Traveling Cat

People continue to ask me about what it’s like to get malaria, so here’s a bit more. This excerpt is from my travel buddy Josh doing Peace Corps in Zambia and tells a little bit about his “mild” case. Learn on…

i did get malaria last month for the first time, although i was fortunate as it was a fairly mild case. malaria is a scary illness for people without access to proper medication, and malaria is responsible for more deaths in sub-saharan africa than hiv/aids–one of the great tragedies of the disease is that it’s easily treatable with a number of different medications. i ended up taking coartem which is cheap and highly effective, although it also seemed to tick off the malaria parasites before killing them. i had been able to operate more or less normally before taking the medication, but a few hours after my first dose i had to struggle up the stairs to my bed where i had a vicious bout of the chills that set my bed jitterbugging up and down. i had one more bad evening (malaria works in waves–the parasites enter your bloodstream, destroy a bunch of red blood cells, then stop to reproduce. they re-emerge more strongly about 24 hours later and repeat the process) and then that was pretty much it other than fatigue and a general lack of strength and stamina. even though i was quite sick it wasn’t nearly as bad as it can be and usually is, i’ve been around people with a serious case and they can just barely move; some pcv’s have had it to the point that they couldn’t get out of the bed to go the bathroom and general unpleasantness ensued (this is a common enough occurrence that having malaria guarantees a bed to yourself, even if there are other pcv’s around who have no place to sleep).

Susie and I began our travels together a year ago today on Jan 26th! I had just finished a 14km marathon through the slums of Nairobi, and flew straight from rural Kenya into modern South Africa. I got in line at customs behind tons of other travelers and couldn’t have been more tired or ecstatic to see Susie on the other side of the guards! Unlike me, she wasn’t coughing, and didn’t appear to have black lungs/TB! Instead, she was looking bright and cheery and bearing gifts, a camera, and a new backpack! Such a fantastic day and such a fantastic start to a wonderful journey together across Africa and back into Seattle life. We found our home with the Nuns, then immediately went to coffee to “plan” the trip. And by planning, I mean catching up and giggling and babbling and talking slowly!

Susie was always better on the road about sending meaningful group updates… so I shouldn’t have been surprised to get this fantastic recap in my email this week. Made me laugh out loud, feel all warm and gooey inside, and even get a little teary eyed. Mostly it made me remember… endless stories… endless adventures… so so so many good times. A girl couldn’t ask for a better travel partner or a better friend to return home to. So much of my love goes out to Susie for making 2007 a remarkable year! Here’s her recap and here are a few of my pics. Enjoy!

Our time in Zanzibar couldn’t have been more surreal, bizarre, or full of Snickers bars!

Cat dear,

Welcome to the one year anniversary of our reunion in Johannesburg. Or so I think – need to review the ol’ journal, but I’m nearly certain it was today. Can you believe that?

What a wild, crazy year it has been. Recap:

-Traveling. Holy shit – elephants in Addo, hilarity at Cape Town pride, meeting Brett in Windhoek, skydiving, sand boarding, basking in the rains of the Zambezi churning over Vic Falls, water slides in Lusaka, 10-hour pickup truck rides, the quiet, broken beauty if Ila, too many “samoosas,” Wimby beach parties, breaking beds in Nampula, the most amazing recuperation mission of all time in Nkhata Bay, welcoming ourselves to East Africa with “why are you so stupid? you stupid, stupid girls!” haggling our way onto the “cheapest” boat out to Zanzibar, planning our Kenya double-date from afar, Susie goes bananas trying to upload photos 5 at a time, strange walks with a strange ex-heroin addict in Jambiani, finding sweet relief from the heat in Lushoto, catching a glimpse of Kilimanjaro on the bus ride to Nairobi, reunions with Brett, discovering sometimes I felt like a plumpkin, the cheapest, most delicious steak ever in Kampala, near-fist-fights getting ourselves around Uganda, trekking with gorillas, rafting the Nile, reunions in Malava, navigating the streets of Mombasa, and the sweet life out on Lamu. Cat, we had one hell of a time.
-The return. Parties, navigating life being “back,” reunions with friends, dinner parties, saying hello to the mountains again.
-Dating. Dear lord. Susie is a disaster, and Cat discovers her knack at rocking the dating world like no one else. You really should get paid for this.
-Going back to our old jobs. Riiiiiight. Still working on that, and who knows, maybe we’ll work together?
-Staring a business. With Cat to thank, of course. Making it happen in Seattle.
-Fibroids. Screw ‘em. And say goodbye to them and hello to life with your body back. Hot as hell, Cat.
-Navigating the new challenges of living in what feels like the same city, but sure is different. Friends here and gone, the SLUT, new restaurants, new music. So much to keep exploring, which is what makes Seattle rock.

Just wanted to say, Cat, it has been such a wonderful, complicated, and exciting year, and I can’t be more thankful to have spent so much of it with you. It is one year after what was the start of a pretty amazing journey, and I look forward to seeing what the next year has in store for us.

Love you, Cat. You’re pretty damed cool.

Big hugs,
S

Standard look for our travel days

World’s worst matatu minibus in Mozambique
(can’t seem to remember if this pic was from before or after the puking?)

Susie & Cat – couldn’t be happier to squeeze us plus a driver onto the back of a tiny motorbike in Kampala

A year ago yesterday I was leaving my village in Kenya, officially moving out of my house and moving on to unknown adventures. It was a sad and nostalgic week leading up to it, where we did many goodbye lunches and finally took many pics of everyday life in the village that we’d never photographed before (like the fabulous lavender “Lady Gay” signs advertising feminine products). :) Driving away from the village I remember every tree looking as beautiful as always, every hill looking as scenic ever, and every herds boy on the road seeming as friendly and perfect and meant to be there as possible. I don’t think it’s possible for me to tire of the beauty of Western Kenya, or of the kindness of the people, and though it was time to move on, leaving was still a sad, contemplative day. We remedied that quickly with my birthday, xmas, and new years celebrations in Lamu. After a year in the village with no going out after 7pm, I was dancing on the beach, sleeping under the stars, sailing, swimming, and living it up. We had good times in Lamu and the subsequent months backpacking, but I still miss Kenya and my life in the village…

Our buddy Josh in the Peace Corps in Zambia and is leaving his village tomorrow. Here’s a short excerpt from a long note he sent:

I keep waiting for the village to feel differently now that I’m about to leave, more dramatic some how, but it doesn’t. life continues on pretty much the same as always, with me bumbling my way through the village experience. I’ve told all my close friends that I’m leaving, their disappointment and sadness at hearing the news has been slightly gratifying but mostly painful. I’ve shared a lot of adventures, funny moments, mis-steps, and cultural understandings and misunderstandings with all of them. It is difficult to cultivate a friendship with most Zambians beyond a certain level because of any number of barriers—race, gender, culture, class, language, etc. but with some of my friends we were able to get beyond those, and the results were incredibly rewarding, allowing me a longer glimpse into Zambian life and the companionship of people with whom I could have an honest conversation about difficult topics. One such friend is bana kaunda, the lady I wrote about some time back who lost her oldest daughter to a stomach ailment. Because of the barriers to friendship mentioned earlier, some people are hesitant to approach me to talk, ask if I wanted to join in an activity, etc., but that distance was never a problem with bana kaunda—she was always at ease with me and didn’t hesitate to ask if I wanted to be involved. She would wander over, for instance, and ask if I’d like to help her pound cassava (of course I said “no, that’s woman’s work,” but I appreciated the gesture nonetheless).

Josh has a great use of dry humor in his writing, but it’s still so heartfelt and always hits me really close to home. I know my sadness at leaving wasn’t unique and it’s good to hear from others going through similar experiences. Many best wishes to Josh on his future adventures in Lusaka!

Josh sent another email update and I thought y’all deserve to hear some of this thoughts on his two years volunteering in Africa. We met him in Malawi when I was out with my second round of malaria and his dry humor won me over pretty quickly. His service site is in Zambia, a country in southern Africa that gained their independence in 1964. About 73% of Zambians live below the poverty level, about 1 million Zambians are HIV positive or have AIDS, over a half-million Zambian children have been orphaned, and life expectancy is down to about age 40. Zambia, coincidentally, was the first country coming from South Africa towards the north that really felt like Kenya. There was something about the people, the dress, the culture, the smiles that just made me instantly like the country and made me miss Kenya all the more. Here’s a little bit of Josh’s experience that highly resonated with similar experiences of my own.

Hello all,

I’m currently in the village on my way back from 4th of July vacation in Livingstone which was good times all around. A big group of volunteers were down there for a few days, all but one of whom was from my intake. so, I got to see some old friends from training for the first time in a while which is always nice.

The highlights of the trip for me were the lunar rainbow and the whitewater rafting. one evening we went down to Victoria falls to see the rainbow that appears for a few days during every full moon; during the day there’s always a rainbow as the falls throw up so much mist, and we were lucky enough to be down there when the moon was bright enough to create a rainbow as well. The rainbow looked like a gray version of a regular rainbow except it was incredibly long, it emerged from the mist in the gorge and traveled all the way up the face of the falls until it curved up and over the lip. The gorge is deep enough and the mist so thick that you couldn’t see the rainbow all the way to the bottom, it simply disappeared into gray mist far below. Pretty neat sight, something I didn’t realize existed.

The rafting was intense, the Zambezi is one of the best rivers in the world for it. We could only run the second half of the river as the water volume was too heavy for us to shoot the first series of rapids, but the second half was plenty. I’ve done some rafting in maine but there were spots on the Zambezi where the water was bigger than anything I’d ever been in before. In fact, there are spots where people go surfing on the waves that are created, it’s a bizarre sight. At the beginning of one rapids (appropriately dubbed ‘the washer machine’) we dropped into a big hole which made the wall of white water in front of us appear even larger than it was. I was in the front of the raft and when we hit the raft simply stopped, skewed into the air at about a 45 degree angle, then slid off down the side of the water wall and got completely buried. The guy sitting across from me came flying across the raft and knocked me out into the water. I’ve grown up around water, am a strong swimmer and was wearing a life jacket and helmet, but as I was getting sucked down through the rapids I experienced several moments of “deep concern” (a guy in the raft with me said I looked scared when I first popped up, but I corrected his misperception). There’s one general, down-stream current to the river but there’s also a cacophony of other, smaller currents flowing every which way-when you’re in the middle of it it’s incredibly disorienting. I was surfacing long enough to grab a quick half-breath before I’d get smacked in the face by another wave, spun around and then taken under again. I was finally spit out at the far end of the rapids and floated about in a pool until a kayaker retrieved my bedraggled self and ferried me over to another raft. Once they’d pulled me in I lay on the bottom trying to project an air of nonchalance, an effort hindered by my loud gasping for air and clearly waterlogged state. It was amazing just how massively powerful the rapids were, I’d never experienced anything like it before.

One of my next door neighbors got some batteries for her radio recently and has been playing it full-blast; the kids I hang out with next door have now taken up dancing as one of their main pastimes. 4 or 5 of them, ranging in ages from probably 3-6, will wander into my yard and start a spontaneous dance party, it’s high comedy. Bellies bulging forward and torn shorts flapping around their spindly legs, they crouch bowl-legged and begin slowly, like they’re underwater, shimmying their hips and waving their arms back and forth. They’re still so young that they aren’t able to dance as rapidly or as fluidly as adults, so they mostly resemble small, black old men tottering about the yard. The dance routines are quickly becoming the highlight of my days.

I’ve started a gardening project and seed multiplication program with the smallest and poorest village I work with. About 50 people live in the village, their huts scattered throughout the bush, some of them very isolated. I’ve grown to enjoy more and more visiting them as the people are incredible; the last time I was there 3 different families presented me with armfuls of sweet potatoes and groundnuts. This type of generosity is typical in all villages but more pronounced for whatever reason in this one. Yet I cringe when I see them disappear right before I leave because I know that they’re going to get me food to take or to eat there. It is difficult for me as I don’t need the food and they very much do. A few times I’ve even tried sneaking away or leaving abruptly so I wouldn’t have to take their food, but every time they make a determined effort to give me something. If someone from their family hasn’t already gotten me some food the man will tell me to wait while he hustles out to his field and digs up some sweet potatoes or ground nuts for me.

So why don’t I simply refuse? Part of it is that it’s a custom, a show of respect. But the bigger reason is the pride it gives them. Poverty is largely a corrosive attack on people’s dignity; when they present me with a gift that I express appreciation for, it is dignity-confirming-they have something of value that even I, an obscenely wealthy (by their standards) white foreigner enjoys. When I thank them profusely (my gratitude is always genuine, given the circumstances those handfuls of groundnuts and sweet
potatoes are absolutely some of the nicest gifts I’ve ever been given) I can see their faces glow with pride. Accepting their gifts with gratitude and humility may well be one of the most important things I do over here to mitigate the effects of poverty.

So I invariably end up biking away from this village deeply, deeply humbled, ashamed of my own selfishness, and filled with admiration for these people’s generosity. I undergo the same experience when I attend church and watch a stream of people move forward to make an offering. The sums themselves are tiny, but taken as a percentage of their income I’d be willing to bet it would shame most people in the west who consider themselves charitable. These villagers are generous in the midst of their need, they give from their want, and it is sometimes staggering to watch.

Well, I’ve rambled on for long enough, I hope you are all well and enjoyed your 4th of July holiday.

Best,
Josh

NOTE: Josh has written many thoughtful email updates, but this particular one spoke to me as I had almost identical experiences on every level. White water rafting on the Nile was indeed a bit terrifying when you get sucked under over and over. Kids dancing (and dancing with kids) was always a highlight of my day. I had a much greater time at Vic Falls than I’d expected possible. I’d feel truly humbled and deeply thankful for every day I was alive, and even more humbled on the days I was showered in the extreme generosity of a local family who’d insist on giving me sweet potatoes, eggs, ground nuts, or a home cooked meal.

I don’t know tons about her, but I love live music so I went to check out her concert in Lusaka last week. What I do know: She’s from islands off the coast of Madagascar. She sings in French. She roles up one leg of her pants. She can get the whole crowd dancing. It was a fun show and I recommend her to anyone who gets the chance to check her out.

Strangers continue to impress me with their generosity. Bob, Michelle, and Danielle offered us a free place to stay at their program’s flats, so Brett, Susie, and I moved in the next day. We each get our own rooms and their flats are fancy (house keeper comes daily, braai pit, hot showers with great water pressure, even a washing machine!).

We did dinner with them on Saturday night and ate some fabulous Indian food. Despite the fact Lusaka feels more expensive than Nairobi, the Indian food was much cheaper (and better!). Mains were only $5 at the place on Great East Road by our Cha Cha Cha backpackers). Sunday we did brunch then met up for the craft market and a free concert (Patricia Phillipe, part of the Francophone concert series). Sunday night was a braai at the flats where we’re staying where we met lots of cool people. Most of the guys were Zambian, but one of the guys was Greg, a kid from Houston who worked as an intern for Arthur Andersen back in college, just a year before I did the same. Seems we were both business majors, both did training in St. Charles, both went to the same night life, both lived in Houston, and both ended up sitting next to each other in Zambia at the same party Sunday night. Odd, odd world. (I might try to meet up with him later today… he’s offered to hook me up with black exploitation music from India and other fun stuff from his music collection).

All of our new friends work together at an HIV research project here in Lusaka and have their weekends on Sundays and Mondays. Monday we rented out a minibus and drove out for a day in the sun. Believe it or not, but Lusaka has a water park that’s fancy and plush even by Western standards. Adventure City was completely empty when we went… we were quite literally the only guests in the entire place. It was as if the giant park, all of it’s pools and slides and volley ball courts were all there reserved for our private party. How much did we have to pay for this wholesome goodness for the private park? A mere 20,000 Kwacha (less than $5 each)!

The eight of us set up our braai (bbq) by the water slides and had a grand old time. Most entertaining were our attempts at group slide formations after lunch. We’ve get Brett, Bob, Michelle, Susie, Danielle, and I to all hang on and slide down together. We did it forward, backwards, sideways, on our backs, and all kinds of other ridiculous and painful formations that seemed like a good idea at the time. (Flipping over in the middle – a great trick! Going down separately but at the same time – painful as all get out!). We all recognize it was a bit ridiculous to be having so much fun at a water park, much less to be at a water park in Zambia in the first place, but my goodness… if you were there, you’d have had a great time too.

Americans love s’mores!

Adventure World Water Park!

Real frogs at Adventure World (perhaps inappropriate to post, but still kinda funny to see)

Two braais in two days, two opportunities to eat s’mores!
Danielle, Bob, Brett, me, Ty, Amanda, Michelle, Susie

Water slide madness!

This week we’re staying with generous new friends in a lovely flats in Lusaka – Zambia’s very modern capital city. We met them Saturday night and they invited us to move in the same night. We opted to come the next day, and they’ve generously filled our social calendar for the remainder of our stay in Lusaka. How did we meet these lovely people?

I met a cool guy Mike in Windhoek who’s taking 2 years to travel around before going back to another engineering job. Mike knew a woman in Lusaka who was leaving, but suggested he show up on another friend’s door, and that friend ended up being Danielle. They decided to do a trip together in Namibia and I met her there and we exchanged emails. When we decided to come to Lusaka I sent her an email and we made plans for dinner. When we met her, she brought coworkers with including Bob and Michelle, two kids from Seattle. Bob who used to work at SPU in the same department as my friend Clare, and used to eat lunch with my friend Rod. Bob, who also happens to be friends with a guy named Roque, who’s friends with a girl named Jenny, who works with our friend Jim back in Seattle and was a regular at the weekly Sunday Dinners. Woah. Pretty wild to show up for dinner with a woman we don’t know to find people both Susie and I know through different connections back home in Seattle. The world continues to feel like a very small, connected place.

As the old man next to me on the minibus so accurately put it, “It is too much hot.” And he wasn’t kidding. It’s been in the 90s or higher every day we’ve been here. Our guide Mac in Namibia is from Zambia and he invited us to visit his family in the village (without him) and so off we went. Our first stop was Livingstone, a nice little town that felt a bit like Kakamega. We stayed at a super backpackers for a few days (Jollyboys) and then made our way to the village.

Village boys pick bananas to sell

Susie with Mac’s family

Always fun to see what other people get in their local markets. In Chirundu you could get dried okra.

You could also get mopane worms (catepillars) next to the tomatoes

Public health campaign, though AIDS rates here are still very high

Brett tries to carry water like a girl

Homemade village toys are always cool

Three year old Angela gets a bath

Group photo with the whole family… my new “African mom” on the right with me

As usual, Susie’s much better at taking time to send email updates, which I go the lazy route and just post a few pictures and captions from each place. Read below for her update to get a sense of our travels right now. Hope everyone is well!

Greetings from Lusaka, Zambia!

As I’ve begun typing this update it has become pretty long (not a shock), so I’ll give a brief sum-up here up front. After doing quite a bit of research and talking to as many people as we can here in Lusaka, Cat & I have decided to forgo our return trip into Zimbabwe for the time being. Considering the last week’s events (please check into them if you haven’t heard – the recent events are just another example of the complex and painful political experience going on in Zim right now), we have been told that this time in particular is not safe to be in Zimbabwe, and especially Harare where we were heading next. For most of our journey we have been told that although the situation in Zimbabwe is difficult it is safe for tourists, but this past week we have been told that even as tourists it is not smart for us to head there. So I am sad to say that we will not be heading down there as there was so much I wanted to see, but it seems safety first is going to be the rule of the day.

Instead, we are heading straight through Malawi to Mozambique, to explore the northern part of that country for the next couple of weeks. I’ll elaborate on that more below, but for all of you with little time on your hands to read the entire update, that is the game plan for now. We hop a bus to Lilongwe on Thursday morning, getting us into the city around midnight. Then Cat & I will head south and east towards the Mozambique coast, and Brett will head north. We will be sad to lose our traveling partner for the past few weeks!

Now on to the longer version of the update…

Cat, Brett & I have been here in Lusaka for the past three days, checking out the city and being lucky enough to meet up with some wonderful people doing HIV/AIDS research in the area. They have offered us beds at their place, so we have been able to rest easily and free for the past couple of nights. Huge thanks to Danielle, Bob, Michelle and the rest of the team for their kindness and hospitality! The group even took us out on their free day to a nearby water park (can you believe that?) to spend an afternoon sliding and enjoying what would have been a sunny day. Instead in the clouds and threatening thunderstorms, we spent the afternoon making braai (bbq) and making various 6-person configurations heading down one of the big slides. It reminded me of summers in New Jersey. A pretty surreal experience seeing as that we are in Zambia.

Before we arrived here, we were thrilled to be able to spend two nights in a small village outside of Chirundu, which is on the boarder with Zimbabwe. Our guide on our Nomad trip invited us to come and see his family if we were interested, and all three of us were eager to get a taste of a more local experience. The journey was wonderful – our family welcomed us into their home and spent an entire day showing us around their family’s banana farm, the “convergence” where the Zambezi River meets the Kafue River, visiting the local market, and relaxing in the oppressive heat. We were thrilled to meet the family’s grandfather, who is not sure how old he is, but everyone thinks he’s somewhere in his 90s (OLD for Zambia). He was slow to come out of the house, but sat down with us for a while to talk a little bit, smile a lot (grinning to show us his two teeth), and thank us for coming to see him. He is now living alone after his wife died, and the family is having tough time figuring out how to continue taking care of him as he does not want to leave his home.

I loved our visit there – enjoyed rides in the back of the pickup truck and having conversations with folks to hear about some of the local issues that affect them. Land issues are definitely on many people’s mind – we learned that you can acquire land for free in many places in Zambia just by proposing your land use idea to the head man, who then conferrs with the local chief. If they agree it is usually confirmed by the land comission, and you are given your papers for your plot of land. This process seems to have worked well in the past, but it appears that frequently the process is taken advantage – whether by expanding their plot of land (and therefore pushing people out of their homes) without asking permission, or by expanding their land by paying off the head man. We were told that many foreign whites come into Zambia, get cheap or free land through this process then build on the land and sell it to the highest bidder, making them a ton of money and not necessarily investing into the local community. This makes for complex relationships between foreigners and locals. However, at the end of our visit, the brother (who had been complaining to us about the land use problems) told us that we should definitely come back to Zambia to get land and make some money. One day he was condemning the behavior and the next day he was suggesting we do just that.

We waved goodbye to the family in the morning and got on a minibus to Lusaka. In Lusaka we stayed at the Chachacha Backpackers, a friendly and clean spot we were happy to pitch our tent in for the night. There we met a bunch of other great travelers, including Jamie, who started the Peace Pedalers project. He is an incredibly interesting person who is biking around the world for a total of about 8 years (taking some time off to catch up at home for a bit) on a tandem bike. He is creating a “rockumentary” along the way, so he travels with video and camera equipment and does everything from record local concerts to record his own journey along the way. He picks up riders as he goes to join him on the back of his bike, with the hope of building peace through cultural understanding and experience. Cool, huh? You can check out his website at www.peacepedalers.com.

In Lusaka we were also looking forward to meeting back up with Danielle, a HIV/AIDS researcher based in Lusaka. We met Danielle in Windhoek, and we were glad to get in touch with her again when we arrived in Lusaka. Oddly enough, I was put in touch with another couple working in Lusaka before I left Seattle (thanks Jenny & Roque). When I got in touch with Bob & Michelle, it turned out they worked for the same project as Danielle! So even before we arrived in Lusaka we had been in touch with 3 of 8 of the project’s team. Wild, huh? After our first night here the group invited us to stay with them, which has been fabulous. We will be sad to leave them on Thursday morning!

Again, I am disappointed that we won’t be heading down into Zimbabwe, as I have been hearing so much about the wonderful people there as well as the interesting sights to see (was really looking forward to seeing the Great Zimbabwe ruins). But unfortunately as the government in Zimbabwe is pressing harder and harder against any opposition parties, and has recently become more violent in their oppression. The situation in Harare especially has been very hectic since the demonstrations held there on March 11. As we were planning to transfer through Harare to get down to Great Zimbabwe as well as some other nearby sights, it seemed to usthat we should rethink our plans to stay on the safe side. If you’re interested in reading some good blogs about the situation, you can link to them through this article written by the BBC – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6456027.stm.

Although it is sad to miss out on the other places in Zimbabwe, I’m definitely looking forward to Mozambique – the Portugese influence will be a very different experience than the places we have been so far. In planning to get to Mozambique, we’ve had to pick and choose where we want to head, as it covers a ton of territory and is supposed to be fairly difficult to navigate. Add in the recent flooding and cyclones that happened there in Feburary, and you make for a rougher road! But it seems the northern area of the country will be just fine, and I’m looking forward to a dip in the ocean sometime in the near future!

If you’ve survived the read all the way to this point – thanks! So much happens every day here and it’s tough to get even a few of the thoughts I have each day down to share with you all. But know that we’re happy, safe, and looking forward to the road ahead, as usual. Meeting such interesting and kind people along the way enriches the journey we have and ensures we are able to have a variety of perspectives of the places we are along the way.

More photos will come slowly but surely – keep checking the photo site – I hope to have photos up from Botswana and Vic Falls before I leave Lusaka!

Much love,
Susie

I’ve been trying to update the blog regularly, so I apologize if I’m slow to respond to emails. Time at cafes always seems so limited…

Botswana came and went in just six days. We spent four days at the Okavango Delta relaxing at Swamp Stop, Sepupa. Nice hiking and tons of rock art at the Tsodilo Hills: Mountains of the Gods. It’s a sacred site of the bushmen/San people and has over 4,000 rock art drawings. They’re estimated to be 3,000 years old if you believe that. Pretty crazy. Also spent a relaxing day poolside/riverside while half the group decided to spend $160 each on a canoe trip. We opted to entertain ourselves and did Spa Day instead… we did our own pedicures and gave each other haircuts, and got crafty making necklaces, sewing, carvings, etc. Tons of fun to hang with our smaller group, relax by the river, read our books, swim in the pool, listen to music, and laugh tons.

After a night in the Caprivi Strip, our we crossed back into Botswana to visit Chobe National Park for even more game viewing. We opted for the boat trip here (only $40, includes park fee) and saw TONS of animals, hippos, elephants, eagles, crocs, birds, impala, kudu, and more. Easily the most impressive safari possible for your dollar! Super fun and so, so many animals! It was also our second to the last night with our truckload of new friends… and lots of bonding transpired in a very short time. More pictures to come eventually…

Currently… I’m in Zimbabwe having a great time. We’re at the pretty touristy Vic Falls area to see the world famous Victoria Falls. It’s the second biggest tourist site in Africa (after the pyramids of Giza in Egypt), but the streets are mostly empty and everyone we meet are local folks. Not too many whites/tourists around. A few groups of Japanese tourists in busses, but otherwise pretty quiet. I wasn’t expecting much of the falls, but was absolutely astounded when we finally saw/experienced them. The water crashes down over 100 meters, and then sprays back up. The spray up is so strong from so much water that it literally rains down on you. No mist here… it’s pours down on you like a thunder storm. All of my pictures of us are soaking wet liked drowned rats, and smiling ridiculously big smiles. Who knew it’d be so super fun?!

Last night was our last official night with the tour… a so-so dinner followed by a fun time dancing at the Wild Thing dance club! Yay dancing!! They played my two favorites from Kenya… Shakira followed by R Kelly’s Burn It Up! They also played lots of local Zim music and other random stuff to keep us on our toes. A very fun night.

This morning I got an hour long full body massage ($15!!) and said my goodbyes to our new friends. As Anders said, you’ve got to be sad today to say goodbye. On the bright side, I now have lots of offers for couches to stay on in Germany and Denmark!

Tomorrow we’ll head to Zambia with Brett to visit a village of a friend we made in Namibia… should be fun to get back to the rural setting that I had all year in Kenya. After that, Susie and I pass back into Zimbabwe to see more of the country, see the ruins (some of the only ruins in Africa), and then head onward to Mozambique. Not sure what we’ll see in Mozambique as the country is experiencing some massive flooding in parts. Safety will determine what to see, what to skip. It’s a former Portuguese colony so I’m looking forward to seeing the difference in food, language, culture. Might even get to practice some Spanish. Even though they speak Portuguese, Spanish is apparently easier than finding people who speak good English.

That’s all for me today. Hope you enjoy the pics posted recently! Many thanks to Dawne and Daryll, our new friends from Brooklyn, who were super generous with loaning me their laptop so I could edit pics for the blog. You really do meet the nicest people on the road.

Lots of love to everyone,
Cat