ZAMSCOT EXCHANGE TO ZAMBIA

Mid Argyll Pipe Band are proud to have supported Lewis with his visit to Zambia – he was an excellent ambassador for the band who have in the past been associated with the boys from the Mthunzi Centre and very much look forward to performing with them again on their next visit. 

Marian Pallister the organiser of the trip said “thanks for lending us Lewis Kilgour, who did ZamScot proud during our visit to Zambia. He shared his talents to make our performances successful and took time to be with the members of the Mthunzi Culture Group as we toured the country”

Here is Lewis’ account of his trip…..

In July I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to travel as part of the ‘Zamscot’ Exchange to Zambia staying, travelling and performing with the Mthunzi Cultural Group from the Mthunzi Centre in Lusaka.  After enduring travelling on my own from Glasgow-London-Johannesburg-Lusaka, missing my connection in Johannesburg (which wasn’t much fun on my first time flying alone!!), about 30hours later I was so glad to be met by Marian Pallister (our group leader), together with Malama (Founder of the Centre) and a few very enthusiastic and welcoming boys from the Centre.

Our group consisted of the Argyll Group who were Marian Pallister, Fiona Campbell, me (as a piper and definitely not a singer!!), 4 girls from the Mid-Argyll Gaelic Choir (Sarah Cairns, Katie Cairns, Eilidh Campbell & Roisin Turner), The Barra Group which consisted of John Joe MacNeil (singer/piano), Clare-Anne MacNeil (singer/clarsach), Iain Beggs (singer), Chris MacNeil (guitar/singer). 19 of the boys from the Mthunzi Cultural Group joined us for the duration of our trip.

It was straight to bed when I arrived, for a good nights sleep………….. the next day after being allowed a long lie it was straight in to singing, dancing and practicing with the Zamscot Group. This was a taste of things to come.

On Day One Roisin, Clare-Anne and I had our first media interview with the Zambian Post which resulted in the headlines of ‘Scottish Pipe Band Tours Zambia’ (not quite correct, but the full page spread in the paper looked good!!)   The next day we left the Centre at 6am (having being told we would be having a 5 hour bus journey - I assumed I would catch up on a few hours sleep).  The first stop I wasn’t aware of, but as it turned out we stopped to perform on Breakfast Television which involved us singing a Gaelic Song (I had to mime the words as I don’t do Gaelic!!) and then playing the bagpipes at 7am!!  We couldn’t have been too bad as we were invited to perform for Zambian TV later in the week. 

We travelled, performed and stayed at Luangwa Basic School and Chingola High School where we were made to feel extremely welcome.  Our main performance while there was at the Lusaka Playhouse, which is the main theatre hall in the area.  People paid 50,000 Kwacha (about £8) to watch the performance, which is beyond the price range for a lot of Zambian citizens.  This was to hopefully raise awareness of the Centre to the more wealthy in the hope that the Centre would benefit in the future.  Although we had less than a day to create a performance from scratch which seemed almost an impossible task, as a group we pulled out all stops and managed to create a awesome performance of multicultural music and dancing.

We visited the Copper Belt Province, toured a sugar cane and coffee plantation and definitely one of the highlights of the trip was visiting Victoria Falls which was absolutely breath taking……