A Trip to Zambia: Life in the Green GreenPop Camp Site…

I said I would be bringing you a week of blog posts about my trip to Zambia with GreenPop… and the post are just going to have to keep on rolling out, there are a few posts still to come and for once I am hoping that the week will somehow extend itself by a few days. The series began with the rationale behind the trip, followed by the question Can You Travel Southern Africa by Bus? and a priorety for most folk considering a trip into the wilds, a post on Just What is for Dinner from an Eco-Friendly Kitchen?

If you have a yearning for the great outdoors then this could be the spot…

Life in the GreenPop Campsite begins with the most friendliest welcome you could ever imagine…

Each new person get’s to announce their arrival on the drum… I think I could work on my drumming skills somewhat. Then again, this is a place where skills aren’t nearly as important as enthusiasm and being eager to learn ranks high on everyone’s agenda.

A Tour of the Green Village

The very first thing was a quick tour of the surroundings…

Welcome to the campsite… who wouldn’t want to camp out on the African plains. Just the basics… where you sleep, where you eat, the bathrooms and the fab outdoor showers… While we didn’t have to cook at all, we did have to know where to wash our dishes…

Naturally there were piles of important looking tools… buckets and spades being somewhat critical to the week ahead.

Then there was the nursery where baby trees were kept for planting…

And the recycling centre because this is a zero-waste campsite and all the stuff that you could possibly toss out… went somewhere extremely useful.

While the campsite was dark at night – there were fairy lights to lead the way, everywhere…

Of course Zambia is Africa and like all of us prone to load shedding… and when fairly lights didn’t do the trick there were the stars. Oh the magnificent stars…

A Day in the Life

Just before dawn the drum would heave its first call to us, and then again 45 minutes later at breakfast time. This gave me 45 minutes to read and I got through quite a few books while I was there. Dawn and breakfast was closely followed by circle time… something that my children have being trying to avoid at all costs since I got home…

At circle time folk were assigned their project for the day and there were a lot of projects to choose from. GreenPop’s idea to plant trees within local communities involves a fair amount of education and inspiration alongside it, and morning projects involved tree planting, mural painting, and workshops. As soon as we were allocated our group we bussed out to local schools or villages or a community farm… to meet folk and work alongside them.

Most of the morning was spent planting and learning with local folk… school children, farmers and villagers… I wish there had been more time. I really enjoyed meeting the friendly folk who lived there and learning about their lives and their experiences.

GreenPop is so much more than planting trees, there is a real vibey interaction with the local folk and projects going on the entire time you are there, enabling to choose to relax or join in, rest or learn more.

Photo Credit: Marike Herselman

There is a real sense that you are there to find your own rhythm and folk always welcoming you to join them on a project, but you can choose what you would like to join in. There is a chance to dive in and try everything… and there was still plenty of time to catch your breath.

Then home for late lunch and a rest…

I took a shower in the middle of the day – cold showers in the great outdoors… and it is really quite hot in the day and more than warm enough to enjoy them. Followed by a nap and some journaling… this is the view from my tent as the sun sinks at the end of the day.

There is plenty to do at the end of the day, but that’s in the next post, before the sun goes down on another glorious sunset:

And after dinner there was always a campfire to stay close to – the nights are really really cold. When they say bring warm gear for the nights they were not even slightly kidding.

After an evening around the campfire folk were fairly eager to dive into bed… I borrowed a sleeping bag and a blanket and rolled up like a pancake every night and slept until dawn.