Baking bread and breaking from the bush

 

I think I might be required to build an ark. Anyone know what a cubit is? So once again, the rain has come down. To make matters worse, the weather report predicts that from this Sunday there will be rain every day until the 4th December!!! I fear I may just lose my mind… wibble…

Preparing the dough	The kitchen appie putting the dough in the bread trays

Anyway, it has given me a gap to show the pics I took of a little campsite fire bread baking event, and a trip a couple of days ago to Ndola for the helicopter’s 100 hour service.

Bread goes into roast dish and potjie pot…	…covered with lids…
…before being covered with coals for an hour	The end result. Nice and hot for lunch

Pierre and I flew the 3.5 hours from camp to Ndola, landing at Ndola’s international airport which is more of a small town airport than an international one. Quickly we discovered that hangar space hadn’t been arranged, so the MPI (service) would be carried out in the blazing sun. Lovely. Pierre was catching the flight out back to SA, and the engineer was arriving on the same plane, so Pierre left and the engineer arrived and got started on the helicopter while I went searching in vain in town for a hammock. I’m becoming obsessed with my desire for a cool place to snooze during the heat of the day. Ndola is not as big as Lusaka, but still with shopping malls comparable with SAs.

View through the sling mirrors – how we check on the loop from above	Square blocks separating different farm lands?
Ndola, to the north of Lusaka	Short finals into Ndola International

The Mukuba Hotel was such a welcome bit of civilisation. Air-conditioning!!!, cold beer, a small gym and a swimming pool!! Not the prettiest hotel, but it had impala wandering around the grounds, and peacocks with chicks which hung out right by the glass entrance doors. I wondered why until I saw the chicks all fall upon a fly which flew into the glass, bounced and dropped to the floor. Before it could take off again four beaks had torn it to pieces. A bit like fishing with a net.

	Big fountain just after the entrance gate
Impala and babies wandering the grounds – quite tame	Peacock mom with chicks hunting for flies

The following morning the Times of Zambia newspaper was pushed under my door and I read some stories involving murder and rape. However, what I found quite different to what I’m used to reading at home was how the story was written with horror and disgust at the act of murder. And a story of a rape where the word “rape” was never used, but rather “defilement” and “unlawful carnal knowledge of her”. The perpetrator was sentenced to 25 years “with hard labour”. It was like reading a newspaper from 30 years ago. This country is very religious, as I’ve said before, and on the whole it seems that peace and consideration towards each other is the way of life.

With a coat of paint or two it would be very pretty	Yeah baby!!

Anyway, the maintenance was done during the following day, I got horribly sunburnt on the back of my neck, spent a second night in luxury with a real toilet and left the following morning for the 3 hour (tailwind) return flight to camp.

Yet more bugs waiting for me	Rabid ant taking down a moth

The trees above us are sagging with these spider’s webs. Spider visible in the centre

And today it rains and rains and rains…