Zambia World Wide

Chapter 4

Before we left Zambia we had asked Keith to submit an application form for a company house that had a swimming pool, and would become vacant while we were on holiday. When Keith met us at the airport, he said that the application had been successful and we could move in when we were ready. We had been lucky, some people had waited many years before having the opportunity to move into a house with a swimming pool. We stayed in our own house for two weeks after our return, this gave Jan and Fred time to clean the other house and move some of our belongings in. This would make the final move much easier as the house was only two houses away from where we were living at the time which was 25, Musasa Avenue. We managed to complete the move on Saturday morning which left us the rest of the weekend to settle in. Moving was quite amusing and we had lots of fun, I had arranged to borrow the lorry and driver we used for work on the transmission lines. Saturday morning arrived and John Kandela our driver came to the house with the lorry. However on the back of the lorry were the line gang, all twenty of them. I asked John what was going on, he laughed! and said that when he had told the men where he was going, they insisted on going with him. Needless to say the lorry wasn’t needed, the linesmen carried everything by hand and all Jan had to do was tell them where to put things as they arrived. By lunchtime everything was in place, Jan and Fred then made sandwiches and mugs of tea for the men. The house we moved into was 29, Musasa Avenue, as I said only a short distance away. Although it was great to have a swimming pool, there were a few things that needed doing. The first job we needed to do and as soon as we possibly could was to repair the fence around the pool area and make a gate for the entrance. These jobs we did straight away and also fitted a bolt on the gate too high for the children to reach. This done we felt much happier knowing that unless one of us was there the children could not get into the pool area.

After some time we found the filter was not cleaning the water properly, so decided to make a new filter. Having obtained a length of one metre diameter pipe, we welded a plate in the bottom and a flange around the top. After this we welded the spray pipes inside, and fitted the external pipe-work and valves. We then filled the filter with different grades of filter sand and bolted the top in place. The new filter worked well and with a weekly back-flush the water was crystal clear. Although Gary was only four years old, he was a good swimmer and spent most of his free time in the pool with friends who lived nearby. Having the pool made quite a difference for us also as we both enjoyed swimming, and could now swim whenever we wished. There were a couple of changes we still wanted to make in the pool area, which would make life more pleasant. The first was to build a brick Braai with a thatched roof to give some shade. The second was to make and install a diving board at the deep end of the pool. Once these changes had been done we spent much more time in the pool area. At one end of the pool area was the garage wall which was painted white. In the evenings we would often sit outside and watch slides and cine films which we projected onto the garage wall. It was a much better way to view them, than inside the house plus we didn’t need to use a screen.

The house at the rear of ours had banana trees the length of the rear fence, which not only screened our pool area but also meant that we had an abundance of banana’s when in season. Jan planted Pawpaw Trees in a corner near the garage and once the trees had grown we also had a good supply of those. We also had mango Trees in the garden plus Avocado Trees, we were not short of fruit. While I am writing about the fruit trees now would be a good time to mention some of the things Jan would use the fruit to make. Pawpaw was excellent for making pies, if used before they had fully ripened would taste very similar to apples. Banana’s Jan used to make banana-bread, both the pies and banana-bread she would freeze. Mango’s Jan would use to make jam and chutney, tomatoes were also used to make chutney. It was only by doing this, we could have a regular supply throughout the year as all fruit and vegetables were seasonal.