A very British conversation

Weather - Maximum temperature 44 degrees Celsius

- Weekly rainfall – 12 mm

Highlight of the week

We land a second job. As models for a lush lodge. Care for champagne breakfast in the bush guys? We don’t mind if we do!

Lowlight of the week

A new-born bushbuck is ambushed by baboons outside our house. Her rear legs were paralysed. Keith puts her out of her misery.

Every British conversation seems to start with a nicety about the weather. I say a nicety. I mean a complaint. We are never happy with the weather. The sky might be a perfect shade of azure, the land green and pleasant but someone will grumble that there is no wind. More about our negative slant on the weather later. Suffice it to say if you don’t moan about the weather then you aren’t truly British.

It seems wrong not to write a blog about the weather. Might our own complaints have the ability to change the weather? You would think so: If only the big guy really would listen into our menial discourse. I had a conversation with a woman in clinic this week. We were passing the time of day. It’s so hot! she commented. Where are the rains? I inquired. Only God knows that. She retorted knowingly. Why doesn’t he get a move on then? I retaliated. We both chuckled. The big guy chose to ignore our banter.

Our annual summer barbecues at both Auton Court and Westgarth House became legendary over the years. People would come from far and wide to share in the gay abandon of wearing fancy dress and taking part in bouncy castle battles. Some even came to eat and drink. But the British summer haunted our barbecues. Sunshine would have been too easy for me. The very threat of rain would whip me up into a frenzy of what ifs. Many amongst you will know that I like to plan for all eventualities. So, plan I did.

As the day of our barbecue approached the paranoia would start. Do we have enough gazebos? How many people will come if it rains? As soon as technology permitted: I had four different weather apps on my phone. If one gave an unfavourable forecast for the party, I would switch to another. Only when all 4 apps agreed on sunshine, did I relax. The mere hint of rain made my mind spiral. One year it really did rain, and it rained, and it rained. My worries had not changed a thing. Everyone got drenched and the bouncy castle turned into something from It’s a knockout. But there had been no point in worrying. My planning had changed nothing. I still love hosting big parties. But the British weather caused me too much stress. The weather is my Achilles heel.

The seasons in Zambia are supposedly very fixed. Cold and dry (May to July). Hot and dry (August to November). Wet and warm (December to April). So, in true Ginny style we packed for all 3 seasons. We packed for cold, hot and wet. The cold was really quite disappointing. The daytime temperature never got below 22 degrees Celsius. It was pleasant to be out and about in. We needed no air conditioning and even slept under a duvet at night. My fleece remained in my suitcase. Zambians do not understand the concept of cold. We bumped into a young Zambian graduate, Martin, this week. His course had been in Brighton. His friends at university had insisted that he join them on the beach one day in the middle of summer. Swimming was suggested. The temperature that day never exceeded 22 degrees Celsius. Martin kept his jumper on all day. His feet stayed firmly on land. Nesh.

Things started to warm up in September. Our car thermometer plotted the way. We started to get daily temperatures in the 30s. Still quite pleasant. Occasionally it started to feel properly hot. This is nothing. The locals told us. We smiled and said we knew. People started to ask how we were coping in the heat. It really was not a big deal at that time. We had lived in Zanzibar for 2 years after all. We were used to hot and humid. At least this was hot and dry. We increasingly sought refuge in the Kapani pool. Our air-conditioned bedroom became the only useable room in our house. Keith pestered the air conditioning engineers daily. There was no air conditioning in the kitchen/ living room. The air conditioning unit in there had given up the ghost years ago. Clearly the job of keeping that room cool was beyond all technologies known to man. Lovemore, our electrician /fundi, had tinkered on fruitlessly. Eventually he pursed his lips, blew his cheeks out and shared his exasperation with us. In true Jaws the movie style he declared: You’re gonna need a bigger compressor.

Back through the mists of time. When we lived in Zanzibar, I had never enjoyed the rainy seasons. The humidity probably did for me. We loved our pikipikis. Honda 125s are a bit more macho than a moped and far more fun. But we were always vulnerable to the elements. The air-conditioning system was always set on hot. And we were never safe from sudden downpours. Our waterproofs proved elusive. Stop your pikipiki too soon to don rain gear and you drowned in your own sweat. Stop too late and your clothes were instantly put through a 40-degree prewash. For three months, we were constantly wet. Our clothes and even our camera became mouldy. Nothing would dry in the humidity. The sound of rain on our tin roof was glorious, but I dreaded it. A harbinger of doom. Mosquitos started to multiply. Malaria then began to wreak havoc and our little district hospital filled up. Cerebral malaria became a grim reaper of children under five. A single child death usually scars me for weeks. In the rainy season we would lose a child on most days. Heart-breaking. Needless to say, I haven’t been particularly looking forward to another rainy season here in Zambia.

We had our first drops of rain in November. We actually had 8mm in one night. My mind raced ahead. The mud in the park would curtail our weekend escapes I insisted. We have to be available at all times. Lives here depend on us. We are the emergency services. It wouldn’t be good for us to be marooned at a camp. My weather apps had re-emerged. Windy appeared to be the best. Windy forecast twenty centimetres of rain one week. Noah had known how to cope with such predictions. Batten down the hatches I thought. I decided against building an ark though. I even turned down two camp stays for fear of splendid isolation. Keith fumed. We sat at home and waited for rain. Both weekends proved totally dry. Not a drop. Meanwhile, just up the road at Nkwali camp, they had five centimetres in one day. Within two hours. We had nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Each week, I study my weather apps obsessively. They are no longer predicting rain. That is quite a worry. As much as I dislike the rainy season, it is a necessary evil here. The farmers need rain to grow their crops. One of our colleagues rashly planted his rice after a promising downpour. It germinated and shrivelled. Rice needs rain. The animals also need rain in the park. Without it there is no grass, no leaves. Grazers and browsers go figure. Even the hippos and crocodiles need river water to sustain their livelihoods. The only animals benefiting from the paucity of rain are the carnivores. Lions feast on buffalo stuck in the mud. Nature’s ready meals. Wild dogs chase tired and hungry impalas. They choose easy pickings. The young, the old. Hyenas pick up scraps everywhere. Vultures cruise around for their share of the spoils. Hippos rot in the river blessing the air with a fetid fragrance. Crocodiles alone feast on them. Death seems at every turn.

Every day for the past month, the temperature has exceeded the 40 degrees mark. It barely drops below 30 at night. Clouds form and excitement is in the air. The wind picks up. We can smell the rain. And then it all goes away. All of our friends have a different weather apps. We all quote different predictions. We are all wrong. The rain still has not come.

Our friend Tania escaped to Lusaka. She claimed that it was for her daughter May’s immunisations. But we knew she was escaping the heat. Lusaka was ten degrees cooler than here and hotel rooms there all have air conditioning. Vaccines are available in the Valley. Our local tree clinics have a niche appeal. A melee conducted with uncertain shade and no air conditioning. Tania’s decision is understood.

Keith’s quest for air-conditioned nirvana continued. All of our friends said that Keith was wasting his breath. You will never get that fixed. Doctors have been grumbling about that for years. The spare parts to replace the compressor and overworked cooling elements had been on order for an eternity. Our friend, Rob, from a neighbouring lodge had even offered the services of his own dedicated air conditioning wizard if Kapani could not come up with the goods. Yet when we bumped into Lovemore, as we walked to the Kapani game viewing deck, he promised that the new air conditioner would arrive tomorrow. Even then I did not believe my ears. All of our tomorrows had previously failed to materialise in Africa. Labda kesho is an overused phrase in Swahili. Perhaps tomorrow. I think these may even have been the first words that we learnt from Hamisi and Kyobya, our Swahili teachers at the Salvation army hostel in Dar Es Salaam. I’m sure that Lovemore will forgive my skepticism. I thought tomorrow might never come.

Tomorrow came. Keith had made a contingency plan to ensure that Lovemore could get into our house whilst we were in clinic. Lovemore called Keith as Keith was lancing a nasty abscess in our makeshift operating suite. I was watching on, squeamishly half turning away in horror as pus gushed out. The bat phone in Keith’s pocket rang. So, I reached in to take the call. I heard Lovemore tell me that the air conditioner was going in that morning. I almost fainted from shock. More from the surprise that tomorrow had come, than from my own fear of suppurating wound care. I heard myself mutter instructions to Lovemore to get our keys from our neighbour Vicky.

There is currently a severe drought in East Africa. The impact of that drought is exacerbated by fighting in Ethiopia. Food aid is being distributed there. In 2019 there was a drought in Zambia. It affected the Southern and Western provinces. Far from here. Drought is not currently in the Valley vocabulary. Water is never too far away. Deep boreholes guarantee drinking water throughout even the most parched seasons. Generous benefactors and determined drilling operators ensure that remote villages always get life sustaining liquid.

People talk to us about the biblical floods they get here. Rescue operations conducted from sturdy boats have evacuated people and animals in years gone by. Photos document their woes. Some people say our current weather pattern is not that unusual. Others bemoan the lack of rain. Suddenly it all feels very British. The weather is on everyone’s lips.

Postscript: The rainy season arrived yesterday. The heat and humidity had been building all week. For once all the predictions sang in unison. Friday was going to be the day. Friday arrived. The morning sky azure again. The sun taunted us all. But by 17:00 the clouds had gathered. Long overdue rain threatened. In our kitchen Vicky chewed the fat with us about our cleaner’s new contract. And then the sky started to empty. Our tin roof shuddered violently under the weight of heavy clouds wrung out by brutal heavenly forces. Our conversation and Keith’s evening Zoom meeting were postponed by the overpowering cacophony. That glorious deafening noise is back on our tin roof.

Quite normal for this time of year

Gonna need a boat to get to work

Don't mind if we do

Fluff. A rescue owl

Ready for all weathers.