Zambia

Victoria Falls & Rafting The Zambezi In Zambia

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Sun May 25, 2002
Up at 5:30 for the sunrise micro-light (motorcycle with wings) ride to view the falls and the geologic formation left by them over thousands of years. The half hour ride is breathtaking…the falls have cut their way back in a zig-zag fashion four or five times.
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A short way down the river is the bridge where people can scare themselves silly with bungee jumping; there are a variety of other activities that the tour companies can soak you for…Bob and I choose an all-day raft trip down the Zambezi River.

Zambezi Raft Trip
Normally the rafts put in at the bridge by the Falls that crosses the Zambezi River into Zimbabwe. The water is low this time of the year so our lean and experienced black African river guides had to drive us to a put-in point down the river. One guide, who will accompany us in a kayak says he has competed in kayaking events all over the world.

The mile walk straight down a 45 degree angle branch ladder to the water nearly killed me; had to turn around and go down backward the last third of the way. Bob had gone on ahead of me-the bastard I think to myself-and a long-haired guy from Hong Kong lets me balance on his shoulder the last 100 yards…am so grateful to him…you did it yourself he says…I just helped a little bit he said graciously…bless his heart. If I had known the walk down was like this I would never have gone rafting! Then had to walk around one rapid and Bob almost fell into some gooky ooze crawling over the rocks.

However back in the river, the rafts were small, we all paddled as we hit a few good rapids and had a good time. One boat flipped with a load of tourists from the Zimbabwe side. Up bobbed my Hong Kong friend that the kayak couldn’t reach and I nearly unhinged his wrist pulling him into our boat…use the collar of the life vest next time the river guide says to me. I tell my friend from Hong Kong that now we are even-we have saved each other-and we giggle.

The route back up to the top of the gorge was nearly as bad a killer as the route down. I was the straggler…even with the climber’s breathing technique…the river guide following me to make sure I didn’t croak..guzzled a Fanta at the top in near desperation and groaned when I heard that the Lorelle and the others who took the power boat trip were lifted out by helicopter!

Buffalo Steak Dinner
That night we drove into Livingstone town about 15 minutes away and ate a buffalo steak dinner at a pub that is owned by one of the safari tour leaders. On the way we stop at a pharmacy so Lorelle can get some “mozi” repellant and Bob bought a skin drum for $3 from one of the young guys selling things at the side of the truck while we wait. Funny how this selling goes-he didn’t want a drum but every time he said no the guy would come down and then finally Bob figured what the heck…now we have to send it home.

Pioneer Camp in Lusaka

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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We pull into camp outside Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We listen to CNN…TV for the first time in weeks and hear yet another warning about terrorism in NYC…funny-Josh never mentions anything in his emails…I think maybe no one is paying any attention to the warnings anymore…maybe they are just political ploys to keep the hype going. Then we hear that the Palestinians that were holed up in the Bethlehem church are shipped out to various European countries…we all double over with laughter…why not Siberia we say? Then we hear that Nelson Mandela is scheduled to meet with the President of Malawi.

This night I finally got a full blast hot shower…what a pleasure…

New Words In Lusaka

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa your car “hoots” not honks. Hoot, I tell them, is what an owl does! Rod says Geese “honk” and cars “hoot!” We laugh. In New Zealand Fi says “Rattle Your Dags” means to get you upset-dags referring to the hard little poop balls that stick to the sheep’s wool on his rear end and then “rattle” when he runs. “Tarmac” refers to a blacktop highway and “sunnies” are sunglasses. “Bakkies” are pick-ups. “Robots” are street lights. “Nappies” are diapers. I love learning the distinctions between these new words and phrases and the way the U.S. uses English; helps get a “feel” for the other English language cultures.

Shopping in Lusaka
Spent half a day at an Arizona-Shopping-Mall on the edge of Lusaka. For the first time we get a sense of the extremes in Africa-rich and poor; none of the villagers we have seen so far have any access to these goods in the city…even if they had the money they don�t have any way to get there.

The campers all got their consumer shit and loaded plastic sacks full of drinks and goodies onto the truck. Rod calls it “baby food.” Email here is very expensive-costs me $5 just to check it with no time for replies. There are armed guards all over the mall. On the way out we see a sign reading “Civil Society For Poverty Reduction Youth Project-Coffins Sold Here.” Rod says coffins are one of the biggest up and coming businesses in Africa because of all the deaths due to AIDS.

The day is another long day on the road. I join Janine in the front seat for awhile. She groans about having to get back into the rat race in London when she gets back. She talks about the rudeness and abruptness of everyone and how it will feel after being in Africa…we agree that it must just be a big-city attitude. Popular music is her passion. As with most of the rest she will be looking for work when she returns.

To Lusaka Zambia

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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Tues May 21-22, 2002 Long Drive to Lusaka the capitol of Zambia
Up at 5 am again and on the truck by 6:30. Take the whole day just to drive to Lusaka-about 12 hours or 800 km on the “bloody truck” as Janine put it in her diary.

Stopped off in a village in the early afternoon; watched two women under a tree lather up a naked little boy-child about 3 years old with soap and water from a plastic bucket but we are too respectful to take a picture. Whenever the truck stops raggedy kids materialize instantly…seemingly out of nowhere. Waiting for…hoping for a handout. I throw out two little bags of chips…The two biggest ones got them, I tell Rod! He answers with a cynical grin…African Democracy!

Then a black African adult about the age of 40 walked past the truck and yells at us bitterly, “What are you doing here! You are from free countries! You look like prisoners sitting up there! And don’t give the kids anything! You just teach them to be beggars!” I don’t blame him one bit for his bitterness…I want to know about his bitterness…otherwise how am I to know how to act-particularly in regard to my government’s foreign policies.

We see signs for Zambian beer called Mosi…I see a sign “Anti Corruption Commission!” Rod says “yes and there is an anti corruption commission on the anti corruption commission! Another sign…Knowledge is Power Bar and Restaurant…I can go with that!

African Presidential Excess
On the way into Lusaka all the traffic was stopped by uniformed policewomen and then we finally saw the reason for it; the president in an entourage of about a dozen vehicles…including an ambulance! Someone suggested he was probably on his way to the airport. Later in the South African Cape Times we read “Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa was clearly hoping to impress First World lenders when he ordered his ministers and officials to board a 69 seater bus bound for the airport. He was en route to South Africa to attend the World Economic Forum summit. Apparently the presidential motorcade to see the President off at the airport has become rather a drain on resources so in the interests of cost-saving, the Zambian leader has said it will become standard practice for ministers and party officials to bus it to the airport whenever they want to wave him goodbye.”

This is nothing compared to Zimbabwe’s president however. The U.S. is threatening to recall three commercial airliners sold to the country two years ago for nonpayment. It has been reported that Robert Mugabe will commandeer a plane at a moment�s notice so that his wife can go on shopping sprees in Paris-even having the seats removed so there would be space for all the packages. In the future, with international pressure, I hope this phase of Africa’s development is going to go the way of Uganda’s Idi Amin which is OUT!

On the way into town saw a huge billboard that said  “Do not allow people to become perpetually dependent! Do not give alms to beggars!” I think to myself this town is fighting a losing battle. Another signs read “Polite Notice-No Bus Stops.”

I keep losing track of the date…Bob has to remind me to take our Larium for prevention of Malaria on Sundays.

Every time the truck stops Damian from Australia gets out and runs up like a little kid to ask James “Are we there yet” Damian and Melissa sit behind me and I get to talk to them a lot. I like them. Once Damian made a cynical remark and Melissa apologetically said “Isn’t he terrible?” I said, oh no, that is just black humor! It helps us get through life!

Yellow Chicken Camp

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May 20, 2002
Then to Yellow Chicken Campsite and dinner in the dark. The charming camp, in the middle of a huge 40 year-old German farm, is run by a Brit and his wife who was 8 months pregnant. There is a law now that Whites cannot own land but this farmer’s land was grandfathered in because he had owned it for so long.

Soap and towel even…and so clean…and smells so good with candles burning everywhere…and hot water even…this is the nicest camp yet! The girls all have a shower the night we arrive so I decide to wait until morning. On my way I see how two black African guys have to bucket the water up out of the well…then into a barrel a few feet away…then pull it bucket by bucket up into an elevated water reservoir. Then a fire is built in an outside fire burner to heat the water. I stubbornly return to my tent without a shower.

Lessons from an African Bush Camp Operator
Janine and Sarah stayed up and listened to the camp operator who has lived in several countries in Africa over a period of 15 years talk about things he has seen and experienced. He said most people are Christian but most only convert because they are given a bag of maize or a pair of shoes and still continue their own spiritual traditions including witchcraft.

He also said that if a woman gets pregnant outside of wedlock that she has to marry the father of the child. So sometimes if a man sees a woman he wants he rapes her until she is pregnant and then she has to marry him. I don’t know which countries he was talking about here. About AIDS, the locals don�t understand the disease and don’t believe that condoms are of any use-hence the proliferation of the disease.

The operator was particularly adamant about stopping the food and other aid that people get…he believes it keeps them from becoming self sufficient…teaches them to always have a hand out…that it would be terrible in the beginning to withdraw the aid but in the long run it would be better for the people.

In fact an article appeared in the South African Cape Times a few weeks after this in which it was reported that dozens of nongovernmental organizations rejected the final declaration of the United Nations World Food Summit in Rome saying it was “more of the same failed medicine” and would not end hunger.

Distribution of resources is almost impossible due to bad roads, insufficient trucks and buses, a poor public transportation system.This results in 90% of the villages and towns living in isolation having no access to the market and no access to money. One hundred and fifty poorly developed countries are leaning on 25 developed ones. If one figures in the cost of transporting, servicing, warehousing and preserving food, then the cost of a single meal for a refugee in some camp is higher than the price of a dinner in the most expensive restaurant in Paris, one critic has said.

The answer, many are thinking, is a multidimensional approach to the develop-ment of healthy societies: develop regions especially through education; encourage local societies participation in public life including ability to dialogue; observe fundamental human rights; begin democratization and develop interdependence. This will not be easy. It will require new politicians who care about development-not warlords who sew contention in order to retain their own political power long enough so they can drain the country of money and resources.

The camp operator said that he feels sorry for African-Americans who come to Africa looking for their roots…they leave devastated when they discover they have absolutely nothing in common except color…and being black means nothing here because practically everyone is black…so no one is going to greet the black Americans with open arms-particularly well-fed affluent ones and the Africans assume the blacks who come here must be rich or they couldn’t get here in the first place…and we travelers without a doubt are all immeasurably rich compared to the locals.

In the morning as we were leaving I asked the camp operator what the best thing was about living in Africa…the beauty and wide open free space, he said waving his arm out toward the sun rising over ripe wheat..and being able to live the way you want to with no 9-5 job!

Zambia Border

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2002
Rod warns us the roads in Zambia are even worse “shit” than in Malawi-which we found hard to believe but he was right. Most of these roads we are on are not paved. They repair the potholes by digging them out and throwing them by the side of the road, Rod says wryly.

Reached the Zambian border just before 6pm. Aussies and U.S. pay $25 for a visa to enter the country; Kiwis and Canadians got away with nothing…Brits threw a royal fit when they found out they had to pay $60! Rod said it had something to do with the fact that Britain pulled millions of dollars out of the country when they gave Zambia it’s independence….
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History
In the 18th Century the Portuguese followed the Swahili-Arab slavers into the interior of the country. In 1890 the country became a protectorate of the British South African Company and was named North Rhodesia (the name coming from Cecil Rhodes). Malawi on the southern border was called South Rhodesia. North Rhodesia came under British control in 1924 but won its independence in 1963 when it became Zambia.

I imagine that most of the people in these countries, especially in the rural areas, never even knew they were being colonized! The British taxed Zambia to the bone but spent most of the money on South Rhodesia, a drain that plagued the country until well into the 1990�s. After independence President Kaunda combined Marxism and traditional African values to rule the country for 27 years.

But bloated civil service, mismanagement and corruption bankrupted the country and Kaunda was forced to give up the presidency to a man by the name of Chiluba. There was a failed coup attempt in 1997 and finally one of Chiluba�s men was elected in flawed elections in 2001 but at least it was the end of the rubber stamp one-party system. Nine African states were invited to the inaugural ceremony but none attended in protest of the elections. (I’m getting all this from the Lonely Planet book) 80% of Zambia’s 9 million people live below the UN poverty line of $1.00 a day.

Muzungu At The Malawi Border

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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We stop at a small town for supplies and “toilet stop” near the Malawi border and to spend the rest of our Tanzania shillings…scores of young boys in dirty and unbelievably tattered clothing surround the truck selling sweets, pastries, bananas, nuts…most of us stay on the truck…I don’t want the pastry but I do want the Rastafarian scarf on a young guy’s head-I buy it from him for 700 shillings-about 70 cents. He is delighted as he touches his bare head-probably had traded for it in the first place. We watch two women being introduced to a man-they bend elegantly at the knee as they extend their hands.

Malawi Border
We are the third overlander across the border that day, the kids outside the truck tell us….and then they ask for pens. I tell one that I have already given my pens away to all the children. “Fibber!” he yells at me. Then he says something and I only hear the word “white.” I ask him to repeat what he has said and then I learn the word “muzungu.” Rod says it means “white vomit from the bottom of the sea” and is a word for anyone that is white. Rod steals away the word and wears his black T-shirt with “Muzungu” written across the front and back in white.

At the border Bob gives his Sifnos Greece pen to the immigration official who stamps his passport with a crack on the desktop as if he were killing a cockroach. The immigration guy is happy. I think Rod keeps a carton of cigarettes and some magazines in the truck and hands them out to grease delicate situations.

Truck pulls out to cross the border and then begins backing up which confuses everyone but we discover Janine had dropped her towel and a little boy is running about 100 yards behind the truck to give it to her. She threw pens and sweets out the window to the boy in thanks. She has a soft spot for the children!

Coming into Malawi the land becomes lush and green. The terraced rolling foothills look manicured-not a bit of land wasted-breathtakingly beautiful. A couple miles inside the border the truck stopped for lunch at the top of a hill but a group of children and a couple elders were there and watched us eat which made us all very uncomfortable. What are we going to do about the little ones, I asked George. “Nothing!” he said with a resolute tone. Tim from New Zealand played “soccer” with them with a small ball from the truck and they really knew how to handle the ball! When we left they were happy to get all our empty plastic water bottles and some sweets and pens thanks to Janine again!

Malawi definitely has a different feel. Most of the country is rural and very poor; people are friendly…we see more waving at the truck-especially from young girls…little towns…we go through the little village of Chatinze…Don’t Walk Alone Resort…Dental and Maternity Clinic…Man On Man Hair Dressers…Come Boys Hair Salon…little huts dot the middle of fields with women standing alone waving with their arms up wide…we see the universal thumbs up from young men. We are elated…little guys as young as 5 and 6 tending small herds of cows quickly turn and whistle… We stop and buy a huge bag of charcoal from a family by the side of the road for 2000 Kwatchas ($4.)

…Judy Shop… We can see the floor fires in the little mud huts that people live in. We see six bicycles carrying huge bags of charcoal instead of a rider…I’m looking out the front windows and see a huge white truck coming at us…oh shit I yell-waking everyone up-and James has to veer to the side of the road…children stand waving and whistling as if they were extras in a movie-Melissa and I wonder what they were doing the split second before we got there…kids holler at the top of their lungs both arms waving….we give the thumbs up and they whistle and holler louder…even adults wave with both arms in the air…the soft friendly Malawi people….poor but healthy looking. They weren’t so friendly in Kenya and Tanzania. Malawi is one of the poorest but friendliest countries but Rod says they won’t be so friendly in Namibia and South Africa.

Then the roads turn to shit. Britain has the contract to rebuild the road to Lake Malawi so we are on pot-holed dirt. I try the ejector seats over the wheels in the back but quickly retreat to my own middle seat. Mud huts are made of hand made mud bricks here. Malawi is lush, green…rolling foothills…then through more little towns…Wannagwa Shopping Center is a small 8×14 foot building divided into two little stores…fields of marijuana are one of Malawi’s biggest crops.

Nairobi to Cape Town Overland

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May 5, 2002
We left for the 4000 mile seven week trip in a Mercedes Benz truck overland from Nairobi to Capetown. As Bob suspected there would be, there are 17 kids all under the age of 30 on this truck-very cheeky Aussies and Kiwis and half a dozen ball-busting Britains. Overland trucks are the cheapest way to travel Africa so the trucks are always full of kids-guess we will be content with being the token elders.

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The master of African roads is the truck driver-cars cannot manage the ruts and potholes. The truck can go almost anywhere with its powerful engine and wide tires. James understands the power under his control. We are dumbfounded by his ability to wedge the truck into the smallest path, narrowest driveway, around the sharpest corner! Drivers are extraverted and have tremendous confidence-an almost regal bearing. I read this on my blog to James and he whooped and hollered and jumped up and down…Yes! Yes! That’s me! That’s me! First instruction from Rod: it’s a TRUCK and not a bus! Every time someone calls it a bus we are supposed to buy Rod a drink-I’m the biggest offender. I just laugh.

We are all divided into four groups that rotate daily-cooks helper, dish washing, security and “dog’s-body.” Security has to stay with the truck when are parked in the towns. Dogs-bodies are the go-fers. They fill up the water jugs at the camps and set up the folding seats. They set up the folding table for food preparation and put up George’s tent. (George is the Kenyan cook.) They also periodically sweep out all the dust and mud out from under the seats and the aisle of the truck. Dish washers make up three tubs of water-one soapy, one with disinfectant and one rinse. They set up two plastic pans for hand washing-one with soap and one with disinfectant for rinse. They dry the dishes by swinging them in the air.

George makes a fire on the ground with the charcoal he has purchased along the road and sets a big grate over the top.

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The charcoals much softer than ours…coals are red and coffee-water hot in just a couple minutes. Cooks helpers peel veges and generally do whatever George wants them to do while they try and keep out of his way. George has pretty fixed and definite ideas about how he wants things to go.

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For breakfast we have had eggs all different ways, French Toast, pancakes, dry cereal made with reconstituted dried milk, toast, wieners, bacon, canned spaghetti, beans. Lunch is grated carrots, sliced tomatoes, grated cheese, green or red peppers, sliced meat and bread for sandwiches. I ask Claire if this is always going to be lunch and she says yes, but to shut up and don’t complain because it’s the only fresh veges we get! So I don’t say a word! George usually puts out the leftovers from the night before too. Pineapple or bananas or dessert.

Dinner usually is served with creamed soup first and then African stew with mashed potatoes or rice, steak and baked potatoes, chicken and rice with good spices, spaghetti with interesting sauces…and many more good things like that. We sit on little camp stools to eat. A couple times George has fixed the African staple, maize, for us-a kind of fine white corn meal. You dip your fingers into it and form a little ball with which you then dip into a spicy meat stew and eat. When it is dark and getting colder and we want to sit awhile around the campfire we put a few coals on the ground underneath each folding canvas seat…works nicely.

The truck has padlocked compartments all the way around with doors that fold down. George has the keys on a shoelace that he wears around his neck. I get tired trying 14 keys to find the one that unlocks the compartment where our baggage is so I paint the key with someone’s nail polish. George just laughs.

The truck periodically pulls over for “toilet stops.” We scatter…boys on one side of the truck and girls on the other. On one stop I was one of the last to get off and after walking down a small bank I looked to the left and saw 6-7 shiny white butts all in a row. I yelled to the girls that I wished I had my camera-you can imagine the hullabaloo! Our hands get sprayed with disinfectant before we get back on the truck.

There are two heavy plastic drops on each side in place of windows that are rolled up during the day so we get lots of fresh air and can see out. It also gives us accessibility to people standing around the truck when we are parked at border crossings and supply stops for those who choose to stay on the truck. If everyone gets out we put the drops down because local kids are known to jump up and grab things off the seats. If we are in a camp the drops come down to keep the monkeys and baboons out of the truck.

The other riders on the truck ranging from early twenties to early thirties are bright and sassy. Besides Bob and I there are two other couples, Damian and Melissa from Melbourne Australia and Tim and Belinda from New Zealand-the rest are single-Heather and Fiona are sisters from New Zealand, Nikki from New Zealand but had been working as a nanny in London, Michelle, Claire, Sarah and Lorelle traveling together from England. Adrian is from Australia with a Canadian passport who lives and works in London and Pete is a New Zealander. In Victoria we will pick up Michael from Johannesburg South Africa and lose everyone else except Nikki, Fiona, Heather, Sarah, Michelle, Adrian and us. Heather, who was working as a nanny in London had a friend who knew Mick Jagger”s nanny (hope this is right, Heather!)

Most are already well-traveled-the four girls from England spent a year traveling together after “uni” (university) and Michelle and Nikki have done overland trips before-Nikki amazingly did a 6 month overland trip in the year 2000 on the old “hippie trail” from England to Kathmandu via Iran, Pakistan and the Karakoram highway. Both Michelle and Nikki are gunning for a job in the overland business and will remain in Africa at the end of the trip.

It’s fun listening to the British, Aussie and Kiwi accents but they insist Bob and I are the ones with the accent! I am starved for conversation and want to discuss the linguistic, cultural and political differences among the English speakers but I sense they don’t like it…that maybe they assume I am being critical of them…the arrogant American…little do they know how critical I am of my own popular culture and the foreign policies of my government.

There is a library (big box of tattered paperbacks) ranging from slut novels to the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela on the truck for long travel days. There is a cassette deck with speakers at the front and the back. The smokers have to sit in the back-always Michelle in her funky little hat under which you can barely see her sparkly eyes and Rod the tour leader. At the very front of the truck there are two steps up to a section of four seats on each side where the Brits usually sit facing each other so they can chatter. The rest of the seats face forward. There is a cooler for drinks.

We have lucked out with a really nice group that is very compatible and everyone enjoys each other. Tim from New Zealand says he couldn’t imagine his mom doing an overland trip-makes me feel good. Rod has confiscated the Michael Jackson tape but the rest of the music blaring all day on the truck stereo is ungodly as you might imagine. We would prefer to remain steeped in images of Africa…the sounds of the local dialects in soft voices…he sound of children’s laughter…the look of the bright wide smiles…the sounds of the daily village activity and of the animals in the parks, the sight of the incredible red clay soil reflected in the morning and evening light, the mind blowing brightness of the stars at night…the breathtaking red sun while it is setting down on the Zambezi…we have left home partly in an effort to get away from the abrasiveness of western popular culture…but James says the other riders are young-this is their time to enjoy…

Bob and I don’t sit together…24 hours a day since February is more than enough togetherness. The truck is not full and many of us get two seats to ourselves. In July and August we are told the truck will be filled to capacity-36 people! I can’t even imagine it! It is good to be traveling now.