Kabwe, almost exactly half way between Lusaka and Ndola, is not a town where one would plan a weekend away (unless it’s at Mulungushi Dam). For most of us, it’s a ‘dirty little town’ on the road between Lusaka and the Copperbelt, a town where we know that Zacaria Phiri is going to be out […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for the '2012' Category
Fool On The Hill
Oh dear. It was two years ago exactly that the Fool on the Hill column was all about crime and keeping yourself safe inLusaka, and here we are again. Certainly in the New Kasama / Leopards Hill area there has been at least one armed robbery that due to good luck and cool heads concluded […]
Read the rest of this entry »Mole in the Hole
The Heterogonite Caper For some days now, the gates of Chambishi Mine had seen a queue of lorries, laden up with sacks of material, with their drivers and hangers on sat about the place, cooking up nshima and smoking rolled up cigarettes that had no tobacco but something far better in them! I had […]
Read the rest of this entry »Book Review
A Wake of Vultures by Mary Earnshaw This is a book that draws its excitement from the hazards, isolation and intrigues of life in the bush. Mary Earnshaw locates her novel in the South Luangwa and her characters and set are believable for anyone who has had the opportunity to visit one of our […]
Read the rest of this entry »Post Dated
In today’s world with an estimated 294 billion emails being sent and received daily it is hard to imagine that only one hundred and twenty years ago, in today’s Zambia, mail was carried by ‘runners’ who set off from one place to the next carrying a bag of mail over their shoulder. With 9 October […]
Read the rest of this entry »Birds, Bugs and Bushes
The Flap Necked Chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) It was the ancient Greeks who called them chamai leon, “dwarf lions”. When surprised, a chameleon will inflate its body, open its mouth to show its bright orange palette, hiss and lunge forward. Such behavior that is intended to confuse, surprise and frighten any attacker regardless of size, […]
Read the rest of this entry »In The Garden
October … heat … sun … and in the garden, time to mulch! Try to shield all bare soil from the direct sun. You can use tree bark, leaves, stones, even shredded newspaper. But the best is to plant a groundcover. A groundcover plant is an effective protection and is usually the most attractive to […]
Read the rest of this entry »Eating Out
Eating out with children is often quite a stressful time and one which can lead a parent to wishing they had left their brood behind and sneaked off for a quiet coffee by themselves. We all have stories to tell of badly behaved children at restaurants and cafes, but it’s different when they are yours! […]
Read the rest of this entry »Time Marches On
Time marches on and in this case, time is marching on for David Reeve and his team who are working on getting David to Dakar. In the past month, David’s bike that he will be riding in the Dakar has arrived, it has been customs cleared and registered. Last week, David was in Namibia […]
Read the rest of this entry »Getting Your Fix
Imbibers of alcoholic beverages around the country are most peeved at the recent enforcement of the hours during which bars, bottle stores, night clubs and restaurants may sell alcoholic beverages to members of the public, as are some pub and bar owners. As a non drinker, it is of no consequence to me, but I […]
Read the rest of this entry »Time To Lock Horns
September 22nd. The 266th day of the year. September 22nd. World Rhino Day. Yet as we write this on 22 August, already 281 rhinos have been poached in South Africa this year. More than one Rhino a day! Zimbabwean rhinos are also under siege with reports of light aircraft being used to track down […]
Read the rest of this entry »Pressed Into Service
In December 1976 I was one of a class of high school girls that were bussed and ‘trucked’ hundreds of kilometres from Lusaka for what became popularly known as ‘National Service’. Any decent dictionary will define this as “the system in some countries in which young people have to do military training for a period […]
Read the rest of this entry »Deadly Elixirs
I do miss David Simpson! When I compare my writing to his I could probably have just contributed the title to this piece and his take would have done so much more justice to this subject. But there we are, it is left to lesser scribes to recount the tales of Zambia’s threatened natural treasures […]
Read the rest of this entry »Elephants and Chongololos
The dust is thick in the air, thrown up by spinning tyres on loose rocks. The slope is near precipitous and the heat is beating down relentlessly on six people standing around a stationary vehicle. With blackened faces, they step back to confer. It is another winch job, they mutter. Maybe they should have taken […]
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