At Chanters Lodge Livingstone we’re busy demolishing the bathroom interior of room 2, to redevelop to be the bathroom for the new executive suite we intend to create from rooms 1 and 2. There’s a couple of photos!
As I write I can hear the banging. We have so far only broken 3 hammers trying to prize the original wall tiles from the bathroom walls!
Now, we wouldn’t blame you for thinking this photo was contrived or rigged! Not so! It’s the real deal! It was shot by Cara Watts, the Lions Manager (awesome job title!) at Lion Encounter in Livingstone, Zambia. Cara hails from the South West of England (Yeovil, Somerset) and studied BSc (HONS) Animal Management and Welfare at the University of Lincoln. She says she’s ‘always loved animals and especially the African Lion’.
Cara first volunteered at Antelope Park in Zimbabwe in 2006 and returned again in 2007 to help with the lions. She then stayed on at the Park and became the Lions Manager there. In April 2009 she moved to Livingstone, Zambia to Lion Encounter where they now have 17 lions and are working towards achieving their four stage rehabilitation programme to release lions back into the wild.
Whilst Cara’s parents Mike and Sue visited her in Livingstone (naturally staying at Chanters Lodge) they headed to the Royal Livingstone for high tea and some cocktails. This is where they saw this spectacular view over the Falls and the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Cara’s dry comment: “It certainly looks like I left the dark side for bright Livingstone!”
Great photo Cara!
We love to hear from Chanters Lodge Guests who have travelled on. This from Darragh Canning received today:
Richard,
Thanks for a great time.
Couple of photos attached that sum it up…
If you do white water rafting, you’re gonna get wet…& the Falls can’t even be appreciated from a photo – you need to hear the rumble & feel the spray on your face – amazing…Pity about the bungee – may be it was fate…..
I’ll definitely be back some day…
Thanks for everything…
Darragh
THANK YOU DARRAGH! AND JUST CHECK THOSE PHOTOS!
Here’s two good photos of the new offices at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone. You can see immediately that the pictures weren’t taken by an amateur! They’re the work of Phil Broadhurst at www.fishfilms.co.uk who’s staying with us at the moment as he’s part of the crew filming ‘Lion Country‘, the ITV documentary series being shown in UK about the Lion Encounter, out at Thorn Tree Lodge. Great conservation effort, super activity and wonderful TV programme!
In one of the photos with me are Annastasia and Melinda. ‘Why do we all look a bit fed up?’ I hear you ask. Well, it was pouring with rain, and we were worried about all the activity cancellations that were coming in – upsetting our Guests. Helicopters don’t fly, lions don’t walk and elephants don’t safari in the pouring rain! And, most of our Clients this week are from UK – naturally more weather conscious than others! We were also tired from a busy week made more hectic by moving offices!
The construction of the offices started at the beginning of December and I suppose 4 months start to finish wasn’t too bad for the build considering Christmas, New Year and Easter in this period with their long public holidays, plus the fact that we were working during the rains. I had doubts about this project, but not any more. It’s great to have a new attractive office facility and we’re really looking forward to the conversion of rooms 1 and 2 into an executive suite. Without new offices this wasn’t going to be possible.
Like any move anywhere it was all quite stressful, but Annastasia’s pleased with her new office next door to mine though we need phone extensions – due to be installed next week. Anny’s previous location has re-invented itself as a linen store! “Come to the office!” Has definitely taken on a new tone at Chanters Lodge!
Thanks again to Phil for the super pictures!
It’s horrible when good friends leave Africa and head for home. Yesterday we said goodbye to David and Linda Gregersen as they headed back to Austin, Texas at the end of a 5 year stint in Southern Zambia. They were teachers at George Benson Christian College preparing students to become secondary teachers. They frequently travelled to area villages and churches to tell the story of Jesus Christ and were supported by their home congregation of 20 years, Brentwood Oaks Church of Christ in Austin, Texas.
David and Linda were great supporters of Chanters Lodge, Livingstone during their time in Zambia and in appreciation we were delighted to give them complimentary accommodation for their last night in the country, in our newest and nicest poolside room – number 12. Of course they had bream fillets in breadcrumbs for their ‘last supper’ – always Linda’s favourite!
We congratulate them on the birth of their new grandson Jacob Robert and wish them every success back in the USA. They’ll be sorely missed.
Probably wouldn’t normally promote Sun International but we did like this idea. The piece is written by Joanne Selby on their blog:
“Over the Easter weekend Sun International Resort hosted an art exhibition. All the paintings were done by local artists in the Livingstone region. Eight artists submitted their work which was displayed in the conference foyer at The Zambezi Sun.
I took a walk around the exhibition with Sue Brink, the organizer. Sue was so enthusiastic about all the works, telling me about the artists and why she had chosen particular paintings. One of her favorite artists is Vincent Maonde who had painted the Nalikwanda, the boat used by the chief of the Lozi people in Western Province of Zambia. She then enthused about Vincent’s son, Alwedi Maonde, who did abstract works. Finally she showed me a whole series of paintings which depicted local life of Zambian people. These were submitted by Lawrence Yombwe.
Sue commented on the use of color, symbolism and the perspective of the paintings. I am not that good at discussing paintings. I am like most people – I know what I like but can’t say why. I knew, though, that I wanted many of them and could imagine them in my home.
This exhibition was just a trial run for a much larger one which we are to host in June and July this year. Our hotels, of course, will be very busy during the soccer, so Sue is organizing a much larger show throughout that period. She has a list of fifteen artists from throughout Zambia who are going to display their work. And, it will not only be paintings, but photographs as well.
Sue showed me her list of exhibitors for the next show, telling me who they were; where they lived; their history and about their work. She knew them all. Her enthusiasm was infectious. I am sure that the next exhibition will be sensational and I am really looking forward to it.
Many of our guests who will be visiting us during June and July will be football fanatics. I do hope they are art-lovers too.”
This is a truly inspirational story, clipped from the BBC and written by Kieron Humphrey in Lusaka, Zambia
Elleman Mumba makes an unlikely celebrity. He is not a singer nor a footballer – he is a 54-year-old peasant farmer from southern Zambia. Yet he has appeared on the front page of a national newspaper and been interviewed for numerous radio and television programmes. “They said I was using juju in my field. I felt very bad, but I knew I wasn’t using witchcraft” said Elleman Mumba
Mr Mumba grows maize and groundnuts on his small plot of land in Shimabala, just south of Lusaka. Feeding his family used to be a problem. “The yield was very little. We were always looking for hand-outs; we had to rely on relief food.” Like many farmers, Mr Mumba had no oxen of his own to plough his field. He had to wait in line to hire some, which meant he often failed to plant as soon as the first rains fell – with disastrous consequences.
Researchers say that for each day’s delay, the potential yield shrinks by between 1% and 2%. Then, in 1997, Mr Mumba suddenly found himself in the vanguard of a quiet agricultural revolution. His wife had been given free training in a system called conservation farming, and persuaded him to try it. Conservation farming is about doing less to get more. Instead of ploughing entire fields, farmers till and plant in evenly spaced basins. Only a tenth of the land area is disturbed. This reduces erosion and run-off – where soil and nutrients are washed away by rain.
“That season I had 68 bags of maize – enough to feed my family and buy four cattle,” he says, blazing with pride at the recollection. Using just a wide-bladed traditional chaka hoe, Mr Mumba had dug a series of shallow rectangular planting basins in his field during the dry season. It was a tough job to break the sun-baked soil, but he persevered, and was ready to sow his seed with the first rains. The basins had punched through the layer of compacted earth created under the topsoil by repeated ploughing. Roots and rain no longer struggled to penetrate this “plough pan”.
The crop flourished in spite of low rainfall and some of Mr Mumba’s neighbours regarded his success with suspicion. “They said I was using juju in my field. I felt very bad, but I knew I wasn’t using witchcraft. I told them: ‘In CF there’s no juju. It’s just that you conserve water, so even when the rains are light, you are able to get something.'”
Now many of those who called him a witchdoctor have followed him into conservation farming. It is a growing trend.
Across the country there are more than 160,000 farmers using basins or other minimum tillage methods, including large-scale commercial farmers.
For big or small, the principles are the same:
* disturb the soil as little as possible
* use natural processes as well as fertiliser to replenish its nutrients
* leave crop residue in situ rather than burning it off
* rotate crops
Dissenters say there is not enough empirical evidence to support the promotion of conservation farming as a magic bullet for sub-Saharan Africa’s food shortfall. But several countries in the region are investigating its potential, hence the stream of visitors to Mr Mumba’s door. They want to see if an average farmer really can produce such good results with just his hands and a hoe.
Giggling at all the attention he is getting, Mr Mumba is pleased to say yes, he can.
Seth Godin gets it right on his blog. I wish more people had this attitude.
“It’s absurd to look at a three year old toddler and say, “this kid can’t read or do math or even string together a coherent paragraph. He’s a dolt and he’s never going to amount to anything.” No, we don’t say that because we know we can teach and motivate and cajole the typical kid to be able to do all of these things. Why is it okay, then, to look at a teenager and say, “this kid will never be a leader, never run a significant organization, never save a life, never inspire or create…”
Just because it’s difficult to grade doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taught. Never mind a teenager. I think it’s wrong to say that about someone who’s fifty.
Isn’t it absurd to focus so much energy on ‘practical’ skills that prep someone for a life of following instructions but relentlessly avoid the difficult work necessary to push someone to reinvent themselves into becoming someone who makes a difference?
And isn’t it even worse to write off a person or an organization merely because of what they are instead of what they might become?”
The picture? Or son Henry nearly 8 and full of it, enjoying a day out in Botswana!
The new executive office suite at Chanters Lodge, Livingstone is finished and only has to be furnished. There are pictures of the outside, the new curtains and the ‘curtain ladies’ above. The suite comprises two offices, one for the ‘director’ and one for the assistant manager (eventually manager) and a lou. I’ve often been asked why we’re spending so much money building apparently non-revenue earning rooms – well, there’s method in our madness.
Two of the original ‘main house’ bedrooms are small and one is currently used as an office (except in ’emergencies’). In the early development of the lodge we never got round to making an office, and only lately has the need become more evident. The plan is to convert these two original main house rooms into a suite with a pool facing sitting room, a large double bedroom, and a totally renovated bathroom with the installation of a new bathroom suite and seperate shower.
Why? Well, pool facing rooms are our most popular accommodation, and with our current room rates we’ll be able to let the suite for a total of what we can now earn from the two existing small rooms – when they’re let – which isn’t very often. In addition, we’ll have a suite suitable for VIP’s which we should be able to let for much more when it’s requested, and if there’s a demand for long term accommodation, which there often seems to be, the new suite would also be suitable.
Apart from the bathroom renovation which we want to begin next week, to finish the suite we only have to knock down three walls, raise a roof, relocate all the satellite dishes, install new entrance steps and a new front door from the poolside. Then, fit a pool facing picture window in the existing external wall and build a new dividing wall between the sitting room and bedroom incorporating a fitted wardrobe!
Oh! And the suite won’t be cheap to furnish either!
A very Happy Easter to you all!
