Africa Skateboarding Diary: Welcome at Africa Skateboarding Diary, brief tell us about you?

Charles: My names are Charles Kaluya Lungu, I’m 18 years old and I’m a skateboarder from Lusaka, Zambia. I’m goofy and I’ve been skateboarding for about 6 years

How was 6 years to you?

Charles: Fun… Although my country got its first skatepark in 2013 I didn’t stop give up. I skated flat ground for 3 to 4 years

Do you guys have a skatepark, what is the name?

Charles: Yes we do, we actually have two now. There’s Park Xtreme and Paradise skatepark

Such nice thing

Who inspired you into skateboarding?

Charles: My cousin inspired me, I saw him rolling down his drive way and I thought it was really cool. So I tried it and fell in love with skateboarding haha

Who is your cousin? We would like to talk with him?

Charles: His name is Chama, unfortunately he doesn’t skate anymore

 

That is real bad. You mentioned about zambia having two parks. Can you briefly tell us about who found the parks?

Charles: Park Xtreme was the first ever skatepark in Zambia and its founder is Parsad and the founder of paradise skatepark is Jakob Hoff.. They both share the same interest of developing the skateboarding scene here in Zambia

 

Congratulation Parsad and Jakob Hoff for your amazing work. Well let’s get back on your skateboarding. What can you say about general Zambian skateboarding scene?

Charles: The skate scene here is growing bigger and better every day, every 4 months we have the biggest skateboarding contest called Street culture which was founded by Elijah Zgambo and Kapembwa Siame about 4 years ago..

Street Culture, a nice name.

Charles: Elijah Zgambo owns a skate shop called that skate shop (TSS) and it was my first ever sponsor.

Are there any other events

Charles: Yes we have other events like back to school (BTS) hosted by Marshall’s Doyen skate shop (DSS) which is also one of the biggest competitions in the country

Seems like Zambia is booming up with Skateboarding there.

Charles: Yes it is, we are just hoping for the best!!!

Keep working hard. What is your favorite skate trick ever? And have you ever land it?

Charles: Thanks, I will work hard. My favorite trick is varial heel nosegrind, and unfortunately I have never landed it. But I am working on it

I can’t imagine landing it on an A-frame.

What else have you experienced in Skateboarding? Did it change your life?

Charles: Haha It’s more of a ledge trick because only a few skaters do it on rails, but it would be really sick on an A-frame and I’m willing to learn it Skateboarding definitely changed my life in a very positive way, and the fact that skateboarding is about endless possibilities is what keeps me going.

 

What are the challenges that you are facing on your skateboarding?

Charles: Right now it’s just access to proper skateparks, I’ve only skated two concrete skateparks my whole life. The first ever concrete Park I skated was the Boogaloos skatepark at bright water commons in 2013 then the second one I skated was the Kimberly Plaza and I fell in love with it. Every obstacle was Hella smooth

Lack of skate park faces almost all African skaters! But street is way cooler too. What do you think about street skating with homies?

Charles: Street skating is really cool. but when it comes to Street, we have a few spots in my town and I believe that there are more spots in other towns but I’ve never been on a road trip to hunt for new Street spots. I’m looking forward to doing that with my homies

Well Charles what else do you have to share with us?

Charles: I think that’s pretty much all I had to share.. And I’m sending a huge shout out to all African skateboarders, keep pushing ya’ll.

 

Thanks for your time keep skateboarding forward.