Life as an "Ex-Pat"

At present, our lives here in Zambia, can be divided into two parts. The work part within the schools and communities and the social part, enjoying ourselves and learning as much as we can about the local area, people and life in general here in our part of Africa.

The way I have put that it seems that the work part may not be enjoyable but it so is. You cannot help but really like the children in the schools and assisting to get them the best education they can along with helping to sort out the infrastructure that comes so easily to us in the UK.

Jan is still finding out more and more about the head teachers, the teaching staff and all that goes into the Zambian system of education. As you can imagine it is very different from the system in the UK today but in some respects there are elements of UK education about 50 years ago. Of course, we are working in schools in the poorest areas, schools that are run by the churches as there are no government schools in the area, so of course, what we are seeing is not necessarily true for all schools.

The classrooms are very basic, with benches and a blackboard but very little else. There are some textbooks but usually the children have to share, at times 5 or 6 to a book. A typical lesson seems to be where the teacher explains the new learning and then the children copy out the passage from the text book. In the better lesson, the teachers are beginning to ask the children to work with a partner, or become involved in some way.

A class being taught on a blackboard

Jan has been observing lots of teachers. In the UK, teachers often didn’t want to be observed but here everyone asks when they are going to be observed, which is very different. It’s easy enough to find things that they are doing well as they all try so hard, but, not always easy to know what to ask them to do differently which will be both meaningful and helpful when she is so used to the UK education system. Jan is trying to suggest simple things, for example, moving the desks so that the teacher can walk in between them and see what the children are actually doing rather than only looking at the books of the children who sit at the end of the long row. It’s a huge learning curve for her as she has to adapt the advice that she is giving. People are keen to try new things though and she can see the impact that the teachers from Beyond Ourselves have had over the last couple of years.

Mike had been dealing mainly with the small items so far such as cutting notice boards and fitting them to the walls, sorting out blackboards, ok cutting plywood, painting with blackboard paint and fixing to the walls and trying to fix leaking pipework in the toilets of one of the schools. One school in particular has no water as yet and this week a borehole has been sunk and hopefully by the time you read this, the school may have clean running water.

Trying to flush the old borehole

Water divining

Traditional copper rods

starting the borehole

the kids watching on

The social life we have varies from looking around the local area and going a little further to enjoying meeting lots of the other Ex-Pats that our hosts know already as having been here for almost a year now. Quite a few are Brits but also we have met Aussies, Canadians, Americans, Danish and of course lots of South Africans Braiis, BBQs to us Brits, form quite a big part of the late afternoon socialising. These have to be fairly early as the sun goes down around 6pm and the temperature drops from a standard high at this time of year of around 26-28C to a night temperature sometimes as low as 2 or 3C and occasionally a frost by the morning. The temperature drops very quickly so we all huddle round the Braii or a fire that is lit.

another Braii

a veggie platter in one of the restaurants

Last Saturday we went to our first garden party/craft fair. It was so English and was mainly ex-pats. It was a great afternoon with all sorts of things going on from a Potjies (pronounced Poy-Kee) competition. A Potjies is a cooking pot from South Africa and comes in many sizes. They are a cast iron pot with a lid, often with 3 legs, and looking like a cauldron. You put them in the fire and cook almost anything in them. They are great for stews and the like but also cook bread, fry and roast food etc. Jan and I came across them in Botswana, a couple of years back when the car we hired had one so look forward to getting a couple of our own to use in a couple of weeks.

Also someone had found a liquor store in Ndola that had a stock of Pimms so a stall serving that was set up along with various Braiis, stalls selling crafts of all sorts plus an Italian ice cream stall. A band called The Coppertones played 3 sets. The band consisting of a pair of Chrises on Drums and Lead, Jason, our neighbour on bass and Malcolm, our host where we are living at present on Rhythm guitar. It was a great afternoon and hosted by a lady called Kaz  at her fantastic house and huge gardens called Cherry Farm.

Malc on Rhythm guitar

Jason on Base

The Coppertones

Pimms O'Clock

Potjies and a Mosi

We are now also really pleased to say that Kaz will be our landlady from the end of August as we will be renting a “cottage” in the gardens that is a perfect as we could wish for. The one we originally went for at a lodge fell through but this one came up. It is a 2 bed cottage with a huge kitchen/dining room and lounge are with a large open fire, not that we will need that I hope. Outside has a large covered veranda plus the use of the huge gardens and a very “small” veggie plot.

Our new house at Cherry farm

Our small veggie plot

The veranda and bar at the rear

veggies on the go already

Other things we have done is a drive out to an area called “Sunken Lakes” where we went for a swim. This is an old cave system that collapsed many thousands of years ago and left holes in the ground that have filled with crystal clear water. Not that many places are safe for swimming due either to a disease called Bilharzia or equally nasty things like crocodiles.

No Wayne and Tracey here

We Ndola has a Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery

The mown War Graves contrasts with the area outside

Prices and availability of goods here varies. Meat is really good quality and much cheaper than UK. Fillet Steak is around £7- £8 per Kilo, Chicken around £2.00 per kilo. Gordons gin is £5.00 bottle but the tonic is much dearer at £3.00 for 6 small cans. Mosi Lager, the superb excellent local beer is less than £1.00 a bottle. That’s the good side, wine is about the same as UK but things like cheese is not so good both in quality and is dearer than UK. The rest of the goods you buy vary with some dear and some cheaper. Electrical stuff is usually a lot dearer and often poor quality. Talking 0of Electrical and Electricity, Zambia is having huge problems with the supply of  it and every day there are power cuts, The Electrical Supply Co is called Zesco and they are “Loadshedding” as they call it and a rota has been issued but they do not keep to it. The problem was the lack of rains last year and so the reservoirs are dry. It is not only that but the biggest Hydro Electric Plant is the Kariba Dam and that is very old. Look up Kariba Dam and problems on the internet and you may get some idea. It is a situation that can only get worse until at least November and then may improve only if the rains come.

So far we have either borrowed cars or rented them but on 15^th July, Jan and I fly down to Johannesburg in South Africa to collect a car we have ordered. This will be a Toyota Hilux fully kitted out with tents on the roof, fridge/freezer in the back and full camping gear. It will also have long range fuel tanks and onboard water tanks for full off road and bush travel. We are then driving back up through Botswana and Namibia into Zambia and back here. It will take around 5-6 weeks to get back as we want to look at many of the game parks and off road routes. Some of them we travelled 2 years ago on a trip to Botswana including my favourite of crossing the Central Kalahari game Reserve but a lot more of that when we go that way. Please look back to our holiday in 2013 for some of what we will be doing.