Grooms Globe Trek . com – Kids

Today we are going on a tour of Livingstone by bike. Since we were the only people doing the bike ride, we got to choose were we wanted to go. We wanted to go and see the children of Livingstone. Our tour guides suggested we go to the local market, the school they built with the money from doing the biking tours, their village, and the bush, in order to try to see some animals.

We did not have helmets and the bikes made a shrieking noise when you hit the brakes, but they worked, and that’s all that matters. The path we took was usually in deep or shallow red sand, and we occasionally came across rocks or pavement. It was freezing in the morning so we wore a lot of warm clothes but once the afternoon came around it was steaming hot and we turned are zip-off pants into shorts and took of our sweatshirts.

In the bush we saw a Lilac Breasted Roller. It is a beautiful and rare bird with a lilac tummy and the rest of its body was bright blue. We also crossed through a lot of elephant paths but we didn’t see any elephants because they were in the cool Zambezi River so they didn’t get hot.

Once we got to the village we would stop and ask people if we could take their picture. Some people said yes, and some said no.

At the village we visited the houses were made of tin and brick and those were the nicest ones. Straw and rock, and things from a dump were more common. Since most people can’t afford food they grew it themselves. About half of their crops died from bugs, and lack of water, and animals coming and eating the crops.

After that we biked over to the Local Cowboy Pre-school, which is the school the tour guides built with the money from their tours. The kids ages ranged from three to six. The two classrooms were about ten horses long and three horses wide. There was a tiny office between the two classrooms. In one classroom one teacher taught thirty kids ages three to four and. In the other classroom there also was about thirty students taught by another teacher. Even though the classrooms were small they were full of pictures, the ABC’S, and numbers all in English. The older kids did traditional dances while singing in their language and in English. The younger kids recited impressive poems.

The kids all wore uniforms at school. The children were all very considerate. They were very happy and seemed content with what they had.

It was getting hotter by the second, so we finally made our way to the final stop, a local market. At the local market there were loads of people everywhere selling things you would find in a grocery store and things you wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world. We will never forget all of the unavoidable flies that were on all the food. There were bees munching on the sweet rice. Also at the market there were chickens and roosters that were still alive. When you buy them you kill and clean them yourself.

Today we learned how easy we have it and how the other side of the world lives. We shall never forget that experience. We also know now that how ever bad you have it there is always someone who has it worse.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 7th, 2005 at 10:36 am and is filed under Travel, Zambia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.