Visiting Petauke

We got on the bus in Lusaka with the other volunteers at about 6:30 as we wanted to avoid having no space for our bags. It left at 7am sharp and was surprisingly empty we think maybe it’s the Mambwe bus that is always busy since it is the only one that goes all the way to Mfuwe and the one we got on wasn’t for Mfuwe. We ate bread buns on the bus as breakfast and had a few snack brought from the people who sell things at the little stops through the window of the bus. We said bye to the other volunteers as we got off the bus with Mhairi and Maeve to go to their house at Petauke boarding school.

We were swarmed with offers of taxis but the girls said a good price is K20 and only one driver was willing to do that for us so we got in that one. I had to have my bag on my lap since we all had large rucksacks and it was a small hatchback car. We got dropped at the school entrance and walked to the girl’s house.

We dumped our stuff there. I haven’t yet posted about my house but I will do later. But their house was better in some ways but not in others. It was a reasonable amount larger and they too have a spare room. They did only have one working plug socket in the whole house and the water comes on way less frequently so it’s swings and roundabouts. We ate some food at their house before going out to the town to buy some food as they didn’t have enough food for the four of us for two days.

We walked to the market first which was amazing compared to our market. I will be writing a post about the market in Mambwe later. There were tonnes of stalls selling all kinds of things from watermelons to sweet baked goods. They had carrots, onions, green peppers, cabbage, apples and the list goes on. The prices were much more reasonable than in our market too. They could get a stack of 4 tomatoes for K1 but for us the equivalent amount would cost us K5 which is 500% the price! We felt a little sad that our own food situation was not as good as the girls’. we went to a bank in the town to get some cash having depleted it on taxis in Lusaka. That’s another thing we don’t have in our town.

Towns in Zambia aren’t very well designed everything is spread out and the buildings close to each other are often used for very different purposes. It makes it very hard to find anything easily and do shopping quickly. Fortunately the girls knew where to go.

We went on to their butchers (guess what? we don’t have one of those!) to get some chicken and sausage. The sausages here are usually beef ones for some reason which might sound quite odd but they are quite nice. As we were walking around there were plenty of people saying hi and wanting to shake our hands and chat. The girls seemed surprised as they said this rarely happens to them.

In Zambia there is quite a divide between men and women. It’s not to say that they don’t interact with each other just that the way a man interacts with a man is usually different to the way he would interact with a woman. Men don’t usually make physical contact with women other than shaking hands as a greeting. That is unless they are married but even then there are very few, if any, public displays of affection. One surprising thing is that you often see men holding hands. Being gay in Zambia is illegal so it is not seen as something homosexual simply as an act of friendship. This was a little disconcerting to begin with but now it seems normal.

After the butchers, we went to get an “ice cream”. This is wasn’t quite the same as what we would call one in the UK although they do have proper ice cream. It was more like an ice lolly with milk in the ice so it was a little creamy but still had more of a texture of ice. I had one covered in almonds and chocolate. It was a very nice treat to have. After that, we went home and chilled out at their house. We had a roast chicken and roast potatoes for tea which was amazing! We haven’t really been able to eat that kind of thing as we usually get meat which will last multiple meals rather than a whole chicken. The potatoes weren’t anywhere near as good as ones at home but they were nice in their own way.

That evening one of the girls’ teacher friends had said he’d take us to a club in Petauke. When he arrived, we took a taxi from the school to the town. We went into the first place and there was no one around we sat down at a table and had a beer. In Zambia anything compared to beer is expensive. It’s almost double the price of a beer to get any other drink. After sitting in the almost empty bar for a while we went to the other club. It was much bigger but still didn’t have many people.

We went to stand outside where there was an outdoor stage. There was a selection of live groups coming on over the night but none had arrived when we got there. When the music started we were all having a go at dancing despite no one else there really doing anything. After we had started dancing other people started joining in. There were some very impressive dancers and some slightly odd ones. The dancing in Zambia involves a lot of hip movement and thrusting which is rather alarming to begin with but its just the way they do it. As with most things we have got used to it now. We left the club before any of the main acts came on as we were all tired by midnight.

After a good sleep and nice lie in thanks to thicker curtains at their house. We got up and had some breakfast. We were meant to go to a dam with the teacher to spend the day there but we they couldn’t get the car from a friend. So we spent the rest of the day at the house and looking round the school. We went back to the town for Andrew and I to get some meat and veg to take home with us the next day. Later, we found out that we were invited back by the owner of the club for a braii (BBQ) as they liked our dancing so much. We all found this quite amusing. I feel like we could have been invited back as we are white and that makes us interesting but nevertheless we went back that evening even though we weren’t planning on it before being invited.

Before going out, the girls suggested we should watch the sunset. Petauke is on a hill which makes it a very good place to get a view of the area and of the sunset. They suggested that we should climb the water tower at the school to get the best view. It was very very tall! It took about 5 minutes or so to climb to the top of the tower we estimated it was about 30 or 40m high. It was vertical ladders all the way up the tower and on the top there were no railings! It was an amazing view you could see all of Petauke and the sunset was very impressive. My phone camera doesn’t really do it justice but you might get the idea from the pictures. We waited until the sun had gone down before going home for tea.

We went back and had the Braii which was goat and quail. It was very tasty and we enjoyed it very much. We met some of the teacher’s friends which was nice. They were all really friendly towards us and chatted plenty. I met a guy from Burundi who spoke French. He was surprised that I knew how to speak it. He probably didn’t realise how close to France the UK is. He had a very strong African French accent but I could still understand him. Since then I’ve not met anymore French speaking people though.

We went home late and had a good sleep. We made pancakes for breakfast before Andrew and I got on the bus to go home at around 10am.

It was a really nice trip. It was very interesting to see where the other volunteers live and what they have to do in their area even though it made us a bit jealous. We don’t talk all that much as we are all often quite busy with teaching so it was good to see what their life here is like. We are hoping that they will come to visit us at some point and that we can go and visit them another time later in the year.