Background: In January this year, 2014, we were granted 300 000 S. Kr for an inception phase with Chinsali, Zambia. The focus was development of local democracy.

In March we had a delegation here from Chinsali consisting of four people; Patrick Kambita- townclerk, Mary Sinkala, director for environment and social affairs, Ian Mukondo, counsellor and Sham Kapyanga, mayor at that time. In May there was time for a delegation from Piteå to visit Zambia and Chinsali. The group consisted of Peter Roslund, mayor, Elisabet Berg, leader for the conservatives, David Sundström, municipal strategist and me Gerd Sävenstedt, head of international relations.

Towards Chinsali

For three of us, it was the first time to visit Africa. Their images of what to expect was based on media pictures. It was a long journey – Stockholm, Rome, Addis Ababa, Harare and after 20 hour we landed Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. At the same flight there was also a group from Arvidsjaur, which has a partnership program with another Zambian municipality. Mary and Patrick were at the airport to meet us. They had travelled more than 800 km to welcome us and see that everything was in order.

We had one nights rest before we started the journey towards Chinsali early the following morning, a one day’s journey through the countryside of Zambia.

Zambia, a country in the southern part of Africa is bordering Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Congo.

We were excited to come to Chinsali as we had heard and read about it. The small town, birth place of the first Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda – a town now turned into a provincial capital.

As the town is in a growing process they had placed us in a lodge “to be” roughly 50 km from the town. 2

The lodge had a scenic location close to hot springs and Mary told me later that they had made several trips to the lodge in order to make it function. They had even temporary placed a small generator here in order to provide us with electricity for a few evening and morning hours. They had also found a chef to cook for us in the evening, and staff to heat water and do the cleaning – but making breakfast was our own task.