Luckily for me after Ethiopia FAO had a vacancy in a regional tick and tickborne disease control programme in Zambia as the former Project Manager became the coordinator of the whole programme and was moving off to Harare.

I had visited the country in the early eighties to see the work that the tick component of the FAO programme in Zambia was doing as it was similar to what I was starting in Kenya. So, I knew one of the areas where I was going to work. Luckily, I also knew George, the Director of Veterinary Services and I was aware that he was a good man and committed to the work that FAO was doing in the country. So, I did not expect a difficult start.

I would be in charge of two earlier projects that were now combined into one. These had been part of a rather large programme that, for several years, had supported the veterinary department in several aspects of animal disease control. One component was the study of the impact of tick infestation on cattle in Central Province, both weight gain and milk production while the other involved the immunization of cattle against theileriosis in Southern Province.

The tick project was based at Lutale, a locality near Mumbwa, a town 160 km from Lusaka, in the Central Province of Zambia, on the Great West Road that runs 590 km from Lusaka to Mongu, capital of Western Province. Originally the place was devoted to research and training on the control tsetse and trypanosomiasis but activities, although still going, had shrunk to training of medium level technical personnel, also run by FAO.

At Lutale we had an agreement with Chief Chibuluma to have our own herd of native Sanga (Bos taurus africanus) cattle that were the subjects of the study. Our job was to continue the work for about two additional years, introducing a new group of cattle to which a new “strategic” [2] tick control method would be applied, and their performance compared with undipped and dipped cattle to obtain figures on the economics of tick control under the conditions of the trial.

Theileriosis was endemic in Southern Province and successful immunization against this disease had been going on for several years by the earlier programme, on the lines developed by FAO in Muguga (under the leadership of my ex boss Matt). By request of the Government, FAO was tasked with the expansion of this procedure to a larger number of animals in an effort to reduce the heavy losses that were being experienced there.

As I needed to commute between Lutale and Monze, a town located 196 km south from Lusaka (in Southern Province) and in the direction of Livingstone and the Victoria Falls [3], I would be based in Lusaka, more exactly at the Central Veterinary Research Institute (CVRI) located in Chilanga District, 25km southwest of Lusaka, off the Kafue road in an area known as Balmoral. As we would reside in Lusaka, that meant a daily drive through a rather rough road. I realized that it was not the ideal place to be but I was in no condition to change anything at the time, apart from getting on with the work.

It was an ambitious project that gave me the responsibility for work that had been done earlier by two specialists and I was stretched to the limit. Luckily, after discussions with FAO and the Government, I managed to persuade them that I needed help, particularly with the immunization part of the project and the post of Protozoologist was created for Southern Province. This was a relief but it would still take some time to find and recruit a suitable candidate. In addition, I applied to FAO to be allocated a couple of Associate Professional Officers [4], one for each component of the project. In the meantime and for a few months I was alone to do and/or supervise all the work.

Mabel and I arrived at Lusaka via Nairobi and stayed at Andrews Motel for a few days until we managed to find a suitable house in town. We moved there as soon as our first shipment with essential household stuff arrived, hoping that the rest of our personal effects would come from Ethiopia in a couple of weeks. So we camped at another house, again.

As usual, we were wrong estimating that our belongings would arrive soon. Well, some of them did but they were not very useful as, for example, the bed boards arrived but not the rest of the bed or the top of my desk came but not its drawers or legs! When we complained to the shipping agency they apologized profusely and promised to follow up the issue. In the meantime, we needed to buy a number of items for the house that we already had but we had no other choice.

A couple of weeks later the shipping agency informed us that there was a problem with our shipment (oh surprise!): it had been crated in boxes larger than the door of the plane that flew between Addis and Lusaka! But they told us that they would be a larger plane coming soon and that they would place the remaining of our items on it. So it was that another part of our consignment came two weeks later and we waited for about a month for the final third with which we could finally assemble all our furniture and appliances! By that time we had succeeded in buying almost everything again!

It was during that agitated time that Mabel got pregnant so our life changed as we went through gestation to the birth of our children. As medical facilities were very basic in Lusaka, we needed to travel to Harare for periodic check-ups and the eventual birth of our first child: Florencia. Our son Julio Junior followed 15 months later so we had little time for safaris, apart from those we could accommodate with the on going work.

Searching for pictures to illustrate the Zambia posts I found that most of the ones I could find include our children so my Zambia posts would be rather poor in that respect, made even worse by not being able to move towards my picture “bank” in Harare because of the Covid 19 pandemic! So I will do with what I have and prepare a picture library for the various posts later if I find the relevant pictures. I hope that you still enjoy reading them!

[1] This was Zambia’s motto at the time to promote tourism.

[2] The application of acaricides was done according to tick infestation levels and seasonality to reduce its cost without losses.

[3] At the time, different donors operated in different areas of Zambia, the Dutch in Western Province, the Belgians in Eastern Province, etc.

[4] The Associate Professional Officer’s programme would fund young graduates through FAO with funds from a number of European countries such as The Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, etc