Zambia in November

Steve and I both traveled to Zambia for two weeks this November. It was great for me, Rachel, to go along this time as it is becoming a regular visit for Steve. The first thing I learned is that greetings involve a clap, shake of hands and clap, clap while slightly bending the knees at the same time. In the past when greeting someone older they would actually get down on their knees although this isn’t as common now, especially in the cities.

Another fun thing was to speak English and be understood by most people, even in the villages! However, we did discover that our American accent wasn’t always understood. In the microenterprise training that we did I was talking about adults. One woman gave me a puzzled look and said, “Are you talking about a door or a dog?” That’s when I realized that they pronounce it adults! There are many words in which we emphasize different syllables than they do.

The training of trainers went really well with about 19 attending and people seemed to appreciate it. Steve was able to relax more than usual during the week as we put the trainers to work teaching the lessons themselves so they could get some experience. The participants really seemed to appreciate the training. One older gentleman said it awakened things in him that he had studied long ago, but many had never studied these topics. Another said, “I woke up this morning thinking how different I felt today than I did on Monday before I started the course.” At the end we found out that several had altered their plans for the week just to attend.


The town of Mongu where we were reminded us of the old West a bit. It’s built on a plateau next to a plain that runs 25 km on each side of the Zambezi River. Four months of the year this plain is flooded and people who live there have to move. This includes the king of the region (it used to be a kingdom). He makes his entrance into Mongu in March and people flock from all over for the festivities of the king coming to town. There is a guesthouse on every corner because of this.


The king’s cousin was part of the training and occasionally someone would call her “princess” (in the white blouse in the center of picture). Her sister is the Zambian ambassador to the U.S. and they are a well educated, influential family.




To get to Mongu we drove through a game park and saw these elephants along with some foolish people who had gotten out of their car to see them better. They seemed to forget that these are wild and powerful animals. We’ve heard more than one story about grouchy elephants. We also saw herds of various kinds of antelopes.


In some ways Zambia is different than Mozambique and in other ways it is very similar. There are some African customs that transcend country borders. Colonial powers have influenced the countries but many times I saw scenes that reminded me of Moz. I do appreciate Maputo’s shoreline and ocean views. Landlocked cities just aren’t the same. There is lots of room for improvement in Maputo but I am thankful that we live here for now. Speaking of living here, we found out that we need to move in December so we’d appreciate your prayers for locating our next apartment. We have had a roomy, furnished place for lower than average price and it may be hard to find something similar.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving.