Back to the bush…

 

After being lucky enough to have 6 months at home in Durban following my Gabon tours, I am again up north into the great unknown. This time I am working for a company called Fugro, an international Geosurvey company which in essence is contracted by mining companies to scan the ground (or ocean floor) to create a map to show them where to dig next.

What a pleasure, though, dealing with Fugro compared with the Gabonese lot. They are obsessed with health and safety, in a good way, and they provide all the necessary gear and even pay for my flight up! (like every other company does except the one in Gabon) So I’m pretty stoked. I am also going to be working with other South Africans, so have people to talk to this time which makes the evenings shorter. The flying is pretty much flat out all day which again will keep me busy. While perhaps not tremendously exciting work, it is technical (tick), difficult (big tick), will be a good experience and the exposure will add nicely to my skill set.

So after a couple of false starts (everyone in Durban kept saying goodbye to me only to see me a few days later because my departure date was postponed again) I finally left on Saturday morning for JHB. Checked straight through to Lusaka and then met up with Pierre (my instructor for the next two weeks or at least 40 flying hours) and we went to the departure gates and were about to board when they announced a 2 hour delay. We saw our plane, we saw it pushed back and towed away somewhere. Apparently someone broke one of the doors and they had to take it to be fixed.

So unfortunately we arrived in Lusaka at sunset, and the drive to the hotel (Cresta Golfview - although there is no view of the golf course next door) was in darkness. However the next morning when we drove into town for supplies, I realised the lack of daylight to see my surroundings wasn't particularly important. We could so easily be in slightly lower class suburb of Joburg! I spent the entire morning shaking my head and muttering that I was still in SA. We went to two shopping malls which could easily have been in SA. I started calling out the shops the same as SA, but after Spur, Mike's Kitchen, FNB, MTN, Totalsports, Game, Shoprite, Spar, Newscafe,  Debonaires, Steers I just gave up. There are way fewer local shops than SAn and they are barely noticed amongst the regulars.

Just inside the front entrance of Lusaka International	Some advertising and stairs up to the VIP lounge

Obviously I am now comparing everything to Gabon, which one expects to not have much to do with SA, given the French influence, but more than that this country has infrastructure that Gabon never will. I know I've only seen Lusaka so far, but Libreville still looks like a run down, 3rd world shanty town, albeit a large one. Lusaka on the other hand has smart, clean shops and malls, roads in fairly decent nick, and incredibly friendly and polite people. I thought it may just have been the hospitality industry, but security guards and random passers by are very helpful and reply with "It's my pleasure" when thanked. I even got "an absolute pleasure" from one lady! The locals all speak very good English and seem to be very peaceful and non-aggressive people. I read an article on Zambia in the inflight magazine which said that they are actually proud of the fact that their last 7 (I think it was) presidents are either still alive or died peacefully, as an indication of their nonviolent nature.

Check in and security control at Lusaka

Gabon was also friendly, but not always so, and in many cases they have the French attitude of not being overly gracious to the English. And it interested me that Gabon, with more oil than God has sheep and a population of only 1.5 million in total, is a rundown, shabby country with very poor infrastructure while Zambia appears far smarter and second world. Where does all of Gabon's oil money go?!

Typical African village, Solwezi	Nothing like Lusaka with gleaming shopping malls

On Monday morning we flew from Lusaka to Solwezi (small town to the northwest of the country – close to the copper belt mines). Solwezi is a very small, typically African town. I took a couple of pics here because it is worth seeing. Briefly. We were met by a driver, did some grocery shopping (R7000 worth) before heading off on an exhausting 6 hour drive to camp, arriving once again just before nightfall. Again, I was impressed with the fully tarred, good quality road all the way. Schools everywhere, well signposted – just generally far more impressive standard of life for the people of Zambia, compared with Gabon.

The accommodation wing	Presidential suite
Le bog (fly maker)	La cuisine (food maker)

The camp is rustic. Very rustic. I kind of knew it was going to be basic, but I couldn’t avoid a little sphincter spasm when I saw where I am going to be for the next 8 weeks… I have now seen them take off and land with the loop. My instructor is just going to sort out the system (hopefully he can fly today with the techie) so that I can then start flying myself – possibly from tomorrow…

Romantic outdoor shower	The dining room / living room