LearnServe Zambia - Bryon Ford

 

 Today was great…..it was the most adventurous day of the trip as we visited one of the seven natural wonders of the world: Victoria Falls! This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The water clashing amongst the rocks was so amazing. As Nadja screamed “Oh my God!” I ran across the bridge with Jeremy and we got completely soaked. After we got over the bridge, we ventured through the many points of Victoria Falls. I took several pictures of rainbows in the mist and saw bungee jumpers. As I was crossing back to the dry side, I actually opened my eyes. This bridge is so dangerous, but beautiful at the same time.

 After viewing the majesty of the falls, most of the LSZ group hiked down the side of Victoria Falls. Although the hike was hard (and even harder with wet clothes), we made it down and it was completely worth it. It was like a whirlpool of beauty…just the force of the water pushing into one cycling spot was utterly mind boggling. I can’t believe that something this beautiful could exist in nature. As we were coming up, we were greeted by tons of baboons. At the top, we went to the Victoria Falls market which was utterly ridiculous. The venders were very pushy with their prices.
Although Victoria Falls was amazing, the African safari was just as amazing.

On safari we saw an elephant, zebras, giraffes, impalas, wildebeests, and so much more.

Just when the Safari was getting a little bit dry, we stopped at this nice picnic area, saw two great big hippos, and took a great photo montage.
 

After all of that we ended our day at this place called the Art Cafe. This place had a lot of atmosphere and the nicest Canadian couple owned it. Although the food was awful (the meat was meatless), the characters there were very colorful because there was a reggae concert called “Yes Africa” taking place.

This was the most adventurous day of the trip, and we did so much. I am looking forward to the rest of the trip and hopefully Chikumbuso will be good. I am anxious because I don’t want to get too personal with the kids. The Malambu kids were really great and honestly life changing. They taught me so much about how serious education is and how you should not take it for granted. Although I know what I am saying sounds very cliché, having this experience has been life changing. I know if I was in that situation, I would not be able to focus on my education like these kids did. They are very respectful and that respect will get them far. One thing that many Americans lack is respect. These kids are so grateful and they are special because the gratefulness is genuine. 

 But now I am going on a tangent and need to get back on point. Today was the most adventurous day of the entire trip. It was great.

 PS: I just met this group 8 days ago and I already feel like I have known them for years. I love these guys. Jeremy is really awesome and humorous, Gaby is a great leader and really pretty, and everybody is just great. I am having a great trip.

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 *You can visit: http://learn-serve.org/trips/zambia/ to follow SEED students Brittney Bowles and Bryon Ford and SEED staff members Jonathan Alexis and Topher Kandik during their exciting LearnServe Zambia adventure!

LearnServe Zambia - Brittney Bowles

We finally made it to Zambia after spending over 24 hours in multiple airports and on multiple planes. On the first flight, I sat by Bryon and this Ethiopian man, Mele. It was nice talking to him at first but then he never stopped. And while we had a talkative person, Kylie and Sam had a rude lady. Kylie said that lady spilled her drink on her and told her “you’ll live,” then she used her napkin to wipe her mouth instead of giving it to Kylie. Kylie ended up having to ask me for a napkin.

Nadja and I had a horrible experience trying to use the restrooms in the airport at Addis Ababa. The bathroom was all the way on the other side of the building. In addition to that the line was extremely long because the bathroom only had three stalls.

Finally we both made it to a stall and noticed too late that NEITHER OF OUR STALLS HAD TOILET PAPER! We both asked someone to give us some toilet paper, and a lady gives us one travel size tissue. We both said thank you went to go wash our hands with the little bit of soap the bathroom had.

After all of that we settled into Juls Guesthouse around 5:00pm. The boys played with footballs and soccer balls outside while the girls talked inside. Our first dinner was good. The ladies who work at the guesthouse prepared it for us. We had rice, chicken, beef, and vegetables. We were told that we should be drinking 2 liters of water a day. We also wrote in our journals today and talked about our do’s and don’ts for riding on planes. Tomorrow we will be going to the market and some of us will be going grocery shopping.

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 *You can visit: http://learn-serve.org/trips/zambia/ to follow SEED students Brittney Bowles and Bryon Ford and SEED staff members Jonathan Alexis and Topher Kandik during their exciting LearnServe Zambia adventure!