Chobe National Park, Botswana

On Sunday I was in a National Geographic documentary. Or at least that's what it felt like. I left Livingstone early in the morning and headed across the Zambian border to Botswana for a visit to Chobe National Park. 


Although I visited a game reserve in South Africa two years ago when I did my MA research in the Western Cape, I hadn't been on a "real" safari since I was in Zimbabwe when I was eleven. And it felt a bit like I was eleven again, in awe of everything that I was seeing and with my jaw constantly dropped. I kept waiting for David Attenborough to pop out from behind a tree and give a running commentary!


In the morning we went on a jeep safari in the park itself and saw lots of antelope (impala, sable, kudu...), giraffes, elephants, warthogs, meerkats, hippos and even a lion (at a distance I'm pleased to say so not good enough for a photo so you'll have to take my word for it!) In the afternoon we transferred to a boat ride along the Chobe river, with Botswana on one side and Namibia on the other. The absolute highlight was watching a herd of elephants crossing the river right by our boat. Never seen anything like it. So I'll shut up now and let the photos speak for themselves...

Jeep safari n Chobe National Park

Drink stop by the Chobe river, looking out at Namibia

Impala and warthog

Poser!

My favourites! 

Croc hiding from elephants

Going...

Going...

Gone!

Hippo pod wakes up

With Sarah and Jennifer, American volunteers in the capital, Lusaka

Victoria Falls

This weekend I went down to Livingstone in the south of Zambia to stay with my friend Ginny, another VSO volunteer I met when she was visiting Kabwe during my first week. Livingstone is the Zambian base for Victoria Falls which I last visited from the Zimbabwean side TWENTY years ago! So I was really excited to go back and see the other half.


We started Saturday morning with a run around Livingstone and could see the spray from the Falls even though it's 11km away! With the rainy season only just over, they're at their fullest so when Ginny said we'd need to hire a poncho I knew it was going to be very dramatic but still wasn't quite prepared for the sheer force of the water. It brought every sense to life - the smell, sound, feeling and taste (unavoidable when your jaw is dropped in amazement at the same time as getting soaked) really added to the incredible sight. After exploring from the opposite side of the gorge we then went and looked down from above where some (crazy) people were swimming. Even more crazy were the people we watched bungee jump from the Victoria Falls bridge. Apparently the bungee snapped for some poor adrenalin-junkie in January and they had to swim their way out of the gorge with their feet tied together. All for the bargain price of $120 (but hoping they got their money back!)


We rounded off the day with sundowners on the deck in front of the Zambezi river at the Royal Livingstone hotel. African sunsets are something I'm really going to miss. The sky is somehow bigger out here. I'm reading a book at the moment called "Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko" and one of the characters talks about feeling like he's going to bump his head on the sky when he visits the UK. But when I look at sunsets like this, it's as if the sky goes on forever...

Working the poncho look with Ginny

Rainbows in the spray

Double rainbows over the "boiling pot"

Victoria Falls Bridge. Spot the teeny tiny bungee jumper on bottom left of picture

Enjoying a break from the spray with hood down!

At the very end of the Falls

Wise words!

Looking down from above the Falls

Sundowners at the Royal Livingstone hotel

Beatrice, the Zambian "Mr Mansour"?!

Everywhere I go in Africa I can't resist buying the brightly coloured material you find in all the markets. Fortunately, the lovely Mr Mansour in Sierra Leone turned everything I'd bought from Tanzania into dresses and skirts. And then I bought more in Sierra Leone......

But now I've found the amazing Beatrice (thanks for the intro Nicola!) in Zambia so by the time I go home I'll have a full African wardrobe. Just need to make sure I don't buy any more material in Zambia.....!

Measuring up

Sierra Leonean material and Zambian design

Keembe field visit

Last week I went on a field visit to Keembe in the Chibombo district of the Central Province. It was an early start and bumpy road but completely worth it to meet with members of one of the communities where we work.

I started the visit with a meeting with the local MP's constituency representative who was surrounded by copies of the Constitutional Review. It was really interesting to hear how he's seen an increase in community members seeking out information about national policy changes following the change of government last year. He said that people often walk for miles just to pick up a copy. The main focus of the meeting was to learn more about community level engagement in local government level decision making and how Restless Development Zambia's Community Self Assessment tool has been working. The tool is designed to support community members to carry out a needs assessment and use the resulting report to hold local (and national) government to account. The idea being that community members themselves are better placed to identify the most pressing needs rather than us. So we support and guide them through the process rather than tell them what to do. It was great to hear about some of the highlights he'd experienced from including young people in the processes, as well as some of the (mainly cultural and traditional) challenges. 

After my 1-2-1 with the MP rep, I met with community members participating in the Self-Assessment group. It was great to see, and hear from, such a wide range of people from local business owners, to school principals and young people themselves. It was also a good opportunity for our new cycle of International Citizen Services (ICS) volunteers to engage with the community. Takes me back to my first experiences of international development in Sri Lanka (ok now I feel old...) 

(One of the better parts) of the road to Keembe

Some of the houses in the Keembe community

Meeting with the local MP's constituency representative

At the school for the meeting with the Community Self Assessment group

Meeting with the Community Self Assessment group and ICS volunteers

Tikambe! Let's Talk!

I thought it was probably about time for a couple of posts about the work I'm doing in Zambia, just to prove that it's not all about lying in the sun reading (-;

As in the other country visits I've done, the focus of my work here is all about getting young people involved in decision-making and policy-making processes at national and local level (civic participation) and supporting them to shape policies and practices that affect young people. As part of the Programme Quality Directorate, my role has been to provide specific support in programme design and development. In Sierra Leone this involved a lot of capacity building and training (and post-its!) In South Africa it was more about mapping what  we're currently doing and identifying opportunities to develop programmes further. And in Zambia, I'm working with a very strong existing programme model for this work, helping to clarify the model and how it links to our other work, as well as making recommendations for scale-up over the next three years.

The programme model I'm working on is called "Tikambe", which in the local language of Nyanje means "Let's Talk!" So it's all about using the work that we're doing "on the ground" as evidence to influence policy and decision-makers. One of the most innovative activities for this model is the national radio series we're running, which provides a platform for young people to hold policy-makers to account on particular policies, acts and strategies. So with such great work going on already, the challenge has been to find ways to add value to the work and really start thinking longer term about how it can develop and improve.

The other challenge when you're visiting an office for 3-4 weeks is to slot in around day to day priorities and find opportunities to fit your work around theirs, not the other way around. It's a kind of fast forward immersion process which really depends a lot on the willingness of the team to accept you and the work that you've come to do so I've been so fortunate that the Restless Zambia team have been nothing but welcoming and enthusiastic about my visit.

Heading home after a day at the office.

Outdoor meeting and lunch spot

Monday morning Programme Quality meeting

Mid-placement feedback session on Tikambe programme model

Power-cut activities 

Rachel cooking nshima on a fire during a powercut

Life in Mimosa

I've just discovered that the area I'm living in is called Mimosa. But I'm sorry to say I'm yet to see any of the fizzy stuff and have been sticking to (the local) Mosi beer (trying to listen to my own advice in my earlier post to "eat (and drink) local"!

I'm sharing a house with a British VSO volunteer called Michael Fox. And I'm NOT kidding when I say his middle initial is 'J'. I'm running out of Back to the Future and Teenwolf jokes, but I think he's probably running out of patience for hearing them too! The house is great, about a 30 minute cycle from the office in a quiet area not far from Kabwe Golf Club (which I've been running round). We've got really friendly neighbours and a garden (or at least some green space) which I am LOVING! 

Cycling home along the train track

Dinner with the neighbours - Nicole and Saviour, and his brother Waliyah

Watermelon dessert with Nicole

Just inside the gate

Front of house

Making the most of the quiet space at the back of the house

Nshima (and other Zambian delights)

One of the most important (and fun) parts of getting to know a country is getting to know its food. And most countries are inextricably linked to their main cuisine. Think pasta in Italy, tapas in Spain, steak in Argentina, chicken tikka massala in the UK... (-; 


During my travels I've discovered time and time again that when you "eat local" the food is fresher, cheaper and more accessible. In Sierra Leone, that meant plantain, rice and cassave leaves (aka green sludge), regularly supplemented by tabbouleh and falafel thanks to the enormous Lebanese community. Tanzania was fish, fish and more fish. In South Africa it was easy to cheat with Nando's and KFC just round the corner from the office (although I did try Xhosa food too). And in Zambia its all about the Nshima.

Nshima with chicken and cabbage

Nshima is made with maize flour (aka mealie-meal) which is made into a kind of stodgy porridge. Although I've tried it a couple of times I've now reverted to very boring home-made sandwiches with my trusty marmite because a) if I ate it at lunchtime I'd want a long afternoon nap and b) I might have to dodge some pretty awkward "baby bump" questions when I get home, after developing a bit of an "nshima baby" look.


I have, however, been experimenting with the stuff to see if there's other things you can do with it other than induce naps and grow nshima babies. This weekend I had a go at making sweet nshima balls - fried and rolled in honey then dessicated coconut and mixed spices. I was quite proud of myself and the neighbours seemed to like them, but when I passed them round the office during our Monday morning meeting I got the impression that experimenting with nshima is not be encouraged and what starts as a savoury staple should remain a savoury staple!

Experimenting with sweet nshima balls

Other staples here include the cassava plant (possibly the same plant that's leaves are used to make green sludge in Sierra Leone?) and kapenta fish which bring back pleasant memories of Zimbabwe but really makes me want to gag when it's cooking in the office kitchen!)

Cassava

Kapenta fish

Shopping for food is pretty easy especially as the main market is on my cycle route home. The same rules of "eat local and in season" apply and as long as you're not looking for something obscure like coriander (I've never seem so many puzzled faces!) then you can get loads of great stuff. Big juicy tomatoes and HUGE avocados are particularly good so my lycopene and "good fat" levels must be as high as my potassium levels were in Sierra Leone when I was eating so many bananas. There's also a big Shop-rite supermarket (a South African chain) so it's easy to stock up on things you can't find at the market too.

My house-mate Mike trying to get a good price on ground nuts

Zambia also seems to be a place for "alternative" herbs and remedies. The ones below made me laugh in particular. But I'm still looking for my coriander....!