MONZE 20/03/2010

Monze has a lot to offer. It is a proper Zambian small town. Away from the hustle and bustle of the busy streets of Lusaka. And also away from the tourist “infected” Livingstone. Don’t get me wrong, Livingstone is nice, and very chilled, but it tend to be too tourist oriented. Even so, no visit to Zambia is complete without a visit to the mighty Victoria Falls, and that will include a stay in Livingstone.
The commercial in saying “Zambia – the real Africa”, and the real Zambia would be a place like Monze, not like Livingstone. The town itself is small, and if you’re driving from Lusaka to Livingstone without paying too much attention you might miss it. Unless you’re on a bus, this is where the buses have their pit-stop, as it is more or less half way, which makes it easy to access.
In town there are heaps of shops next to each other and they’re selling essentially the same knick-knacks, but you’ll be surprised of what you can find.

NORSK: Monze har mye å tilby. Det er en skikkelig Zambias liten by. Vekk fra kjas og mas de travle gatene i Lusaka. Og også vekk fra turist "infisert" Livingstone. Ikke misforstå, er Livingstone hyggelig, og veldig kjølt, men det pleier å være for turist orientert. Likevel besøk i Zambia er ikke komplett uten et besøk til det mektige Victoria Falls, og som inkluderer et opphold i Livingstone. De kommersielle i å si "Zambia - det virkelige Afrika", og den virkelige Zambia vil være et sted som Monze, ikke som Livingstone. Byen i seg selv er liten, og hvis du kjører fra Lusaka til Livingstone uten å betale for mye oppmerksomhet du kan gå glipp av det. Med mindre du er på en buss, dette er hvor bussene har sitt pit-stop, siden det er mer eller mindre halvveis, noe som gjør det enkelt å få tilgang. I byen finnes det hauger av butikker ved siden av hverandre og de er selger det samme nips, men du vil bli overrasket over hva du kan finne.

Shops and trucks of Monze

And if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the shops, there are always street venders around, they’ll attend to you if you look their way, but if you say no or even just wave them away they’ll leave you alone.

There is a proper, local, Zambian marked, and that is always worth a visit. With local food and vegetables, and other katundo (stuff), but be prepared to be stared at, not in a bad way, but just because people here (as everywhere) are curious.

A proper salaula – selling second hand clothes.

The town does lack a proper supermarket, however that is typical for a Zambian small town, but one day I’m sure Shoprite, or even maybe Spar will settle here too. In the meantime we just have to live with the fact that fresh milk and things are a luxury.

There is, however, a post office. And several banks/cash points.

Here is the farm boy, who looks after our farm, on his way to drop off today’s milk from the cow at his father’s farm. We gave him a lift into town, and even back again, as we went back and forth to the farm 3 times in a day.

Banana vendor and offspring

This is such a beautiful, and very hot day, but it takes time to dry up yesterdays heavy rains.

There are plenty of guest houses and eating/drinking places around town. But not anything which will be in the same category as our eco-lodge, which also makes Monze a good place for the lodge. We believe that the people of Monze can make use of the lodge/farm and enjoy the facilities, but also benefit from it as we will bring business and tourists to the area.
The community based projects will have a main focus around the Lochinvar National Park. The park also attribute to the real Zambia, there are several points of interests, and has the potential to develop even further with the help of the community projects and the international recognition we hope to bring in. The park is especially known for its vast bird life, where we can bring in one of, if not the one, Zambia’s most famous bird experts, Bob the birdman. He is a true character and he is family. The park also has hot springs and quite a few African animals to view, and if you proceed through to Kafue Flats there are even more animals to see, included elephants, giraffes and lions.
So really we believe and trust that Monze is the place for us, and that we and the people of the Monze region can have a long lasting relationship with mutual enjoyment and benefits.

NORSK: Det er mange gjestehus og spising / drikking steder rundt i byen. Men ikke noe som vil være i samme kategori som vår øko-lodge, som også gjør Monze et godt sted for hytta. Vi tror at folk Monze kan gjøre bruk av hytta / gården og nyte fasilitetene, men også dra nytte av det som vi vil ta næringsliv og turister til området. Samfunnet baserte prosjekter vil ha et hovedfokus rundt Lochinvar nasjonalpark . Parken har også attributt til den virkelige Zambia, er det flere interessante steder, og har potensial til å utvikle ytterligere med hjelp av samfunnet prosjekter og den internasjonale anerkjennelsen vi håper å få inn Parken er spesielt kjent for sine enorme fuglen livet, hvor vi kan hente inn en av, om ikke den ene, Zambias mest kjente fugl eksperter, Bob the Birdman. Han er en sann karakter og han er familie. Parken har også varme kilder, og ganske mange afrikanske dyr å se, og hvis du fortsetter med å Kafue Flats er det enda flere dyr å se, inkludert elefanter, giraffer og løver. Så egentlig vi tror og stoler på at Monze er stedet for oss, og at vi og folket i Monze regionen kan ha et langvarig forhold med gjensidig glede og nytte.

The building process is starting 17/03/2010

So here we are in Monze, though the internet here is too slow to even try to enter BlogSpot, let alone upload pictures, so the drafts are made here, and will be blogged once we’re back in Lusaka, and we are making appointments and talking to people all over town. Brick layers, thatchers, electricians, drivers, ZESCO (for electricity), prices and negotiations.

Inspection of bricks.

Hunting electricity. We are on a rural, farm drive, getting to know our neighbours and looking for electricity around the farm. And look at this, there is a transformer (behind the house), which is not in use, only 800 meters from the farm. That should bring down the cost heaps.

Crispin with the electrician by the tree at the farm.

Getting building materials.

The boys at the farm have been leaning down in the well to get water, the water level is quite high, but it is not safe. We don’t want people to fall in, so we provided them with a chain, a bucket and 2 padlocks.

Tove is testing, and it works pretty well.

We also give them brushes and cleaning supply, so that they can clean the house for us. The neighbours on the other side have let their cows into the house, and it smells...

The builder/brick layer has come to the site, and we are showing him the plans.

So this is where we will set up the first chalet.

The cows are following our work.

The view/distance from the lodge area to the farm house.

Tove is trying to open the gate to the farm.

And look; she managed!!!

We are bringing materials to the farm, slowing moving with what we can manage in the Jeep. This is brick force; we are learning bits and pieces about construction.
We also bought river sand, which they are supposed to come and dump at the site today, Wednesday, and some other things which we have to pick out at a later stage as they did not fit in the Jeep.
The bricks that we went to see on Sunday are being moved to a space which will be reachable for the truck to come and pick up. Apparently they are using cows to move them, some of us were picturing the whole village, even the younger ones, carry as many bricks as they could manage, until they have moved the entire 5000 bricks.

That day we had to leave the Jeep here, and walk the rest.

And even cross RIVERS to get there.

So now we are just waiting for the builder to start mapping out the foundation. We have not been able to get in contact with him for 2 days now; his phone seems to be out of reach. That is one of the many issues which make it hard to do business on Zambia.

THE SKETCHES ARE HERE 16/03/2010

So the architect dropped off the sketches the other night, it was very exciting to finally see the plans on a proper piece of paper! And even though lots of changes, I’m sure, will be made in regards to small details and locations of the different structures, this is our lodge!
We can finally travel to Monze to get this moving forward.



The lodge area. A bit overboard with the parking, but looking good!

The double, family, chalets, which we’ll start with, one of these days.

The front and rear of the chalet, where, well, the front is the rear and the other way around ;o)

The section plan of the chalet, though there will be no ceiling, only the thatch (grass roof).

A single chalet.

The bar and restaurant, with the tree will be behind counter, and the reception is in the other corner.

The sunset deck @ the bar, facing west for, hopefully, many spectacular African sunsets!

Section plan of the bar.

Homestead/kitchen area.

But these will all have the same, traditional, thatched roof styles. Please ;o)

Second walk @ the farm Feb 21st

A few weeks ago we packed up the whole family and headed for Monze, just for the day. It is about a 3 hour drive from Lusaka, towards Livingstone (and the Victoria Falls), so it is doable.

The mission was to show Victor, our architect, the plot, which is important so that he can get somewhere with the drawing, and the drawings are essential so that we can start with at least a few bricks.

Loading up the car to go to the farm.

... Because everyone here, including the photographer, goes into the Jeep..

The farm has been invaded by even more cows, and birds.

Walking with Victor. He needs to see the plot,

and especially the tree to get a feel and a better understanding of the Eco lodge.

Though some prefer to read the newspaper.

Victor has already done some work for Laura and Chris, and when we had that first meeting to see if we could work with him for the lodge, we clicked straight away. He started talking about something and we said we wanted gauze windows for a natural breeze, and no air con, he replied; “so you want an eco lodge?” “Oh, yes, exactly, we forgot to mention that?”

Since than we have had regular, weekly, meetings and our ideas has commenced with his,

and the drawings are getting there.

Research in the streets of Lusaka

So the other day, about a week and a half ago, sometimes the time flies even in Africa, Chris and Tove went on a hunting trip around town to see what we could find. Lucky for us, it didn't rain, it had been raining heavily for weeks. The streets had not recovered and there were water everywhere, but good for us that there are always guys hanging around, helping with parking and looking after the car, trying to make a couple of pin (1 pin = 1000 kwacha = next to nothing).

First stop was a shop that sells solar panels to find out where they get their solar panels from. We want to find the source so that we can find out the actual cost of everything and what we need to run the lodge on solar panels.

We find the solar shop. But it was a very sad moment when we discovered that we can't run the whole thing on solar. According to the lady we talked to, fridges and stoves/kettles and what not can't run on solar. It will ruin the solar system, unless you have particular solar run equipment, which is, still anyway, hard and expensive to get a hold of. Basically that means all heating and cooling devices. We can’t run a bar and restaurant without fridges and freezers. The cooking is okay, we’re planning on using gas anyway.

So we just faced it there and than, we need electricity, power from ZESCO. There is power at the next farm, so will not be too difficult, but it is just not what we wanted for our Eco lodge. We’ll use solar panels for lights and for the chalets, and as much as we possible can, and hope that we’ll see some development in the usage of solar panels in the future.

Next place – swimming pools. Just checking prices. And when we’re escorted into an office and greeted by a guy with a proper South African accent that is when we know that this is going to be expensive. It is. He is talking somewhere around 40 000 Us Dollar for a proper sized swimming pool. And that is just for building it… He’s joking. We figured we have to find out how to build it, and than teach a few local guys in Monze how to do it!

We also progress on to find out about electrical fencing, once we have building and start to move our stuff to the farm we need more than the bob wires which are surrounding the place at the moment. By the next day Chris has already been given a quota by e-mail for fencing the whole farm, and it’s not cheap, of course, we’re looking at something like 100 million kwacha.

We drive to pick up Laura from the office; she is working for UNDP and has heaps of experience with projects and project proposals, and than back into town for lunch. After lunch we drop her back and go shopping before it is time to pick her up again.

What a day! Feels like we have driven around the whole of Lusaka 5 times, but it was quite productive and a good days work for being in Zambia ;o)

Another meeting - more ideas!

On Jan 17^th we have a new meeting with plans and ideas. Have to run away from the house, too many kids and disturbances. So we go to Porticos in Lusaka for lunch, where we hide in a corner of the garden and use the whole space as we are busy discussing how much 10 metres and 50 metres and so on are. It is hard to grasp the real space on paper and how much we’re actually talking about.

Laura is trying to put the whole plot of the farm onto the paper, it’s not too easy to put 33 hectare on a A3 paper. It just makes everything look so small... But it does give us an idea, and we decide that we have plenty of land to build on, and plant on and what not.

The Eco lodge will only be a part of the farm. We have divided it into 3 more or less equal parts. The lodge will be our main focus part for the time being, but on the 2^nd part, the middle bit there will be a learning centre. This is Chris’ project. He is a teacher, who for the past 3 years worked for WWF in Monze, so he knows the area and the people really well. That means that a lot of the background work for our farm is already in place. And by the end of the year he’ll be finishing his master degree in environmental education from Rhodes University in South Africa. The learning centre will be interacting with local schools; it will also feature a public swimming pool, a gym, an internet cafe’, a botanical garden and be the base for community projects.

The 3^rd section, where the dam is, will have room for private housing and more.

Back to the Eco lodge which will have a bar and restaurant, and reception, with a sunset deck on the roof and an upstairs area looking over the restaurant. There will be a homestead quarter which will include the kitchen, laundry and staff facilities. There will be en suite chalets which can sleep 2 to 3 people, and there will also be a couple of family chalets. There will also be possible to camp with own tents or tents can be provided. The toilet facilities will all be eco/compositing toilets, with recycled water from the showers.

We are however still on the learning stage ourselves so we have a lot of research to do before we reach our target. This is going to take time. The journey has just started, but the journey is the destination, isn’t it? ;o)