I travelled to Zambia last month to attend a workshop on Local Learning and Value Chains, visit the VSO Zambia Office, the Dairy Association of Zambia and write a case study in a little village called Nyimba 450km outside of Lusaka. It’s not a very big place and I think people were pretty excited to have someone new to talk to. On the first day we travelled to a little chiefdom to monitor one of the Nyimba District Farmer Association projects and the chief himself said “who are we to receive such a visitor’. The only thing that made me special in that situation was that I am a foreigner. Don’t believe the hype, I’m actually nobody.
When I found out that Fridays were half days at the association I decided to bring all my bags to the office so that I could go straight to the bus depot and get to Lusaka by dinner because I was damn excited to see all my friends after a year’s hiatus. My colleagues were not pleased with the sight of me with all of my bags and despite only knowing me for two days they shamelessly guilt tripped me about wanting to leave the entire morning and played the song One More Night. Eventually they convinced me to stay for lunch by saying that there were buses running from Chipata until 17:00.
While we waited for lunch to be prepared I had to go around the room posing for photos as if I was every guy’s girlfriend and after lunch they went through the motions driving me to the bus depot and waited around for a bit despite the fact they had knowingly lied to me about the bus which stops running at noon! So I stayed for one more night in Nyimba. We went out dancing and I had to hide half of the beers people bought for me in my purse so I would be capable of catching the 6am bus. Zambians are my fav!
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