Getting to Zambia was no easy task: I signed up in June 2019 to go with Medical Missions Outreach in September 2020, but then the world shut down before I had a chance to go. The trip was postponed to November 2021, and I was not sure that it would work out. I don’t request vacation time for the year until January, and being lower on the totem pole at work, I knew that getting approved for time off in the most requested month of the year seemed unlikely. I was pleasantly surprised to eventually get those dates approved, but then as the trip drew nearer, I had another issue when I realized my passport would be expiring soon. I had to quickly respond and expedite my passport to Philadelphia to get renewed, praying it would return to me in time for the trip. I paid off the trip without a passport and then waited for the day that my passport came back much sooner than originally expected. All that was left was a Covid test: the last obstacle standing in my way of making it to Zambia. My test came back negative less than 24 hours before departure, and I was good to go! But the journey to reach Zambia was just getting started.
I flew to Dallas first, but then I had the longest flight of my life from Dallas to Doha, Qatar. This flight was 15 hours long, equivalent to almost 2 full work days, just sitting there on a plane. It was with Qatar Airways, commonly considered to be the best airline in the world. I saw the first class and business sections which looked very nice, but the seats are no different than a regular airline if you don’t pay for an upgrade. They do have TV screens with a wide selection of movies and shows, but I only watched about half of a movie on the entire flight while the rest of the time I was trying to sleep and failing at it. I boarded the flight in Dallas at 10 PM on Wednesday and arrived in Doha at 10 PM on Thursday, literally a 24-hour time jump, taking time zones into consideration. I also enjoyed the views coming into Doha because I could clearly see some places in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and even Iran in the distance! When I finally arrived in Doha, I was completely exhausted and felt disgusting after just sitting there for 15 hours. I and a couple friends went to look for a spa in Doha in order to get showers.
Doha’s Hamad International Airport is considered to be the most luxurious airport in the world, and it’s very nice! I enjoyed getting to explore the airport while I was there, but I was really just ready to get to Zambia. We then had another 7 hour flight to Lusaka where I finally got some sleep before landing in my 15th country! Unfortunately, we ran into some problems leaving the airport because they confiscated all of our medical and optical equipment, even though we had received prior approval from the government to bring it. We stayed there at the airport for a while trying to get the equipment through customs, but we had no luck, and they told us that it should be released on Monday, several days later. All we could really do at this point is pray and hope they keep their word because it would be difficult to hold medical clinics without our supplies.
Lusaka is a modern city, and it’s the capital of Zambia. One thing I noticed pretty quickly is that there is a strong Chinese influence in Zambia. China owns one third of Zambia’s debt and has invested in many areas of the country’s economy. The first thing I saw when leaving the airport in Lusaka was a wall with Chinese characters on it. Other than that, I really didn’t get to see much of Lusaka because our final destination was Chipata in the eastern region of the country. And that also meant that we weren’t done traveling just yet… Our bus drivers came to pick us up at the airport, and then we had a long drive ahead of us across the entire country to reach our hotel. We had two buses, and I chose the one with air conditioning. Zambia drives on the left side of the road which took a little to get used to. It wasn’t too confusing until we came to a roundabout, and then I had no idea what was going on! We made a quick stop at a KFC for lunch, and there was a small grocery store next to it which I decided to walk around. It was odd seeing signs in English when those around us weren’t speaking English at all. English is the official language of Zambia, mostly due to the country’s history as a British territory in the early 1900s. However, because of the many tribes that make up the present-day population of Zambia, there are many different languages spoken throughout. English is only the first language for about 2% of the population while everyone else uses a tribal language as their first language.
We were soon back on the road to Chipata and had to pass through a police checkpoint and some toll booths before we could really leave the city. But then, once we left Lusaka, our surroundings quickly changed. We were no longer in a city! In fact, there really wasn’t much around us at all other than mountains and forests. Zambia is a sparsely-populated country with the majority of the population living in or near the cities. But we did pass through random small towns and some occasional villages in what felt like the middle of nowhere. One major change we noticed was that the road conditions became worse the farther we got from the city. And they got pretty rough at parts. I was sitting in the back of the bus, right on top of the tire, and the force from every bump or pothole we hit transferred directly to my knee. My knee soon started giving me problems because of all the jolting around, and I was in a lot of pain.
This was supposed to be an 8-hour drive, but as we were nearing that eight-hour mark, my estimated GPS location on my phone said otherwise. There was no signal at all, but I was able to get a GPS connection of some sort. Our bus was having to slow down to near stops in order to avoid some of the potholes. We did pass right along the Mozambique border for a while, which I thought was really cool, but then it got dark outside, and I was just ready to get some sleep. After a quick restroom break, it was a straight shot to Chipata. We finally arrived to our hotel after 12 hours of driving at midnight, Saturday morning, after traveling nonstop since noon on Wednesday, and as you can probably imagine, I was exhausted! One plus to having our equipment confiscated at the airport was that we had nothing to organize and get ready for clinics on Saturday morning, so we got to sleep in.
After I woke up, I finally got the chance to see the hotel during the day, and it was really nice! There was a graduation ceremony taking place in the hotel for kids going into eighth grade, and it sounded very exciting. There was a lot of shouting and chanting, but I didn’t want to interrupt so I only listened from outside the room. I soon met up with a couple friends, and we decided to go for a walk around Chipata to see the areas near the hotel. Chipata is a modern town on the border with Malawi. It’s in a remote mountainous region of the country and has seen growth in recent years because of its position on the trading route between Malawi and Zambia. And as a result, it’s very busy. One of the first things we noticed was the heat. It’s hot in this part of the world this time of year! Traffic was also very crazy. Many people walk and ride bikes in the road as cars just fly past them at insane speeds. Cars will honk to let pedestrians know they’re coming, and this system seems to work well.
When we reached a crowded area where street food vendors were set up, we started to receive some unwanted attention. A lot of people started swarming us, and they weren’t asking for money like I’d expect. I’m not completely sure what their intentions were, but I had a lot of men yelling at me (not sure whether it was nice or not). We just tried to ignore them and quickly walked away from that area before continuing on. Though this incident was a little uncomfortable, that should not be a reflection of the country as a whole. I found the people to be overall very friendly. So many people would wave at us as they drove by or stopped to say hi and welcome us to their country! The large majority of the people I came across were very welcoming, and I really loved that about Zambia! I’ll be sharing a lot more about that tomorrow.
We soon returned to the hotel and started preparing for the upcoming week. I’ll share more about Zambia in my next post, but I really felt like I needed to have a full blog post where I shared my first thoughts and observations of the county as well as set some things up for later on. Tomorrow I’ll share my stories from Chipata and a remote village, and then next week I’ll share about a national park and a couple safaris. Make sure to check those out!
Tyler's Travels 