Livingstone - No Work Days

Livingstone (no work days)
Absolutely no work yesterday or today. The days were play days. You simply cannot come to Zambia and not go to the Livingstone area. We started day one with a trip to Victoria Falls. It is the time of year when the most water is flowing. There was so much power in the Falls. It is a true wonder of the world. If we had taken a shower we could not have gotten any more wet. The bridge walk is pretty far away from the actual falls but just walking across it we got soaking wet. You could hardly see the entire falls because there was mist blowing around. Luckily I was able to convince Kelly, Jean and Matt to go up in a micro-lite. Jean and Kelly thought it was awesome; Matt is still trying to balance fear with exhilaration. After the flights we went on a river cruise and saw a giant hippo completely outside of the water (I have to think this is unusual for this time of year). As always the African sunset was amazing on the Zambezi.

Day two we went over to Botswana on safari to the Chobe National Park. Jean got to see her giraffe up close and personal and we saw many amazing animals. Mikala saw a mongoose for the first time in her life. I actually thought the birds were the most amazing and just toward the end of the trip an eagle (their national bird) gave us quite a show. The trip across the Zambezi was an interesting experience. Because the river is at its highest, the big barges were not working well and the currents were so strong the one barge that was working was having a lot of trouble getting across – what should have taken twenty minutes was taking up to 2 hours. We actually crossed in a dingy boat and the white caps were pretty high. The most interesting thing was the line of semi-trucks awaiting to go over on the barge. Our guide told us the trucks sometimes sit for up to two weeks to be able to cross the river. On the Zambia side they were mostly carrying huge copper rocks and molasses. The lines on the Botswana side were equally as long.

The day ended with shopping at the market, a good cup of coffee (caffeine and full cream cappuccino) and then a great dinner at Charters outside in the courtyard (Bream, okra and curry).

Now we are ready for more work. Visits with policy advocates all day tomorrow, full day of training on Friday, Chawama advocacy group on Saturday and then a new week begins.

My head is spinning with thoughts of creating an interdisciplinary study abroad program at Beulini and the three outpost schools in the villages – everything is possible.