14) What a journey!!!
As you can imagine it was not easy to sleep the day that we were to leave Zambia. We were concerned about the trip, the new life we were going to and of course we were sad to be leaving the place we had been so happy. So for a few hours we tried to sleep, I think we only had a mattress on the floor by then as most of our stuff was either packed or sold, but we eventually gave it up as a bad job and put the animals into the Kombi and went to Cecilia’s to collect Jonathan and Dominic. They were having a wonderful time with their aunt and were not in the least bit sleepy. I suppose they sensed the tension in us and really played up.
We said our Goodbyes and piled into our cars, Jonny in the front with the animals. The plan we had was that as the back of the Kombi was full of furniture and things and Koos in his cage, (there was so little room Jonny had to tilt the cage and bend the top of it to get it in) Saint was supposed to travel on the passenger seat and Mitzie on the floor below of him. But when Saint stood up to see out of the window and bark at something Mitzie would jump up onto the seat he was standing on and then he did not have the room to sit down again. They would have been quite comfortable if they had stayed still but of course they would not.
I travelled behind with the children. My car was also very full but if the children had gone to sleep they would have had plenty of room on the mattresses but they tried to examine everything in the car, they got in each other’s way and cried and preformed for ages. I don’t know when they eventually settled and went to sleep but it was even worse then, I was driving behind Jonny just following his tail lights, not having to really concentrate on the road. It was very dark, there was nothing to see, just mile after mile of the Kombi tail lights and I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke as the car went onto the gravel on the side of the road but was too late to rectify the car before it went into a shallow ditch. My first thought was that maybe the car would catch alight so I got the children out and took a blanket and wrapped it around the three of us and sat on the side of the road and cried. Jonny had gone on a little way ahead of me and when he saw my lights go off the road he thought I had stopped to change another nappy or something like that. From where I was sitting I could not see him, I knew he would come back eventually but I was very frightened, I could hear African music in a village that sounded quite close and I felt very alone. After a few minutes, it seemed like ages, Jonny turned around and came back to see what I was doing. As he came close to me I could see in his headlights that just a few feet from where the car had crashed there was a huge rocky outcrop, if I had hit that we could all have been hurt. I just thank God for His protection.
Together Jonny and I managed to get the car out of the ditch and he examined it for damage. It did not seem to have suffered too badly and at least it was driveable. It did cost us something later on in Salisbury for some repairs but at least we could drive it then. We had a quick drink of coffee from our flask; swallowed some more of our stay awake tables and started off again as we were rather nervous of the drinking party we could hear, but this time with me in the front. I had to concentrate more now and it kept me awake, not that either of us would let that happen again. If Jonny thought I was wandering off the road a little he would blow the hooter to keep me awake. We drove on until we were at the foothills of the escarpment, form here the road was twisty and steep and I was feeling tired again so we pulled off to the side of the road for a sleep. There was not much room to sleep but even the short time just napping in the driving seats help us and we woke in the very early hours of the morning and continued our journey to the border post at Chirundu. We had been advised that it was better to go through early in the morning just as it was opening up at 6 o’clock, as the officials were less likely to be awkward then. We entered the customs and immigration office at about 6.10 am and the officer who attended to us looked as if he had just got out of bed and that he had an almighty hang over too. He could hardly see which page he had to stamp. Jonny opened our passports at the appropriate page and slid them across the desk, they were given an official stamp and we were allowed to proceed. We did not have anything that we were not suppose to have but we had heard stories of people having to unpack all their belongings to prove that they were not smuggling things out of the country and we just knew that if we had to take every thing out of our vehicles we would never have got it back. I suppose this would have been the time for someone to ask for the parrot’s permit, but no one did.
We crossed the bridge at Chirundu and left Zambia forever. I was very please to be going to Rhodesia but it was very hard for Jonny. He had been born in Northern Rhodesia, it was his home, full of the memories of his childhood there and it must have hurt to leave. But we were on our way to a new episode in our lives, a new country and a new address; it was exciting and a little scary.
We said our Goodbyes and piled into our cars, Jonny in the front with the animals. The plan we had was that as the back of the Kombi was full of furniture and things and Koos in his cage, (there was so little room Jonny had to tilt the cage and bend the top of it to get it in) Saint was supposed to travel on the passenger seat and Mitzie on the floor below of him. But when Saint stood up to see out of the window and bark at something Mitzie would jump up onto the seat he was standing on and then he did not have the room to sit down again. They would have been quite comfortable if they had stayed still but of course they would not.
I travelled behind with the children. My car was also very full but if the children had gone to sleep they would have had plenty of room on the mattresses but they tried to examine everything in the car, they got in each other’s way and cried and preformed for ages. I don’t know when they eventually settled and went to sleep but it was even worse then, I was driving behind Jonny just following his tail lights, not having to really concentrate on the road. It was very dark, there was nothing to see, just mile after mile of the Kombi tail lights and I fell asleep at the wheel. I woke as the car went onto the gravel on the side of the road but was too late to rectify the car before it went into a shallow ditch. My first thought was that maybe the car would catch alight so I got the children out and took a blanket and wrapped it around the three of us and sat on the side of the road and cried. Jonny had gone on a little way ahead of me and when he saw my lights go off the road he thought I had stopped to change another nappy or something like that. From where I was sitting I could not see him, I knew he would come back eventually but I was very frightened, I could hear African music in a village that sounded quite close and I felt very alone. After a few minutes, it seemed like ages, Jonny turned around and came back to see what I was doing. As he came close to me I could see in his headlights that just a few feet from where the car had crashed there was a huge rocky outcrop, if I had hit that we could all have been hurt. I just thank God for His protection.
Together Jonny and I managed to get the car out of the ditch and he examined it for damage. It did not seem to have suffered too badly and at least it was driveable. It did cost us something later on in Salisbury for some repairs but at least we could drive it then. We had a quick drink of coffee from our flask; swallowed some more of our stay awake tables and started off again as we were rather nervous of the drinking party we could hear, but this time with me in the front. I had to concentrate more now and it kept me awake, not that either of us would let that happen again. If Jonny thought I was wandering off the road a little he would blow the hooter to keep me awake. We drove on until we were at the foothills of the escarpment, form here the road was twisty and steep and I was feeling tired again so we pulled off to the side of the road for a sleep. There was not much room to sleep but even the short time just napping in the driving seats help us and we woke in the very early hours of the morning and continued our journey to the border post at Chirundu. We had been advised that it was better to go through early in the morning just as it was opening up at 6 o’clock, as the officials were less likely to be awkward then. We entered the customs and immigration office at about 6.10 am and the officer who attended to us looked as if he had just got out of bed and that he had an almighty hang over too. He could hardly see which page he had to stamp. Jonny opened our passports at the appropriate page and slid them across the desk, they were given an official stamp and we were allowed to proceed. We did not have anything that we were not suppose to have but we had heard stories of people having to unpack all their belongings to prove that they were not smuggling things out of the country and we just knew that if we had to take every thing out of our vehicles we would never have got it back. I suppose this would have been the time for someone to ask for the parrot’s permit, but no one did.
We crossed the bridge at Chirundu and left Zambia forever. I was very please to be going to Rhodesia but it was very hard for Jonny. He had been born in Northern Rhodesia, it was his home, full of the memories of his childhood there and it must have hurt to leave. But we were on our way to a new episode in our lives, a new country and a new address; it was exciting and a little scary.
posted by JC at
11:26 pm
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