Meet Kat Harrison, visiting Zambia with Riders For Health and the latest guest on our regular Sunday night radio show The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild, which I co-host, and which airs every Sunday at 20.30 hrs on Zambezi FM, 107.7 in Livingstone. ‘Let The Waves Flow’ is the station’s slogan.

First up Milli Jam wanted to know about Riders For Health, and Kat explained that in Africa millions of people are dying from easily-preventable diseases because health workers do not have the reliable transport to reach them. By ensuring health workers have access to vehicles that never break down, Riders for Health is making sure millions of people across Africa receive regular, reliable health care, often for the first time in their lives.

“Do you fix the vehicles yourself then?” Milli Jam wanted to know, and Kat, laughing, explained that she was the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager for the NGO and travelled a lot to the various countries in which Riders operate to assess progress. These countries included Malawi, The Gambia, and Nigeria. We commented that as Kat’s only been with the outfit less than 2 years, she’s certainly globe trotted a lot already. She agreed. We asked her about her education and Kat explained that she’d studied economics and international trade at Bath University as part of her further education.

“How did you come to choose Chanters Lodge?” Milli Jam wanted to know and Kat explained that a colleague of hers had recently stayed at the lodge and recommended it. She went on to say that she was happy and comfortable at the lodge and hoped that Riders would regularly use the lodge in future. “So do we!” I said.

Milli Jam asked Kat if it was true that she had an identical twin sister and Kat confirmed this, mentioning that her twin sister Liz was currently in Thailand working for an NGO involved with disaster risk management and that the two of them planned to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for Riders For Health in March. “Have you trained?” I asked. Kat hesitated….”sort of” was the rather unconvincing reply!

The music on the show was excellent as usual. After our opening theme we played ‘Amnesia’ by Skepta and ‘Big Screen’ from Wiz Khalifa. George chose two great Zambian tracks ‘Ma Gelo’ by the extremely hot Mampi, telling her man that his girlfriends don’t love him as much as she does, therefore he’ll be back! (Figures). We featured Mampi back to back (as it were) with ‘Bum Mbeya’ by Karasa which George explained was all about Karasa pleading for a date with a certain young lady! (Probably Mampi – ed).

‘Rolling In The Deep’ by Adele kept listeners right up to date with the latest hits from UK, and George confessed after he’d played Adele that Keri Hilson’s ‘Drippin” was on repeat at his home! Milli Jam chose Kanye West’s ‘Run Away’ and ‘You Make Me Better’ by Fabolous featuring Ne-Yo. We closed with Young Gangsta’s ‘Toot It And Boot It’.

Milli Jam asked Kat what music she liked and she told listeners here favourite artists at the moment were Ne-Yo, John Legend and Bruno Mars. Great taste – the assembled company agreed! We gave away the usual dinner for 2 at Chanters Lodge to the first person to text us Kat’s country of origin and the prize was quickly snapped up by Justin amidst a flurry of texters!