Zambia World Wide

We seem to be going through a quiet period at the moment, though I doubt it will last. A few months ago we had met a young couple, their names were Dave and Joyce. We were at their house one evening, sitting and chatting in the lounge when we heard a loud bang. It sounded as though it came from the bathroom. When we went in and looked, the taps and water pipes had melted, the damage was caused by a lightning strike. Apart from the transmission lines it was the first time we had seen what damage lightning can cause. At the time Joyce was pregnant, after the baby was born it was found to have a club foot. The doctors in Zambia were convinced that with a calliper the foot would correct itself over time. However in UK it was possible for their son to have an operation which would correct the defect. We all paid into a special medical fund to cover us and our families for overseas treatment if it should be necessary. Unfortunately the decision had to be made by a panel of doctors and in the case of Dave and Joyce’s son they decided it was not necessary for overseas treatment, as they believed their treatment would work. If the operation in the UK was carried out it had to be done whilst their son’s bones were still soft, it would not work if the operation was left until he was older. Dave and Joyce decided that the only choice they had was for her and the baby to return to England. Dave would stay in Zambia and complete his contract and then join them in England.

We heard some months later that their son had the operation and it was successful. Meanwhile Dave being on his own would often come to ours for dinner, the lads got on well with him and most nights he would end up in the pool playing with them. One evening about a month before returning to England, he said that his main regret would be, having to leave without seeing the Victoria Falls. Jan and I discussed whether we should offer to take him to the falls if I could get the time off. We decided to go for a long weekend and invited Dave to join us, which he was glad to do. I phoned the Fairmount Hotel in Livingstone and made the booking for the following weekend.

We left Kitwe about 05.30 on the Friday morning as it was a 600 mile journey to Livingstone and would take between 9 and 10 hours to get there. We stopped by the roadside after about 120 miles (natural break for the boys), when we tried to re-start the car the engine would not turn on the

starter-motor. Not a major problem as with Jan or Dave turning the ignition key I could reach under the bonnet and short out the starter contacts. We carried on until we reached Kalomo, a small town within 100 miles of Livingstone where we stopped to refuel. About 10 miles from Kalomo the car started to misfire, we ignored it at first as we only had a short distance to go. The misfire slowly got worse, after about 50 miles we had to stop as by now it was much worse. We were sure it was water in the fuel that was the cause, we stripped and cleaned the carburettor and then carried on. We arrived in Livingstone two hours late, booked into the hotel and noticed there was a garage opposite the hotel. However it had been a long day, we were all hot, dusty and tired so decided to leave the car until the next morning.

Next morning we had breakfast, and then Dave and I went over the road to the garage, where we stripped out the petrol tank. We drained the fuel out and then flushed the tank, plus fuel line and cleaned the carburettor. We then filled the tank with fresh fuel and the car ran perfectly, job done. I won’t go through our whole trip as I have already mentioned the Victoria Falls in other chapters. However there are one or incidents worth a mention, as they had not occurred on our previous trips. Both Gary and Craig were quite good swimmers, it was nice for Jan and me to have someone who was happy to play with them in the pool, Dave had a great time but finally called a halt, they had worn him out. Dave was quite lucky as we had been to the falls a number of times and knew our way around, this would save a lot of time which otherwise might have been wasted. One incident that comes to mind occurred in Livingstone Game Park. Most animals during the heat of the day take shelter from the sun and can be difficult to spot, for this reason we went there early in the morning. After having spent some time game spotting around the park, we drove to the fenced off area in the centre. The area in the centre contained the reptile house, animal orphanage and other animals that were kept in captivity. As we walked around the enclosures we met the game warden. We had over the years got to know him quite well, not only had we met him here but also at various shows around the country.