huge, huge change. Yeah, absolutely. The people that look like her will be few and far between.
[1:09:51] Crime rates in Zambia. What are they like?
[1:09:58] I i feel i get a sense that in the neighborhoods that are sort of you know the good neighborhoods, i don't i don't think that crime is terrible or that high but again i haven't looked into it so i could be wrong and again i think you can take precautions against that by you know having, being in either a gated community or having security yourself.
[1:10:30] But then she's not going to the country. She's going to a gated community. Right? She can't go to Zambia. And listen, as a man, sort of man to man, we don't think that much about it.
[1:10:47] Yeah.
[1:10:48] But women do, right? I mean, this is something a friend of mine said when I was a teenager. Like imagine that you are half your size and in possession of something that every man wants.
[1:10:58] Once. Right.
[1:11:00] I mean, so, um, I mean, how tall is your wife?
[1:11:04] Oh, uh, probably about five, seven.
[1:11:07] All right. And is she slender?
[1:11:11] Yes, yeah, fairly, yeah.
[1:11:13] Okay, so as a, and I assume she's fairly attractive?
[1:11:19] Yes.
[1:11:20] Okay, so how comfortable do you think she would feel walking around a non-gated community, doing her shopping, roaming around, and so on, as an attractive white woman in Zambia? And the white stuff is not particularly important other than it would cause her to draw attention, it would draw attention to her and she would stand out.
[1:11:45] Yeah, probably not very comfortable at all.
[1:11:48] I think she probably wouldn't do it.
[1:11:50] No, she wouldn't. No, she wouldn't. so at least to begin with because i was going to say at least to begin with but um in in like the cities like lusaka for instance i did notice that there were you know white women going about doing their shopping and stuff in the shopping malls and they didn't seem to be accompanied by anybody else, but you know i don't know what their risk tolerance is or if they had lived there for a long time or their life or what have you but yeah that wouldn't apply to my wife because yeah she would be very uncomfortable doing something like that.
[1:12:24] Well i mean and women have certainly different levels of situational awareness different levels of comfort and as.
[1:12:31] A whole what is.
[1:12:32] Her level of caution in the world.
[1:12:35] I mean even in the uk yeah her level of caution is extremely high she she you know she's like whenever i'm driving she's that like passenger driver was like oh watch out for that thing in the hedge 10 miles away and i was you know kind of always telling me to slow down and you know drive a certain way because everything i do is just too frightening for when i'm driving so yeah hype like really cautious about everything, right okay especially when it comes to the children as well uh.
[1:13:07] Zambia has pretty high rates reporting of sexual abuse against women and children.
[1:13:12] Right okay now would that be in sort of more the rural areas uh well i'll i'll.
[1:13:21] Give you the uh i'll put us in in the skype chat and uh but but you need to you need to research this stuff i mean don't don't make the mistake of thinking that the world is the same for the ladies as it is for the men.
[1:13:31] I mean i know you know that.
[1:13:33] But i'm just being annoying guy to to remind you yeah i'll put this in just so i make sure that uh, i don't recall i don't uh.
[1:13:47] Forget. But yeah, she is going to look up the crime statistics. She's going to look up the victimization statistics. She's going to look up, and of course, not just sexual crimes, but other forms of crimes. If there's a perception that, I mean, again, I hate the sort of the term third world in a way because it is kind of derogatory, but in terms of are there, you know, I know that when executives go to work in the third world, especially with their families, they have to be particularly cautious with their kids in case they're kidnapping for money and and so on so and and this may all be not true but it is an entirely new environment which is going to raise questions in her and i think you need to do the research in all the all the things that she has objections to yes yes and i don't think she'd want to go i mean do you want to go to a place where you're so unusual that everyone stares at you and, so on i mean that's that could be a little unsettling again for men it is yeah you know we don't particularly care uh but for women that sort of the male gaze thing can be and i'm not i'm not going to contradict women on their sort of experience of these things because it's a very foreign world to me but that sort of male gaze stuff people staring uh that can make women feel um a bit nervous or a bit uncomfortable, Yes.
[1:15:12] And to the degree that that happens, I need to find out because I have a friend over there, a childhood friend who got married to a Russian woman and she's pretty much a fair complexion. She's like a European woman and I need to find out with him what her experience is like living in Zambia because she's moved over from Russia. And she's living there and she's living in Lusaka. And so they are people that I can speak to as well to see, what experience their wives are having who are, you know, of European descent.
[1:15:53] Yeah, I'm just reading out here as well, and one place has quoted 20 million, other places have quoted this year says 13 million, this could be older. It says Zambia has a high morbidity and mortality with human HIV prevalence rate at over 14%.
[1:16:11] Yes.
[1:16:12] Gender-based violence cases are consistently on the rise, the majority of which are physical and sexual violence against women. and uh and children.
[1:16:19] Yeah so.
[1:16:23] It's a different world for them.
[1:16:27] Yes it is it is and it it is a daunting prospect probably and and this is the thing i oh sorry this is from.
[1:16:35] 2018 so obviously.
[1:16:37] This is uh older but i think the population is is more towards I know when I was leaving the country, it was around $13 million. And yeah, I think now it's probably around $20 million, somewhere there.
[1:16:55] So this is a little bit older, but there's also…, sexual violence against girls in Zambian schools. This report examines the problem of sexual violence against girls in Zambian schools. In Zambia, many girls are raped, sexually abused, harassed, and assaulted by teachers and male classmates. They're also subjected to sexual harassment and attack while traveling to and from school. And of course, you know, it's not like in England the girls are safe either, as we've sort of found out more. I guess the world has found out. Exactly uh so let's see here uh 54 of student students interviewed and this is older but it may be better it may be worse but this is uh 54 of students interviewed said they had personally experienced some form of sexual violence or harassment by a teacher student or men they encountered while traveling to and from school and of the girls interviewed more than half said they knew of teachers at their current or former school who had sex or entered into relationships with students and so on. So it's a different world in many ways. And I would say that to try and figure this stuff out. I mean, I suppose, so tell me a little bit more about the sort of the neighborhood where you were growing up. Was it more secure, more safe, more gated, or were you out there, I guess you could say, in the general population?
[1:18:21] Yeah i was in the general population it wasn't a gated um a gated community at all we kind of just lived on on the main main road if you will our house was you know it had it had a it had a fence around it you know these like um brick wall fences that are typical of most you know houses in in africa um so we had a wall around it with a big gate but wait a wall with a gate.
[1:18:46] But it wasn't a gated community do you just mean in the house of the house itself.
[1:18:49] The house itself surrounded by a wall that had a gate to get into the house. Like it was just its own individual property.
[1:18:56] But you would leave that environment and just run the neighborhoods, right?
[1:19:00] I would leave um yes yes i would leave that environment and roam the neighborhoods uh not that often because the the walls that we around our house were was pretty sizable so we didn't really have to and and plus we were you.
[1:19:14] Weren't sorry for the most part you weren't just in a gated community you stayed in your gated obviously but very large yard is that right.
[1:19:21] Yes that's right and we used to um make friends with the neighbors on either side of the house even though we were separated by a wall we you know as children we used to find ways of climbing that wall and you know uh going over to but going over to the neighbor's house who had an equally, sizable garden so um yeah we'd play around in each other's place uh gardens and stuff like that but yeah we were we were cautioned not to always just walk out as children onto like the into the street that was kind of yeah we we were told as as children not so i didn't do that a whole lot growing up it was mostly being within the safety or the confines of our own yards when we did go out onto the roads we had to be usually accompanied by the maid or somebody uh or an adult or something like that oh so you were.
[1:20:20] You were aware of the dangers of the general.
[1:20:22] Society Yes, yes. Okay. Yes.
[1:20:26] So it was more than a gated community. You basically stayed in the house property.
[1:20:32] Yes, in the house property, yeah.
[1:20:33] Okay, and if you had to leave, you needed to be accompanied, right?
[1:20:38] Yes, for the most part, yeah. I mean, until I got to a certain age where I was kind of a bit more independent.
[1:20:46] And did your parents, did they talk to you or inform you about the dangers that they were protecting you against?
[1:20:54] Yes.
[1:20:55] And what did they say?
[1:21:00] Pretty much that there's people on the street that could snatch you up and, you know, take you away or.
[1:21:05] Oh, so the kidnapping was like a thing. And maybe it would be for blackmail or maybe it would just be for other, you know, perhaps even more nefarious reasons, right?
[1:21:16] Yeah it could be yes yeah but the kidnapping wasn't it wasn't like a oh this is like a pen you know a big thing that happens all the time and it was just kind of like, uh you know just like don't talk to strangers type of thing like that those type of well no i mean and.
[1:21:33] I'm sorry to interrupt like i i understand that that's that's common right i mean.
[1:21:37] Child grouping your kids are very.
[1:21:39] Important but the.
[1:21:40] Idea that.
[1:21:41] If you leave the fairly giant walled enclave of the house you have to be accompanied at all times by an adult i mean that's certainly not how i grew up.
[1:21:50] So that's that's a sort.
[1:21:55] Of more risky situation i would assume.
[1:21:58] Yes um you're right there were times when we did leave the confines of of the house and but we still stayed in close proximity to where our house was we didn't go straight enough like really far from the house so there were times that we could do that we could go out but it was under somebody's watchful eye somebody had to be watching us when we did that right um yeah so we were warned just because yeah because we're right next to a busy road as well you know there's traffic you could get run over things like that that uh they they warned us against they didn't want us running out into the road um uh they could be no.
[1:22:40] I mean i i lived on a road as well so but you just you get.
[1:22:44] Taught pretty.
[1:22:44] Early don't go near the road and then you could just go wherever you want right so it's not.
[1:22:48] Just the road.
[1:22:49] Thing right there is this concern about crime or kidnapping or snatching as you say right.
[1:22:52] Yeah yes right.
[1:22:55] I mean it would be real drag to relocate and then realize that you don't have a whole.
[1:23:00] Lot of freedoms.
[1:23:00] For your kids to roam uh one.
[1:23:02] One is.
[1:23:03] The weather if the other is the danger right.
[1:23:04] Yeah absolutely absolutely and yeah i mean we'd probably have to scope all these things out like uh you know does it allow for homeschooling, that's what we yeah we would like to do the homeschool we would like to do homeschooling, i think that would be our preference um no i understand that.
[1:23:28] And i'm glad that you do but uh i can have a quick look here home homeschooling in zambia i wasn't sure i was going.
[1:23:34] To oh does it allow for it uh i i'm sure it probably does i think i think that's the thing i um i'm not sure i um I probably need to.
[1:23:46] Yes, you can. Homeschooling in Zambia is supported by several organizations and resources and so on, right? Although the majority of expats, I'm sure, would send their kids to international schools.
[1:23:56] Exactly. Yes, which are a very good quality.
[1:23:58] That's US, British curricula, and often in Lusaka, I'm sure, and other places as well. Okay, so that's certainly a possibility. Because, I mean, it would be, well, I guess your kids are very young, right? But it might be a bit of a shock for them, if they were older, of course, to suddenly be sort of airdropped into a local Zambian school. Uh, sorry, are we still around? Testing, one, two, three. Do I have you?
[1:24:37] Oh, yes, yes. I'm there. You can, yes.
[1:24:39] Yeah, no problem. No problem.
[1:24:41] Yes.
[1:24:42] Okay, and, um, would you face an exit tax if you moved out of the UK?
[1:24:52] What is an exit tax?
[1:24:54] Oh, boy. If you've never had to ask this question, you are a happy guy. Oh uh it's only considering doing that.
[1:25:07] I because i i am still a classed as a zambian i have dual citizenship so i'm still i i'm i can i can be classed as an expat or i can be classed as a as a as a as a citizen, okay they've they they recognize i mean it never used to be the case um before you went you went allowed to have two passports or two nationalities, but part of the new government, they've changed that. So you can actually be due national. So I would have the benefits of being a Zambian or being classed as one.
[1:25:43] Just, yeah. I mean, obviously I'm no lawyer, no accountant, but I would talk to an accountant specializing in international affairs to figure out what the tax implications are. I mean, wouldn't it be lovely if we could just live in the world like a dandelion blown from place to place, but there tend to be quite a lot of shackles for people who want to change countries. So I would, just from a practical standpoint, I would certainly suggest that. So would you be able to live in the same neighborhood as your family? Because I think that would be one of the main benefits, right? Would it be to have your kids play with other.
[1:26:17] Family members kids and so on yes yeah we still have property over there that's rich literally in the same vicinity my my family home actually is still um, uh under my parents ownership so it it if if i was to move back i think i could uh, i'd need to ask them if they would be willing to put us up in that house house right and just yeah but.
[1:26:45] That's great then have a place to land.
[1:26:47] Would yes uh.
[1:26:48] Does your wife work.
[1:26:51] Yes she does and.
[1:26:53] So who's taking care of your kids brother.
[1:26:57] So we she works when I'm not working so we kind of just like and plus we also have help from her parents we live close to her parents, so who's taking care of them yeah we both are but we kind of like she works the hours when you're kind of playing.
[1:27:17] Hot potato with the kids right.
[1:27:18] Hot potato that's exactly it.
[1:27:20] That's good and so what would she do in zambia would she stay home with the kids which is of course fine i'm obviously this is not a judgment i'm just curious what.
[1:27:32] What is she very attached to her career.
[1:27:35] Is she like love what she do or she's like i'd much rather stay home with the kids or.
[1:27:40] No she's she's a bit of both she'd like to have the freedom to be able to um still also do a, she's not super attached to her career she's she's more focused on just building her own business at the moment which is which is fantastic so uh because she's in education she can pretty much go anywhere in the world where there's a a a demand for sort of like um the european syllabus or the european curriculum which she is which is what she teaches in so she's in education so she can she she's focusing on growing her own sort of like tuition type of thing Okay.
[1:28:24] And what about language issues?
[1:28:27] It's predominantly English-speaking, because it was a British colony, so yeah, I mean, there wouldn't really be any language barriers because English is promoted in virtually all the schools.
[1:28:46] Well that's a plus for sure for sure yes.
[1:28:49] Yes yeah she had no problem with like speaking to anybody when she was over there.
[1:28:53] Excellent excellent okay and do you anticipate spending the rest of your life in zambia.
[1:29:03] Yes i do.
[1:29:05] So then that would be her too so she would be leaving her culture history and country behind right yeah obviously back to visit and things like that Yes.
[1:29:16] Exactly. And if it doesn't work out, say, if we tried it for, I don't know, maybe a few years, there's always, I guess, the fallback of being able to come back if it didn't work.
[1:29:29] Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I get that.
[1:29:31] You know there's always that option it doesn't have to be you see the thing is i i don't want to to to go to like i i want to be able to try and attempt something like this rather than have a regret of saying oh i never we why didn't we even try doing it at the time when we could have, um and now the you know we're looking at it 20 years from now when children are all grown up and, i'll know that she definitely wouldn't want to move at that stage probably right right and Yeah, I just don't want to have that regret of thinking we didn't even try doing something like that. When I have such a, it's like all I think about these days.
[1:30:11] Right, right. And I mean, I'm sure, of course, you have talked with your wife about the issues that she might have.
[1:30:19] And what has she expressed in terms of her major issues?
[1:30:28] Um one of them would be she would feel like she's on her own there's nobody for her to, give her that support if she ever needed it like her family that she would get from her family right i mean so you.
[1:30:44] Your life may not change that much but uh.
[1:30:47] In terms.
[1:30:48] Of like how her life would change, it would be a much bigger change, right?
[1:30:52] It would be, yes.
[1:30:53] Which is not to say that's good or bad. It just is a bigger change, right? And I think recognizing that is important.
[1:31:01] Yeah, she still has friends from school and stuff like that. Whereas I pretty much don't have any friends. Like if I'm speaking honestly, there's not anybody that I can think of that, oh, that's that guy.
[1:31:11] Well, you're in the philosophy. It's a challenge, man.
[1:31:14] It is a challenge. Yeah, it is. And yeah, so right. I don't have somebody that I can say, oh, that, you know, other than work colleagues and stuff like that. But they're just like, you know, colleagues from work that you're around, you socialize with at work and stuff. Yeah.
[1:31:29] It's a funny tweet the other day. I was just reading about it. It's like, you know, work is crazy, man. You know someone at work for like three years and then he just leaves the work and you just never see him again.
[1:31:41] You never see that. It's exactly that way. It's the strangest things. Like they are ghosts. They just disappeared and that's it. Just like off the face of the planet.
[1:31:49] Right, right.
[1:31:50] And it's been like that even with my friends that I had at university who I thought I was really close to. And out of all of them, I've only remained close with one other friend who also happens to have moved to Africa. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But to a different country.
[1:32:05] Right, right.
[1:32:07] I'm still very close with him. And he's virtually the only guy that I talk to out of all the friends that I had at university as well. So yeah, at the moment, so my life in terms of like, oh, social life, I don't have a social life. It's like, we live in an area where she's really, we're in an area that is where she's close to her family members. And my family members are in another part of the UK. So we're closer, we live closer to her family members. And so, yeah, my social life really wouldn't change at all. Maybe for the better it certainly would change for the better it would maybe be for the better but because I would have again all my cousins and aunties and uncles and stuff over there it would definitely change for the better and of course.
[1:32:55] Your kids when they got older would have the chance to figure out where they wanted to go live.
[1:33:02] Yes exactly that, and as they're growing up we could spend Christmases in the UK if they wanted to with their grandparents over here and my parents would probably still be in the UK I don't think they have any intention of going back to Zambia as well so, both sides of the family still in terms of grandparents for them would still be in the UK oh sure yeah, so yeah there would always be trips back here And then they have the option of deciding where they want to go. I mean, they were born here. They could probably go to university here.
[1:33:44] Oh, yeah.
[1:33:45] You know, and all of that. So there would be those options.
[1:33:50] Right, right. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, overall, I think just recognizing that it's a different set of criteria for your wife when it comes to moving to a place like that. And I think, I would imagine that physical security would, she wouldn't want to end up feeling like a prisoner in her own home because she was concerned about issues that might happen in Zambia, if she's concerned about, and it seems like the data is, that there are some issues with violence and so on. Uh so i think again as as dudes we don't really think about that stuff but uh it is a sort of very big issue for women and you know what are we going to say no you're wrong right i mean uh that's that's not predicted particularly productive so and yeah i mean it is a huge change for her and it is a bigger change for her than it is for you because you've been there before and of course you have um uh you you have been in the uk for a long time so uh for you going back, given that you grew up there, is it'd be like, sort of like I was in the UK until I was about, almost similar to your age, I was about 11 when I left to Canada.
[1:35:05] Which of course wasn't a massive change, at least not as big as something like what you're considering. But it would be like, if I went back to the UK, it would still be fairly recognizable and fairly comfortable because, you know, those sort of initial impressions are hard to just, you know, you can't really eradicate them or anything like that it would be like uh yes you know if i didn't speak english for a long time and then i spoke english again it would come pretty easily right so yeah.
[1:35:31] And and i think as well like i know you've mentioned once like you know, When people, especially speaking back to the problem with mass migration to the West from African countries, how long would it take for, say, a Japanese person who grew up in Japan and came over to, I don't know, England or went somewhere else, how long would it take for them to acclimatize to that new culture, having grown up in a Japanese culture?
[1:36:02] I don't know. Sorry that's a challenge when you are of a different race and you move to a is it that you know if you're irish and you move to america in the 19th century eventually you just look like all the other potato-based americans or whatever right yes but if you uh your your your wife will never like everybody will know that the odds of her being born in zambia are virtually zero right like she will never uh she will never uh fit in in that same it's it's you know like the guy's who like what's the guy's name who grew up in in japan right and and you know uh would he ever be fully accepted by and i'm not sure how how zambians it's not obviously no area of expertise for me i don't know exactly how uh zambians feel about about foreigners like do they they're.
[1:36:50] Very accommodating they're very welcoming.
[1:36:52] Okay they're.
[1:36:53] And receptive to it yeah they have no issues with with like foreigners coming over.
[1:36:58] Okay okay good yeah so um she will never um she she will always be recognized as somebody who's not from zambia i suppose and that you know that certainly can be a challenge.
[1:37:10] And i think part of me as well is like even though i've acclimatized and assimilated to life in the uk there's still that part of me that's you know that is is because i was i grew up over there there's still that part of me that longs to go back to that even though like you speak about like if an irish person in 1920s america went to america and then they they they blend and blend in just like as if they had lived there i know i i'm not really like blended in in the sense that i'm uh like the homogenous crowd over here but i have blended in because i'm i'm i can really adapt to different places i almost feel like i'm a world citizen in some ways.
[1:37:53] Right i mean because sorry because you're multi-race you can blend in in a lot of places the price of that is that it's a little tough to feel like you just blend in anywhere in in sort of some fundamental way but yeah yes you could but as your your wife is a you know a full-on tidy whitey uh she's going to have more of a challenge especially because she would just be in such a minority like it's It's hard to conceive of 40,000 in 20 million.
[1:38:19] Yeah. Yes.
[1:38:21] That is a minority, man.
[1:38:24] It is, in the truest sense.
[1:38:26] Now, again, people tend to congregate, right? So it's not like those 40,000 whites are just, like, they're not scattered throughout the general population, right? Like most expats, they tend to go and congregate, right?
[1:38:41] Yes, that's true.
[1:38:42] Yeah, so that could be the case. But I don't know. I mean, I certainly have had these experiences from time to time uh if if she's the uh if she's the only white person in extended black family gathering she may be totally fine with that i mean this is not to prejudge right i mean some people would be and some people you know there may be some sort of i don't know this ancient, i don't know like tribal thing that that kicks in and maybe it would happen maybe it wouldn't but i think that is something that is probably worth discussing just to see if it would be something that might show up for her yeah because again if you've been part of a majority culture as a white woman in the uk she's been part of majority culture she just may not really know you've had more of that experience of course right but she just may not really know what it's like then to be a really really rare minority if that makes sense.
[1:39:32] Yes yeah it does make sense.
[1:39:35] So i think those kinds of discussions yeah so i think the physical security i mean you've you identified the other ones about health and things like that but i think the physical security stuff, and whether she's going to feel like she can't leave the, you know, the family compound, so to speak, or any of that, or if she's constantly worried about her kids out in the neighborhood and so on, then, you know, there are lots of different prisons in the world, right? And the prison of anxiety is tough and probably is a little bit more common among women. And if you say your wife is, which I'm sure you're right, right, that she's pretty high, high caution kind of individual uh then uh you know i mean that might be that might be something that, would be less comfortable for her in the long run or maybe even or maybe maybe the long run should get more used to it sorry that's completely backwards maybe in the long run should get more used to it but in the short run might be a real challenge.
[1:40:27] Yeah i think in the short run it will be yeah quite like a steep learning curve or experience curve, but you know long term those types of issues might just go by the wayside, but something I probably need to discuss a bit more in depth with, and try and bring it up in I don't know like a light hearted way I suppose as well because it almost feels like I already know what the answer is going to be and I'm a bit apprehensive to bringing it up in our discussions and I end up just but bottling it in and being grumpy and.
[1:41:09] She also she might feel that there's something politically incorrect about feeling a bit odd about being such a tiny amount such a tiny obvious minority it's not like you know you're you're one brunette in a in a class of 10 blondes like it's it's a pretty yeah pretty blindingly obvious minority and being that much of a minority uh might she might i mean because you know there's all this political correct stuff that makes this stuff tough to talk about for a lot of people so she may feel like well i shouldn't i shouldn't feel that way and it's like well but you know if you do it's just something to to talk about and discuss right i mean i don't think any particular feelings or instincts are bad they just need to be talked about and discussed some of them may not be appropriate to the situation but um if she might be targeted uh for her skin color uh which again could happen uh then then And that would be a place where she probably would feel more anxiety and danger. And that, you know, for a woman to feel that level of danger is just not a fun life.
[1:42:08] Absolutely. And an important question would be, I think, as well to be, is it a good decision for the children? Is that also a good standpoint to come from?
[1:42:21] Well, you know, that's a tough call. That's a tough call because I really don't know much about the culture of Zambia. They would be growing up and their peers would be, I assume, Zambian kids. And because I don't really know much about the culture of Zambia, I don't know whether it is a culture like what are the attitudes of Zambians towards women? Because that's probably going to be the attitudes that your kids are going to pick up from their peers. Is that something that you want them to pick up? So, because I don't know much about what the culture of Zambia is like. I mean, I know it's largely Christian, but, you know, Christianity has many different faces throughout the world. So, if the cultural values of Zambia or Zambian culture, and again, I know it's a bunch of different tribes, so it's not like there's just one big culture. But so they would obviously have to have friends in the neighborhood and then they would have to have friends in the dating pool they'd have to date in among their friend and peer group if they're homeschooled there might be homeschooling I know that there are homeschooling associations and so on so it's are the cultural values that they will pick up in Zambia something that you want because you know as you co-parent with the culture right yeah.
[1:43:37] But if I think about my experience that i've had my attitude towards women has has always been really you know one of respect and treating them well and everything like that and and that stemmed from you know what i was exposed to growing up i.
[1:43:51] Yes but you're also sorry to be annoying but you're also extraordinarily high iq right right so so that i mean i i as you know i always put the listeners to this show in the top one percent of iq and i think that's probably quite conservative it probably is the top 0.1% of IQ. So you're just a blindingly smart fellow, right?
[1:44:11] Right. Okay.
[1:44:12] And so you're going to be in a minority wherever you go. And I'm sure your wife is very smart as well. She's a teacher and entrepreneur and married to you and all that kind of stuff, right? So you would have, I think, come to the position of rational self-interest and respect for women just by being very smart. And I'm not saying that the culture and your family had nothing to do with that. Of course they did. But...
[1:44:35] One of the challenges, if you and your wife are super smart, is your kids, I mean, they could be completely brilliant, they could be smarter than you, but the likelihood is they probably won't be quite as smart as you and your wife, and then they may be slightly more susceptible to peer or cultural influences. You know, like if you and your wife are like six foot eight, your kids are going to be way taller than average, but there's this regression to the mean thing. So that's just something to be aware of. And again, this is not to prejudge anyone. I mean, I think my daughter is smarter than me in a lot of ways, so it could really work out. But that's a tiny bit of an anomaly as a whole. So you will be co-parenting with the culture and some of the stuff that you figured out. I mean, obviously, treating women with respect is not just moral, but it's rational self-interest, right? because you want that mutual respect in a relationship and it's good for love and sustainability in the marriage and so on. But you will be co-parenting with the culture and maybe, just maybe your kids might be more influenced by the culture than you were. And again, not knowing much about the culture of Zambia, I can't sort of say how that will be.
[1:45:45] And again, there's more than one, but kids tend to, yeah, this has a lot. Now, peer pressure, of course, gets minimized when you are homeschooling, which is a big plus. So, but yeah, I mean, so whatever the cultural values are in Zambia. Now, so let's say that you teach your kids the, for whatever, let's say that in Zambia, there are a lot of people who don't hugely respect women, right? Maybe, right? Well, that's the culture that your kids are going to have to grow up in. So if you, you know, teach your kids and model that with your wife to really respect women, then they're going to have to navigate through a culture where that may not be the norm.
[1:46:23] And that is a challenge. Whereas, of course, if they're in the UK, then that culture is going to be more the norm. So that's neither here nor there. But just to be aware of those kinds of differences. Like I knew for a fact that, you know, raising my daughter in the peaceful parenting way was going to make her quite a bit different from a lot of the other kids, most of the other kids in a lot of ways. But you know and and we've obviously talked about that from time to time but i mean what's the alternative right you know harmed your kids to make them fit in like no thank you so thanks yeah so so i mean you are making a decision for the culture that they're going to have to swim in and navigate because the sort of the cocoon of your family is disintegrates over time and then you know you're getting old you're they're not as much part of their lives certainly as when they're very young and then you're dead and then they're in Zambia with all the values that you and your wife have inculcated, how well is that going to mesh with the local community and environment that they're in? And again, I don't have any particular answers for that, but those are certainly considerations that you might want to have.
[1:47:31] Yeah, no, absolutely. Very valid perspectives um that i i'll definitely dwell on or ponder um and and just try and again yeah i think the key would be just the open communication to air out these issues and discuss bring them to light uh and the concerns that she has um and yeah i need i need to have that discussion a bit more in depth with um maybe visit the country a few more times yeah.
[1:48:01] And if you do settle.
[1:48:02] In Zambia man.
[1:48:02] Let me know I love the heat I'll you.
[1:48:06] Know we'll just.
[1:48:06] Do then we'll do the next call then in person uh under.
[1:48:09] Uh you.
[1:48:10] Know on some great Zambian food and maybe a.
[1:48:12] Zambian beer or two so so just yeah just.
[1:48:16] Keep me posted I'm just trying to create places around the world uh that I can go to.
[1:48:19] Yes you know just part of the network.
[1:48:21] I don't have anything in the zeds at the moment uh.
[1:48:24] Zealand common you.
[1:48:25] Uh didn't quite pan out so yeah.
[1:48:27] Yeah and then maybe Zimbabwe maybe Zimbabwe yeah that's right, because it's annoying a lot of people often get those two countries mixed up and Zimbabwe was a bit more well known to the people in the west than Zambia was and they always think yo you're from Zimbabwe and I have to correct them, no I'm not from Zimbabwe how do you know you're.
[1:48:48] Not skinny you know.
[1:48:49] Isn't Zimbabwe the one.
[1:48:50] Where they kicked out all the white farmers.
[1:48:52] And then had to beg them to come back and I don't know what it was it is Zimbabwe, it is yes it is Zimbabwe Okay.
[1:49:00] So is there anything else that I can help you with? I mean, it sounds like you've got a fairly good list to chat about with your wife. And I mean, obviously, it's a great pleasure to chat. And I really do appreciate the call. And I hope that it's been of some value to you.
[1:49:14] It has been of immense value, and it's great to just have a soundboard sometimes because I almost just feel like, well, it does get to a point where I have nobody really to air out these concerns of mine and just look at it from a, you know, objective, somewhat objective and somewhat anecdotal point of view as well. So it's been, yeah, really, really enjoyable on my part as well.
[1:49:39] Beautiful well listen keep me posted about how things are going and uh if you could just drop me a line and let me know what your movements are and if you don't move just or even even if you do just i'd be curious to see what your wife had to say you can just drop it in skype i'd love to hear what she has to say about things yeah.
[1:49:54] No problem i will yeah uh take note of that and and i'll certainly keep you posted.
[1:50:00] All right well thanks a little man i appreciate that and uh i'm sure i'll hear from you soon yeah.
[1:50:05] Thank you very much and i'm i'm just about to um halfway through with peaceful print no sorry not halfway i've just started peaceful parenting so i'm i'm gonna, finish that hopefully quite soon and um and hopefully i can adopt a lot of the things that are are in that book as well.
[1:50:18] Oh i'm sure you're doing most of it already but i'm sure it's good to get a refresher all right man have a great uh evening and uh um i look forward to hearing you.
[1:50:26] All right thanks.
[1:50:28] Stef bye thank you bye.
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