Sorry all! This was my first copy, but I had thought the computer I was using lost all my writing so I wrote a shorter one posted minutes ago. Feel free to read both. See my first one below:
We made it and are having a great time! I have been blessed to be a part of a great community that has grouped together in hope for a better tomorrow.
From the start of our journey we have toured London for a day seeing some amazing sites like Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and got to eat fish n chips for lunch! A great way to start a trip. Then for our second night in a row for an airplane chair as our bed we landed in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning. There we got to go to a lion park seeing lions, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, water buffalo, and hienas all for the first time! I found out that I am amazed and absolutely love giraffes (besides the slobber on my hand when I was feeding and petting it)! The lions! Wow, seeing them was a great experience, but being within around four to five feet was breath taking! Pictures to come when technology is available! On Wednesday we got on another plane and flew to Livingstone, which is in the most southern tip of Zambia. Finally in Zambia! When we got there we got to go tour Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world! Pictures, videos, or any other kind of technology can not do justice to being there, being soaking wet, and being able to be able to stay and gaze at it for however long you wish! On Thursday we got on another plane (our last one for a couple weeks!) to fly north to Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. Immediately after unpacking our bags to our guesthouse we went directly to the country headquarters for a meeting with an organization called Room to Read. This organization is in ten countries and purpose to raise literacy in children through providing libraries in schools and communities among several other programs. They we super nice and the country director, Samanatha, was wonderful to us and answered all of our questions. The reason for that meeting and stopping in Lusaka for a couple of days before going into the Copperbelt, where HealthEd Connect sites are, is to network with other organizations that can give ideas, feedback, and simply to create and maintain relationships that provide opportunities to share what works for them, what they would try to do differently, and for us to ask questions on how to better shape HealthEd Connect's three community schools. Finally today (Friday) we got to visit a community center/school called Chickumbuso. This was started as a outreach to widows which as turned into a community center that has a shool, library, shop that sells goods made by the widows, and much, much more! This was a great visit because this is a model of what HealthEd Connect's schools want to look like in the future. Talked to Gertrude there an had a humbling experience listening to her story of how Chickumbuso changed her life and the struggles she has gone through. It was a moment, for me, of yes the goal of the HealthEd Connect schools is a possibility and can be done!
Tomorrow we leave on a bus to go north to Ndola, where we will be staying the next seen nights. Sunday morning at nchurch will be our first experience with the communities we are involved in. I'm excited to meet the people that are apart of the community that my friends he been talking about.
Of course all of this was written without the great stories that go along with it for time sake. All of the coffee in the portage, rummy playing, Stu's birthday, and the great people we are meeting will have to wait until a later time.
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