FUN and FRUSTRATION

We are now both well into the swing of things here in Zambia with work and our social lives. The work side goes on much as before except these last two weeks have been extremely busy and in many ways very different. To start with a team of twenty 6^th form students plus some staff including the Head came out from Cranleigh School in Surrey to visit and help at Kawama School. Cranleigh have been partnering Kawama for a few years now and raise a lot of money for them as well as sponsoring many of the children and sending teams out twice a year to help in the school plus give the young people from UK from a privileged and advantaged background a very close insight into probably the poorest and most deprived of all Beyond Ourselves Schools.

Starting the 70 Km Cycle

This trip started with a 70 Km cycle ride from Nsobe to Ndola through the bush and back roads. Jan and I had planned the route ensuring that the cyclists did not have to ride on the main Ndola to Lusaka road that is full of huge lorries and really mad drivers. I would never want to cycle on that road so we had to find another route which we did over the preceding weeks. The cycle ride went really well starting at 6am to try to get as afar as possible in the cooler part of the day. With 10 riding from the school on bikes that Beyond Ourselves had bought from Zambia plus a Stuart and Claire, a couple who are cycling a tandem plus a bamboo bike from UK to China (in a roundabout route via Africa and many other places) and Malc from Beyond Ourselves here in Zambia and last but not least, Nathan, a cycle mechanic from Ndola, the party set of with Jan and I in our truck following on with water, food and first aid equipment as the early part was on bush roads and only suitable for a 4x4. To us this was the most interesting part of the whole ride as it was early in the morning and the route took us through many of the local villages. These villages were what many imagine “African” villages to be with thatched round huts made from mud or sun baked bricks.

The First bike breaks down

Riding through the Bush

After about 15kms and two of the new Zambian bikes breaking down plus one medical incident we reached a properly drivable track and the rest of the party who were not cycling at that point for a change over of riders. It was also a feed stop and a time to look at the bikes and why they were breaking. What we found was the same fault in that the chain sprocket on the rear wheel had not been fitted properly and was not repairable in the bush as it needed workshop tools. Five of the brand new bikes were to fail in this way sadly but it didn’t stop the ride. Jan and I followed the whole way with cold boxes of water on the back, collecting  the bikes as they broke down and attending to only a couple of very minor injuries where the cyclist had hit deep sand and had come of with a small graze etc. The biggest thing for us was ensuring that everyone was taking on lots of water. Cyclists changed over every 15 Kms or so as it was very hot and almost no shade once we got out of the bush proper. The ride finished around 3pm at Janna School in Ndola and was a great success plus lots of money was raised by Cranleigh.

On the Open Road

The rest of the week they were here was spent at Kawama where Jan was involved showing Cranleigh students and Staff her work in the school, especially early years. Part of the time Cranleigh were helping with interviewing, weighing, measuring all of the Kawama children plus going on work experience in the local community, helping in the school, and various challenges including a football match against some of the older Kawama children and staff.

Dan (on the right) our Director here in Zambia discussing how many vegetables two of the Cranleigh girls sold in the village

Jan discussing early years learning with Martin, Head of Cranleigh School

Cranleigh did a lesson of "following Instructions" and they all made paper aeroplanes

Cranleigh vs Kawama, note bare feet for Kawama

As soon as the Cranleigh party went home another party from Beyond Ourselves came out. These eight people, some have been here before all come out the interview, weigh and measure all the children in the other two schools that we are associated with here, Janna in Ndola and Greater Joy at Kitwe. This involves all of us taking down the information then loading it onto computers so the information can be used in various ways, one of which is to see that the feeding programme that Beyond Ourselves pays for is working. It can be seen how each child is growing both in height and weight plus how healthy they have been.

I mentioned earlier how hot it has been recently and the day of the bike ride was no exception. The heat had been getting noticeably hotter each day recently. Everyone is waiting for the rains to come. We had a few very light showers recently but no real rain until this week when on Tuesday eve we had heard thunder around in the distance and then the storm hit. Although I have seen harder rain this was the first we had seen here since we arrived. I learnt a new word so look it up as I am sure it is not something that really happens in UK. The word is “PETRICHOR” and it was amazing. I had never realised how it could happen and how powerful and very pleasant it actually is.

The couple of days of rain has started transforming the brown parched ground and now everything has a very green tinge and lots of stuff has started shooting. It was also a big change in the temperature as the day following the rain storm everyone including us and the locals were back to long trousers and long sleeves as it got quite cool. 

I am sure that the wildlife had anticipated it as well as we have a lot of new species of birds in the garden including Schallow’s Turaco and Ross’s Turaco plus several types of bee eater suddenly arrived. In the house we have always had lizards and geckos plus a bright yellow miniature frog that lives near the sink in the utility room. All of these are welcome as they eat insects and mosquitos. Just recently though we have an explosion of tiny lizards and geckos so they have all had babies.

Feisty little Herald snake in a friends garden

Quite a large arachnid

Ross's Turaco in our garden

Schallow's Turaco

Little Bee Eaters

Waiver Bird building a nest

A month ago the trees were blue with the Jacaranda in full bloom, now it is the turn of the red trees

We are really enjoying life out here but still struggling with the frustrations of life in Africa and Zambia especially. Loadshedding (Power outages) is still going on and will be for sometime yet until the rains fill the dams etc. At the moment we do not have power for 9 hours each day. This is usually from around 5am until 1pm or from 1pm until 9pm. I say usually but occasionally it is other times as well so we don’t always know when we will have electricity.

The cost of food is rocketing here due to the local currency (Kwatcha) losing value at a great rate. This doesn’t affect us too much as we do not have a local account and keep our money in UK but is really affecting local people greatly. When we arrived in June it was K10  to £1.00 now it is K20 and the same with the US$. Zambia has to import many things so has to pay in US$ and prices are rising steeply.

Signage in a local village

Other frustrations are dealing with the local bureaucracy. We have been trying to import out vehicle since September and have finally got a figure we have to pay in tax. This amounts to just of £4000.00. A lot, but we knew it would be high. What we didn’t bargain for was being told that as we didn’t do it at the border and therefore we gave false information, we would have a penalty added. This is supposed to be 5% of the duty paid Plus 5% of the value of the car so it amounts to another £600 in the way of a fine. We are appealing because we couldn't import it at the border as we did not have work permits (I still don’t). Since we have been trying to import it since 1st September, imagine how long it would have taken at the border. We might have still been there! 

 Oh well this is Africa and the things we really enjoy do outweigh most of the frustrations of Africa.

**NEWS UPDATE**

We had our usual Friday meeting this morning in the Revenue Offices and after all this time we have been told that maybe, just maybe, we don’t have the duty to pay after all as we are newcomers to the country but as far as we know the penalty still applies!!! We wait with baited breath.