Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Secret.

“Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything.” 
 
Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

I have wanted to find a way to stay in Africa and I suppose the universe has been listening.  I am happy to tell you that I have been given the opportunity to stay here in Zambia.  I will be working for the same organization, JSI (www.jsi.com if you are interested in reading a bit more about the work we do), but I will be moving from Mongu to our central office in Lusaka into a different role.  I am thrilled about the opportunity and feel lucky to have found a job that will be both challenging and allow me to stay in this beautiful country.  Of course, I will have to find my way navigating around a much larger city (Lusaka is the capital of Zambia and the biggest city here with a population of about 2 million) but at least I am somewhat familiar with the city after weekend visits during the past year and a few friends to help me along the way.

I will officially be moving in September and will let you know my new mailing address (so probably best to not send any more mail since it takes about 2 months to get here).  I look forward to sharing new adventures and, as always, you are welcome to visit anytime!

Monday, July 8, 2013

Holiday in the desert.

It’s been a good holiday week.  Okay, it didn’t start off so exciting.  I traveled to Lusaka initially to get my dentist appointments over with…yes, the tooth that broke eating rice in Mongu is now fixed and hopefully there will be no further teeth problems in my near future.  It was certainly a problem dental year.  Anyway, after the dentist saga I met up with my friends from Mongu to attend our friend Karen’s wedding which we were all quite excited about since it was our first Zambian wedding.  Turns out it was pretty westernized but still fun.  We watched them say their vows in the morning and then attended the reception and enjoyed some dancing and although it was freezing we braved the cold and stayed until the very end (in fact, I think we were the last guests to leave).

The next morning I left to Namibia with my friend Mine – Namibia has been one of the countries I’ve been anxious to get to so was excited to finally be making my way there.  Mine and I decided not to do too much planning and really just sort of planned as we went.  Unfortunately, we didn’t plan for the extreme cold which we encountered upon our arrival.  It was crazy!  We both had to buy jackets and basically wore as many clothes as possible to stay warm.  We still had a great time visiting the beautiful Namib desert and taking a day trip to Sandwich Harbor (outside of Walvis Bay).  We stayed in Windhoek a couple of days and then drove to the coast where we stayed for several days.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to drive down south (to Fish River Canyon which I’ve heard is beautiful) but maybe next time.  We loved the amazing coastline bumping up against the desert though and had a great time learning how to “sandboard.”  Turns out it’s really just like snowboarding only very sandy.  Our only complaint was the cold…who knew the desert would be so cold?  But the beauty made up for our lack of warmth.

I hope you enjoy the photos (make sure to visit my photo album over there to the right).  I came back feeling refreshed and relaxed.  Now, back to Mongu.  For now.