Travel in the Bush

Just a quick note here about getting too and from the village. Transportation is accomplished via either a truck or motorcycle, but because it is currently winter here it is, apparently, too cold for motorcycle travel [at least to distant places]. You need to have a special license to drive the “GRZ” vehicles [each vehicle’s license plate has three letters and a lot of numbers. The Government of the Republic of Zambia’s vehicles all have the GRZ letters and no one else is allowed. What’s great about this is we just get waved through at any government checkpoints]. Unfortunately that bit of license issue means that Kantu can’t just bugger off to the village, we need to have a driver with the proper license.

So off Mr.Miti, Mr.Kantu, and I go into the bush. That is what they call the rural area here, and it is a fairly apt title. Rural Zambia is an endless sea of, well I am not sure what the proper term is. Dry grass everywhere, scattered little shrubs and bushes, and spread out trees all covering very gently rolling hills [not quite hills, but there are ridges and valleys]. Other parts of the country are more mountainous, but I don’t think there is anything quite comparing to those Western Canadian mountains [I proudly show my couple postcards from the Rockies to my co-workers and friends].

The main roads are as good as a Canadian highway if only someone would fill in the outrageous potholes. I have been told by a couple Zambians that no work has been done on the roads since independence. Other parts of the country I hear are fine, but for some reason the area around Livingstone just has had no work done to fix the roads [which I find particularly strange since Livingstone is the tourist capital of Zambia]. But those roads are much better than the ones in the bush which are dirt. I’d actually call them dust roads because the soil is so dry is like fine sand or dust. During the rainy season, fast flowing water erodes some areas and not others. In some places the two sides of the roads have seemingly taken turns being eroded so the truck bobs from side to side like you are on a ship. It’s slow going on those dusty roads, bobbing up and down. I love them though, great for day dreaming and contemplating development, Dorothy, blogs I write, emails, plans for when I am back in Canada, etc. Years ago the communities near the roads would maintain them because they use them [even if they don’t have vehicles they will have animal drawn carts]. After years of NGO handouts though, they won’t work on the roads till a program comes and pays them to fix their own roads.