Bruce's African adventure: Mixing work and pleasure - last field work and whitewater rafting

This past Wes-Fri, I had the good fortune to do one more field visit in Kazungula, in Southern Province. Field work is by far the best part of this gig – I just love it. In fact, the reason I haven’t blogged in several weeks is because I’ve just been working in the office. For you EDC readers, I’ve been building an ERM framework for Care Zambia – useful for them, but not too exciting for me!

Anyway, this week the team that did the LM3 research study with me (Brenda and Andrew) as well as Kat and I headed to Livingstone to report out the results of our field work study to the villagers. According to Brenda, this was the first time CARE has ever done this – actually gone back to the people that were kind enough to volunteer their time to be studied and be told what was found. Kat came too so that she and I could capture some video for both Care and EDC of our partnership in action.

Wednesday was a travel day – the standard 6 hour drive to Livingstone with 5 in a pickup truck. Amazing what you get used to. And once again, we stayed at my home away from home, the New Fairmount Hotel, where I spent 12 nights over the past few months. Despite the reviews, it was the nicest place either of us stayed on all our trips!

Upon arrival in the village of Machenge on Thursday morning, the VSLA group was already singing us their arrival song as we pulled up. This time I was prepared and hopped out of the truck with the video camera rolling. It’s hard to explain how cool it is to have a group of 30 people singing to you when you arrive. Maybe it was us, but it could also have been the bologna sandwiches and fanta that we brought along with us... I would include the video, but with dial up internet that cuts out every 30 seconds, it's next to impossible.

We went to 2 of the villages that we’d been to twice before and it was great to see familiar faces in the field. I had printed all the photos I had taken on my previous visits and handed them out to the villagers, which was very popular. Our local reps told us that they might not have ever had a pictures of themselves before. Reporting the results out to the villagers was really incredible as they began to grasp what a big deal it was that they had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps with only training and support from CARE.

On Friday, we got to attend an annual “Share Out” meeting of a VSLA, where the group divides up the savings of the group plus the interest they have earned and everyone receives a big lump sum. This took place in the village of Natebe and was incredible. It was really a joyous occasion as everyone sang, danced and celebrated their payday by waving their cash in the air! The people cheerfully shared what they planned to do with their winfall – buy a goat, buy some tin sheets to replace their thatch roof, or in the case of one woman, buy the land that she has been farming for years! Unbelievable and very fulfilling to witness. They all wanted to dance with us and shake our hands.

Of course no field trip to Livingstone is complete without some death defying adventure, so Kat and I, against the better judgment of her mom, had booked a whitewater rafting trip with Safpar. Ironically, it was my mom, through a friend from her church that put me onto the idea, with the friend saying it was one of the most thrilling things she had done in her life. She wasn’t kidding.

It was incredibly well organized and run and felt very safe, with rescue kayakers alongside the boats all the way. Unfortunately though, there are no fitness standards for participants and we got started half an hour late because a group of overweight Brits could barely walk down the hill to get in the rafts at all! Not a good start as 6 red faced puffed up tourists almost didn’t even get started. They sensibly recovered with a quick smoke before we left. Wouldn't want to leave your smokes behind on your rafting trip!

Our boat featured me, Kat, two younger Australian girls and a family of 4 out of shape, unskilled South Africans. So basically the paddling was up to me and Kat! Anyway, it’s hard to explain how amazing some of the rapids are – so I’ll let the pictures do the talking. This is rapid 6 - a class 5 - I'm at the front right (starboard bow perhaps?) and Kat is right behind me.

On rapid 9, the craziest one, also a class 5, you could choose the easy way or the hard way. My whole boat chose easy, while I chose hard, so they moved me to another boat for that drop. Here is the result. I'm second from the stern on the right side, also known as the guy that got buried the deepest.

All in all, it was an amazing day, with incredible views of the Batoka gorge, crazy adrenalin-fuelled rapids mixed in with a leisurely float down the river (not in the boat) at one point.

I’m really sad to see this amazing adventure come to an end. The work has been incredibly rewarding, the weekends have been SO much fun and the friendships I have made will last a lifetime.