A week of ups and downs

The past week has been a week with many ups and some downs. From birthday celebrations, to funerals and visiting police stations to get an impounded vehicle back.

As mentioned in the previous post, chief Bunda Bunda passed away last Saturday and his funeral was yesterday. In his whole chiefdom people are not supposed to work the land and have any kind of celebrations till after the burial. Yesterday was the burial which I attended with a number of the staff of Every Orphan's Hope. It was an impressive happening that started around 10am and that was attended by many people. The funeral service was at the "palace" which is not much more that a big tent. There is a fenced in area where many of the guests were watching and then there were a lot of people outside the fence, waiting for the procession to the burial grounds to start. Around noon the crowd started to move towards the burial ground that was somewhere deep into the forest. It was a difficult drive of about 20 minutes and then a walk of about another 15 minutes. Around 2:30pm the actual burial ceremony started and lasted well over an hour. By that time we decided to leave and head back to Nyangwena and Lusaka. It was nice to see how some of the traditions are still followed but also how modern elements are being introduced. A successor for chief Bunda Bunda will have to be elected soon and rumour has it that it could be a niece of chief Bunda Bunda. I believe that this would be a first for the Soli people, at least is has not happened in a long time.

On Friday we celebrated Gert's birthday with a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs. It almost felt as being home in Acton, except that the group of friends was not there to eat and celebrate with us. After breakfast we went to the office and found out that the other vehicle of EOH (the Landcruiser) had been impounded the evening before in Chongwe for causing an accident and leaving the scene. We would have to pay KR540 to get it back.
As it turned out there were some irregularities in the process which made it look like that the local police was trying to get some money out of us. So we decided to first go to the Lusaka Central police station to report the situation and ask what we should do. After some back and forth between different officers we ended up at the desk of a very helpful and knowledgeable office. She heard the case and then called the officer in Chongwe who had impounded the vehicle. Over the phone she explained to him that he had to release the vehicle, press any charges against Willy, our driver, if necessary and put those on paper and hand that to him including any penalty that he would have to pay.
After this we went from Lusaka to Chongwe and visited the police office there. Willy and Gert ended up talking to the office and his supervisor in which the office explained the accident according to the other parties involved. The first car was very slow and the second one was already passing the first. At the same time Willy (the third vehicle) was passing the second vehicle (on a two-lane road). So when the second vehicle started passing the first, Willy honked his horn which scared the driver of the second vehicle, who slammed on the brakes, lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the ditch without hitting any of the other vehicles. Luckily there were no injuries or casualties but the car that crashed was totalled.

Whether Willy was already passing the second car when this one started passing the first or not we will never come to know since the stories of the different people involved are all different. Since Willy had not stopped at the scene (he drove a bit further to contact the police) and based on the stories of the other drivers the officer concluded that Willy had been driving dangerously and that he had left the scene without providing any help to the victims. So after Willy had delivered a generator to the "palace" for the funeral, on his way back he was held up at the road block and then he had to hand over the keys of the vehicle to the officer but no charges were laid and handed to him. When we met with the office, he explained that he wanted to hear Willy's story so he could charge him properly. After some talking back and forth, discussing payment options, the costs for the ticket first went up to KR2,700 but in the end landed at KR180 (about $35) which we had to pay in cash with an officer who was at a road block towards Nyangwena. So we got our vehicle back and paid about $35 as fine for not obeying a traffic sign (not sure which one Willy didn't obey). So the good thing was that we got the vehicle back and only had to pay $35 and there were no injuries or casualties. The sad thing is that this should not have happened the way it did and now it took us a day to get a vehicle back that should have never been impounded.

It clearly shows that when something happens, you're at the mercy of the police officer that you deal with. The nice part was that during the burial of chief Bunda Bunda Gert met a few of the police officers again and they clearly recognized him and acknowledged his presence there. It might be helpful for the future, you never know.

After coming back from Chongwe and Nyangwena, we went out for dinner to celebrate Gert's birthday so we went to Spurs. We had an excellent dinner and a very nice waiter (Samson) who has one of the biggest smiles around and jumps and runs around to serve his customers. It was a lot of fun and very good food. It was a nice close of a busy day which besides the vehicle problems also had a power outage at the office in store for most of the day. So the workday was pretty much a write-off but the rest was great. In the evening we had a couple of Skype calls with Anneloes, Elise and some friends which was very nice. At the end of the day, I realized that this was actually the second year in a row that I celebrated my birthday in Zambia. Also last year, I was in Zambia on a trip with GEMS to the Esther School so I can't say that this was a first but it was certainly a memorable day.

It was a week with ups and downs but overall and in the end it was a good week. This coming week we hope to celebrate Elise's birthday on Monday (last week was Anneloes' birthday) and the arrival of some friends from Acton and Georgetown (Harry, Henrietta, Kirk and Ray). We look forward to catching up with them and spend some time together. The weather is slowly changing and getting dryer. It rains less and less frequent than it did a few weeks ago. Some people here are concerned that they didn't get enough rain. For us, it seemed that they got enough in the short time that we were here, but by the same token, it is almost the only rain they will get for the rest of the year. We'll see how this will evolve in the next few weeks. It was funny to hear and see some of the snow that fell this past week in Acton. For us it is still a bit strange to see the snow back home while we walk around in shorts and are sweating every day. It seems like a world upside down with ups and downs. We just take it the way it is and are happy with whatever we get, whether it is sun, rain or snow. We need them all to make it to the next year. God created the earth perfectly with a finely tuned weather system. Let's hope and pray that we do not tamper with and destroy this delicate system. Being in Zambia makes you realize how dependent people here are on weather and especially rain. Without it there will be drought followed by famine. That's a hard reality here that we often take for granted in North America with our irrigation, etc. We try to control and manager nature, weather, etc. without always fully understanding the consequences. Here you see some of the consequences first hand and they are difficult to accept. It makes you realize once more that we are stewards in God's creation and that we have to take good care of what we are entrusted with. May God help and guide us in this endeavor.