Introduction to my Zambia, Africa Trip

Me in my bunk, our room (nicer than we all expected.) Chiphus, our bus driver. Mavis and me in the skirt and blouse she made for me out of material we purchased on a trip to the fabric store.

meeting room and below - bus



bunkhouse - eggs - Mavis' house

On June 13, 2008 I embarked on a humanitarian trip with Mothers Without Borders to Zambia, Africa. Let me give you a little background of MWB and tell you of their mission. MWB was officially founded by Kathy Headlee in 2000. Kathy has been involved in relief and community service work for more than fifteen years. The purpose at MWB is to address the needs of orphaned and abandoned children due to the HIV/AIDS crisis, in a holistic manner. MWB supports efforts to provide safe shelter, food and clean water, education and access to caring adults. MWB wants to assure that each child has someone who cares about them to teach them of their value.

More than 36 million children under 15 are orphaned in Sub-Saharan Africa today. Every 14 seconds, a child is orphaned as a result of AIDS. In Zambia more than 1 million desperate children have been orphaned by the disease. If you would like to read more extensively about MWB or would like to donate to this worthy organization please go to http:/www.motherswithout borders.org.

On June 13th Emmett took me to the Burlington airport where I flew to JFK. I met the rest of my team, or most of them, several hours later. I did not know anyone at this point. At 7:00 pm we boarded a South African Airlines flight to Johannesburg, So. Africa, with a refueling stop in Dakar, Senegal. This was 19 hours in the air. It wasn't as bad as I had pictured. Somehow if you know you are going to be in the air that long, you just don't think about it, you just do it. Although, passengers deboarded (is that a word?) and boarded at Dakar we did not leave the plane. I must say they fed us well, but the plane was not very spacious as far as aisles and seating go. We landed at Jo'burg (that is what those of us "in the know" call it) and finally found our way to the next plane that took us to Lusaka. We landed in Lusaka after a two hour plane ride and were hustled on to the MWB rented bus and taken to our bunkhouse.

Even though we had basically been traveling for two days we all wanted to organize our things after which we fell into bed.

Before I go into what we did each day, which will probably be separate posts, I want to give you

the structure of our days in Zambia.

Most days we needed to be on the bus by 8:30 (they learned I wasn't a morning person, but I was on the bus on time every day.) We went a few blocks over to the Chikusu house for morning meeting. Breakfast before boarding the bus was yogurt and granola. Also, hard-boilded eggs. The eggs sat on the counter for days before they were boiled. Then they were refrigerated. I questioned it but I didn't eat any eggs so I didn't worry about it . The weather was in the 70s and I sure wouldn't leave the eggs out at home in the 70s. But no one got sick who ate the eggs.

After arriving at the Chikusu house we had a brief morning meeting to plan the day and take care of any issues that might have arisen. Then back on the bus to our destination. Chiphus (Kpus) was our bus driver on the entire trip. He never leaves the bus unless we to go to the Children's Resource Center (CRC) or the land where they are building the new CRC. He stays on the bus to protect everything on the bus no matter where we are. He works for the bus company that we rent the bus from but he has been the MWB driver for the last two years and knows all the places MWB goes on these trips.

Each day we are bussed to our destinations, sometimes eating our lunch (always peanut butter and jam sandwiches) on the way to the next stop.

We stayed at 34 Njoka Road either in the house or in the bunkhouse. This is the home of Mavis

Syamunyangwa. (I don't know why this font has changed and I don't know how to fix it yet.

So I guess it is going to stay this way for this posting.) I stayed in the bunkhouse.

We went to another house to eat. After dinner the dishwasher crew of four would do the dishes while the rest sat aroun and talked or wrote in our journals. When the dishes were done we all went upstairs to the meeting room. The meetings usually lasted until 8:30 or later. There was an opening and closing prayer. A quote was given to someone to read and tell how they interpreted it. That person then told something of meaning to them that happened during the day. Then each person took a turn with their thougts of the day. After this Kathy (MWB founder) spoke to us and the team leaders BJ and Sandy, gave us any information we needed to know about the day or the next day's happenings. There were stories told about the people we met or the places we had been. Kathy gave us lots of advice on how to understand what was going on within ourselves and with the Zambia people we were getting to know. Things weren't always as they appeared.

After the meeting we went back to Njoka Road where we ate chocolate and prepared for bed and the next day. Lots of fun and laughs and good humor with everyone.

All but two of us were Mormons which lent another whole aspect to the journey. I learned a lot about the Mormon culture as well as the Zambian culture. People were quite interested in how I perceived them. I was quite honest with them as they were with me.

I am going to try and attach some pictures to this first blog. I will see how it goes.

Here goes -- my first experience in blogging. Hope it works. Stay tuned.