Memories of my mother. Zambia, 1986. Part 1.

I have to admit that I'm still an amateur to listen to the past, interesting stories of my family and friends. Imagine how everything happened and for a moment to break away from reality and turn into a rumor. And this story of my mother was no exception ......

 On March 5, 1986, our family was sent to continue military service on a long business trip to one of the countries with a hot and dry climate, namely, to Zambia. After many unrest, after feeling some fears over the unknown "wild" Africa, we, having decided all our domestic issues, arrived in Moscow on March 12. After a two-week stay in the capital, then the USSR, at the hotel of the Ministry of Defense, where we took the best memories, visiting all the "sacred" places (Red Square, Lenin Mausoleum), and also making excursions to nearby trade outlets, we on March 23 on the IL airliner -82 left the USSR.
After 18 hours of flight, we landed at the airport in the capital of Zambia - Lusaka. On the way, there were plantings in Budapest and Luanda, the capital of Angola! Luanda - our first steps on the African land, met us by the air temperature +25. The air was saturated with moisture to such an extent that it seems as if you descend directly from the plane to the "steam room". And this is after Moscow's coolness and temperature zero degrees.

Luanda is located on the Atlantic coast, this explains the high humidity. It was strange to see a brick-colored earth and a brick-like dust, and unidentified insects circled in the air. And people around chocolate color! At the airport there are a lot of planes of foreign airlines, Angolan airliners depicting antelope. Everything around us looked very unusual and interesting. But an hour later we took off to land in Zambia. Since it was our first flight on an international airline, we got an idea about the service here, and took away the best memories of cooking. And also we received letters "Flown Equator" from the airline.

And here is the long-awaited Zambia !! Contrary to expectations, the air here was not wet, but very pleasant, warm, even a little rain. Before us appeared a picturesque picture: everything around is buried in greenery, all kinds of palm trees, tropical plants, trees and shrubs bloom orange, purple, red. The impression was that we would be in one of the Caucasian resorts.

 At the airport, we were greeted by representatives of the Zambian side and our Russian interpreter and, after a short conversation in a cozy office, we were taken to the town of "Mulungushi", where foreign residents lived.

The city we really liked, again with its blossoming ramparts and colors and architectural structures. In the center were multi-storey houses interesting in architectural terms, but most of all in the city one-storey luxury villas, drowning in greenery.

In the town where the Russians lived, there were also a number of cozy villas densely planted with well-kept flower beds, neatly clipped bushes and outlandish plants (aloe of giant size, a stone flower and others). There we first saw how a banana grows, and were very surprised to learn that this palm is a herbaceous plant and grows on it only one bunch, a bunch, and after harvesting you can cut down a banana, it no longer fructifies.

In the town women fed us a delicious lunch and it turned out that there are all the necessary and usual products here: cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables, but they had a slightly different look.
Then we were taken to the hotel "Pomodzi", the best hotel in the city: 5 stars, with a swimming pool, beach, restaurant, cafe and casino. We had breakfast in the cafe downstairs, where at the entrance a magnificent deity of African symbolism, a woman from a tree with many hands, offers to try all kinds of salads, fresh, vegetables and fruits (and this in March after our winter Soviet assortment). Here, and fresh strawberries, and bananas, and oranges, and papaya, and much more, which was a big deficit for those times we have.
Service at a high level: waiters of the slender physique of men, dressed in green light suits, are already waiting for visitors at the entrance. Served very quickly at once a few people on one table. Table layouts were also attached to the table layout, on which you can write your impressions, and rewarded people will be given reward in the form of a monetary reward. Since Zambia, the former colony of England and a large percentage of the inhabitants are now British, the customs of this people are preserved. Here in the cafe prepare the first breakfast at about 7 o'clock in the morning, later 2 breakfast, lunch, suitable, for our dinner, about 5 pm- dinner, and dinner about 8 hours.
On weekends and holidays, the Zambian orchestra plays in the cafe, very pleasant, light music, African motifs in modern processing.
Well, in general there was such a feeling that this is not happening with dreams, and we are in some other reality, very far from the Soviet life. Waking up in the morning in such an unusual place, for a minute think about it - is not it a dream?
Continuation read in Part 2.