One of the highlights of my recent safari trip to Africa was taking a low flight over the mighty Zambezi River. We did this on Proflight Zambia, a local airline offering both scheduled and chartered flights on very tiny planes.
Often, my two companions and I were the only passengers on a 9-19 seat plane. It was like having a private jet. On the smallest planes, the pilot would do the security briefing. We all listened, considering that the emergency exits tended to look like the one pictured at right — well worn, to say the least. We hoped the wear and tear was due to drills and dug into the beer and snacks in the cooler in the back of the plane.
The most memorable of these flights was the one from Mfuwe to Jeki, on which we watched in stunned awe as we flew over the Zambezi, looking at the herds of animals on the endless islets. Even our pilot and co-pilot were pointing out animals to each other like they were experiencing it for the first time. We loved that.
Check out this video to see the stunning scenery — and the awesome “airport” we end up at.
You say “airport,” I say “shack and a fire bucket.” Let’s call the whole thing off.
[Photo and video by Annie Scott.]
My trip to Zambia was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.
From a young age, my mother schooled me in the art of pretending I didn’t really want something, walking away, and knowing when to give in and pay up. I even developed my own trick:
1. Pick your item and lowball it, haggling it down. (Let’s say you get it down to 20 for example.)
2. Pretend you’re also interested in something of similar value.
3. Ask for a deal on purchasing both items. (Let’s say you get two for 30 instead of 40.)
4. Get rid of the second item.
5. Demand the lower price for your first item. (You already know they can let go of it for 15.)
6. Don’t budge, and walk away if they don’t give it to you.
It’s more than a badge of honor to get a great deal; haggling is a truly primitive survival skill — one that you’d be able to use in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s like being able to start a fire or make a compass out of scrap materials (all you need is a sewing needle, a piece of cork, a small magnet and a cup of water). Furthermore, we use it in the business world all the time, whether we’re bargaining for a raise or a house.
Bargaining with guys like the above gentleman outside of Victoria Falls in Zambia is a whole different ball game. The reason for this is that currency isn’t limited to cash. Currency can be the rubber band around your wrist.In this market, and in many others like it all over Africa, the men working in the shops come from villages with few sources of income. Their land is unsuitable for crops, so they can’t farm. What they can do is weave, carve and make all kinds of beautiful objects you’d never find at home (at least not without a thousand-percent markup — minimum).
For men like these, who work all day in the shop, access to basic essentials like pens, shoes, socks and even rubber hair ties is extremely limited. Even if they make enough cash to buy them at full price, going and buying them can be a long, inconvenient trip — and you, the tourist, are likely to have access to nicer stuff than they can get. That’s where the bartering super-skill comes in: a well prepared traveler like you should know that your best bargaining chip may be a bag of socks to trade.
If you’re going to Africa, you may already have considered bringing school supplies and other basics to donate, but also consider hitting up your dollar store for some essentials you can use in place of currency to buy gifts and souvenirs. To you, it may seem like an unfair trade, but everyone benefits: the goods you have access to are more valuable than currency to some markets, so the shopkeepers are happy to trade with you, and you get to save money. All you have to do is make a little room in your suitcase, and you can be an amateur importer-exporter.
Just don’t get too carried away, and play within the “commercial goods” laws.
Here are some ideas for things you can bring to barter with in Africa:
Socks
Pens
Pencils
Hair ties and clips
Underwear
Shoes
T-shirts
Toothbrushes
Razors
Hand mirrors
Bandages
The list goes on and on. Places where it’s appropriate to whip out bags of trading goods are pretty obvious; often, store owners will ask you for things of this nature outright. If you’re in a market or shop where all the goods from multiple stands are rung up at one register, it might not be kosher, but almost any situation where you’re dealing one-on-one with a merchant is fair game for trading.
Just remember: what you don’t end up trading, donate to a local school, or at least leave it with your hotel and ask them to give it to someone in need. You can buy another bag of socks when you get home.
[Photo by Annie Scott.]
My trip to Zambia was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.
Ethiopia suffers from a bad image thanks to the war and famine of the 1980s. As my series on travel in Ethiopia showed, however, this is a land of friendly people, beautiful nature, and fascinating historic sites. Infrastructure is slowly improving and the Ethiopians are making serious efforts to boost education, access to clean drinking water, and other improvements to the quality of life.
These efforts have been recognized in the UN’s 2010 Human Development Report. It ranked Ethiopia as number 11 in the world for improving human development since 1970, the highest ranking in Africa. The report was prepared by the United Nations Development Programme and measures progress in health, education, income, gender equality, and other areas. Researchers then formulate a “human development index” (HDI) for 135 countries.
Other high-ranking African nations include Botswana (14th), Benin (18th) and Burkina Faso (21st). All of these countries and some others have done especially well in the past ten years. Only looking at the past decade, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Uganda all come out in the global top ten.
One of the biggest areas of improvement was in education. Literacy has almost tripled in Sub-Saharan Africa in the past 40 years to 65 percent. Also, life expectancy is up and infant mortality is down.
Sadly, not all the news is good. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe were the only three countries in the world where quality of life actually went down.
Good news for Ethiopia is good news to travelers too. While the country is still an adventure travel destination, it’s not as rugged as many people think. I spent two months there and my wife spent three weeks, and in all that time we never got sick. Chalk one up for good sanitation and clean water! Also, Ethiopia scores well of gender equality, which meant that, unlike some countries we’ve been to, my wife didn’t get harassed by obnoxious guys. Good education meant we met lots of people who spoke English and wanted to improve it by chatting with us. Improved infrastructure meant there were more paved roads along our route than there were ten years ago.
When it comes to improvements in a country’s Human Development Index everybody benefits, even people who don’t live there!
Safari vehicles are versatile, and can handle terrain you wouldn’t guess by looking at them. When I was in Zambia on my recent African safari, we drove through rivers on multiple occasions. Rivers. Oddly enough, it was when we attempted a dry river that we ran into trouble.
Safari vehicles can easily navigate a small, running river. Usually, rocks are piled into the designated crossing place ahead of time, allowing for minimal submersion. It’s cheaper than building a bridge. The ride may be bumpy, but one of my guides referred to the experience lovingly as an “African massage.”
Despite the unfettered awesome off-roading capabilities of the safari vehicles we rode in on our African safari, this dry river in South Luangwa National Park gave us some real problems. Check out the video and see how we solved the crisis.
The moral of the story: less weight is better, even if it’s just three skinny girls.
My trip to Zambia was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.
Nakatindi is a small village in Zambia which was founded by a white landowner. He wanted locals to raise cattle on his property, and so the village was created for them. Unfortunately, over time, the land became unsuitable for the cattle, who eventually had to be sent to graze on the other side of the Zambezi River. Now, this village is struggling to make ends meet — a sociological recipe all too common in Africa.
I visited this village on my Abercrombie & Kent tour of Zambia, as A&K is currently providing funding for the local community school. Also present in the village are volunteers from African Impact and Princeton in Africa fellow Mary Reid Munford, who is working as a project manager for the volunteers. The volunteers stay nearby in Livingstone.
Abercrombie & Kent used to support another local village, but unfortunately, their donations kept mysteriously disappearing, pocketed by some party along the way. Even donations of food would fail to reach the villagers. After too many second chances, the unfortunate situation led to their selecting another village to support. This is just one of the reasons the cycle of poverty here is so difficult to break.
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In Nakatindi, there is no virtually work available. Every so often, someone will come by and ask for workers — but there are far too many men who would love the job. The result of this is that they knock their price down and down to beat out their neighbors. They end up working for as little as a dollar for a full day, and due to this, the standard of living stays painfully low.
Education is of course one of the few antidotes to poverty, and the local community school for grades 1-7 (above) is doing their best to give Nakatindi’s kids a fighting chance. The children are learning English and volunteers from African Impact conduct physical education classes, giving them extra exposure to a language that could change their lives. It’s actually somewhat difficult to get children to come to school in a village like this, so the school has constructed a kitchen (see gallery). The addition of a kitchen means that kids who show up get a meal. That gets the job done as far as promoting education.
However, after 7th grade, the children need to get to the local high school, which is a good walk away. With the help of A&K’s donations, the school is saving for a bus. They are also planning to purchase a maize grinder. They would save money by grinding the maize for the children’s meals on site, and could even earn money by selling ground maize. They could pay someone to do the grinding with that money, as well, so the donation creates a job — it’s sustainable donations like these that can truly improve this village’s standard of living.
Though they are not working directly with Abercrombie & Kent, Mary Reid Munford says African Impact’s goals are similar in terms of sustainable help. “We are pretty strict with our volunteers not just handing things out as it creates a sense of dependency. Our whole philosophy is about empowerment and sustainability.” African Impact is currently building a health and education center in Nakatindi (below), with the help of volunteers both from abroad and from within the community. The community Club, which is somewhat like a city council, will be able to use the building as an office, and there will be a large space they can rent out for events like weddings and other parties.
Our tour of the town was pretty short, and though our guide spoke English, he was a little hard to understand sometimes. The tour was notably uncomfortable. My companions remarked on the unease we all felt, trekking through their village in our nice outfits and shoes, and with our fancy cameras. Though most of the villagers understand that tourists coming through is part of what generates money for the community, some were a little less than welcoming. From what I could pick up from body language, one woman shouted at our guide and said something to the effect of “if they want to take pictures of my house, they have to pay me.” I kept my camera pretty quiet after that.
It would have been stranger to be welcomed with open arms.
And yet, “welcomed with open arms” is exactly how we felt whenever we encountered kids in the town. They mobbed us, wanting us to take pictures of them and then show them their digital image. They wanted to play with my companion’s blonde hair, and for some reason, they all wanted to take turns holding my hand. I was a little concerned about one thing: although I understand these kids are learning English, I didn’t hear one word from them. In other parts of Zambia, when we encountered kids, they all wanted to say “HELLO HOW ARE YOU” and other phrases they knew to us. Furthermore, I heard one of the African Impact volunteers say that she was pretty sure the kids were just repeating her English phrases back to her in physical education class, and not necessarily picking up the meanings. I hope the quality of their teachers — not just in English, but in all their classes — isn’t lacking, or if it is, that it can be improved.
One thing is pretty clear: the kids are a lot of fun. They’re energetic and funny and love the camera. Check out this video of them hamming it up for me by the well:
So, would I recommend a visit to a local village when on safari in Africa? Definitely. The visit was more than a reality check (after staying in luxury camps with nothing to do but take pictures of zebras and eat), it was emotional and felt respectful. Maybe some of them didn’t want us there, but wouldn’t it be worse if tourists came through the country all the time and never even so much as poked their head into a real village to see how the people live? It’s an uncomfortable question, but for me, the answer is that making an effort to learn about people, if the intentions are good, is always okay.
My trip to Zambia was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.