So far our trip to Africa has been amazing. We have spent the past week in Zambia, where we have had a plethora of meetings with social workers, visits to schools and villages, and interactions with locals. One such activity, which I found to be one of the most interesting parts of our trip so far, was our visit to a rural school two days ago.

On our way to Victoria Falls, we stopped at a village to deliver 50 mosquito nets. These are given out for free to Zambians to prevent them from getting Malaria while they sleep. The thought is that in the day time, you can brush off mosquitoes, but you cannot prevent mosquitoes from biting you in the night. Hence, a group that is devoted to fighting malaria delivers these nets. I was shocked to learn that 65% of Zambians suffer from malaria in their lifetimes. We chose a school to deliver these nets to with the thought that it was important to give these nets to children, who are unable to fight the disease.

The school was amazing. We attended an assembly, where the kids all sang for us and a few got on stage and gave performances. We all got a ton of pictures, which will be fun to see after our trip. The coolest part of our visit was seeing how intense the music that the kids were singing. Imagine going to any elementary school that has 150 kids and asking them to sing. Chances are that, regardless of how many times these kids practiced, their performance would be weakened by stage fright, a lack of enthusiasm, and a failure to sing on one beat. These children were on a perfect beat and sang so loudly and with so much enthusiasm that my ears hurt when I went into the room. The dance and poetry performances of these kids would have been impressive even by the highest standards of a high school drama program. The last thing that struck me was that these kids interacted with us and each other in basically the same way that I would expect an American kid to act.

After we dropped off the nets we went to go see a village where the kids form the school lived. This was interesting because this village was unlike the other villages that we have been to, which were at least partially accustomed to foreigners. The houses were made of mud and straw and the toilets were holes that were dug into the ground. We got to see where one of the kids from the school slept, which was literally a walls constructed around solid ground with a few blankets inside. However, the most vivid memory I have of this room was the smell inside. It was not a smell created by a human. Instead, it was the type of smell that is found in crammed spaces of thousand year old ruins. Overall, I thought that this was one of the coolest and most interesting parts of our vacation so far. Right now we are waiting the airport for our flight to Cape Town for the last leg our trip.

John

The long 15 hour plane ride was well worth the wait. Even though the difference when going out of the airport in Johannesburg, once you head away from the city, Boston suburbs and Johannesburg suburbs are extremely different. Instead of larger houses with $50,000 cars, there are houses made out of bricks and cinder blocks with goats and chickens.

On the first couple days, we attended a meeting at the Umsubomvu Youth Fund Center. We were able to get a full overview of the entire organization and everything they do for young adults. After this, we visited someone who was a member of the UYFC and who received a loan to start a business. This was a young woman in her twenties who was starting up a spa, and she and her mom were so excited about starting up this business. This was interesting to see because it showed how successful Microfinance can be.

The next place we went was the Phinda Game Reserve for our safari. The drive from Jo’berg to the reserve was eight hours long and it took even longer because we got stuck behind a bus on the back roads at the end of the drive before we got to the reserve. The camp site we stayed at was amazing and the game drives we went on were incredible because we were able to get so close to the animals that we saw. After the first day I already wanted to be a ranger so I could do that every day and get paid doing it.

When we were at the game reserve we went to the nearby town to see the schools and the new institutions they installed for computer and health classes. Going to the school was a lot of fun because the kids loved seeing us and swarmed around us to get in a picture. After the safari trip we headed back to Jo’berg for a night before heading off to Zambia.

We stayed in Lusaka for the first couple days in Zambia. We did a lot in Lusaka and never even got a chance to relax during the day because of everyone we were meeting and everything we were going to. Everyone we met was part of some program helping with Microfinance, malaria prevention, or HIV/AIDs prevention. One of the places we went to was called grassroot soccer and it used soccer to educate people about HIV/AIDs. We were able to play a couple games that they use in the program that were fun and after that were even able to play a soccer match with a bunch of Zambians who were part of the program. This was incredible because it was a once in a lifetime experience.

After Lusaka we took a six hour drive to Livingstone. In Livingstone we went to visit a village, barder with villagers for different trinkets and able to see Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls was amazing and we got soaked because the falls spray up so much mist after hitting the bottom of the 120m long waterfall. The only part I was disappointed about was that I wasn’t able to go on the tallest bungee jump spot in the world, even though I don’t know if I would be able to do it once I was actually standing on the edge.

Nick