Chased by a mad woman!

Sorry for the late posting of this blog but it has been challenging to get online of late and I have been a busy bee. All is still wonderful here but I am starting to get cravings for things from home, specifically food, hugs with Isla and Bertie, just being able to pick up the phone and catch up or head to the bell for a cheeky cold glass of sauvignon blanc.... oh how I miss you.

Last weekend and this weekend VSO buddies from other parts of Zambia are staying so things are busy. I have been out to a few local Zambian Zambian nightspots all in the name of research for their arrival. I have noticed the following:

1.       All of them look the same essentially although the size might differ but laser beams are clearly a big hit here along with disco balls.

2.       Zambian men like to dance either by dry humping the nearest female to them or by themselves in front of a mirror. I can literally watch them for hours, very amused and slightly in fear of a little hump occurring on my leg or elsewhere.

3.       The toilets are literally like the depths of hell. I find it so stressful I can never actually do a whole pee so have to go back every 20 minutes. Last time I was out someone had actually pooed on the floor. I reached a whole new level of OCD.

The toilets in disco houses are not the only mine fields. Wherever I go have to take loo roll, soap and antiseptic wipes for those little moments in life when you just need to be clean whilst on the move. I cannot tell what is dirt on my feet and what is tan lines regardless of how often I clean my feet because it is so dusty here!!

So some highlights from the last week include:

·         A bus crash on the way back from the orphanage last Wednesday. The driver was drinking jili jili, which is a small sachet of 40 % spirit, as he drove along. No one else seemed to mind but I sat there tutting away in disgust/horror/fear. He then decides he needs to overtake a rather large truck, even though we were already hurtling along at about 40 miles an hour. As he overtakes he misjudges the distance and ploughs the bus off the road and into a tree. No one was hurt or even really bothered by the incident. I demanded my money back, got on another bus and held my St Christopher in my hand the whole journey!

·         I have been asked various random things on my bus journey to work, normally very amusing or just weird. One morning a man gets on the bus wearing part of an Asda uniform which was in fact a sleeveless fleece top with George at Asda emblazoned on it. It seems muscle vests or as we would know them vest tops are a popular item with men out here. The chap in question proudly asked me if I thought he looked good today. Hmmmm.....

·         I was walking to Cairo Road which is the main part of Lusaka city, it is also, in my opinion, the most horrendous place I have ever been and makes Streatham High Road look like a Utopia. I have to walk over a bridge to get there from my house. The bridge transports 6 lanes of traffic in and out of the town centre, so on one side you have traffic on the other it is just a sheer drop onto the railway lines below. Out of nowhere a woman wearing nothing but a wrapper skirt- er yes literally nothing else- starts to run at me screaming in another language. She then proceeds to chase me over the bridge. People in the cars were all shouting out of the windows of their cars in Nyanja. All I could think was how I did not want to die on a bridge to Cairo Road and yet how amusing the sight of a bare breasted woman chasing a Musungu must be. I survived to tell the tale and will never cross that bridge again.

Things have been getting better at the orphanage. I now have a routine there which is working well. I have pleaded with the staff that I have to pick up the babies when they cry and I am now allowed to, so I do not have to deliver covert cuddles anymore. I spend the morning with the babies hugging them, feeding them or just generally entertaining them. The nappies here are material ones but you do not use pins or any fastening, you just fold them a certain way and tie them. I am no longer allowed to change their nappies now that so many have just fallen off and two little boys actually managed to poo their nappies off in some horrendous poo/nappy explosion.

Over lunch I teach the older kids games like hopscotch or British Bulldog. The orphanage is only supposed to take babies up to the age of 8 or 9 when they would go to live with grandparents or aunt’s if they have them or to an orphanage for older kids. If the child has HIV or Aids it is really hard to place them anywhere as no one will currently take them. As a result we have children from 10 to 15 years who are aware there is nowhere for them to go.

Then in the afternoon I was reading to the 3 + year olds. They do not speak English and my Nyanja seems to cause more amusement than understanding. I got them all sitting down and taught them to cross their arms as otherwise the temptation to grab the book gets too much for them. They all clamber over each other to get as close to you as they can, some even sit on your back. I have had to learn to read upside down so that they can all see the pictures! A new talent I did not know I had. They then taught me a game which is similar to a ring a ring of roses. Every time we had to drop to the floor they would all pile on top of me giggling and shouting musungu at me, at one point I think I was buried under 20 kids. It is always sad to leave and I have now learnt to say that I will be back next Wednesday so that they do not feel abandoned by someone else.

Until next time amigos!