ancient rock art.

During one of our stays in Kasama, Tobias took us to see some ancient rock paintings.

There are over 700 paintings on this stretch of land, most of them thought to be painted by the Twa tribe (hunter-gatherers) around 1500 years ago.

Obviously, Zambia has changed so much since then. And in some ways, it is still shockingly the same. When we pulled up, there was a young woman leaning against a shack of a building. We paid for her to give us a tour. As we walked and drove from site to site, we saw nobody else until the very end. 

The area where some of the paintings were found.

One of the paintings. An animal and its tracks.

The guide told us that people frequently come up to this spot to meditate.

It was surprisingly peaceful and quiet for a place with so much history. 

natural progression.

the trusty land rover.

the maybe not-so-trusty land rover.
(photo by nick)

the dead land rover.

That land rover was a champ. I cannot even tell you how bad some of the roads are in Africa. We spent a hefty amount of time in there bouncing around. 

There was this one time we had car problems--the engine was overheating. So we pulled over to the side of the road, waited for it to cool down, poured water in the radiator, and continued onwards. Rinse and repeat, the entire way there and the entire way home. 

No worries, the last picture was just from a couple weeks ago, long after we had  left Africa. Our friend, Tobias, was in the car along with a friend when it flipped, I believe. Thankfully, he is okay. We had a close call once when Tobias lost control of the car (we hit a sand patch when trying to turn), but nothing happened, other than some fishtailing, sharp inhaling, and under-the-breath exclaiming. From the looks of it, guess we were lucky!

Bon Apetit.

One would think that there's a limit to how much fried chicken and french fries one can eat, especially if both are served at the same time and in exactly the same style every time. I mean, that's a heck of a lot of fried going on for one meal.

There was no limit. At least not when we were staying in Kasama, Zambia--our home base.

We ate at this restaurant--Bon Apetit--every single night we were in Kasama, Zambia.

Dinnertime.

And every single time we went to Bon Apetit, we would order fried chicken and french fries. It was the only safe item on the menu (they also served burgers-but burgers in Africa are kinda questionable).

It was the great for the first couple of times, then not so much. But we would always clean our plates regardless. We only ate two meals a day while we were in Africa, so we were pretty much always starving by the time dinnertime rolled around. So we would sit and we would eat, and we would watch whatever was on the TV--usually the Discovery channel or some older, not-such-a-high-quality English film like Dante's Peak. 

Anyhow, I did figure out halfway through that the owner would replace the french fries with rice if you asked. That's what I did for the rest of the trip, and it is amazing how healthy white rice feels after a couple weeks on a steady diet of french fries.

We were such regulars that the owner would pretty much expect us every night. Honestly, we would tell them if we were going to be gone for the next couple of days on a trip so that they wouldn't expect us. 

At the very end of our trip, right before we got on our bus that would begin the journey back to Tanzania, Sean and I got a picture with the owner of the restaurant. Pretty great. 

ZAMBIA IS A CHRISTIAN NATION

Geoffrey (Zambian ZSF employee) had this tape that he liked to play in the car on long trips. It was a tape of a preacher, screaming out religion.

What stuck out to us Americans the most from that particular sermon: ZAMBIA IS A CHRISTIAN NATION.

It was THE refrain of the trip. We heard it all the time. Not just from the preacher on that infamous tape--from everybody. It's written into their constitution.

A particular bus company that we used several times would always have a preacher come on board before the trip started. They would shout out scriptures and spiritual thoughts in a mixture of both English and Bimba.

There was this one time that one such preacher stood right next to Jeff's seat on the bus. Of course he was shouting, and thus he was spitting.

After a couple minutes, Jeff glared at him. The preacher noticed, and put his Bible next to his face.

The sheer velocity of the spit coming out of that man's mouth was enough for it to rebound off of the Bible and

sadly, spit continued to rain down upon Jeff.

I might not have learned much that day, sitting in that bus seat for an uncomfortable eight hours, but-

Oh yes, Zambia is a Christian nation, and don't you forget it. 

That particular day, it had been shouted into my head and spat onto Jeff's.