TAZARA – Tanzanian Zambian Railways

It was with sadness that we said goodbye to Zambia and the Arkkilas. Not only were we made to feel incredibly welcome, but leaving marked the beginning of the end. In two weeks we shall be home and complaining about the weather.

So what have we been up to? Not much really. Working, I have been swanning around doing accountancy type stuff. Jo on the other hand has been useful and has taught English to Sinikka, one of the new Finnish arrivals. Of course the highlight of each day was playing in the garden with Little Joanna (number 1 I think, but it might be number 2 – not sure). After the comments about someone not liking the mural, it is my sad duty to report that we have not had much luck taking photos of Joanna, just before the family snap, she fell over and hurt her hand. Well, you can judge for yourselves… And in case you are wondering the dog, Teddy, is terrifying and friendly. Once you start to stroke him you are afraid to stop.

“So what have you really been doing?”’ we hear you ask, and a very prescient question too. Well what we have really been doing is… … watching ‘Little House on the Prairie’, which for some reason I missed the first time around! Two things to say.
i)   Jo is still as soft as ever and cries in nearly every episode.
ii)   The littlest one is the most powerful argument I have yet seen against children. Gives me the heebie jeebies.
and iii) lucky there were no Indians living on the prairie ‘cause Mr Ingalls is too damn wholesome and nice to steal someone else’s land.

Sadly, our time came all to soon (before we even finished the first series of LHOTP!) and we found ourselves on the train to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (where we are now) . This is a mammoth two day journey, with restaurant cars and bars. There were even showers, but someone liked the look of the plumbing so they are non functional. Sadly this means that the toilets are none too hot either.

There are actually many similarities between TAZARA and British Rail. As mentioned, journeys take around two days (although here they are meant to). You also have to make part of your train journey by bus (again here that is expected as for some reason the train starts 2 hours out from Lusaka). Of course the accommodation is in a different league. We are travelling first class and have a cabin to ourselves, with food brought to us by our friendly waiter, the aforementioned toilets and showers as well as a bunch of irritatingly loud Japanese. You then move onto second class with six crammed into a cabin, but still with beds (and with squat toilets – if only we had that hygienic luxury here…) And then you are into third class with the poor and starving masses, steerage way – where the peons are crammed like sardines. And guess what, just like BR.

And what do the next few weeks hold for us? Well, we are off to the pristine island of Zanzibar. The intention, to relax and generally recover from our year of, err, relaxing.

So, bye bye Zambia, we shall miss you.