Blogs from Chipata, Zambia, Africa - page 3

Chipatans are proud of their traffic lights; it's a good sign the town is developing, and was a key landmark of the town as first described to me in Lusaka. However, I haven't yet worked out the rules of their usage- are they as in the UK (in theory Zambians drive on the left) or elsewhere, where you can turn left on red? Not helped by the frequent powercuts when it's every driver for themselves. It's also known as the 'bicycling city'- there is a bicycle factory on the outskirts, and bikes are a key transport for agricultural produce brought in from the hinterland. Incredibly loaded, have seen them precariously stacked with trays of eggs and very unstable wide loads of furniture or firewood and, in particular, livestock; unhappy chickens dangling from handlebars and, once, a ... read more

Work- well, it's certainly not particularly onerous at this precise moment. This week's very quiet as most people are off on field trips, doing 'activities'. I'm sat here in a spacious office which have just moved into, playing music on my laptop and awaiting the return of an electricity supply. My job is to help the organisation sort out their documentation (mainly paper). There have been considerable changes of staff over the last year or so and the new recruits are finding it difficult to locate information prior to when they started. In addition, the overall numbers of staff have increased, they have moved to new offices and, since I have arrived here, completed an extension on the new offices, giving them more space. Prior to the extension being built, the offices were pretty cramped, shared ... read more

A very busy weekend- know you're waiting for my 'Life in a convent' but thought ought to get this one down before I forget the details. Saturday I went to a 'kitchen party', which is like a hen party but after the wedding. Am afraid I haven't got any photos of this; noone was taking any and I wasn't sure it would be appreciated. However think would have been OK if I'd have been a bit braver. A kitchen party is a women-only party for the bride after her wedding. The invites specify colours and you have to buy a present of kitchen utensils using them. My bride was called Melody (!) and the colours were blue, green, black and silver. We bought some metal storage containers. The invite said 2pm so, finding out the score ... read more

This is where will be going... read more

Travelblog has had a computer crash, so I don't know exactly what I have posted up so far. So please excuse if you have read some of it already. 10-07-07 A quick shopping in Nanyuki (great baguette) and off we drove to lake Nakuru national park. We planed to camp just outside the gate at Mwbeha (2 Km from the gate and priced at KS 300 said the guide book) but were caught by surprise when the 2 Km turned out to be 12Km and the price was 3400 KS (about R340). We camped at the parking lot. This ought to be most expensive parking we have done so far in Africa. The drive to the camp turned out to be very challenging as the directions we were given did seem odd and the procedures at ... read more