Zambia 2014 - diary 1

Diary 1 (Tues 25 - Wed 26^th February):

We took off at 7pm on Tuesday 25^th February 2014.  It was awesome(!) is all I can say; rising up above the lights around London, then flying on down south passing over Brighton at around 7:20pm; covenant dear brothers and sisters!

We were well catered for; first some cold drinks, then dinner (salmon, beef or veggie) followed by crumble and custard, then tea or coffee.  Didn’t have much joy getting the in-flight entertainment working properly in my seating area, and the selection didn’t particularly grab me, so I decided it was probably best to knuckle down for some sleep as we would be losing three hours this night.  Ian and Len both slipped off to find some empty rows of seats, so I was able to stretch out across our row of three – pure luxury as my short legs made sitting or sleeping upright in these seats pretty uncomfortable.  Despite the stretch, pillows, blindfold, earplugs and Kenya Airways blanket, I wasn’t able to do much more than rest; sleep evaded me. After a couple of hours I decided to stop fighting it and watch the stars instead – they seemed so close and clear, and the moon too, as we were now flying at an altitude of 37,000 feet and 571 miles per hour.

We were all awoken around 5am (still only 2am UK time) for breakfast! J; croissant, butter, jam, mixed fresh fruit, yoghurt, fruit and coffee …having not slept it was a welcome energy boost, even if dinner hadn’t seemed that long ago.  We had made good time, with regular gentle turbulence (felt rather like the way you rock a baby in a pram – no wonder they struggle to get to sleep too!) By this time though the screen indicated that we were flying over quite mountainous terrain, and the dawn was just slowly peeking over the horizon so squashed my face to the glass to see what I could see.  After half an hour of admiring the dark distant mounts below us, I realised that they weren’t!! We were still 37,000 feet up so they must be clouds! What a plumb! So mind blowingly awesome.

We descended for a long time through the clouds, but then burst through over Nairobi at 6am (3am UK time).  Lots of lights; very similar to how we had left Heathrow, London.  It was a smooth landing and we are now chilling in the transfer lounge awaiting our next flight to Ndola, Zambia. Lots of people sitting and sleeping around here; men women and children, and quite a number stretched out sleeping, even in their smart shiny suits.  Time to find a toilet … the ‘ladies’ was in a state of disrepair, but at least there were three doored cubicles, thankfully, with pedestals and a bin, though the lock was hanging off and the toilet itself wasn’t clean and didn’t flush well enough.  The cleaner was sleepily sat in the corner of the washbasin area, propping herself up against the wall, mop in hand.  Her eyes were heavy and she spoke to a friend with a low, slow drawl.  I was in no hurry as our next plane wasn’t due to leave for some time yet, so I waited to use the washbasin as two ladies were taking their time to have a very thorough wash down, but the cleaner came to life very abruptly and ushered one of them away to the side to allow me to wash my hands.  She said they would be there all day if I just waited.  I spoke with her a while. She said she was now 14 hours in to her shift. She would finish in another hour or two, but this was a short shift.

Very tired now having had no sleep last night and little the night before, but the day has dawned, so on we go …. Little time to sleep on this flight either as we will be covering some amazing landscape, and it’s only a couple of hours til we land at our destination, Ndola …………………………………………………………..

………………………… We passed through the check-in point/customs; a very basic but thorough set-up (these are the most nerve racking points for me).  We walked round in to the boarding lounge; a large room with windows all round, either in to the corridor we had walked down, or out to the landing strips.  None of the windows opened so it was a very airless, warm room and the sun was trying to break through outside.  Our flight was delayed due to an operational problem (worrying), so the sit became a long one and the closeness of the atmosphere meant sleep began to creep up.

The call came to say we could board.  No lifts here, so out we went and down a few flights of open staircase to the tarmac, and across to our plane and it actually feels like summer now (an English summer mind – still cold for these folks). Hmmm … much smaller than our first and there are a lot of us.  Boarding the plane, the heat and closeness of many hot sweaty bodies hit you hard.  Sudden realisation that the operational problem with our plane was that the air conditioning was bust!  This was definitely not going to be a comfortable flight.

We settled in to our seats, each of the two columns being made up of three rows of seats, and far more tightly packed than the first leg of our journey. There was a Zambian businessman sat by the window in ours, so Len sat in the middle and I near the aisle.  No knee room here at all and little room in the luggage rack above so most of us had our bags under our feet or the seat in front.  I kept mine under my feet as this was far more comfortable for my short legs.  Can’t have been comfortable for the others as they are all longer legged than me!  The lady in front of me decided she was going to sleep the whole journey so promptly laid her chair back, so even less room; this was going to be a bit of a trial of a journey and the airless heat was becoming very uncomfortable – thankfully I had a fan!  Our captain spoke to reassure us that air would start to flow more once we were airborne and prepared us for take-off.

The air stewards and stewardesses were very bright and friendly dressed in their red uniforms and were soon priming us with drinks and food.  In my head I was hungry but my body was by now so very tired I could only manage a couple of mouthfuls so decided to just drink for now.  It looked very inviting too; a slice of frittata, baked beans, a sausage, some nshima (part of the staple diet here) and a bread roll.  I couldn’t even manage a cup of tea or coffee so tried to get myself comfortable to doze but Len had now got in to conversation with the chap next to him and this guy did not stop to take even one breath, so no sleep again, but half of the plane would have heard the good news of Jesus and baptism!  Our captain spoke again (always held my breath, expecting it to be bad news as his habit was to speak with lots of hesitation – realised after a while that this was his natural manner, so all was well).   He said that we would be flying passed Kilimanjaro in the next couple of minutes but, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see it as it was on the other side of the plane to the one we were sitting, and the chap across from us had pulled down the blind due to the sunlight, obviously a common site to him so not too fussed.  Maybe we will see it on our home-bound journey.

A bus took us from the plane to the huts at the end of the runway at Ndola and the heat was now noticeable.  Very thankful for the cloud cover at this point and a little refreshing rain as our wait in the queue at customs was long.  Passports, invitation letter, photo, finger scans and questions about our stay and we were eventually through.  Our hosts had sent two very large cars to transport us to Kitwe, about an hour’s drive away.  Our vehicle was air-conditioned and very comfortable and our hosts talked to us about the sites as we passed by; many road side sellers stay under make-shift stalls/huts selling anything from food to beds and rugs.  Many men, women and children were walking along the long dusty track, children obviously on their way home from school.  The sights here were many and my tired eyes were eager to take it all in; housing, businesses, shopping streets and vegetation, noting the termite mounds Ian G said to look out for!  Sleep took me until Len nudged me to say we were entering Kitwe.  Driving over a very swollen river, Len jokingly asked whether there were any crocodiles down there, to which our hosts quite naturally said yes, lots of!!!!

We didn’t go straight to our hosts homes as we needed to source sim cards for our phones, exchange our pounds and dollars (having found neither of these are now usable in Kitwe) in to Kwacha, the local currency, and then off to get something to eat.  This was a very long and complex process, but only for the fact we were against the clock a little, tired, hot and very newbie.  One local man asked our hosts if we were new to the town.  When he replied that we were he said words to the effect, ‘I thought so because they are so white; no colour.’ Time for a bit of sunshine!  We ate well and began to feel human again – think this is what they call acclimatising!

Stepping out of the car by the eating house, we were immediately approached by an older lady pushing a young lad toward us with his hand out.  How difficult was that to say we have no money (at this point we actually didn’t, but all the same, heartbreakingly difficult).  Our hosts were quick to deal with the situation.  This was to be the first of many similar.  Talking with Pastor George about this later, we asked what they would normally do.  He said it was difficult because you could give them enough for a loaf of bread, but how do you know that is where it is going.  He said it was more to be spent on things like glue, pointing out a group now sitting on a roundabout, off their faces, so it doesn’t really solve the problem and they will just keep on coming.

We were then driven to our various host houses.  At the first, Bishop Stephen and Gladys’s home, we were very warmly greeted by two lovely older sisters and immediately shown around the house.  They were keen to show us the room they had prepared and so proud to be having guests; two very simple beds with a cover and mozzie nets in place, prepared with such obvious care.  A very hospitable people. 

I understand now why the addresses are called ‘plots’ because that is exactly what they are.  They have been given a plot of land and then they create their own boundaries and gates and, indeed, these are boundaries; high walled/fenced, most with barbed wire, spikes or plants on top, and 6’ plus high gates.  We drove on to our next host, along red-brown dirt roads, drainage gullies to the sides, the side roads being full of potholes, some extremely deep and full of water from the heavy rains.  We are, in fact, at the end of the rainy season but it is very much like a hot summer’s day in the UK right now, with a thunderstorm here and there in the evening.

Hannah and I stayed at Pastor George Banda’s home.  There we met his wife, Yvonne, and his son, Agape, but as in most situations, another relative and her daughter lives with them as she has no other family now able to help look after her and her child.  This home was only built a couple of years ago on a new complex that the council is encouraging and aiding people to build homes on.  So this is a comparatively very modern home with concrete walls, and high railed fence and gates; inside the walls are cream coloured, and the bungalow has large ceramic floor tiles throughout, to keep the home cool.  We were welcomed with another fantastic meal of rice, potato salad, chicken, and a tomato/green bean based soup/sauce. Bishop Stephen called round for 20 minutes to make sure we had settled in well.  We showed him photos of our families and some of the fundraising activities that have gone on back home in order to raise funds for this project.  He was very impressed at the effort people had gone to in order to support these projects and they all said they would like to be able to taste the cakes.

Despite the fact this home has a beautifully fitted kitchen and a bath with shower-head, the stark reality is that these are not much use without a good water supply, which was an obvious lack.  Yvonne keeps a large water container at the foot of the bath which she collects water in during the early part of the day in order to meet the needs for the rest of the day once the supply has dried up (there are 7 of us in this house now).  Having been in the same clothes now for about 36 hours and needing to freshen up and brush teeth, we made as good a use as we could of the supplies that were there; they were cool and very refreshing – we were both very grateful.  We went on to unpack our belongings in our room; a neat and simple room with one large kingsize bed and an empty built-in wardrobe space.  The windows were shut and barred and we were encouraged to leave them shut because the area surrounding the new plots is completely undeveloped with lots of tall grass and stagnant water pools, excellent conditions for mozzie breeding.  We didn’t have a mosquito net that would fit, so this was important.  We left the door ajar at night to allow air to circulate against the stifling heat.  Having squished a couple of hungry looking mozzies, we sprayed our bedding and bodies with repellent before we slept, and sleep we did.  Neither of us woke till morning despite the midnight prayer time in the lounge.

(all my  pics will be uploaded to my facebook page or on the Multiply page)