September

We returned from our Tazara trip with an appreciation of the finer things in life – mostly a hot shower and a clean bathroom – enough said – a description of the train ablutions is probably best omitted from here, I would hate to put anyone off train travel ...

Choma Life

In early September Paul and his team finished House One, and Jane prepared for the upcoming visit from Lizzie, Tori and Joe – making marmalade from home grown oranges and stocking up the freezer – as well as a first foray into cheese making.  If you want it, you have to make it, that’s the way.

Holiday

Well the day arrived to go to the airport to collect our charges.  We we set off in the Toyota we had hired from our good friend Kissinger – it wasn’t until a few days before we needed it that we finally had a deal in place, phew. We collected the girls and Joe from the airport and headed for a good breakfast at Mugg and Bean, Levy Mall in Lusaka, before we set off on the 4 hour trip to Choma.  A welcome braii was mandatory, then we spent a few days around Choma with some visits around Chodort, the new site, the market, the reading room and of course the museum.

Victoria Falls, Afternoon Tea and a Royal Chat 

  

Victoria Falls without a lot of falls

We all set off for Livingstone to see the sights there – starting with, of course, Victoria Falls, including the very steep walk down to The Boiling Pot where the water looks like just that.  Several vervet monkeys accompanied us and we had been warned of their light fingers – they helped themselves to somebody’s Tango – little monkeys. 

September is when the falls are at their driest and the photo shows the difference with the full flow that we found there in March on our first visit.

Admiring the sunset over the Zambezi
 with a cocktail or two

Next stop was tea – at The Royal Livingstone Hotel -  a touch of luxury in the midst of it all, serving a delicious, full on afternoon tea, with row upon row of cakes and tiny puddings to choose from.  The others elected to stay there the next day too and make the most of the swimming pool overlooking the Zambezi – while we had our VSO reception with Princess Anne no less, at Livingstone Museum.  She was very well informed on what the nine of us were up to and had a work with everyone personally.  Very impressive.

Off on Safari

Good shot Tori

No luxury for long though – we were staying in a five bed room in a backpackers hostel – a good base to explore from, and that’s where we set off on an early  morning start to go on safari to neighbouring Botswana – to Chobe National Park.  After a bit of a commotion at the border we were ushered onto a tiny boat to cross the Zambezi into Botswana, then later we started our morning river cruise.  We had our own guide on the top deck, and he was so proud to point out the wildlife – we saw so much our eyes were out on stalks.

Down to the river to drink

It's a long way down

A lovely lunch was laid on and then we were shown to our safari vehicle – a big open sided truck – we were with some Americans and two English girls who live in the Cayman Islands.  Talk about abundant wildlife – we could hardly turn another corner without seeing animals everywhere -   we counted 22 different species all in all and our cameras hardly stopped clicking.  No way could the batteries last with the hammering they were getting.  We’d been told we would see enough elephants to last a lifetime, (if that’s possible then it’s true) and there were tall gangly giraffes with a sort of folding tripod/deckchair method of reaching down to the water to drink.  We saw hippos and  crocodiles, zebra, sable and warthogs, and we quickly learnt the difference between kudu, impala and lechwe.  It’s all in the stripes.

S -t - r - e - t - c - h

We arrived at our camp in the late afternoon – to find a crescent of 2 man tents around an open fire, reassuringly a trestle table that was later laden with a delicious meal as well as boxes of wine – yes really! We were warned not to wander off into the bush (would you really need to be told) and our guides also told us that the sound we could hear was the lions calling to each other – there was an elephant carcass 50 metres from our camp so they were sharing the news.  We all slept well and after breakfast we set off again – we immediately saw two lions feeding on the carcass – wonderful to see so close up – one patrolling and scaring away the hovering vultures while the other one fed. We spent the day on safari, and amongst everything else we saw lions again, sleeping and then waking and stretching – such a sight.

Sunset over the Kalahari

Lake Kariba

Chilling out on one of our sunset cruises

We made our way back to Choma and our second trip was to Lake Kariba – irresistible as we had loved it there before – lots of lovely meals, relaxing by the pool and game viewing trips out on the old capenta rig – more elephants and hippos to be seen living here.  

One prize fisherman - one Tiger Fish

Our trips were soon all over and back to our base, and we had just enough time to visit Rosemary the UCZ caregiver and her children in her village.  We visited them bearing a few gifts such as a football and some notebooks and pens, which all went down very well.  

Spot the football in action

Soon time for the airport again though for the flights home, and Paul and Jane returned to Choma, ready to move house two days later.  No pressure there then!

August

July soon slipped into August, one month nearer Lizzie and Tori and Joe coming to see us. Alex next year! The boys on the site were making good progress towards finishing House One by the September deadline and the schools broke up for the holidays so Jane worked on the OVC Holiday Programme with the Sisters.

Holiday Programme

Little Loveness with her stencilled African animals

Jane and the kids

The kitchen is under the tree on the far left

This time the treat for the children was a Sports Day with a bouncy castle, so that proved an enormous hit and we used the Choma Trades (rival college) playing field, next to where we are based.  Before the inevitable football game, girls v boys, they ran lots of school sports day style races - including the egg and spoon race, mealie meal sack race and the needle race – where they work in pairs, one runs as fast as they can holding a sewing needle (health and safety all taken very seriously of course) along the length of a football field where the other is holding the thread.  They have to thread the needle and then the other one runs all the way back!  Just watching is exhausting in the incredible heat, but the children just run around and laugh and laugh as if they haven’t a care in the world. 

They just love a game of football

Much excitement in the camp

Mealie meal sack racing

Go Joyce!

Site Progress

House One was pretty much finished.  All down to the detail now - such as the doors for the kitchen units made and fitted, the floor and wall tiling completed, curtain rails (and rings) made by Oden in the workshop and then fitted by Oden, and the brick piers for chain link open fencing built in both rear gardens.

House Two saw lots of action as well – decorating the house internally, laying tiles, fitting the kitchen and laying on the electricity supply – easier said than done. That took numerous visits to the esteemed offices of Zesco.  Yes, Zesco the electricity supply company that give us power cuts many times a week. Ha, Zesco, Zesco – as I write we have yet another power cut.  Well, Paul had to take Mr Mwango with him to enable maximum communication, mostly in Tonga. It all became a big debate over whether to have two connections to two semi detached houses or just a shared one, as is the norm for houses on the compound; for some reason.  It may seem painfully obvious to us to have separate supplies but that’s the sort of thing Paul is up against all the time.  Hey ho, TIA.

Back at Chodort, Mr Lundamo the welder was making the main gate for the site – it was laid out all across the path (more health and safety at work here) ready for spray painting a deep royal blue – excellent choice. The gate was fitted onto a sliding track in the entrance gateway and with a bit of levelling and tweaking it ran very well.

Tazara Trip

The middle of August brought the trepidatious Tazara railway trip – an adventure into our neighbouring country of Tanzania.  A ‘must do’ trip – but you would only do it once.  The route runs for a 1,000 miles from a rather undesirable place called Kapiri Mposhi near Lusaka, through the Northern Province of Zambia into Tanzania, and ends in the port of Dar es Salaam.  When in Africa one has to explore a little, so off we went.

Team Tazara - Ben, Paul, Jane, Rahem

It took almost three days to get to the train which left at 4 o’clock on a Tuesday, and it was due to take two days.  Little did we know it would take three  .... hmm  ... well when the countless delays could last anything up to four hours at a time that’s not really surprising.  The train would often travel at walking pace – we were told it was because we have brake failure ...  At the next stop we asked if they were being fixed and they said “Oh no, this is the border, that won’t be for another three hours or so”.  So hearts in mouths just a bit.  That was in the middle of the night, and various immigration officials would come into our compartment to inspect passports and visas.  Just sit on my bed why don’t you?  The brakes were fixed eventually, and we spent the days contentedly enough; putting Africa and the rest of the world to rights, playing cards, listening to music and eating from our stash of picnic food supplemented by the occasional serving of chips and beer (healthy) from the dining car (ha!) and bar.

Swahili children talking to the Tazara tourists 

Tazara Tourist

When we were stationary – not unusual – the local people would come and sell their wares to the passengers at the open windows, so we could buy bottled water and fruit etc, and we spent many a happy hour talking to the children –them teaching us some Swahili and us teaching them some English.  We played games with them and made them laugh, and persuaded them into having their photos taken which they eventually loved.  So, never a dull moment on the journey, it took 66 hours going and 54 coming back, but we fell under the spell of the Tazara. 

A 45 second walk to the beach

We had just three nights at our destination – Bagamoyo Beach on the Indian Ocean.  Bliss.  We stayed in a small ten room hotel each with with verandas amidst palm trees and flowers on a small grassy slope down to the open thatched restaurant on the beach.  The sand was white and soft, the coconut palms were bendy and beautiful, and the Indian Ocean was shallow and warm.  We swam several times each day, and could sit on our coconut leaf sun beds and order drinks and ice creams from the bar.

Goats passing by on their daily walk to fine pasture -
the cows came later

Refreshed - ready for the Tazara home again?

While we had been to Bagamoyo, Ben had flown on to Zanzibar and enjoyed the delights there – that’s a place we have to visit one day now it sounds lovely.  We met up at the Tazara station in Dar es Salaam and set off on the journey back – not without it’s surprises and delays.