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!

March

We need to speed up the blog as we are now seriously behind schedule – so this is a whizz through to the end of March.  We need to catch up, Zambia’s just as bad as the UK for getting on with these things.

Well, here goes.  It’s hard to remember just what it was like back in early March as we had still not moved then – we still had the questionable delights of a “house in the garden” to enjoy, so life was very different. 

The bridge at Victoria Falls from the Boiling Pot

At this stage Paul was getting to grips with taking over the running of the site and how things are done in Zambia. The first couple of houses were under way and a borehole had been drilled to 38 metres on to the water table. Foundations were dug for a water tower which would hold the tank of stored water to supply the houses on site. Drainage to a septic tank was also under way so things were starting to move!

Jane was whizzing about the place with Rhoda in their big white Isuzu 4 x 4 (not quite) to continue to meet people, being introduced as Rhoda had to say goodbye to them.  We still had changeable weather since the rainy season was still in full swing –  either rain for a couple of hours each day, or not at all for two weeks then a humungous thunderstorm.  The rest of the time it would be hot and sunny and you would think, what rainy season?  By hot it has always been somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees Celcius, so Jane was welded to her brolly, Zambian sunshade style, and Paul similarly welded to his Tilley hat. 

The upper reaches of the Zambeze River - Jane, Paul, Nuambe,
 Richeal, Ginny and the left half of Carole (Sorry Carole!)

On Saturday 10^th we made our first excursion, to one of the seven wonders of the natural world that is Victoria Falls. We boarded the 10am bus to Livingstone with Richeal, and were met by Ginny (VSO, UK) and Carole (VSO, Belgium) to stay at theirs.  After lunch the five of us set off in two cars to the Falls.  We had two young and enthusiastic Zambian guides, Levi and Nuambe, that the girls work with in their office, so they ensured we had the whole experience.  We stopped by the upper reaches of the great Zambeze River, hurtling along at enormous speed, we stopped at the first photo call bridge where the view of the Falls just takes your breath away, the power of the water pounding down the Falls is truly a memorable sight. We donned rubber ponchos (sweaty from the last ten people) to do the walk, you have your own personal rain cloud above you as the mist from the falls soaked us completely.  We walked along the edge of the Falls, did the Knife Edge Bridge (no sweat) and looked across the Falls to Zimbabwe.  We got rid of the sweaty ponchos and walked down, down, down a tropical paradise of a path, with lemons growing and flowers of all sorts, to the Boiling Pot where the river is a heaving mass of whirlpools after its high speed journey.  A beautiful, peaceful place.  However, the climb back uphill was no picnic.

Victoria Falls

That evening was spent in Olga’s, the only restaurant we had been to apart from Choma Museum Restaurant.  We had our fill of pizza and some rather cough-mixture style white wine – but even so the combination of cheese and wine was pretty good.  Cheese is something of a luxury, so melted all over a pizza is a good moment.  What a day.

On the Sunday we were joined by Lorraine (VSO Canada), Jennifer (VSO Canada) and Hans (VSO Netherlands) for a BBQ.  They had been staying the night before we arrived and did the Falls the day before, and then went on a two day overnight trip to Chobe, in Botswana, on a game viewing excursion.  They arrived fresh back from all this full of stories and photographs of elephants, giraffes, hippos and lions (also something about forged immigration documents and refusing to have a room without en suite) and it sounded like ‘must do’ trip.  That’s one to do soon, maybe September????

One of the trips was to deliver some Chodort Crafts stock to the Museum shop, and there were some takings to collect too.  (Jane later had to make three visits but got it in the end.)  The shop is the busiest part of the Museum – it has crafts from local individuals and co-operatives, mainly baskets, pottery, wood carvings, jewellery and textiles. So the Museum is the place to be in Choma.   It has the only craft shop and the only restaurant – we know how to live!  It also has an internet cafe, but sadly the museum part is rather faded and out of date.   It would be great to be able to do something about this, hopefully there will be some developments on that front but who knows.

It was around now that Jane started to order the material needed for making a bed canopy mosquito net, one that you can stand up in and it makes the bed look like a four poster when it is pulled aside in the daytime.  The netting was the first thing, and this was ordered from Laxmi Electricals (where else) along with ribbon and lining, to come from Lusaka. This was the beginning of the saga and eventually involved about ten trips to the aforementioned store, as when it finally arrived there was no cotton thread or the tape needed – that had to come from Zimbabwe. I was texting the assistant, Vincent, at one stage to see if the items were in yet. Lovely friendly service though! 

Lunch with Rhoda and David al fresco at our old house

Mother’s Day brought a lovely surprise, yes a call from ‘our three’!  It was such fun, wonderful to hear their voices and we had two mobile phones with calls from London and Chichester, with all five of us talking at once – I don’t know how we do it!  It didn’t feel like Mothering Sunday at all as we had been to a service at St Stephens earlier that day, but rather than the same as the UK it was an ‘HIV/AIDS Sunday Service in English and Vernacular’ with the fabulous choir in full voice.  Singing about HIV and AIDS ... that was a first for us.


 

From cow to churn
 (Rupek in red, milking boy in half overalls)

Later that day we went out with our landlord, Rupek, to his farm just along the road. He has a dairy herd which were being milked by hand while we were there, and several goats and chickens.  There is a disused tobacco drying barn which he showed us, explaining the processes involved – very labour intensive.  The prices have dropped apparently so they are growing more maize and soya.  The milking process was fun to watch, all the cows are trained to know their own name so the milkers know who has been milked, and they have a bag of feed with their name on it to eat at the same time.  Smart move.  We later went with Rupek to take the milk, in stainless steel churns, to the Dairy Board Depot in town – it was tested for whatever, accepted and added to huge refrigerated vats. All the milk is taken to Lusaka and processed and distributed from there under the name Parmalat, along with other dairy products.

Back at the farm though, there were a few local people waiting around to buy milk straight from the cow – still warm and frothy.  We watched a small boy with his even smaller brother, struggling to get a very large drum of milk strapped to the back of his grown up bike.  This took at least half an hour to accomplish, but once successful, off he went along the path through the field with, yes, his brother hitching a ride as well.  Good training I guess because the things we see on bicycles are beyond belief – cages full of chickens (several cages as well as several chickens) huge bundles of charcoal (again, several and they are BIG bags), sometimes furniture, or bits of wood approaching 5 metres long.  The best one that Paul saw was a pig strapped into the child seat.  Classic Choma. I did see a small herd of goats and chickens waiting at the bus stop the other day though.

The completed boundary wall at the front of the plot
- maize growing for now with houses in background

The following week Paul’s main focus on the site became getting the water tower up – the tower was ready and waiting in the courtyard at Chodort.  He had to find the only crane in Choma, and for that company to check that the crane, complete with the 9 metre tower could navigate the roads and tracks from Chodort to the site, tarmac or otherwise. Not a long journey by any means but you have to think of everything.  Also the main boundary wall to the front of the site was next to be built, so that needed setting out and bricklayers found and negotiated with. 

UCZ St Stephen's Preschool

Jane helped out at the UCZ preschool one afternoon that week – the teacher hadn’t turned up (no phone call to anyone and she had the keys to the cupboard with EVERYTHING in it) so the lady who makes tea and cleans at Chodort, Mrs Mwaybe, who is around 65 or so, was in charge of about 30 children with no toys or equipment, from 8.30 am to about 4pm. Not easy.  We had been given some coloured pencils to bring to Zambia so they went down well, and step by step the children all had to draw a portrait of Jane!  Interesting results.  A little bit of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star etc was surprisingly successful, and of course when the camera came out later that was fascinating to them - they all love a digital camera.

Mrs Mwaybe and her grandchildren (maybe not all of them)

Jane (and Paul later on) went to Mrs Mwaybe’s house on the local compound with Rhoda, as she and David had helped her with the building of a new house.  This comprised of a small sitting room and two very small bedrooms. Bathroom arrangements were not discussed (best way) and the kitchen was, well, the Great Outdoors.  Most people will cook in the open air, on a charcoal fire, and are so talented at what can be produced – they put us to shame.  The house had no proper floor only earth, no windows or glass just small openings with material flapped over and the door had no handle or lock, so Mrs M would pile bricks up against it at night to feel safe. She has no bed just a mattress on the floor.  This is her new house.  Between the Nixons and us we are working on getting her those missing basics she needs to be safe and secure, which, in our terms, is not an expensive project, but she is just one of so many people who live like that; of course some have far less.

The Friday of that week was Richeal’s last day in Choma – her VSO placement here hadn’t worked out so she was off to the bright lights in Lusaka.  We had a final Wonderbake cappuchino (Yes, the only place in Choma for those) and a few farewell visits around town.

We were getting close to moving day – David and Rhoda had lots of dinner and lunch invitations, and we were included in lunch with Subi and Sophia Thomas on the Sunday. (Subi is the accountant at Chodort and is running it with Mr Mwango who is now the Vice Principal.)  The Bishop and his wife (no English) were there too, and the Thomas’ have two boys, Harrington, 4, and baby David.  They have just moved in to a lovely house they have designed themselves, and lunch was served outside under a modern but traditional style thatched roundel with two tables built in – I couldn’t help but imagine them at a Garden Show at home!  (Sorry I digress.)

Back in Choma, the next big event coming up was the House Move, but that would be a bittersweet moment involving our goodbyes to David and Rhoda.  They did so much for us, made us feel so welcome and part of the community, and ensured that we had all the information we needed.  We had frequent visits to the house; very often for a meal with friends or a quick coffee between visits or, more often than not, to bring our washing to use the ... yes ... washing machine!  Such luxury.  The norm here is to wash everything by hand, sheets and towels, the lot, but this we have been spared. We know that we are house sitting until a new principal for the college can be found, and keep that thought at the back of our minds.  Paul’s houses better be good if and when we need to move in to one!

Moving day was approaching fast; on the Tuesday afternoon we said our goodbyes to David and Rhoda on their verandah, having been invited to pop in to exchange the contents of our cameras – Rhoda and Jane had taken SO many pictures over the last few weeks (surprising, that). They had made several trips to Lusaka to deliver their belongings to the airport for carriage to their home in Ireland, and the last few suitcases were packed and ready. So strange that they were off for a new life in Ireland after thirteen years here, very difficult for them to say goodbye to many good friends they had made during that time.  Even though we would move into the Nixon’s lovely house were very sad to say goodbye too; we will always remember the time we had together and how well we ‘clicked’ with them both.  A few cups of tea and home made biscuits sealed our friendshlp of six weeks or so, and we returned for our last night Chez Rupek.

All our worldly goods in Zambia on the back of a lorry

We had promised to move early the next day (Wednesday 28th) soon after David and Rhoda left around 7am, so they would know the house was never empty.  We were only too pleased to comply with that wish, and after Paul had got the site going he returned with the Chodort truck AND the Chodort lorry pretty soon after, we loaded our cases and the extra household things we had accumulated and made the very short journey (a giant leap in another way) to the new house, Plot Number 699 Edinburgh Road, Mochipapa District, Choma. Oh what a contrast, we couldn’t believe we had made it!  We were so happy to be there, ecstatic in fact.  Our two inherited cats Sooty and Sarabeth were fed, suitcases unpacked for the first time properly in six weeks and then, oh my goodness, a SHOWER!  Hot running water and everything spotless, I have never felt so clean in all my life.

Incidentally our address, should anyone feel like writing/posting chocolate etc, is: 
Chodort Training Centre, PO Box 630451, Choma, Zambia, even a landline 
00 260 213 220663.  There is a prefix number from UK of 0844 323 6444 so if you dial that first from a UK landline it costs 2.5p a minute.  Our connection to our old life!  

The house in Edinburgh Road

Paul returned to work the day after the move and Jane spend the next couple of days unpacking, finding homes for things and then moving them to somewhere better.  We now have a huge fitted part shelved wardrobe each so that is a first, as well as an en suite, along with more kitchen cupboards than I can imagine.  Also two spare empty bedrooms and a huge office, once a home school classroom.  The outstanding part of indoors though is a lovely wooden floor in the enormous L shaped sitting room, with windows onto the verandah.  Absolutely wonderful.  The garden is another story, a tropical paradise of fruit trees complete with wheelbarrow loads of guavas (literally) at the moment.

We soon met our lovely bubbly neighbour Rahem, another volunteer here working with Scripture Union and hails from Denver, Colorado.  Her house is in the garden of our house, and is compact but beautiful – she calls it her palace.  She invited us to dinner soon after we had moved which was delicious, so she is a great cook too. We don’t see each other every day, quite, but we lend each other things as good neighbours do; sometimes shop together and often have meals together with her and Ben as they are good friends. We've even joined them playing tennis on a Saturday!  


Next entry under way is for April, which seems the way to go at the moment. The delay is putting the photos on the blog; we get there in the end though. If you would like to be an official follower (we have a grand total of four at the moment) of our blog then follow the instructions, and you will receive a note by email of the next update.  Just found that out - would have been handy before but there you go.