You may recall that whilst we were home between travels in May, I briefly worked with a charity in Hinckley called The U Foundation, which supports children and families in Zambia. Sarah and Jay, my bosses at the charity, know Zambia very well and have lots of friends here. We were fortunate enough that they were able to put us in contact with Sydney, a local guy and good friend of theirs. He kindly agreed to be our driver and guide for the day and took us on a tour of the ‘real’ Lusaka.

We first visited his house in the compound (township), where we met his wife and sister. His home was small but well furnished and with electricity, though sadly they don’t have running water. Next stop was Chitukuko Basic School to understand how a local school functions, and to see the furniture that had been donated by Leicestershire schools, via The U Foundation. We entered the first classroom and found the children mid lesson. When they saw their deputy head, the children stood to greet him, and then the 60 faces turned to peer at us. Their teacher suggested we say something to the class. Dave pushed me forward, muttering “Well you’re the teacher”. I stumbled through a greeting, explaining briefly about our trip and that we were from the UK. I’m used to a lot less faces staring at me from my classes! I asked if they had any questions. Either they didn’t understand my mzungu accent or they were too shy to ask, but they all kept quiet and just smiled politely.

We showed them some postcards of the UK and one girl asked me if the lady on one postcard was my mother. She was pointing to the Queen at the time! Dave caused a bit of a riot by taking a photo then showing a couple of kids the picture. Immediately 60 children leapt from their desk and descended on him, all wanting to see their picture, much to the teachers bewilderment. Dave apologised profusely as he told all the children to return to their desks and took the camera round all of them in turn.

During our visit we also observed a still art class and a manual photocopier in use, helped the admin staff to fix their printer so that they could finally print the end of term French test and were in demand to have our photos taken with the students. The deputy head spent some time with us explaining the school system, that the children attend school in shifts and that some walk a long way to be there.

We were happy to see that the donated desks and chairs were being put to good use, although it was clear that they were still in need of a few more chairs, as about 15 children were sat on the floor in the two lower classes. The deputy explained that suitable chairs are very expensive and hard to get hold. He felt it really affected the children’s ability to learn as they were more restless and had poorer handwriting if they were sat on the floor.

We’d like to thank Sydney for an insightful tour and Bonnie (his boss) for her advice on travelling in Zambia and arranging our stay in Livingstone. It was great to meet people who live and work here.

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