Final missive from Zambia

Spreading the faith

Although David Livingstone has been described as "Africa's greatest missionary", and the legacy of

The new members of the Imps family (L to R; Frank, Michael
and Steven)

nineteenth century missionaries is not something this apolitical blog will address,  I have nonetheless taken the decision to embark on a campaign to convert as many Zambians as possible to the most important cause; Lincoln City FC. This did mean having to sidestep the issue of the imp on the jersey* ("What is an imp?"..."It's a small devil"..."So, you follow a devil?"..."Well, umm...look at the quality of the stitching") but, as you can see by the photo, I have already obtained three converts from amongst the trainees here at the Sani foundation. The shirts proved very popular and I regretted only bringing three, but my big brother is kindly sending a care package of Lincoln City memorabilia to the foundation that will help keep the team here earnest in their conversion to the cause. They are joining the Imps family at a difficult, emotional time as we have just sold Matt Rhead to Billericay; personally, I'm still trying to come to terms with it, and now the trainees will only know Big Matt as myth, as legend.

* For the uninitiated, Lincoln City FC are known as the Red Imps and have the Lincoln Imp on their jersey badge. The true story of the how the Lincoln Imp came to be can be read here.

Food glorious food

The team here at Sani have been generous in providing me with lunch every day. I have already described the nshima that we have on most days, but forgot to mention that Thursday is a treat as we get samp.

Samp with groundnuts

This is, like nshima, made from maize but is made from de-hulled, chopped maize kernels and has sugar added to it (which makes it a big hit). It is served with groundnuts and is eaten with a spoon (which I wasn't expecting and did at first starting eating it with my hands...something of a social faux pas).

The team also decided I needed to go further afield in my understanding of Zambian cuisine and so they took me to a local restaurant, Kumushi (which means "village") which is very popular with local office workers. Here we had nshima with vegetables and - a specialty of the establishment - village chicken. The chicken was

Nshima, village chicken and vegetables at Kumushi restaurant

coated in a spicy relish and as you can see from the picture it was very tasty. The servings were generous and I'm pleased to say that there was nothing left on my plate by the end.
This brings my career as a food blogger to an end. I thought all this was going to launch me on a career as an influencer for maize based products, but no organisations have contacted me.

Livingstone

The go-to tourist destination in Zambia is Livingstone, so, I flew down Friday evening and had a

great weekend there. The main draw is the Victoria Falls, which, whilst not quite High Force (whose waters nourished my ancestral tree**), it is still very impressive. This isn't the best time to visit as it is the peak of the dry season and so the falls weren't at full flood, but the view of the gorge was amazing and it was great to walk around. One part involved clambering down rocks to get to a section called the Boiling Pot. For some reason, the guide thought I would be up to this (probably due to the Australian hat and khaki cargoes), not realising that I am actually inept, weak of limb and pretty much scared of everything.  Anyway, I managed it and came back up in one piece, but have promised myself to work on my image so people don't try to make me do things like that again.

I also managed to fit in a walking safari in the Mosi-oa-tunya national park, which was an opportunity to see rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) in the flesh.  We managed to find a group of seven and were able to get quite close without spooking

them. This was another example of this trip giving me the opportunity to do and see things that one wouldn't typically be able to do, not even in Lincoln.

This will be my last post from Zambia as I fly back on Wednesday evening. I will, though, do a last post once I am back in the town of my birth so that you can be assured that I have returned safely.

** Whilst most people associate me with Lincoln, where I was indeed born, my family originally hails from the Darlington / Teesdale area. Just a snippet of genealogical background for you.