24 June, Monday: Croc Valley Camp -> Chimwemwe Camp, Petauke

At first light we were up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, waiting to watch the sun rise and boy, was it worth it. We sat in our camping chairs on the river bank with a warm cup of coffee watching the sun light up Zambia with the most brightest, stunning colours. As we were trying to have breakfast, the monkeys and even baboons, massive sizes, come right up to us and take food literally out your hands, its so hectic! The camp staff are constantly walking around with Kati's ready to shoot the dam things!

Through the Sausage Tree Charity we have arranged to do a RhinoArt lesson at the Chiwawatala Primary School. We took our time getting up this morning, taking in the beauty of the camp for the last time before leaving. The sun was out in full heat today, already 27 degrees at 10 am. We passed the Baobab ladies Group where I collected my chitenge dress, which fits perfectly and I just love so much! Then headed for the school. As we arrived on the property, the headmistress and the vice principal came out enthusiastically greeting us, guiding us to chairs they had set up for us under a tree. We suddenly heard the loud beating of drums and a few pupils dressed up in their best attempt at traditional outfits, came dancing out, shaking their bodies to the rhythm. One of the guys introduced themselves and welcomed us with an impressive dance and even got me wrapped in some material and dancing with them.

We felt so welcomed by the school and they had made such an effort to make us feel comfortable. It was an amazing experience and really got the K2K team cheerful. After our welcome dance, we were taken to the grade 5 classroom where 60 beautiful little children sat waiting. The children do learn English at school but it felt that they were not quite understanding me, even with a translator. They were'nt as receptive or enthusiastic as the children at previous schools have been so I found it a bit harder to do today. This could possibly be due to there actually being no rhino left in Zambia (due to poaching) and they have never heard about rhino, so I found this quite challenging. When I handed out the picture of the rhino to get the kids to colour in, they looked at the crayons blankly, realizing they have probably never used or seen crayons before. Most of their pictures had been coloured in dull grey, using their own pencils, despite us havign handed out colouring-in crayons. This was difficult to experience because my childhood was so colourful and I have memories of me drawing all sort of colourful things. Having experienced this has only made me want to continue what we are doing in hope that we are making a positive difference.

Due to our unexpected change in route we had to carry on driving to get to Petauke, an odd 300 km away to make up enough time to continue cycling tomorrow. We got to the Chimwemwe Campsite where we settled in just before the sun went down. We sat under the tall trees in the warm night, sipping on our wine.