Our twentieth day in Africa and it ended in the first proper African pub we’ve been in. The day started quite enough I spent the morning drawing site plans on the computer, real exciting. Dan & Áine headed off to Boystown to clear up some questions we had and Jamie completed some risk assessments. When Áine and Dan came back they had a truck load of information having met a local builder who gave them a tour of a building site. They also got the shovel that we needed to dig a septic tank trial hole (it treats our shit and makes it ok). After dinner of beef tougher than a maths exam in Japanese we headed down to Leonard house to attempt to dig the hole. Jamie and Dan were there first and had dug a hole about 10cm deep. The hole needed to be 1 x 0.75 x 1.2m. When I arrived we could see there was a massive rock right in the middle of the hole, just our luck we could have dug the hole anywhere in the field but choose there. The 3 of us spent the next hour and a half trying to dig around the rock but the ground was harder than the beef was tough. All the while Áine took the vitally important job of standing and watching us struggle to dig. Eventually we gave up as it was four o’clock (and Áine was wrecked from all that watching) and we had to walk into town to get our exam results. It gets dark here at six and there are no street lights so we knew we had to be home by six. When we arrived at the internet cafe only 1 of the 5 computers were free so Áine went first. Sitting waiting to check the results was painful but eventually a computer became free. The results were all good, we all passed the year and none of us have any repeats. I got 65.75% average which is almost exactly what I’ve got every other year I’ve been in college. We then walked home in very fading light it was so cool you could see the sun setting on the horizon, the town had a different atmosphere at sunset. So the good results required some celebrating (so where could 4 Irish students celebrate something, why not in a pub) so we arranged with two local guys to join us in the pub for the evening. We headed back into town at 7.30 in the now total darkness with our 2 friends leading the way. The guys who joined us were Timothy who cooks our dinners each day and Masi who is a student in a local college, they were both really nice guys. It was cool walking through town in the dark it was such as different place. The pub was called C&C and was more of a beer garden like O’Connels in Galway than a pub. It had 2 huts 1 with a load of couches, a TV and a bar and the other with a pool table. We sat near the TV and the blaring loud African pop music and struggled to talk to each other while watching Germany beat Austria in a soccer match on TV. We bought the 2 guys drinks all night, a bottle of beer (no pints) was about €1. After a while we started playing pool and it was winner stays on. I played one guy and won surprisingly but in the second game I potted the black after making a good start. My voice was getting horse so I decided a shot of whiskey would help cure it. Me and Jamie went to the bar and ordered 2 shots of whiskey. The barmaid put an entire bottle of Gold Blend whiskey into a bag (OK this will cost a fortune) it turned out to cost 30000 kwacha or about €4 (I love this country). At that point we were certain we had just bought a bottle of paint stripper mixed with diesel, so you can imagine our surprise when it turned out to be the nicest smoothest whiskey I’ve ever tasted. Everyone had a shot and we ended up just drinking from the bottle. From this point on the night descended into a little bit of a drunken mess (that I can’t accurately remember let alone describe). There was lots of whiskey drinking, pool playing and singing (end even some Irish dancing, river dance it was not but a Zambian attempting it was funny). It was such a good evening, we were the only Makua’s in the pub and Áine was the only women other than the bar maid. It was one hell of a brilliant experience. So Jamie bought another bottle of whiskey for the road (as you do) and we headed back signing the Irish and Zambian national anthems as we went. Walking drunk through an African town at night is an experience everyone should try (the 2 guys were looking after us and were well built strong guys for anyone who’s worried about our safety, no need to send in the Airforce Mam we’ll be fine). Ten o’clock is closing time here but it feels like 4 in the morning. So obviously I had to write this the next day as all you would get otherwise would be unreadable rubbish. Now to write today’s blog.
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