It's been a while since the last blog, as there have been some problems with the internet and the downloading the blog. The team are well, the weather is very hot now, and the thought that rains coming would cool things down certainly hasnt happened. Indeed at the moment we're just getting one big thunder storm every 3 or 4 days and then just for a few hours, so the locals are not treating this as the start of the rainy season yet! In other news political campaigning is happening in earnest as Rupiah Banda (acting president, since the late president's death) has had a pop video produced with all his policies sung on it! He is up against Sata - who is planning to change lots of things, and there is mixed feelings about him with some strong support, but others somewhat fearful of what he might do. Although there is no 'n' in his name people are still worried! Another candidate Haikeinda - is also running although people are not expecting him to do well, as they think he is too young and inexperienced, and he's from a tribe in the south, so will only get their votes. Banda also seems to have stopped all the power cuts (or load shedding as they call it) presumably to win support with the election on 30th October, and also because Sata has said that he will give people electricity all the time. Anyway there's your weather and political report from Zambia, now here's the main blog...
....Chingola railway station is not easy to find. Last week I wanted to find out about potential train trips, and the travel agent in town had pointed me in the direction of the station. Although we were given a street name for the station, this was not that helpful, as the streets are mostly unnamed these days, and people don’t even know what they are called anyway. We then found another street which was named ‘railway street’. This seemed promising, and indeed the train station could be spotted for the first time, but a long way over much wasteground and many tracks. So clearly it needed to be approached from a road on the other side of the railway.
On reaching the other side however, trying a number of suggested roads, just took me to the railway track and not anywhere near the building. After trying many roads, and various differing advice, I arrived at the train station. Chingola Station in big letters above the building, and a layby drop off area, and it looked like at one time it had been quite a busy place. It even had a ticket office with a couple of ticket windows, but it was clear by the boarded up windows that no tickets had been sold here for a long time. Then I wandered out onto the platform, which had some old weighing scales, toilets, and various offices and waiting rooms, but no track next to the platform!
Photo: Train station
Photo: Platform and building
Photo: Ticket office
There were tracks further out though and a few wagons on the line, but again I’m not sure when these last moved.
It was very quiet indeed, and a far cry from the frenetic activity of Chingola central bus station. One man was sitting in an office and came out to see me. It turned out that he was the ‘flag man’. His job was one of health and safety it seemed. When a train was approaching he would have to ensure that no people were walking across the tracks, and a great many people did cross the tracks each day. I asked him if many trains came through. He told me, that there was one the day before, but he wasn’t sure if there would be one today, but he would receive a call if there was. So I asked if anyone else worked here. A lady called Mary was the ‘incharge’ and had a large office, but she was at home as only worked a few hours per day and lived just some 2 minutes walk away. She arrived some moments later, and invited us into her office so that I could ask her about the information I wanted. Her office had a number of large armchairs, a sofa, and a large desk, which was extremely tidy, and clear, which indicated to me the lack of work that she had to do there. No passenger trains had run for over 10 years, and freight trains were few and far between. I mused on the fact that in Britain the lack of trains, might have meant closing the station, knocking it down, selling land, and certainly not having people working there, but here there seems to be almost a loyalty to the things built and started by the British, and to keep traditions, institutions etc going whether it makes any sense or not. It made me think about how sometimes we can often find ourselves being too sentimental by holding onto past memories or things, and sometimes not moving on. I know I often keep things in case they will be useful sometime. As I left, I asked whether passenger trains will run in Chingola again, and the answer came back “Yes, I should think so, but we don’t know when”.
Next time on the blog…. Discipleship courses in 3 villages, Ponde and I go in search of cabbage seeds, and we visit Sylvester Malunga, a local painter.
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