Norway Rules!

Once again it’s our pleasure to introduce you to Norwegian guests staying at Chanters Lodge. Meet from left to right Erna Ravn, Silje Helland and Line Mannerud who featured last Sunday on our radio show – The Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring George da Soulchild. The show goes out between 20.30 and 21.30 hrs every Sunday night on Zambezi Radio 107.7fm, Livingstone’s most popular local radio station. We feature music and conversation in just about equal proportions, chart news from around the world and the latest from Lodgeblog, as well as giving away a weekly prize of dinner for two at Chanters to the first person to text us the answer to a deliberately simple question. This week we asked which country our guests hailed from and towards the end of the show Joyce quickly answered ‘Norway’ and won!

Erna, Silje and Line are 3rd year students at the University of Tromso in chilly Northern Norway, studying teaching and currently in Zambia for a month to complete their course practicals at Nansanzu Basic School in Livingstone. The girls will be educating Grade 8 pupils in history, home economics and maths respectively. They were due to start teaching on the Monday following the show having completed a week’s acclimatization, and we weren’t sure whether they were more nervous about starting work or appearing on radio! Mind you Line seemed nervous about nothing! The girls said they were staying at Chanters following a recommendation from fellow students who had stayed with us last year. We liked that!

“How long have you been in Livingstone?” Milli Jam wanted to know. The girls replied that they’d been in town just over a week. “What activities have you done?” He carried on, and here began the partial tale of woe! The girls told listeners they’d been for an elephant safari on Saturday morning and whilst they’d had a good time, as they were dismounting Line fell off the beast and cut her leg. On Friday evening they’d taken a sunset cruise and Erna had been stung by a wasp – her wrist was still sore and swollen as the show went on air. The girls said “these things go in threes, we’re waiting for something to happen to Silje”! We hoped not! “Had they been clubbing already?” They were asked. “Not yet” they replied expectantly… “but we’ve flown microlights over Victoria Falls and seen the Falls from the ground as well, getting very wet in the process.”

The music on the show was great. We opened with Enrique’s latest smash featuring Ludacris and DJ Frank E ‘Tonight I’m Loving You’ back to back with Jennifer Hudson’s ‘Where You At?’ Our Zambian tracks were Zeck Dizzy with ‘Danger’ coupled with T-Sean’s ‘Wonder Why’. Ne-Yo’s ‘One In A Million’ and Keysha Cole’s ‘I Ain’t Thru’ featuring Nicki Minaj went down well and so too did Christina Perri’s ‘Jar Of Hearts’. We asked the girls which band was ‘hot’ in Norway at the moment (as if you could be – lol!) and they told us Kvelertak. “You be careful” said Line “this is dark rock”! We promised we would be!

Inevitably Milli Jam and George wanted to know if the girls had boyfriends pining for them back in Norway. Erna had, Silje and Line hadn’t. “Where would you like to be and what would you like to be doing ten years from now?” We asked these three lovely, lively ladies. Erna wanted to be married to her boyfriend and teaching in Norway. The much travelled Line still wanted to be travelling and quite fancied teaching in Zambia. Silje wanted to be at home with 40 cats listening to classical music! (Yes 40!)

Amidst studio discussion about Arsenal’s 2nd half debacle the previous Saturday afternoon and Manchester United’s first league loss the same day, together with Liverpool beating Chelsea (Torres and all) that evening, the girls admitted they didn’t follow football but just loved skiing, though they supposed people in Zambia didn’t ski much! We confirmed that……..

Were the girls happy at Chanters? Milli Jam wanted to know. They were and just loved the Chanters Girls!

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