The Zambian Amble

Agnes and Staphos

Chilly start again, but on arrival at the farm just after 8am we headed straight out to the fields to join the team hoeing again. I just love the atmosphere out here … Zambian farmers, even blind, deaf or disabled ones, still manage to have a good chuckle with each other every day. The banter in the fields and the team spirit is something I will dearly miss when I leave here. Agnes and Biltong were music playing on their mobile phone and occasionally stopped to have a little dance in between the rows of holes they were digging for sowing the maize. The camaraderie and sense of community just cannot be matched by lone tractor drivers in the UK – yes they may be able to plough a field in a couple of hours, but they miss out on so many of life’s simple pleasures.

It was backbreaking work and by 11am we had blisters on blisters, so we headed up to the classroom to prepare for the afternoons boodling session, leaving Bernard and the others to finish the last corner of the field.

Songiso and Katherine took us on a walk around the area at lunchtime, passing by the market and the health centre, and learning about Zambian culture along the way. There are certain tribes in the country that still send young boys who are coming of age out into the bush for 6 months to learn all the skills they need to become a man and take care of a family etc.  Not all tribes do this and there are some problems with the disruption it has on schooling, so how long they will be allowed to continue is unknown. There are tough consequences for any locals who happen to accidentally wander into the area of the bush restricted for use by these boys;  if a tradesman for example, were cycling through the bush with his supplies on his way to market, was to be caught in the area, he would be abducted into the bush for the full duration and cannot leave… then he must pay a handsome fee at the end to be let out again and returned to his family. Women thankfully are not subject to such strict rules.

Songiso cutting mutton cloth

We were so engrossed in our discussions and stopping every few minutes to be introduced to people along the way, that we soon realised we would be late back to start the afternoons boodling. This made little difference to the speed of our return and the “Zambian amble” saw us arrive back to a group of eager women; including yet more newbies. Songiso even joined us for the afternoon and completed his first crocheted square… our first male student. We had now successfully taught twelve women and one man.
Veronica got to grips with the carrier bags and had almost finished making my water bottle holder by the time 4pm came around. Some very happy ladies today and two even happier teachers…. albeit absolutely shattered and both with very painful hands.

Veronica finishing my water bottle holder

Veba working on her bag base

12 blisters in under an hour!

Tracey hoeing the maize field

620am start and this time it was Tracey without much sleep – we got up to a pretty chilly morning, my snoring and the barking dogs had finally found their way to Tracey’s ears and kept her awake all night. Not a good start with a tough day ahead of us.
Standing side by side with old Bernard cracking open clods of sun-baked earth with a huge hoe is a memory I will forever cherish. He speaks very little English and can’t see a thing, so communication is tricky, but he loves to laugh and from what I can make out it’s mostly making fun of his friends.

Hoeing with Bernard

The work was hard, hot and very slow going, but we pushed on – and after 90 minutes, our hands were raw and Tracey said she would take washing old mans balls over this any day! Thankfully a minibus of fit young men arrived on a tour bus from the charity African Impact, and when we realised there were not enough hoes to go round, Tracey and I happily gave ours up in favour of preparing the chicken shed for new arrivals.

washing the chicken feeders

200 new chicks would be arriving on Friday and the chicken shed looked like it hadn’t been used for a year let alone cleaned out after the last occupants. Armed with a shovel, a hoe and a wheelbarrow we set about peeling back layers of chicken shit covered in an army of cockroaches inside what can only be described as a hovel. It was dusty, dark and absolutely stank, but we got there in the end taking turns stepping outside for a gasp of fresh air.
Next we had to wash all the plastic chicken feeders – with only the central farm tap and a ball of wirewool nabbed from one of the ladies washing up bowls! Note to self: Wire wool and hands covered in raw open blisters don’t mix well – agony is not the word. It was at this point Tracey said she would take hoeing any day!

starting a circle

The two hour lunch followed and whilst Tracey snoozed in the classroom, I boodled a water carrier with plastic bags to have something to show the ladies when they arrived.
Veronica was first in as usual and some more new ladies arrived to learn. Word had got round and although Veronica was teaching a different stitch and confusing some of the newbies, it was great to have someone who spoke Njanja to ease the pressure. The afternoon was a roaring success and another set of Zambians walked out of the classroom clutching their work and sporting broad smiles all the way down the lane. This is what we came for… and it feels amazing.

Boodle class with a very happy Veba

First day of "boodling" school (extreme crochet)

Veronica and her first mornings work

Yet another shitty nights sleep – dogs barking, mosquito zooming past my net every 2 minutes and the cock crowing at all hours. Tracey slept through the lot!
Breakfast was a little rushed, we packed our suitcase of extreme crochet gear and cutting mats, grabbed packed lunch from the girl with the forgotten name and then headed out to our waiting taxi around 745am.
Got to Linda and no-one was about. So we sat reading the crochet pattern book when one of the assistance teachers, Elida, turned up and unlocked the 3rd classroom for us. We set out our lesson resources and waited for the women to arrive. Whilst waiting, a lady called Veronica appeared in the doorway.. she was just dropping her kid off at the classroom next door and decided to have a nose at what we were doing… she immediately picked up my sample square of crocheted carrier bags and continued adding a border to it like a Pro – typical, only one person turns up and she can already crochet! I was starting to get nervous that we had chosen the wrong subject to teach. Veronica left and we waited. And we waited, then we waited some more.
Eventually we wandered over to find Songiso the manager who was in a meeting with his team looking a little harassed – apparently there were “some problems” today and so three of our five test students had needed to go into town. The electricity board (it appeared to be literally all of them) had also arrived to repair and replace a transformer board so he was pretty tied up for a while. So we waited some more.

First group lesson

3 hours passed – and feeling very lonely in our classroom, we started to worry that our plans were a little ambitious for the farm and we might end up failing at our mission after all.  Thankfully though, by 1130am we had assembled a group of 6 willing women and the lesson could begin.
We demonstrated how to cut an old T shirt into a ball of boodle (thick yarn) and got them to have a go themselves on a roll of decorators muslin – this pretty much took us up to lunchtime since it quickly became clear very few of them had ever used scissors before, let alone a rotary cutter.

Nshima, rape and chicken lunch

The usual 2 hour lunch break had just started when Elida re-appeared and asked if we wanted to go walking with her and her friends to the Linda Compound – of course we jumped at the chance – 2 hours is a long time to kill in an empty classroom with just two spam sandwiches and a bottle of water.

Joyce's daughter cutting rape leaves for lunch

The walk wasn’t far and took us to a friend’s house where were we gobsmacked to see the hosts daughter come out with 3 large bottles of Castle beer and some cups. The teachers (Elida and Katherine) got stuck in and even the assistant farm manager, Judy, made light work of the first bottle. Then out came plates of Nshima (the local staple maize meal) with chicken and rape leaves for both Tracey and I. We had never met the owner of the house or her family and yet she was feeding us – we couldn’t believe it. A conversation broke out about drinking on duty and whether or not it was allowed in the UK and it transpires it wasn’t particularly “OK” in Zambia either… just as Elida was asking us NOT to say anything to the others when we returned, we looked up to see Songisa the Farm Manager (and everyone's boss) walking past the garden hedge where we were sitting - Busted!!!! We had to laugh. Turns out Katherine is Songiso’s wife-to-be and he had no idea she was with us! Oops.
He joined us after checking on a friend in the compound and we chatted about sign languages and life on the farm – very interesting.
The afternoon was spent back with the ladies teaching more boodling skills and it was a real blessing to see them continuing as we left – they seemed pleased and so were we.
On a massive high, we took a taxi into town for our dinner date at Edith’s house. Now that was an experience we will never forget… A traditionally cooked (and eaten) meal with a true Zambian family. First we were given a large bowl of water to wash our hands with and then sat down to mounds of Nshima, Okra cooked into a sauce, beans and chicken stew.   The idea is that you pull off a lump of Nshima with your fingers and roll it in the palm of your hand into a smooth ball then scoop it into the okra and beans and shove it in your mouth… really not so easy when you are used to a knife and fork…. it goes against all instinct to put your fingers in your food and yet here we were being told this is the “polite” way to eat it! At one point Edith even picked up her plate and held it to her lips whilst scooping sauce into her mouth with the other hand! The mess Tracey and I got into was clearly hilarious to Edith and Zita as they did not stop laughing at us. A lovely and humbling night. We both felt very privileged to be invited in to experience such an evening.

First day working on Linda Blind Farm

Seriously poor nights’ sleep – the huge dip in my mattress combined with dogs barking til all hours meant a fairly broken night, so I treated myself to a couple of slices of toast and marmite for breakfast around 7am. We spent the next hour waiting for managers Kennedy and Rabeccah to arrive, sat with Paddy (a 19 year old Irish lad) who was marking exam papers with a hangover before school.
Such an awesome welcome from Rabeccah and Kennedy – within minutes Rabeccah was transferring her belongings to her new gifted handbag and preparing to head into town. Before she went though we talked though our plans for last years school and Linda farm. She was very supportive and thankful that we had approached her first – giving donations directly causes all sorts of unseen problems… jealousy, corruption and the “gimme gimme” response so many people misunderstand. Thankfully she also sorted out a hefty taxi discount for us for the week. It was listening to these negotiations on her phone call that I noticed a pattern in the language she used…. The parts of the conversation that are conducted in English always seem to be related to time… words like “tomorrow” and “last time” are always said in English, the rest in their tribal language of Nyanja – I’ve come to the conclusion that time is not part of their language at all. When you live out here, this makes sense… everything out here happens in “African time”.
Our taxi driver, “Obey”, was part way through cleaning his cab when Rabeccah’s call came in and so my back seat was wet – in horror at the fact that his “Muzungu” (white person) passenger was getting a soggy bottom in his cab he immediately whipped off his shirt, whilst driving, and handed it back to me insisting I sat on it!
We arrived at Linda Farm about 945am and Songisa took us round – chuffed as nuts with the photobook of images from our visit last year. The team were already hard at work in the fieds, watering the rows by hand with a hosepipe. A Dutch family had kindly installed a new irrigation system last week, but sadly the river-fed water pump couldn’t deliver sufficient water in the time available each day to make it worthwhile – the cost of running the pump for that long just didn’t make it viable, so they are re-thinking the situation and connecting manual hoses to the system instead.

Tracey and I immediately got to work taking up hoses and working our way along the rows of onion, and cabbage under the scorching African sun. We broke for a surprising 2 hour lunch at noon and realised we hadn’t actually brought any lunch with us – D’oh! 2 hours is a long time to kill with nothing to do, so we decided to take a walk up river to the local bridge where we found a bunch of school kids waiting for their ride home. One of the lads was being taunted for being genuinely fat and with massive holes in the soles of his shoes, whilst the rest of the girls were obsessed by our hair and kept grabbing and pulling it in fascination.
The watering started again at 2pm this time in a field of aubergines for over an hour during which I managed to get wind and sun burn on my face and neck. Not our smartest first day… lack of food and lack of suncream, but at least we were still smiling and every single aubergine had had a personal shower (I became a little obsessed!).
We wandered back down the lane to meet the taxi around 4pm and met Bernard (the blind farmer) on his way home – how the hell this guy finds his way around is a mystery, let alone swing a scythe all day hacking bushes back. Incredible.
When we finally arrived back at the Sunbird we were hot, smelly and starving and so demolished a giant bag of crisps and a couple of beers each before heading over to the communal dining room for dinner….. pork and none other than aubergines! A fitting end to a fantastic day.

You're so FAT!

Me and Zita at the Sports Club

Up at 630am and went on a “Zambian amble” into town to get SIM cards for laptop dongle and Zambian phone – we also wanted to get gift bags, and a few more supplies for our room. True to African tradition, SIM cards cannot be registered inside an hour, so of course this required a trip to the Kubu café next door to the phone shop for a beer to sit and wait (and use their wifi).
Today was the day we were meeting friends we met last year, Zita and Edith, and we were excited, but also a little apprehensive… would they expect us to bring oodles of gifts? would they have brought half their family with them too, expecting the same thing? We took a taxi back to the Sunbird for lunch and to get prepared for the big rendezvous. Lunch was a little late and the phone was going constantly with messages from the girls letting us know they were already at the sports club waiting for us… we couldn’t eat fast enough.

Sports Club!

We nervously picked our way through the bush and past the church to appear at the side of the sports club and before we were anywhere near the patio Edith came running at us like a charging bull and nearly bowled me over… closely followed by Zita and before long we were both squashed in a group hug. As the arms disentangled and we all stood back to look at each other, Zita with her new long braided hair and Edith in the same familiar denim skirt and football shirt, it was declared in unison with huge grins “You’re so fat!, Look at you! What have you been eating?”
We had to laugh, we understood that in Africa to be called fat is a compliment on account of being rich enough to eat lots of food – but it’s still hard to not be slightly offended! We laughed along and hugged again, after which came the second round with Edith holding my face and repeating… “look at your face and neck, it’s so huge!” – yeah thanks Edith. Enough now.

Falls Garden Toilets

The Blue Arrows (Air force football club) were playing another Livingstone team… a local Derby, so the place was packed with people which was a great atmosphere and after the clouds and wind of the last two days, it was even nicer to have the sun shining on the sandy pitch.
We talked, we laughed, we drank and we met plenty of people. Then Mulenga (Zita’s boss also working for the Air Force) turned up with a crate of duty free beers for us and we were able to give him the two pairs of shoes he ordered from us. To our utter amazement, the beers were stashed in the sports club’s fridge and we were able to drink them on site! Not in England.
Despite the sports club having had a refurb, with a new bar out front and brightly painted pillars, somehow they didn’t feel it necessary to revamp the toilets, in fact, they considered them unworthy of toilet doors and so we had to go two by two to have someone guard the corridor from intruders. Time to move on to the Falls Garden bar with our friend Anastacia behind the bar… the music was put on and a fire lit in a mobile crate – Zita’s Uncle turned up and we talked a lot about global travel, Africa and the differences in culture. A switched on guy – he told us Zita was back at school and trying for her exams again, hopefully this time her Uncle will help her to get out of the situation she is in and better herself… something so hard for Zambians.

Tracey and Edith