Road to Itezhi-Tezhi

One adjective to describe traveling in Africa: Adventure. No matter where we go and how we travel, it’s always an adventure to get to our next destination or activity.

We chose to take a flight from Livingstone back to Lusaka on Monday afternoon, in an effort to preserve the 6-7 hours the bus took us to Livingstone. Although it wasn’t the most economical option, we’re sure glad we did this, given the journey from Lusaka to Itezi-Tezhi was a solid 7 hour trip with 4+ of those hours on a “road” (if you could call it that) that would be equivalent to the bumps, ditches and pot-holes found during an off-roading experience. It was honestly like nothing we’d ever experienced. The situation wasn’t made any easier given that we had to be 4 to the back seat as we needed to drive Naomi, a 16-year old 9th grader back to Ngoma as well. Luhana drove this crazy drive, Charles, the executive director sat in the front seat and we were in the back seat with both Naomi and Marian. Needless to say it was a bit cramped, especially with all of our baggage (including fuel for the trip). We left at around 5 pm from Chilanga right outside of Lusaka and didn’t arrive at the Musungwa Safari Lodge (in Kafue National Park), which was where the workshop for the girls is being held until after midnight. During the first part of the trip, we straddled the center divide until the lights of on-coming traffic were close enough for Luhana to move left to our designated part of the road. Although Luhana always veered left in time, it was quite an experience being sandwiched against the right side of the passenger window in the backseat , literally feeling the narrowness of the road and sheer size of the trucks that passed us on our drive. However, it was nothing in comparison to the crazy 4 last hours of our drive, which left each of us with sore butts from being thrown in every direction imaginable. We’ve included a map of Zambia and outlined our journey below. Note the last part of our journey was only ~100 km but took 4 hours due to the conditions of the road.

Although it was one of the less comfortable travel experiences we’ve encountered, we were able to engage with Luhana to clarify quite a bit of our itinerary / scheduling for our time in both Ngoma and Masasabi. Also, we had some very interesting conversations with both Charles and Luhana around Zambian daily life (technology access, taxes, providing for one’s family etc), Zambia’s relationship with its neighboring countries (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe) and Zambia’s struggle to preserve and maintain its unique cultural traditions while participating in a modern and ever-evolving global community. It was truly a fascinating conversation to be a part of and we felt lucky to have the opportunity to ask any and all questions.

Educate a Woman (some Itezhi-Tezhi thoughts)

Wednesday May 12th-
We met with the deputy boards of education today. They shared with us a saying they have in Zambia. It goes like this:

"Educate a man and educate an individual

But, educate a women and educate an entire family"

We couldn’t agree more and will try to upload the video interviews we took with the DESO and other government officials shortly! We'll provide some additional info on the government officials, their titles and the government structure shortly as well!!

Don’t Leave Home Without…

Here are few things that we couldn’t live without while backpacking through Africa. Thank you to our wonderful moms and sisters who prepared us well for our trip with a sleep sack
 and a microfiber towel.

Anthill Foundation

One of the things we love about traveling is meeting new people from all over the world.  We were lucky to spend an entire day with two lovely ladies named Mary and Pat. Mary is a nun from Ireland who has lived in Zambia for 18 years.  Mary helped to build out the town of Pemba where she provides a stable environment for Zambian families to live and learn how to work in the community. Mary empowers the community members by providing them with the resources they need to live a healthy and productive life. For example, the community members who live in this village must build their own houses, learn how to farm their own land and develop other skills in order to make them successful contributors to their community.

Pat, her friend from Portland, Oregon, is visiting Pemba to teach the women of the village how to sew. The goal is to teach women a skill that they can use to build self-confidence and move beyond the traditional roles of having multiple children and staying home to do chores.  With Pat’s instruction, the women can now make their own clothes, and use them to trade for other goods such as vegetables, beans, meat, etc. 

Mary and Pat hope that by teaching women new skills like sewing it will give young girls -- who are vulnerable to early pregnancy and marriages – motivation to stay in school and get an education. Education is another area that Mary works hard to make a reality for the girls of the community. She set up a scholarship program for young girls in Pemba. They must meet a specific grade requirement before they are given the scholarship to attend a day school or a boarding school, depending on the amount of funds available.

You can check out what it’s all about by visiting this website called the Anthill Foundation.

Over The River We Go

We traveled to Botswana for a one-day safari in Chobe National Park. We traveled via automobile to the four borders of Zambia, Nambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and then crossed the Chobe River to arrive in Botswana. 

We finally arrived to the Chobe National Park where we got the chance to see the animals of Africa.  We cruised down the Chobe River where we came across hippos, crocs, impalas, buffalos and many, many elephants. We then hopped in a jeep to drive through the inland part of the park. We quickly came across zebras, more elephants and buffaloes, giraffes, wildabeasts, impalas and birds.  We were bummed that we didn’t see any cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards), but it gives us one more reason to come back and do another Safari.

We got a lot of great info from our guides in Bottswana about the animals, which we’ve listed below. We have also included a few pics of our safari and the various animals we met along the way.

Interesting Animal Facts:

·      Notable to mention the “big 5” as they call them in Africa, namely: Elephants, Buffalo, Lions, Leopards and Rhinos. This grouping / term “the Big 5” apparently came about in the 1950s when people used to hunt and was based on how aggressive and difficult the animal was to kill.

o   Elephants- spend 16-18 hours a day feeding and will often only sleep 1-2 hours then get up to feed in the middle of the night. They apparently eat 300 kg a day. Elephants have a 22 month gestation period and are around 25 kg (~30-50 lbs) when born. The males have rounded foreheads and the females have square foreheads and thinner tusks.  They have an average life span of 60-80 years and are vegetarians. They take ‘mud baths’ and roll around in the mud to cool their body temperature and also protect against parasites. We’ve been told by various sources that there are anywhere from 40,000 – 100,000 Elephants in Chobe National Park.

o   Rhinos- endangered and there are hardly any Rhinos left these days (only apparently 5 in Zambia and 3 in Bottswana). They have been poached for their tusks. Believe our guide mentioned that there are more in South Africa and they are trying to breed more there to then donate to Zambia and Bottswana. The punishment for poaching or shooting Rhinos in Bottswana is 15,000 Pula (Bottswana currency) or 5 years in prison- very strict.

o   Impalas- our guide called the lone male Impalas we saw the “losers” because dominant male Impalas travel in packs of females (usually 4-5) so if you see a lone male, then you know he is the non-dominant male and has lost to the other male.

o   Crocodiles “crocs” or “gators”- have an 18 month gestation period and can lay up to 40 eggs at once but only 25% live (or was it 2.5% ??). They live up to ~100 years. They have teeth only to grab / kill things but do not have teeth to break up food so they will kill their food then hide it somewhere in the water, waiting for the skin to soften (or in the case of humans- waiting for the human flesh to start rotting) so they can then easily eat the softened kill.

o   Hippos- Mating takes only 3-5 minutes (we have some video of that) and they have a gestation period of 8 months. They travel in families with the dominant male usually being the largest in the group. 

Livingstone-Part One (Cliff the Cowboy & Pre-School)

Blog Post- Livingstone 1
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I'm blogging about the first part of our day bike riding with Cliff the Cowboy in Livingstone Zambia. We'll be visiting Victoria Falls in the next few hours (Morgan's post to come shortly), but for now wanted to share some of the pictures from our morning bike ride through the 'nature' (aka sand) and then the township/small village where Cliff The Cowboy is from. 

Our group included Cliff, a nice honeymooning Dutch couple (Sven and Stephanie), three British girls (don't recall their names) who were here to volunteer, Cliff's nephew from the middle area of Zambia (didn't speak English) and Patrick (19 year old neighbor of Cliff's who has been living/working for Cliff since his father passed away) and then Morgan and me.

By far, the highlight of our morning was visiting the pre-school Cliff has been able to build and maintain with the money he's made from his tourist biking business since starting in 2001. As we rode through the township to get to the school, the children were shouting "Muzungu" (means white person) and ran up to our bikes and held their hands out for high-fives from us as we passed by. Cliff said the only "Muzungus" the people of this township often see is the folks he brings through on his bike tours and since tourist season is just starting, it's been a while since they've seen white people so they will want to shake our hands/high-five etc.

Cliff's pre-school is pretty amazing. It's the only school in the township (if that's even the right word) and is for children ages 3 - 7. The other schools are at least 8 km away and the schools for older children even further.  Cliff says the kids end up playing in the area even when school is closed and it's one of the only places in the town where they can feel free, as it is a safe and clean environment. There were a ton of young children in the pre-school yard when we got there and they all wanted us to take their pictures. Although I normally don't like being such a tourist and snapping shots of children in this sort of way, they were so excited by seeing their own image on the screen after the shot that I couldn't not. There are a couple photos I'll upload of some boys who wanted their own private photo shoots inside the classroom, it was actually really funny to watch their interactions with each other over who got the attention of getting featured more prominently in the shot (although I tried to emphasize organizing themselves in a way where everyone shared the spotlight)- very universal small child behavior in this way...the whole lesson of "sharing" remains something children worldwide need to learn. The fact that it was mainly boys who were interested/aggressively seeking camera time was interesting to me (think the affinity to seeing oneself in the camera screen after the shot must stem from the fact they rarely see reflections of themselves- didn't see any mirrors in the township). Furthermore, I noticed that it was only boys kicking around the soccer ball in the yard-- there were no girls playing soccer...most of them actually had their little siblings on their hips/backs. When I asked Cliff about this difference, he indicated it was because boys had the 'upper hand' in how they are raised so it makes girls much more shy.

The play area/yard in front of Cliff's pre-school offers the kids a clean, safe place to play and per Cliff it's the only area they feel completely free. As we rode our bikes through the town, the kids all followed us and wanted to play with us in the playground area. 

Cliff has also been successful in using his school to educate the parents and community. I've uploaded the below picture of the way he's constructed his pre-school (with Papyrus layer in between the room and the mud, which allows for a cooler room. He also has a sewing machine he's been using to teach them how to sew. Cliff's pre-school and his overall dedication to helping advance and enable his poor community to develop was extremely impressive and inspiring to observe. It's a wonderful example of how a small idea and simple business venture can end up transforming a community in a self-sufficient and sustainable manner. 

FINALLY HERE!! (slight change of plans)

So we finally made it to Africa! It's 8:30 pm on Friday 5/7 and we changed our plans slightly so we're now in Livingstone until Monday. We flew into Lusaka on late Tuesday night and were greeted at the airport by Luhana, Marion and Charles (head of environmental education programs at KnowledgeBeat). They drove us from the Lusaka Airport to Chilanga, which was about 45 minutes outside of the city, to the KnowledgeBeat (KB) office where we stayed for the past 2 nights. After going over our schedule with the folks at KnowledgeBeat and realizing that we would not be leaving for Ngoma (the remote village we'll be volunteering for in the Itezhi-Tezhi province), until Monday / Tuesday time frame, we decided to take advantage of the extra time and re-route ourselves to do Livingstone first instead of in between our Ngoma and Cape Town times. We're here until Monday at which point we'll take a quick flight back from Livingstone to Ngoma and then do the 8-9 hour drive with KB team to Ngoma. In the meantime, we're staying at JollyBoys backpacking lodge, which is pretty hippied-out lodge full of Europeans and other Americans/foreigners who have been spending time in the 'bush' volunteering, teaching English etc. It's a cool little scene, but we're a little too exhausted after our day to take part this evening. After the 7 hour bus ride from Chilanga to Livingstone and not yet fully recovering from our jet lag, we’re ready to recover and prepare for tomorrow, which will be a more active day with our 8:30 am bike ride, and then tour to Victoria Falls (both Zambian and Zimbabwe sides). We'll be doing a one day safari the next day, and then we’ll be back to Lusaka to prepare for our trip out to the villages.

We did however make some good progress with the KB team last night in securing financial information that Annie and the KB team has needed to know since June 2009. We’re hoping that we were able to transfer some of my hard-earned excel skills to Marian.

Prep

So it's the night before we take off for Africa and I wanted to update our ALMOST first blog post since we've now made the blog public.

We'll aim to update with new posts as much as possible, but not sure how solid the Internet connection will be once we get to Ngoma in Zambia. But we promise to do our best!

On a separate note, we want to make sure to thank all of the generous support KnowledgeBeat has received from our families and friends in the past month or so. We can't thank you all enough for donating your time, money and effort to KnowledgeBeat. We are so excited to embark on this exciting adventure and to contribute in a real way to a cause we are both genuinely excited to make a meaningful contribution towards.

Look back tomorrow for more updates during the craziness of our travels!!