Zambia World Wide

Although we had enjoyed our break it was nice to get home and into a routine. I started back at work and Jan although six months pregnant got on with her usual activities. It was at this time that Lamek our house servant left, it was a company rule that the house servant only could live in the servants quarters, at our old house which was outside the company village his family were able to live with him in the servant’s quarters. Once we moved it would mean him living away from his family, this left him with no option but to leave. We were sorry to see him leave as we had become quite fond of him and his family. Jan interviewed a number of people before offering the job to a man called Fred. Employing a new house servant is never easy as you need to get to know him and he has to have trust in you and feel comfortable. Fred settled in very quickly and soon became very popular with Gary who would insist on helping him with his work. At this time we did not employ a garden boy as both Lamek and Fred preferred to look after the garden themselves.

One evening Fred asked if he could build a rondavil for Gary and his friends to play in. Next day he disappeared into the bush and later returned loaded with branches and dried grass for the rondavil. It was surprising how quickly he built it, in about three days he had completed it. First he spiked the branches into the ground, he then bound them together with grass. Once he was satisfied with the walls he then tied branches to the walls and then tied them together in the centre of the rondavil to form a cone. Once he was sure it would be strong enough he thatched the walls and roof with dried grass, leaving a space in the wall as a doorway. It was surprisingly strong and also waterproof. Gary and his friends had great fun playing in it and before long both Smokey and Cissy decided to move in as well.

When we moved into this house the garden had been neglected, Jan had always been a keen gardener and with the help of Fred she soon turned it into a very pleasant garden for the children to play in and for us to spend time. We much preferred to be outdoors rather than inside, often we would have a braai in the evenings and after Gary had gone to bed we would occasionally have friends round for the evening, we always sat outside.

I think now would be a good time to explain the African Braai, there are two types of braai. One we call a wet braai, we would obtain a plough disc, weld the holes up, fit legs underneath and a long handle in the centre. A fire would be lit and we would place the disc over the fire, then we would fry a mixture of onion, mushrooms and tomatoes. We would then add vegetables and water and leave them to simmer, we would then place meat around the outer edge to grill while the vegetables simmered in the centre. Once everything was cooked we would thicken the water in the centre and use it as gravy. The second type of braai is a dry braai which is of course a mesh placed over a fire or charcoal. We would in both cases cook a variety of meat plus on the dry braai we would cook mealies (maize cobs). This was the most common way of cooking at home, also when camping or travelling through the bush. Most Zambian households had no other means of cooking, therefore charcoal burning was quite a large industry in Zambia. The charcoal was made by stacking wood into a pile, setting fire to it and then covering the pile with damp turf. The mound would be allowed to smoulder until the smoked stopped rising. Depending on the size of the mound this could take some weeks, the turf was then cleared away and the charcoal was then bagged and sold.