What a crazy last 48 hours It’s been!
Wednesday morning started at 05:00. Mum and Dad drove me to CT International Airport for my 08:00 flight. I made my way through check in and wondered through to Gate 41, buying breakfast ( a massive bran muffin) on my way and taking a seat on a long metal bench in quite terminal. Other passengers also on my flight started arriving: an African couple, a western business man, a small group of European tourists (stylish cloths, speaking a strange language), and a young student sitting a few seats away. We started talking and the subject turned to our respective faiths and the validity of the Bible. I listened to his views and tried to explain mine. He had quite a sceptical view of religion in general and believed science to be the ultimate method of determining truth.
Our gate opened and we all made our way via a bus to the Zambezi Airlines Boeing 736 with a giraffe skin pattern on the tail. There were hardly any passengers in total, about 30. I had my whole row, plus the one directly behind and in front of me completely to myself. An air hostess came to me shortly after take off and told me there had been a mistake with the catering that morning and so breakfast could not be served – thank goodness for that muffin earlier!I spent the duration of the flight eating Simba Chips, drinking tea and reading from my Lord of the Rings book. It was the strangest thing to fly, especially internationally without my family. We’ve done quiet a bit of flying together but it was a great feeling to be traveling alone and independently!
We landed at Livingstone Airport at about 10:30. I got a short view of Victoria Falls ( the River and the waterfall spray) and about two thirds of the passengers got off.
We soon took off again and landed at Lusaka International Airport at 12:25, 30 minutes ahead of schedule. To me, It didn’t feel at all like I was in another country outside of SA!!
It was the smallest and simplest International Airport I’ve ever seen! The walk from the plane, including all customs stops and baggage collection to the exit must have been less than one hundred metres! I was surprised by the different people there – Indians, Arabs, Westerners, Africans, Asians. I couldn’t see Grant and his son Joel at Arrivals but after unsuccessfully trying to call Grant from a kind strangers phone, we saw each other. After loading up the car ( an awesome off-road vehicle full to the brim with supplies bought in Lusaka) and eating the best chicken-mayo roll of the life, we were off, driving through the back streets to avoid the infamous ‘Lusaka traffic’ and getting onto the T2 North Eastern road.
The weather was clear and warm about 23 DC with a cool breeze as we navigated through the heat warped roads packed with industrial trucks, lorries, and the well known blue painted taxis. “To them and many drivers in Zambia, the laws of the road are ‘just suggestions’” Grant said as they wove through the standing traffic. Reminded me a lot of Fish Hoeks Taxis!Most of the buildings around Lusaka were industrial of some kind and we past many markets, roadside stalls and cafe’s – most only half build or pained. Probably half of the businesses included in their names, and many of the cars had stuck on their windscreens, phrases like ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘God is Great’. This was the trend everywhere we went on our journey and Grant said the Zambian people have trouble putting all their faith in the one God. They often add Gods name to things for blessing. Unfortunately, many do not give up their ancestral worship and other older spiritual ways but instead mix the gospel into their traditions as an add-on truth.
As we continued away from the main towns, industrial buildings and the town settlements ( brick, corrugated iron houses) became less and less. More of the natural landscape could be seen with light brown grasses and grey green bushes covering most of the ground. We drove through many Police Stops checking for non-roadworthy vehicles, about 5 through Lusaka. We passes through unhindered each time.
We passed the Northern boundary of the Lower Zambezi National Park on our right. Pretty much all of Zambia's large game and wild animals are found there only because of poaching and killing off in the wild.
I started to realise the vastness of the distances between places in Zambia, “people are quite used to it here” Grant said. As we continued North East into more and more rural territory, we passed circular fields of wheat and maize. I’d seen these earlier from the plane.
Every 15 kilometres just about we’d pass through a rural village, built right on either side of the main road, usually not bigger than 20 thatched houses most much less. Each was roofed with wild long grass tied in bundles and walls of brown/red clay or bricks, reinforced with thick branches.
We made a diesel stop at the town of Kapiri Mposhi and bought some boiled ground nuts (the local any-time-of-day snack) from some local boys… or should I call them entrepreneurs!! This is a junction town where all the trucks coming and going from the Copperbelt in Ndola must come through to be weighed. We saw long lines of them at the roadside, sometimes having to wait a week to be weighed before continuing.
We followed the T2 NE until evening and spent that night at a friend’s cattle and maize farm near Mkushi. After being cooked and served an amazing beef and mushroom stew by our host ‘uncle Donald’ and watching some Mythbusters on the family’s DSTV, we all hit the sack.
We were on the road again by 06:00, with an orange sun rise on a changing pink and blue sky, and it was freezing cold! I could tell it was freezing because #1: I could see my breath, #2: my toes soon went numb and #3: the heater in the car didn’t work. But it soon warmed up.
The landscape had changed much since Lusaka. There were now tall grasses and large trees and bushes and rocky outcrops here and there. Zambia is a very flat country. The further NE we drove the more rocky hills we saw.
We drove through many more rural villages, each had something unique everyone was selling on wooden benches balanced and unattended right on the shoulder of the road. First was local honey sold in plastic coke bottles. Then came white bags of home made coal and bricks. There were also long identical stalls where people where selling little pyramid piles of tomatoes.
Everyone in each village sold the same product in the same packaging, stacked in the same way, right next-door to each other. Apart from the cloths people wore, and that most of them used bicycles to travel, the villages looked as though they were unchanged since hundreds of years ago. A few times I saw the ovens people baked their bricks in and all the villages had some kind of vegetable patch close around the houses.
As we continued on the Great North Road ( M1) NE, Grant pointed out we were travelling very close to the Congolese Boarder – about 1 Km away to the left. There is no fence so people living in villages there wonder back and forth constantly because the two countries are separated by land not tribe he said.
We started talking about the Zambian culture and Grant explained how it is retrospective, always looking back into the past. Most Zambians, especially those in rural settings, would rather invest in their ancestors than their children the future generation. This is totally opposite to the western mind-set that seeks progress forgetting ‘old, useless traditions’.
The roads in Zambia aren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. We had to negotiate some worrying large pot-holes as well as narrow sections while massive trucks sped past us in clouds of dust.
We saw numerous long tracks coming from Tanzania carrying copper from the Zambian copper belt. Instead of the usual reflective triangles, broken down trucks used tree branches as warning signs. The roads had became much quieter now.
After Numerous coffee stops for which Grant is famous for, we came to a Shoprite in the town of Kasama buying slup chips, Hungarian sausages and a local favourite – Maheu maize drinks, a bit like fruity milkshakes. From there it was the last 165 Km North to Mbala and the Schaefers Farm.
