Camping in Zambia

We headed out at 5 am on Friday, Oct 5 on our exciting 9 day trek across Zambia. We were in a rattletrap yellow school bus that had been used for a primary school, so the seats were short & extra close, an 11 passenger van, & a truck, all of which were piled to the brim with people or supplies. We rambled along at 45 mph with frequent “comfort stops” along the way. Along with our family, Janice Bingham, Roy Merritt, & the 24 college students, we took 5 Zambians along who were going to set up & take down camp & cook for us as well as a mechanic. Vann, Janice, & I were blessed to be able to cram into the air-conditioned van so the trip was much more tolerable for us.

First, let me just say that anywhere you go in Zambia in a big yellow school bus, you’re going to attract attention! Everywhere we stopped in Zambia, people would come out & gather around the bus & stare. This was not a problem until we stopped for our “comfort stops” (using the toilet in the bushes) & then we even had a few people following us there. Fun! Fun!

The first day, we traveled into Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It is a moderately big city with modern shopping centers which we were excited to visit. We were all going to Subway for sandwiches, but when we arrived, found they had no bread ready, but were baking some. We waited for that delicious bite, but must say they were disappointing as the bread just wasn’t nearly as good as it is in the USA. Oh well … We were excited to find a store that sold Snickers candy bars & some great ice cream!! That night we traveled to a farm called Fringilla where we set up our tents in a field. The adults all got to stay in cute thatched roof chalets & ours even had a TV with 8 channels!!! Our first look at a TV in over a month!! We also enjoyed the hot showers without having to worry about using too much water!!

Next morning, we awoke early as the peacocks outside our door were crowing – or whatever loud noise peacocks make- so we headed over to the campsite for a breakfast of bread & cereal, tea or coffee. This was to be our breakfast choice for the next 9 days. Zambians tend to eat the same foods over & over every day, so they don’t really think about varying the diet much for us.

We headed north from Fringilla to a place called Ibis Gardens. It is a resort type lodge & has a large (but freezing cold) pool where we were allowed to swim & relax for the morning. This was a nice change for us & it was a lovely place. We feasted on Chips (French fries) & cold cokes & ice cream before heading off for our next stop at the Forrest Inn.

The Forrest Inn is a nice place with a wooded camping area that has a large round thatched roof gazebo where we could eat our meals. Again, the adults stayed in little chalets. We enjoyed a buffet of rice with stroghanoff, stir fry chicken, & some funky vegetable salad. We hit the bed around 9 as it was going to be an early morning. It gets dark so early here (around 6:30) so there is usually not much to do at night besides go to bed early. Next morning we were up & on the bus headed to Kapiri Imposhi?? , a small village about an hour drive away. There we met with the church members for a 3 hour service followed by a traditional meal of nshima (the staple - cornmeal mush), chicken, beef stew, tomato & onion relish, & the traditional drink, Chibonte? Not sure about the spelling! It is made of cornmeal which has been cooked in a lot of water & you add sugar. Definitely not our favorite, but the people here drank it as fast as they could get it!! We were fortunate to be holding some little kids who loved it, so they drank most of ours! The people here were friendly & very welcoming as they have been each place we’ve visited. They had a group of about 10 ladies which formed a choir & they sang & danced for us.
It was back to the Forrest Inn for another evening. We had bologna sandwiches w/ cheese for dinner & a birthday cake celebrating one of our cook’s birthday. In her honor, we had a “talent(less)” show.

Next morning we headed out early toward the Kundalila Falls area. As we move north, the trees get taller & there is more green! There are even a few hills around here as opposed to Namwianga where it is flat, dry, & sandy everywhere. Here we were “rough camping” as there was no electricity or water besides the stream. We took a 15 minute hike which took us across the stream & down a steep canyon to see a beautiful waterfall!! Most of the students & Vann & the girls all swam under the falls. I, however, only waded as the water was FREEZING cold! I was wishing I had gotten wetter, though, as I was about to die of heat stroke climbing back UP the canyon wall. We took quick baths in the stream above the falls before settling in for our dinner of rice, sausages, tomato relish, peanuts & cooked cabbage. (This would be our dinner for 6 of the 9 nights we were out – alternating the sausages w/ chicken). My Dad would have loved this trip as we ate bologna sandwiches nearly every day as well. By the end we were all craving some fresh fruit or vegetables!! We all stayed in tents this night. We were all in bed by 8:30 or 9 as there was no light other than flashlights. Next time – remind me to bring a lantern of some sort!!

Next day started out early as usual – eating breakfast usually between 6 – 7 am. We packed up & headed out for the Livingston Memorial. Here I will say that most of the main roads we traveled on were excellent. We traveled the great North – South Highway which was built in the 70’s by the Swiss. It is surprisingly smooth for Zambia standards, so made for a pleasant trip. HOWEVER – when we would get off of this road, most of the roads were unpaved, pothole ridden roads – like the one taking us to the Livingston Memorial. On it, we drove about 16 miles taking us over an hour to get there. All along the road, there were little houses & children would run out to wave & then would follow us so that by the time we arrived at our camping area, there were probably 100 people standing around staring at us. The memorial is really not much to see – just a large concrete structure with plaques on it. The story is that this spot was where David Livingston died of malaria. The people there cut out his heart & buried it under a tree at the spot of the memorial & then dried out his body & carried it over 1500 km to the coast of Tanzania where it was placed on a boat & taken to London to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Livingston was the first missionary to enter Zambia, so opened the way for others to follow.
One of the people who met us at our campsite included a 73 year old man who was obviously a Livingston historian. He gave us a talk about Livingston & his influence on the people of that area.
That night, the crowd finally left around 7 o’clock as we were eating our dinner. We built a large bonfire & sat around telling ghost stories for about an hour. Just as some of us were talking of going to bed, the flocks of children re-appeared. ( We called them the children of the corn!) We went on to bed, but some of the students stayed up & talked, sang, & danced with the kids.

Next morning started out early (again) which I didn’t really mind as we were going to bed at ridiculously early hours. We visited Chief Mialo’s village which had a new church which had just been started 3-4 months ago. There were approx. 40-50 people there besides us & we enjoyed a 2 hour service with them. At the end, they served us Chibonte again which we drank as little as possible without being rude. I hate to even take the food or drink if I don’t like it as I know the people there have limited resources & would love it.

We were back on the bus for a trip further north to Sanfeya which was on the shores of a huge, beautiful lake. Our lodge was definitely a bare – minimum kind of place but the beautiful view of the lake was worth it. It had a white sand beach & the lake was so large, you couldn’t see the other side, so it was just like being at the ocean. The only problem is that this lake has parasites in it, so we couldn’t swim in it. (Although I saw some locals doing just that). Again, we had a huge thatched roof shelter that we could cook & eat under. That night, we had a man who had formerly been a witch & one that had been a witch-doctor who had been converted to Christianity. They both spoke to us out on the beach about their former lives. It was fascinating & just a reminder to us that the evil spirits are “alive & well”. It was really quite freaky as we were sitting out there listening & off in the distance, it began to lightning & the wind began blowing harder. Before it was over the wind was fierce & the lightening had moved even closer. Maybe a sign that satan didn’t like the testimony of leaving evil ways to follow God!!

The power had gone out before we had dinner, so when we went back to our rooms, we lit a single candle that was left in the room. We quickly got ready for bed & shortly after blowing our candle out, we could hear the rain start pouring down. Within minutes, all the students were yelling that their tents were leaking & they started running up to the lodge with all their sleeping bags. So – we had a camp out in our 4 rooms!! Thankfully, the rooms were nice size & had a little carpet on the floor, so everyone slept peacefully!

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise, which Vann took about a hundred pictures of. It was a gorgeous day & the sun rising over the lake was stunning. After breakfast, we again headed out to a nearby (hours drive over awful roads) village to meet with a church there. We enjoyed a 2 hour service sitting on mats under some mimosa trees. Afterwards, we visited with the people, played with the kids, & enjoyed traditional dancing lessons from some of the women. The congregation fed us a meal of kasava (like nshima, but made with the kasava plant), fried & boiled fish, boiled okra, kasava leaves, capenta (tiny dried fish – like minnows), fried caterpillars, & cabbage. Yep – you read right – fried caterpillars! I can’t say that I ate a lot except the fried fish, but I did try everything once. After we finished, the members came in & finished up everything we had left including the fish heads!

We had another night at the Sanfeya resort before heading back toward home the next day. This was our longest driving day – about 6 hours back to the Forrest Inn. We again enjoyed their buffet, nice thatched huts, & hot showers! One of our students was having a birthday this day, so they made a chocolate cake for him. His name was Brian, but the cake said “Happy birthday Brain”. He thought that was pretty funny!

The next day we drove to Lusaka where we again enjoyed the shopping center & eating out. We ate at an Irish pub where I got my much craved salad & shared a basket of ribs, chicken strips, & sausages with Vann. It’s great to eat some of our more “traditional” foods. We had definitely had enough of the Zambian food for a while. After 3 hours at the center, we drove to the Eureka campground just outside of town for the night. This was a lively campground with lots of people from all over the world staying here. There were people from South Africa & Australia & who knows where else! They had a great thatched roof reception with restaurant & had a large screen TV to show the Rugby World cup game. There are even zebra, giraffe, & antelope running around the grounds.

I didn’t even eat dinner as I was too tired of the rice/sausage/cabbage/peanuts meal & was still stuffed from our lunch. We headed to bed around 9 again, although I heard that a lot of students stayed up visiting with other campers.
Next morning we set out for home which would be about a 5 hour drive. We made it to within 1 hour of home, when the fan belt on the pick-up broke. Of course, it was Sunday & we didn’t have an extra with us. We left the driver there & went to the next town (20 miles away) to find a belt. After he had called around & walked all over town, he finally found one & caught a ride back to install it so that we could go on home. We arrived HOME about 3 pm. & were excited as we had heard that our internet system had been repaired while we were gone. Students were on within minutes of arriving back, but about 20 minutes later it kicked them off again – thus continues our saga.
We are having to reset the system frequently & sometimes even that doesn’t work.

Vann, Shelby, & I are going back to Lusaka tomorrow for Shelby to take the PSAT test on Wednesday. We are hoping to go to the office of this internet company & let them have an earful of the problems we are having with it. I don’t know if it will do any good, but we sure hope so!
By-the-way, today has also turned out to be a good day as we FINALLY got Savannah’s retainer in the mail. I don’t remember if I blogged about this, but she just got her braces off the week we left & ended up leaving her retainer sitting on the kitchen table. The girls staying in our house mailed it to us that week & we just today finally got it!!! It’s a tight fit, but she thinks she’ll be able to get it all the way in pretty quick! Praise the Lord!! We sure didn’t want to have to put her braces back on!! Keep watching – if we can get this internet fixed, I’ll be able to get some pictures of the trip on soon!