Final Thoughts

I’m sitting on a bus back from Ndola to Lusaka trying to take my mind off the journey. We’re on a single carriageway main road used by a lot of heavy goods vehicles and the bus driver is fond of overtaking – even up hills with a blind summit. There are cyclists (often with precariously balanced cargo) and pedestrians of all ages walking along a thin bit of Tarmac at the edge. Anyway, best policy is not to look out of the front window, so I am making the most of the scenery to the side and trying to decide if Zambia is what I expected or not.

It is hot and dry and dusty, but there are also trees as far as the eye can see, some with the most beautiful flowers.

Narrow sandy tracks lead off the road into the bush where there are communities of huts with straw roofs, but some of the malls in the cities wouldn’t look out of place in America. Fires burn through the bush, but they are necessary to keep the grass under control and no one worries about them, they always stop before they reach any housing.

There is a water pump in every village, but also usually a pile of rubbish that consists mainly of plastic bottles.

It’s not unusual to see people barefoot, but no one would be without a mobile phone. Wooden road side stalls are piled high with fruit and vegetables, but there’s always a concrete kiosk selling top-ups.

The water and electricity can be variable, but there is nothing better than a shower where the water has been heated by a wood burning fire.

I haven’t seen a buggy – babies are carried on the back wrapped in a shawl. The shawl is also useful for transporting chickens – this time under the arm like a living handbag. Women also carry very heavy looking loads on their heads, which seems great for the posture.

The beer is 80p a bottle, and very tasty. The whisky is £3.50 and rather harsh.

The dish of Zambia is called Nshima and is the carb for all seasons. It’s bland and a bit messy because you eat it with your hands, but it’s inoffensive and can easily be improved with chilli sauce. It’s made from the same thing as the cornflakes….

And the beef is big…..

Christianity is big, which gives for some good quotes here and there. And some good gospel music. But when you’ve heard the same song on repeat for half an hour (which happens quite a lot) you would even prefer to listen to Ke$ha. Although even repetitive songs are better than having to listen to the evangelical preachers on the bus bless your journey and try to relieve you of your kwacha.

You get hassled at bus stations and markets, but Zambians are generally incredibly friendly and helpful, and pretty laid back. Timings are only a guide.

It gets dark very quickly, but the light just after the sunset is the most awesome I’ve ever seen. The stars are startlingly bright, and being able to see the Milky Way is breathtaking.

But the very best thing I’ve seen, on my very last night, in the dark just after sunset, was a traffic jam. Caused by two elephants who decided the trees by the road side were just too tasty to ignore. Absolutely unexpected and spectacular.

So in many ways, Zambia is what I expected of sub Saharan Africa. A country that is very different from the UK, but it is changing. There is more Westernisation than I expected, but it doesn’t take much to see people who live in a poverty we couldn’t comprehend. The Zambian people are working hard to improve their lives, but they still rely heavily on aid. I was told by the other volunteers that this was an “easy” trip as we were two weeks in a city, not doing outreach away from the urban areas. The food was better than just edible, and varied. We had electricity and water – most of the time, and it was the cool season so easy to sleep at night and hardly any mosquitoes. No one was ill. We even travelled on a bus with AC once. And there was intermittent wifi. But these things are still luxuries to a large amount of the population.

I’ve really enjoyed my time in Zambia, and I hope I’ll return one day to see what difference VAO’s work has made, and how the country has changed. We had a great team and it’s going to be strange leaving them all at Heathrow – who knows if we’ll meet again?

Thanks for making my first VAO volunteering project a great one guys….