Lauren MacLean Dreams Livingstone!

 
It was fascinating to talk to Lauren MacLean (above), a guest at Chanters Lodge, on the latest edition of The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George da Soulchild. ‘The Experience’ is our regular Sunday night radio show airing on Zambezi 107.7 fm from 20.30 to 21.30 hrs CAT, sponsored by Chanters Lodge, and co-hosted by two of Livingstone’s best and brightest DJ’s/presenters! The show also streams lives on the internet on the 107.7 fm site.
Lauren, a nurse by profession, hails from Stonewall, Manitoba, Canada. Before she and husband Robert, owner of a trucking company, left for Africa they raised funds from friends and family to help needy people in Livingstone. Since they arrived, she told listeners, they’d been visiting various projects with the team from Dream Livingstone, a local NGO. Amongst other visits were those to Project HIV and Village of Hope. Lauren told us that as a result of their visit they would be going ahead to make the donations they had planned. “Fantastic!” We said.


Lauren told listeners that on their African adventure, before they’d come to Zambia, she and her husband had spent time in Botswana which they’d enjoyed, despite there having been a lot of rain. They’d also spent two weeks on safari in Tanzania where they’d had a fantastic time in the Serengeti and at the Ngorongoro Crater. From Tanzania, Lauren and Rob had gone to Zanzibar, which they’d enjoyed, although Robert, a scuba diver when he’s on vacation, was disappointed that the windy weather had prevented him from diving in the Indian Ocean.

The music on the show was right up to date as usual. We opened with the latest number one singles from both the UK and USA respectively – Cover Drive’s ‘Twilight’ and Adele’s ‘Set Fire To The Rain’. George chose ‘Bola’ by Ozzy, Ben Blaze and Kabova, being a tribute to the Zambian national football team and the great progress they were making in the African Cup Of Nations, 2012 edition. George coupled this with a super new single from K’Millian simply titled ‘Number 1’. Milli Jam dropped Chris Brown’s ‘Strip’ and ‘International Love’ by Pitbull and Chris Brown. Both great tracks.

Our ‘oldie of the week’ was Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’, and the prize for telling us the name of the artist by text, was quickly snapped up! Our pick of the week – tip for the top – was Alyssa Reid featuring Jump Smokers with ‘Alone Again’. We closed with Alexandra Burke’s ‘Elephant’. As usual we gave listeners details about Lodgeblog, our Twitter account @livilodge and all the latest chart news from UK, USA and in this instance Canada as well!

We wondered whether Lauren and Rob had been able to do any of the tourist activities in Livingstone having been so busy with their wonderful volunteer projects. Lauren replied that that very morning they’d taken a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls which had been awesome, and then had spent the day seeing the Falls from the ground. They’d loved it. “How long will you be in Zambia?” Milli Jam wondered and Lauren explained that the next day they’d be leaving for their 27+ hour journey back to cold Canada. She assured listeners that they would be back in Africa one of these fine days..

Milli Jam wondered where Lauren would like to be, and what she would like to be doing, in ten years’ time. She replied that as she loved her job, she hoped she would still be nursing and also that she and Rob would have started a family. We thanked her for her work for the underprivileged in Zambia and for appearing on our show, as well as wishing her the best of luck.

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