Zambia World Wide

I still feel guilty about my time in Livingstone. Not because I embarked on a crime wave or started a series of race riots or condemned the earnest activities of the local Caledonian Society, but by failing properly to appreciate the place until it was too late. I can be forgiven for this, for, in 96 hours, I had moved from Glasgow through London to Lusaka and now Livingstone. It was a little like compressing an entire Life, from birth to geriatricity, into the same period.

As I stepped down from the unending mobile incarceration, that had been the tedious rail journey down from Lusaka and, without regret, watched the RR carriages set off for the next leg of their Bulawayo odyssey, it occurred to me that I had been transported back to Dodge City, circa 1880. The station itself was no larger than a village halt in Lanarkshire, as if to remind the ghost of the town�s eponymous sponsor of his country origins, yet different in so many ways. A cocktail of scented warmth, mixed with clear, fresh air and sharp sunshine settled around my shoulders and it felt good. All I required was a six gun on my hip and a hat with a decent brim and the transformation would have been complete, but I didn�t have long to absorb the fantasy.

�Err yeow Jirrrry?� enquired a southern African accent from out of the camouflaging sun. For I moment I thought that weasel-features might have followed me from the train, but, on admitting that the ID was close enough, a lean, blonde, hard-looking guy in uniform thrust out his hand and grasped mine in a bone-crushing handshake. � Emm, Toammy Fin Der Vallllt end dees is moh fianc�e Treesha� he said, indicating a not unpleasant looking, simpering, wobbly girl in ridiculously out of context heels and hooped dress: �Willkum ta Leevingstun�.

(At this juncture, I should re-assure my no doubt rapidly diminishing band of faithful readers that I will desist from future attempts to phonetically describe the peculiar accent of the native white southern African; and, simultaneously, offer grateful thanks for their indulgence thus far. Fresh off the inbound plane, however, it was a most odd encounter with this English language variant, although, as close to the end of my allotted span as I am, I�ve heard weirder: the white Bahamanian, for example, who speaks in exactly the same dialect as his black neighbour. It might be a logical by-product of sharing the same environment, but it ain�t half odd to hear a white guy sounding like Vivian Richards, even now. Anyway, henceforth, straight quotation will be my guiding style. Promise)