Zambia FAQ

Q: What did you eat?

A: Nothing in the least bit scary. We prepared meals over the campfire (or gas burner hooked to a portable propane tank) just like we’d eat at home, such as oatmeal, tuna salad, stir fry, chili, and chicken. We also got apples from the market in Livingstone, which I think were the best apples I’ve ever had. We went out to eat a couple times, once to an Indian restaurant and once for a buffet breakfast at a nice hotel (both in Livingstone), and both were delicious, just as anything we’d find in the US. As far as local Zambian cuisine, we tasted a fruit commonly called monkey brains, which from the outside, looks kind of like an unripe orange, but the outside is hard. You break it open, and inside are large seeds covered in juicy flesh. You suck the flesh off and spit out the seeds. It’s tart, sweet, and tasty. On one occasion, we ate dinner with the locals, which was composed of Zambian fried chicken (so delicious!) and the local staple food, nshima. Nshima is a porridge of ground maize and water, thickened to the consistency of dough (so that you can pick it up with your hands). You break off some, roll it into a flattened ball, and dip it in relishes. The relishes we had were stewed tomatoes and onions, a creamy one made with rape leaves and ground nuts (similar in taste and consistency to a spinach dip), and something like a stew with potatoes and carrots. It was delicious. On a side note, Pringles and Fanta are huge in the area, which I find amusing. I drank more pop there than I have in the last 6 years combined, but it’s because it was something cold and soda’s there contain real sugar, not HFCS.

Q: What was the weather like?

A: October is traditionally part of Zambia’s dry season and one of the hottest months of the year. However, they’re predicting the rainy season to come early this year, so while it was mainly dry, and it did get very hot (around 100 degrees) a couple days, most were unseasonably cool. We had high temperatures around 90-95 (which is pretty manageable for Floridians, especially since it’s a dry heat) and lows around 60 (which was cold for us!). We spent a lot of time in the shade, which helped a lot, and on two occasions, we witnessed some rain showers (neither time occurred when we were ministering).

Q: What did you sleep in?

A: For our first night and last two nights in Zambia, we were on Overland’s base in Livingstone. On base, 4 people shared a large tent that included beds. At our campsite, we slept in small two-person tents, which wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been for me, considering I’d never even been camping before. My only issue was that I underestimated how cold it could get at night and should have brought warmer bedding.

Q: What about going to the bathroom?

A: When on base, we had “normal” bathrooms with toilets, sinks, and showers. On the days we traveled to and from camp, we had to go just in the bush, but our camp and the villages were all equipped with a longdrop, which is a deep hole in the ground, placed inside a small hut for privacy. The longdrop at our camp had a box over it with a toilet seat so we didn’t always have to squat. Our camp also had a private area for showering (pouring water on yourself basically), and on one occasion, a few of us walked to the local water pump to wash our hair, which felt really good. We used lots of baby wipes to keep ourselves clean.

Q: Did you see any animals?

A: Most “African animals” are confined to reserves, so we didn’t see any lions or elephants wandering around. We saw a couple cool birds, but other than that, it was ox, chickens, a couple boars, cats and dogs (which you’re not allowed to pet due to risk of disease, which got ultra hard when we saw some tiny kittens at one hut), and donkeys. We did see some baboons around Victoria Falls (and even one that snuck onto the base) and some hippos in the river when crossing over the border to Botswana, which is where we went on a safari. Even on our safari, though, we didn’t get to see any lions.