Photo Nshima: On the road in Zambia

Is there any better feeling after a long day on the Zambian roads- full of arguing your way out of seatbelt infractions, munching on the best Biltong you’ll find anywhere, getting stuck behind endless rows of impossibly slow trucks, preventing anyone in the car from sleeping with rowdy games of “Contact,” and taking wrong turns and driving the wrong way for 90 minutes but still not making it to Ndola- than rolling up to a big dinner of nshima and village chicken and Mosi, with the people who this country has made into your very best friends?

Scroll down for the photos. You can also read about road trips to the Sunken Lake in Mpongwe and Mulungushi Dam.

Shelter. Easy to see, so easy to miss, too easy to take for granted. Seen/unseen on Leopard’s Hill road, on a dark and stormy autumn day. Photo and words by Mallika Sobti
Towards downtown Lusaka, with Zambia’s tallest skyscraper
One interesting feature of local economies here is repetition. Two, three, ten sellers next to each other hawk undifferentiated goods at identical prices. From a certain perspective this doesn’t make much sense. But standing in that market, after seeing identical markets throughout the country, and imagining the same market that has stood here season after season, one can believe that it all fits perfectly into a grander pattern. These are the natural cycles of the world- life mimics life, nature mimics nature, market mimics market, seller mimics seller, and it is what it is.
The back way from Lusaka to Lower Zambezi
Rainy season in the Copperbelt
Team effort!
Men carrying charcoal loads by bike, just south of Lusaka
Who needs a jack?
One of countless tire changes
The crew, on a failed attempt to reach the Lumsemfwa Wonder Gorge