23/24 AUGUST 2011

ZAMBIA – Country number 11 /2^nd time

LUSAKA

A relatively easy overnight bus ride, gaining at least 5 or 6 hours  sleep, enough to make another day. Arriving at the bus station which is oh, so busy but very close to Lusaka Backpackers (the old Chachacha Backpackers). I love it when I can walk to a place especially after long hours tucked up in a bus or plane seat travelling. It means I also don’t have to tangle with voracious taxi drivers. The hostel is well set up, clean with a good kitchen, great dorm and its WARM and sunny here .Meet another Aussie here volunteering so she has to start work each day at 7.30am!! Lucky her! Also a lovely korean girl who has taken a year off to travel the world – her highlight has been Iceland.

Vote for me, vote for me

It is now sunny here every day, nearly getting hot so time to cast off the rest of my winter woolies saving a few pieces for Ethiopia where it will be winter by the time I arrive there. I check my emails again to find a reply from Alice in Kenya with a Girl Guide contact number here,  Mary Jean. She is very nice to speak to and gives me an address where I head off to, via the Mozambique Embassy. The Mozambique lady there is nice but alas no visas here because “we have run out of the stickers. Try in Lilongwe”!  OK, I’ll do that – like I have any choice if I want to visit Mozambique again. I eventually find the Girl Guides Zambia in a suburb not too far away and I meet with Linda and the National Training Advisor. Linda expresses thanks for the resources and uniforms they have received from Australia! They have all the old resource books I used to use, along with plenty of English girl guide classic novels! We chatted for a while but I don’t glean much info on Guiding here.

But she's still sweeping a street

Linda shows me some photos of girls in uniforms and I ask about buying their Promise Badge and Leaders Scarf. No, not possible - nothing actually seems to be available but the Training Advisor, kindly offers me her Promise badge and I accept only after she assures me that she has another at home. Linda searches in drawers and cupboards for a scarf but “the girl who manages the uniforms is not here”.  That evening I send out a group email to the Zambian GGs but no reply and next day when I try to get a scarf, no one is there although it is not locked up. Eventually one girl turns up – she’s been out to lunch and no, no scarves available, pity. Not a lot of things to do here in Lusaka, especially with a whole day to fill in allowing for a leisurely weekend at South Luanga NP then cross the border to Malawi on Monday. So in desperation I try the museum – blah. One guide approached me to guide his chinese guest (obviously not high ranking, was my guess) around the museum because his (the guide’s) english was not good. I reminded him that being sober might have been a good start, as I refused his offer. Walked into town and tried to stock up on a few passport photos, which are on offer at every street corner. This requires you sit on a crate and someone holds up a white sheet behind you while the photo is taken.

Buy MY bananas

But my first try took ages – the one minute turned into ten while they located a camera. Then ten minutes turned into twenty while one guy left to print out the photos – one minute, one minute! Just for conversation I tried to engage them about the candidates for the upcoming election – “He (Banda) always wins with a minority” I was told and I attributed it to his lovely teeth in his smiling photo behind us. “Yes, the other is old and he looks angry” they commented on the opposition. Soon enough the first bloke comes back but the photo is no good (even without me in it) because it has lines through it. “Take another photos” they insist but I try to explain that if there is no line on the first photo in the camera then the line must be from the printer and you can take all the photos you want, the printer will still produce the lines. Much disappointment all round now because now I will have to go through the whole rigmarole again of actually saying yes to another corner crew, they will have to locate the camera, take the photo and then one minute, while it gets printed.

Plenty of tomatoes in season now

But eventually I succeed and smiles all round. As I follow the main road up and succeed in several purchases, up to now hard to get: I find an optician with a soft glasses case, I find a pharmacy with tongue depressors, that I have decided can be adapted to make a good toe splint for my crooked fourth toe that is giving me curry. And then while I am walking, one man speaks to me “Mummy, I am very happy to see you here now. I saw you back there (getting my photo taken) and I wanted to tell you to go from there because there were bad men there. I wanted to go back there and tell you to move.” I thank him for caring so much for my wellbeing and it never ceases to amaze me that the ordinary person on the street is looking out for me. Easy night back at the hostel, with a nice home cooked dinner.

FACT: There is a very strange feeling in the air here with the upcoming elections: Banda narrowly won the last election amid opposition claims of alleged fraud and I guess people wonder if this election will be all that different in a country well known for its political shenanigans through recent history.