The only downside of having free weekends is finding something to do with them. Katete is a fairly isolated spot, the hospital is situated of the ‘great’ east road about 4km from the town of Katete stores. There isn’t much going on around here. I pass my free weekends sleeping, reading, going to the nearest supermarket (in Chipata 90km away) to stock up on food every few weeks and continuing my ‘Christian churches of Zambia’ tour.
This tour has been stuttering along a little unfortunately. Services starting much later than advertised, lasting several hours, being in Chewa (my understanding of which looks like it will never extend beyond about 10 cardinal medical symptoms) and often being frankly bonkers dampen my enthusiasm. I did manage last week to head along to the ‘Bread of Life’ service after a kind invitation from a staff member in the hospital. This service took place in a partially completed church literally in the middle of a row of other born again Christian or Pentecostal churches.
When we arrive the first thing I notice is there are no poor people here. The congregation consist mainly of well dressed young women with children plus or minus accompanying husband. One of the elders is talking about a forthcoming conference and is asking each member to cough up 100,000 kwacha towards hosting it (about €16, a lot of money here).
After that there is singing not form a choir, but from ‘the praise team’. Naff music is blasted through loudspeakers from a keyboard and the team sing uplifting Christian songs. It’s all very unZambian but at least a lot livelier than the JW service. There are much less people here though and all are well to do, this church doesn’t have the mass appeal brought by distributing free bibles but it seems to have targeted a niche in the market.
The pastor gets up to do his thing, first off all blessing all the children and casting the evil spirits out of them. He then begins his sermon which lasts well over an hour. He dressed in smart suit and speaks in English. I guess the reasons for this may include the targeting of more well to do Zambians who tend to be educated and have English and also the fact the pastor is from another part of the country and doesn’t speak the local language. He speaks through the loud speaker often with great gusto and pleads with the crowd ‘can I get an Amen?’ after the important points. A male member of the praise team stands beside and impressively translates everything into Chewa at great speed.
The first theme is to ‘think big’ which sounds reasonable until the pastor starts using the analogy of a ‘mad person’ who can not think big ‘their minds are finished’. Zambia is not the place to have a psychiatric illness. He talks about having the right attitude and mentions how a plane he saw once brining the bishop from America to visit had to have the right attitude towards the wind in order to fly. He talks about discipline and how George Washington with a small army defeated a larger one because of discipline. The next point is integrity and here he focuses on the evils of being or having a ‘sugar’ daddy or mammy. The entire congregation is asked to declare ‘I will never be a sugar daddy/mammy’.
Church visits and shopping aside I try out some of my pastimes from home. There is a golf club in Chipata, the 4th oldest in Africa and 36th oldest in the world. I’m rubbish at golf but find it an enjoyable way to pass time and relax. Chipata Golf Club is more a brown patch of land through which many roads and paths cross and with 9 holes in the ground with flags located in fairly random locations. Anyway it’s cheap (the ‘brown fees’ are just 5000 Kwacha, less than €1) and a bit of fun for a gang of us to play one Saturday. It’s a pretty strange experience, teeing off there is no golf course to be discerned just brown landscape and people walking through it into town. On one hole we literally have to play out over a busy road, thankfully nobody manages to hit a car but we do witness a crash.
When you make it to the brown the caddy scrapes a smooth path on the ground to the hole for to put along. The browns are hard to judge, there are no breaks but you have to be careful not to hit the ball down into the dirt. At one point a guy just cycles over the brown on his way somewhere, elsewhere there is a homeless man living under a tree on the course.
On another Saturday I go for a cycle. I don’t own a bike, having a car here was my priority. Some of the other volunteer Doctors have bikes and I borrow one for an afternoon. The bike is a Chinese import costs about 500,000 (a little over €80) at Katete stores. They think this is great value, I think they have been had. It’s rickety, squeaky, the gears are stubbornly resistant to change and the back brakes don’t work.
I cycle across the road and down some tracks. For the first few kilometres I see nobody just beautiful peaceful African countryside. Cattle are grazing here and there but there are no fences, just open countryside. After a bit I arrive in a traditional African village, kids run out from everywhere to gawk at me (I’m not far from the hospital they probably see a muzungo every couple of weeks but I’m still a novelty). The village s fairly big and I am almost hoarse at shouting ‘Muli bwanji?’ (How are you) by the end.
Continuing on a few kilometres I come to a kind of gravel road with lots of people walking. I deduce that if I take a left on this road I will end up back at Katete stores and can make my way home from there. There are more people now, its 5 pm, making there way home from the stores or work or wherever they have been for the day. People enter and exit the road from various paths and tracks out of the bush. I feel vindicated when after a bit the road leads onto the tar but then discover I am not at the stores but quite a bit down the Mozambique road.
The tar is easier to cycle on, the bike creaks less. It’s a little uphill to the stores then downhill back to the hospital. On the way I overtake many people walking and am overtaken by a lot of people cycling. Walking and bicycle are far more popular modes of transport than vehicles. People here tend to cycle on single gear standard issue black bicycles (in fairness they look much sturdier than the one I am on). Young girls overtake me, old men overtake me cycling almost effortlessly, lots of bicycle taxis overtake me, some even carrying two passengers.
Back on the ‘great’ east road at the stores there is more vehicles. The road is narrow and vehicles approaching to overtake a cyclist usually emit a shrill blow of the horn so as to say to the cyclist ‘get the hell of the road’. I have done this to cyclists myself many time and now I see things from their perspective. It’s pretty frightening hearing the sound and suddenly there is a massive truck a few meters behind you travelling at over 100km per hour. You swerve off the road onto the dirt that runs alongside the tar, there is often a treacherous drop between the tar and the dirt and then it’s hard to get back onto the tar.
Everywhere along the road the kids are again shouting ‘How are you?’ I reply ‘I am fine and how are you?’ to which he same child responds ‘fine and how are you?’ I turn off the road safely back at the hospital. There is a beautiful sunset over the African countryside, its good to be here.
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