On the weekend a group of us went to South Luangwe for a little safari break. The park is meant to be one of the best in the continent and is where a lot of nature documentaries are filmed, including parts of the recent Planet Earth 2. It's coming to the end of rainy season though, so there's a lot of greenary - which makes the landscape a lot more beautiful, but does also make it harder to see the animals.
In our taxi were 3 us of who'd finished 24h on calls Friday morning and one of the medical students, so luckily we set off in good time, expecting a relaxed afternoon by the pool. The journey however didn't entirely go to plan... About 10 minutes out of Katete the car started shaking and making a terrible juddering noise.
Eventually he returned with some mechanics who went about fixing it, which basically consisted of hitting it very hard with a hammer... But seemed to do the job!
We got going again, and thought we'd still make good time, until about twenty minutes later the car starting making funny noises again... So we drove the next hour at 30mph on a 75mph road, hoping we'd make it to Chipata before breaking down again, a very long way from any mechanics. Luckily we made it to Chipata and George left us at the little shopping complex while he went to get it fixed. Apparently the other CV joint had gone now...
We went to Spar to pick up some safari essentials - gin, tonic, crisps and chocolate! Only as if this journey wasn't bad enough, things were about to get even worse! The others were very healthily looking in the fruit and vegetable isle and I went to get some crisps when a man approached me. This is very normal; firstly as a white woman I attract a lot of attention and secondly Zambians are generally a lot more friendly/like chatting to strangers. So although I would rather be left to buy my snacks in peace, I initially wasn't particularly put out. But then he started the conversation with the not-so-classic opening line of "have you ever had sex?" I was, I think appropriately, indignant to his impertinence and told him that was completely inappropriate supermarket chat and to leave me alone. Unfortunately he didn't take the hint, and this went back and forth a bit; him saying outrageous things, and me telling him to bugger off. He continued completely straight faced without any sign of understanding my rebuttal, despite apparently having good English. On retrospect I should have walked away at his opening line, but I really wanted to get some crisps and wasn't going to give up just because a man was making stupid remarks. To cut a long story short, the whole incident ended in him sticking his hands down his pants and whipping out his penis!!!
As you can imagine, this was both slightly hilarious and slightly horrifying! I mean I have seen plenty of penises (penae?) in my time (#cosI'madoctornotaslut) but it's still not what you expect to see when you're in the crisp isle at the supermarket! I suppose that'll teach me for being so unhealthy... At this point I very definitely walked away swearing, and quickly found James in case I needed any back up. James is maybe 6ft2 and this man was about half a head shorter than me and not particularly well built, so I wasn't particularly threatened by him, but it was still a bit of a shock!
James suggested I report it to security, which was another slightly hilarious experience. The guard was utterly confused. I'm not sure whether that was due to poor English, or if he just couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to look at a man's penis... But by the time he seemed to understand the man had vanished, so nothing came of it. Probably for the best, can't say I would have wanted to spend the afternoon in a Zambian police station. Instead we spent a merry 20 minutes waiting for George in Steers fast food restaurant eating ice cream, before we were back on the road.
Sammy seems to think this whole incidence is because of my blue weave - one of the theatre sisters told her that means you're a prostitute! But I maintain if he thought I was a prostitute he wouldn't have started with the opener "have you had sex?" cos surely, duh, that's my job right?! Needless to say however, this was the perfect excuse to get rid of the weave the next day!
In our taxi were 3 us of who'd finished 24h on calls Friday morning and one of the medical students, so luckily we set off in good time, expecting a relaxed afternoon by the pool. The journey however didn't entirely go to plan... About 10 minutes out of Katete the car started shaking and making a terrible juddering noise.
George investigating the problem...
Apparently it was the CV joint, whatever that is. George hitched a lift back to Katete and left us on the side of the road for about an hour.
We went to Spar to pick up some safari essentials - gin, tonic, crisps and chocolate! Only as if this journey wasn't bad enough, things were about to get even worse! The others were very healthily looking in the fruit and vegetable isle and I went to get some crisps when a man approached me. This is very normal; firstly as a white woman I attract a lot of attention and secondly Zambians are generally a lot more friendly/like chatting to strangers. So although I would rather be left to buy my snacks in peace, I initially wasn't particularly put out. But then he started the conversation with the not-so-classic opening line of "have you ever had sex?" I was, I think appropriately, indignant to his impertinence and told him that was completely inappropriate supermarket chat and to leave me alone. Unfortunately he didn't take the hint, and this went back and forth a bit; him saying outrageous things, and me telling him to bugger off. He continued completely straight faced without any sign of understanding my rebuttal, despite apparently having good English. On retrospect I should have walked away at his opening line, but I really wanted to get some crisps and wasn't going to give up just because a man was making stupid remarks. To cut a long story short, the whole incident ended in him sticking his hands down his pants and whipping out his penis!!!
As you can imagine, this was both slightly hilarious and slightly horrifying! I mean I have seen plenty of penises (penae?) in my time (#cosI'madoctornotaslut) but it's still not what you expect to see when you're in the crisp isle at the supermarket! I suppose that'll teach me for being so unhealthy... At this point I very definitely walked away swearing, and quickly found James in case I needed any back up. James is maybe 6ft2 and this man was about half a head shorter than me and not particularly well built, so I wasn't particularly threatened by him, but it was still a bit of a shock!
James suggested I report it to security, which was another slightly hilarious experience. The guard was utterly confused. I'm not sure whether that was due to poor English, or if he just couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to look at a man's penis... But by the time he seemed to understand the man had vanished, so nothing came of it. Probably for the best, can't say I would have wanted to spend the afternoon in a Zambian police station. Instead we spent a merry 20 minutes waiting for George in Steers fast food restaurant eating ice cream, before we were back on the road.
Sammy seems to think this whole incidence is because of my blue weave - one of the theatre sisters told her that means you're a prostitute! But I maintain if he thought I was a prostitute he wouldn't have started with the opener "have you had sex?" cos surely, duh, that's my job right?! Needless to say however, this was the perfect excuse to get rid of the weave the next day!
Nicola's cleaner Lydia gave her a weave last week and somehow I was persuaded to get a little bit done and all the normal colours were taken...
So the journey that should have taken 3 hours ended up taking 6, but we managed to get there just before it was completely dark. Actual photos of animals, like you might expect from a post named "Safari" will follow shortly! For now I'll leave you with this...
This is SO Zambian! Firstly, why wouldn't you ride in the boot if the car is full? Then in the foreground are the bumper stickers covering the huge crack in George's windscreen, because of course they will definitely help, then in the background is the herd of cows chillin' on one side of the 75mph road and pedestrians happily walking along the other side...
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