Meet Peter Ronald, Jane Miller, daughter Erin and son Eli, traveling around Africa for six weeks in a rented camper van and hailing from Seattle, USA. Peter’s a financier and Jane a surgeon/professor back in the USA.

We had a reservation for the family for Saturday and Sunday but on Thursday they arrived and asked if we had space for two extra nights, which we had! The deal was that if I gave them the room, they’d appear on Sunday night’s Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient, featuring George Soulchild our weekly radio show, hosted, promoted, directed and financed by Chanters Lodge on Zambezi Radio 107.7 fm! Livingstone’s leading local radio station. I think it was the best show we’ve done since we came back on air in June this year. Why?

The Guests were great, lively, talkative, informative and funny. Had Erin (14) received an invitation to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding? ‘No!’ Did she want to be a doctor or a financier? ‘No!’ What was Eli (10)’s favourite kind of music – classic rock, Monkees and Beatles. Was Jane in a hurry to get back to work in Seattle – no! Is it true the family had stood just one metre away from Victoria Falls on Livingstone Island that very afternoon. Yes! Would they come back to Africa one day? Yes! Had they seen a World Cup game in RSA? Yes Holland v Cameroon. Had they enjoyed it? Yes? Did we want a couple of vuvuzelas asked Jane – ‘yes!’ We said – ‘No’ yelled the kids, they were not giving them away! Shame!

The music on the show was great ‘I Want You’ by Treysongz does it for me at the moment, though our American Guests had never heard of him! ‘Today’ by Brandy is a great song which the Chanters Girls love. ‘We No Speak Americano’ by Yolanda Be Cool – top that week in UK, unknown to our Guests from USA – but it had Eli and Erin talking. Typical summer disco track and no, ‘we no speak Americano!’

I hope George will write up the Zambian musical aspect of the show for a blog later this week but Milli Jam featured J Dot ‘Could you be the DJ?’ – I preferred his Chrishian ‘And When You Missed Me’, though I can’t find out much about the artist or the song at the moment. Spelling?

Had our Guests enjoyed Zambia? Yes, especially as by chance they’d been at Mukuni Village at the time there were rehearsals for the famous Lwindi Tradtional Cermemy so they’d seen a lot of traditional dance and had loved that! They seemed to keep themselves pretty busy while they were here.

As usual we greeted the Guests and staff back at the lodge and gave away a dinner for two for the first person to text us Jane’s profession. Doctor – easy winner! We made special mention of the long hours and hard work undertaken by the Chanters Girls during a busy week with very early departures and a lot of running about!