Blog 17

Lilian's love bird

The trip to Luanga's Safari Parks and Shiwa Estate.

We saw Emma's BA Flight 0255 go overhead, on time, as we approached Lusaka Airport

and met her 40 minutes later with Natasha Nkonde our VSO surrogate daughter who came to pick up 2 more re-conditioned lap tops for people in Monze making it 5 in total at £189 each.

A 1.5 hr Proflight transferred us to Mfuwe airport and we drove for 45 minutes in an open Land Rover Defender through smokey and sweet scented warm breezes of an early African morning, waving at the villagers lazily making their way to work as the road ran through typical African bush. We arrived at Mfuwe Lodge to be greeted by staff with cool damp flannels and icy lime juice.

We settled into our stylish wooden chalet

with a veranda facing onto a watering hole which had clear views of the visiting fauna.

A Bush Buck

For the next 2 days and nights, when we weren't on game drives,

eating, reading, swimming in the pool, sleeping or sunbathing

we could sip our drinks on the veranda largely ignored by the deers, hippos, crocodiles and a huge variety of birds, nearly all brilliantly coloured or patterned especially in flight, as they landed or launched themselves into the air from the water.

We did a total of four game drives, with gin and tonic sundowners on the two evening drives. Stephen was our excellent Zambian guide, usually the first of many 4X4s from other lodges to find the lions and leopards. He was extremely well informed on any question we posed from behaviour of ants to the method of pollination of a unique type of fig tree, in which the flowers are entirely within the fig. Pollination is only through the larval stage of a single type of wasp which lays its eggs inside the fig!

It is all quite strenuous because of the early 5.45 morning calls but it is possible to recover with a snooze after the delicious brunches at 11-12 o’clock, with or without a glass of white wine.

We saw 4 of the big 5 at close range, lion,

buffalo,

leopard

and elephant

but not rhino, although we saw a white rhino at Mosi-oa-Tunya earlier this year. We saw a pride of 16 lions

eating a newly killed baby buffalo,

with the vultures circling

waiting to finish most of what was left but not the bones or fur. That service is performed by the hyenas. Nature wastes very little!

We saw only one of the small five, the elephant shrew the other 4 being the rhino dung beetle, lion ant, white-headed buffalo weaver bird and the leopard tortoise! We saw one leopard which had pulled its kill into the tree. The partly disemboweled impala was hung in a fork in the branches - a very practical larder. On a night drive another leopard just posed for picture with us no more than 10 feet from it. It really is a beautiful animal.

We also saw the timid zebra,

water and bush bucks,

wildebeest and many other types of antelope,

water hogs,

genets, civets, mongoose, crocodiles, monkeys,

baboons, elephants, hippos

and giraffes.

One of the great pleasures is to have the time to sit in silence and just watch the behaviour of animals.

We watched one group of monkeys where there was obviously a trouble maker being chased off, quite viciously with squeals and snarls.

We also saw an abundance of birds, with flocks of Lilian's lovebirds.This is a type of small parrot with a spectacular metallic green body, reddish brown head and beak with alternating bands of yellow, white and bluey black wing feathers.

They sometimes swoop in flocks as a single flash of green, each one so small and so close together. We also saw fish eagles, bee eaters, kingfishers, weavers, Pel's fish owls, saddle billed stork, sacred ibis, pygmy falcon, Egyptian geese and hornbills in a variety of colours and patterns. Even the starlings, crows and thrushes were much more colourful or patterned than you see in the UK.







It isn't just the variety that makes it so astounding its also the abundance of animals and birds especially the monkeys, baboons and antelope which are as ubiquitous as sparrows use to be in the UK.

We watched this array of finery with two Italians, a financial journalist father and lawyer son and a right leaning American economist, so the conversation ranged from the cause of the recent economic collapse and how Obama is likely to make it worse rather than better, to the sexual antics of Berlusconi and the problems of Italy and America as well as Africa. We always feel on matters African, the reason it struggles and is failing to become a modern state, that we are now much better informed to hold forth than most of the mere tourists we meet on these trips. They are generally impressed that we are working here.

One day we had a cooked brunch out in the bush by the river Luanga, which eventually flows into the Zambezi.

This was close to a memorial to Norman Carr who is greatly revered by Zambians as a conservationist and extremely knowledgeable wildlife guide. He spent most of his life with his family and friends in this area. He was initially a hunter but later built tourist lodges and finally was the creator of bush camps and walking safaris. Robin Pope was one of his acolytes and still runs very expensive bush camps and walking safaris in South Park.

Transfer to Buffalo Bush Camp in North Luanga National Park on the way to Shiwa.

We took this route as the quickest and cheapest way to Shiwa and because Mark Harvey runs Buffalo Bush Camp.

Mark is the Musungu in the picture.

He is the third child of Lorna and John Harvey, and third grandchild of Sir Stuart Gore-Brown who created the legend of the Shiwa N'Gandu Estate. The estate was romantically and perhaps not entirely accurately recorded in the book The Africa House by Christine Lamb. It was this book that Judy read in the UK some time ago followed by Mike, that made both determined to do this trip and we weren't disappointed.

The only other way to Shiwa from South Park is via Lusaka a very long trip with Lusaka at the bottom of a 'V'. The 45 minute flight to Buffalo camp from South to North Luanga Parks was in a four seated plane

which flew over the long and constantly changing loops of the south Luanga river.

We boarded the plane at Mfuwe airport 10 minutes late, without tickets and the pilot simply came into departures to collect us and our luggage, which Judy had so worried would be too heavy, no other formalities! The low water levels of the Luanga River expose much of its bed which is composed of whorled layers of light and dark brown sand clearly visible from our low flying plane, as were hundreds of pods of hippos in the remaining water. There are many thousands of hippos in this river relaxing in its warm sandy waters during the day while grazing on the abundant grasses at the edge of the river and its water holes at night. They have very few predators once they become big enough to ward off the crocodiles.

It was easy to trace the changes in the river bed made over the seasons and the many ox-bow lakes that have been formed. We have to add here that our whole trip was made all the more special by having the company of Emma but a flight on a small plane, with not insignificant turbulence, was not for her. She spent the journey with her eyes closed and looking deathly white.

Over the next few days we met two of Gore-Browns grandsons. Charlie his second grandchild after Penny, and Mark the third. Their mother, Lorna Gore-Brown, married an ex-soldier, Major John Harvey, who was employed on the Shiwa estate as manager. We also met Jo married to Charlie and Mel to Mark. They are all happy to talk about Gore-Brown and the history of the estate. They think the book Africa House is inaccurate but didn't really say why.

Both Charlie and Mark spent their early years living with their parents in Shiwa House and were subject to GB's stern and traditional ways of living. Dinner was always taken in jackets, occasionally black ties, even when the boys very small. They weren't allowed to finish their food until the guests had finished theirs which could mean chasing a pea around the plate until that had happened. They were allowed to stay and listen to boring conversations on political, religious and other academic matters when the women left to 'powder their noses' but were allowed to disappear after the first port.

Charlie, the first male heir, G-B having had two daughters, was the apple of his grandfather's eye whereas G-B didn't like Mark, who was the apple of his mother's eye, and could be disobedient. When asked to show eminent guests to their rooms in the rambling Shiwa mansion he and Charlie would deliberately get them lost. G-B used to find the guests completely confused and lost outside the house on the lawn, asking where they were.

In fact Charlie was probably more disobedient, but obviously concealed it well until he was thrown out of Gordonstoun for "machine gunning" one of the Queen's stags in Scotland. The pupils had been given blanks, but they obtained some live ammunition and converted the firing of their rifles with a paper clip, so that both barrels fired almost together. Charlie didn't discover he had been expelled until he arrived back for the new term and his name wasn't on the list. He had to be taken in by one of his friend's grandmother, his parents being in Africa! His other prank at Gordonstoun, on Open Day, in front of all the parents, was to hoist a dead sheep by its neck over a cliff to demonstrate skills at at mountain rescue. The boys initial task had been to rescue a live sheep from the cliff face, but it had panicked - fallen - and broken its neck.The boys thought that the obvious way to transport it was by a noose, much to the horror of the parents, who could not know that the sheep was already dead.

Charlie and Mark were also allowed to mix and play with the local children, can speak fluent Bemba, the local tribal language, and learnt to hunt with a gun as soon as they could walk. Mark killed his first crocodile at 6 years of age, which delighted G-B, and his first leopard from a tree at 7 years making his father very angry for the risk he was taking. If he had missed he wouldn't have had a second chance! He admits he used his close relationship with G-B against his father which is possibly why he was left out of his father's will, and only managed to buy the Shiwa Estate off his two younger brothers Mark and David about ten years ago. G-B's youngest grandson, David, had not been able to maintain the house or the estate, which was rapidly retuning to bush with poaching eliminating the wild life.

Charlie and Jo had to sell a very successful farm near Lusaka and moved staff, animals and equipment lock, stock and barrel to Shiwa. One of the reasons he relocated was because he had become successful and was hoping to move to a simpler life-style! In fact they have been so successful in making Shiwa and the land productive with cattle, sheep, pigs, bees, and building - making their own bricks from clay from their own land- that their lives remain far from simple. Charlie has also managed to re-establish the wild life such as zebra and wildebeeste, including Sitatunga antelope which are very rare. Because they graze in marshlands they have long hooves which makes them move in a very strange way in long looping strides. He has done this by hard work, and local knowledge to stop poaching. Probably only a Bemba speaking colonial-style much respected white man could have achieved this. He and Jo are very aware that the estate is not sustainable without this expertise and they are fully aware that all they have created could easily disappear again without them. Neither of their children speak Bemba nor have Charlie's wildlife knowledge or skills. The most important of these is his amazing understanding, respect and control of the local population the sons and grandsons of G-B's employees.

However Charlie and Jo have not lost any of their committment to Shiwa, are still planning to expand into horse riding safaris and hope to restart hunting on the estate with controlled culling of the antelope and wildlife. Americans are still willing to spend large amounts of money on these sorts of holiday.

Above all Charlie and Jo have shown what can be done with this land, which if the African Zambians could sustain would make Zambia one of the richest food producing African countries, with a strong tourist industry for seeing wildlife, horse riding safaris and hunting. What is it about Africa and Africans that makes this so unlikely to happen at least for the next 50 years?

However back to the holiday and to Buffalo Bushcamp,

the most interesting part of our adventure! We landed on an isolated airstrip with one small open-sided grass covered stand keeping the early afternoon shimmering heat off the open 4x4 which was waiting with 4 staff and one armed ranger to take us the 20km to Buffalo. We travelled on narrow dusty tracks between vast areas of bush scattered with dead Mopane trees, the result of vast herds of elephants and a virus. It gave a very bleak and desolate feeling to the bush. The numbers of elephants have been greatly reduced by poaching for ivory but are coming back with stricter controls on hunting.

There are now very severe punishments for poaching with 5 year jail sentences and a guarantee they will come out with HIV/AIDS!

We joined just two others at the camp, Fraser and George, two university friends of Mark's son Richard at Southampton.

They had just been awarded their degrees and were at the start of a 4 month world tour before starting the daily grind of permanent jobs. They were good company and companions and we made a jolly and relaxed group on the walks and drives.

Mark was a great guide, very amusing and like Charlie greatly knowledgable on African culture, wild animals, tracking and hunting. He had some great tales to tell as we walked in the bush, over meals and by the wood fires after dinner at night and having been a strong willed child he gave Emma lots of good advice on how to raise Joseph!!

He ran a very disciplined camp. The gin and tonic sundowners now drunk in the open bush with only a gun-toting ranger to protect us, together with their tracking skills. There was good food and wine and after we slept in open grass covered tents to allow in the sounds of the bush which included roaring lions, with the moonlight to sooth us to sleep.

It was a great feeling to be so far away from any civilisation and yet safe in the hands of guys that had spent most of their lives in the bush.

The walks were magnificent.

Mark and a ranger with their guns, rarely used although it had upset Mark a great deal that the previous week he had to shoot an aggressive buffalo.

It is quite a different feel to see lions in this way,

to watch big male buffalos from large herds ganging up to chase the lions away, to sit in silence by a water-hole and watch the interaction of buffalos, wildebeests,

zebra, monkeys, baboons, storks many other birds.

A herd of several hundred buffalo roared and splashed into the water almost completely filling it, while a stork hardly stirred. The buffalo ran riot heading towards us as we sat behind a fallen tree that acted as our hide.

Mark was quite concerned and stood up with his gun and shouted at them.

They then made an almost equally dramatic exit and stood looking puzzled at the far side of the water-hole. However, they reformed ranks and once again charged into the water towards us. For a second time Mark stood up - holding his rifle in a more threatening way, but his shouting again disturbed them and they retreated. The second time they completely disappeared into the bush leaving us again in an eerie silence. We waited for some timid zebra to come to drink which they never did. Mark said they could sense our presence. Judy and Emma were convinced it was just due to me taking photographs with my telephoto lens over the dead tree.

One evening we heard the tortured groans of a buffalo dying, presumably killed by lions, as we ate supper. Emma was so upset she moved into our grass 'tent' for the next 2 nights!

Probably the most dramatic event of the holiday happened on one night after dinner when Mark could hear the roars of a male lion quite close to the camp. The lion was well known to Mark who had christened him Satan. We all got into the 4x4 without the ranger or any staff and with Fraser holding the light. He spotted the lion lying by a bush about 50 yards from the track, not far from the camp.

As Mark turned the 4x4 off the road to face the lion it stood up and after a short pause charged us. Mark had told us that this is most unusual behaviour for a lion and that it meant the lion needed to be taught who was the boss or it would be dangerous to co-exist with it in the bush!

Without any hesitation Mark revved the engine and raced towards the lion who somewhat startled changed track and ran off to the left of us. Mark, to show who was boss, chased it and it finally got away from us and lay down watching from a distance. Mark continued to slowly approach it and it charged again. Mark repeated the revving and raced towards the lion which again backed down and veered off into the bush. We returned to camp for a night cap and although we continued to hear the lions through the night Judy and I slept soundly, bathed in the moonlight, although Emma had a more restless night!

Transfer from Buffalo to Shiwa Estate.

Shiwa House.

We left fairly early in a 4x4 driven by Mark. The journey was fast and reasonably comfortable along dirt roads of variable quality. We eventually reached the tarmacked Great North Road, Tanzania branch, and after a short drive north turned left on to the road to Shiwa. We had a sandwich lunch on the road and arrived at Shiwa House to be met by Charlie for another lighter but tastier late lunch. Jo, his wife was sorting out some difficult relative's problem in Lusaka and arrived later the next day together with a very charming couple of 4th year medical students Jono and Sally from Southampton. Jono was the son of close friends of Charlie's from Gordonstoun time and it was Jono's grandmother who rescued Charlie when he was thrown out of school. Jo, Charlie's wife who has played a great part in Shiwa's resurrection, is a social anthropologist and is doing research on the extensive records of Gore-Brown's life, which are literally lying around Shiwa House for any visitor to inspect. G-B kept extensive notes of his visitors, a diary and was a keen photographer, recording many of the important and famous visitors that came to the estate.
Jo, particularly, thinks 'The Africa House' book misrepresents the family. The author only spent two days at Shiwa and relied heavily for facts on a previous dryer historical version, Black Heart, by Robert Rotberg. She is trying to write another version and she has great access to a lot of material and G-B's grandsons and grand daughter!

After our morning visit to the graves of G-B and the Harvey parents, (see below) we sat on the balcony outside the library

and spent a couple of hours going through the records lying around the house including the photos. I read an article G-B wrote for the Royal African Journal in 1935 which shows him to be a much more sensitive and considerate person than he is often portrayed. He was clearly in favour of the Africans and ex-pats working together, not necessarily in the colonial way, which was the fashion of the time.

He also become close to K.K., and the Zambian constitution was written on the Shiwa Estate with G-B advising. He had modern ideas that would be very acceptable today.

K.K. last visited the estate 2 years ago and always sleeps in the same room, the one assigned to Emma! Judy and my bedroom was used by Queen Paola of Belgum recently.

Charlie showed her around, and with her consent deliberately lost her security guards, nearly causing an international incident with phone calls between Brussels and Shiwa. Another example that people don't change, Charlie is still tweaking authority and losing people at Shiwa.

The afternoon we arrived we were shown around the grounds of house by Bright and the next day inside by Brighton, both grandsons of men employed by G-B. We saw sites made familiar by the book.

views of the lake, Shiwa N'Gandu - the Lake of the Royal Crocodiles - which enchanted G-B in the early 1900s are presumably relatively unchanged,

and were the reason for building the house in such an inaccessible place.

The lake is overlooked by the graves of G-B

and the grandchildren's parents Lorna Gore-Brown and John Harvey who were shot and murdered in the 1990's by South Africans, probably because of their strong anti-poaching stand. Chipembele the name you can see on the gravestone means rhino in Bemba and was the affectionate but honest name G-B's employees had for him.

Even today in modern Zambia the Shiwa Estate is a long way from any major centre and 20 km off the main road. Most of the original furniture and household goods including oil paintings, porcelain and cutlery, still in the house, were carried by porters overland and by boat, each journey taking over 3 weeks.

The estate is at 1800 metres or over 5,000 feet and well watered which gives it an alpine look in contrast to the dry bush of the safari parks. This is also why all the rooms at the house have open wood fires all lit at night.

It was not absolutely necessary at this time of the year but it was nice to go to bed in the comfort of a log fire and the smell of burning wood. The eucalyptus trees planted by G-B all around the estate now tower into the sky, and the leaves produce a wonderful fragrance which he used in the intial unsuccessful efforts to make the estate financially sound by producing essential oils for perfumes.

The dinners we had were elegant affairs, still a bit formal, in the now famous dining room where G-B at 44 years of age and looking older, and his new 18 year old wife Lorna looking even younger, had their first meal together. They must have sat at each end of the table that is still used and can seat 10 comfortably. It is still overlooked by the same oil paintings and antelope horns, shot by G-B, his son-in-law and grandsons. It is easy to imagine how Lorna must have felt, even though she was served fine food and wines. Lorna was the daughter of G-B's first love also called Lorna, whom he never married. He remained a bachelor until he met Lorna 2 at her grandmother's funeral. Lorna looked very much like her mother and G-B fell in love again. Lorna 3 was one of 2 daughters G-B and Lorna 2 had, and was Charlie's and Mark's mother.

One morning Charlie told us his security staff were going to a village to catch a poacher of two of his sheep.They knew this because of an informer in the village. Apparently the bush intelligence makes identfying poachers very easy. There seems to be little loyalty between the villagers. Is this another general aspect of their culture which is quite different from our culture, where there are quite strong pressures for people not to split on each other? The poacher was caught and admitted his crime even though he knew that he might get 5 years in jail. He offered to work off the financial loss to Charlie who refused and said he must appear in court. Apparently he will get off as they need the evidence of a dead sheep which they don't have!

Charlie took us on two evening game drives around the lake finishing up with the now usual G and T sundowners; one on the top of a water tower

and one in a hide on the edge of the lake for bird watching. The lake that so impressed G-B that he decided to develop the N'Gandu Shiwa estate.

Charlie also took us on one game drive at 4.30am to see the shy and rare Sitatunga, swamp grazing antelope which have long 13 inch toes on which they walk making them very efficient in swamp but ungainly on firmer ground.

Overall it was a very interesting dip into history with great discussions of the problems in Africa which have changed little in 80 years! It greatly helps us make sense and understand our experiences in Africa and may be support many of our ideas on how to help Africans in the future.

Transfer to the Hotsprings at Kapishya.


For 2 of the last 3 days of our journey we stayed at Kapishya Hotsprings which although not connected to the estate was also owned by G-B who use to bathe naked in the pool with his wife,

drinking champagne off a floating wooden table. A more enjoyable part of his marriage.
As we had had a pretty hectic time we used our two nights and one and half days to chill out, spending most of the time reading. I discovered Tim Jeal's Stanley in the hotel sitting room which is a great story and I have bought a copy to take on our journey home to England. I also bought Tim Jeal's book on Livingstone which is a little shorter. It will be great to read them while in Tanzania where both spent a lot of time. They met at Ujiji on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika just south of Kigoma, and Stanley probably didn't say 'Dr. Livingstone I presume'.

A wistful Emma on the walking safari.

All good things must come to an end. We had a long journey back to Lusaka that nearly took all day with just enough time for Emma to buy some presents and book her seat for the flight home.We all stayed at the Christian Brothers and dropped Emma off at the airport the next morning with no hitches.
In all this diatribe we have not mentioned how wonderful it was to have Emma with us. It was great to hear more of her experiences in Africa, when she travelled from west to east with the charity Tackle Africa. It was lovely that she didn't have to worry about Joseph and Celina having left them in Tom's capable hands, with a little help from his parents and sister. So much of the culture was familiar to her and she said it was great to be back. She and Judy spent almost every minute talking about Joseph, Celina and Tom, Hannah, Scott and of course the newest arrival, Finn, Vicki and James, Christmas and home in the UK, except when we had to be quiet on the game drives or they were sleeping! They occasionally allowed me into the chat but then usually accused me of not hearing properly.

We now only have one week left in Monze and are trying to finalise our trip home may be another great African adventure?!

A night in a Zambian Village. 9/09/09

We have met several young American Peace Corps volunteers who live on their own in remote villages. The scheme was introduced by John Kennedy and has been a great success in spite of the extreme physical hardships. They are given time to learn the local languages and are given various tasks usually related to health or education. Asya is an 20+ year old African American from Florida who we met through Natasha. They are very close mates and whenever Asya comes out of her village in Ndola Mwanza she stays and parties with Natasha and her friends. I thought it would be a good idea for me to go and live in a village for a time and this was eventually watered down to spending one night in Mwanza.

The journey there took 2 hours, much longer than I thought it would, over dreadful roads with stony, deep and fortunately dry ravines petering out to pedestrian tracks. The track becomes impassable in the wet season and I began to wonder whether the track would become impossible for the wreck of a truck I had borrowed from Tony Brand one of our VSO colleagues.

The 'Truck'

Tony says the truck is for all volunteers but it still would not be on the road without his engineering skills. It is a real battle to get it into reverse and any other gear for that matter, and requires great skills to drive it! On the jouney I rarely got out of second gear, and even the tarmacadamed road was disintegrating, with potholes so deep that once in them the bottom of the car would scrape on the way out. Tony is very reassuring about its safety but I doubt whether any of our friends at home would even get into it never mind drive it. It is covered in dirt both inside and out, it is difficult to see through the wind screen and difficult to lock. However it was the only way I could get to Mwanza!

Tony is just completing over 20 years of being a VSO volunteer, resurrecting hospitals' infrastructure and sometimes management in at least 3 countries!

On arriving at the chief's hamlet we erected Aysa's new 2 man tent for me alone to sleep in

This was pitched next to Asya's house which was much better than I had imagined. It was built of bricks with a grass roof lined with black plastic sheets, much cooler than the only other alternative, corrugated iron. Inside it was very clean with books and most of her possesions stacked on the floor, no shelves, cupboards or wardrobes. There was a separate bedroom with a moderate sized mosquito net covered bed which she said was her sanctuary where she could retreat to in safety from the dangers of the African bush. There was no other furniture in the bedroom. She had a water filter but the water from the well is drunk without treatment by the family and they do not suffer from diarrhoea.The walls were covered in stylishly written slogans, aphorisms for a Peace Corps volunteer to get them through their long lonely stays away from their own culture. The house was lit by a single candle supplemented with a head mounted torch when necessary. Aysa had been made very welcome by the chief and his wives and children and always ate her evening meal with the chief and his wives. All the family missed her when she occasionally escaped to the more civilised Monze?!

I wonder if the Peace Corps was John Kennedy's own idea, it must now have a considerable impact on many people both in the States but also the developing world.

The chief, Bassibuku of Mwanza,Goliath Hankombo, is a very hard working, successful farmer who has cattle and goats and mainly grows maize for his family in the fields immediately around his hamlet. In a good season he grows enough to sell but his family never go hungry.

His first wife Cynthia, by whom he has had six children is setting up a co-operative so that the local farmers can sell their maize to the government. His second wife is called Victoria by whom he has had two children.

Each wife has their own grass-thatched brick house.However there are a total of 14 children living in two other houses with their beds consisting of a single dusty sheets

and the only other furniture for storage, a cloths line on which all the childrens clean clothes were hung.

Smaller children stay with their mothers.

Eight of Bassibuku's children were not his wives, They were the result of children borne by his other alliances with women not his wives and some were orphans from his own sisters, probably the result of AIDS.

All the children work on the farm from a very early age which must discipline them and keep them out of some mischief. Large numbers of children in Tongan culture are a reflection of a man's financial as well as sexual success and are important to their self esteem.

There were several other small buildings for cooking, storage and chickens although most of these spend the night in a tree in the compound. He also has numerous, cats, kittens, turkeys he sells not eats, chickens, goats and dogs all of which live in happy communion with their human companions, wandering in and out of most buildings. The children are very healthy,well fed and incredibly obedient with few fights or arguments. They sit in groups for long periods watching the world go by. They are mostly very loving to each other, especially the young boys to their younger siblings. We asked the chief how it was that African children are so much better behaved than most western kids. He said African kids were well behaved because they 'train' them from aged 2-3!!

I learnt that most of the kids can tell their mothers they want to poo when they begin to talk at age 1+ and don't need nappies after that!! When I asked the chief how he trains the children he said he keeps them busy by giving them tasks to fetch and carry. When I asked him what he did if they refused he said he clipped them!

We had dinner together in the first wife's house,

which was probably the most attractively decorated I have seen in Zambian villages, with the walls covered in pictures from newspapers. We had nshima and vegetables which was amazingly tasty and the conversation with the chief, (Cynthia his wife rarely spoke, possibly the same as some western marriages), ranged from polygamy to farming and education which he feels is very important. We rinsed our hands before and after eating the food with our fingers. The room was lit with a single candle even though a TV was on throughout the dinner and our conversations. It was running on a solar powered battery. Africa is such a curious mixture of cultural artifacts from the west and those dating back to traditional beliefs, with origins probably dating from times long before Livingstone's starting of its contamination with Christian culture's morals and ethics.

Basibukku is struggling to get all his children to grade 12 as he has to pay for them after grade 7. He is very proud that one of his daughters is at University and is trying to work out how he can get finance for another. It seems to me that the drive to be educated, the value of which is being lost in young people in the west, runs very strongly in poor communities and is probably hard wired. Basibbuku was a serious well assured man with no formal education who would probably have fitted well into a western culture and have been just as successful. He asked whether I would have liked more than one wife and I said I wasn't rich enough to afford two wives. He thought this was very funny. Cynthia's youngest child, around three years old, wandered into our rondavel around 20.00hrs, sat with us for a while watching a very political programme on TV and then asked to go to sleep, which he promptly did on her knee. He was carried off to what I took to be his mother's bedroom by his older brother, I think without a change of clothes.

The chief usually goes to bed at 21.00 hrs so we eventually excused ourselves at 21.20 and on our way back to our beds we passed some of the older children sitting by a wood fire only with the light of the moon to guide their eating their nshima and beans. It seems likely that they put themselves to bed after their parents had retired! It seemed to me this was a very natural way of bringing up small children who, until they could walk and talk, were tightly bound to their mothers. From around 3 years old they seem to be brought up by all the other children in the family group, always had the company of other children, had to fit in, were disciplined by the older children and were rarely board.

I slept well with only a sleeping bag between me and the hard packed ground in Aysa's tent which allowed the moonlight to penetrate its walls. I woke up in the early hours for a pee and avoided the open toilets the family use. The children were awake at 5.15 in spite of going to bed after their parents, Emma please note, and went to collect water from the well when it was only just getting light. Schools start at 8.00 and as most kids have long walks to get there they have very early starts to their day.

I said goodbye to the chief at 07.00 to get back to work and added a wind up torch to the Toblerone I had given him the previous evening. He was very keen on the torch.

As we drove back many children were on their way to school across the bush and the journey seemed easier now I was more use to the bumpy and dusty tracks.

I arrived back in Monze and had a leasurely hot bath and breakfast unaware I was supposed to be starting the list of about 15 patients, mostly children, without Mr. Engalula! I arrived back at the hospital at 10.00 and as all the patients had been fed the whole list had been cancelled. It would have been very easy to have phoned me on my mobile to check where I was and I could easily have cut short my leasurely breakfast but that is Monze and another African story!


I texted the chief on my mobile to thank him for his hospitality and said I hoped he had enjoyed the Toblerone. He promptly texted me back saying he had enjoyed my visit and that he had shared the chocolate with his wives! Equally I hope. The polygamous arrangement seemed to work very well in their cultural setting.

And so ended yet another amazing adventure of our year in Africa.

As a postscript on the first stage of our journey back to England he texted me on his mobile to say he had just been diagnosed as having HIV and could I advise him on the side effects he was having from his drugs. All I could do was advise him to persist and that the drugs should be very effective in the long term and allow him to continue to provide for his large family.

The Text 22/09/09 14.53

Dr.mike I tested HIV positiv 5 09 go my cd4 ws low advicd 2 goArv's at chivuna art b4 dat ws examined on tb nd liver ok. care proved put me arvs 18 .8.09 Im 1mmth 1mnth 1wk 2dys had slit rush on 1 wk 2dys had slit rush on my hands went off.now da past 4dys Im experiencin savere drug side effect legs hot coughing chest pains feeling hot sometms fever tiredness lot of sweat no appetit but Imtaking mvt daily feeling dizzy alws body weak my health care provided says drug side effect nd ll go. now 4 4days .are they stil normal Im not myself talk your txt me sibukku Goliath.

My text reply 25/09/09 15.42

Very sorry to hear you news but the treatment will make u better! Side effects are common for the first few months but u must keep taking the treatment it does take time to work. Only if the side effects are very severe should the treatment be adjusted and it is still very effective. Hope u feel better soon.

Mike

a
Our 'final supper' in Monze again with Sarita and Tony

We finished our year in Monze as we started, eating with Tony and Sarita Brand. They became very good friends during our year in Zambia and we have met them since in Birmingham, on our way home from our returning volunteers weekend at Harbourne Hall, almost a year after our return to the UK. We hope to be seeing more of them at our home in Steep.