Things are falling into place now. The suitcases lie on the floor and filling fast! I have been busy buying Malaria pills, gifts and things that I will need in Zambia. I still need a good used digital camera for Felix. I will keep adding to the two bags until they hit 50 pounds. It is my second trip for 2010, being my 9th year of going and at least twice a year; it is becoming a routine. Still in need of more funding to complete the objectives.
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Now I have my ticket the only thing left to do is wait until I leave. All the things that need to be done will get done or not. Right. I know what to take; things like malaria pills, small gifts, office things to distribute to the facilitators and the list goes on. Air Canada has restricted baggage to one bag; the second bag will cost 50.00 dollars. My method of packing is I just keep stuffing things in until my fish weighing scale hung from the balcony roof says 50 pounds. I used to take Empress Blend tea from Murchies here in Victoria to the Chiefs that I work with but there are too many Chiefs now. One Chief, who will remain anonymous, when given the gift of tea, for the first and last time said to me when I presented to him, “don’t you have anything stronger?” So I just give all of them a traditional token now, when we meet. Or the next thing that will happen is they will want a car! Maria always throws a curve at my packing plans by adding pounds of gifts for the wives of the facilitators. Anyway packing continues!
I have bought my ticket to Zambia today. Thanks Alison at Tier One Travel in Victoria for your splendid service. I will fly to Frankfurt and than onto Addis Abba and than Lusaka. It takes about 32 hours. I will leave Canada on October 6th so I have a little longer enjoying this beautiful fall weather here in Victoria. I will miss Maria and my anniversary; actually I have only been home once in the last 9 years, being in Zambia every year. Sorry Maria but I will be home for Christmas!
I took this photo as a boarded a flight at Addis Abba, the technician (I hope he was one) was pounding something inside the turbine) sure makes you feel real safe!
Here just let me fix it!
I am looking at the calendar and saying “wow, where has all the time gone!” I am saying this in more ways than one. Yesterday I got my first ‘old age pension’ cheque, that’s the first 65 years under the bridge. In a month I will go to Africa again and the second trip for 2010. I have lost count on how many trips or how much time I have spent in Africa since 2002. Except for my very first trip I am prepared to face all the challenges and rewards that the trip in October and November will bring. Funding is always the biggest challenge (if I had more funding I could do more) and the biggest reward is to see all the smiling faces of the thousands I have befriended in Zambia and Mozambique. There is sadness too. Like the young boy in the photo below, in 2003, I worked in his village and every time I arrived in the village he would run out to greet me and I would put him on my Honda dropping my helmet over his tiny head. He loved it. His sister preferred the biscuits I would bring her, the bike was too challenging. She preferred sweets. One visit the young boy never appeared. He had died of Malaria three days before. His time had run out much too fast. It is too bad we could not call ‘time out’.
Well that has been the fastest month every in my life. I have been to Zambia, did all that I needed to do and have returned home safely. Over the next while I will post some reports on what we accomplished this trip. I will say that I kept healthy and moved about even though our logistical plan had collapsed with the engine blowing up near Zimba on our way to Livingstone. Even the Spitting Cobra we surprised on a forest trail at our Kamalamba Demonstration Forest missed its mark; namely me. He was just as scared as me but his reflexes were quicker. It only took him a second to stand on his tail and strike. The pause in my reflexes almost cost me fang holes in my shirt and soiled shorts. Thanks Fred for pulling me back and breaking its spell.
