Our last week has been spent in Zambia near Kolomo. Kalomo is a fascinating town - with an open air market, sturdy buildings, schools, and a mix of transportation styles. You can see the big tractor trailer rigs, modern buses, trucks & cars, taxis, bicyles, donkeys, and ox carts. There is also sign language for catching rides. While in the US one puts one's thumb out, Zambians hold their arm out and wave their had up and down. If a car is too full to pick up any more passengers, the driver holds his hand flat and moves it left to right.
Zambians are creative as well with their transportation. I saw two men riding somewhat precariously on top of a load on the trailer of a semi truck. When I asked my driver if the truck driver knew the men were, he assured me the driver knew. It looked dangerous to me . . . but then what do I know?
Housing ranges from brick or concrete structures with metal roofs or thatch roofs, to simple thatch homes. Zambians cook outside on open fires. Women still carry their loads on their heads and their sweet babies swaddled on their backs.
Today we sadly left Namwianga mission and the villages around Kolomo to begin our journey home.
The drive through Livingstone is filled with colonial era buildings and some new construction as well.
But two legs of air flights and we are now on the ground in Cape Town. We've gone from temperatures in the 90's to 53 degrees. Modern buildings, lots of modern cars, expressways (instead of narrow dirt roads disintegrating into cowpaths) . . .
I feel as though I've just emerged from a time warp. It feels like two different worlds.
But I'm going to miss Kolomo and Namwianga.
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