Kylie | See It Do It Live It

Dar Es Salaam

For our one night in Dar Es Salaam, we decided to return to Couchsurfing. This is partly because we had no idea when the train would arrive, so couldn’t book accommodation in advance, and partly because the best way to explore a new area is with someone who already knows it well. We made contact with Gidion, who works in tourism, and organised to stay with his family. When we arrived, it turned out that Gidion was away in Arusha park but his brother William came to meet us at…read more

All Aboard the Tazara Express

For many years Zanzibar has been at the top of my dream holiday destination list. By great coincidence, Kapiri is at one end of a train line to Dar Es Salaam, and so the next phase of our journey was planned. The Tazara trains are half owned by Zambia and half by Tanzania, and the line was built by the Chinese. The trains used to have a reputation of reliability, but that has slipped in recent years. The online reports warned that Kapiri station is chaotic on departure day, and…read more

Watching the Warriors

Match Report: Man of the Match: Webster the taxi driver Lemon of the Match: The Kabwe Keeper for regularly lying down on the pitch What to do with a free Saturday in Zambia, at the start of the World Cup? Go and watch a Zambian Premier League football match of course! Lana, Graham and I jumped in a taxi to Kabwe with the plan of watching Kabwe Warriors play Nchanga Rangers. During the journey it turned out that, by chance, our driver was the famous Webster. He is well known…read more

A Zambi-Brit-US-Belarussian Party

14 people, 5 nationalities and one birthday to celebrate (oh, and also the launch of some football competition or something). So of course we decided to have a party. Partying on a school night is a tricky business, as our normal bed time is about 9 pm. But we decided to throw caution to the wind, and go for it anyway. I introduced the Zambians to chilli and butterfly cakes, Karolyn brought jelly and ice cream and everyone discussed how birthdays are celebrated in their countries. We thought the birthday…read more

Life at Vinjeru School

Posted by Kylie in Africa, Trip, Zambia

For our 7 weeks at Vinjeru school, we are helping out with everyday school jobs. Recently, we have been spending the mornings sorting out a storgae container filled with literally thousands of books. Most homes here don’t own any books, meaning that no-one practices reading at home. The selection here will give the school one of the best libraries around. In the afternoon though, the fun begins. School lessons here finishes at 13:30 (we start at 07:30), and after lessons end there is a compulsory 30 minutes of cleaning for…read more

Kapiri Mposhi

Our internet access in Kapiri is very limited, so it might be difficult to blog. We arrived a few days ago, and went to meet Karolyn and Martin for dinner. They have set up and run the school here. It was great to catch up with them and get some ideas about the work we will probably be doing here. The next day we got a tour of the school. There are currently 3 classes, all in the equivalent of year 7. The children are between 12 and 20 years…read more

Livingstone Bridge

There is so much to do in Livingstone that I could have happily stayed for much longer, but our last day has arrived. We decided to head back towards Victoria Falls and do the zip line across the river to Livingstone Bridge. This was a really kind gift from the ladies at Cambridge South hockey club. We spent the first hour there watching people doing bungee jumps and the gorge swing off the bridge. I don’t think anything would persuade me to give that a go! In fact, my legs…read more

Safari So Goody

Today we headed to Botswana for the day, to safari in Chobe. We got picked up at 7am with a few others from the hostel and drove to the border, where we passed through the most efficient exit post so far. The driver took all of our passports, and we waited for a few nervous minutes (hoping he didn’t do a runner!) before he returned with our stamps. We then transferred onto a boat to do a two minute river crossing into Botswana – this even included about 20 seconds…read more

A Lunar Rainbow

As we crossed the border from Namibia to Zambia, we immediately noticed that we had changed country. Namibia is an underpopulated country, with less than 3 people every square kilometer. We drove along mile after mile of road without seeing any sign of human life. Zambia has a much higher population, and as we crossed over the border we passed through lots of villages. Things also seem to be much less organised in Zambia. The main road we travelled on was in a terrible state, with huge pot holes everywhere….read more

Tales of Africa

When Cameron and I were little our Grandad, Ernie, used to reguarly tell us a bedtime story centred around a Raffie Swan bus trip. For you non-Berwickers, Raffie Swan had the worst coaches imaginable. Regularly our school trips would be spent in a lay-by, somewhere between Holy Island and Newcastle, while we waited on another coach coming to pick us up from our broken down vehicle. As the infamous song goes, ‘You’ll never get to heaven on a Raffie Swan bus.’ However, in Ernies bedtime stories, we would all be…read more