Our First Six Months in Zambia

Six months ago that Mike and I left Heathrow to start our new adventure;  volunteering with Beyond Ourselves. It has been an amazing journey, with so much to learn and experience, amazing opportunities but also some challenges, both personally and for the people of Zambia.

Just to set the scene, I was a Head Teacher in Tower Hamlets in London and my husband Mike was running his own construction business. We had decided about a year ago that it was time for us to do something different with our lives. So this time last year, I said my farewells to my school and started the process of packing up our house. We had visited Ndola and the amazing team, who are  Beyond Ourselves Zambia, in February before deciding that we would very much like to join them.  As we had just taken early retirement, we knew that we wanted to spend some of our time working with the charity and some time exploring and learning more about life in Zambia and the neighbouring countries. 

We arrived in June, and were lucky enough to stay with Emily, Malcolm, Lucy and Albert while we settled in and found ourselves somewhere to live. We eventually found a house to rent on a farm, just outside Ndola, which really suits us as we both enjoy the wildlife and the peace and quiet. We have seen so much wildlife in such a short time. Sitting in the garden in the evening watching the resident family of owls teaching the young one how to hunt and the amazing coloured birds flying around will be memories we will treasure. 

In the first few weeks we started to accompany Emily into the schools. She was very patient about answering our numerous questions and giving us a crash course in Zambian education.  As you can imagine, the schools are built and organised very differently from those in England. Mike has been learning lots about building practises in Zambia, and seems to have spent a lot of time looking at the ablutions! For those of you with a background in education, you will know how much time we all spend talking about toilets so it came as no surprise to us.  I have been busy trying to learn more about the Zambian education system and the expectations in the schools, which has been fascinating.  

So far a large percentage of our time has been at Kawama School where Mike has ensured that water is available and that the school now has a modern toilet block for the children and of course staff, to use. This has involved getting a new water supply via a borehole and pumping it to a tank high on a stand. We all know that it is not always easy working with contractors anywhere in the world, but it has been frustrating at times. Working practices in Africa are, well, very African. People don’t always turn up on time or even turn up at all. Often when they do arrive they have no equipment so have to go again. Since he has been at Kawama, Mike has been working to involve local people from the immediate community with the idea of developing their skills . Having found hard working individuals, who are keen to develop and learn new skills, is very rewarding has made a huge difference. Hopefully, once the local community are involved in working there, they will begin to have more pride in the school and it’s facilities.

One of my highlights this term was seeing the teachers begin to understand the importance of play for young children, which is something I am passionate about but is not yet fully accepted in Zambia. I have also been working with the Head Teacher to share some of the Leadership skills that I have developed over the years. It has made me realise just how lucky we are in England to have good quality training as part of our jobs. 

We love living in Ndola, which prides itself on being the ‘Friendly City’. It really does live up to it’s name as people are so welcoming wherever we go.  Compared to cities in England, it’s not large, but we found that we have very quickly got used to being here.  Still there have been some challenges for us, being very used to living in London, shopping is very different. The supermarkets are mostly South African, such as Pick and Pay and Shoprite which sell most things that we would want. However, you can never rely on them having what you want when you want it. We have learned to buy things when they are on the shelves and enjoy them. We have also been exploring the smaller, more local shops which makes shopping more interesting. As a vegetarian who has lived in London for many years, I am very grateful that there are numerous Indian restaurants and Pizza places. 

 Many of you will be aware of the challenges that Zambia faces at the moment, most significantly the crash in the value of the kwatcha against the dollar and the loadshedding. Since we have been here, the value of the kwacha has fallen by over 50%. This has meant that the prices have risen dramatically. We have noticed just how quickly prices have gone up, even for goods produced in Zambia. Talking to people in the community makes us realise just how hard it has become just to feed their families and pay their rent. Loadshedding means that there are times each day when there is no electricity, at the moment anywhere between 8-9 hours. People running businesses now have the added burden of trying to organise their day around the times when they have power. It is hard to see people trying to make a living and improve their lives when life is so difficult for them. Although there is never enough that we can do, we hope that by giving the children in the schools a good start to their lives with the feeding programme and the quality of education they receive, the future will hopefully be a little brighter for them.

Own personal challenges have involved attempting to import a car that we bought in South Africa in August. All I can say is that we have learned a lot about the systems in place in Zambia which are very different from what we are used to. When we spoke to people before we bought the car, it sounded fairly simple. However, we have now learned that everything takes much longer than we were expecting, and has involved numerous meetings and even a trip to Lusaka. Frustrating though it has been, it has given us an insight into some of the difficulties that countries face in developing their economy.

Much as we love being in Ndola, we have also taken the opportunity of travelling in Zambia and neighbouring countries. Back in July and August we flew to South Africa, where we picked up our now infamous car and drove back, over six weeks, to Ndola via Botswana, Namibia and criss-crossing Zambia through many of the National Parks.

Zambia is not yet as well developed for tourists as other countries, but with a bit of effort and patience there are amazing things to see and do. Recently we went to Kasanka, one of the smaller National Parks, to witness the World’s largest mammal migration. No not the large mammals of the Serengeti but the 10 million or so Straw Coloured Fruit Bats that roost there every November.

All in all Zambia is a fantastic place and for us working here with Beyond Ourselves is an amazing time and one we love.