Reflection: Volunteering and my time in Zambia

One year and six months in Zambia as a VSO volunteer; six months less than originally anticipated but the work I set out to do is more or less completed!

Before leaving Australia and starting out as a volunteer we are told about the ups and downs of volunteering and living in a developing country. And as much as you try to prepare for this, there are still moments when you wonder why you did it.

I’ve said before that volunteering in Zambia is like being on a giant rollercoaster and I have to say now, that it really is. There are some great highs such as meeting new people and forming friendships, visiting new and fabulous places, new experiences that you know you would never get at home and being challenged in a way you never thought possible. At the same time there are big lows. The obvious one, missing family and friends from home; really bad days at work when you question why you bother, the volunteer allowance which doesn’t allow you to do much at all and the unreliable services that come with being in a developing country (e.g. water, power).

Following on from my post on development aid, I must say that for many of my days in Zambia I have felt like I am exacerbating a problem just by being there; that being the reliance on foreign aid. I don’t believe that Zambia really has any excuse for the position it finds itself in given that it is one of the few countries not to have been impacted by civil war. It has plenty of resources such as copper, lots of fertile land, parks and animals, not to mention the beautiful Victoria Falls. It has been victim to poor government and public mismanagement as well as struggled with HIV and AIDS. Nonetheless, it is one of only a few countries to have actually gone backwards in the Human Development Index over the past 20 years with the other notable mentions being the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

I’ve given my time as a volunteer in Zambia a lot of thought and decided that I would list the things I will miss about Zambia and volunteering and the ones I won’t.

What I will miss:

• The terrific people I’ve met! The friends made in Livingstone as well as other VSO volunteers. And my two puppies, Rambo and Simba who were great guard dogs
• The über red, ripe tomatoes found in local markets; the avocados, bananas and mangos, all super cheap and tasty
• Freedom to make decisions or better put as absence of the “nanny” state, meaning being able to have 3 instead of 2 beers and then being able to drive home; not having high fences around something as beautiful as Victoria Falls to stop stupid people from getting too close to the edge; and being able to drive in parks with really cool animals
• Assisted pumps at the petrol station. I love this, I know I’m super lazy but I love being able to sit in the car on those wet or super-hot days while someone fills the car with petrol for me
• Being only hours away from safari!

What I won’t miss:

• NOT being able to drink water from the tap (we are so lucky in Australia)
• Smelling the meat at the supermarket to make sure its ok for purchase, or even worse, blocking my nose as I walk through the meat section
• Sporadic and unreliable water and electricity
• Poor customer service. We complain a lot about this in Australia, but just try banking in Zambia after working for a bank in Australia! Me: “The ATM just returned my card and receipt without the cash”. Standard Chartered Bank Staff: “Why don’t you just come back tomorrow and check then to make sure you have the correct balance”. Me: “No, how about you fix this for me NOW”. Standard Chartered Bank Staff: Blank stare……
• The vinegar tasting wine that South Africa exports to Zambia. I know South Africa has some great wines and that demand for it is probably still low in Zambia, but do they really need to send the garbage that they do?
• NGOs and aid everywhere! For the reasons already mentioned

I’m not sure what will happen to Zambia or where it will be in 10 years’ time. I do feel sad for many of the people that sit at the bottom of the heap and are relying on those at the top to simply do their jobs to help improve their situation. Last year a new government took over the leadership of Zambia and although not off to a flying start, I hope they can start to bring around some of the much needed change that Zambia needs.

As for me, I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the past 18 months and from my observations and interactions with people in Zambia, an awful lot about human nature, all of which I hope will have made this experience worthwhile. 

Botswana & Namibia Road Trip: The Okavango Delta, Botswana

The Okavango Delta was one of the destinations I had most been looking forward to and I’m pleased to say it didn’t disappoint.

After Mike navigated through a sandy and bumpy road into the park, we finally arrived at Mankwe Lodge. Again Mike and I had planned to camp while mum and Reegena were booked into one of their tented camps. However after a quick look at the camp sites which were approximately 3kms from the lodge, completely isolated and offering cold bucket showers, Mike and I quickly reviewed our accommodation options and with a pretty good deal on price from the manager there, went for the tented camps as well. A great decision and a real treat!

The following day we set off on our tour guided day safari. Unfortunately we didn’t have much success with our animal viewing that day (you know a guide is getting desperate when he gets excited over an impala), but were still fortunate enough to see giraffe, zebra, hippo and a lot of game. Regardless of animals, the surrounds were just as beautiful as I had expected, so I didn’t feel let down.

Better luck with animals the next day when we did a self- drive tour through Moremi Game Reserve, South Gate. Before we had even entered the park we had elephants just stroll on by behind us along the road. It’s so amazing how close you are able to get to them!

In the park our success continued with my long awaited leopard and a cheetah, as the key highlights.

My long awaited leopard!

Need a better camera: A cheetah in the distance

Heading towards 3rd gate: This water was ok, but we had
to stop on the next lot of water; too deep!

Our group: Reegena, Mum, Me and Mike

We felt so lucky with our animal spotting and I guess in many ways our luck did continue as we arrived for a stopover in Maun, ready for a long trip to Namibia the next day, only to have our radiator blow after we had arrived in town. Go Ruth!! She managed to hold on all the way to Maun, without stranding us in the park.

So the next day we (or mostly Mike) made a mad scramble around Maun to find someone reliable to fix it.

Our newly, reconditioned radiator

Back on the road that afternoon, with a newly reconditioned radiator and only a minor inconvenience to our plans, we headed off towards the Namibian border. Our goal was Ghanzi, which we made in plenty of time before sunset, but not without a second run in with the Botswana Police. This time it is was for speeding, 83km in a 60km zone, as we came into a roadside village. These police were much nicer than the ones we had encountered at the “Animal Control” post, but did still issue us with a fine. However, out of this incident came one of the stories of the trip for me, as Mike (who for some reason forgot to mention this story in his own blog), not only negotiated the price down, but then asked if they give “volunteer discounts”. Turns out the Botswana Police do, and Mike as a result got 100 Pula back. Classic!!

The rest of our stay in Botswana was without incident, another “Animal Control” post, but this time we had nothing for them!

The road towards Namibia: Too many cows crossing!

Unfortunately I am going to end this post on a sober note, as it seems the rumour we kept hearing throughout our Botswana leg may be true. Next year Botswana Tourism is planning to raise the prices of its park entry fees, by a LOT. Standard park fees that we paid during our trip are 120 Pula pp per day, plus 50 for private vehicles. Next year the cost is likely to be raised to 700 pula pp per day, nearly a 600% increase, or approximately 100 Australian dollars per person per day.

This change in fees seems to be an attempt by Botswana Tourism to virtually eliminate self- drive throughout its parks, forcing tourists to take guided tours and also giving preference to “high-end” tourism. While this has been their strategy for some time, I wonder if they have given enough thought to the flow on effects on their economy, given the money that self- drive tourists provide to local businesses such as fuel stations, supermarkets, craft markets, auto repair, etc. It seems a shame to kill such a large part of its tourism industry forcing tourists into skipping Botswana for other parks and countries, all to make a quick buck and meanwhile denying the majority of people (those of us who aren’t rich), the opportunity to experience these incredible parks!

Botswana & Namibia Road Trip: Chobe National Park and Planet Baobab, Botswana

Truthfully my holidays started a bit before our September 9^th departure across the border in to Botswana. Mum and her friend Reegena arrived in Livingstone with a week to check out the town prior to the start of road trip.

So, as a result Mike and I got to do a couple of the remaining tourist activities that we hadn’t yet done such as “Walking with the lions” and the Zambezi Sunset Cruise and others that we had done before such as sundowner drinks at the Royal Livingstone Hotel and Sunday lunch at Taita Falcon Lodge. 

Mum with the lions

The lions: Unfortunately these ones are bred in captivity

Enjoying sundowners on the Lady Livingstone Cruise

Sunset on the Zambezi River

Finally, the 9^th of September arrived and we set off on our Botswana and Namibia trip, with Mum and Reegena joining us for the Botswana part.

First stop was just over the border in Botswana, to Kasane. After a quick “lunch stop” at the border post where we had to scoff down our home packed lunch before being allowed to cross the border (damn that foot and mouth disease!), we made a return visit to Chobe National Park.

"Scoffing" down our packed lunch at the Botswana border

I won’t spend much time writing about Chobe as this was our 5^th visit. But I will say that Chobe never disappoints and hopefully the photos speak for themselves!

Monkey Tree

Impala taken it easy

Mum and me: Check out what's behind us!

After a couple of awesome days in Kasane, we set off south, heading towards Nata onroute to Planet Baobab, west of Nata.

The road south to Nata was interesting; under construction, the diversion road was narrow, slow and dangerous with large trucks coming from the opposite direction and taking up much of the road.

The road on the way to Nata: Over turned car

The road to Nata: Narrow roads

On this road we also had our first negative encounter with the Botswana Police. Set up on this stretch of road was an “Animal Control” post, at which we were forced to give up our earlier purchased rump steaks (vacuum packed), salad ingredients and apples. Apparently there are different zones in Botswana and you cannot bring such goods from one area to the other. I had a couple of issue with this as:

1. Botswana Tourism fails to disclose this to tourists, so many people run into this issue after making large purchases at local supermarkets in known tourist towns, and
2. The post was for animal products only. There was no mention of vegetable products, only the police telling us that they had to take our vegetables due to issues with fruit flies. I’m not sure if they were telling the truth or not, however no where on the post signage was there mention of vegetable products, only animal. Also interesting and a little suspicious to me, was how selective they were with the vegetable products. Things like lettuce they let us keep.

I did get a little fired up during this encounter, probably a result of my built up frustration at Zambia. But as expected I/ we didn’t win and I have little doubt in my mind that they all had a lovely dinner much later J. Local hoteliers also later confirmed that the vegetable products should have been ours to keep!

From “animal control” we continued onwards to Planet Baobab, a bush camp surrounded by giant Baobab trees.

Planet Baobab

I loved this camp and the Baobab trees that surrounded it. They are truly amazing. Most of the trees are believed to be between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and are just beautiful, especially at sunset and sunrise.

The camp itself was also lovely with cute bush huts, which mum and Reegena were lucky to stay in (Mike and I camped) and a large inviting pool to chill in while gazing up at the Baobab Trees.

The pool at Planet Baobab and me in it!

One of the many huge Baobab trees

Sunset at Planet Baobab

Mike taking a picture of a giant Baobab tree

To give you some idea of the scale :-)

Unfortunately we had planned only one night there; a second night would have been great and also given us the opportunity to check out the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, which we were sad to pass by along the highway. Nonetheless, we continued on to the next exciting phase of our Botswana leg, the Okavango Delta!

Road on the way to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans