December 15, 16 17 and 18 - Shiwa Nganda & North Zambia

The trip up from our farm stop to Shiwa Nganda was one of those days that makes you think ‘what the hell are we doing this for,’ but it is one of those days that you just have to grit your teeth and get it over with. Ernest's calculations were that it was about 350km (him waving his hand up and down, saying its approx 350km - with a sheepish look on his face) farmer Mark laughed and said it was a good five hour drive, well even he was wrong. Wrong, wrong, we didn't even stop for lunch and still only arrived well after 4 in the afternoon. Firstly it was a good 600 kilometers, secondly the road is so bad that you get seasick even sitting in the front of the car, a real pogo stick ride, thirdly the trucks and other moving vehicles are terrifying particular the busses that pass at 130kilometers an hour going up or down hill, round corners, over blind rises and sorry for you if you are on a bicycle, you had better move fast or get flattened.

I would not like to imagine even trying what it is like to sit in one of those death traps, mind you they seem to come off best and everything in their way is a death trap. Try as I might, I still jump with fright every time one of them passed us, the whole car seems to get pushed off the road and I swear our side mirrors missed by centimeters.

The trucks are not much better, they are not going as fast as the busses so we have to pass them - not sure which is worse! I got better and very good at just closing my eyes when we come up behind these monsters, I just can't confront the combination of the big truck, the narrow road, the bouncing and the odd pothole the size of the big hole of Kimberley (that is a bit of exaggeration but I need to paint a picture here)

The wrecks on the side of the road are a constant reminder of just how twisted the trucks become when they hit one of these holes or swerve to avoid them and lose control. Just to make things worse there are kids just everywhere, they are so close to the edge of the road, tiny little tots of about three years old that are sometimes completely on their own or with other kids slightly older than them. They learn from a pretty early age the meaning of ‘survival of the fittest’ and are all trying to sell their wares to the passing trucks, mushrooms, mangoes, tomatoes or the big bags of charcoal.

Just let me interject at this point and described these bags of charcoal that they sell, it seems to be the national product of Zambia, cutting down the trees, making charcoal and selling to the endless stream of the truckers. I suppose this is basically their only source of income....sorry for the trees. Anyway the bag is about a meter high and then on top of the bag they create this expanded section of netting which is also stuffed with charcoal about another half meter in height. Sort of gives the impression of abundance, right? More than just a bag. Well we bought one of these outside Mongu thinking it would be enough charcoal to last the trip, only to find, when you open it up that in the middle there are a few bits of wood, sticks and branched and the bottom third of the bag is full of charcoal dust. Once you have bought and moved on 200 kilometers you certainly can't go back and ask them to give you your money back. I think they know that there is going to be no customer comeback from the truckers so they get away with their little cheat.

Road side shopping stalls

The one improvement up this high in Zambia is that there is no or very little livestock wandering around the roads. There are certainly no fences here so the locals obviously just don't have livestock or the trucks have wiped them out already or the locals have eaten them all. Maybe a combo of all three of these factors.

Finally we arrived sometime after four to find Mark already nicely settled in,  caravan set up, awnings out and kids already in their costumes waiting for us to head down to the hot springs. I hopped out the car, left Ernest to set up our campsite and headed off to the pool. Took a little coaxing to get them into the water especially Max who looked on with great suspicion, but once in, they were happy to stay and soak the stressful day away with huge smiles on their faces.

Thank goodness we had now decided to stay put till after Christmas, give us time to enjoy the healing waters of the hot springs and prepare for Christmas.

That night we were exhausted and retired pretty early. We all woke up early and started our big preparations for Christmas. Eve was out and ready with all her tinsel and the decorations that she had been making at every available moment on the way up. The trees got decorated, the poles of the awnings got decorated, the little grass huts got decorated, so we really got the Christmas feeling and spirit. Then it was off to the hot springs again. 

The kids had discovered the cold pool at the hotel so they spent most of the day running from one to the other, hot cold, hot, cold. That afternoon was spent on the Christmas presents making activities. Ernest who was the biggest cheat, as he had bought a wooden boat from the side of the road which he was going to just paint, got a dressing down from his daughter as she said, rightly so, that was just cheating. He needed to add something to the boat, so poor old Ernest had to put on his thinking cap and come up with some other idea to at least add to his cheat.

All the kids were hard at work creating each their own little present, it has turned out to be a great activity as it kept them all occupied for hours.  Amazing how excited they have all gotten at the idea of making a present for someone else. I felt the most sorry for Mark as all the kids had him doing a lot of the drilling and carving for them and he had no time to get on and make his own present. Thank goodness we had the two full days as this was proving to be much more work than we thought.

A very interesting cyclist, called Alfred, arrived in the afternoon and we invited him over for dinner as he looked like he needed a good hearty meal and some company. We had a wonderful evening hearing about all his adventures over the last two and a half years. What made this guy so special is that he was traveling with his dog, a big black dog of no particular breed but obviously totally devoted to his master. He was 69 years old, came from Switzerland and was a vet by profession. One day he decided he wanted to travel, he wanted to do Africa, so he decided to cycle from the top of Norway to Cape Agulhas. He sold his practice, waved goodbye to his wife who refused to accompany him and set off on his journey. He had traveled 30,000 kilometers and only had trouble in one country where some hooligans had tried to take his watch. He had never been sick, ate in the local "God bless you Restaurants,” and sometimes treated himself to a meal or a decent campsite like Shiwa Nganda. The dog ran with him all the way. He had a little trailer which carried his small two man tent and a few supplies. His stove had blown up somewhere in Tanzania so he didn't even cook for himself. He put Dimitri (the dog) in the trailer going down hill but he had to run if they were going uphill.  How he ever managed to stay alive on that great North road is a mystery. We tried to get him to divert onto some smaller roads but he was insistent that tar was much easier so he would just brave the busses and the trucks.

The day before Christmas arrived and we were so carved out and chiseled out and painted out that we decided to take off a bit of time off from our Christmas present activity and went river rafting down the Shewa river, or should I say all but me, I decided that a hot stone massage sounded much more fun than bouncing down the river on a rubber dingy fighting off the crocs.

When I asked the guy at the reception at the hotel about the river rafting and if it was okay for the kids, he had said, with a big smile on this face that there were a lots of crocodiles but I mustn't worry too much as they had not lost any guests to a crocodile  yet!  Very encouraging.

So I left the others to the crocs and got rid of some of the stress of the Great North road on the massage bed in the spa. Would you believe it, in the middle of Zambia, having a hot stone massage!  So after playing hookie for the whole morning it meant that everyone had to really apply themselves to finish their presents as they had "wasted” the whole morning bobbing down the river, or should I say they had to get the "dads" (Mark and Guy) to finish their presents while they ran again between the hot springs and the cold pool. I have to say, all of them did very enthusiastically make their presents and finally were very proud of their creations.

That evening we all went down to the hot springs again for our nightly swim. Other guys from the campsite were there washing hair and bathing which was a great idea as that water is so good for you but the one young girl was brushing her teeth and spitting in the pool, oh my gosh, Aiden was so horrified that she actually spat in the water that he got out and it took us about half an hour to coax him back in.

All the water had to flow out of the pool and into the river before he would even put his toe back in. He however didn't mind if his gran washed her hair as long as I rinsed it off close to where the water flowed over into the river. A real natural health hydro spa in Zambia,in the bush.

That night was of course early to bed as we knew that we were going to be woken up very early with some very excited children but not before we had set out everything for Father Christmas. We weren't sure if he was going to be able to find us in deepest darkest Africa. Although we arranged a mini Christmas at home before we left, there was still the hope that Father Christmas would deliver his presents and find us in Tanzania.

Next morning as expected the kids were up really early, we tried to keep them inside as long as possible so as to avoid the malaria mozzies but it didn't work for too long and they were out of their beds and into the presents. All the boys got remote control cars so the whole campsite was subjected to cars racing around the tents.

Then the big moment arrived for us to exchange our secret Santa presents. The days and days of preparation had finally reached its finality. The first one to read out his poem was Luke. His poem said "he has a bald patch on his head and he sprays me a lot, in his red underpants" didn't take too much guessing to know who that was...Gampie. The kids had been listening to the story of when we went to Botswana and Ernest had forgotten to bring underpants, we had stopped at “All Days” and the only shop that had underpants was Pep and the only underpants that they had were bright red.

One morning we had to break camp very early and Ernest couldn't find his shorts so he was walking around with his red underpants, his belt with his knife, shouting instructions to all the kids. So even the grandchildren call him the man with the red underpants. He had made him a really sturdy walking stick on a stand, exactly the right present for Ernest.

The next to go was Aiden, his poem was "She is very good at debating and she likes baking" that didn't take too much guessing either- Eve. He had made her a stick doll. So creative and no doubt will be treasured.

Then it was Max. His poem was "He is the biggest kid and his name starts with G,”  he had made a name plaque for Garrick.

Garrick's poem was "he is a super dad, his bald spot sometimes drives him mad, but I am glad he is my dad.” So that didn't need too much guessing. He had made a wooden board on which he had carved all his dad's favorite sayings like, ‘ Boet, Mushi and you rock dad.”   

Then came Eve with a very long involved poem. She is our budding linguist, after reading the poem which she had written on a beautiful card she then proceeded to peel offs at least six layers  before she got to a big MAX. It was so typical girl and she is so obviously the only girl amongst this group of hooligan boys. She had made him a little man with a back pack with some lunch in it, a container for his petrol for his bike, plus a spanner aide out of wood and painted blue - very productive.

Then came Ernest's present for Luke which was the cheat boat, painted but it did have a little man in it with a sail. Luke was thrilled and everybody agreed to let him off his penalty.

Jacqui’s turn, the only true artist amongst us wrote a beautiful poem for Aiden and gave him a cartoon picture of our trip, our two trucks, the dodge speeding ahead, all the kids and something very special to remember the trip by. It was beautifully framed on a mat woven from reeds. It is something for him to frame and keep in his room as a reminder of this Africa trip.

Guy then said his long poem about me but unfortunately he threw away the paper so I never got it to record it here. He had made me four beautiful flower pots made from dried monkey orange skins, very inventive and special. He had filled then with stones from the hot springs and some veld flowers.

Then it was Mark and Tracys turn what they had made for each other and Mark’s poem to Tracy was. "He had made her a picture frame plus stand with a promise of a picture to remember the trip by and Tracy’ poem about Mark was, “he's a multi-hatted man with the motto of I CAN.”  There was more but Tracy never kept this either.

I was last with my poem "she is a blue eyed blond haired beauty, that is always so good with all her duty. She loves to bake, the most delicious Christmas cake. The dream catcher is what she needs, pleasant dreams is what it seeds.”  I made her a dream catcher with feathers and seeds and things I had collected on our travels.

It was a real high point on the trip and the accumulation of lots of fun and imagination put into practice and produces a product that they were all proud of.

The rest of the day were spent cooking a great big Christmas lunch with Christmas ham and chicken (we tried the Turkey thing but it didn't cook quick enough and we landed up donating it to the camp guard and replaced it with a good old chicken) crackers, Christmas lights, a special red tablecloth and a pop up Christmas tree ‘a la’ Tracy.

Then we all headed off to the hotsprings to finish off a great day and thank goodness no rain! I will add in the missing poems as soon as I manage to squeeze them out of the kids.

Signing out & we wish all of you had a lovely Christmas.