We have arrived in Livingstone, Zambia and Victoria Falls. Our hotel is a beautiful resort. Brushing my teeth and washing my hands with a faucet instead of bottled sterilized water is truly a treat. It’s hard though not to feel guilty being in a place like this after all that we’ve seen this week.
We saw a few monkeys on the hotel property today. My son is very anxious to me to see and photograph a giraffe for him, so I’m keeping a diligent watch. There are supposed to be giraffes on the property, as well as a herd of zebra. And of course, the monkeys. I’ve been told the monkeys will jump on your table to steal food or anything else they can. The monkeys we saw today didn’t get that close, and we saw why. The hotel employs a “guard” who patrols the property around the pool and dining areas with a sling shot. We noticed that the monkeys keep a close eye on that guy. They know just what his job is and they keep their distance.
Victoria Falls is just a short walk behind our hotel, so we ventured out to see it this afternoon. It is utterly spectacular. The Zambezi river waters are still very high from the rainy season, so the falls produce enormous amounts of mist. We can only see the top of the falls right now, as the mist blocks our view of the bottom. We can also see swirls of mist rising even higher than the falls (we could even see this from the plane as we came into Livingstone today) in billowing clouds of vapor. It is like it is raining upward. Clothes and everything else can get soaked very quickly at some lookout points. Zach and J.P. went across the bridge over the falls to a small island and in Zach’s words, they got “more than soaked!”
Tomorrow morning some of us are hoping to go on an elephant ride. We will all be going on a safari tour as well. Maybe that’s when I’ll get my son’s requested photograph of a giraffe.
Meanwhile, here are some notes I took this week:
Wednesday, July 13 in Ndola Zambia …
While the ladies were praciting their cleaning in our rooms, Leasa and I sat with Kunda outside enjoying some beautiful weather and talking. Kunda shared some details about the seasons in Zambia. In this part of Africa, they have three seasons. Winter lasts from May to July. Summer is from August to October. And from November to April, they are in the rainy season. It rains in sheets and sheets for five months. Some days will have a short break in the rain, but many days don’t.
Even during the dry months, most of the populations lives hand to mouth. They don’t have excess money or food to save for the rainy season. Kunda says most people don’t even understand the concept of saving. When the rains are very heavy all day, the people often can’t get out to find work so they don’t eat that day or even for several days in a row. Naturally, if the parents can’t buy food, the children don’t eat either. Thankfully, Wiphan’s meal program provides at least one meal for the students when they are in school. For most, it is their only food each day.
Some homes are made of fired clay bricks, but many are made of just sun dried bricks of clay. The roofs are covered in metal sheets with various other materials filling in the holes as best they can. We saw one home that was only covered with plastic grocery bags. It doesn’t take long for the rain outside and the leaking water inside to start turning the bricks back into mud. Kunda said, “Their homes just crumble down. So they squat until the dry season.” She means that they must stay with relatives or friends until the rain ends. Those that can repair their homes in the dry season. Those that can’t must start from scratch.
During the winter months, they have the basic colds and flu that we do. During the rainy season, malaria is rampant. The mosquitos breed rapidly. Wiphan has medical care available for the widows and orphans in their program. Kunda added, “Those people who cannot get medicine for the malaria simply die.” The medication for malaria is extremely cheap from our perspective, only a few bucks. But that is sadly more money than these people have. How tragic to lose a life, to leave a widow and orphans, for lack of just a few bucks.