My week in Livingstone was amazing, full of lots of
adventures, eating out and relaxing by the pool. Before I even came to Zambia I
decided the one thing I had to do was the bungee jump of a bridge at Victoria
Falls. I found out its good value to do a bungee jump, gorge swing and zip wire
slide so I paid to do all three. I surprisingly wasn’t that nervous doing the
bungee, I didn’t really think about what I was about to do, which was a good
thing as it’s a 110m free fall. I felt a bit more nervous when the guy put a
lifejacket on me and explained it was in case I ‘decided’ to go swimming! The actual
jump was fun although very disorientating and quite painful on the ankles as
they leave you hanging upside down for what feels like a very long time. The whole
experience was kind of ruined though by the fact that I was sick as soon as my
feet touched solid ground and I continued to throw up for the next few hours. I
also couldn’t sit up or open my eyes for about an hour and had to be piggy
backed to a taxi and driven home to sleep…needless to say I didn’t do the swing
or slide that day.
We also went on a 2 hour sunset cruise which was really luxurious
and surprising that we could have as much to drink as we liked, in fact the
captain told us the motto for the trip is ‘the more you drink, the more you
see!’ Along the river we saw loads of hippos and as we were coming back to
shore a family of elephants came to the water to drink and then they started to
cross the river. The sunsets in Zambia are beautiful and even more so from a
boat with a ‘sunset’ cocktail in hand.
We had some really nice dinners out, my favourite being the
night when I had crocodile meat on a skewer which tastes amazing. On the last
day Cherie and I went to Victoria Falls where you can walk over the top of the
majority of it as the water runs out during the dry season. The last part of
the falls has water all year round and we had a guide take us to the ‘devil’s
pool’ which is on the edge of the falls and you have to swim through part of
the falls to get to it. When you’re swimming only 5 or so metres from the drop
and you can feel the current pulling you towards to edge of the waterfall it gets
a little scary and it wasn’t until afterwards that we found out 5 people died
accidently falling over the top last year! It was definitely worth it though to
be able to say I have hung over the top of one of the Seven Wonders of the
World!
I had to go back to the bungee place to get a voucher saying
I could come back to do my slide and swing another time. But Cherie and I decided
to do the zip wire as it wasn’t very scary and it was fun to be able to go
slowly over the rapids and enjoy the view. I was going to leave after that however
the guys working there are pretty persuasive and convinced me to the gorge
swing which again is 110m free fall but thankfully you stay the right way up
for this one. I was so glad I gave in to the peer pressure as it one of the
scariest but most fun things I’ve done. The initial adrenaline rush is crazy
and it feels so unnatural to just be falling so (as you can see on video on Facebook)
I thought running in the air might help me feel more safe…id didn’t! Once you’re
swinging though you can just take in the view which is lovely. All in all it
was a really nice break away but also nice to be back in Kaniki and feel like I
was home.
The 2 or 3 weeks before our trip away were very busy as life
always seems to be out here. The playschool takes up most of our time and
thankfully things have started to improve there. Although I still almost daily
have to physically hold children on the ‘thinking chair’ and I am getting used
to children pinching, hitting and kicking me. On the whole though the children
are starting to respond to the discipline and seem to enjoy having more ‘teaching
time’. We’ve made some big changes introducing 2 classes so we don’t have 2-7
year olds in one class which has helped a lot and the fact that the children
will now sit and listen quietly on the carpet is a massive achievement. It feels
really rewarding to give the children new experiences such playing with play
dough and doing fun games like scavenger hunts. And despite us being very strict
with them, every morning when we arrive they come running up to us giving us
hugs so we must be doing something right. One of the biggest frustrations is
getting the children to speak English but they understand a lot more even if they’re
not always speaking it. One of the children, Merena, made me laugh when I was
trying to help her say ‘please can I have the bike?’ which she managed but when
I said no, later she then repeated ‘please can I have the later?’
Another part of my routine which I have really enjoyed is my
weekly visit to the local village school in Kamfinsa. The school is typically
Zambian, as in it only has a few desks and a chalkboard and the teachers
although very enthusiastic don’t really understand how to teach Phonics
(reading and writing) and therefore once I week I cycle there and teach
vocabulary and phonics for 2 and half hours. One week I took a simple snap game
to play which they couldn’t get enough of, luckily after 3 games it was time
for me to leave so I could say no when they asked to play again! The children
are 9 and 10 years old (but I’m teaching them year one phonics) which is not my
normal age group to work with but I’m really loving it as the class are so
eager to learn.
Also went to the local church in Kamfinsa which is always
enjoyable listening to them singing in Bemba but in over 35 degree heat it’s quite
hard to stay awake for a 4hour meeting. In the preach the speaker was meant to
speak English and the translator in Bemba, however the speaker kept changing to
Bemba mid-sentence which the translator found very confusing and ended up repeating
most things in Bemba which was entertaining to watch but not very helpful for
us to understand what was being said!
We have started spending a bit more time with the students
here at the Bible college and we now join in with their sports afternoons where
I’ve played chess (very badly) and volleyball which is sometimes a bit scary as
they’re all so competitive, being the only girls and white they take it easy on
us though! We often have dinner with them after too so I’m getting more used to
eating with my hands, using the nshima as a sort of spoon.
One weekend we drove 2hours to ‘the sunken lake’ which is an
amazing place where a group of caves collapsed in leaving a huge clear water lake
where the shallowest end is 150m deep and they haven’t even been able to dive
to the bottom of the deepest end. Some of the Danish people who live here have
been going there for years so there was a big group of us who camped overnight,
cooking on an open fire and going to the toilet in a hole we dug. Annoyingly after
only an hour of being there I decided to tackle the rope swing which is
attached to a very high tree and swings you out into the lake. I was pretty
nervous as it was a long way down and you had to jump out sideways to avoid the
rocks. I should have been more concerned with the thin rope attached at the
bottom of the thick one because it wrapped around my ankle mid-air and before I
could untangle it I had to let go so I didn’t swing back into the rocks and
ended up with the most painful rope burn all around my foot and ankle. That was
3 weeks ago and it’s still healing up now so it was very deep and I have had to
retell the story more times than I can count…Zambians are quite inquisitive! I still
had a good time though, swimming from one end of the lake to the other and
doing a straight 6m jump (no ropes involved) into the lake from some rocks.
And finally, the highlight of my time so far, I became an
aunty to the gorgeous little Noah! It’s so exciting and I think my sister and
brother in law have done very well to produce such a cutie of a baby. It’s hard
not to be able to have cuddles with Noah but I think it will make the first
time I meet him at Christmas in South Africa even more special….a day I literally
cannot wait for!!
