Do not put your focus on how it is not gonna work... often things turn out to be better the you could ever imagine.

Alex and I went to Zambia just out of curiosity. Everybody told us not to go there, because of dangers and such. Of course the media did also a splendid job to keep up with the rumors about Zambia and Lusaka its capital. So we went. ...We had already learned a lot about the southern parts of Africa and knew, that most of the time you have to take your own picture about it. We flew into Zambia on a Sunday and expected a similar situation as in Malawi. You know, getting money from the bank, etc. But very soon, we found out, that everything was VERY different.

As I said before, we flew in on a Sunday and the town has been very quiet. Almost no people in the streets and I am sure that Alex and I were the only two caucasian within an area of 20 km². The situation became even more strange, when we went to the Sunday market. Well, there was no fear, and weren't afraid, but it is quite an unusual experience to stick out of the crowd like we did. Even more so, when some of the people have been completely naked.

We stayed at a nice little hotel in the center, which has been another great surprise. A very nice hotel with a nice hotel bar on the roof deck, where they teach "hotel business" to young interesting people. Every evening the bar has been populated to its limits with business men, politicians and other folks from all over and even outside the county. We were in such a good mood. We even got aquainted with a guy from the Zambian Secret Service. ...at least he claimed to be one :-) We weren't sure if he was, but we couldn't be sure. Every night there has been this guy in front of the hotel. He was drunk all the time, and on one evening we got molested. So we told our "friend from secret service" about it and from the next evening on the drunken guy wasn't there anymore. At least we haven't seen him anymore from this point on.

We even had the chance to meet the President of Zambia for a cup of tea. He held a speech in the seminar room of the hotel about Southern Africas possibilities in the future and its standing compared to the European Union. We had a nice talk afterwards about the topic, and I can only say, that HE is a very interesting man.

Our experiences in Zambia have been very different from those made in Malawi. We expected the worst... We were so wrong in our prejudice and imagination about this country. My memories about Zambia are only the best.