Victoria Falls with the parents

04JUL08

When we last left our heroes, they had just set out from Lusaka on a drive towards Livingstone.  Under good conditions this trip takes around 6-7 hours.  This is not because of sheer distance, but also because much of the road is falling apart and studded with potholes that can swallow small cars.  I guess the upside is that it is paved part of the way…so they got that going for them.

The driving was fairly easy to start off, and we left around noon so that we would get there around sundown barring any difficulties.  It turns out that the difficulties were not barred and our arrival in Livingstone would be significantly delayed.   Around three hours into the trip I noticed that the car was losing power.  It was slight at first; the car could not go that quickly in the first place.  As we proceeded, the problem began to get worse – we would pick up to about 80 km/hr and then drop down to about 30 km/hr before picking up power again.  I would later learn that this is typical of a diesel engine that has water in the fuel, but for the moment I was simply dreading having to deal with this with my parents. 

To put this into perspective, for me this was not that big of a deal largely because this sort of shit happens all the time over there.  There are many towns on the way and it was still daylight when this was happening.  In this part of the country, there is much more hospitality than there are things to worry about, even at night.  However, I was imagining what must be going through my parent’s minds at this point.  They are having a car breakdown out in…well…if there is any real place on the globe that can be described as the middle of nowhere, rural southern Zambia holds a strong claim on it.  Additionally, although they were settling into Africa fairly well, there was still a huge amount of American media misinterpretation of the region to be worked through.  Therefore I was feeling quite a bit of pressure to see this through smoothly. 

We managed to make it to the town of Monze which I knew somewhat well having been through there several times before.  Once there I spoke to some cab drivers who knew some auto mechanics up the road and we headed up there to get the car looked at.  I had called the rental agency about the problem.  You know how in the US, the rental agency would take responsibility and come and give you another car and take care of the problem themselves?  Well l that doesn’t exactly happen in Zambia.  No, they suggested that I try and replace the fuel filter.  And, no – they weren’t familiar with the town of Monze where we were stuck.  Lovely.

The mechanic came to the same conclusion rather quickly and I went and got a new fuel filter at a nearby shop with him.  In the meantime my parents were wandering around with the chickens and randomly talking with people.  Probably a decent learning experience for them at this point so I wasn’t too concerned.

At one point the taxi driver and mechanic asked about what I was doing in Zambia so I talked about CIDRZ and HIV research.  Their responses were memorable – they wanted to know if there was anything to the rumors that they had heard that you should not wear condoms because they were filled with infectious stuff.  As usual I was disappointed but not surprised by how much work on ignorance needs to be accomplished there. 

I let the mechanic haggle with the rental company over the phone and threw in a little extra money for him once we were done.  I felt fairly confident upon leaving that the worst was behind us.  This was actually kind of my nightmare scenario here – having my parents stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  I had rented the car from the company months earlier to determine if things would be ok for when my parents came and had been reasonably satisfied that things would be alright.  So it was to my great dismay when later, while the sun was setting, we started losing power again sometime after the town of Choma.  This was the last major town that I knew fairly well. 

We puttered along on the road picking up speed and losing it, maybe averaging about 30 km/hr for quite a while.  I had since contacted Katie and others up in Lusaka to ask if they had any suggestions.  The rental car company as usual was useless.  My friends suggested trying to find a guesthouse in Koloma, the last of civilization before a 120 km stretch of decimated roads down to Livingstone.   When I say civilization I do use the term loosely.  There was nothing that would approximate a hotel there.  Guesthouses in these parts are for Zambians who are ok with staying in a small hut without power or amenities.  In fact, the most immediately disturbing part about being stuck there is that there is no light.  No street lights (not much in terms of streets), no open buildings besides the police station, etc. 

We managed to locate a small Zambian guesthouse where I went in to ask about what could be done about our dilemma with my parents closely in tow.  There was a young Zambian who suggested that we could catch the bus up by the road and that maybe the police would let us leave our car at the station.  We tossed him in the car and went up to the police station where they informed me that there were still several bus options this night heading south towards Livingstone.  It was at this point that I was extremely pleased that my parents had packed so lightly.  We eventually flagged down a bus heading south and ditched the car in Koloma. 

Once on the bus I was greatly relieved.  It was now around 9 PM, and the sun had set around 6:30ish.  The bus ride for the last portion of that trip down to Livingstone was bumpy to say the least, but at least I was able to reassure my parents that they would not be lost in the heart of Africa and never heard from again.  I had hoped to spare my parents the bus experience in southern Africa, but I think that they were so relieved to be on a bus by now that they usual quirks of the area and people here were back to comical for us.  Getting off in Livingstone as usual was a bit stressful, but we got a cab driver and worked it all out fairly smoothly. 

We arrived at Maramba River Lodge around 11:30 PM both tired and relieved.  These are fairly nice facilities and safe and we immediately fell asleep there.  In the morning I was awoken by a phone call from the rental company people who had driven down with a mechanic and were wondering where we were at.  It was at that moment that my phone died and I realized I didn’t have a charger.  Oops.

Through a convoluted series of events I found these guys in the parking lot outside where we were staying where they left me their car in exchange for the keys to the other one that was at the police station back in Koloma.  As if we were stuck in a bad B movie plot, I immediately learned what was wrong with our new car.  It reeked of fish.  Not just smelled, but stank to high heaven.  It was like the car had been used for years to transport large loads of fresh fish across vast distances in the African heat.  The upside was that it was currently running. 

Leaving the car situation to be dealt with (read tolerated) later, we set off to explore the Victoria Falls area.  Our first adventure involved taking a helicopter flight through the gorges and over the falls.  I had never been in a helicopter before, so this was quite fun.  We flew along the gorge and then headed over the falls where I managed to get some great pictures of the entire falls.

After the helicopter ride we drove over to the Zambian side of the falls and went to experience the greatness.  I had two rain ponchos which I gave to my parents and opted to get soaked myself.  As I have said before, the Victoria Falls is one of those places on earth that lives up to the hype, the sheer size combined with the sheets of rising mist and the shaking of the earth that is transmitted from the bottom of the waterfalls back up the cliffs into your feet.  I was excited that my parents were able to experience this place.  We traveled the whole of the Zambian side and went upstream so they could get the full effect. 

Afterwards we opted to walk the grounds of the Zambezi Sun hotel which is just next door to the falls.  There were some zebra wandering on the grounds as well as countless vervet monkeys.   We opted for lunch there on the patio of the restaurant to be entertained by the monkeys that were constantly trying to steal food from people who weren’t paying attention.  They even had one guy armed with a slingshot who was employed to try to minimize the harassment of the guests.  Of course his protection was not perfect, and while I was talking with my parents I was surprised to hear my mother scream.  A small monkey had hopped off the ground, bounced off my thigh, and landed on the table.  It made a grab for my mother’s sandwich while we were all trying to absorb the fact that a monkey was dancing on our table.  He made a swipe at the sandwich and missed (must have been nervous) and bounded back to the ground.  Then he jumped back up on the table and this time successfully lifted the sandwich.  The staff came running and throwing things at the monkey who scurried up on top of the roof and sat there taunting us by eating the sandwich in full view of us.  The staff offered to get a new sandwich, but we had already eaten all we were going to, so we left the monkey to his prize.

That afternoon we went back to the lodge for a bit and then went to take a sunset cruise on a small boat on the river upstream of the falls.  It was the three of us, three Canadians, and our captain/bartender.  We floated around on the river enjoying the end of the day and visiting with cranky hippos interspersed on the shore.  There was a stop on an island to look around and viewing of the sunset on the river.  That ended our first day in Livingstone. 

The second day there, we awoke early to get to our destination – the elephant safari.  Although I had been on an elephant before, that was only for a short duration.  Today we met with a group that would take a morning hike through the Mosi-Oa-Tunya national park on the back of adult elephants.  This was a unique experience, even for me.  The one that I rode on was extremely large, and my parents were on a slightly smaller female.  We rode with other people in single file around the park seeing some scattered antelope and birds.  I can tell you that unlike riding a camel which I came away from feeling sort of violated, the elephant ride was much more comfortable and I probably could have gone on all day doing that.  After it was over we had some time to get up close with the animals and feed them.  This is the first time I have looked down the holes in the end of an elephant’s trunk.  I spent some time interacting and throwing food into his trunk and mouth.  It was extraordinary. 

After that we had breakfast and decided to head back to the falls and make the crossover to the Zimbabwean side.  This was my first time attempting to cross, so I didn’t really know what to expect over there.  We got to the bridge and watched a couple of people bungee jump from the bridge.  It is a damn long way down, so my father was taking his time trying to decide if he was going to go ahead and do this.  So, we continued on across the bridge.

There are always people on the bridge from both Zambia and Zimbabwe who are always trying to sell some of their wares to the foreign tourists.  For the most part they have learned to be extremely nice about things, but with the desperate situation in Zimbabwe, we managed to find one who was having some difficulty with this concept. 

There was a young couple from Ireland who ran to catch up with us after crossing the bridge, they were a little nervous about what to expect too and were hoping to shake a “new best friend” as they are called who turned out to be Zimbabwean.  This guy was fairly large and was simply not taking no for an answer.  The couple wasn’t sure what to do about it, so they were hoping that walking with us might ward him off.  It didn’t happen unfortunately, and the guy in the couple kept letting himself get stopped. 

The rule here is that you keep these guys walking no matter what you have to say.  Be nice and courteous, but keep walking towards the border posts because eventually they will head back (the police don’t like them and occasionally beat them up).  So our Irish friend was violating the rule and kept looking to us for help.  Eventually I started talking to the Zimbabwean and trying to convey that none of us were interested in his wares.  This of course would not stop him, but at least I was good at continuing to walk while interacting.  Eventually I offered to buy one of his copper bracelets for 10,000 kwacha (~$3.50).  Since he was trying to sell them to the Irish guy for 200,000 kwacha apiece (around $60) this really made him unhappy.  As we closed on the border post he got very rude, swearing at my parents and calling them sons of bitches and describing how evil we were.  But, predictably he swerved off before getting too close to the police there. 

It is unfortunate, but people there are so desperate that I can’t blame the guy really.  Anyone who could afford to leave has already left Zimbabwe and those who remain are struggling with an impossible situation.  I wasn’t mad at all, but I also wasn’t going to let him pressure us or the Irish couple into giving him huge amounts of money.  They seem to view all tourists as extremely rich and occasionally get insulted when money isn’t forthcoming.  It was a sad situation.  It also freaked out my mother to have this large African man threatening us there, but I was reasonable comfortable that he would not try anything that close to the border post.

Once across we made our way to the falls on the Zimbabwean side and explored the several kilometers of national park there.  The largest part of the falls is on the Zimbabwean side with about 2 kilometers worth of area to walk along.  As with the Zambian side, there was a lot of mist, and not much in the way of safety equipment there.  The park on the Zimbabwean side is a bit nicer as well.  At the far end we watched the bridge hoping to see some more bungee jumpers, but there were no takers at that time.  We learned that the bungee place closed at 4, and my father had steeled his nerves enough to go through with the jump so we headed back to the bridge. 

He did not want to be upside down, so he opted to do the gorge swing.  As far as jumping off the platform, this wasn’t any better than the bungee jump.  You aren’t upside down, but the freefall is about as far, and instead of bouncing up and down, you arc out over the gorge after falling around 250 feet or so.  He was noticeably nervous getting suited up for the jump, but when the time came he walked right off the edge of the platform.  My mother actually managed to watch.  There was an involuntary yell as he fell, but eventually the ropes became taut and he was swinging out over the rapids below.  I was extremely glad he had the cahones to take that leap. 

The rest of the day he was visibly high on adrenaline.  We did sundowners at the Royal Livingstone hotel where they actually had a flautist playing at sunset.  These kind of hotels make me a bit nauseous because they work to evoke a nostalgia for colonial times and are so over-the-top extravagant.  But, it was important to see the stark difference between this place and extreme poverty of the rest of the area.  Later we had dinner at the lodge and prepared for the drive the next day back to Lusaka.  I was pleased because my parents had been able to experience some pretty unique things so far. 

The next day I sprayed the car with odor eater and we left for Lusaka around 5:30 AM.  This time it was an uneventful drive back which was a relief.  Katie was waiting for us at the house and we were able to relax a bit before the third and final part of our trip which was South Luangwa, the jewel of the national parks in Zambia. 

First part of my parents trip

27JUN08

I attempted to write this up while I was in the airport in Johannesburg.  Of course I managed to find the only computer that worked there which abruptly restarted on me several times thus demolishing anything I had written.   I knew that I would have a hard time doing this once I got back to the US, but I’ve been trying.

My parents arrived in Lusaka on June 8 and luckily I was there waiting for them.  I say luckily because I had failed to give them any contact information for me before they left, so they were kind of dependent on my goodwill upon arrival.  Barry offered to take me to the airport to get them, so everything worked out well.  They ended up having their entire luggage and only being an hour late.  Kenyan airways did well.  Note that some African airlines are still a nightmare – when Katie tried to come home from Lusaka on Ethiopian airways, she got stuck in Addis Ababa for 2 days.  We also had at least 2 other people we knew in the previous 2 weeks get screwed by that airline.

Upon arrival in the city we went to a Braii at Ben’s house for the remaining interns who had not left to go home yet.  It was a nice, easy transition to Africa for my parents and a chance for them to meet many of the people I had worked with this year.  I don’t think they had realized how many people came to work there, or perhaps the rest of Africa even.   The food as always was fantastic which I think gave them some reassurance that they would be ok on this trip J.

The next day we did some of Lusaka.  Chikambusa is a women’s project for women and children with a US sponsor.  We went to see this project in N’gombe compound and visit the school and shop they ran there.  The women weave handbags out of the plastic bags that people get at the grocery store.  Ideally it is supposed to be made out of throw-away bags, but they’ve grown enough now that they order their own plastic bags from the suppliers.  For me this was sort of difficult – I applaud the self-sufficiency that came with making and selling these products, but I’m hoping they can diversify and move on from it because they are now creating market demand for these bags which are kind of universally regarded as a nuisance (and environmental nightmare – Rwanda has outlawed all plastic bags).  The up side is that it creates self-sufficiency for these divorced and abandoned women and their children.  The down-side is that they kind of thrive on the image that they are collecting these throw-away plastic bags and recycling them which is not really true any longer since they are buying them directly.  Foreigners are left with the impression that they are supporting an ecologically-minded solution to poverty.

For all that it is an interesting place and the buildings are nice and clean and the people there are benefiting.  It is a good thing in the short-term.  We saw the first grade class and bought a few things there.  My mother is planning on doing a unit on Africa based on the experiences of her trip here, so it was a good place to start. 

That afternoon we headed to the lab so they could see where I had been working the majority of the year.  I needed the time to catch up with Bertha on what was happening with her experiments, so it worked out well.  Barry was around and he took us to see the Kalingalinga school, the school where he donates desks for the children there to use.  This was the only completely publically funded school there, and as such was in the worst shape of the four schools we saw.  It was educational for my parents to see these conditions and to be able to report on them in the US. 

Oddly, at this time the Togatainer that Barry and I had designed was supposed to be arriving at the lab.  I had even met my South African counterpart, Elwin, who was in town to help install it.  We knew there were going to be some problems, but luckily I wasn’t around for the worst of it.  The first problem was that it had not made it to Lusaka.  In fact, Elwin was in contact with the truck that it was being carried on right up to the point when it was supposed to cross the Zambezi River on the ferry.  After that no one could contact the driver.  Many morbid jokes were cracked that depicted our Togatainer at the bottom of the river.  It would actually turn up 5 days later still in Livingstone awaiting the massive backlog of paperwork from all the trucks that were crossing the border there so as to avoid the clusterfuck in Zimbabwe. 

That afternoon I was able to go and collect the rental car which would later turn out to be the bane of my sanity on my parents trip.  Whenever you rent from a really sketchy place, you know there are going to be some problems, you just gamble on the hope that they will be somewhat easily solved.  On this trip that was not to be the case, but this will be discussed later.

The next morning, June 10, my parents and I loaded up the car and drove west out of Lusaka to make for Kafue National Park.  It took about 3-3.5 hours to get there and was their first experience of the African countryside.  It is hard to describe this, and that is part of why I wanted to drive – so they would be able to see for themselves what Africa is really like.  The vast majority of people in this country live a rural life based largely on subsistence farming.  Once out of Lusaka, you can see the little thatch huts along the side of the road and really start to wonder about what kind of existence these people have here. 

Upon entering the national park, I informed my parents that we would be getting far enough away from people now that we might be able to start seeing some wildlife.  We were not to be disappointed as right at the turnoff for our lodge from the main road we encountered our first elephant.  He was just hanging out eating some leaves about 20 feet off the road.  He was also the first in a litany of wildlife that they would be experiencing while here. 

Our lodge in Kafue was Mukambi lodge; I had camped here in August as one of the very first places that I had experienced.  Since it was just before the start of the high season we found to our surprise that we were the only guests at the lodge and therefore had extremely personalized service.  I was pleased to find Victor still there and handling our schedule of activities.  His storytelling and familiarity with the land and location are renowned and being able to have my parents get the stories from him made the trip worthwhile. 

Since we got there about 1 PM, we had missed the morning game drive, but were able to schedule for the one that night.  I wasn’t sure if we would be lucky enough to see any of the cats since there was still significant vegetation as the remains of the wet season hadn’t completely dried up.  Having the whole safari vehicle for ourselves and our guides was a treat that we would experience during their entire visit to Zambia.  My mother seemed somewhat dismayed to find that the whole vehicle was open air and there were no doors.  There was quick reassurance coming from the guides to make sure she knew that as long as she didn’t stand up, the wildlife would not identify her as an individual and would thus leave the car alone.  It was fun to watch as they embarked on their first real safari and started encountering the dizzying array of animals and critters that are found in places where no people live. 

As we drove for about 40 minutes sampling the various types of antelope, warthogs, and birds, I began to wonder if we would see anything larger this evening.  I was not disappointed as we managed to find a very large bull hippo sunning itself with a mother and child elephant not too far away.  It was a good start to the trip.  Passing on we managed to insert ourselves in between a large, young male elephant and his herd.  This was on accident, but it was the first exposure my parents had to a two ton animal getting cranky with them.  He mock charged, which can be unnerving that close.  Of course it had to be on the side of the car that my mother was sitting on.  The mock charge involves a lot of trumpeting and noise, and false starts towards the car while waving his ears about.  In close quarters this is intimidating at best.  He was about 10 feet away.  The guide moved to reassure my mother by leaving the engine running, but she still was having a bit of a difficult time actually looking at the elephant as it was making its fuss.  Eventually we moved forward about 20 feet and the elephant quickly crossed the road behind us to rejoin the rest of the herd. 

A little later we had sundowners and chips and watched the sunset over the African savannah.  While this image might bring to mind a rather hot and uncomfortable swath of mosquitoes to many people, that could not be farther from the truth.  No, up until now the evening could be described as mild temperature with few bugs.  After the sun went down my parents were glad that I warned them to dress for cold that night.  It cooled down a lot, and with the wind from driving in the open vehicle, you needed more than the blankets in the safari vehicles. 

There was one other car out that evening, full of people from another lodge whose vehicle had broken down so they were joining us.  On the night ride back towards the lodge, the guides pull out large spotlights and wave their beams across the landscape.  They are looking for the reflection from the eyes of animals, specifically the cats that tend to hunt at night.  We managed to find a couple of Genets – small primordial cats that look like a leopard mated with a raccoon.  When we were close to getting back to the place the radio crackled and the other truck told our driver something in one of the African tongues.  All of a sudden we were off, no longer bothering to look around where we were.  As we pulled up in a wide road behind the other vehicle we strained to see what they had located.  Not one leopard, but two – a male and a female – that had been mating when so rudely interrupted by the vehicles.  The female had bolted across the road, and now our car sat in between them with the male relaxing on one side of the road, and the female (obviously annoyed) waiting on the other side.  She made to get up and cross several times, but waited as long as we were there.  After we had taken all the pictures we wanted, we moved forward about 30 feet and then watched the road behind us.  Sure enough, the feline form quickly crossed back to her mate.  We drove on back to the lodge. 

Back at the river we disembarked the vehicles and crossed back over to the lodge.  Dinner was waiting, but since it was so cold out, they seated us inside.  The food was amazing and after all the game-viewing was much welcome.  The next day we had our activities planned out to fill the whole day.  Our chalet was the family chalet which had two separate bedrooms for my parents and me.  There was one large wall spider high up in the bathroom whose presence agitated my mother, but dad and I slept well enough. 

In the morning we were up for a walking safari at 6:30 AM.  While getting some coffee, Victor joined us and started talking about what we might see.  As he did so, an ominous, deep-throated roar rolled across the river.  The lions were hunting this morning just across from the lodge.  Once we heard that Victor and I hurried to get on the boat and cross (to the dismay of my mother).  Once out of the boat on the other side we had the talk – walk in single file, the guy with the big gun goes first.  If anything happens, do exactly what he says.  As if on cue the lion roared again.  This time it was much closer. 

The last time I was on a walking safari we didn’t have the opportunity to see any large animals.  Therefore I was ecstatic and a little frightened to think that shortly we’d be tracking lions on foot.  When you are in the large safari vehicles it is one thing.  It is another thing entirely to walk towards the l large roar that is emanating from the tree line in the distance. 

We immediately set about heading towards the location of those roars.  On the road we found fresh lion footprints and everyone kept their eyes out.  There were two brother lions that lived in the area and occasionally hunted near here.  Soon enough Victor and the guard had spotted one.  It was perhaps a football field away from where we were standing, heading away from the river and towards a farther tree line.  There was no mistaking the shadowy movements in the brush.  We followed on, hoping to get closer.  Then the second brother was spotted – about the same distance away.  I was able to clearly see his whole form, though he was still fairly distant.  My father saw him also, though my mother said she couldn’t see it there.  Probably good at this point. 

We tracked them for a little while and would steal glimpses of them moving through the brush.  After a little while we saw vultures circling in the direction from where the lions had come.  Victor discussed the vultures and their habits, how they contributed to the stripping of a dead carcass and what role they played in the circle of life.  As he did so, one after another was drifting down to the same area about 50 yards away from us.  Finally, after about 6 had landed, he suggested we go see what was there.  The vultures didn’t let us get too close before flying off, but there we found the remains of a Puce that had been unlucky enough to encounter both of the brothers sometime last night.  As far as remains left, there wasn’t much.  The four legs were kind of strewn about and two halves of the skull remained.  Not much else was evident at this point beyond a few disjointed chunks of spine.  For my part I was happy the lions had feasted before we arrived. 

My mother had some difficulty with the coarse ground, so Victor held her hand the rest of the way.  My father and I got some good pictures of her new boyfriend.  Dad reminded her of the first time she went diving also – when she managed to get her own guide and hold his hand through the entire experience.  History repeats itself. 

After the walking safari we had a bit to eat and then went on a pontoon boat cruise up the river.  We found lots of crocodiles, and watched hippos play hide and seek with the boat.  At one point we saw a group of elephants, but in this area they generally don’t let you get too close.  Too much memory from a time when poaching was rife here.  We also saw the village from the boat and my mother asked about the school that was there.  So, after the boat ride we ended up there.  Turns out Victor is the headman for the village and the lodge supports the school there.  They have a nice building, provided for by donors who have come to the lodge.  Unfortunately there are no real teachers there, but the lodge owners sent off someone to be trained who will be returning soon to be headmaster. 

Later that night we went on one more game drive and managed to see a leopard before sunset.   I have a great picture of him sticking his inquisitive face up over a termite hill.  During the night drive this time we were nearly run into by a hippo in the bush.  He turned just at the last second and then scampered off into the bush.  It is difficult to describe a one ton animal scampering, but that is the best word I have for it. 

The next morning we were driving by 6:30 AM back to Lusaka.  On the way out of the park, two impala ran across the road.  I wasn’t surprised by this until a large dog looking creature ran out an almost hit my car.  I thought originally it was a hyena, but I had not seen any before.  It turns out that we saw a wild dog, a most rare find and one more animal I had not seen yet.  Eventually we made it back to Lusaka and had lunch before setting out on the next step in our adventure, the 7 hour (supposedly) ride to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls.  I will continue that story in the next post.

 

Delays

I have been continually trying to get to writing up my parents trip here, but since I got back into the country I have been inundated with a million things to do and people to catch up with.  Trying to get my schedule organized for this last year of school here has also turned out to be a chore.  I will be posting here soon and it may end up being a little more piecemeal than I had expected.  It is funny that as soon as I get back here all my time just went away.  Go figure.

You will be entertained to know that the first time I started driving again I found myself driving on the wrong side of the road.  Also, I have been going through american food like nobody’s business.  Other than that, it’s mostly been things that while interesting to me, are not really worth writing about. 

This weekend I will be heading back up to Chicago to see some family that I wasn’t able to catch up with in the mad rush to get down here and get paperwork moving.  Hopefully will find some time to get through the pictures and writeup of the last trip before I left.

Last post from Zambia

Today is my last day here.  Tomorrow morning I get on an airplane and head to Johannesburg and then Washington D.C. via Senegal and finally Chicago.  If I’m lucky my sister-in-law is picking me up from the airport.  If not, then we’ll see. 

My parents had a full trip here and saw as much of Zambia as we could pack in during the short time here.  Since I have a 9 hour layover in Johannesburg tomorrow, I’ll probably try to write up a summary of the things we did while we were here.  If I get really motivated I’ll post some pictures too, but that may have to wait until I get back to the US. 

As I mentioned before, I’ll probably recount the last couple of weeks with my parents and give another post or two about the transition back to life in the US.  Once that is done I’ll stop posting here as the year in Africa comes to a close. 

Short Update

I know everyone is wondering just how my parents are doing here in Africa so I thought I would give an update. At the moment we are in Livingstone and have done quite a bit, though getting here was kind of crazy. The rental car broke down twice on the 7 hour drive down here, the second time in the middle of the night (way out in nowhere africa). My mother handled it well when we had to ditch the car and flag down a bus to get the rest of the way. The rental car place sent down a new car the next day that smells like fish. Very strong.

Other highlights:

My mother pissed off an elephant and got mock charged.

We nearly made road kill out of a hyena that was chasing some impala across the road.

A hippo tried to run into out vehicle on a night game drive.

We have visited three local Zambian schools so my mom could see how things are done here.

We rode in a helicopter over Victoria falls, then went on foot and got soaked by the mist.

My favorite - we interrupted two leopards having sex. I shit you not.

I will write more later when I have a bit more time and give some more details. So far we have survived. This afternoon we will go to Zimbabwe for a little bit and then head back to Lusaka tomorrow. I have great pictures of my parents riding an elephant.

Parents made it.

09JUN08

 

The parents made it here yesterday and Barry and I met them at the airport.  Impressively they were only late by an hour on Kenya airways and even more impressively they had all their luggage.  We came into the city and got them situated at my apartment and then went to the intern house to meet my friends.  Ben Chi had a Braii at his place as a goodbye for the interns so we attended.  The food was amazing and it was a nice easy entry into Zambia for my parents.  We also walked around a little to Northmead market so they could get a little sense of the place.  Both were on stimulants to fight the jet lag, and managed to stay up until at least 9 PM. 

 

Today we are going to Chikambusa, a place where women and orphans make crafts to sell.  We will also get to the lab so they can see where I’ve been working for the year and finally to the local school at Kalingalinga to see where the desks have been donated to Kalingalinga.  Tomorrow we are off to Kafue National Park for their first experience on safari. 

My mother has been pleasantly surprised with the whole experience so far.  I get the sense that she expected to be slowly eaten alive by a million mosquitos when she got off the plane or perhaps step out into and endless expanse of desert or jungle.  Not exactly what things are like here.  In fact, it is in a sense a paradise as far as the weather is concerned.  So I’m pleased to report that her fears have been assuaged by a reassuring entry into Africa.  In fact, they both commented that Kenya Airways was much nicer than most of the American carriers.  I’m forced to agree…we often have this image that everything in America is the best.  That is often not the case. 

 

I’m excited to get them out to some of the game parks.  My father is also pondering making the bungee jump at Victoria Falls.  Maybe I’ll go again.  Other things to do include riding elephants there, cross over into Zimbabwe for a bit, and possibly take a helicopter ride to see the falls from above. 

 

Last Work Day

07JUN08

 

Yesterday was my last day of work.  Officially.  Of course I’ll be back there Monday with my parents to show them the lab which also affords me a chance to poke my nose into a few ongoing things there.  It was an interesting day – Barry and the lab people managed to get me a cake with the words “Muyende Bwino Erik” written on it.  They actually spelled my name right.  This translates to Go Well or Travel Well.  He also got me a Zambia baseball hat from one of the guys selling them between cars at the major intersections.  I’ve been considering getting one all year (it was between one of those hats or one of the ducks they carry around) so it was nice to get one.  

 

The last week here was hectic with all the things I was trying to get into place for the study.  We hired a new Data Associate named Mwala who I am really excited about, he seems like a very smart guy and wants to work with Barbara on the database.  I was on his interview panel a couple of weeks ago and he was my first choice for the position.

 

Though I have done supervisory work before, I repeatedly become acutely aware of what is important to work like this, and am reminded of it when I see the decisions made by some people higher up the chain in this and other organizations. 

 

In any job, but especially in research, it is critical to have people who are curious and like to learn.  There is a big difference between that and the people who are really good at performing a set of tasks over and over again and go home precisely at the end of the work day.  Both are important and of course there are other types.  However, an interest in understanding all aspects of a project, how things work, what can go wrong, and how to fix it are critical in experimental research.  The nature of the work means that there are lots of things that are unknown, lots of procedures that need to be sorted out and always lots of mistakes that need to be made and learned from.

 

In the past several weeks I have had Esnart and Bertha practicing the cell stimulations and staining procedures over and over so that they can make the obvious mistakes and learn from them now instead of during the study itself.  Having two days of hard work fail to produce anything because of one missed reagent has a tendency to produce head-slapping moments of ‘Duh’ when you finally figure out what went wrong that time.  This highlights the mistake for the person who made it and makes it something acutely remembered in future procedures.  We have made some good mistakes these past weeks and learned well from them.  Beyond this point, while I will always be available to them via phone or e-mail, a large chunk of the problem solving is going to depend on their understanding and familiarity with the techniques. 

 

The recognition of what is important in a research setting brings me to another topic.  I was hoping that Barry would be available to them as a senior lab person where they can ask questions about things they are not sure of.  That may not happen now.  Because of the devaluation of the dollar, all the departments at CIDRZ are having to cut expenses.  Apparently his job is one under consideration for cutting.  There are a number of reasons for this, among them are labor laws that say that you can’t hire a foreigner for a job that a Zambian can do.  Although Barry does not have credentials that separate him from the Zambian workforce, he does have quite a few years of experimental laboratory-based research behind him which makes him quite unique in this situation.  The Zambians that are hired as medical technicians are often quite intelligent, but there is a very large difference between performing routine lab tests on patient blood day in and day out and performing experimental research with all the uncertainty and problem-solving that goes with it.  Building capacity for research takes a long time, and it is critical to have people with that type of experience in a lab if you want to have reliable results.  I am concerned for the quality of research (or even the ability to perform future research) that will be here if the many small tasks that Barry performs are left to be distributed to whoever wants to take them up in the lab.  Not that others can’t perform them, but if you’ve never done it before, you need to be trained from someone who knows what the heck they are doing. 

 

I have had friends in the past express the view, especially when I was working mainly in engineering, that there must be little need for scientists or engineers in the modern world since everything that they do can now be done by computers anyway.  This is an extremely naïve viewpoint, and displays a striking ignorance of how things work.  Machines do not run themselves, things break, and computers only do exactly what you tell them (if you fuck up the exact part, you get something that does not work).  Try to get creative or do something new and you better have a programming background to get things done.  Sure, businesses and other groups can hire people to do these things, but if the people making the ultimate decisions do not understand how much goes into making technology work in this world, then they are extremely apt to make poor decisions about how to proceed. 

 

A common theme here is that if people would only install the required machines, then a given problem would be solved.  Funny thing is that machines break, and service people can be incompetent.  I’ve seen both here this year and watched the lab get strung along on things because there is only one company to supply certain equipment or because the lab technicians simply didn’t know any better.  I watched the development of a new tuberculosis lab where the doctors essentially did not realize how difficult the things they were proposing were, and when people told them, they did not want to hear it.  They seemed to think that by purchasing a certain machine they could do TB research.  It was a wake-up call that they might have to spend a very long time training people to do the research and oh, that machine you bought, it only does steps 1 and 2 of what needs to be done.  Steps 3 - 76 involve other steps that require a thinking person to perform and troubleshoot.  Also there are problems with the electricity here that cause most machines to burn out within a year instead of the 10 years that it would take in America.  Once again, something an experienced person recognizes and plans for.  Losing your experienced people sets you up for failure. 

 

There are many fields where the cost-benefit analysis seems to fail because people applying it incorrectly gauge the benefits they are receiving.  Research is a big one because it is so difficult to characterize the value of an idea or the value of experience in development of problems or products where there is no guarantee you will be successful. 

Another major area that is like this is teaching – how much cheaper it is to hire people straight out of college who work for much less than the 50 year old teacher with advanced degrees who has been in the classroom for years.  The benefits out are so much more difficult to measure because they occur over long timeframes and are part of the accumulation of life experiences that children have on the path to adulthood.

 

My hope is that the people making these decisions at some point work to understand the value of infrastructure that allows them to have administrative positions.  It stands out more blatantly here than at home because so much of the infrastructure is either not in place or not reliable.  In a place like this, it is that much more important to know a lot more about what you are doing if you actually want to get anything done. 

 

 

Tomorrow my parents come and we will be traveling around Zambia so that they can experience some of the things I’ve been able to see here.  I have saved the biggest park here (South Luangwa) for last so that I can experience it with them.  Over the time they are here I will probably update this site a few more times and post some pictures of the things we see.  My father sounds like he wants to bungee jump now.  My mother may try to kill me for putting that idea in his head.  I expect to post once after my return to the US to discuss the difficulties of coming home after this much time in this place.  After that I will close off this blog as my year in Africa is completed. 

 

 

 

 

Leap of Faith

01JUN08

 

At the beginning of the year, I promised myself that before I left, I would bungee jump off of the Victoria Falls.  That mission was accomplished this weekend.

 

Early on my friend Thabiso and I talked about doing that.  He is Zambian and though he is 28 years old had never been to the Victoria Falls.  One of those if you live there, you just always assume you’ll get around to it things.  We agreed that at the end of my time here we would take a trip down there together and that trip started yesterday (Saturday) morning at 6 AM.  Thabiso, Kristen and I decided it was time and caught the 6 AM bus from Lusaka to Livingstone.  This is the 4^th time that I have been to Livingstone this year and while there I have managed to accomplish white water rafting and bungee jumping.  There are lots of other things to do, and when my parents come I plan to ride elephants with them while there. 

 

The trip down was fairly relaxed, and though I had been thinking about the jump for some time I did not feel that tense or nervous.  Once before have I bungee jumped while in Florida off of a Tower that was 100 ft. tall.  This is something else completely.  The bridge stands at 111 meters (364 ft.) and overlooks a beautiful gorge.  This time of year the river is still fairly high.  The jump is not off the falls itself, but off the bridge that traverses the gorge immediately after the falls connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe.  You can see the falls from the bridge, but only a small portion because the falls are actually in their own gorge. 

 

This is the first time I have been out on the bridge, and looking down when we got out there started the second-thoughts about the wisdom of this decision.  Kristen had come with us, but would only jump if someone jumped with her (tandem).  This is allowed, but there is a weight limit of 140 kilograms.  Thabiso had agreed to jump with her, and they both had actually been fasting to make sure they could make that limit.  When we weighed in at the bridge, they informed them that they could not do the bungee jump together because the high level of water had reduced the maximum allowable weight to 130 kg (they were over by about 4 kg).  Apparently they don’t want you actually hitting the water   They did have the option for the gorge swing, and as we were to find out, that is at least as terrifying as the bungee jump with a damn long freefall too. 

 

Once paid up, the woman at the office wrote in thick black marker my weight in kilograms and my number on the list (74 and 29) on my right forearm.  I wondered briefly if it was for identifying the body afterwards.  Turns out there was no wait when we got to the bridge.  Out in the middle of the bridge is a small hut that hangs off the side.  There were lots of people around it, but they were mostly watching the stupid ones like me taking the plunge.  A few of them screwed up the courage after we had gone. 

 

As soon as I walked up, the guys running the show had me empty out my pockets and don a harness that they told me was my back-up.  I wondered how it would actually back things up, there’s only one cord actually attached.  Once on the platform, everyone had safety cords attached, and I sat and got the attachment to my ankles.  They used towels and wrapped one around each leg as tight as they could get it, pushed my legs together, and attached the cord both around and then between my legs.  Now I understood the back-up harness – it would be loosely attached to the cord connection in case my legs fell out of the towel harness.  Not really reassuring since my mental images of failure were more along the lines of the bungee cord snapping or not actually being connected correctly.  Luckily, the guys doing this were good at their job, both in the connections and in keeping your mind from focusing on the immense amount of stupidity that you were about to engage in.  They made a lot of idle chit-chat designed to keep you babbling instead of focusing.  When I stood up I realized my legs were bound so tightly that I couldn’t walk and had to waddle like a penguin over to get the cord attached. 

 

At this point I was two feet from the edge where I would be jumping, and now the fear hits.  It is kind of like a wave of realization (read fear) that you are all strapped in and everyone is expecting you to jump now – up until this point it was theoretical, now it has become practical.  And, with that practicality, that portion of your mind that was sitting in the background saying to itself that he’ll never actually do it so there is nothing to worry about suddenly looks up and goes “Holy Shit, what are you doing??”

 

Luckily my legs are tied so I can’t hobble away effectively and besides that there are two guys helping me up to the edge and continuously talking to me about inane things.  I start to look down and one of them quickly tells me not to do that.  He says just look straight ahead, it makes it easier.  My toes are now at the edge of the platform and there is absolutely nothing in front of me.  The guide tells me to look over to the side for a second, and I see Thabiso with my camera taking a picture.  After that I look forward, and by now my heart is racing.  The portion of my mind that wants to take control is still trying to figure a way out of this, and then the guides countdown quickly – 5..4..3..2..1..bugeeeee!!!

 

I am pushed more than jump out into the abyss, but I keep my eyes open the whole time.  I hear myself scream and look straight ahead to see the canyon walls blur and the raging water at the bottom come into sharp focus.  The mist from the falls has created a rainbow as you look down towards the water.  Swirling waters and a rainbow are all I remember seeing on the initial drop.  I felt a snap and gravity returned to my body slowly over a long distance.  I feel my whole body tense as my feet struggled to hang on to the connection pulling at my ankles.  The water kept coming closer.  I did not make it down far enough to touch the water, and I don’t trust my estimate of the distance from that angle, but it felt like I was pretty close to it when my direction reversed and I shot back up towards the bridge. 

 

On the way back up the initial tension is lost and it just feels like I’m floating.  There is a momentary worry thinking that I’m traveling upwards pretty quickly and wondering if I’ll hit the bridge.  Watching the video later, I notice that I got close to the bottom of the bridge, but nothing dangerous.  The loose cord comes close and I bat it away with my arm as visions of getting it wrapped around my neck as I head back down come unbidden.  Suddenly I’m going back down again, but this time there is no fear, just relaxation into the fall.  At bottom the cord starts to spin me around, so when I reach the top of the second rise I’m slowly spinning around, the video of it makes me look like I know what I’m doing, though at no time do I actually have control of anything at all. 

 

I bounce about 6-7 times total and then notice a guy hanging out in midair – he’s been lowered on his own rope to come collect me.  Once again there is a lot of small talk as he moves attachments and gets me into a sitting position next to him.  The ride back up to the bridge takes a little while, and you don’t get back to the platform – instead you are deposited on the structure of the bridge underneath.  Another guide navigates you through pathways under the bridge until you reach a set of steel stairs heading back up to the top. 

 

Once back on the bridge, I made my way back over to watch Kristen and Thabiso do their jump.  They were strapped together and getting instructions on what to do, hold on to, and how to jump since they were doing the gorge swing.  I had wondered if they would swing straight out, but no – there is definitely a lot of freefall before the rope tightens and you swing out of the fall.  The harness attaches to their bodies, not their ankles, so they have to walk out off the ledge.  It was apparent that they were expecting a little more prep time because when the guides counted down from 5, neither of them moved at first.  Finally, after a few seconds they walked to the edge and took the plunge together.  It looked like a looong drop, and I heard Kristen scream on the way down.  Instead of bouncing straight up and down, the arc of their swing took them way out into the gorge.

 

Eventually they got back up to the top and we all did the touristy thing and bought the video and the pictures.  I have posted some of the good ones here:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53965&l=762ec&id=506455254

 

 

After that we visited the falls because Thabiso had never seen them.  It is something to have an adrenaline experience like jumping off that bridge and then to have time to contemplate the grandeur of something like the falls.  Everything seems a little more vibrant after doing something like that.  I notice the colors more, and the deep bass reverberating through the canyon from the sound of the water crashing below.  I realize that one of the things that I will miss about Africa is the sense that no one is looking to protect you from yourself.  Here I can walk right off a cliff if I am not careful.  If this was Niagara Falls, I couldn’t even get close. 

 

Earlier in the fall I was able to go out on the upstream side of the falls and swim in pools at the edge of the drop, stick my head out and look down.  It is refreshing to be in a place where people are not so litigious that everyone’s good time has to be squelched for fear of lawsuits.  I have friends here who asked why I would go do something like swim at the edge of the drop or jump off the bridge or jump out of a plane.  Some people view these things as adrenaline addictions or a show of machismo or something similar.  The real reason is much more complicated than that.

 

We all spend so much of our lives on autopilot.  This is much easier in the United States than it is here just because of the difficulty with transportation or finding things that you want.  Working here is an amazing frustration on a daily basis and it is always so easy to get caught up in the tiny minute details of life that we lose the ability to live in the moment.  When you walk up to the edge there is nothing else to contemplate, and no place else to live but in that moment.  There is a great deal of faith in the rope, but also a recognition that things fail and this could easily be that one time that people talk about when the guy died at Victoria Falls.

 

So you step to the edge even though every shred of common sense is telling you not to.  Everything in the lab falls away, everything from work, every minor annoyance leaves, and all you have is the edge and that moment…and then you fall.  That is why you take that leap – because it reminds you of how simple life really is and how small and insignificant all those little things are.  The memory of that moment carries you on from there.

Observations

29MAY08

 

A guard and his family are having issues.  They live in a compound and keep getting robbed here.  You see, if it is after dark and you go to the compounds on a minibus, people tell me you have to run all the way home and hope you don’t get attacked.  I suppose it depends on the compound, but what do you expect in a place where there is massive unemployment.  Anyway, his wife got beat up and had 150,000 kwacha stolen from her.  This is about $43, a large amount of money for a family like this.  Katie was worried about him and has been talking to banks to see if she could help them get a bank account so they wouldn’t have to keep money at home.  Turns out that the mimimum monthly fee for a checking account that she has found is 30,000 kwacha ($9).  That is pretty much out of their means, the guards here don’t make enough to put a large portion of their salary into bank fees. 

 

Restaurants here are a funny thing.  Although I generally expect to have to explain things several times and probably get the wrong food anyway, I still try to tip the wait staff.  It is interesting since tipping is not an entrenched custom here as it is in the US.  We learned a while ago that at many restaurants, if we leave a tip on the table, the owner will take it from the staff.  It has become a sort of spy game we play, handing it off directly to wait staff to make sure that the owners don’t get it.   Yesterday I was at lunch at a place that I like and the owner was outside when I wanted to give the tip.  We know the waitress because we eat there fairly regularly.  She asked us to hide the money in the bushes for her to get later because the owners could see us.  It is amazing.

 

Today we were at an Indian restaurant, one that we have been to before.  They have two rabbits that they keep in a cage.  We know they are for show only because they are still there.  We chose to sit outside today; the last time they were there they let the rabbits run around while they cleaned out their cage.  This time there was a goat running around the yard, bleating.  As he ran past us, one of the grounds men was herding it along with a meat cleaver.  We joked about who ordered the goat.  Then, around the corner we heard a lot more bleating and eventually silence.  The looks exchanged said it all.  No one went to check; we tried not to think about what had just happened.  As we got up to leave, I looked around the corner, and sure enough, they had the goat’s body tied up to the tree and were skinning it.  I can’t make this stuff up. 

 

It has been difficult being here this year, and with the end of my time fast approaching I am inclined to take stock of where I am at.  CIDRZ as an organization does a lot of good; they are keeping a lot of people alive who otherwise would be dead.  My own project and the paper I’ve written this year contribute to the discussion of contraception, a sorely needed and often undiscussed option within the third world.  People having too many children contributes to their inability to make ends meet.  The option for reliable contraception needs to be available and accepted for people to be able to start gaining control over the economic situation here.  But CIDRZ is operating within the whole of Zambia, and it is not divorced from its problems even if it is affiliated with a US institution. 

 

It is funny, CIDRZ actually follows the rules – they subtract taxes from their employee’s paychecks as dictated by Zambian law.  Other NGO’s apparently often do not do so and therefore can tout higher salaries and poach workers.  CIDRZ also tries to not compete and poach workers from the Zambian Ministry of Health, and this also undercuts their ability to recruit and retain hard workers.  One of the people I know who is perhaps one of the best Zambians that I have worked with here has gotten an offer from another NGO that is more than twice what he is making here.  It is hard to stay when that kind of money is tossed at you.  The job is not in science, it is in procurement, and I think would not offer long term benefits that following through on his education could offer, but the long-road is not one often taken here.  I’m taking him out to dinner tonight, we shall see how the conversation goes. 

 

Another friend of mine has been notified that he may be losing his job shortly because of the devaluation of the American dollar.  Since money comes in from the US, the amount that it has dropped over the time I’ve been here has real-world consequences.  it was about 4100 kwacha to the dollar when I got here, and is now around 3500 kwacha to the dollar – a loss of almost 15% of buying power.  This is an unfortunate side-effect of a weak dollar.  It is interesting how important the strength of the dollar has come to be this year to me, before this I was never affected in the long term by it so obviously. 

 

 

More on the Kalingalinga Foundation

 

25MAY08

 

I have talked here about the Kalingalinga Foundation several times and promised pictures.  I’m posting some today to show a little bit of the projects that are going on for us.  Part of the reason I’m putting this up here is because with Africa it seems you can never be quite sure where the money is going.  Barry and his group put 100% of the money that comes in towards two things at the moment – feeding the ART patients who have to wait around for clinic appointments all day at Kalingalinga Clinic, and purchasing locally made desks and bookshelves for the school across the street from the clinic.  The pictures that I am posting were taken by Barry and with permission from the people in them. 

 

As I have worked here all year and helped with these projects on occasion, I feel comfortable recommending this group as something that I know gets donations to a place where they are helping people in need.  Additionally, since they contract with local craftsmen to make the desks and bookshelves that they are putting in the school, they also help the local economy.  One of my biggest complaints with Lusaka and Zambia in general is that the vast majority of businesses seem to be run by foreigners, especially South Africans, and that money that does come into the country through tourism or business is often shuttled right back out of the country without ever contributing to local development.  Therefore it is significant that Barry has gotten to know the local craftsmen and is buying from them rather than at the large South African owned superstores that are in Lusaka. 

 

The pictures are here along with some other random things I’ve been meaning to post including some pictures of the quilt I’m so proud of, some comparison photos of the bridge on the road to Macha that was out in the rainy season with what it looked like in April, and a few other random things. 

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53007&l=01409&id=506455254

 

And once again, if you are interested in donating, here is the address:

 

http://www.active.com/donate/kalingalinga

 

 

Another interesting subject that someone asked about here – hunting.  Big game hunting is still common in Africa, and I have met some hunters that take out foreigners to hunt animals here, even some that are struggling in terms of numbers.  Though I have a natural aversion to hunting, the issue is not one that is as simple as right and wrong here, and having conversations about it has given me much to think about. 

 

There is licensing for hunting here, areas in which it can be done legally, and limits on what you can kill.  Some of the hunters that I’ve met describe agreements with local villages where the body of any kills such as buffalo and elephants are given to the villages for food and parts.  Sometimes hunters are contracted out to kill ‘problem’ animals that have been causing issues for villages.  One difficulty readily acknowledged by the hunters I spoke with was who is defining problem and whether people can identify the correct animal anyway. 

 

An interesting side effect of the hunting phenomenon is that in an economic sense, it raises the value of the animals that are being killed.  I have read about locations in South Africa and some other countries where endangered populations are coming back from the brink because their value has been increased so much by the prospect of hunting.  This results in a market for both protecting the wild populations from poachers as well as creating reserves to boost the populations of available game.  It is an interesting dilemma, I myself am disgusted at the need or interest in killing anything, but I am also interesting in anything that results in a rebound in the population of these animals and a preservation of the ecological diversity of our world.  It is funny to think that the very industry that led to the near extinction of many of these species may now be playing a significant role in their preservation.  The world is a crazy place.