And so to today which turned out to be a really interesting fun day (sometimes though the fun days make boring blogs and vice versa). So today we decided to have as a day off. We had arranged to meet an Irish man and his English wife who live in a village called Limulunga which is about 15km north of Mongu. It is where the king of Barotseland lives during the wet season from April to June when is main palace becomes flooded (Barotseland is the home of the Lozi people and was a British protectorate before Zambian independence incorporated it into the rest of the country, there is still trouble from time to time with Lozi’s looking for independence). They said they would cook us some local food or we could get pizza take away from a restaurant in town (ooh hard choice pizza it is, they sounded like they would prefer pizza aswell). So we rang for a taxi to take us to town. In true Zambian style he promised a few minutes and showed up over a half an hour later. The taxi ride was quite sore on the buttocks as the taxi didn’t seem to have any suspension (probably took it off and sold it). At one point the taxi slowed down to a crawl at a speed bump and as we passed over it you could hear the bottom of the car scraping against the ground (didn’t get stuck like Barack Obama though, although once or twice I felt the floor pushing up and it came pretty close to being stuck). We anticipated Zambian timing so went and ordered our food two hours early. They couple we were going to meet had advised us to get a wrap called Shewama so the other 3 ordered one and I went for the pizza I was craving. I asked for a small pizza and the waiter just said ok, no question of choosing what was on it. So while waiting for our pizza we head off to explore the town. The main street was a lot like Kaoma with shops and people everywhere. The only difference is s hopped seemed better stocked and there was more of a range of items on sale (including a restaurant called “Deborah’s Chicken & Things”). We need a atm but as luck would have it the atm on the main street was out of order (and there seemed to be a security guard convention happening outside it) so we set off walking down the main street towards the roundabout that seems to mark the town centre (I use the word town centre lightly). It was a strange walk with markets everywhere and carwashes at the edge of small streams. The walk took much longer than the out of scale guidebook map suggested. Eventually we got money and set off to see if a local craft centre was open. On the way we wanted to take a picture of the six story government building (which is illegal) so me and Jamie posed while Dan zoomed past our heads on the camera to get the picture. The craft centre was closed but looking through the window the items inside looked cool (we’ll definitely be going back there to empty our pockets). When we got back to the restaurant called “Oasis” our food still wasn’t ready (quell suprise). Eventually we got our food and went outside to wait for our taxi. There were small lizards running about everywhere and also the largest collection of Makua’s we’ve seen in Zambia. The journey out to Limulunga was uneventful but yet again the car was scraping along the ground at times. We arrived in and town far bigger than I was expecting it was like a mini Kaoma. We were told to look out for a white guy in a Dublin GAA jersey (ah sure they’re everywhere round here). When we saw him walking towards him it was pretty obvious it was him (you could spot an Irish head in Africa from a mile away). His name is Peadar and he’s a blocklayer and has been in Zambia for about 6 years. While we had been waiting we say cows pulling a trailer that was just the back of a pickup truck. We made our way to their home a small house on a compound run by another order of nuns (nuns, nuns reverse, reverse). We were greeted by his wife a rather sizable lady from England called Rachel and they’re 7 month old son called Oscar. It was weird seeing a white baby again, he was a cute kid with massive eyes. As we sat down and took the food out, in their tiny kitchen, Rachel called the Zambian women and her daughter from the sitting room to come get food (suddenly we realise we had only brought the food they wanted, we had assume the 6 portions of food was one each we had no idea there would be others there, oh shit). After making some excuses about not realising portion sizes, we shared the food we had brought between us and they had some local (horrible) beans that meant the lack of food wasn’t really noticed. After dinner we were sitting around the table chatting laughing and joking at jokes that only Irish people get, Rachel joining in from time to time when she did something that I (and we) feel serves its own chapter.
“The Boob”
Yeah you guessed she whipped it out at the tiny dinner table. She said before hand, as some kind of warning, “you’ve probably seen Zambian women do this” (yeah but not at a dinner table right in my face love). What made the whole situation worse was she lifted her top and popped “the (giant) boob” out and just left it hanging there (like a giant lump of cream on an oversized spoon) for a few minutes while the kid struggled to reach cause she was holding him so far away. All the while she kept telling a story directed at me I tried to keep talking to her but “the boob” was so large and the room so small it was difficult. For the next five minutes we all struggled to figure out where to look. All in all it was a weird experience.
After she put “the boob” away we moved to the sitting room where the young Zambian girl was watching Barney. The girl was called Happiness which is possibly the coolest and most apt name for a girl ever. Peadar is really sound and it was cool chatting to him. Rachel however was a bit more awkward to get on with and at some points she seemed to be lecturing us about cultural differences. We all couldn’t quite put our finger on it but something bugged us about her (and it wasn’t just “the boob”). While we were sitting there she brought in some crafts for us to buy and I bought a cool wall hanging. After the crafts Rachel had Áine try on a local dress which was hilarious. They asked us if we were interested in going for a walk down to the royal canal, it sounded cool so we set off. As we walked Rachel and Peadar told us about the work they were doing and some information about the area which was really interesting. When we arrived down to edge of the flood plains it was an amazing site (one of those sites that try as you might a camera will never catch the image properly). Stretching out in front of us as far as the eye could see was flat land with nothing but a few trees and pools of water, it was an unbelievable site. Just down at the foot of the hill there was a small river. We were taking picture so the amazing scene I n front of us when I turned around to try and take a picture when suddenly I realised there were a load of teenage girls naked washing themselves in the river. Take about awkward (best not take photos). There were people washing themselves all the way along the waterfront. We walked along a path by the waterfront passing some unbelievable views. Eventually we reached the edge of the canal where the Lozi king arrives each year by boat when changing residents. It’s a big festival called Kitunga and people come from miles around to view it. The place is apparently packed when it happens usually around April each year. The canal where he arrives is cool we walked a good bit out along it and saw lots of people bathing and fishing in it. The kings other palace is 25km away and it takes 100 men 8 hours to paddle him here. At the top of the canal is a big ceremonial road to his palace (well it’s more a big house I wouldn’t call it a palace by Disney standards). Taking pictures here is illegal so luckily the palace was a bit shit. There was also a museum that we decide to have look in, It was pretty shit but worth a look all the same. We headed back to the town and had a drink each outside a shop painted with the Pepsi logo but that didn’t sell Pepsi (ironically it did sell coke). After saying our goodbyes we all piled into a taxi for the journey home ( i say piled cause I mean piled there was also a women and her daughter in the car). Me, Dan and Áine were sitting on top of each other it was insane. What made it worse was the driver had a bottle of beer beside his seat and the car had bits of plastic where the wing mirrors used to be. Once home we tried once again to get the DVD player working and watch “Catch Me If You Can” and after one or two false starts (no sign of windmills though) we got it working (or so we thought) about 10 minutes from the end it cut off so we watched the rest on the laptop. So that was a long and interesting day. Tomorrow is a bank holiday so we might take that off too for some more exploring. Goodnight.
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