Victoria Falls

I went to Victoria Falls the 1st weekend I was here. It was breathtakingly amazing. The falls have the largest falling sheet of water in the world. Due to the size & shape of the falls I couldn't get a good picture of the entire thing. This one is about 1/4 of it.

Victoria Falls is a big adventure sport place. The British student I work with did the bungee jump. I was a bit too scared for that, but I did do the gorge swing. It is a 55 meter drop before the rope catches & you swing out across the gorge a few times.

This is Jacquee jumping off a cliff into the gorge. I went off after her, but I went backwards with my eyes closed b/c I was super scared. It was incredibly terrifying.

The Zambian word for Victoria Falls means "The Smoke that Thunders" b/c there is so much mist coming up from the falls. After walking on the bridge by the falls, I was completely soaked. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but my skirt was still dripping even after wringing it out. Twice.

My favorite thing was taking a microlight flight over the falls. The view was pretty much indescribable from the air. In addition to the beauty of the falls, I also saw hippos, crocodiles, elephants, zebras, & some gazelle like thing from the air.
One of the more impressive parts was the barren land all around the river. The contrast was truly bizarre.

This is actually a stock photo from the end of the dry season, but the land around the falls already looked like this when I was there. How can there be so much water that I am soaked to the bone & a few yards away a desert?

We ended one day with a lovely sunset cruise on the Zambezi River where we saw some African wildlife as we floated along. So, yeah, I highly recommend a trip to Victoria Falls at some point in your life. Seriously. It is awesome in the truest sense of the word. Filipinos would even say it is "aw-ful" (yeah, they think it means "full of awe". it is kinda hilarious when they use it in their advertising)

Traveling on Zambian Buses

The morning after I arrived in Lusaka, I headed down to Livingstone (home of Victoria Falls) for the long weekend (Monday was African Independence Day or something). I figured spending 7 hours on a bus would help me adjust to culture shock. One the way down our only big adventures were stopping for a few cows to cross the highway & driving through a small wildfire.

The ride back wasn’t quite so pleasant. The bus we took back assigned seat numbers & the people a row into front of us got into an argument with some other Zambians about whether they were in the correct seats. As the discussion continued, it spread toward the back of the bus where a man started going off in Nyanja about how it must be the wazungu’s (white people’s) fault because we didn’t know how to ride African buses (even though we were in the middle of the disputed section so either the people in front or the people behind were the ones whom had made the mistake…) This prompted my office mate, who has been living in Africa for the past 8 months, to start yelling at him about the numbering system & how race had nothing to do with one’s ability to read numbers. The bus employee seemed completely clueless, but eventually we all moved back a row only to discover several hours later we’d been right originally.

Before we even got moving a preacher got up & started evangelizing. After pointing out multiple times that he did not ask for money on the bus, he gave an almost interesting discourse on living water. He concluded by telling us we were all born in sin & going to hell. I personally didn’t think his strategy of trapping people on a bus to make them listen to him was going to win him many converts, but apparently this is a common occurrence on Zambian buses.

Our bus driver seemed to think that the horn was a way to say hello to every vehicle, person, or animal that we passed, which made sleeping virtually impossible. As the day went on the bus became increasingly crowded. This lead to our being rather squashed & to a growing fragrance that slowly permeated everything on the bus. Lovely. We were actually quite lucky to make it both ways without breaking down. Another office mate of mine came home on a later bus, which broke down after an hour and was eventually fixed with a tin can & a ball of rusty wire. Yeah, traveling in Africa is kinda awesome.

brave new world

The only other African city I've spent time in is Nairobi. I did not expect Lusaka to be quite as developed as Nairobi, but I also did not expect what it has turned out to be. It almost reminds me more of the tiny village I worked in in Western Kenya, just multiplied out in all directions, then the capital city of a country. I think I saw a few buildings in the city center that were tall so hopefully I'll find the more urban areas. The other Emory student here, J, says there is a strip mall & a movie theater, but that is about it. Good thing I brought some books.

Despite being 8000 miles from Atlanta, one of the first things I saw leaving the airport was a large modern Coke advertisement. A bit further down the road was the CDC/NIH research site. It is like location deja vu.

My flat is nice - 3 bedrooms, power when it works, hot water, internet, & a lady that cleans. It is also near a mosque so we get to hear the call to pray 5 times a day. Everytime it starts I think it is a tornado siren, but then the man starts talking & I realize what it is. I'm hoping I'll learn to sleep through the earliest one.

adventures in airports

I arrived in South Africa this morning on the biggest plane I've ever been on. It wasn't as big as the new airbus planes, but it did have two levels & a bar on board. The 11 hour ride was greatly improved by 66 different films to choose from on my little computer screen. I went with "Dan in Real Life" & "27 Dresses". I would recommend Dan over 27.

The Jo-burg airport was probably my last taste of western life until August. It could have an airport anywhere in Europe or the States - clean, orderly, overpriced shops. I cannot adequately describe my joy in finding some soft couches in a coffee shop there. They were so incredibly fabulous. I slept there until I got on my plane to Lusaka, where I slept until the plane started bouncing around as we landed.

The Lusaka airport is half the size my hometown's airport, ie, about the size of the women's clothing section in Target. It has 2 gates, 1 baggage belt, & 1 customs official for all visitors. I didn't have enough US dollars for the upfront visa fee (apparently it had increased, but the website wasn't updated). So I talked 2 security people into letting me through everything b/c the only ATM in the airport is actually just outside of it. Of course the ATM gives you Zambian Kwacha (exchange rate: $1 = 34,000 kwacha) so then I had to get it changed into US dollars so the customs people would give me back my passport. Why they only wanted US dollars, which they would then have to change back to kwacha to use, I do not know. I was successful in convincing them to give me a visitor visa instead of a business one (much cheaper for me!). And now that I have paid my dues to the Zambian government I can come back to Zambia for free for the next 3 years.

open all the doors & let you out into the world

I'm on my way! I'm in London waiting for my flight to South Africa right now. Due to a late arrival & major baggage issues, I don't have enough time to actually go into the city this time. I hoping my return trip will be more successful.

Before I left I had a series of good-byes. An old friend came to visit, some church people had a little party, my mom & brother came down for a day, & I talked to some long-distance friends on the phone. One of these long-distance conversations was with my little sister. Being the loving 14 year old that she is, this is how our conversation started:

What?
Hi, Kirsten.
What?
I was calling to say hi.
I'm hanging up now.
No, wait, I'm leaving for Africa today.
Oh, yeah. I forgot.

Thanks, Kirsten. I really feel loved when I talk to you.

getting ready to go

There are lots of things to do before leaving the country for 3 months. One of these is letting your bank know where you'll be traveling so they won't think your ATM card has been stolen. Here's a snippet of my conversation from when I called my bank earlier today:

I'll be in London & Zambia & possibly some other African countries
Okay, London & what was the other one?
Zambia.
Ummmm, can you spell that?
Z-A-M-B-I-A.
Oh, I've never heard of that place.
It is in Africa & I may travel to some other African countries as well. Do you need all of them?
Okay, so you said you'd be in France & Zam-... I don't know how to say that.
Ummm, what? (thinking: When did London move to France?)
What countries will you be in?
Great Britain, Zambia, South Africa, & possibly Botswana, Zimbabwe, & Namibia
Hmmm, I just going to put Africa
Okay, thanks