Mike & Jan's Great Escape: A Year Has Gone By

I’ve just realised that it is almost Five months since I last updated the blog, so ‘about time’ I hear you say.

Well it’s exactly a year ago we left sunny UK via Heathrow on our way to some new experiences in Africa. That was a great decision as so much has happened in that time.

Jan and Emily sitting in one of the school lessons with a very young pupil

Jan looking in at Greater Joy School in Kitwe

We began by working in three schools with Beyond Ourselves plus another about an hour away independently. Just recently the charity has joined with two more so we now work in six schools in total. Since we have been here all of us involved in Beyond Ourselves have changed the way we feel about how best to support the schools. Our main focus now is to look for sustainability. This means that we spend more time training people which will help them to carry out their roles more effectively and less time doing things ourselves, even though it is very tempting to do so at times.

Social Life, Mike's birthday bash with The Coppertones

Mike up on stage thanking all for coming to our home for his birthday

Dan, Melissa, Jacob and Emily on our manicured lawns at Chez Taylor

Socially we have made friends with a really fantastic group of people from many parts of the world. Most are like us, only out in Africa for a certain period of time but a few seem to be making it their permanent home. We work closely with Dan and Melissa plus their two boys, Jacob and Ben. Dan is a Director of Beyond Ourselves and the family look like they may want to stay for a long period. Also working with the charity is Emily who along with her husband Malcolm, just recently been made Head of Primary at the local International school, and their two children, Lucy and Albert have been here nearly two years now. They are deciding when to return to UK as secondary education is just around the corner for their children.

Social life here in Ndola, the third largest “city” in Zambia, tends to revolve around friends and the “ex Pat” community with a braai (South African word for a BBQ) many weekends. We also have a few good restaurants including several Indian and a couple of others that serve fantastic steaks and pizza. We love being with our friends but Jan does miss ‘culture’ at times as it doesn’t really exist here for us.

Jan and I enjoy getting out and away so in the last year we have bought a fully fitted out safari car in South Africa and driven to fantastic places in the Bush many times now including a couple of visits to Botswana, Namibai plus South Luangwa, Kafue and Kasanka here in Zambia. We also managed a week flying down to Cape Town early this year.

At the Cape

Sitting on Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town

sights of Cape Town

Jan with President Nelson Mandela in Cape Town

The car has been a great buy although it does tend to keep costing us lots of money with it needing new rear springs, the steering repaired and so far a complete new set of tyres. Still, we do tend to drive it a lot off road and on some of the most amazing rough bush roads we are ever likely to drive on.

It has been great seeing a few family and friends out here including Andrew, Karen and Louise for a great time last Christmas and New Year for a couple of weeks driving in Botswana plus Jan’s great friend, Sarah for a couple of weeks at Easter when we had trip to South Luangwa.

My fantastic family at Victoria Falls

On the Salt Pans in Botswana

We think we have probably now managed all of the Zambian bureaucracy that we hope to do and at times it was very hard going. After a year we both have work permits, a car registered in Zambia and Zambian Driving Licences so we feel much more Zambian now. Then I managed to contract Malaria quite badly a week or so back so we think we have now tried just about everything.

What have we planned for the Future?

Well we had actually set a time for returning to the UK and that was going to be Spring 2017 but we have been asked to stay on for a while here. We have now set a time to return back to UK just prior to Christmas 2017 so in about 18 months time. Plenty of time therefore if any one does want to come out to visit us here in Africa.

We have a trip planned to take in Zimbabwe this August where we will be meeting some more of Jan’s friends, Tim, Jo and Shula plus Sarah returning for another couple of weeks. After that we have no firm plans as there is so much to see and do in the Southern and Eastern part of Africa. We would love another week or so in South Africa, maybe Durban this time when the weather gets warmer there.

Having been here a year now we have been through all the seasons. We arrived and everyone was in jumpers and jackets but we thought it was warm. Now we realise this time of year is very cold and we have taken to the jumpers and jackets as well. We have just been through the beautiful “green” season with the rains and beautiful flowers everywhere along with the mud. Now it is brown, very dry and dusty with leaves dropping and will be like this until the rains begin again, perhaps in November or December. We are looking forward to seeing the seasons change again next year, now we are starting to understand things a little more.

"Our" three dogs, Jet the puppy, Brutus the big soft lump of a guard dog and Monty

The road to our house after a rain storm

the beautiful "green" season where we live

It’s been a fascinating year, with lots of frustrations but also so many new experiences. We have challenged our own views on living and working with a charity in Zambia a number of times. There’s nothing like new experiences and challenges for keeping us feeling young. Roll on next year.

Cant leave without a few animals can I and these are all from here in our garden