Introducing Albert Edward......

Hello everybody, my name is Albert Edward. I am a knitted Lifeboatman from Clacton-on-Sea with a fondness for world travel.


My escapades began a few years ago when I turned up in a box of aid in Kosovo with the volunteers of Hope & Aid Direct. Knowing that one their regulars does a great deal of RNLI fundraising, I was ordered to report for duty to a certain Mr Graham Crame.

Graham and I shared a happy journey back to his home Harwich …where we got to know each other very well indeed.

Since then, amongst other adventures, I have voyaged aboard the MV Discovery to the Arctic Circle and have abseiled down Southwold Lighthouse.
Now I am accompanying Tina in Zambia. I am both proud and delighted that she has made me an honorary VSO volunteer:

I must admit, it has been something of a culture shock for me to be in such a hot, and land-locked, country. There is barely a light breeze here most days and I find myself yearning for a decent Force-9 gale!! Oh well, there are some great tropical rain storms for me to splash about in.

Tina has introduced me to the delights of Zambia’s own local brew, Mosi Beer. Of course I don’t normally touch alcohol while on duty but as there don’t seem to be any ‘in peril on the sea’, I indulge in a bottle of the golden throat-charmer at the end of a long hot day. It tastes just like my other favourite, Peja Bier!

There are other delights on this trip too, but I’m far too much of a gentleman to go into detail ….suffice to say, Sleepie-Buns is not as quiet as she looks!!

I am always trying to raise funds for RNLI and have a few adventures lined up for when I return from Zambia. If you are interested in taking me on an unusual expedition, please get in touch with Graham at gjcrame@btinternet.com – For a small donation of £25 (and a picture for my album), I will happily consider most things… a climb up Everest, a Polar exploration or, for the real adrenalin junkies, a trip around Liverpool!

Thanks for reading about me, hope we meet up soon,

Albert Edward

* Interested in finding more out about the convoys to Kosovo:  www.hopeandaiddirect.org.uk

Responding.....

Just a quickie to say thanks very much for all the brilliant comments.  I'm not able to respond to each, sorry but want to say please keep the comments coming, I love them! 

PS.  Fi, book your flight!!!!

Wha's Occurrin....

Chipata life continues slowly but steadily. The temperature is easily in the mid 30’s, with no breeze and there has been no rain for four days. The heat combined with being at an altitude of 3,600 metres makes the slightest exertion very tiring. Walking slowly has become second nature to me ..as has sitting out on the veranda for breakfast each morning :-)

**************************************************

Friday saw ANOTHER public holiday, this time for Youth Day. Ordinarily, I would be delighted with so much time off work but with so little time here to make an impact in my job, I found the three day week more frustrating than anything. There was not as much fuss about Youth Day as International Women’s Day either so the day passed without too much excitement.

**************************************************

It has surprised me quite how quickly I have become accustomed to the sights and sounds of Chipata but I did stop to take the following photo for Carys…

These little girls were walking along, chatting happily amongst themselves as, all the while, they were swinging live hens ...they were, I was informed, taking them home for dinner!

**************************************************

As my journey to work is quite a distance, VSO have funded a bicycle for me which I bought Thursday. It’s a second-hand jobby but seems to be in good working order. I certainly hope so as I have noticed that there are absolutely no consumer rights here.

One of the internet cafes I use also sells new and reconditioned electrical items; TV’s, radios etc. There are large signs advising customers:

“Check all items are in working order before leaving the shop as afterwards,

NO Refunds
NO Guarantee
NO Warranty”

When you consider the extremly high cost of goods and the very low earnings, this seems particularly harsh!!

I went out for my maiden cycle ride on Saturday …after less than 30 minutes, I almost fainted with heat exhaustion. Fingers crossed, my fitness and acclimatisation will see improvements soon!!

**************************************************

For me and most of Chipata, the water supply is turned off around 6pm daily. Am quite used to it now and part of the daily routine is to make sure there are filled buckets of water in the loo for flushing! Friday though (and maybe it was because it was a public holiday) saw us without water for half the day too. My delight at having the water back on late afternoon was tempered slightly by the fact that the electricity went off! About three hours was spent with the whole area in darkness. Apart from the fact I couldn’t cook our dinner, it was not without merit; the stars in the sky were absolutely amazing and while myself, Alan & Francis were gazing up in wonder, we saw a shooting star!!! Also, the darkness in our yard meant we could sit out on our veranda, sipping a beer, watching fireflies… Africa is awesome!

**************************************************

AND FINALLY….

Those unfortunate enough to have holidayed with me previously will know how much I suffer with mosquito bites which often become infected. Therefore I have been very proud of the fact that my strict regime of applying DEET spray before putting a foot outside was paying dividends and, two weeks in, despite there being a veritable swarm of mozzies around me most of the time, not one mosquito bite had I encountered. That was until Thursday when I seem to have suddenly become dish of the day! I was bitten quite badly around my calves which surprised me a little as it happened during the day, while I was wearing trousers. Anyway, the bites quickly became inflamed and my legs swelled up nicely. After two days of applying afterbite cream the pain was lessening and it now looks more like blood clots and bruising (mmm, nice!). I showed the bites to some veteran VSO’s who informed me that they are not mosquito bites (hoorah) but are in fact spider bites (ew!!!) No permanent damage I’m sure but when I get home, if I suddenly start swinging across buildings on fine thread …you’ll know why.

The Feast, The Festival and The Fall

The days here begin very early, hence Saturday morning, instead of a nice lie-in, I was up at 6.30 getting ready to go to watch a Youth Debating Competition being held in the council chambers. Thoroughly enjoyed it too, the motions being debated were serious issues and the standard of those taking part was very high.

Afternoon/evening was spent waiting for a delivery…Earlier in the week, Francis & Alan had ordered two tables (a small kitchen table and a full size dining table) to be made by a local carpenter and they were to be delivered that evening. Two hours after the delivery was due, the guy finally phoned to say he was close by with the delivery. Alan and I went down to open the gates ready for the delivery vehicle. We waited patiently for about 10 minutes wondering what could have been taking so long when we saw, coming up a steep dirt track ahead, two men carrying one table each above their heads!! Fair play to them, practicalities such as not owning a delivery truck doesn’t deter them..!

Sunday morning I was once again up at stupid o’clock! This time to accompany Sampson, one of my YDF colleagues, to church..! There are many and varied churches here, this one was St Pauls. It is a traditional Anglican church building which would be far more suited to an English village and looks ridiculously out of place in Chipata! However, the service was fun – apart from the fact I had to stand up and introduce myself to the congregation! The whole event was filled with wonderful, vibrant, enthusiastic singing and clapping …one of the hymns was Bread of Heaven so I felt very much at home.
The Feast
Sunday afternoon, Rosie, a Chipata based VSO of one year, held a tea-party in honour of us newbies where we all feasted on biscuits & cake ….My gosh, she’s got some contacts. It was like the United Nations there with people from Italy, Germany, Finland, Holland, Brazil & India. Most if not all are working as volunteers in some capacity. One guy, Marco from Italy, was amazing. He has set up a school for orphans out in a remote part of Chipata. He was here about 7 years ago, saw that there was no schooling provision for orphans…so he established a school. What a hero!
The Festival
8th March is International Women’s Day, it’s a public holiday here so we went along to the Women’s Day March in town. There were hundreds of women marching and signing, all in colourful traditional dress ….a fabulous sight to behold. The march ended up at the Golf Course where a festival of singing and dancing ensued. Great stuff..!!

The Fall
Being totally engrossed in the Women’s Day March and trying to get good photos, I thought it was a good idea to walk backwards while looking at the picture viewer on my camera. Next thing I know, my feet are flying up in the air while the rest of my body is hurling itself to the ground!! The pain of cutting my leg on one of the randomly placed rocks at the side of the road (!!) was nothing compared to my embarrassment as a group of concerned locals flocked to my aid. I immediately jumped up (as you do), insisting to all that I was fine. In reality, the cut hurt, the blood trickling down my leg was making me feel queasy ….and I wanted to cry!

Oh well, that’ll teach me!!

Blog for Carys (All please read)

Hello Carys, its Aunty Peanut sending you a message all the way from Africa – I’m sure your Mammy will read it to you…. I know that your school is teaching you about Africa at the moment so I thought you would like to know all about my visit to a school in Zambia yesterday.


Nearly 600 children go to the school called Nadalisika Community School; the youngest children are a little bit older than you at 7 years and the oldest is 19 years. The school is in a part of Chipata away from the town centre, the surrounding area looks very much like where you live in Wales; there are beautiful green mountains all around. There is a big ‘play yard’ which has lots of room for the children to run around, because it is the rainy season, there are lots of muddy paths running through patches of grass. There are only three classrooms in the whole school so the Head Teacher has to split the school-day into three sessions; the oldest children go to school 7am - 10am, the middle children go 10am - 1pm and the youngest go at 1pm - 4pm. This means that each child has only three hours of schooling each day and there are over 50 children in every class.

The classrooms are much too small for the number of pupils and don’t have enough desks for every child and the teachers work very hard to give the children a good education but without any equipment it is very difficult for them. The only learning aids are on the walls of the classroom. The teacher had made signs and posters which he had put up on the walls to help the children. I made a note of these for you…

Literacy Corner:  The alphabet was listed

Numeracy Corner: Roman numerals were listed

English Corner: Punctuation marks were described on a sheet of paper

Integrated Science Corner: Hand drawing detailing the structure of skin

SOS Corner: List of Human Rights and a hand drawn map of Africa
Many of the children at the school are orphans, which means they don’t have a Mammy or Daddy to look after them, instead they are looked after by their grand parents or aunties. Some of the children don’t have any grown up relatives to look after them so the oldest child in their family has to look after the younger ones. This is very difficult because they don’t have any money. Also the grown-up relatives of the children are very poor so the children do not have any toys or other nice things …in many cases they don’t have shoes on their feet. Lots of the children are poorly, they have a disease called HIV/Aids which is a very big problem in this part of Africa. The saddest part is that most of the children don’t know that they have this nasty disease so they are not taking medicine to help keep them healthy.
The nice people that I am working with in Africa are called YDF (Youth Development Foundation), we were at the school to deliver their ‘Taking Power’ programme to the children. YDF is made up of young people, most are volunteers, who think that by telling the children about the nasty disease and teaching the little boys that they should treat the girls fairly (gender based violence), when the children grow up, they will have a much better life. You would have loved it Carys, all the children were singing African songs and playing games at the beginning, then they spent some time learning before ending with more singing. The children enjoyed the session very much and took part in the games and the discussions very enthusiastically – I think they enjoyed it so much because it was being taught by young people in a friendly way. I was very impressed by YDF …they are amazing!

I was thinking of you Carys while I was at the school and it made me feel very sad to think that these little children, who are every bit as precious as you are, have to live such poor lives.

Settling into Chipata life...

Not much excitement to report today …I guess the N’cwala Festival at the weekend will take some out beating!

My journey to work is a 30 minute walk and for my first day, to help me learn the route, I was accompanied on the journey by my new colleague Sampson …AND TORRENTIAL RAIN! I was wearing my wellies and a waterproof poncho (with grateful thanks to Gaynor and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo!) but still got absolutely soaked. It’s the wet season here and though it’s hot and humid, we get LOTS of rain which, when it falls, makes the Merthyr ‘sideways’ rain look like gently drizzle.  Also, as I have to be prepared for every eventuality, rain, sun, thunderstorm (!), I have to carry a full rucksack everywhere.  That plus the laptop makes for gruelling walks in this heat.  I tell you, the SAS don't train this hard!!!!  I am one of the lucky ones though as by far the largest majority of Chipata folk do not have raincoats or umbrellas; they continue their day-to-day activities in the rain ….drenched through to the skin!!

My new employers are great people to work with and they are managing to do some amazing work with their VERY limited resources. Coming from such a resource-rich working environment, it IS a huge challenge for me but I am slowly adapting to new ways of working. A good example is that yesterday, I needed to see an advertisement for some EU funding that we potentially could apply for – simple enough you may think. In reality, it meant me walking nearly a mile through mud and over makeshift bridges to another organisation who, being slightly better off than us, had a photocopy of the add that they kindly gave me…!
That type of occurrence, coupled with the lack of internet and no office paper to print on makes me have to consider every action carefully and devise other ways of achieving it. One thing I know for sure is that at the end of this placement, I will not take for granted how fortunate we are in our workplace. (Look out WAG colleagues, the sermons will no doubt start as soon as I’m back!)

On a personal level, all is very well. ‘TAF’ have settled well into a daily routine where we go off to work, come home, cook supper (we take it in turns) and then sit in our little home chatting about our respective days activities before turning in. Its early days I know, but so far, have not missed the TV or radio one iota…!!!

We don't really have any alcohol to speak of at home but I have introduced Francis & Alan to the concept of 'Wine Night' so we are all very much looking forward to tomorrow!!!

Two for the price of one...

Just realised I didn't give my last post a title, sorry!

Life in Chapata is VERY different to Lusaka.  I have no internet connection in my new job (which I will tell more about in the next post).  There are internet cafes but they close for two hours at lunchtime and again at 5.30pm - as these are the only times I would be able to come use them, not very much use at all...!!!

I queried why they close at the exact times that they are needed most and was told that only businesses can afford to use them so they operate during business times only.

Oh well, will overcome somehow I'm sure.

Thanks for all the comments being posted, really does help knowing there are some back home who are interested in my endeavours.

Johnnie - Some of your posts are not very polite!  I wouldn't expect anything different from you but do you realise that everybody can see them?!!!   Be nice!!!!

Missing everybody.... Tina xx