TONGABEZI SCHOOL, TUJATANE, ZAMBIA

We spent our last day in Tongabezi, enjoying their fabulous facilities and food and on the river – another sunset river cruise, more gorgeous scenery, wildlife and gin and tonics. My younger brother got a little more “up close and personal” than he would have liked and managed to fall into the middle of the Zambezi whilst fishing. We think (judging by the fuss he made for the next week) that he broke a couple of ribs. He did point out how interesting it is that the body has an ability to almost jet propel yourself back out of the water and onto the boat when you know that there are crocodiles and hippos potentially directly below you.

Before we left Tongabezi I was lucky enough to spend some time with Ben and Vanessa Parker the owners of the fantastic lodge. I’m so jealous of their lifestyle – they were just off to go camping up the river – just the two of them….

Here they are trying to teach a member of staff how to make a Macchiato which I think was all my brother’s fault:-

Here they are looking very cool on their boat:-

Just a gorgeous place in the world to live:-

Ben told me all about how he had initially found Tongabezi in 1990 after accidentally stumbling upon the site when his car broke down on his way back to the Copper Belt where he was flying and and selling microlight aircraft. All sounded weirdly familiar – that is exactly what our Grandfather came out to do in the 1940’s.

Ben also talked at length about how he met, pursued and finally married Vanessa who is responsible for the setting up of the local school. The excellent service from a team of first class local staff is no doubt massively enhanced by the school called Tujatane as it provides an education for many of the staff’s children. Vanessa told me that it started with 15 children and that they now have around 200 with an age range from two to fifteen years. All the students come from low income families.

She very proudly told me that one of her students now has his commercial pilots licence and more importantly a job with the Flying Doctor’s – he is the son of one of the waiters. You can feel the community spirit here. They are having two new classrooms built at the moment and are doing very well nationally with their performing arts programme. Vanessa also believes that it is very important to empower the girls, so they get lessons in how to feel equal.

She talked to me about their new Food Programme and how they need sponsors to donate £6.00 per month to feed a child. Well that’s less than a magazine subscription or beer in the pub – I’m definitely going to do that. Of course, as she pointed out, if a child is hungry they can’t really be terribly receptive to lessons. “You can never really do enough – life is so unfair” she said, being involved in a rural school means being involved with the whole local community – the need for the children to be fed and watered, medical facilities, family issues and therefore larger community issues – the project is immense.

I don’t know enough about it yet – but I will email her and get the details and then pass them on if anyone else is interested.