Into ric
Susannah McMiCking mixes business with pleasure and ends up falling madly in love with Zambia.
runts jerk me out of that
luscious netherland
between sleeping and Waking. It's not the sound of the dtistbin men outside my window recounting their previous night’s antics. Rather it‘s the harmonious babble of hippos as they make their morning pilgrimage past my room. down to the river. .-\ excitement rushes over me. I realise my morning commute will not be trundling past lllll expressionless faces but rather a quick glance through the binoculars at the gra/ing antelope and doffing tny cap to the resident hyrax. have traded a well paid job and cosmopolitan lifestyle in the heart of Iidinburgh for a salary that wouldn't cover my monthly shopping hill. Here I am for five
months in a remote corner of
northern Zambia. Looking for adventure and something that would give me more
kick than the daily nine hours of
sense of
cyber-honding. I took up the offer of a position working in a luxury safari lodge on the northern edge of Kafue National Park. one of Zambia‘s three major game reserves. After too much time behind a desk my once-believed innate domestic self is struggling for air as I attempt to take on the kitchens and 'housekeeping‘.
If it was character building I was alter when I swapped urbanism for the bush. then character is under some serious construction. Plucked out of soft city living. my idea of resourceful is finding a ready-meal in the freezer alter Sainshury's has shut. What the hell do I do when the gas runs out at 7pm and I have I: guests to feed‘.’ Why. dig an oven in the earth. of course.
I am learning these vital keys to survival with every waking day — usually the hard way. For all its beauty and allure. Africa is a hostile matriarch. and I can see why only the strongest of characters can
TRAVEL
Africa’s beasts are beautiful to look at but they‘re not much use if you run out of gas at 7pm
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survive a lifetime of the challenges she throws out. After a couple of months here I am beginning to appreciate the value of a favourite phrase in these parts: '()K. let's make a plan.‘
I WATCH TWO ELEPHANTS SPLASHING HAPPILY ACROSS THE RIVER AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR ‘GARDEN'
And that's not the only thing. Having never been a morning person. I am taking an unprecedented delight in the magical first moments of dawn. even if most nights I don't hit the pillow until after llpm when the last of the guests weave their way to
bed. I don't have weekends or holidays and there‘s no pension scheme. but my lunch hour land-a- half. gloat) is spent stretched out horizontal on the deck over a river teeming with wildlife and my perks come in the form of leopard- sightings. And in return for sacrificing kettle boiling and Saturday nights ‘on the town'. for live months of my life I'm living and working almost entirely out-of- doors. listening to lions roar at night and enjoying sundowners at a different kind of watering hole. There are no business suits. high- heels or make-up but instead the liberating. summer holiday feeling of donning shorts and flip-flops every day. From a more academic perspective. I am experiencing a totally new work ethic and culture and learning about things no office job could teach me. I can now hot- wire a car. I‘ve discovered that sun- dried tomatoes don't just come out of jars and you'll find me :99 220'? THE LIST 101
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