Still in Zambia

Last Saturday we were due to fly to Cape Town for two weeks, before returning to the UK. Then last Thursday a freak lightning strike put Radio Christian Voice off the air and all the new studios in Lusaka out of action. Andy and his team of technicians worked through Thursday night to restore the English service with the Local Languages service returning yesterday.

At the present time there are still lots of repairs outstanding, but progress is slowly being made.

Meanwhile, we have moved into the recently finished guest house, on the residential site behind the studios:

The guest house is the end one of a row of bungalows. On the residential site there are also three blocks of flats like this one:

The wooden planks set out on the drive are ready for concreting, which should keep the dust down.

Returning to the guest house, this is the view from the back garden:

Outside the back door there is a large sink for doing laundry washing, which I have just painted with stoep enamel (a stoep is an Afrikaans word for a step or patio area):

The sink is made of concrete fibre and needed sealing before use. The choice of colours of paint were, red, green or terra-cotta, so we chose the latter, to fit in with the brickwork and other paintwork on the house.

Without a washing machine, the dirty laundry was building up, so today I used the sink and hung it on the washing lines, which are situated between the blocks of flats, as our washing line hasn't been erected yet:

As the rainy season begins, the sandy Zambian soil turns to mud very easily, so everyone will be happier when these areas are concreted.

Living in another house (my seventh, in four years) is getting easier all the time...

Early rain in Zambia

Zambia has a climate with three seasons: A cool dry season, from April to July, a hot dry season from August to October and a hot wet season from November to March. The last wet season was very heavy and extended into April with the final light rain falling at the beginning of May. So it was somewhat of a surprise last Friday (10th October) to experience a sudden downpour, late in the afternoon. We leave Zambia in less than a week, so I was not expecting to see any rain before we left.

It had been very windy in the afternoon and the clattering on our tin roof increased, as seed pods from an overhanging tree suddenly started to drop rapidly rather than sporadically, as in the past few weeks. The seed pods are hard, green, the size of cherries and when you step on them they squirt a sticky liquid sideways, often onto your other leg. Here they are littering the path at the side of the house:

Then I heard a peel of thunder, which seemed a long way away and noticed a few spots of rain on the dry concrete and rushed out to take a photo, just in case that was all we were going to get!

However, a short while later Andy arrived home so I popped out to collect something from a neighbour. By the time I drove back down our drive, the rain was pelting down...

...running from the roof...

...and forming pools in the storm gulleys, by the door (along with a few of the seed pods):

It only lasted for about 10 minutes, but it made the air smell fresh a clean again and settled the dust down for a while. We heard later that day that Lusaka had experienced very heavy rain and even hail earlier on Friday, and we were surprised to see huge pools of surface water at the side of the roads when we travelled to the airport early on Saturday morning.

Since then there hasn't been another hint of rain, but the downpour was sufficient to stir the mosquitos from their slumber - we have been swatting them ever since and doubling our use of insect repellent. The rain also brought a snake out of its hole, although I didn't see that one. Our guard told us he had killed a spitting cobra, very close to the house.

It seems we need to be extra vigilant in our final few days here.