In Lusaka...

...on the 23rd of February 2020

2020 kind of rolls off my fingers...I like typing it..
So, the ride must go on ....we cycled right through all this trouble and if we didn’t know, we wouldn’t have ever know...no signs of any riots, road blocks..nothing.
Here is more to the topic:

https://diggers.news/opinion/2020/02/19/citizens-take-law-in-their-hands-when-theyve-no-confidence-in-state-police/

And for now, things are peaceful again.

We are racing with the loaded locals on their one gear bikes with 4,5..sometimes 6 bags of charcoal while we carry all our shit counting 60kg per bike. Sometimes, when school is out we race with the students who carry one or two friends on their bikes. So fun to connect, laugh and give it all we got.
It feels like we are finally getting deep into Africa and even though we had a bit of a scare here in restless Zambia, I am thoroughly enjoying being here.

Every day we get a downpour...as we are heading into the more tropical areas. It can be blue skies and the next minute we see clouds gathering..getting dark. Just enough time to gear up we recently got drenched in less than 2 minutes..it was impossible to ride, so we took the next shelter, which was a little store just a few meters down a dirt road.

The guys were gesturing to hurry and we parked the bikes when the sky really let loose. It dumped buckets and the wind was working on taking the metal roof off the structure, luckily unsuccessfully, when another woman with her baby ran for shelter to the same little house where we sat on wooden panels.

I started to feel it now and I have at times already...we really are in Africa with our people, helping each other out, feeling safe and welcome, taking care of each other. We all get wet in the rain, we all want company, we all feel shy at times, we all need a dry place, we all are humans together on this earth right now. This is what it means to be alive and living!
We are taking a rest day in Lusaka..with little interest to explore the city. I feel like resting, reading, eating, futzing with Gurly (her gears need a little adjustments) and socializing with the rest of the backpackers of which are surprisingly a lot of locals...maybe they don’t have a home?
Tomorrow we head out again into the big world on the street to Malawi. Chipata will be our last town before we leave Zambia...only another 567km to go...