2012 – Chanters Lodge Livingstone

Room Renovations

In 2012 we completed renovations of three of our eleven rooms at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone, one in the ‘main house’ which was the last of the three original rooms we opened in 1998 to be completely renovated.

We then turned our attention to the four Lukulu Crescent rooms opened in 2004 and managed to completely renovate two of them, before being hit by a rather a bleak mid-November to mid-December business wise, that curtailed our activities. Following this unusually difficult period we had a reasonably good festive season.

This morning we are happy to report that we have started renovation of the third of the four Lukulu Crescent rooms, and the picture above shows the workers starting to break the bedroom floor tiles. These will be replaced with a larger lighter, brighter ceramic floor tile. A new toilet and pedestal wash hand basin are to be fitted in the shower room and the floor and walls of the shower room will be completely retiled. New drainage arrangements, tap and towel rail fittings to match.

We were happy with the results of our renovation in the first two Lukulu rooms and I’m sure room five will turn out just as well. It gets slightly easier as you go along, as the team are aware of the requirements from the previous work. We will keep you posted!

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JAN

2012, accommodation, Chanters, innovation, management, renovation, staff, Zambia

Music Review 2012

George da Soulchild Kaufela, co-presenter of our highly successful weekly Sunday night radio show on Zambezi 107.7 fm forwarded this piece for the blog. Thanks George!

It’s been a great year for the Zambian music industry! More artists have come on board and more have become household names. Some artists have simply maintained their status while others have lost out and their names and music are slowly fading “back into black”. Here’s a look at selected months, artists and events from 2012.

March 2012
‘Hip-Hop Crisis’ attended the 54th Grammy Awards in LA saying it was a good thing because it helped expose the international community to Zambian music. The local hip hop artist said “the thing about such events is that you get to meet people and as time goes by, you start crossing paths and you get familiar with each other, and that’s how you build relations.¨

May 2012
Zambia’s Mampi (above) became the first celebrity to be evicted from the Big Brother Africa 2012 house. The 25-year-old singer said a lot of pretense was required for one to win the US$300,000 reality show. “I feel the same, I’m happy that I went in at the time I went in and came out at the time I came out. Being there, I saw what is required, you actually have to pretend. If you don’t pretend, you can’t win. I knew I was not going to win because I am not the type that pretends,” Mampi said. Mampi did however manage to mesmerize Big Brother Star Games viewers with her signature dance moves.
Meanwhile Africa Magic has announced Big Brother Season 8 details will be out in mid-January 2013.

June 2012
Petersen took a shot at politicians and released his highly anticipated controversial album JOB 13:13. The most controversial song on the album “Makwabo Mu Church” translates as ‘Business Conducted in the House Of God’ and it brought about plenty of talking points! Petersen explained that he did not understand why so many churches conduct business in the house of God. To him, if a church announcement says ‘brother Chilembo is selling his car for a negotiable price’ or ‘Sister Betty will be hosting a fundraising braii at church’, that is trading in the house of God and that is why he is exhorting the return of Jesus Christ to whip these offenders!

Still in June
Emeli Sande born from Zambian father (Joel Sande) and English Mother (Diane Sande) won the 2012 UKZAMBIANS Excellence Awards Female Vocalist/Songwriter of the Year Award. Adele Emeli Sandé (born 10 March 1988: Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland) known by her stage name Emeli Sandé, is a soul and R&B recording artist and songwriter. A former medical student, Sandé has achieved two top 10 singles in the UK. Her debut album, Our Version Of Events, is nailed on for No1 in the UK and critics across the board have voted her the voice of 2012. Emeli Sandé has written hits for some of the biggest names in the music business, including Cheryl Cole, Tinie Tempah and Susan Boyle. Her album ‘Our Version Of Events’, ended the year top of the UK album Charts. We long to see her at home in Zambia!

October
Zambian rap artist Ruff Kid becomes the second artist from Zambia to be awarded the prestigious BEFFTA Award. Ruff Kid was nominated under the category for Best international Act at this year’s BEFFTA awards. Other nominees in the same category included Camp Mula, D’Banj, Cover Drive, Grace Galaxy and Zahara.
Ruff Kid in his acceptance speech said: “This is all down to my fans and supporters. My management and I have been working tirelessly asking people to support and vote, and this is proof that every vote counts. I am just grateful that people took the time to vote and support me, I am also grateful to God for providing me with such an amazing opportunity and the BEFFTA Awards for recognizing my work”

November
ZNBC director general Chibamba Kanyama apologized for the institution’s latest failure to meet viewer expectations during the 2012 Born n Bred Music Video Awards ceremony held at Lusaka’s Government Complex and promised to do better in the future. While Macky2 won three out of the five categories in which he was nominated. B1’s ‘Sikiliti’ won radio’s most popular song of the year.

December
Slap Dee’s ‘Kuichayila’ voted song on the year for the year 2012 by listeners on five different radio station including Zambezi FM Radio. The Lusaka based rapper who is leader of one of the most popular hip-hop Groups ‘XYZ’ recently ended his beef with a certain named Copperbelt rapper. At some point last year he (Slap Dee) lost his grip on the local scene as the Copperbelt rapper made more headlines and received more airplay than he did.

2013 will, without a doubt, be a very competitive year on the local music scene as most artists ,music producers, music video editors/producers seek international recognition.

5
JAN

2012, Africa, awards, entertainment, media, music, New Year, radioshow, rsa, trends, uk, Zambia

Miss Hope UNWTO 2013

Meet from left to right (above) Matongo Limwanya, Hannah Lubinda and Mavis Mulyata. As you may know Zambia and Zimbabwe co-host the United Nations World Tourism Organization general assembly in the two countries in August 2013. Victoria Falls and Livingstone are the venues. Matongo and Hannah are on the organizing committee of the Miss Hope UNWTO 2013 pageant, in which ten girls will compete for the title in a final to be held in August 2013 at Sun International in Livingstone. Mavis, second placed in Miss Lusaka 2010, is one of the contenders for the title. The prize for the winner will apparently be a car and there is K10,000 (rebased) on offer as well. All three ladies were Guests on the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild Kaufela. This was the last edition of the show in 2012.

Hannah, chair and main mover of the committee explained that the Miss Hope Foundation together with their partners DILab Africa would present a unique pageant concept that is positioned to complement the forthcoming general assembly. She said that the show has the financial backing of the Ministry of Tourism in Zambia, as well as several other commercial sponsors. Several Livingstone lodges and guest houses were also assisting. Contestants would be drawn from all parts of Southern Province in Zambia. Some of this country’s important musicians including Judy, Shyman, Sakala Brothers and Amayenge would be involved.

The music on our show was great, we opened with latest tracks from Ke$ha and Frank Ocean. Zambian tracks were from Bryan featuring PJ and the ever popular SlapDee. Milli Jam dropped numbers from Rihanna and Chris Brown (linked together even on our show!). Our oldie of the week was the obscure ‘There’s A Guy Down The Chip Shop Thinks He’s Elvis’ by the late Kirsty McColl and predictably no-one won the prize on offer for texting us the name of the performing artist. Our pick of the week was Killers – Miss Atomic Bomb and we closed with Redfoo’s ‘Bring Out The Bottle’.

The ladies told listeners that the committee were looking for girls with both beauty and brains for the pageant, and that contestants would receive education about HIV/Aids and cervical cancer as part of their participation. The judges would be looking for girls with confidence. “Who are the judges?” Milli Jam wanted to know, and Matongo explained that their names would be a closely guarded secret to avoid the corruption that had occurred in the past over such issues. We laughed though perhaps we should not have done! The contestants would gather together in a ‘boot camp’ prior to the final. Designers would be involved in dressing the finalists.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Mavis said she would like to be a professional model ‘known out there’, Hannah said she would like to be a visionary promoted by big business to empower young Zambian girls, while Matongo said her ambition was for Hope Foundation to be known initially throughout Zambia and later internationally.

We wished the ladies the best of luck in their excellent initiative and took the chance to wish all our listeners the best for 2013.

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JAN

2012, Africa, education, entertainment, fashion, health, livingstone, music, radioshow, UNWTO2013, victoriafalls, youth, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Happy Easter

Happy holiday weekend to all family and friends, as well as guests and staff at Chanters Lodge!

Have a good one!

8
APR

2012, Chanters, family, guests, staff

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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JAN

2012, Africa, Botswana, Chanters, Christmas, entertainment, Germany, guests, music, Namibia, Zambia

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Wishing all blog readers, clients and staff of Chanters Lodge, Livingstone, Zambia, family, Facebook friends and Twitter followers a very happy and prosperous 2012!

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JAN

2012