Livingstone, Zambia

While visiting the falls, we stayed in the city of Livingstone. The highlight was trying different types of African cuisine in the restaurants a couple nights. The staple food all over southern Africa is boiled maize meal, and as expected, has a different name in each country. In South Africa it's called pap, in Zambia it's nshima, and we are told it's called sadza, in Namibia. Not sure about Botswana yet. It is white, semi-firm, and pretty bland tasting. At first glance, I thought it was instant mashed potatoes. But it is quite filling and when eaten with meat or chicken, and some type of accompanying sauce, it is actually tasty and goes well with the meal (so says Betsy, Hugh disagrees). As a food item that is relatively cheap to make, filling when eaten, and able to be made in large quantities, say for your whole village, it makes a lot of sense why this food is such a staple throughout southern Africa. Along with nshima, the other meals we tried in Zambia were grilled crocodile, a type of chicken stew with tomatoes and onions, and a dish made with a type of chard/leafy green. The grill is called the braai over pretty much all of southern Africa, which most restaurant menus typically offering items from the braai. The waitress honestly admitted to us that of all the dishes, crocodile is more often ordered by tourists than local Africans. We were not courageous enough to try the local favorite, caterpillars. We've also learned that baby marrow, while sounding meaty and maybe not appetizing, is just zucchini. While in Cape Town, we had really enjoyed the township tour we took, seeing the other side of Cape Town and learning how life is outside the tourist spots. Therefore, we quickly signed up for a biking tour that explored a township/village just outside of Livingstone. The tour included stops at the village's school, a senior citizen home and a typical local african market. Overall the tour was a bit disappointing to us, but the highlight speaking to the head teacher of the school. The school has students ages 6 to 14. One big challenge the school has is getting kids to come to school. The teacher mentioned two students stopped coming because they were pregnant, some girls dropped out because they were married, a few more because they were suffering from TB, secondary to being HIV positive, and some had to work to help make money for the family. Unfortunately, we get the impression that this is a common reality in schools across southern Africa. Overcrowded classrooms due to not enough physical classrooms, are also a problem (a lack of all resources, truthfully) but this seems manageable as long as the kids come to school. When we visited, it was not a normal school session, but an extra session for kids who had not done well.


You may not be able to see the blackboard, but the kids must be getting a decent education - they were doing math in base 5. Apparently, they don't teach that kind of math in Ohio, as Betsy didn't even know what that meant. Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Livingstone, Zambia