Zambia Trip, part 3 - River Camp

After 2 days in Mumbwa and breaking camp early we had another long and bumpy ride to a little piece of paradise along the Kafue River. On the website of Kaingu Lodge, which we saw signs of a couple of hours before we got to our destination, it says, 'A Paradise Livingstone Never Found."

It was a long, tough ride with the wheel bearing on one vehicle giving out, and some cars getting stuck in a shallow river, but it sure was worth it. Such beauty!

The view of the sunset from my tent on the banks of the Kafue River.

Can it get any better than this?

This is where we set up camp for 2 days. About

1 km from this place was the river camp of a hunting concession.

They graciously let us use their ablutions, but that meant we had to walk through bush land with wild animals to get there. We never saw elephants or lions, but there were lots of tell-tale signs that they are around.

Here I am with Corrie, inspecting a piece of land along the river where there will be a missionary training camp. We had some local guys with us to protect us. You never know what's lurking in the bushes!

One of the guys showed us the spot where his grandfather was fishing in a canoe when a crocodile jumped out of the water and pulled him under.

Joey is making fried eggs and pap (a starch made from maize flour) for breakfast. I was helping for a while, but mainly so I could get my picture taken. Still learning about outdoor cooking! For this trip I kept it to washing dishes after the meal.

Until I heard the crocodile story I went to fetch water from the river for coffee, dishes etc. Yikes! Crocodiles can jump 3 meters out of the water, and here the water is quite deep, so you can't see them. There have been instances where people where grabbed from the river bank.

From then on I'd get the water from a little stream that flowed into the big river, just to be sure!

Pastor Daniel and his wife Florence came with us to the river camp for a little time away from their busy lives. They told me that they had been praying for someone who would be able to teach some people from their congregation to feed the kids spiritually. They were so thrilled when I gave them the STEPS program and some other faith-building materials for kids, and thanked me over and over.

Thank you to Activated Ministries in the US who sponsored the books.



Staff quarters at the river camp

These guys are pulling a hippo that had been shot early in the morning. When a hippo gets shot it will sink to the bottom, and after many hours the gases in the stomach will make it rise. It took 3 canoes and 6 guys to pull the hippo through the water, and then a Landcruise to pull it out of the water. This happened right next to our camp.

I was quite disgusted by the fact that this hippo was shot by German hunters, and that, other than the head which they will keep as a trophy, the meat will be hung in trees as bait to shoot ...leopards!

But I couldn't resist taking a photo of it. The next morning some of the staff came to cut it up, but I won't post any photos of that!

The next post will be of a place called Hot Springs.

Zambia Trip, July 2011 - Mumbwa, Zambia

Mumbwa is in the Central Province of Zambia. I was going to look up some info online about Mumbwa, but there is hardly anything other than that this used to be a copper and gold mining area, but most mines are closed now.
We put up our camp by a school near a township in a very dusty spot under a few trees. It was to be our home for 2 days; no water (the nearest pump was about 500m away), 2 long drops, and extremely windy. The wind blew the dirt into our tents; it got into everything, and after 2 days I was longing for a shower. But as soon as my thoughts turned to the people living here under these conditions all the time, I was quickly very thankful for all my blessings.

Here is part of our team dancing with the locals. Lots of fun! The Africans have such rhythm and passion, it's beautiful to watch.

One day went to visit people in their homes. Not many white people venture out into these areas, so most people pull up a little stool or crate for you to sit on. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with these wonderful people, hearing about their lives and struggles.

Somehow it is difficult to get them to smile. We had a great time talking and laughing together. I was shocked when I looked at the photos later to see their serious expressions.

Since we camped in a public place, our every move was watched. From the time we pulled into this place until we had said our good-byes we had some spectators around us.

Zambia Outreach 2011, Part 1

Ok, I am finally going to do this SCARY thing, and publish something on this blog. I wonder, is it going to work, or am I going to screw up? Well, I'll see when I press 'Publish Post'.

I've been in South Africa now for over 6 years and had the privilege of traveling to a number of Southern African countries. On this blog I would like to share my experiences, stories, funny happenings, pictures and some facts about the places I have visited.

In July I went on an outreach trip to Zambia, which was an awesome experience. A few months ago I got in touch with a local NGO called Adventures4Christ, and decided to team up with them, as well as a large group from the Dutch Reformed Church. I didn't realize what I got myself into, as we ended up being 28 people, 7 vehicles and 4 trailers. Quite a group to move around! Very different from the small team that I usually go with.

Starting off from Pretoria, South Africa, we traveled 4000 km altogether. We drove through Botswana and crossed the Zambezi on a small ferry to Zambia, which is an experience in itself. From there it was mainly driving on dirt roads and through the bush, on roads that are not even on maps.

The first stretch of 120 km from Livingstone to Ngweze took us 6 hours. We got to Ngweze in the dark (we had a late start due car troubles), and had to stop to ask the village headman for permission to pass through his land. Since we were on an outreach mission, we asked if we could show the Jesus film in the village square. It was a great opportunity as they had had some sort of elections that day, and a lot of people had come to this 'trading center' from surrounding villages. We went back the next day to meet some of the people from the village to pray for them.


After the showing of the film we still had 12 km to drive on rough roads and through a wide, dry river bed, the perfect place to get stuck in the sand. The one car that wasn't a 4x4 got stuck halfway through the river bed. We finally made it to the village where we were to camp for a couple of days at midnight! Unbeknownst to us the village children had been waiting for 4 hours for us so they could sing a couple of welcome songs. We felt so bad, because most of them were not dressed warm at all and it was a very cold night. The next day we gave them some clothes and toys we had brought with us.

Our toilet in the bush! The people from the village had made a long drop and a reed covered bathroom for us. It took them 3 days to make the long-drop, and we were only staying days. Talk about hospitality!

I don't know if this village of 3 extended families has a name; we simply called it Tobias' village. Tobias is the village headman.






He is also a pastor. Thanks to Activated Ministries I was able to leave him with lots of Christian Bible study material as well as kids' educational book. He was so thankful for the books.

Can you imagine, this place is 6 hours by car from the nearest town, Livingstone. And I am not even sure there is a bookstore in Livingstone. So having us bring him books into the middle of the bush was not exactly an ordinary thing to happen.



After 2 days in Tobias' village our next destination was a hunting lodge about 280 km away. But to get to it we had to travel on dirt roads all the way, and through the Kafue National Park. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? That's what we thought. We left at 8 am, and the going was very, very slow! It took us 22 hours, which means that we had to drive the whole stretch through the national park in the dark. The road looked like it hadn't been used for a while,

and all the vehicles got scratched up pretty badly.

During our brief stops we all stayed very close to the cars as there were elephant and lion tracks everywhere.

Well, we made it to the hunting lodge, where we were supposed to spend the night, just in time to see a beautiful sunrise. After resting for a few hours we continued our journey around midday. The next destination was Mumbwa.

To be continued!

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight [The Beauty of Africa]