Zambia have just beaten South Africa in the semi-finals of the African league. Woooo! (We were supporting Zambia as, having watched the match in the hotel bar surrounded by Zambians who were buying us drinks and food, we felt a definite sense of loyalty).
Until this evening our day had been pretty empty. Since we’re back in Mazabuka, we were supposed to have meetings planned for today, but Kenneth never arrived, despite our attempts to contact him. Eventually we managed to get hold of Bernadette, who came to see us this afternoon. We were presented (not offered) with beers from another of our fellow hotel guests sitting nearby, and this constant flow of beer continued well on into the evening. We tried to refuse, but apparently this isn’t the done thing in Zambia: we were advised that if we didn’t want to drink the beer, we should just keep it unopened under the table and put it in our fridge. Suffice to say, we now have quite a supply.
The whole build up was because of the football game due to start at 8pm this evening. Our beer-benefactor and his friends were rather on the tipsy side by 5pm, and we wondered how we were going to manage to get to kick-off without being under the table. When we said we were going to make ourselves some dinner (we’d bought some beans and egg and toast) he refused to let us ‘slave away’ – instead he bought us whatever we wanted off the menu. We both felt extremely guilty about this – in England, it seems people generally don’t buy you anything unless they’re expecting something in return. Here however, it was explained to us that people will be as generous as they can towards guests, and if their generosity is refused it will be deemed to be offensive. After a pork chop and a tikka masala respectively, we weren’t complaining.
Eva, Bernadette and I watched the game in our hotel bar, accompanied by various acquaintances of Bernadette’s (from whom we got some bizarre comments after they’d had a few drinks – one guy said to us, on inquiring after our age, “Ah, I thought you looked young, if I squeezed your nose then milk would still come out.” What this was supposed to mean, we have no idea).
All in all it wasn’t the most eventful football match – it went to penalties. Still, we had a great night (and have come out of it several beers better off).
We’re due to meet Kenneth in the afternoon tomorrow, so hopefully in the morning I will manage to upload some of the photos we’ve been missing over the past few days.
Hope everyone’s had a brilliant day and is still enjoying this heatwave! Lots of love.
No comments:
Post a Comment