Livingstone Update

At Home

I haven’t lived in a small town since I was in primary school and living in Romsey, country Victoria, so I didn’t really think about how confined it can feel to live in small town. Still, I do like Livingstone and over the past month or so, we have managed to find different activities to keep ourselves entertained.

A couple of weeks ago we decided to head out to Livingstone Golf Course early on a Sunday morning, for a “round” of golf. We paid for nine holes, thinking that that would keep us happily entertained for a few hours. Only two and a half hours later and four holes down, we decided we’d had enough. Complete hack job! Fun but I think we’ll stick to running on the golf course in the future.

On the golf course at Livingstone Royal Golf and Country Club

Testing out my swing (& check out my cool pink golf bag
in the background!!!)

Bad swing

Complete hack

On a different weekend we brought out the Chinese vinegar we purchased on a recent visit to Lusaka to make pork dumplings. Our kitchen is not really equipped for Chinese cooking, but with our ingredients and “creativity”, our dumplings came out ok and quite tasty.

Our attempt at Chinese pork dumplings

Not pretty but they tasted alright

We have made a couple more visits to Victoria Falls, this time at night, to see the Lunar Rainbow. The rainbow occurs when there is a full moon and is truly amazing. It is difficult to really capture it in words, or photos for that matter, although my best effort is below!

Lunar rainbow at Victoria Falls, Livingstone:Difficult to describe
and not sure if the photo really does it justice. Truly amazing!!

Last weekend we headed out with friends to Nina’s Fishing Camp, a lodge on the banks of the Zambezi River in Western Province, Zambia, a couple of hours before Sioma camp where we camped a few months ago. We had an awesome weekend so much so that I have written a separate post for that weekend.

Cruising on the Zambezi River

And as the hot season approaches, we have started to encounter frequent power cuts. They are a regular feature of life in Livingstone but do get worse as the weather warms up. However, we are now well equipped for these cuts and despite making it difficult to cook dinner (bring on the tuna salad!), having a room filled with candles can be kind of nice.

Lights out: Another blackout in Livingstone, but all is ok with our
candles and puppies

Tuna salad for dinner

At Work

What to say about work?!! Perhaps I can say that it continues to be challenging. As I previously mentioned we were fortunate enough to be awarded a partnership with a US aid funded organisation that capacity builds smaller organisations. That process has now begun, starting with an organisational assessment which involved everyone in our organisation from staff to volunteers, the board and beneficiaries. The assessment itself was quite a painful process, but I was happy to see that the areas that I would have identified as needing to be focused on came out as high priorities, e.g. Monitoring and Evaluation of programmes, planning, etc.

Our organisation assessment in progress 

The assessment was definitely a long process

Following the assessment a series of trainings have started to build the capacity of existing staff within the organisation, so the office has been rather quiet (a recent 2 week “absence” of electricity also contributed :-)). Truth be told, I'm a little bit sceptical on the value of these trainings given that there is a belief in Zambia that people require “refresher” trainings on exactly the same subject only 1-2 years later. My personal belief is that if the trainings were of value in the first place or should I say “valued” by the recipients, then refresher training shouldn't be necessary; perhaps mentoring or re-reading up on the subject, but not re-doing the whole of the training again. But I digress…

Anyway, with the trainings and capacity building process in progress, the time required to focus on our existing donor funded programmes and our resource mobilisation effort has diminished, leaving me feeling a tad stressed. I only hope this process is all worth it in the end!

Over 10 months in Zambia

The months, I’m please to say, are passing much faster now and we are fast approaching the one year mark.

How clever! Our new braai for camping, on the back of Ruth's
spare tyre

Only a few weeks to go until my Mum and her friend Reegena arrive, and another week after that until we set off on our first and long awaited big drive through Botswana and Namibia. Pretty much all plans are in place as we make last minute purchases for “Ruth” and camping. Now just counting down the weeks and days :-)

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: A country I never thought I’d get to visit. Infamous for all of its political issues and crazy leader, many people are scared off by all of the trouble that gets reported in the western media. However, after being in Zambia for 8+ months and getting feedback from other volunteers and friends, Zimbabwe started to sound not quite so scary and definitely worth a visit.

So, with that said and a long weekend in Zambia, we decided to head over the border to see Zimbabwe for ourselves.

On the way to Bulawayo: Eating lunch roadside

Our trip took us from Victoria Falls just over the border, down to the country’s second largest city Bulawayo where we spent our first night, followed by a night in Matobo National Park (about 40kms west of Bulawayo), back north for a night in Hwange National Park and then back to Victoria Falls for our final night. Not a long trip, but it gave us an idea of what Zimbabwe is like.

Map of our trip

Our first stop, Bulawayo (meaning “Killing Ground”) was very civilised for an African city (especially when compared to a city like Lusaka). It was easy to drive around, well set out and planned and had everything you need from a city. For the first time in a while I felt like a minority with not a lot of muzungus (white people) to be seen, however the people in Bulawayo, and all of Zimbabwe for that matter, were lovely! Very welcoming and seemingly very happy to have us there. Our first night we had a drink at a bar tasting the local brew “Lion” beer; wasn’t a fan but the atmosphere was cool. We also learnt that like Livingstone, Bulawayo is subject to frequent and long power cuts, when we were rudely awakened by the power generator at our accommodation as they tried to prepare breakfast for their guests.

One of the main streets in Bulawayo

Beautiful old buildings in Bulawayo show the old colonial
influence; this one is a shopping area

From Bulawayo we headed to Matobo National Park, listed as a world heritage site for its rock formations and ancient cave drawings. It is also the place where Cecil Rhodes was buried, although not knowing a great deal about Cecil Rhodes, some of the importance was lost on me.

Some of the rock formations that Matobo National Park is famous for

The resting place of Cecil Rhodes

Cave drawings in Pomongwe Cave: These drawings have been
carbon dated to be around 2000 years old

Pomongwe Cave: Part of a World Heritage Site

We spent a night in the park, which I wasn't particularly keen on to start with and less so when we were subjected to freezing cold temperatures, with an icy wind coming off the nearby lake. We came extremely well prepared (or so we thought) but freezing temperatures and an air mattress makes a nice recipe for hypothermia. Anyway, Mike’s scout training kicked in and saved the day and despite a nearly sleepless night, we made it through.

Sunset: Matobo National Park rock formations

The lake by our camp-site in Matobo National Park: Making a cold
night even colder!

The next day we headed to Hwange National Park, via Bulawayo where we purchased additional camping supplies, well worth the money spent! On the way we encountered the usual police stops without any problems, but one police lady did tell Mike (and I think she was serious) that a dirty car “was an offense”. No fine for that one but probably time to get “Ruth” washed. 

Much warmer! After our new camping purchases we had an air mattress,
rubber mats, sleeping bags and three blankets to keep us warm

Setting up camp at Hwange National Park Main Camp

Hwange National Park was awesome. After a much better night’s sleep we travelled through the park and its very varied landscapes. We saw a lot of different animals; zebra, impala, giraffe, elephants, etc., but the highlight without a doubt was the male lion hiding behind some bushes with the previous night’s kill. Unfortunately it was difficult to get a really clear photo despite being no more than 3 metres away, but exciting to see.

This Giraffe just loved being photographed!

View from the road as we moved through the park. Was just like
Autumn with the beautiful coloured leaves

Zebra enjoying the sun

Elephant skull: A reminder of just how big an elephant is

Hippos down by the waterhole

Male lion protecting a dead buffalo, the previous nights kill. We were only a few metres away, unfortunately the scrub between us made
it difficult to get the perfect photo!

 Our last night in Zimbabwe was spent in the town Victoria Falls. One of the things we noticed there were the number of overland trucks and backpackers; they were everywhere! I’m not too sure what Zambia and Livingstone is doing wrong, but they should be looking to cash in on this revenue stream in much the same way that Zimbabwe is obviously doing.

Lots of overland trucks stationed at Victoria Falls Rest Camp; Zambia
and Livingstone need to get in on all the action

We didn’t do a lot in Victoria Falls. We checked out the Victoria Falls Hotel, which is a beautiful old colonial building, surrounded by green lawns and the most amazing view of the Victoria Falls Bridge. We walked around the town a bit, a small town very much focused on tourism. We had then planned to visit the Falls themselves to see how they look from the Zim side, but the $20 entrance fee for SADC members (i.e. Southern African Development Community) we felt was a tad steep, given we pay the equivalent of $1.40 (7,000ZMK) on the Zambia side. We have been told the Falls are even more amazing on the Zim side, but nearly $19 more amazing??? Probably not.

Check out the awesome view of Victoria Falls Bridge just behind me

The Victoria Halls Hotel: Beautiful, old, colonial building

The front of Victoria Halls Hotel

All in all we had a pretty good trip to Zimbabwe. I’m not sure what I was expecting to be honest, but what I found was a country of people who are just getting on with it, are welcoming to visitors and continuing to build their country’s economy up as best they can, and not doing too bad a job of it either! One can only hope that the elections to be held there later this year don’t take the country backwards, because the people there certainly don’t derserve that.

Stopping traffic: Two cows fighting on the side of the road 

But I’m not going to end this post talking about Zimbabwe; instead I think the story about Mike and I getting fined on the Victoria Falls Bridge for the below photograph is a much better ending. As we entered back into Zambia, we thought it would be nice to get a photo of “Ruth” on the bridge. So with no cars or trucks behind us, I jumped out of the car for not more than 15 seconds and got the below photo, not realising that stopping on the bridge was illegal. Opps. As we approached the end of the bridge a very angry Zambian gate minder pulled us over, taking Mike’s license in the exchange. Warning Mike it was a $500 fine for stopping, he was also willing to accept 50,000ZMK ($10) for the offense, which we were more than happy to pay if it meant avoiding a $500 fine. Probably encouraging the wrong behaviour, but $500 for a 15second photo stop, really? Anyway, the below photo will now have be appreciated all the more by us!

Our infamous photo: 50,000ZMK later.......

The 7 Month Mark!

Time is finally moving a bit faster and we have made it to 7 months in Zambia. It feels like quite an achievement as there have been days when I have started to think that I wasn’t going to make it even this far.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating Zambia or my placement, but it is challenging on a day to day basis and sometimes does get me down.

Life has become somewhat routine, pretty much one of the things that I had hoped to get away from when I left Australia. It’s been very much work from Monday to Friday and fit in what we can on the weekends, on a very meagre budget.

Weekend treat: Homemade burger with a refreshing cider to
accompany it!

Work has been ok, quite busy actually. I finally completed one of my most important tasks, writing a Resource Mobilisation Strategy for my organisation, which I had never done before, and have had it accepted by the management and staff of the organisation. From there it has been full steam ahead as we refine some of our programme plans and ramp up the daunting task of fundraising for them. At work we were also successful in securing a donated vehicle (I did have misgivings about this, given the cost of fuel and maintenance, but it has already come in very useful) and have started a couple of smaller IGAs for our office. Baby steps, but we have to start somewhere!

One of our office IGAs: The first of our vegetable gardens. 

The Toyota Hilux that was donated to ZINGO South from Pact Zambia

Our main programme which is currently running is Self Help Groups (SHG) for women, a programme that I feel quite passionately about and more so every time we do a site visit. The programme so far has 21 groups of women (approximately 15 per group), with our goal to reach up to 50 by end of this year. The programme focuses on group savings and loans, is a proven concept and is sort of based on the Grameen model, with less of a microfinance component. I love the focus on women and the concept of “Self Help”, something that Zambia often lacks. But I think I will write more on this programme in a later post.

One of our women's groups at their weekly meeting

Self Help Group training at the ZINGO South office. The training
covered the SHG concept, book keeping and data collection

The area of development and its place in Zambia has proven extremely challenging for me and from discussions with other VSO volunteers and expats, I’m not alone. At the moment I cannot see how Zambia’s aid dependency will ever be removed unless something changes significantly. It is a shame as Zambia as a country has a lot going for it; beautiful parks and wildlife and therefore great tourism opportunities; lots of minerals, predominately copper; it has a relatively cheap, oversupply of labour which if tapped properly could be used to attract foreign investment. Unfortunately, Zambia suffers from many of the same “governance” issues as a number of other African countries (albeit not all). It also has poor infrastructure which it needs to improve significantly being a land-locked country, a lack of incentives for foreign investment and an allowance culture where very little gets done without a personal incentive being offered first. Currently there are a number of countries pulling their aid money out of Zambia, which I hope acts as a signal to the people and government here that things need to change. However I fear that I am being a little optimistic.

Anyway, to break routine, Mike and I are endeavouring to plan more short trips and activities; after all, we shouldn't waste the opportunities that we have in the location where we are based with 3 borders at our doorstep. We are especially looking forward to our planned trip in September which will be nearly a month long road trip through Botswana and Namibia (which Mike has deemed as “Top Gear Bostwana 2”). I’m excited too because my Mum and her friend Reegena will be joining us.

Before shot: This is Mike before I gave him a very much needed hair cut

After shot: Mike exclaiming how much lighter and cooler his head feels

Last weekend we re-visited Victoria Falls, which are too amazing to try and describe. They have to be one of the coolest, if not the coolest, thing I have ever seen. Sooooo much water and power!

Victoria Falls in May

The mighty Mosi-o-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) 

The town of Livingstone over Easter was the busiest I have ever seen it, with “Mzungu’s” (white person) everywhere, great for the local tourism industry.

Mike in front of Victoria Falls

And at home we have had a puppy invasion, with puppies appearing from everywhere, much to the disgust of our resident dog, Simba (although we suspect that some of the puppies may be his). Mike has also been quite unhappy, with some of the puppies attacking his herbs and plants. 

Simba being followed around by the puppies

Could this be Simba Junior?

So life continues here in Zambia, with its ups and downs, encouragements and disappointments, a real eye opener!

Me at the top of Victoria Falls