New York! New York!

“It’s strange” I said to our Guests at the start of the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge weekly radio show on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone leading local radio station “when people say they’re from America the general reaction is not as excited as when Americans say they’re from New York!” Mike and Jennifer Westcott (above) laughed and proclaimed New York to be their city, and the best city in the whole world! We declined to argue! Mike and Jennifer had been staying at Chanters Lodge for a few days at the end of a hectic three week stay in Africa, having arrived in Livingstone a few days earlier from South Africa. They told Milli Jam, one of the co-hosts of our show, that they would be leaving for Johannesburg the following day, and for home in New York the day after that. “Had they had a good time in Zambia?” George da Soulchild Kaufela (the other co-host) wondered. You bet they had!
This lively, talkative New York couple told listeners that their visit to Livingstone had started with a sunset cruise on the Zambezi with the Lady Livingstone. Thereafter they had visited Victoria Falls and seen it from both the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides. Jennifer commented that there was more water on the Zim side and we explained that Zesco, our beloved electricity company, diverted the water above the Falls on the Zambian side for their hydro-electric scheme. That day the Westcotts had also been on the lion encounter out at Thorn Tree and had loved it. The day of the show was Mike’s birthday (happy birthday Mike!) and he and Jennifer had been to Chobe in Botswana for the one day safari. They had had a great time. One of the highlights of their visit to Livingstone had definitely been a visit to Livingstone Island for tea, and for Jennifer a swim in Devil’s Pool, Mike had allegedly ‘chickened’ out of jumping into the pool!
The music on the show was pretty hot as we opened with Rita Ora’s ‘How We Do (Party)’ debuting at number one in the UK singles charts as we went on air. We coupled that with TreySongz ‘Simply Amazing’, also big in the UK. George dropped tracks by CQ and Petersen ft Joe for his Zambian selection while Milli Jam picked Mary J Blige featuring Rick Ross as well as Usher’s ‘Numb’. Each week on the show we try to give away a prize of a dinner for two to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our oldie of the week. On this show I chose Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ but no-one got it. Problem. Our pick of the week was Ellie Goulding’s awesome ‘Anything Could Happen’ and we closed with Paloma Faith’s ’30 Minute Love Affair’.
Jennifer told our listeners that she was a primary school teacher in New York and Mike a qualified butcher working in a large New York supermarket. They are both third or fourth generation New Yorkers, they had known each other 12 years and had been married for 5 of those. Jennifer explained that they had met online “before it was a trend”! They both loved to travel and hoped in ten years’ time to still be living in New York and travelling a lot. They loved baseball and ice hockey sports wise. “Not soccer?” Asked Milli Jam – they shook their heads forlornly. Musically they said they were both into pop top 40 so I guess they guested on the right show!!

As we closed the show Mike and Jennifer gave a special shout out to Steve Hamwandi, a Livingstone taxi driver, who they said had given them excellent service during their stay. Great stuff!

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The Salvation Army March to The Experience!

We were delighted to welcome Ken Hawkins and daughter Emma (above) on to the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela last Sunday night. ‘The Experience’ is our regular Sunday night radio show airing between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. Ken is the Principal of the Salvation Army Training College in Lusaka, a post he has held since February this year. He has been with the Salvation Army for some 20 years and the Army has been in Zambia for 90 years! Emma, and her brother Paul were on a visit to Zambia, Emma is special educational needs teacher back in South London, UK. Ken and his family were staying at Chanters Lodge for a short family holiday, wife Ann, mum Alice (84) as well as Paul were back at the lodge listening to the show. Given the Olympic Games in London and the final of Big Brother Africa in Johannesburg being broadcast at the same time as our show, our listener numbers were down. Shame!
Ken explained to our audience that the Salvation Army is a Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that works in over 120 countries and has been described as a ‘Christian church with its sleeves rolled up!’ The Army is also known for its music and Ken said that he already knew of four Salvation Army bands in Lusaka which he described as being of ‘varying quality’. He and Emma are both musicians, Ken plays tuba and piano while Emma knows the cornet and horn. Ken said his musical preferences were jazz and orchestral, Emma that at the moment she just loved Carly Rae Jepsen! She’s not the only one….

Ken’s wife Ann is also a minister in the Salvation Army and teaches in Lusaka. Ken said that he and the family are very happy in Lusaka, loving the life style and the weather.

The music on our show was pretty far removed from gospel. We opened with the latest UK smash hits from Wiley and Example, followed with Zambian offerings from Petersen and Chilu Lemba. Petersen’s track ‘Ama Kwebo In Church’ George explained was saying that there are many things going on in church other than worship. I asked Ken for his opinion on these lyrics but he refused to be drawn! Milli Jam dropped tracks from R Kelly and Madonna. Our oldie of the week was Michael Jackson’s ‘Man In The Mirror’ – the weekly prize went unwon! My pick of the week was The Killers ‘Runaways’ and we closed with Example’s super ‘Say Nothing’.
Although Ken and Emma said they were not much interested in sport they had all the latest news from TeamGB’s sterling, or should I say golden, efforts in the London Olympics including the latest medals for Andy Murray and Jess Ennis! Ken admitted to watching Spurs in his youth but said these days it was very expensive to watch football in UK. The family had greatly enjoyed their one day safari to Chobe National Park in Botswana during their visit to Livingstone, as well as their trips to see the Falls.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Ken said he hoped to still be working in Zambia with his great team, Emma that she would like to be a trained minister in the Salvation Army, still able to visit her parents back in Zambia.

It’s interesting that the international Guests we have on our programme all love Zambia! 
No big surprise there – great country, great people! Great show!

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From Oklahoma, USA to Livingstone, Zambia

Meet Staci and Lance Norton (standing, left to right) as well as Mackenzie and Madison Gillham (seated left to right) from Oklahoma, USA, our recent Guests at Chanters Lodge as well as on the most recent edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela. That’s our regular Sunday night radio show on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s popular local radio station. The lodge sponsors the show, which is a mixture of music and chat – popular locally due to the fact that we give away a weekly dinner for two at the lodge to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our ‘oldie of the week’. This week George chose a track from Zambia’s popular Sakala Brothers and the prize was quickly snapped up by a lucky listener!

The Nortons and Gillhams told listeners that they’d arrived in Zambia on May 23rd primarily to visit and participate for a while in the running of The New Day Orphanage in Mpanza in the Southern Province of Zambia, some one and a half hours from Choma. Lance is Youth Minister at Union Hill Baptist Church in Oklahoma and New Day Orphanage is sponsored and run by the Baptist Mission in Zambia. The orphanage is still small with about 14 children aged between 4 and 8 years. They had enjoyed their time in the ‘bush’ helping to teach the children religious studies, as well as basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills. Staci and Lance Norton had visited Zambia last year, but for the girls it was their first visit. Milli Jam was delighted to be able to talk briefly to Lance in the Tonga language!

Madison, the older of the two sisters explained that she was a third year student of early childhood education at South Western Oklahoma State University, and Mackenzie that she is at the same college as her sister studying first year pre-veterinary medicine. For once, when we had girls on the programme, Milli Jam forgot to ask them if they had boyfriends waiting for them back home! The girls told listeners that their dad was a farmer and their mum a beautician back in the USA.

The music on the show had a distinct African flavour with tracks by Exile and Judy from Zambia, Diamond from Tanzania and Naeto C from Nigeria. We also played Loreen’s Eurovision Song Contest winning ‘Euphoria’, as well as Philip Phillips’ ‘Home’ – the girls were happy to hear that Philip had recently won the American Idol show – news they had missed while they were deep in Southern Province, Zambia!

Lance and Staci told listeners that they’d been able to fit in quite a lot of tourist activities since they’d arrived in Livingstone. They had taken the one day safari to Chobe in Botswana, and had been delighted to see a wide range of animals including lion, giraffe and elephant as well as a whole host of birds. They’d taken the helicopter flight over Victoria Falls – the girls admitted to being ‘a little bit scared’. They had seen the Falls from the Zimbabwe side as well as from here in Zambia. They had ridden elephants, walked with lions, encountered cheetahs and the next day were scheduled for a game drive to try and see rhino. They had not done the bungee jump – ‘not brave enough’ they said! Quite a package anyway! They described Victoria Falls as ‘amazing;.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing ten years from now, Mackenzie calculated that at that stage she would be two years out of vet school and practicing her profession. Madison hoped to be pre-school teaching and raising a family. We wished them luck with their ambitions.

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The Experience

‘The Experience’ is ‘The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela, and it’s our regular Sunday night radio show airing weekly from 20.30 to 21.30 hrs CAT on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. This week’s Guests, pictured above, were Peter and Jane Kohlhoff hailing from Sydney, Australia, briefly visiting Zambia for the first time and staying at Chanters Lodge. This loving married couple told listeners that they’d been married for 357 days and we took the opportunity to wish them ‘happy first anniversary’ in advance! Peter is a professional musician and Jane a psychologist – they told listeners that they both work freelance. Jane has her own psychology practice which operates one or two days a week and for the rest of the time she is involved with research. Peter plays bass guitar and double bass and has been involved in music since he was a teenager.

The music on our show was good. We opened with ‘Take Care’ by Drake featuring Rihanna, back to back with Justin Bieber’s latest smash ‘Boyfriend’. George chose B1’s ‘Perfecto’ currently a very popular track in Zambia together with ‘Chitemene System’ by B-Flow featuring Exile and JK. Milli Jam dropped Usher’s ‘Without You’ and ‘How We Roll’ by Loick Essien featuring Tanya Lacey. Our ‘oldie of the week’ was ‘Sweet Soul Sister’ by Train. We asked listeners to text us right away when they knew who was singing on the track – that’s if they wanted to win a dinner for two at Chanters Lodge. But no-one knew! I had predicted this! We gave the prize (off air) to our two hard working presenters, George and Milli Jam! My pick of the week was ‘Blackout’ by Breathe Carolina.

Peter and Jane explained that they’d arrived in Zambia the previous Thursday from South Africa and would be returning there as Jane would be attending a meeting for psychologists after their stay in Zambia. The day they’d arrived they’d taken the sunset cruise on Lady Livingstone which they’d loved. The following day they’d gone on a two day camping trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. They’d been very lucky not only to see hundreds of elephants, common in Chobe, but also lion and leopard. They had seen lots of other species as well. Peter and Jane had returned to Zambia on the day of our show, and had been to see Victoria Falls which they had loved – ending with a sundowner at the Royal Livingstone Hotel. They told listeners that they were not so much into sport as lots of Australians but loved their music.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing ten years from now, they hesitated and then Peter said ‘I do not know, but I am looking forward to it’! Peter and George spent time discussing music off air, and we hope their plans for some sort of collaboration bear fruit – Peter has played on over 150 recordings and should certainly be able to assist Soulchild in his ambitions!

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The Finnish Experience

I don’t remember having Finnish guests on the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela until last week’s show, so it was a pleasure to welcome Minttu Markannen (front left) and Susanna Mustonen (front right) who featured on the latest edition of our regular Sunday night radio programme on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. The girls were accompanied to the studio by Minttu’s mum Pivy (back right) and her friend Marita, all of whom were Guests at Chanters Lodge. It was a lovely happy Easter Sunday show with lively chat, great music, and of course the prize of a dinner for two at Chanters Lodge for the first person to text us telling us who was singing our ‘oldie of the week’. Milli Jam’s selection was Ne-Yo’s ‘So Sick’ and there was an immediate deluge of messages most of whom had the right answer, but no-one was faster than Felistus who won!

The girls told listeners that they came from Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and were both student nurses. They were currently working in Lilongwe, Malawi for a few months as part of a student exchange programme between Kamuzu Hospital in Lilongwe and the University of Helsinki, where they were both studying, in the final year of a three year degree course in nursing. The girls were very much enjoying their experience and told us there were huge differences between health care in Finland and Malawi, for example in Finnish hospitals roughly 6 nurses to less than 30 patients, in Malawi 5 nurses for 200+ patients!
The music on the show was great – we opened with Carly Jae Repson’s ‘Call Me Maybe’ a former number 1 in Canada, debuting at number 1 in the UK charts that very day. The guys dropped this track back to back with Nicki Minaj’s ‘Va Va Voom’ from her latest Roman Reloaded album – number 1 in the UK album charts – we are nothing if not right up to date on ‘The Experience’!  George played Judy’s ‘Chikawama’ and Roberto’s ‘Osayenda’ for his Zambian tracks. Other tracks were by Micasa, a South African, with a number called ‘Heavenly Streets’, Sean Paul, and Labrinth featuring Emeli Sande.
Milli Jam wanted to know how the group had travelled from Malawi to Livingstone and the girls explained that Kenya Airways had cancelled their flights, consequently they’d been obliged to travel the whole way by coach but they’d been determined to come and see Victoria Falls! They told us the effort had been totally worthwhile as they had now seen the magnificent sight of the Falls in full flood – and gotten very wet in the process! They had a one day safari planned to Chobe in Botswana the next day. They were not sure how many other activities they would be able to fit in as they had to be back in Lilongwe by the following Thursday, and once again would have to travel the whole way back to Malawi by coach.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in 10 years time, the girls who are both single, had different replies. They said they wanted to be ‘excellent nurses’ but Minttu gave the impression she would still like to be studying, while Susanna said she hoped she would be nursing, married and have children.

We thought their African experience would stand them in good stead for the future!

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Snow On The Experience!

 
Snow in Africa?! Well, in a way….David and Heather Snow with daughter Mandie (above) from Christchurch in Dorset UK, were guests on the most recent edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela – that’s our weekly Sunday night radio show on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. This, despite David and Mandie both being Spurs supporters!! The family were great guests, full of life and, for the most part, laughter!

Responding to Milli Jam’s questions, David and Heather said they’d been married for 43 years and had originally met at a game of skittles (I explained this game to George and Milli Jam, who looked bemused). “Was it love at first sight?” We wanted to know. “No!” said David quickly “Nor second sight”! Heather was not amused! They told us that Mandie was their only daughter and that they were taking her on trips across the world in the hope that she would meet ‘Mr Right’! “He’d better be rich”! Instructed David.

The family told listeners that they’d arrived in Livingstone just three days previously and that it was their first visit to Zambia, despite having previously travelled to many other African countries. David and Heather were both retired. David had worked for years on off shore oil rigs, for the most part ‘on’ for 56 days, ‘off’ for 28, as well as generally in the oil industry. Heather had been a teaching assistant before retirement. Daughter Mandie explained that she works in the housing department for local government in Dorset and was involved with re-housing homeless people.

The music on the show was up to date, and amongst other tracks we featured Mavado’s beautiful ‘Soulja Girl’ back to back with Madonna’s ‘Gang Bang’ – one of the few interesting tracks on her insipid new album. George featured Bryan’s ‘Tsunami’ back to back with T-Sean, Petersen and Dalisoul with their controversial ‘Adam’ for his Zambian selection. Milli Jam picked Adele’s ‘Set Fire To The Rain’. Our oldie of the week was James Blunt’s ‘Superstar’ and the prize for texting us the name of the performing artist was quickly snapped up by a listener in Nsongwe Village, out of town. We were delighted. JLS with ‘Proud’ and Emeli Sande with ‘River’ closed the show.

The family told listeners that they had loved their lion encounter and helicopter over the Falls combo that they’d done that day, and of course had been thrilled by Victoria Falls. They were looking forward to their forthcoming one week safari through Botswana, especially their time in the Okavango Delta.

Avoiding any more mention of football, we asked Heather what music she liked – Paul Weller was her answer and she was happy to hear that his new album had charted at number one in UK that very day. Mum Heather liked Cliff Richard and Tom Jones. Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing ten years from now the family said they would like to be healthy, happy and travelling.

It was a super show with super Guests and great music!

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Wendy Callaway on ‘The Experience’

Wendy Callaway (above) was the guest on the most recent edition of our regular Sunday night radio show – The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela. The show airs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station, from 20.30-21.30 hrs and also streams live on the internet. The programme is a good mix of music and chat, popular locally not least because we give away a dinner for two with drinks at Chanters Lodge on every show to the first person to text us telling us who’s singing our ‘oldie of the week’. On this show the track was ‘Umbrella’, the singer was Rihanna, and the winning answer appeared on my phone within seconds! Great, seeing that the previous week no-one had won!

Wendy was a very interesting guest. She told listeners that she was in Zambia for a couple of weeks to work with the The Butterfly Tree, a charity which supports rural communities in Zambia often badly affected by illness. The organization’s aim is to help in the provision of safe drinking water and feeding programmes as well as improved health and education facilities. The NGO also has an orphan sponsorship programme and Wendy explained that she had been sponsoring five orphans in Zambia for six years through this scheme. She was delighted, on this her first visit to Zambia, to have already met four of the five orphans whom she had sponsored, now teenagers aged between 14 and 18 and she said they were all doing very well academically. Most of the The Butterfly Tree’s work in Livingstone is based at Mukuni Village and this was where Wendy had been spending time since she arrived.
The music on the show featured tracks from R Kelly, Calvin Harris ft Ne-Yo, Lionel Richie, Lana del Rey and Jason Derulo from an international point of view. Local tracks were from Red Linso and Winston with ‘Kamwala’ and Exile’s ‘Walimbikila’ – ‘old but good’ was the Chanters Girls verdict on this Exile track. The lodge staff are avid listeners to the show and don’t hesitate to let me know what’s good!
Milli Jam asked Wendy if she’d managed to do any of the tourist activities on offer in Livingstone during her first week with us, and she replied that she’d just come back from Chobe in Botswana where she’d been on safari for a few days. She’d also squeezed an elephant safari, lion encounter and a rhino walk into her busy schedule. She told listeners that she’s an accountant by profession, and that having her own business in Southern England affords her the chance to travel and to do the things she wants to do – a chance that might not be there were she working for other people. She told us that she’s an active member of the Rock Choir and had been involved in their best selling 2011 album as well as appearing on ITV TV in a show featuring 8000 choir members in the Wembley Arena. “Wow!” We said – without asking her to sing for us!

Asked about her plans for the future, this serious minded, hard working, married British lady (she had greeted husband Pete listening to the programme live back in UK) told listeners that she hoped to be able to expand her business and therefore be able to grow her charity work and other interests. “Great!” We said.

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Working On A Dream?

Working on a dream? Pie in the sky? We’ll wait and see whether this piece from Bikya Masr turns out to be true words!

Botswana and Zambia’s telecom operators have agreed to establish a new fiber-optic cable through Kazungula. Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) and Zamtel in Zambia announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding for the new cable.

The new project will cost approximately $260,000 and should take between three and four months to construct and be operational. Zamtel CCO Amon Jere said the project “would help reduce the cost of international connectivity and improve the quality and speed of Internet services.”

Early this year, BTC inked a similar $5 million deal with Powertel of Zimbabwe. That deal means BTC provides the Zimbabwe company with bandwidth capacity for two years after the two organizations completed cross-border fiber connections at Ramokgwebana in De­cember 2009.

“BTC has already committed to invest BWP 504 million to secure reliable bandwidth from the West African Cable System (WACS),” the Botswana company said in a press release on Tuesday.

“BTC has also committed USD 210 million to the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) to further increase Botswana’s bandwidth capacity,” it added.

The construction of a number of cables across East Africa has boosted telecom and Internet capacity in the region, and investors and operators hope they will push the industry into the next generation of development.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Tim and Diane Seaborn Brown on ‘The Experience’

We were delighted to have guests all the way from San Francisco, California on the most recent edition of ‘The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George Soulchild Kaufela’ our weekly Sunday night radio show, airing at 20.30 hrs CAT on Zambezi 107.7fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station and streaming live on the internet. Our popular show is known locally just as ‘The Experience’. Each week we offer a great mixture of local and international popular music, interesting and entertaining conversation with our guests of the week, as well as pop chart news from the UK and USA. One thing that makes our programme popular is that we give away a dinner for two with drinks at Chanters Lodge every Sunday to the first person to text us, telling us who’s singing our ‘oldie of the week’. This week the track was Dionne Warwick’s ‘Heartbreaker’ – I thought our audience would struggle but we got a text with the correct answer very quickly!
Our guests Diane and Tim Seaborn Brown (above) told listeners they’d been married for 39 years and that Tim had recently retired from his job as a high school teacher of maths and computer science. When we asked Diane if she’d also retired she was rather hesitant with her answer. She did tell listeners she’d owned a pre-school for 25 years educating 100 students at a time and employing 10 teachers. She’d also spent time as a stock broker and as a recreational therapist for children with Down syndrome. Tim hailed originally from New Zealand where he and Diane had first met on a blind date, organized by mutual friends. “Was it love at first sight”? Asked Milimo (as usual). “Yes!” they agreed in unison! “One of the first things we did together was to watch a rugby match” Diane told listeners, explaining that as an American she’d understood very little of the game and totally didn’t understand that no-one was yelling and screaming when one of the teams scored points! “Quite different from the States!” She observed.
The music on the show was as entertaining as it should be. Flo Rida’s UK number one ‘Good Feeling’ opened the account, back to back with One Direction’s ‘One Thing’. George chose ‘Kawilo’ by B-Flow, Maureen Lilanda and Danny, coupled with Ozzy’s ‘Chimutengo Chamango’ for our local tracks, and Milli Jam picked ‘Oh Yeah’ by TI featuring Trey Songz and ‘Party’ by Beyonce (this latter track in honour of Beyonce’s recently born baby.) My tip of the week was the haunting ‘Home Again’ – Michael Kiwanuka’s UK hit. ‘Troublemaker’ by Taio Cruz closed the show.
Tim and Diane told listeners about their fabulous African adventure explaining that they were about half way through their journey. Before arriving in Livingstone for four days they’d spent three weeks on an overland tour through Namibia, Botswana and Lesotho in the company of 17 young Australians. From Livingstone they would leave the following day for Zimbabwe and then on to Johannesburg. A four day safari in the Kruger National Park was on the agenda as well as two weeks ‘lying on the beach’ in Zanzibar. This energetic, loving couple would then spend some time as volunteers in Arusha before taking off for another safari through the Serengeti.

Having been asked the usual closing question Tim and Diane told listeners that ten years from now they’d still like to be travelling worldwide and saw no reason why this should not be the case. We saw no reason either!

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The Streits Experience

For the first 2012 edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild we introduced a new opening track – Olly Murs’ recent UK number one – ‘Dance With Me Tonight’ because, we told listeners, we wanted everyone to dance while they listened to the show! And so we do! ‘The Experience’ is our weekly Sunday night radio show airing at 20.30 hrs on Zambezi 107.7 fm, and streaming live on the internet. On this particular show we knew the streaming was fine as we had an entry from Kenya for the prize we give away each week – to the first listener to tell us who’s singing our ‘oldie of the week’. The track was ‘Where Is The Love’ by Black Eyed Peas and the prize was quickly snapped up by Otilia in Livingstone. As for our Kenyan listener, we told him to get on a plane and come and eat his prize!

Our guests on the show, pictured above, were the Streit family from Munich, Germany, though like me Bernhard Streit (centre) has been living and working in Africa for more than 40 years. Strangely our overseas careers both started in Mombasa, Kenya in the early 70’s! We couldn’t resist the temptation to reminisce on air about ‘the old days’ although our paths had not crossed at that time. Bernhard, a civil engineer and bridge builder, was accompanied on the show by his wife Gerda, a teacher back in Germany and son Robert a student from the University of Munich studying Biology. The only member of the family missing was Bernhard and Gerda’s daughter Werena who’d been in Livingstone for Christmas, but was now back in Germany and we hoped listening live to the show on the internet.

The music on the show was great! After the opening Olly Murs track mentioned above, we dropped ‘Born To Be Wild’ – the latest from Sean Kingston and Nicki Minaj, back to back with Alex Day’s UK Christmas hit ‘Forever Yours’. George da Soulchild, about whom there was a big feature in Zambia’s most popular national daily The Post the previous Friday showcasing his undoubted DJ and musical talents, chooses our local tracks each week on the show. This week his selections were Danny’s ‘Ifya Kon Ka on Ka’ and Chika’s ‘Chimibaba’. Milli Jam chose LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’ which he told us is one of the most popular western tracks in the Livingstone clubs right now. He coupled this smash with Rihanna’s beautiful ‘Watch N’Learn’. After our oldie of the week, my ‘Pick Of The Week’ (another new feature for our show in 2012) was ‘Cross My Mind’ by Ludacris ft Damian Marley and Kevin Cossom. We spun the Military Wives and their lovely Christmas number one ‘Wherever You Are’ at the end of the show to say ‘bye’ to the holiday!

Bernhard and Gerda told listeners that they’d lived in Zambia in 2002-2003 when Bernhard was the civil engineer in charge of the construction of the bridge across the Zambezi between Sesheke and Katima Mulilo in Namibia – a beautiful bridge it is too! We demanded he now builds a bridge at Kazangula between Zambia and Botswana and we were treated to a lecture in why it was proving so difficult politically to get the project started, but Bernhard remained confident that the bridge would be built before long. The family had formed a consultancy company – Senex – in Zambia and were looking forward to settling in Livingstone in due course. We wanted to know if Robert had a girlfriend pining for him back in Germany, he said he had not. He told us he loves clubbing in Munich. Although he had not done the bungee jump in Livingstone he’d done the gorge swing and had also been white water rafting. Bernhard and Gerda had not!

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Bernhard and Gerda said they hoped they would still be around and enjoying life in Zambia, Robert said he hoped he would be following his chosen career as a marine biologist, living an exciting and interesting life. “Married with children?” I asked. The answer wasn’t “yes!”

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