Zambia World Wide

Christmas Eve we went to Carols by Candle-light in Freedom Park, this is a wonderful experience and what Christmas is about. The service is held in the open air, no one is allowed to light their own candle. The vicar lights the first candle and all the other candle are lit from there, it is quite amazing to see the night go from dark to an eerie glow slowly getting brighter as more and more candles are lit. The service was good and the atmosphere electric, we all enjoyed the evening and felt that Christmas had truly arrived. Half way through the service Father Christmas would walk through the congregation and collect gifts for the children in hospital. It was wonderful to see everyone giving gifts for the children who would be in hospital over Christmas. Christmas day we spent at home with the lads, Boxing Day we went to the fishing club, the lads played with the toys they had got for Christmas and we had a lazy day with a salad lunch of left-over’s from Christmas Day. New Year’s Eve seem to come around very quickly this year and instead of going to the company club we went to a house party. We had a really great New Year but still had to celebrate it twice. Shortly after the New Year I was asked by the company if I was interested in signing a contract for a further two years. Jan and I talked it over and decided we would stay for a further two years. By now we had settled in and were enjoying the life we had, the school was very good, we had much better hospital facilities than we would have had in England. However most of all we had so much freedom without the bureaucracy that the English have to live with. By signing a new contract we were entitled to go on leave six months earlier than we expected, so once again we had plans to make. We decided not to fly directly to England but make a stopover on the way. There were so many places that we wanted to see, however we finally decided to stay a week in Mombasa and a week in Nairobi. Kenya is a country we have heard much about over the years, so we decided that now we had the opportunity to spend a stopover there we would do so rather than in Europe. We went to the travel agent and booked the tickets, after which all we could do was wait

In November last year we became involved in stockcar racing, Keith who I have mentioned earlier had built a stockcar and wanted to take part in the races. There is a suburb of Kitwe called Garneton, which is where the racing took place. In Zambia most of the activities that take place are organised and run by the participants. When Keith and the other people involved decided to take up stockcar racing they not only had to build the cars but renovate the track and clubhouse. It was quite a task and took months to complete, first the track had to be built, this was necessary as they could then start racing which would bring in the revenue they needed to improve the grounds and clubhouse. Race days were always well attended and great fun, even though by the end of the day we would all be covered in dust. The Africans loved to watch and would cheer and shout every time there was a crash, which of course added to the atmosphere. At the back of the track was a railway line and most afternoons when we had a race meeting the passing trains would stop. The driver, fireman etc would watch the racing for about thirty minutes before moving on. This must have created havoc with the time tables.