Hoi An, Vietnam felt like home to me when I first arrived there at the start of the pandemic. I keep coming back there. And am there now. It keeps shaping me.
Loved this. I think living anywhere new changes you, but Zambia sounds like a special place. My mother in law from Surrey did something like this back in the 60s. Always talks about Victoria Falls. We tell her to go back and visit. Instead she’s requested that when she dies, we all (that is, her sons and their families) go to the Falls to spread her ashes. Poetic. But I do wish she would just make the trip before that!
Absorbing from beginning to end. Of course, now I’d like to visit Zambia, but more than this, to welcome more challenges when traveling and take joy in the unexpected experiences that might open my mind and change my perspective. Thanks, Sam and Mikey!
Two places have stuck with--and changed--me: Kabul, Afghanistan, when I was in my twenties, and Vienna, Austria, when I was in my sixties. I just finished writing about my experiences in Afghanistan on my Travel Doorways Substack: https://claricedankers.substack.com/t/memoir
Suddenly, I am flooded with Zambia memories after reading Mikey’s interview.
1. As newly arrived newlyweds in Africa, my bride and I were tasked with driving a little red Isuzu pickup truck from Harare, Zimbabwe to Lilongwe, Malawi, which was back before Madonna started buying her children there. After overnighting with a friend in Lusaka who had the windscreen stolen from his car at a traffic signal the day before, we headed across Zambia on the Great East Road to Chipata. Almost exactly halfway across the six hundred kilometer trek, we crested a small hill and witnessed an amazing sight on the other side.
An ancient lorry pulling a flatbed trailer overloaded with sacks of sugar, a rare and precious commodity in those days, ran out of power while climbing the hill, ground to a stop, and then started rolling backwards until it finally jackknifed between two cut banks and completely shut down the Great East Road. Drivers from the long lines of stalled vehicles were helpfully unloading the sugar and stashing in their cars. I don’t remember how long we waited or how the mess was finally resolved, but I do remember the happy faces of looters who would at long last enjoy their tea with sugar for weeks to come.
2. While living in Blantyre, Malawi in the days before Madonna bought her children there, a friend asked me to fly to Lusaka for two days with him to consult on a project, so we flew from Blantyre to Lilongwe, where we boarded a Zambia Airways flight. About 45 minutes into the flight, the captain announced that the Zambian government had just closed all borders and grounded all flights from the country for seven days to introduce a new currency. Zambians had seven days to exchange old currency for the new currency before the old became worthless. The intent was to put black market currency dealers out of business by making their hoards of cash worthless.
I looked at my friend and he looked back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking, besides the fact we didn’t have enough clean socks and underwear for five extra days. He had only enough Coke in cans with him to last two days. Coke was his only joy in life and it was almost impossible to break into the Zambia Coke market without an empty Coke bottle to exchange for a full bottle. As with most things in Zambia in those days, Coke bottles along with clean new socks, underwear, toothpaste, car windshields and almost everything thing else was in short supply or nonexistent.
Immediately upon landing in Lusaka, my friend was already starting to panic about his rapidly approaching Coke drought, so at every bottle store along the highway, I stopped while he attempted to negotiate an empty bottle. No luck.
On the morning of the third day, he woke me early and off we went in search of the holy grail of bottles. No luck. No luck whatsoever. As a stopgap, he bought a couple of warm Cokes from a roadside vendor, but it only whetted his appetite for the luxury of a cold Coke in the luxury of sitting be-underweared in front of a fan on the sofa of the guest house where we stayed.
Then something extraordinary, perhaps miraculous happened. Under a sink, in the dark back corner of a cabinet, he found an overlooked empty Coke bottle. Such joy! Such animal happiness!
And that’s how we survived the next five days, dirty socks and underwear and all. The moral of this story? Don’t pray for miracles, expect them.
This was wonderful! Perfect way to start a Saturday!
Hoi An, Vietnam felt like home to me when I first arrived there at the start of the pandemic. I keep coming back there. And am there now. It keeps shaping me.
Loved this. I think living anywhere new changes you, but Zambia sounds like a special place. My mother in law from Surrey did something like this back in the 60s. Always talks about Victoria Falls. We tell her to go back and visit. Instead she’s requested that when she dies, we all (that is, her sons and their families) go to the Falls to spread her ashes. Poetic. But I do wish she would just make the trip before that!
Absorbing from beginning to end. Of course, now I’d like to visit Zambia, but more than this, to welcome more challenges when traveling and take joy in the unexpected experiences that might open my mind and change my perspective. Thanks, Sam and Mikey!
Also, after reading this post, I am now making plans to visit Zambia. It sounds amazing.
Two places have stuck with--and changed--me: Kabul, Afghanistan, when I was in my twenties, and Vienna, Austria, when I was in my sixties. I just finished writing about my experiences in Afghanistan on my Travel Doorways Substack: https://claricedankers.substack.com/t/memoir
Thanks for having me!
Suddenly, I am flooded with Zambia memories after reading Mikey’s interview.
1. As newly arrived newlyweds in Africa, my bride and I were tasked with driving a little red Isuzu pickup truck from Harare, Zimbabwe to Lilongwe, Malawi, which was back before Madonna started buying her children there. After overnighting with a friend in Lusaka who had the windscreen stolen from his car at a traffic signal the day before, we headed across Zambia on the Great East Road to Chipata. Almost exactly halfway across the six hundred kilometer trek, we crested a small hill and witnessed an amazing sight on the other side.
An ancient lorry pulling a flatbed trailer overloaded with sacks of sugar, a rare and precious commodity in those days, ran out of power while climbing the hill, ground to a stop, and then started rolling backwards until it finally jackknifed between two cut banks and completely shut down the Great East Road. Drivers from the long lines of stalled vehicles were helpfully unloading the sugar and stashing in their cars. I don’t remember how long we waited or how the mess was finally resolved, but I do remember the happy faces of looters who would at long last enjoy their tea with sugar for weeks to come.
2. While living in Blantyre, Malawi in the days before Madonna bought her children there, a friend asked me to fly to Lusaka for two days with him to consult on a project, so we flew from Blantyre to Lilongwe, where we boarded a Zambia Airways flight. About 45 minutes into the flight, the captain announced that the Zambian government had just closed all borders and grounded all flights from the country for seven days to introduce a new currency. Zambians had seven days to exchange old currency for the new currency before the old became worthless. The intent was to put black market currency dealers out of business by making their hoards of cash worthless.
I looked at my friend and he looked back at me. I knew exactly what he was thinking, besides the fact we didn’t have enough clean socks and underwear for five extra days. He had only enough Coke in cans with him to last two days. Coke was his only joy in life and it was almost impossible to break into the Zambia Coke market without an empty Coke bottle to exchange for a full bottle. As with most things in Zambia in those days, Coke bottles along with clean new socks, underwear, toothpaste, car windshields and almost everything thing else was in short supply or nonexistent.
Immediately upon landing in Lusaka, my friend was already starting to panic about his rapidly approaching Coke drought, so at every bottle store along the highway, I stopped while he attempted to negotiate an empty bottle. No luck.
On the morning of the third day, he woke me early and off we went in search of the holy grail of bottles. No luck. No luck whatsoever. As a stopgap, he bought a couple of warm Cokes from a roadside vendor, but it only whetted his appetite for the luxury of a cold Coke in the luxury of sitting be-underweared in front of a fan on the sofa of the guest house where we stayed.
Then something extraordinary, perhaps miraculous happened. Under a sink, in the dark back corner of a cabinet, he found an overlooked empty Coke bottle. Such joy! Such animal happiness!
And that’s how we survived the next five days, dirty socks and underwear and all. The moral of this story? Don’t pray for miracles, expect them.