Zambian single-speed

Eat your hearts out Oak Cliff, TX and Madison, WI. Before single-speed bikes were cool and everyone wanted to look like a bike messenger, there were rocking them in Zambia.

High income residential area

Here is an example of what a high income residential area looks like. As you will see, there are no pictures of actual houses, which is b/c all house lots are encompassed with walls made from cinder blocks that have some type of impediment like broken glass on the top of them. So, you can never get a view of what your neighbors property looks like, and there is a gate which is either remote control or operated manually that has to be opened for a car to enter the property. You can see this in one of the lower pics. The trees in these neighborhoods are usually quite mature and since the trees can have colorful blooms, it can make for a very beautiful streetscape. Houses in a neighborhood like this would probably run $3,000 (USD) and up to rent per month.

$8 lunch

Here's what an $8 lunch looks like in Zambia. You get fish (head still intact), rape (greens), beans, red sauce, nshima (two white nuggets which are ground maize and the staple food product in Zambia), a bottled water and a bottle of the local Zambian beer (Mosi).

Texas two-step at an Indian wedding reception in Zambia, Africa

This is how I figure the exchange will go 50 years from now:

Me: "Grandchildren, did I ever tell y'all about the time I did a Texas two-step performance for 200 people at an Indian wedding reception in Zambia, Africa?"

Grandchildren: "PawPaw Denz, please don't tell us that story again..." 

 The crowd, feigning approval.

And this pic is just to document to the people back home that I still know how to get down when the DJ starts doing his thing.

Fishing for tiger fish

So, I went fishing on the Lower Zambezi River with a bunch of Brits this weekend. Here's the chateau we stayed in. It didn't have A/C, but as you can see is pretty nice.

Here's the crew (sans Rebecca, who was using the ladies room) and this picnic table is where we did all of our meals. It was greatness, as one of the ladies had organized for all or our meals. To my chagrin, I did confirm that they all wished there was a container of Marmite there to spread on their toast, but fortunately that bane of humanity was left at home for this trip.







Here I am with our guide Stewart. Of the seven people in my party, I was one of two who had ever cast a rod, so there were some tutorials given on the boat. Hence, when ever I flicked a line out into the water, my cast was met with "oooo's" and "ahhhhhh's". That was good for my self-esteem, but not good for my ultimate fish count, as two of the new comers landed our two tiger fish.





Here was the first tiger fish we caught, it was about 6lbs, so pretty small, but we were excited to pull on in. As you can see, the teeth are quite gruesome.

This is about an 8lb tiger fish, which is about small-to-medium size. This guy said that he never thought he'd have his picture taken with a fish, but that he now understood the reason people enjoyed fishing.









Here are a couple of local villagers in a homemade boat cut from a single tree trunk.

Here are a pack of hippos just doing their thing in the water. Apparently there is one male and all the others are females.  These hippos are actually standing on ground, and would stay slightly submerged (as in the pic) for multiple hours. I guess when you're super fat and don't have webbed feet, then any buoyancy you can add is beneficial.

Here is a pic of a Baobab tree with a village hut behind it. Baobab trees are the iconic African trees that have the enormous trunk.

Here was a very unexpected and welcomed treat we found along the banks of the river. We ran across a pack of African Wild Dogs, which is an endangered species, with only about 5,000 in existence. The fact that we weren't in a national park, makes this all the more unique. We were able to sit in the boat and watch the pack for about 10 minutes.