Livingstone Shenanigans PART II

In beginning Part II, I should probably throw in a few words about my travelling companions/partners in crime, Ndandula, Mwenya and Mucho, all of whom are around my age.

I’ve known Ndandula, Munjongo and Esther’s youngest daughter, for some time now, and she’s always been my main connection in Lusaka. Ndandula has a job with the UN in Zambia, working primarily with refugees coming to Zambia from surrounding countries such as Zimbabwe, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ndandula is awesome. She’s fun and often outspoken and doesn’t take crap off of anybody, a far cry from the quiet, submissive women that I’ve been around for months in rural Zambia.

Mwenya, Ndandula’s best friend, works for the UN as well. She was without a doubt the spark plug of the group, always energetic and willing to go anywhere or do anything. Mwenya wears her hair in dread-locks, a style that is pretty uncommon for Zambian women. Having lived with Steven Lowry for three years of my life I of course know more than my fair share about the science of dread-locks and was thus able to connect with her right away. Man, I love this girl. She is very cool.

Mucho had somehow gotten hooked up with the two others a while back and had hit it off with them. He is, shall we say, a stout fellow who, like Mwenya, was basically down for whatever. I never really understood what Mucho does for a living. I guess I didn’t press it because hey, who wants to talk about work during a vacation, right? Mucho was a bad influence right from the start and was responsible for my involvement in a number of non-blog-postable shenanigans. For this I will always be grateful.

These three are from the city. They are very African but, in a way, have been westernized, I would say. They all have good office jobs. They like to eat pizza. They go to see movies at a movie theater. They’ve casually dated other people. They listen to Beyonce Knowles.

I’ll be honest, I don’t have many people in super-rural Siavonga that I would consider great friends. Don’t get me wrong. The people are kind and welcoming and very cool to be around. But there’s a cultural barrier there that, for the most part, seems to prevent me from reaching a deep understanding with anyone. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is. I’ve tried, and I’ve made a number of friends, but nobody that I would say that I can really connect with. Luckily, I connected with my three travelling companions right off the bat.

So, again, while I’ve got love for my homies in Siavonga, it was nice to be able to talk to and really relate to other people for a least a few days.

And now, back to the trip highlights...

Having survived the Victoria Falls monkey trap, the group carried on in high spirits. The next day we set off early on a trek across the border into Botswana. We exchanged some kwacha (Zambia’s currency) for pula (Botswana’s currency), hopped in a cab and rushed off on the 45 minute or so trip to the border. The border crossing was a breeze and we got on a bus to the nearby town of Kasene. We didn’t have any plans and, to be honest, there wasn’t much to do there, but it was cool to see a new country and there were still a few highlights.

As if it hasn’t been difficult enough trying to get around in a country with nine or so major languages, now I was hearing another completely different one in Kasene. I didn’t have much room in my brain for Swana, the local language, although I did learn how to say “That girl has a big butt”, a phrase that I now know how to say in four different southern African languages. I get really great responses whenever I drop that one on people who aren’t expecting it. I’m fully aware that one day I’m going to catch a beat down for it, but at this point it’s still a risk I’m willing to take.

We walked around the town for a good part of the day. For the most part it was similar to other towns I’ve been around in Zambia, although it was interesting to notice a few of the subtle differences. The roads were much better, for one. And so were most of the houses. Even in the areas of town that were clearly where the lower classes live, the houses were well built and better organized than many that I’ve seen in Zambia. Also, instead of cows and goats roaming around, I saw a number of what looked to be boars. That was weird.

And speaking of animals, I had my first African elephant sighting. We were traveling on a minibus going back to the border and spotted two very large elephants just hanging out by the road. Nobody else seemed too amazed. Ho hum, just another day in Botswana, I suppose. But it gave me a great sense of satisfaction knowing that people are coming into Zambia and paying exorbitant rates to take safaris and see elephants and that I got to see two close up for the price of a bus ticket.

So, that was about it for Botswana. We walked around and ate lunch and headed back for mother Zambia in the early evening.

We piddled around Livingstone for a few days and, before we knew it, Christmas Eve was upon us.

My Christmas Eve/Christmas routine has been unflinchingly rigid over the past few years in Richmond. I like it that way. This year, obviously, being thousands of miles away from friends and family forced me to deviate from this routine, but everything ended up working out just fine.

For Christmas Eve supper we got dressed up and went out to a nice little Livingstone restaurant where I slammed Coca Colas like it was my J-O-B. I treated myself to very large steak which, given the fact that I’ve been forced into a life of quasi-vegetarianism by circumstance in my new home of Siavonga, was just about the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life. They had a guy serenading everyone with a guitar who sang some Bob Marley songs, which of course my dread-locked friend, Mwenya, and I enjoyed a great deal.

During my typical Christmas Eve routine, the late evening is a time for worship at Crestwood’s 11 o’clock service. I really love worshipping at the service. The music is beautiful and you always get to see friends who have come back to Richmond for the holidays.

My Zambian Christmas Eve routine was a bit different, as the late evening was a time for bumping in a night club in downtown Livingstone. Hey, it’s where my group led me, and who was I to argue? Throughout the night I was surrounded by beautiful, scantily clad young Zambian women dancing and having a good ol’ time. It felt like I was right in the middle of a 50 Cent video. Merry Christmas to me. I danced/sweated quite a bit and had a good ol’ time myself. I feel pretty good about my dancing performance, and truly believe that if I can hold my own on a Zambian dance floor I can hold my own on any dance floor in the world. My goodness these people can move.

After such a fun, action-packed Christmas Eve the rest of the trip was pretty tame by comparison. Although, I did have another one of my life’s proudest moments when I was thrown into the middle of a Zambian tribal dispute. But I suppose I’ll save that one for the conclusion in Part III...