Victoria Falls, Jollyboys and Fanta gorgeous

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After making it back onto our bus after the Ngepi Camp we were much more relaxed and looking forward to experiencing Zambia. We knew that we were now about to enter the Africa we had been waiting for and we were right. During the 12 hour, sweltering hot bus ride we saw the landscape, temperature and way of life change before our very eyes. Nothing but small villages with mud huts for hours on end. No more stores to buy food, no more electricity and no more running water in the general way of life. I trusted that would be different for us once we reached the backpackers.

As we arrived in Livingstone the scene became one like that out of an African movie you would see. Much less westernized and much more chaotic. As we stepped off the bus we were absolutely hounded by people who wanted to sell us banana's from baskets on their head, carry our bags and give us rides to places (at double or triple the price I am sure). I was very happy to be approached by a really small local boy who had been sent by the backpackers' to pick us up, or so I thought. He was there for us alright but without a car. Now the backpackers' was only about seven blocks away but when you are carrying the stuff we were carrying in 37 degree heat it might as well have been ten miles. To my surprise he took both my 45 pound bag and Jordans' 25 pound bag. They must have weighed more than he did, I couldn't believe it. The heat hit me like a wall as we walked and I wasn't sure I could make it purely due to the heat, never mind carrying 70 extra pounds of baggage - but he managed. It is amazing what the African people can carry, it shocks me all the time.

We arrived at Jollyboys' backpackers without a room reservation (shocking, huh?) and it served us right I guess to end up in a dorm. At least this one only had four people in it. There was a dorm that was completely empty but Kim, the girl from Vancouver who had been working in Livingstone for seven years, recommended we take the one with the two "lovely" girls in it to save us from getting strange men in our room later on. We thought it sounded good so we bunked with them. After such a long day travelling Jordan and I went to bed around 8 o'clock, we were soooo tired and it was sooooo hot. The room was like a small oven and I was happy that there was a small fan at the very least. So Jordan and I are in bed just about to turn the lights out when one of the girls comes in and chats with us a bit. I can tell she isn't very social but seems friendly enough after a little effort to ask her some questions about herself - that always opens people up. After a couple minutes she left. About 10 minutes later her friend, our other roommate, comes in raging mad that we have been put in the room. I guess they had been alone in the dorm the past couple of days and didn't like that the time had come to share (the whole point of paying less and staying in a dorm). Her energy and body language is nasty and she starts being really loud and slamming around in the room. She can't help herself than to start bitching at us. She starts telling us how Jordan is in her bed and who do we think we are kind of deal. I am dumbfounded - this girls is nuts. I tell her that three of the four beds had her stuff on them so we just chose the one with the least stuff, if she wanted her bunk back we really didn't mind - we had no preference. She stormed out but not before very rudely demanding back the headlamp her friend had lent us to read. She was really mad we had it. The funny thing is that her friend mis-understood me. I originally said to the first girl that I wished I had a small headlamp. She thought it was because the big light bothered me but it was because I thought she was there to go to bed and I still wanted to read and didn't want to keep her up with the big light while reading. Just being curteous. Off the second girl goes with the little headlamp I never used anyways and Jordan and I kind of looked at each other and started laughing. What else can you do????? We were just so tired and wanted to sleep. It was so hard though because it was so incredibly hot and humid. I turned the fan towards us and tried to go to sleep - eventually I succeeded. It was around 8:30.

At 11:00pm I hear the two girls come back to the room. The nasty girl, I'll call her #2, switched the big ceiling light on and started talking extra loudly - woke us up instantly. I could tell girl #1 was trying to be quiet and was embarassed that #2 was being so mean. Girl #1 was whispering and I could tell #2 was saying something like, "I don't give a shit, they shouldn't be in here" in her foreign language. You could tell they disagreed somewhat on the course of action being taken. It is common courtesy in the dorms not to switch ceiling lights on when people are sleeping, especially worse because it was 11pm and I knew they had the head lamps. She kept the bright ceiling light on for over half an hour!!!! She completely re-packed her bags, talked loudly, cackled and laughed in a mean sort of way and was just really really rude and mean. Just to top things off, she turned the fan completely off. That was the last straw. Fine if she didn't want it on her, but it was only on us and it was almost 40 degrees - she was doing it on purpose because she was mad we were in there. I think it was because her underwear were hanging all over the room when we first got there and she is now steaming mad - who knows. I just instantly turned the fan back on as quickly as she had turned it off and tried to go back to sleep. Morning eventually came - none to soon, I had never felf so uncomfortable in my life as that night while she was slamming around the tiny cell like room. Some people's children........... It was the worst night on the trip by far. In the morning they were gone, they had to catch a bus bright and early. Good riddance. I was glad I didn't let them get me mad because if fate has it's way their bus probably crashed and she will be missing a front tooth by now or something. It will all work out. Nothing had ever happened like this on the trip, people had always been so nice - that is the whole point of travelling, to be nice to other people. Oh well, tomorrow should be better. I am just excited to be in Zambia.

Woke up the next morning to a sweltering hot day - it was close to 40 degrees. Whoa. We decided we would go to Victoria Falls, one of the seven wonders of the world, how exciting. How exciting except that it has been scorching hot for quite a while and the falls were all but a trickle. I guess it was still neat to be there and to have experienced it but it was so incredibly hot that it took some of the "UMPH" out of it. We ended up going up to the top of the falls and trying to cross them in order to go swimming in the Devil's armchair but my protective mommy senses kicked in and I called Jordan back as a guide tried to help him across. You see, the edge of the falls is only about 15 feet behind you. If the current pushes you over for any reason, you could be toast. We saw a guy do it but I said no way - not today. I couldn't cope with the thought of going over Victoria Falls. It was a good day at the Falls overall and we were ready to just go lounge at Jollyboys'. (The next day as Billy and Jessica were rafting they saw a body being pulled out of the river that had gone over the falls)

There we are relaxing, I'm on my computer and Jordan is in the pool. There is a really drunk man sitting at a table between me and the pool and all of a sudden I see his friend light his head on fire. I mean there were flames - big flames. He is so drunk he thinks this is funny and his friend repeats this about six times until the mans' scalp is burned. His hair has been reduced to small little balls, kind of like what plastic looks like when you burn it and some of them are so close to his head that I know he is going to hurt in the morning. Jordan is watching and I don't like that. I tell his friend to cut it out - besides the burning hair is making my stomach sick. The drunk old man, right in front of Jordan yells out "F-U" - only he didn't abbreviate it. I ignored him and explained to Jordan not to go near him, I really didn't want another scene. But, to add to matters, Jordan is now swimming in the pool again and this drunk old man starts calling him the "C" word. I couldn't believe my ears. I just didn't know what was going on at this place. Was I cursed here? He yelled a couple more filthy things at Jordan and I had had enough. I went and talked to Kim and asked her to remove him, which she ended up doing. But in the meantime there was this guy, Billy, sitting behind me with his girlfriend Jessica who watched this whole thing go down and was raging mad. They ended up coming over and kind of sticking up for us and supporting us. The drunk got kicked out and we ended up hanging out with Billy, Jessica and this guy Tim they were travelling with and another couple from England for the next six days. It was a really great six days, it felt like being at home with good friends and I needed that - especially after the rought start. In the first 24 hours I had encountered two of the rudest people I had met yet on the trip, but as a result I met the greatest 6 or 7 people and we all ended up hanging around together for the next week. It was a moments' pause in travelling where you felt at home again. We swam, drank, lounged, talked, laughed, ate, sunbathed and explored the town - it was really neat.

I loved the town of Livingstone itself very much, there was a really really good energy to it. I spent most of my days wandering the streets and just talking to the people. I loved just being in such a different atmosphere, worlds away from anything I have ever known. My guess is that a lot of people have come here for brief stays and never end up leaving. It is very addictive and I would go back in a heartbeat. It is too bad the people are so opposed to pictures because I would have loved to capture this town on camera. No way though - the people get really offended if they even see a camera, never mind pointing it at them. It is a combination of being tired of people coming to their town, taking pictures and then selling them to places like National Geographic with just plain and simply wanting to extort money out of you for taking it. Too bad.

The streets are lined with people selling things - you name it, they sell it. "Mamma" - "Mamma" the men call me (I hate it when they call me that) "Taxi?" "You need a taxi, mamma?" "Wanna buy some nuts mamma?" "Special price for you mamma" "Mamma, you look like you need some movies mamma" - amusing, all of it. I bought a cell phone on a street corner for $18 and walked a block further to pick up some air time. I went one block down and picked up a charger for $3. As you walk you hear "Mambo", "Jambo" "Hankuna Matada", everyone is so happy - happy to rip you off at times too if you don't watch yourself. Scammers everywhere, friendly scammers though. They will rip you off with the nicest smile on their face that you have ever seen. You just gotta be smart. Like at the Post Office when I was sending Calvins' birthday present. Dude working behind the counter kindly offers to wrap the gift for me (I had asked him where I could go to buy wrapping). I am touched by his kindness as he pulls a old, crinckled, dirty, used piece of bubble wrap out from under his desk. He puts Calvins' present in it and starts madly taping it. In the middle of this process he just kind of throws in that the bubble wrap is going to cost me 20,000 kwacha!!!! 20,000 kwacha????? My groceries for three days only cost that much!!! He tells me that he can't help it, he buys it from the man next door and that is what the man charges. I ask him if he is for real - I just saw him pull it out from under his desk!!! He says that is not true, he got it from next door - I can't tell you how amusing this all is even when I was in the moment. I ask him if my eyes were lying to me and he, with the sweetest demeanor and smile I have ever seen, tells me that it is very hard to explain, that I just don't understand. He says he is my friend and only trying to help me out. I am laughing and am still finding him endearing as he is trying to scam me blind. I tell him "No problem, you are my friend, I know. I will pay you the 20,000 kwacha - no problem. You just go get me a sales slip and receipt from your friend that sells it and I will pay you." He just kind of looks at me blankly and tells me that it is hard to explain - how this all works. He is talking in circles and I am standing there at the Post Office counter laughing so hard. You see, they are not used to women acting like this and I totally stumped him. He really thought I was an easy target. Finally he realized that the jig was up and gave up. I gave him a couple bucks for his effort of wrapping the present and we were done - or so I thought. The parcel was wrapped and ready to go when he informed me that I owed him five US dollars for the tape he used - I bought it from the post office he tells me. With a smug smile I told him that the same rule still applied: Produce a sales slip and a receipt and I will pay him. He smiled at me, told me to have a great day and I was on my way. Calvins' parcel was on it's way too. Even the school girls hanging out at the museum next door to the backpackers' want something from you. I was passing by one morning when I asked them if I could take their picture - they looked so cute. Instead of replying yes or no, they ask me how much I am going to pay them for it. I was shocked, they were about 11 years old. I told them that I did not pay for pictures - ever, told them to have a great day and started walking on. When I did this they all got up and started begging me to take their pictures. I now have about 40 pictures of these children. These kind of happenings are sooooo a part of being in Africa. If you don't laught at it, it will drive you nuts. This happens time and time again.

Everyone left that night for different destinations and it seemed lonely at Jollyboy's without them. I was happy that we were leaving in the morning to except for the fact that I am going to miss Fanta Gorgeous (the kitten) more than I can ever tell you. He was the best cat you could ever imagine, so incredibly friendly and personable. It had been so long since I heard a cat purr and he re-energized me. He slept with us at night and actually played ping-pong. When people were playing he would sit in the middle of the table and try to catch the ball. If the ball went off the table, he would fetch it and when the people started playing again he would run full speed back to the table and start playing again. So cute, I will miss him. I had the worst sleep that night - our room was sweltering once again. We woke up early the next morning, packed our bags and headed for the bus station. Chaos - always. We were on an African bus that sat 5 people across. In Africa, it doesn't matter what time the bus is supposed to leave - they wait until the bus is full, no matter how long that takes. This morning we waited an hour and a half for the bus to fill up in the hot hot sun. Eventually we were off - off to Lusaka to catch our train to Tanzania. There was no air conditioning on the bus but there was a hole in the floor so you could actually see the streeting passing beneath your feet. It was overcrowded, there was loud African music, lots of flies, smelly people, crying babies, stifling hot stuffy air, mud huts and donkeys' going by the window and I was in my glory still.

This is Africa.

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Comments

[Nanna]

HAMLET
Hey Jordan! Grandpa Ken and I liked the picture of you with Fanta Gorgeous...looks just like Hamlet...don't you think? Only smaller of course. We look forward to reading of all your new adventures.