Camilla Nereid & Gunnar Bendheim on ‘The Experience’

For the third time in recent weeks we were delighted to welcome Norwegian guests on to The Chanters Lodge Experience with The Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela – that’s our weekly radio show airing every Sunday night live between 20.30 and 21.30 hours on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. The show is a great mixture of music and chat and is also usually available streaming live on the internet.

Camilla Nereid and Gunnar Bendheim (above) had been staying at Chanters Lodge in Livingstone for part of their visit to Zambia, although they explained to listeners that they’d also spent some time in Mongu in Western Province. The reason for their trip to Zambia? Well they are both staff of Trondheim University College – Camilla is the Dean of the College of Teachers and Gunnar is Leader of Student Administration. For both it was their first visit to Zambia and they said they were loving it! They had come to check on the progress of their eight student teachers in Livingstone and eight in Mongu and they were happy to report that their students were doing very well. Their visit to Mongu had involved 35 hours on the road out of a 72 hour trip!
The music on the show was good, although there were some technical problems on this edition. We opened with two latest smash hits – Katy Perry’s ‘Part Of Me’ which had charted in the US at number one that very week – quite unusual! We coupled that smash with Nicki Minaj’s ‘Starships’ the first release from her upcoming new album. George dropped Exile’s ‘Auwe’ which Milli Jam told us is currently hot in the Zambian clubs – he should know as he’s also entertainment manager at New Fairmount Hotel in Livingstone, apart from being a regular presenter on 107.7 fm. Milli Jam chose Ace Hood’s ‘Body to Body’ together with ‘Love You No More’ from Diddy featuring Drake. Our oldie of the week was ‘I Will Always Love You’ by Dolly Parton and my pick of the week was Chris Brown featuring Rihanna with ‘Turn Up The Music’. We closed with Usher’s soulful ‘Climax’.
Camilla and Gunnar told listeners about their safari to Chobe in Botswana that day and amongst other species Camilla had been fascinated by the African Jacana bird – it is a polyandrous species, which means that one female mates with multiple males and the male alone cares for the chicks. Gunnar explained that he came from the far north of Norway – one of the coldest parts – where temperatures could drop to as low as -40C! We shivered! Camilla related that she had recently sat for a Phd in Turkish History to add to her other academic achievements.
Camilla told listeners she was married with 3 children, Gunnar that he was not married but had 6 nieces and nephews whom he regarded as ‘his kids’! This entertaining duo raved about the chicken piri-piri served at Chanters Lodge as well as the quality and friendliness of the staff, and revealed that they had even eaten crocodile meat while they were in Mongu! Asked if they had a favourite football team, they leaned towards each other, shared a microphone and yelled ‘Chipolopolo!’ simultaneously, much to the amusement of the assembled company!

In closing we expressed our gratitude to the Norwegians for their continued outstanding support of Chanters Lodge.

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