Zambia!
Door: Jeroen
27 Juli 2007 | Zambia, Lusaka
Friday, July 20th.
The 'Lonely Planet' writes: "Nakonde, on the southern side of the border between Zambia and Tanzania, is full of hustlers and worth avoiding if you can".
Did I try to avoid it? I'm not even sure myself. I chose to spend the night in Tunduma on the Tanzanian side of the border. I had dinner (wali samaki, rice and fish), changed my money, slept like a baby. In the morning I was the first to cross the border... only to find out that the first bus leaves Nakonde at 15.00! Stuck after all. I am not so much bothered by hustlers... but there is absolutely nothing to do here except to wait. So I wait.
I left Dar es Salaam very early, the bus was scheduled for 5.15 and left at 5.45. I kept dozing off most of the way, but never really slept. I hadn't had much sleep that night. First Cathy kept sms-ing me. Johnny is in hospital in Moshi with pneumonia and malaria. She asks me to send her money for his treatment. She is feeling very depressed. The only thing she wants in her life is to be back together with me, she says. That depresses me too.
At one Janeth calls me awake. She is coming to my house to say goodbye and "to show you how much I love you". She is looking absolutely stunning tonight, all dressed in red and black. But I guess she doesn't love me as much as she says... she falls asleep with (most of) her clothes still on, snoring like a sailor. Maybe I just don't know how to measure love? At 03.45 the alarm goes off. When the bus leaves town, I feel good. It's not such a bad idea to travel alone at this moment.
Sunday, Lusaka.
The bus arrives just after dawn, at 6.15 in the morning. The third guesthouse I try has a free room. Peace Gardens, nice name. In Zambia people speak English, with 70 languages, of which 7 are spoken by large groups, English is their common language. Cars stop for you here when you use a crossing. Service seems to be slightly better than in Tanzania and the people a little friendlier.
The bar I choose to go to in the evening is closed, the taxidriver takes me to 'Johnny's' bar. The people at the bar are involved in a political discussion. I drink my wodka and enjoy. The topic is discrimination of colored people. A couple in their early sixties is having a heated, but humourful, conversation with a younger man. They are all colored, that is: not white, not black. Of the couple the man is quite bitter. His father is a Pakistani, his mother a black Zimbabwian. His wife's parents are both half white (English), half black (Zambian). The couple is married for 40 years, and they simply radiate marital happyness. He has lost his job and cannot find another one. He claims it's because the blacks discriminate the colored. The younger man has an English mother and a black South-African father. He is much more relaxed with the whole issue. He says, sure there is discrimination, he has seen it and experienced it, but why let that get you down? If it happens, just give them the finger, laugh and walk away. He is turning 40 next year and has bigger issues to deal with, he laughs. It is that same attitude that is explained in the last two books I have read and again in my yoga-course. Your response to whatever happens outside of you is always a free choice. You can choose to be upset, angry, depressed, etc. You can also choose to stay calm, aware and positive. Just remain yourself.
Tuesday.
Leaving Lusaka today, but first I visit the national museum. It's the usual collection, the same things I've seen in Dar. Some tribal art and history, a lot of political history, some archeology (ten skulls or so), and there is a collection of contemporary art. That last section I like the most. The political section confronts me with the fact that I don't know anything about Zambia. Cecil Rodes, that is about all I knew, and he is not even in the museum. They do have the handbag of a white lady who was burnt in her car during the violence that broke out after a disrupted freedom demonstration, someone's fingertip, ripped off at another rally, three rifles used in the early sixties by the freedom fighters and a bicycle used by the party officials just after independence. The collection is being reconstructed, so the logical order is somewhat lost, and so am I. I have seen a Kaunda street in many African city, now I learn he was the first president of independent Zambia, from 1964 untill 1991. And I learn that Zambia was a socialist country during these years. There is a huge board in the museum, that lists all the official visits of heads of foreign states. Haile Selassie was the first to visit in '64. Then one by one the neighbouring states and India. Late sixties and early seventies came the visits of Tito, Ceauscescu and China, followed by Honecker and the USSR. Other countries were Cyprus, Jamaica, Mauritius. Of the western world Boudewijn (Belgium) and Olaf Palme (Sweden) were the first, later came Denmark and England. The list ends in 1981. Socialism was abandonned in 1991. In Lusaka I have not seen a single thing that reminds of that period.
The 'Lonely Planet' writes: "Nakonde, on the southern side of the border between Zambia and Tanzania, is full of hustlers and worth avoiding if you can".
Did I try to avoid it? I'm not even sure myself. I chose to spend the night in Tunduma on the Tanzanian side of the border. I had dinner (wali samaki, rice and fish), changed my money, slept like a baby. In the morning I was the first to cross the border... only to find out that the first bus leaves Nakonde at 15.00! Stuck after all. I am not so much bothered by hustlers... but there is absolutely nothing to do here except to wait. So I wait.
I left Dar es Salaam very early, the bus was scheduled for 5.15 and left at 5.45. I kept dozing off most of the way, but never really slept. I hadn't had much sleep that night. First Cathy kept sms-ing me. Johnny is in hospital in Moshi with pneumonia and malaria. She asks me to send her money for his treatment. She is feeling very depressed. The only thing she wants in her life is to be back together with me, she says. That depresses me too.
At one Janeth calls me awake. She is coming to my house to say goodbye and "to show you how much I love you". She is looking absolutely stunning tonight, all dressed in red and black. But I guess she doesn't love me as much as she says... she falls asleep with (most of) her clothes still on, snoring like a sailor. Maybe I just don't know how to measure love? At 03.45 the alarm goes off. When the bus leaves town, I feel good. It's not such a bad idea to travel alone at this moment.
Sunday, Lusaka.
The bus arrives just after dawn, at 6.15 in the morning. The third guesthouse I try has a free room. Peace Gardens, nice name. In Zambia people speak English, with 70 languages, of which 7 are spoken by large groups, English is their common language. Cars stop for you here when you use a crossing. Service seems to be slightly better than in Tanzania and the people a little friendlier.
The bar I choose to go to in the evening is closed, the taxidriver takes me to 'Johnny's' bar. The people at the bar are involved in a political discussion. I drink my wodka and enjoy. The topic is discrimination of colored people. A couple in their early sixties is having a heated, but humourful, conversation with a younger man. They are all colored, that is: not white, not black. Of the couple the man is quite bitter. His father is a Pakistani, his mother a black Zimbabwian. His wife's parents are both half white (English), half black (Zambian). The couple is married for 40 years, and they simply radiate marital happyness. He has lost his job and cannot find another one. He claims it's because the blacks discriminate the colored. The younger man has an English mother and a black South-African father. He is much more relaxed with the whole issue. He says, sure there is discrimination, he has seen it and experienced it, but why let that get you down? If it happens, just give them the finger, laugh and walk away. He is turning 40 next year and has bigger issues to deal with, he laughs. It is that same attitude that is explained in the last two books I have read and again in my yoga-course. Your response to whatever happens outside of you is always a free choice. You can choose to be upset, angry, depressed, etc. You can also choose to stay calm, aware and positive. Just remain yourself.
Tuesday.
Leaving Lusaka today, but first I visit the national museum. It's the usual collection, the same things I've seen in Dar. Some tribal art and history, a lot of political history, some archeology (ten skulls or so), and there is a collection of contemporary art. That last section I like the most. The political section confronts me with the fact that I don't know anything about Zambia. Cecil Rodes, that is about all I knew, and he is not even in the museum. They do have the handbag of a white lady who was burnt in her car during the violence that broke out after a disrupted freedom demonstration, someone's fingertip, ripped off at another rally, three rifles used in the early sixties by the freedom fighters and a bicycle used by the party officials just after independence. The collection is being reconstructed, so the logical order is somewhat lost, and so am I. I have seen a Kaunda street in many African city, now I learn he was the first president of independent Zambia, from 1964 untill 1991. And I learn that Zambia was a socialist country during these years. There is a huge board in the museum, that lists all the official visits of heads of foreign states. Haile Selassie was the first to visit in '64. Then one by one the neighbouring states and India. Late sixties and early seventies came the visits of Tito, Ceauscescu and China, followed by Honecker and the USSR. Other countries were Cyprus, Jamaica, Mauritius. Of the western world Boudewijn (Belgium) and Olaf Palme (Sweden) were the first, later came Denmark and England. The list ends in 1981. Socialism was abandonned in 1991. In Lusaka I have not seen a single thing that reminds of that period.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
