Reflecting on 2 Great Years in Zambia

As we come to the end of our two years in Zambia, we find ourselves reflecting on our time here. Overall, it’s been an amazing experience and we are both in no doubt that we made a good decision to come here and to work with Beyond Ourselves. There have been challenges of course, but more of those later. Let’s start with all the great experiences that we have had.

Living in a different country has been invigorating. Waking up every morning to beautiful blue skies and knowing that the sun will shine is amazing to those of us from the UK. We’ve loved being so close to nature, being able to live outside more often and learning about the wildlife. A highlight for us has to be having so many different birds, including eagles and owls in our garden at Cherry Farm, where we lived for most of the time, being able to watch them every day. Mike has taken so many pictures it will take another lifetime just to sort them out. Our plan is to make a photo book of best animal pictures that we have.

Some photos from our “home” at Cherry Farm

Woodland Kingfisher

                         

Schallow's Turaco

Food on plate so 3 dogs appear

Spotted Eagle Owl

Jan walking the dogs on the farm

Best dog spot when braal is on

Roasting marshmallows

We loved having friends round

We’ve also taken every opportunity to travel whenever we have had a holiday. Since we’ve been here we have been to Malawi, Botswana and Namibia as well as South Africa. The travel has been great, but initially taking our car across borders with the typical African bureaucracy was a challenge. However, although it is still never easy, we now feel so much more able to deal with these situations. Just having the opportunity to learn these new skills has kept our minds active.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Game parks, including our favourite Zambian ones of South Luangwa and Kafue. It’s always amazing seeing predators in the wild, but getting to know individual animals over time, going back and see the young ones growing up, has been better than we could ever have imagined. We’ve loved seeing the bush change from the lush, dense green in the wet season, to the dusty parched brown of the dry season. We’ve learned to identify so many of the birds, reptiles and animals, even the different antelope, which initially all looked fairly similar. These are memories which will never leave us.

                                         

Mike is often found on the ground taking photos

Mikes photo of the wild dog from the ground

Jan helps Mike by holding the tail end

To get this shot of the snake

Jan with a Chameleon

Through Dan, Melissa, Emily and Malcolm, we quickly felt at home in Zambia. As we started to meet more and more people we really felt part of this great community. There are different groups here and we feel lucky enough to have know people who, although originally from Europe, call themselves Zambian, local Zambian people who have never travelled outside of their country and other ‘expats’ from all around the world who are here on a temporary basis. Each group has taught us something different about living in such a great county.

With Mary at Kawama School

Our friends at Kawama

We both feel that we have a much better understanding now of what it’s like to live in Zambia, particularly for those in difficult situations. We have also gained a greater understanding of how charity workers from overseas can both help and hurt the communities here. Before coming to Zambia, we had travelled in Africa and understood the dangers that people can do by indiscriminately giving out money or sweets to children or adults that they meet. We have now seen that where people work in partnership with local communities, keeping an open mind to the impact that they are having, much good can be done. We know that none of our schools would be providing such a good education without the support of BOZ. However, we have also seen the dangers of being too quick to try and solve other people’s problems for them. I’m sure as children, we were all told countless times that it’s OK to make mistakes, as that is how we learn. As parents we all had to learn to resist doing everything for our children to help them become independent adults. It can be hard to be in a position here where we could so easily give money or our time to help people, but have to think constantly about the bigger picture. People are so grateful when they are helped or given things that it can be hard to take a step back and think of the bigger picture. Although we want to help, we don’t want people to become dependent on us. This has been one of the harder lessons for us to learn.

Much as we have loved living here, some of the differences have tested our patience to its limits. Trying and eventually succeeding in importing our car is a story in itself, and one we have told many times. To us in the UK it seems obvious that when you are “fined” 5% of the import duty to be paid due to some customs official filling in the incorrect form, the “fine” is ridiculous. When you try to pay the duty and they will not tell you what it is because you have not paid the fine makes you wonder how anyone can succeed here. However, through the experience we gained a better understanding of the differences in our cultures and how people work in such different ways. We often comment that although English is the official language, it doesn’t always make it easy to communicate. We’ve learned how important it is to ask the right questions, otherwise you may never find the right answer. A friend recently recounted a story, which resounded with us. She had been to immigration to ask how much in advance of her work permit running out could she apply for a new one. The answer was simple; one month. However, it took some time and lots of patience before she found out that actually you can apply three months before it runs out. We’ve learned to keep asking questions rather than making assumptions. This is frustrating at times, but I love the fact that we are constantly having to learn and adapt to this different culture. Hopefully these experiences have helped us to grow as people and become more tolerant in our lives.

Many people have asked what will we miss about being here and to us that is a really easy question to answer…….

It is without a doubt the people….. The friends at Beyond Ourselves…. The friends we work with in the schools…. The friends we socialise with…. The friends we just meet. Yes it is The Friends as everyone has come to be.

Now a slightly harder question with more answers in what won’t we miss.

Well number one has to be the roads and the driving as they are both atrocious and after that it is probably dealing with the bureaucracy. It will be nice to go back and find a good restaurant with a good choice of dishes and perhaps a selection of wines and not to look out and see a grand view of…… The car park.

Before get back home to The UK we start a 4 month road trip covering much of East and Southern Africa that finishes early December and then we will leave to have Christmas in the UK with our family.

If you would like to follow our travels please take a look at http://mikejangreatescape.blogspot.co.uk We hope to update as often as we can.

Just a few of our friends here

It is difficult to say thank you without naming any names but it is a huge thanks from both of us to the Beyond Ourselves Family, Mechanics For Africa Family, Greater Joy, Janna and Kawama Communities for helping us when we knew very little about Zambian ways and most of all for being our fantastic friends.

Jan and Mike