Day 160… Tuesday 29th August
Collected Greta first thing and set off for Chongwe heading east. Usual chaotic traffic in Lusaka city. Good to be heading out to the quieter rural roads. Visited Chongwe council offices. The marriage registrar was an interesting character and very traditional in his views. The whole process took an excruciating 3 hours and towards the end, Allen and me just sat quietly so the paperwork could be complete. It was a reminder of how Europe and Africa are two very different continents. We still had a 2 and half hour drive and leaving so late in the afternoon , knew we would be against the clock with the sun setting and would unfortunately be arriving at the campsite in the dark. The last section of road had very bad potholes but luckily able to follow a taxi mini-bus who clearly knew the road and this made the last bit of the journey much easier. Trying to navigate roads and read signage in the dark with no street lighting is really difficult.
Allen’s perspective…
He is most certainly one of the most homophobic chaps I’ve possibly ever met. It all began when he was showing us an article on his phone about a Ugandan man sentenced to death for ‘aggressive buggery’. Now, I like to think I’m pretty liberal, but when he asked us for our opinion, given I wanted this paperwork completed and registered, I had to chicken out of any argument and the best I could answer with was… ‘I’ve think a death sentence is a little harsh’
Africa is still a very conservative place, something I’ve long been aware of but this man took it to new levels for me. It must be a very tough place for Africans to live if you don’t fit in with the crowd. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up officiating our wedding.
