BootsnAll Travel Network



Visiting a Friend

Zambia, July 1984
The journey into the heart of Zambia was completed in another train which waited for us a short way from the border. I shared a compartment with three cheerful Zambians and a man from Zaïre. One of the Zambians spoke French. His mother had been from Zaïre and he had studied there. His other two friends, Aziza and “Fantax” were magicians. Aziza showed me a tiny snake he kept in a cardboard box and Fantax performed a coin-trick: rubbing a coin several times then pressing it against my forearm whereupon it disappeared. “You’ll see,” he said: “in two hours time your arm will start to scratch. If not in two hours, then in four or six — or maybe tomorrow. Then you’ll shake your hand and the coin will fall out!”
Before they disemarked, Aziza magicked the coin back. It did not erupt from my skin, rather he put his hat on my head, ran his hands around it and proffered it in his outstretched fist.

It was a Friday the thirteenth but it was my lucky day. Back in Bangui I had met a Scottish guy called Rory whose parents worked on one of the aid projects in the area around M’pogme. He had encouraged me to continue to travel south and invited me to the farm if I should come through Zambia. Kapiri M’poshi was half-way between M’Pogme and Lusaka. When the train arrived that morning, I decided to take up his invitation.

I hitched a lift with an Italian to the outskirts of Ndala and waited in vain for a bus. A white pick-up driven by two white women stopped eventually.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bus station. I hope to catch a bus to Luanshya.”
“Ah — we’ll drive you!”
I arrived in Luanshya at the exact right time tro catch the only bus to M’Pogme. It was slow, but we got there in the end.
“That was very lucky!” said the driver: “– usually we have at least one breakdown on the way!”

It was dark; a full moon shone from an ink-black sky and I was told that the project farm was a good 10 km from the town itself. The bus had stopped opposite the mission hospital and the driver suggested I ask to spend the night there. One of the Swedish nurses who ran the hospital knew my friend and phoned at once. The news was bad: Rory had returned to Scotland. His father had been killed in an accident not long ago; it was the worst possible time. At that moment I wished I had gone to Lusaka.

The nurse introduced me to her colleague who was pleased to see me. Their third colleague had returned to Sweden a short while ago and just yesterday, she told me, she had cleaned the spare room because she had a feeling they would have guests for the weekend. She showed me to a clean and cosy room with a shower. My heart leapt.
“Sorry,” she said: “There is no water!”

“In theory we have all mod cons here such as water and electricity,” Lillian said over dinner: “but the water supply is intermittend and if there is no rain for a while the hydro plant doesn’t work and there is no electricity, either.”
We had a very nice vegetable stew, home baked bread, butter and even cheese from Sweden. I had missed Western food. After dinner the two tried to arrange a lift to the farm, adamant that it would be alright to go there and introduce myself as a friend of Rory’s. They sent over a car and I met the other members of an international community of aid workers who invited me to stay for a few days.
“It is better that I get on to Lusaka,” I said.
“OK, no problem. One of us is flying out there tomorrow. Stay on the farm tonight and then fly with them!”

I was woken up at half past six and within an hour we were ready to go. The farm covered a huge area. I marvelled at the size of it.
“Wait until we are airborne,” the driver said: “Then you’ll see!”
We drove about 10 km to the airport in Luanshya down a road so straight that it could have been measured with a ruler.

I had never flown before in my life but reasoned that it was a common enough mode of transport, considering the vast distances in Africa. After all, I had been disappointed when my lift from the Serengeti to Dar es Salaam had fallen through. It was soothing that the interior of the plane did not look all that different from a small car; but soon the wind caught the wings and we were up in the air. I grew pale as I saw the town disappear below us, the houses no bigger than toys. Soon it had vanished among a patch-work quilt of fields through which the Kafue river wound like a green snake. The fields in turn gave way to shrubland and forests, crossed every now and then with the red scars of a dirt track. We were suspended among puffs of clouds, occasionally passing over snowy fluff which was covered in rainbows cast by the sun behind us.

I had just started to enjoy myself when Lusaka came into view. We flew over roomy villas with big gardens dotted with blue and green swimming pools. High-rise buildings loomed at the horizon but from where we were it looked like one giant green suburb.
We drove through tidy, tree-fringed streets and my benefactors asked whether I had any idea where to stay. A friend in Dar had given me the adress of a friend at the Baha’i centre. It was closed but we were given a residential address and my new friends dropped me there. There was no room because the Baha’i were celebrating a feast but I was invited to stay and eat with them.
Giant pots with Ugali (here known as nshima) were bubbling over cooking fires and huge bowls of fresh salad and cauldrons of stew had been prepared by a small army of portly female cooks who sang hymns while working. Soon the guests arrived and after an enormous meal, the occasion for which I still don’t know, a few nice men drove me to the YWCA where I found a room.

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