At around one o’clock, I said my last goodbye to my mum at the train station. It was the last of many emotional goodbyes that day. The train journey was quite normal, for a journey to London. As I got off the train in Euston with my case and my large rucksack, the challenges of travelling on the tube became apparent. I already knew which tube I needed to take so I headed off to the underground station. After a few long, hot tube journeys I arrived at Heathrow airport.

Two other volunteers were already there and had spotted me arriving and came to greet me. I checked in my bags meaning I no longer had to carry all of my belongings for the year. We went through security and eventually boarded the flight. The plane was huge! It was an airbus A380-800ER which had the capacity for around 600 people! We took our seats and were pleased at having a blanket and pillow to help make sleeping more comfortable. The food was quite nice, for plane food. We had food at around midnight since we only boarded the flight at around half ten and the other oddly timed meals made us all feel a little ill.

The stopover in Dubai was very brief as the plane was late arriving. We had to be rushed through security and to be escorted to the gate via a train and a bus. We were the last ones to board the plane which was relatively empty. After another long flight, we finally arrived in Lusaka.

I arrived in Lusaka airport around 24 hours after I left the train station in Warrington. We then had to wait for over an hour in the warm arrivals hall for immigration. A quick chat and payment of the visa fee and we were finally in Zambia!

After collecting our luggage, we went outside to meet Kelly the country representative. We took a ride in her truck to the hostel just down the road from her old house. It was a very different view to leaving a UK airport. The roads are quite good here; occasionally they are a bit bumpy as you leave the main roads but not too bad but there are rarely pavements or functioning street lights. There are tonnes of stalls selling phone credit by the side of the road and others selling other items like fruit. We were approached in the car by people walking in road selling strawberries and other trinkets.

Once we were at the hostel we were on our own to get cash and tea from woodlands mall just down the road. I had a Hawaiian pizza which wasn’t exactly the kind of meal I wanted to settle my stomach after a long day travelling. Feeling slightly ill, we went home after and chatted to some of the people in the hostel before going to bed.

It is very different talking to people here as they are all very happy and will chat to you about whatever. They often ask “how are you?” at the beginning of a conversation which can be a little odd to begin with but it’s just a general kind of greeting here as it’s the direct translation of the local language, Nyanja, for hello. There are lots of people trying to approach you to sell you time on a pay as you go phone credit. Since we stick out by being white, we tend to get people saying hello and talking about us after we have walked off. There is one word which means white person or technically rich person “muzungo” which people often call us. It kind of seems normal now though.

Since we have been here, we have been to a big shopping mall which was, surprisingly, not that dissimilar to one in the UK other than it being quite small for an inner city shopping centre. We managed to work out how to get a pay as you go SIMs and activate them, got photocopies of our visas and passports and found somewhere to eat. We had a Nando’s as we all felt like some comfort food and we won’t be able to get something like that again in our projects.

The prices of things are hard to equate to something in the UK since the exchange rate is around £1 to 13 Kwacha. So something like block of butter can be 80 Kwacha which isn’t too bad but seems like a stupid amount. Another money problem we have is that the largest note is 100 Kwacha but buying anything can be easily over this. The cash machines only give our 100 kwacha notes when you take out larger amounts as they charge a transaction fee every time. So we never have the right change and often shops seem to have problems with giving us change too!

 

Here I will try to keep you updated on what I’m doing during my year in Zambia Teaching.

I am going to teach maths and science to secondary level to students in Mambwe boarding school in the Eastern Province of Zambia. I will be living on the school site with my partner volunteer from Project Trust called Andrew. My departure date is the 4th of September and my next post will be my first impressions of Zambia and the school when I get there after an 11 hour bus journey from the capital city, Lusaka

I’ve just been trying to work out which things to bring with me and how many items of clothing I really need.

I have mixed feelings about leaving. Leaving friends and family is a big step towards being independent but being thousands of miles away means that I really will be on my own. I will have my project partner and the other volunteers for support as well as the new friends I’m sure I’ll make along the way. But nothing is quite as nice as having friends and family close by. It will be a very different way of life in Zambia no unlimited data Wi-Fi, no bug free zones, no projectors in the classroom not to mention the 30 degree plus temperatures. That will all seem normal once I’ve been there for a while. For now, all I can do is wait until I get on the plane next Tuesday in London.

More posts to come.

Project trust asked me to write this: This is a personal blog written by Jack Baker and as such the views expressed are those of Jack Baker and not those of Project Trust.