Rollin’ to the river

 

Today we got an early flight in before low cloud stopped play. Since we have done enough sitting around waiting for this and that to be fixed we were thoroughly bored and decided to take a stroll down to the nearby river – a small river feeding into the Zambezi. We walked past the clinic, which I see is much newer and smarter than previously thought – in spite of it being in the middle of nowhere. There is a large maternity ward section; I’d like to get in and have a look around at some point. The whole clinic, not the maternity ward!

View down the runway from the village end	One of the smarter village huts with motorbike & satellite dish

The river is fairly close-by but we had to walk through a small village ( or hamlet) to get to it, and so we passed a number of small, clay brick huts with thatched roofs and a school which even had a dual carriageway road into and out of it despite us only seeing 2 cars in our whole walk. Every school, it seems, has a small walled sign on the road leading to it saying, “Republic of Zambia, Ministry of Education, *Name of school and postal address*”. Interestingly, the thatch on the huts is finished off at the top of the roofs in a tightly tied off vertical tuft which looks much prettier and neater than the cement strips on most thatch huts in SA.

The drive up to the school	Kapidi Middle & Basic School

We very quickly, and unsurprisingly attracted a horde of kids and were “body mist kissed” (not sure how international or modern that reference is) the whole way down to the water’s edge. Most of the kids couldn’t speak any English or were too shy to try, so they just followed us in silence. At one point we were looking closely at some termites on the ground and the kids all gathered in to see what we were looking at. When they were all gathered around Pierre shouted, “Boo!” and they all leapt back in fright, only to burst out laughing when they realised what had happened. They didn’t follow as closely after that, however.

The school with Zambian flag flying outside	A typical village hut

The water was surprisingly clean for a small river, and fast-flowing but I still don’t reckon a swim – as attractive at is was – would have been a safe idea. Many kids were splashing and swimming around in the shallows but seemed to get shy when we arrived and all came out of the water.

Apparently there is plenty Bream in the river which is surprisingly clear	Lots of swimming or wading at the small waterfall
Evidently a popular swimming, bathing, washing spot	Our entourage following us across the bridge

Pleasantly there was no begging at all, they just followed at a small distance and posed immediately if we raised our cameras in their direction. One older kid, however, knew a little English and kept shouting, “Hey! Yes! My name is ???, what is your name? Yes! Yes!” He eventually ran out of steam after I’d waved at him, he’d signalled that he wanted my cap and I subsequently ignored him, so we continued our walk in relative peace.

The village’s water pump in the middle of the “square”	The blue roofed building just looks like a small African store, and is!

There was lots of staring as we walked through the small village. Mostly old people although many young girls and very few young men, who were presumably in bigger towns with jobs. The kids lost interest altogether when we wandered back through the village towards our camp and we returned for a snooze in the cooler, overcast mid-afternoon.

How grateful am I now for OUR long drop!