Cornishman in Africa: Guns at Dawn, well nearly.

I have never professed to having a dull life, and in fairness I don’t think I could handle one either, that having been said at times dull does sound just a little inviting.
This weekend is a bank holiday weekend and interestingly so is next weekend, this week’s excuse is “Ladies Day” the reason, purpose or idea behind this, I have yet to fathom. I have asked a number of people and the stock answer seems to be “It is to celebrate the importance of women in our society” OK so a sort of self gratification day for half the population. But from what I could see in Lusaka this morning, the main purpose seemed to be to see if they could grind the whole of the city to a standstill whilst they wandered around aimlessly up and down the main thoroughfares of Lusaka, with a police escort. Mind you at least they seemed to be enjoying themselves, which is more than could be said for the drivers of the vehicles snarled up in the traffic chaos that ensued. It was gratifying to see that those that looked most pissed off where the women drivers.

Friday’s Bank Holiday is youth day. And I have an uncanny feeling that the reason for this will be “To celebrate the importance of youth in our society.” And that Lusaka won’t be worth visiting that day because all the traffic will be stationary again as, this time the youth of Zambia wander up and down the Great East, North and West Roads.(the equivalent to the M25) Wildly patting themselves on the back and telling each other how great they are and drinking ship loads of Chibuka (Lumpy, sweet, thick grain beer) and why not. No doubt I too will find something to celebrate and have a drink or two, but not quite as much as this weekend.

Saturday I was invited to a very good friend of mine Koob his birthday party. Now Koob and Jeanette have good parties, very good, the last one I attended there ensued much dancing and merriment with more than a fair share of alcohol abuse. I mentioned dancing, I use the term loosely, as I was informed the following day by a friend or was it my son “Watching you dance was like watching a terminator in a magnet factory” which I thought was a little harsh but probably not a million miles away from the truth.

True to form this Saturday, by about eleven o’clock I had ventured forth onto the dance floor and was moving around with the grace and elegance of a hippo with 30,000 volts stuffed up his bottom. But I was having fun and a surprising number of people were joining me out their, in spite of the risk of having an eye taken out or being smacked in the face as I tornadoed my chaotic way around the dance floor.

By three o’clock in the morning, I had done my full duet with Meatloaf to Bat out of Hell, lost my voice in the process, played air guitar till all the strings were broken and bruised my knees so badly I have not been able to walk properly since, as I skidded across the concrete dance floor on my knees head back singing my heart out and still playing my imaginary guitar. My knees are an interesting shade of purple and red currently. Luckily I was wearing shorts so I did not wreck my trousers but I have still to find my shirt that I am sure I was wearing when I arrived at the party.
I ended up leaving at around four, resisting the urge to stay until dawn as Koob was trying to convince me would be a really good Idea. (It really wouldn’t have been.) The journey home was uneventful, even the three police roadblocks that I have to drive through between his place and mine were all sleepily quiet with no registering signs of life just lights on doors open but no one home. A bit like I felt actually.

I snuggled into bed after a refreshing shower at quarter to five.

At five thirty, all hell broke loose.

Kalima Camp is a twenty hectare site at which you are invited to stay. Only two of the ten chalets are actually joined, the others are spaced out conveniently around the site. I stay in one of these conjoined ones and the other has stayed empty since Herman left about 4 months ago.
Now given the choice of all those vacant chalets, most normal people would chose somewhere secluded and quiet, as this is the essence of this place. But no, our new residents who moved in about a week ago decided they wanted to move in next to me, with only a thin block wall separating the chalets.
So as you can imagine when world war three kicked off that early on a Sunday morning. It had may as well have been in the same bloody room as me.
So all of a sudden I was violently awake, or was I dead, and in fact gone to hell, as suddenly, I realised that whatever was queuing up in the pain receptors from the previous evening was now trying to get out and redesign my head.
Mother, that was a good hangover, made all the better by my new neighbour's lack of volume control, choice of language and inability to shut doors without trying to invert them.
Anyway the verbal barrage lasted about half an hour, either they had cooled down run out of breath or just used up their entire vocabulary of profanities on each other and did not know what else to say. Eventually it ended with a final slamming of the front door and the car disappearing off up the drive.
Sleep was gone so I gathered what was left of my thoughts and proceeded with the day.
Sally who stays in the big house at Kalima, had also attended the party the previous night and was feeling by all accounts not dissimilar to the way I was. So we wandered around the camp for most of the day in a trance like state trying to avoid each other, in case one of us reminded the other of something they had done or said the previous night that your brain had decided that it would shield you from for a couple of days, until it thought you were up to facing it.
By four in the afternoon we got a bit braver and decided to have a braai and a couple of beers, we sat and watched the dam in peace and quiet. A little later over came my neighbor the one who was having the animated chat with her husband this morning.
It didn’t take a psychotherapist to work out that she was not happy (even though she is a little on the short side) grumpy would have been nearer. It was not long before we started to get the whole story from start to finish. Just what I did not need, but could not really just get up and walk off. So I sat, listened and cooked my dinner. During the course of the story she had put away a few vodkas, which I thought was not probably the best idea, but thought better of telling her as it looked like she needed them.
Her husband returned at about six and he came to join us at the bar. The atmosphere was tangible. It was like walking into a gas holder smoking a cigar. You knew it was going to blow but not just quite when.
And yes you’ve guessed it, they waited until they got back to the house and I had just got to bed to grab an early night to catch up with some of my lost nights.
Well this time it was even more animated than this morning’s episode, with screaming, crashing, wailing, and a selection of expletives I did not think possible. Again it was another half hour episode, (the standard allotted time obviously)the inevitable slamming door and car exiting stage left.
Great, peace and quiet and now at last, return to sleep. Snuggle down, eyes close with un-natural ease as I slip immediately into a state, not far from full sleep.
Bang, bang, bang. Denzil, its only me, can I come in.
Oh Shit.
I get dressed throw some clothes at my horribly abused body then go and answer the door. It’s my neighbor as if I had not guessed looking very red eyed and puffy. I invite her in and get her a glass of orange juice sit her down and hear the latest in their saga, not that I hadn’t just heard the un-edited version about five minutes earlier through the wall.
The long and short of it was that she was leaving her husband, not next week as planned, but tonight. Her son was on his way from Kafue to pick her up and he should be there in about an hour. (But I just want to go to bed.) Anyway we moved outside as she wanted to smoke so we sat on the veranda and she poured out her woes.
I don’t know how long it was, I seemed to lose track of time, I do that sometimes when I am tiered and bored shitless. A car pulled up that was not her husband. And we waited for her son to come over.
Next thing I knew armed police came running through the trees pointing guns at me. They got really jittery when I went to stand up, and insisted that I stand still with my hands where they could see them. (I wondered which film they had seen that in.) But thought it wise not to ask them.
It seems, they thought that I was the battering husband who had wronged his wife and they were going to sort me out either here or at the police station. It must have taken a good ten minutes to resolve the situation, most of the time with an AK47, and two hand guns pointing at my face. But we got there in the end and by three in the morning my visitors had gone, one neighbor was leaving for South Africa and her husband had disappeared into the bush.

I honestly do not go out looking for excitement. It just happens.
So if you want to come and stay. It’s only $40.00 per night per person and the excitement is for free.

Denzil Bark. (Taking bookings on +260 97 40 40 996)

Cornishman in Africa : Decision Time.

Saturday morning is heralded in with four Rolls Royce jet engines pushing the British Airways 737 the final 10km of it’s 10,000km journey from London.
Turning a new leaf.
In exactly three weeks I will be sat at the airport waiting to board the same flight on it’s return journey back to blighty. Preparing to see my family again and to celebrate my daughter Kate’s birthday. This last year has flown by when I consider all that has happened, but when I think of time away from the family it seems like forever.
The big decision that has to be made whilst I am back in the UK is, whether and when do we make the plunge and haul the whole family out to Africa again to live forever. The whole idea of me coming out ten months ago was to set things up so that when the family came out everything would be in place so they could move seamlessly into their new environment without so much as a ripple on the water of their lives.

Well it has been for most parts successful, I have a place to live, I have security by way of a sound job and all is looking fairly rosy in the garden. There are however a few little trick points. The main one being that the salary that I am getting is one that is totally liveable and I am pleased I have it. However it is not what I was expecting to be earning by now and due to an oversight on my part, that I put down to an over-eagerness to land the job in the first place I have, I feel, rather sold myself short and boxed myself into a bit of a corner. The upshot of this being that whilst we will be able to live eat sleep and drink in comfort. School fees are going to be a bit of a struggle to start off with.
The private schooling system in Africa is, I must say, probably the best in the world. And I do not say this lightly. Over here not only do they teach the academia to a very high level, they also teach and instil discipline. The schools are not hobbled by do gooders who manage only to protect the rights of the stupid, lazy, violent and disrespectful.
In the majority of Private African Schools, rules are rules, they are laid out for all to see, they are simple straight forward and everyone understands them. Should these rules get broken there is a punishment, whether it be a beating or a detention or a task. It will be administered swiftly and without compromise. Nobody says that is unfair and you cannot do that. You can and they do. As a result there is a level of understanding and respect in the schools here that you seldom see elsewhere in the world. And the funny thing is that my children without exception are really looking forward to getting back into that system of education though they will sorely miss the school they are at now.
I must point out here that the school the boys attend in the UK is what I would consider to be one of, if not the best school in the country and it is run along as strict a line as can be. As a result the students that come from there are among the best equipped to lead the UK out of its current long drop. But they too have their work cut out to maintain their standards with all the red tape (it’s more like silly string than red tape these days) and bureaucracy that is vomited forth by the Muppets in government, in truck loads.
Sorry, please excuse me while I climb down off my soap box.
Oh yes affording schooling, the schooling is not cheap here either though I suppose it is comparable in relation to earnings with the UK, but even so it will still account for more than two thirds of my wages to put even three of the children into school here. Then there’s George who wants to stay in the UK to complete his A levels, so that too will be a challenge. Of course he wants his own place, car, food and all the other trappings that go with the lifestyle he is imagining himself in. Dream on.
The long and short of it is that by the time I return to Africa, we will have made our decision of whether to move lock stock and barrel to Africa and the chance of a lifetime where your children can grow up in an atmosphere more healthy, a work ethic all around them that shouts if you don’t work you die, and an environment that is stunning in its beauty and its harshness. Add to this the opportunity of helping many, many people who are less fortunate than ourselves.
We will also have to weigh up the fact that we would be leaving my parents who are becoming elderly and will, in a few years need to be looked after on a permanent basis. I have suggested that they come out and live with us in Africa, if my mother swore, I can imagine what she would have said.
There are also the good friends that we have in Cornwall and in the rest of the UK, but at least they are more likely to come out and visit.
We will of course be able to come home once or twice a year to catch up with family and friends, add to that when anyone comes out to visit, we may end up seeing some people more than we do now.
It’s not going to be an easy choice and I know that we will go over much ground many times before the final decision will be made. If it was just me making the choice it would have been made already, but I am a chancer and am prepared to take risks, make a plan, but that is not really fair on the rest of the family, it’s their future more than mine now and where in the world is going to best equip them with the tools they will need for a happy and long future in this world we are giving them.

It’s a tricky one but I think I already know the answer.

Denzil Bark. (Planning ahead)

Cornishman in Africa : A Really Fun Guy.

A Fun Guy to be with.
I have always enjoyed food, from the moment I bounced into the world weighing in at a healthy ten and a half pounds, I was born to eat.
I was very lucky when younger I could plough my way through a minimum of five meals a day plus drinks and never put on an ounce, always rock steady at seventy five kilo’s.
As the years began to gang up on me so did the ounces, then they bought in their mates the pounds and now I just count in Kilo’s as there are less of them to the same end.
I topped out at one hundred and four when my thyroid decided it had, had enough of trying to keep me in check and ceased to function completely. I have battled my way down to eighty three and am aiming for seventy five again by the summer.
But the problem is the food. When thinking of the culinary epicentre of the universe, Ngwewere doesn’t exactly spring readily to the forefront of one’s mind. But since living here I have experimented with all manner of different types of food from parts of trees, insects, herbs, spices, parts of animals that you would not normally believe edible let alone tasty.
I am an honest foodie, If its good I love it and will have it again and again, if its crap, I will tell you and won’t eat it again. What gets me is the stuff that people tell you is great but, somehow I just don’t get it. Three foods spring readily to mind. Oysters, no I just don’t see what is so great about eating a live fishy thing that tastes like salt water with a lump the consistency of an egg yolk in the middle. And you are not supposed to chew it. Why not? In case you just might taste something bad? And who made up these non chewing rules anyway, they certainly don’t add to the taste of the product.
Caviar. No never really got that either, though to be fair it was a very long time last time I tried it, but I did enjoy the Ritz cracker it was on. Which in itself is probably against some other fine rule of eating odd things.
Away from things from the sea to a fruit. Papaya or Pawpaw. I lived in Ghana for a year and was served this tasteless pith every morning for breakfast, along with some fruit that was worth opening ones mouth for, Mango and pineapple. It was always the Papaya that was left, nobody liked it. It was not that it was particularly offensive it was just a nothing fruit. No vibrant flavour, no texture, well I suppose mush is a texture. It’s like sucking on sweet soggy toilet paper. (I’m guessing, right) So what is the point when there are so many other wonderful things to eat. And I have come across a handful in the last few months.
When the first scents of rain first filter through the forest, Life stirs everywhere. This explosion of new life is seldom more spectacular than when the white domes burst forth from the forest floor in the woods around Chengello. It is even told locally that you can actually hear them growing they push through the ground early in the morning when the mist is still has yet to be raised by the sun.
It’s called the Chengello Wild Wood Mushroom. Not extraordinary in its colour or shape, but they are the biggest I have ever seen in my life.
As a child you see, and conjure up images of Piskies sitting on large mushrooms. Well let me tell you the pixies of Chengello hold rock concerts under theirs.
These fungi can grow to half a metre in diameter which you might think would make them woody and tasteless. Oh, but they are not, get them fresh, carve them like a steak and cook them for just a few minutes in a splash of butter or oil with the minimal of seasoning and you will be rewarded with an aroma and taste that are superb. This will also make you never want to look at another oyster again.
When the Chengello Wild wood Mushrooms start to peter out around January there is a new phenomena in the Zambian mycological circus.
If only to be outdone by the Chengello on size, no other mushroom could outshine the Chililabombwe Chanterell for outright audacity in the field dressing brightly.
Normally mother nature gives us very clear signs. If it’s got a stripy yellow and black bum it’s going to sting you. If it’s got no legs it’s going to bite you.(well it can hardly kick you to death can it) If it’s big and hairy it will most probably eat you and if it is vividly coloured and looks like a mushroom it’s going to poison you.
But not in this case.
Quite why these delicate mushrooms that grow all over Zambia’s ever diminishing wooded areas, are such a fantastic Colour, I will never know, but what they overdo in colour, they more than make up for with the subtlety of their flavour.
The only slightly disappointing side of this shroom is that it is always full of grit. As the rains splash down all around them, the grit is washed up into the inside of the chanterell, and is not easy to get out again. Only by vigorous rinsing does it reluctantly relinquish its gritty stash. You have to be so careful of not damaging the mushroom because it really is a work of the finest art..
The last and to my mind the most fantastic of these Zambian trio of Fungal excellence is probably the most uninspiring to look at. But the Flavour is to die for.
I can see how pigs used to find them so easy to find. I left about a dozen of these Kalahari Truffles in the lounge one night and by the morning the whole house was stinking and there was not a canary left standing for miles.
These come from a small area in the East of the country and it seems that this is the only place they grow really well, I was offered about a ton and a half a year when I was once looking at exporting them to the UK but I thought that might just flood the market a bit.
Whilst their pungent aroma may put a lot of people off, I absolutely love them and have had them on their own, in butter, olive oil, delicate stews steamed, in brandy, on salads on toast just about every way. But it seems I am the only one in our family who likes them. Well me and the pigs that is. (Ok I walked into that one)
Roll on the truffle season.

Denzil Bark.