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Channel: Zambia – MEMOIRS OF A HUSK
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Coming soon

It’s been a while. But there’s something in the air. An email from my friend the huntress, asking if I’m going to Zambia this year. Who knows? But in my head – now there’s a different matter. Time for...

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Harrison Fording in Zambia. (Archaeologists head north, the hard way)

Wet vehicle batteries aren’t good news. As any fule kno. But it’s not always easy to keep them dry. When crossing a river, for example, at a little too fast a pace. It’s our first river – unless you...

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A spot of welding, a leopard and a mission

He’s looking worried. It was meant to be an overnight stop – but there’s no way we’ll fit everything in and reach Kalambo in time to pitch camp by daylight. We have to stay another night, but not at...

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An historic surrender, the last flushing loo and Custard with charcoal

November 1918. The end of the war to end all wars. Would that it had been so. We’re heading to Mbala. In 1918 Mbala was called Abercorn. The town was – is – close to the border between Northern...

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Naked bathers, stone tools, the eleventh tuna sandwich and the last straw

Rising with the sun I slide out of our tent feet first, past the sailcloth ‘Ratbags’ containing all our (present) worldly goods. The thatched area is for sitting or food preparation – it has a stone...

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In which bravery is rewarded with a carrot, but not a pear

It rained in the night. What is it about us? This is August, the southern hemisphere’s winter, the dry season. It seems wherever we venture in the Northern Province we act as rain-bringers. Last time...

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An un-diplomatic incident, a dead motor & a perilously pregnant woman

The men who go for water don’t make it back till after dark. My ‘kitchen’ – the back of their vehicle – is covered in bits of charcoal and running with water. But never mind. I rustle up another...

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‘To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’.* Really?

June. Winter in the southern hemisphere. The year 2011. A man walks into the bar – yes I know, I use it too often. But there’s a reason. Besides the fact we’re often in the bar, before you say it. This...

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Why I spit in the eye of wedding anniversaries. A true story (with the best...

It started off as it meant to go on, our marriage. Not quite ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not mutants from some distant planet masquerading as earthlings. It’s just, we have trouble doing what’s...

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Mad? Lucky? Or just plain stupid, with a death-wish?

A memory surfaces, now and then, which makes my brain freeze. It’s the late 1990s. We’re staying with a farmer outside Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city. He’s very hospitable, bought us new, blue mats to...

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Precious

It’s one of those Zambian names, along with Gift, that always makes me feel good about my fellow humans. Naming a baby girl Precious is just such a joyful thing to do. Lately I’ve been wondering about...

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The witch’s cauldron

Hubble bubble. Toil – and so much trouble. It’s been a while since I penned a post. Titles sit alphabetically festering in my file. Symbols, waiting to lead into eloquent cries of woe. Painful shrieks...

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More of that small press; a new archaeologically-themed site; husking

If  you would like to see a few more pictures and a video you have to turn sideways to watch, oops!  😉  of the small press I visited and wrote about in Dylan, dogs and the devil it is now … Continue...

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The other end of the First World War. ‘Tipperary mbali sana, sana’

Imagine a human chain of sixteen and a half thousand people, mostly barefoot and carrying heavy burdens – sixty pounds, twenty seven kilos – on their heads. Some pulling carts. Walking up to fifteen...

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