First was the road trip. Mike, James, and I traveled first to Zambia, which was the coolest place I have ever been. I wanted to just stay there forever! We went to South Luangwa National park and camped for two nights at a lodge near the park called Croc Valley. If you ever go to Zambia, you need to stay there! We arrived at the campsite in the dark, so I was unaware of how amazing it really was. I woke up at six very tired, until James announced there were elephants in the river. I sprinted out of the tent. It was amazing to see the sun rising and a heard of elephants in the river. We also watched hippos while eating breakfast and I watched a family of baboons while I took a shower. We went for our first game that night with the most amazing tour guide; Duncan. Duncan is a fearless man and is not concerned for our safety, just concerned about getting us a close to the action as possible. This was evident in the first twenty minutes of the drive. The truck came up to a bunch of other safari trucks, turns out there was a leopard lying next to the tree where it had just killed and impala. All of the trucks has kept a safe distance and so there was a gap very close to the leopard. Guess where our truck went? Oh yes, right next to the wild animal. Apparently Mike and James thought Duncan was making a noise to try to scare the leopard from coming closer to the car. He was not, he was trying to get them to shut the hell up so the leopard did not attack us. It came to the truck and just stared right at us. I was ok with this while it was on Mike's side. But then it came to my side and just stared at me. I was so nervous. I tried to not even look at it so it could not tell how afraid I was. Luckily it ended up just walking away. Duncan later told us he was very nervous when Mike and James were talking. Apparently when nobody talks the animal sees the vehicle as one huge object, it does not notice there are people inside. While talking the animal is able to make out that we are all individuals. Did I mention that this was an open vehicle? Well the rest of the night was amazing as well, we saw lions, warthogs, giraffes, zebras, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, and just about anything else you can think of. After an amazing night I did not think it could get any better. I was so happy.
Then that night I went to bed in our tent and was woken to the sound of very loud footsteps next to my head. I laid as still as possible knowing there were elephants walking within inches of my head. One wrong step and my head would have been a pancake. So I really did not want to startle the elephant. James woke up and decided we needed to see them. He opened the tent door and we watched the elephants tearing the leaves off of all the trees in the camp. Mike was then awoken to an elephant throwing dirt on the side of his tent. It was amazing the see such huge wild animals so close. Finally after watching them for a couple of hours they moved on. We got a couple more hours of sleep and then went out for another game drive. I did not think this one could be nearly as good as the one we went on the night before. I should have know to have faith in Duncan. After driving for a while, Duncan heard the monkeys barking. He immediately said, there must be a leopard. Of course he spotted it running from it seemed like miles away, none of us could even spot it. Didn't matter, Duncan would get us as close to the action as possible. So we were on the move to go see the leopard. When we got close we saw that it had killed a baby monkey. I was so impressed with the leopard knowing that even a few yards away, we were not a threat. At the same time it was very aware of the hyenas that were closing into try to steal the kill. The leopard took off with the monkey and headed up a tree. I felt like I was watching a special on national geographic. I have decided I will not be able to ever go on another safari, my expectations are now far too high.
Next in Zambia we went to Livingstone. In Livingstone we visited Victoria Falls, rode elephants, and went canoeing on the Great Zambezi. Also more reasons why I love Zambia. Of course the elephant ride was my favorite. My elephant's name was Chavuruka. She is a young eight year old, and she acts like it. The whole time the handler kept yelling at Chavuruka while she was distracted and eating everything in sight. At the end we got to sit on our elephant's knee and feed them. Well she got a bit too excited and was basically smacking me in the face with her trunk. I loved my little elephant!
After Zambia there was a lot of driving and me sitting in the back and watching a lot of movies on my laptop attempting to ignore all of the comments made from the two in the front. It was a great trip that was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I do not know a lot of people who rent a car and drive through five African countries. I could talk about the trip forever but I have something more important to talk about.
As I have mentioned in my previous blogs Mike and I have been working on a village project. We have finished the surveying portion. The first problem that we are going to try to tackle is the lack of mosquito nets. Having nets is one of the easiest ways to prevent malaria. Many people in the village do not have enough nets for their family. Therefor they are affected by malaria several times per year. There is treatment for malaria, but having chronic malaria can cause further issues such as anemia. It also costs the government and other organizations such as U.S. Aid tons of money per year. Families here are often also reluctant to take family members to the hospital at the first sign of illness and cannot afford the transportation to hospitals. Remember the little boy that was dying in Mzuzu, it turned out he had very severe malaria. It is treatable but also without proper treatment and a weakened immune system death often occurs. Some issues we anticipate in providing nets are the people will sell the nets for money, or they will use them for other uses such as fishing nets. We have talked about what we can do to ensure this does not happen. One idea we have is in order to hold people responsible for nets we will charge 200 kwacha per net. A standard net costs about 1200 kwacha (which is about three dollars). We think that by charging a small fee the nets will be cared for and used for the correct purpose. We also think that education is a key factor, in order for a family to have the opportunity to purchase a net they will have to attend an education session. I also think that staying involved with the community and doing frequent checks on the families to ensure they are using their nets will help as well. I am very excited about this project and think that it will go well and make some positive and lasting impact. We also have other plans for the community which I am very excited about. We are tying to focus on one task at a time
In order to buy these nets we will need some support! We are having a meeting on Tuesday morning with people in the community to discuss the plans. We will then get a rough estimate of how many people wish to purchase nets at a discounted price. There are approximately 110 households in the community, the chief has estimated about 50 nets will be needed in the community, I think an average of one per household are needed. This would be around 350 dollars needed to purchase these nets. If you would like to donate to the cause please visit my fundraising page http://www.acharityproject.com/f/PediatricNurse make a donation and put a comment and state that it is for mosquito nets. One net is about 3 dollars, so buying one net could potentially protect a couple of adults or help cover several children. It is amazing how so little money can be used for such a lifesaving cost. Thank you in advance. I know that I have an amazing support system, I could not be more grateful for that. I would not be here if it were not for all of the support I have received along the way.
