cycling with Cowboy Cliff

My first attempts at adding photos. Apologies if they are oddly positioned but this is where my lack of computer savvy begins to show. (Mark, if you are reading this, I need you!) This morning, Saturday, I went for a 4 hour cycle ride guided by Patrick and his assistant Ezekiel.  Patrick works for "Cowboy Cliff" who I haven't met yet, but who sounds a bit like a local saint - of which I suspect there are many. Cowboy Cliff founded a pre-school for younger children which is funded partly by taking tourists on cycle rides round the parts of Livingstone you don't often see. I have the dodgy keyboard again, so won't say much here except to tell you briefly about the pictures. Number one is the two guides beside the Zambezi - you can see the spray from the Victoria Falls in the background. The next is the saddest sight I have yet seen - people (sometimes whole families)  literally breaking rocks by hand to sell for a living: 2 wheelbarrow loads for $1. Photo 3 is a termite hill. Apparently pregnant women eat the soil as it is supposed to contain minerals which are good for the growing baby. Lastly a picture of some men re-thatching the roof of a lodge which had caught fire.  I also saw a traditional village with mud huts. There are not so many of these any more as gradually people can afford to build more solid housing. The mud huts look picturesque, but have to be renewed every year after the rainy season. It reminds me a bit of what happened to the old fashioned  croft houses in the Highlands. Often the new house is built room by room, as the family can afford it and carry on living in the old house meantime.  In many ways, Zambia seems like Britain must have been maybe a hundred or more years ago.

Oh and I also saw a herd of baboons and some hippos in the river - well their backs peeping out of the water!

You have no new mail

It was not such a clever idea to bring several copies of "Katie Morag Delivers the Mail" with me I realise now: for most of the children that we see, there may as well be no such thing as mail, let alone postboxes or postmen. In fact according to Kelly (book bus leader, and my chief informant) there is no regular mail service at all, at least in this part of Zambia, unless you pay for it. If you want mail sent to you, you pay for a mailbox at the nearest post office, something most people cannot afford.  Not only is there no mail, there seems to be no system of public litter collection -at least not in the places we visit where rubbish lies around in heaps by the side of the road, waiting perhaps to be burnt or buried. Needless to say, there is no recycling either, so buying anything in plastic feels slightly shameful. The school we went to yesterday is in a compound ("suburb") of Livingstone. Most of the houses have no indoor plumbing and rely on a cold water tap in the yard - so there is no hot water either and certainly no indoor toilets, just what look like old fashioned outdoor privies. After a week here, I am beginning to realise that our campsite is really quite luxurious.  Nor is there much of the old health and safety that we know and love, though some of the taxi drivers are  strict about seatbelts - or at least if it exists, it is not always followed. We passed some workmen putting up what looked like a small mobile phone mast. There was a line of men pulling on a rope to  haul the parts up to the top, while others climbed up the mast to fix things in place - not a hard hat in sight.   I have also yet to see a pushchair or a pram - well I did see one which looked  at least 30 years old and was probably used for pushing other things in. All the mothers carry their babies tied on to their backs with colourful cloth. The babies look very cosy and comfortable and you never hear them crying, so maybe they are the better for it. It seems as if they are carried until they are maybe about  two  and can walk confidently on their own. Then, in the compound anyway, they seem to run around everywhere, even little three year olds, often running a long way from home to keep up with the bus. So since there is virtually no traffic in these areas, they have much more freedom than our children.

Luckily I did have some success with the football books and magazines I brought. A group of boys at the orphanage today looked at them avidly for an hour, while another older boy went straight for the childrens's version of Nelson Mandela's autobiography, which we read some of together so that was a relief.

It takes longer than a week or even four weeks to really get to know a place, and I feel like a very, very raw beginner.

The smoke that thunders

I went to see the Victoria Falls this afternoon. It really is like nothing I've seen before, you cannot imagine the amount of water crashing over - in fact it is so big you can't look down and see the bottom, all you can see is the spray, and this was not the falls at their height. You get right up to the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe where it might as well be raining there is so much spray. I'll have to go back again, if I can negotiate the journey.  there is a lot of scope for ripping off tourists and guess what I do look like a tourist. I realised when I got there I had been charged about ten times more than I should have been so on the way back in a shared taxi squashed up next to a rather large Zambian lady, I was only charged double, and felt quite pleased with myself.
This morning went well, I think: we were at a community centre this time, an even less official kind of school than the community schools. The groups were mixed ages from 3 to 11 and not many of them spoke English, but we seemed to do OK. With the very wee ones we flapped our wings like flamingos, quivered like butterflies and wriggled like snakes. The older ones read "Elmer" (thank you Lesley) I'm not sure how much they understood but they read it gamely and then coloured in patchwork elephants - you'll understand if you know the story. The children seemed even poorer than the ones I have met so far, but very friendly and keen to join in and draw or look at the pictures. The school was a traditional mud hut, with a thatched roof, incredibly sturdy and beautiful, but very primitive by our standards. As we leave, Kelly (our leader) has to walk beside the bus and another helper sits on the step looking behind, to make sure none of the children get run over as they all run along beside it trying to keep  up with it. Have to stop to get back to Campsite before dark (at 6.30 here) Also have to do my prep for tomorrow - I am having to dredge up all my mostly forgotten tips from Blue Peter - sticky backed plastic comes in very useful here.

Chileleko Community School

I realise I was unaware of another important travel rule:take ear-plugs. Staying in a campsite is not a haven of peace and quiet, not helped by the somewhat raucous nature of the camp-site owner and his cronies; and sweet dreams are not enhanced by the presence of the camp security light directly positioned behind my tent, making my sleeping quarters resemble one of those cells where they torment prisoners by keeping the light on all the time. But hey, this is all about challenge...tomorrow I may be able to move my tent down the line as one volunteer leaves and I will no longer be the newest recruit.

Today was my first day in school (yesterday was a national day of mourning for the ex-president of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba - a bit like having a day of mourning for Tony Blair I suppose. Everywhere was shut and even though he had been prosecuted for corruption, his death was obviously taken very seriously) I went along mainly as helper today, as it was really my first day of book bus proper. We had to go in blue taxis as the road to this village (not far out of Livingstone) has been partially washed away in places and the bus cannot negotiate it. A community school is one run set up by local people for children whose parents cannot afford to send them to the state school. I am not sure if there are fees as such for the state schools, but you have to wear a uniform and buy books and exercise books etc, beyond the reach of many. The school is in a small concrete building with about three classrooms - the teacher writes up the work on the blackboard and the children copy it down -and that's it mostly.School is for one lot of children in the  mornings and another lot in the afternoon because of the shortage of classrooms. We set up on mats outside under the trees and each age group has a session lasting an hour. Again, red dust everywhere and by the end of the morning, my trousers were covered - so you're right about the white trousers Rosie! Often the reading is done "together" so the teacher reads a couple of words aloud and the children repeat them, following the words in the book with their finger. After the book, there are crafty activities linked in some way to the subject matter - this group of volunteers are very hot on their animal masks and headbands so I'll have a lot to live up to.

The children were shy but some very friendly and keen. Writing their names on a piece of masking tape which they stuck on helped with names, as some are so unfamiliar. It was the last day for one of the other volunteers and the boys had asked her for a football which she left with the teacher, to be kept at school for everyone. As we left, I saw a group of children playing with a a ball made out of what looked like scrunched up newspaper, so I am sure it will be appreciated. Back to camp now to prepare my first sessions for tomorrow - elephants with trunks that swing maybe - or butterflies? Planning them will help while away the night-times in the tent at any rate.

First Day

19 hours after leaving Heathrow, I was laying out my sleeping bag in my tent in "Grubby's Grotto", feeling dazed, mostly from lack of sleep. The campsite, in a relatively well off part of Livingstone, is in the grounds of a very down-at-heel looking former colonial official building of some sort. Though the facilities are very basic, there are beautiful trees and even a small swimming pool - water is cold as it's winter here, but not too cold for us hardy pseudo-Scots. That afternoon, I joined the four other volunteers to go by blue taxi to the Lubasi Orphanage a mile or so away in a very different part of town. No proper roads here, just dusty red dirt tracks - and the dust gets everywhere. Very few cars either, an occasional bicycle and no white faces. This was a play more than a reading session, but I read "The Gruffalo" with a 12 year old boy. He struggled to read more than the simplest of words, but was obviously so pleased with himself when he managed a line. While it would be thought of as a much younger children's book at home, all the repetition makes it ideal for practising new words and apparently the children here have less sophisticated, more innocent tastes. We walked back through the market, goats and chickens running round, ramshackle stalls all over the place, some little more than a wheelbarrow with a few bunches of bruised bananas on them - hard to take in everything in my slightly halluncinatory sleep-deprived state, but one that struck me most was manned by five or six men all hammering out metal by hand from scrap to make cooking utensils, buckets. Making a living is not easy here. 

on the way

Five minutes into my journey to London, I realised I had broken the first rule of travelling. My bag was ridiculously heavy and unwieldy - not helped by the fact that I was also transporting an empty rucksack for my son....
The good citizens of Ealing rushed to my assistance up tube steps, and an elderly man insisted on carrying one side of the bag for 200 yards along the High Street, but last night my daughter re-packed all my carefully chosen belongings. Subjecting every item to tough scrutiny, she sternly replaced my own towel with something that looked like a duster, removed half my clothes, lent me her own lighter versions and fitted everything into a backpack half the size.

getting ready

I've had all the jabs, got the malaria pills, accumulated a collection of serious expedition items -  sleeping bag, camping mat, mosquito net, insect repellent, torch, water bottle -  and raised another £600 at a birthday party/fundraiser at my house. 
I have been incredibly touched by the fantastic open-hearted generosity of all my friends, family and work colleagues: it's nearly time to set off.


(the picture shows me talking about my plans or how to embarrass your children)