TRAVEL

 

 

Zambia; The real Africa 

 

 

 

 

“There is a madman who lives on the road to Mkushi. Every full moon he comes out onto the tarmac and digs a deep trench across the road. Dad would like to find the madman and bring him back to the farm. ‘Think what a strong bugger he is, eh?’ ‘Yes, but you could only get him to work when there was a full moon.”

– Alexandra Fuller, ‘Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight’  

 

We have a lot of stories like these too, from our time in Zambia.

It’s twenty years since we left the U.K and went to work for an NGO in Zambia. That move has had a huge impact on the rest of our lives.

It wasn’t a move for money. The NGO paid us about $200 per month. But we gained an experience that we will talk about for the rest of our lives and a group of very special, lifelong friends. They were wired in the same way. They wanted adventure too.

In the years since we all left Zambia we’ve stayed in good contact. We’ve met up in South Africa, Hong Kong, Scotland, Spain, England, Italy and Norway. We’ve often talked about our unique, shared experience.

And so we reflect, twenty years after the decision to go. We asked each other recently, what would life have looked like, if we hadn’t gone?

At the time I had been offered a full time position as a College Lecturer in a town called Braintree. I turned down the job when we were selected by the NGO and began the process of being matched to a placement. If we hadn’t gone, would I still be in that job now?

PKP was paying for a small, new car each month. It was to get him from A to B, nothing more. If we hadn’t gone he might own that car now, or an even bigger, shinier model.

We were living in a damp rented flat, in a small town called Brentwood. Would we have eventually been able to buy our own little home nearby? We didn’t stick around to find out.

We might have settled for an ordinary life; a house, a company pension, a familiar life on ‘home turf’. We might have pursued power or wealth, or both. Instead we chased experiences.

If we hadn’t gone to Zambia we wouldn’t have worked as Teacher Trainers and enjoyed two years of travel to spectacular  places in Southern Africa. And we might not have gained the confidence for subsequent international moves, therefore missing out on experiences and friendships from our time in South Africa, the U.A.E, Kenya and Indonesia.

Our time in Zambia was a stepping stone to a bigger life.

In ‘The Interpretation of Cultures‘, Clifford Geertz suggests

“one of the most significant facts about us may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life, but end, in the end, having lived only one.”

Some people will have regrets in their life. They may wish that they had made some different choices. They might regret following a conventional path.

We look back and realise that we have already lived many different kinds of life in different countries. And we’re not ‘done’ yet. The adventure is ongoing.

No regrets.

Thanks to our friends from our Zambia days, for being at the start of this journey. ‘Happy Zambia anniversary’ to all of us.

When did you leave your home country?

What impact did that move have on your life?

 

 

© Maggie M / Mother City Time