Lost amongst the sugar cane

Yipee, VSO has very kindly bought me a bicycle to use for both work and play. Boo, sadly it is just not the same as my mountain bike back at home. In the cooling afternoon sun a few of us decided to venture out and explore the endless fields of sugar cane that cover Mazabuka. We peddled fairly leisurely through the Zambia Sugar estate, enjoying the smell of burnt sugar cane in the air. However, once we took a detour off the main road and down one of the numerous bumpy tracks the journey took a turn for the worse. We got slightly lost, managed to re-find ourselves but in doing so four out of the five bikes went down like dominoes with punctures. My bike gave up first, followed by two of the girls, so the three of us started a longish (5km +) walk home. The other two went off on the rescue mission with the aim of bringing back the 4x4 to collect us. Then two became one as Lucia’s bike got a puncture, leaving Marco as the only hope. Fortunately, a nice man working for Zambia Sugar in another 4x4 stopped, squeezed our bikes into the back of his vehicle and drove us home. We then had to turn around and find Lucia who was the last one left wandering around the sugar cane. The lesson here . . . the sugar cane may be sweet but it is also too sharp for bikes.

The Bat cave

In a recent email I wittered away about our office being a bit of mess at the moment in a rather dismissive way not realising how big the problem actually was. It now definitely warrants a few photos. During last weekend the crack in our office ceiling gradually got bigger and more debris started falling through with the general assumption being that this was just a few rat droppings. On Monday the Buildings Department came to inspect the problem and, to be fair, got some workers to come in immediately and start tearing the ceiling down because it was becoming dangerous. As they did this work thousands of bat droppings fell down covering the whole office. We doubt the office has been serviced or cleaned since it was first built 50 or 60 years ago so the bats have had plenty of time to get cosy up there. Because it is a windy time of year this dust and smell was blown through any of the nearby offices at the Boma. As people kept on saying, great manure but a pretty toxic smell. So work continues on removing all the droppings, putting in a new ceiling and removing (probably killing) the squeaking bats.

Training fun

Working out how to balance 12 nails on top of only a single nail * Using amateur gymnastics to lift a tyre up and down over a netball post as part of a ‘bomb diffusion scenario’ * 15 people, hands tied to each other, learning how to walk to lunch, serve each other, eat together, and then wash our hands * Dodgeball with one and then two balls * Netball with one and then two balls (this created much chaos) * and some good old fashioned tug of war.

To explain, the office was quiet today so I climbed into the back of one of our stakeholder’s vehicles and headed out to a rural community called Nega Nega, which is about an hour from Mazabuka along bumpier and bumpier roads. I joined in with some of the training involving around 20 community workers and volunteers. Honestly there was some learning as well as plenty of fun.

Karaoke Kings and Queens

Wigs, hats, sunglasses, pom poms, microphones, cheesy songs (Holiday, La Bamba, New York and plenty more), a few people in tune but plenty of us not. This probably sounds all too familiar . . . a night out enjoying, no loving, karaoke!

Lebanese food

The little things out here can make a big difference or go a long way. Our neighbours in Mazabuka are a friendly Lebanese family. Bilal runs a restaurant in town called The Good Time Investment Restaurant; great name(!) but it only serves local food which is mainly nshima, chips, chicken, t-bone, pies or burgers. So not bad but not particularly exciting either as it is the same food served by pretty much all of the other restaurants or cafes here in Maz. However, we recently found out that we could order Lebanese food from him which he and his wife cook at home, and then would deliver to us. So one Saturday they made us some hummus, tabbouleh, pitta bread and other mixes of bread with cheese, with onions and tomato, and with onions, tomato and mince on top. I doubt it will be the last time we place an order as it was all very tasty.

Weekends at the Lake

Zambia is landlocked but it does have one very large area of water, so for two weekends in succession we headed to different parts of Lake Kariba; first Siavonga and then to a nice lodge near to Sinazongwe. Needless to say life was tough as we enjoyed the warmer temperature, ate far too well with numerous braiis with great meat, pasta and salads, played games of volleyball and then when we became bored with that took down the net and played beach football, and drunk and danced into the early hours. There was no swimming due to the dangers of crocodiles but even so it felt good to be close to water.