Zambian Travels

Pupils had the most fantastic experience visiting Zambia this summer. They started off exploring the capital city, Lusaka, where some of the more adventurous pupils tried eating fish heads and a local maize dish called nshima. The haggling started cautiously at the local market and pupils tasted the difference between Zambian fast food at the Hungry Lion. Lusaka is a busy city with unpredictable power cuts due to the lack of rain (they rely on hydro electricity). Local people were trying to sell a wide variety of things at the side of the road including oranges, tomatoes, live chickens and even puppies!

After Lusaka there was a long journey to Livingstone which is a lot quieter and more rural. There they trekked along the floodplains of the Zambezi river through local villages. Everyone waved to say hello, even people carrying reed mats on their heads. Miss Heath found a chameleon crawling up her leg- which everyone had a hold of. When they reached Singombe Village, our campsite for the night, they were met by a crowd of excited children. They quickly found a ball and a game took place until the sun set. The next day they headed to Nampene Island. This is an idyllic place with amazing views of the sun setting every night. They were also lucky to see hippos, crocodiles and baboons on their boat trips from here to the mainland. It also had, Brian, who was the best chef ever!

Every day they took a short boat trip and a paddle to do their project work. Pupils were digging a trench to lay a pipe to connect to a water tower that had been constructed a few hundred metres away from the river. Every year at least one child is eaten by a crocodile while they are collecting water or washing so this was an essential project. The pupils dug industriously and on the last day of their stay Joe, who was celebrating his birthday, got to turn the tap on and the water came out! While at the project pupils also got to visit a local school. They can have class sizes as big as 45 and have to attend school in shifts as there aren’t enough classrooms for everyone. The local children loved meeting the pupils and every day they could hear them getting excited as their boat got nearer. On the last day pupils played the locals at football, which is quite hard when it’s boiling hot and the pitch is uneven and stony. They did manage a draw, much to the relief of our pupils who thought they were going to get beaten!

"We got to spend a lot of our time on the trip with some of the younger village children some would walk far to come and visit us. None of them spoke much English so communication was difficult so we had to rely mostly on facial expressions and sounds to talk to each other. Lots of them could choose whether or not they wanted to go to school and some young children would be carrying around their even younger siblings because their parents were working so their lifestyle is very different," said Josie W-S, one of the pupils who went on the trip.

From Nampene Island they travelled back to the hostel in Livingstone, shopped at some more markets- honing bartering skills- and tried crocodile pizza. The next day they went on safari, which was very exciting. The pupils saw lots of animals including elephants, giraffes, baboons, vultures, hippos and wildebeest. They also got to walk with a pair of rhinos, which was a bit scary but a great thing to do.

Victoria Falls are locally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya (the Smoke that Thunders) and when you see them you can understand why. The spray can be felt from a long way away. They are spectacular.

This was a very special trip which will have made a lasting impression on the pupils and teachers who came along, and will, hopefully, encourage them all to keep travelling in the future.