Traveling

Long drive to Lusaka....several bus breakdowns along the way. I forgot to mention in my last post that the previous Friday (our last day in Meheba), a few of our friends went to Solwezi for the day and checked the FORGE P.O. Box and returned that evening with the most AMAZING care package ever. My mom sent it way back in June and it barely made it before we left! Anyways, we were basically out of food at the compound, so we all shared the snacks Friday night and for the road trips over the next few days. Very happy.

Sunday in Lusaka people used internet, saw movies, shopped etc. I laid low and had an awesome lunch at the Indian food restaurant just down the street from the FORGE flat. At least, I thought it was an awesome lunch until about 3 hours later when I got really really sick with a very intense bout of food poisoning (?). My time in the bathroom coincided with one of the occasional water shortages that affect our flat.....lovely. I took some Cipro and drank a lot of water and made it through.

Monday morning we took buses down to Livingstone. It took about 6 hours and we were pretty excited. Stayed at a very fun hostel called Jollyboys. It was fun to spend a little time as part of the backpacker culture....I like meeting people from all over the world and overhearing their accents and stories. It was good practice for all of us to reduce our experiences in Meheba to 1-2 minute blurbs for strangers. We had a ridiculously delicious dinner and listened to some live jazz.

Tuesday we went to Victoria Falls. Absolutely beautiful. We walked around the 3 different trails in the park. Got some amazing photos. We ran into the head UNHCR staff member from Meheba in the park vacationing with his family. Small world. Went on a sunset cruise (booze cruise) on the Zambezi River and saw lots of hippos, crocs, drunk teenage French tourists. Very fun, although a couple people in our group were sick from the food.

Wednesday some of us went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi. You start in the gorge below Vic Falls....absolutely beautiful view. I was so excited about the whole thing when we started but things changed a little after a couple scary moments in the water. Our half day trip ran through rapids 1-10 on the river (excluding #9 which is class VI....everyone gets out of the river and walks around it). Of the 9 rapids we ran, 4 were class V, including the very first rapid of the day. My friend Tristan and I got caught at a pretty sharp incline in the raft and were unable to hold onto the OS line (the oh shit line) and we fell out into the water.....it was hands down the most intense moment of my life (thus far). The current was incredibly strong and it kept me under for what seemed like a really really long time...it was really hard to get up to the surface. When I finally made it up, it was chaotic and hard to see or breathe. A man in a yellow kayak rescued me. I climbed back in the boat but was really shaken up.....we hadn't made it through the first rapid, so we had to attempt it again. Our friend who couldn't swim chose to get out of the water at this point and head home. My mood had changed and I was admittedly a little scared, but we kept going. We made it through some HUGE rapids w/o too many problems, but on #8 our line was a little off and we capsized and everyone fell in....so tough on me...the water and swells were just huge and the rapids were really long so it took several minutes before things were calm enough to find a boat or kayak to save us. I definitely had a little PTSD for the next day or so. But the pictures we got were amazing! So are the bruises all over my body...

Thursday I took it slow and read by the pool at the hostel before we all got on a bus back to Lusaka. We watched some amazing B movies including a Craig David DVD.

Friday we had a final meeting at UNHCR Lusaka. Basically we all gave a recap of our project details and answered a few questions about our experiences there. Then we had lunch before our final FORGE meeting to determine the recommended project areas for next year's team. Joe was super sick and went to the clinic halfway during the meeting. Turns out he had malaria! Poor kiddo, he had to travel while feeling absolutely awful....Friday night I did a ton of final accounting to hand into FORGE mgmt and lots of paperwork to give to the Project Manager who will oversee our employees for the next year.

Saturday we woke up and went to the airport. Comedy of errors ensued, during which Joe, Michael and I were at the end of the line checking in for the flight to London. They were closing the flight just as we got up to the counter....as such, they only gave us boarding passes for the first of our two flights. Our flight was late into Heathrow and our 2 hour layover was reduced to about 75 minutes....then we had to wait on the plane on the tarmac for like 30 minutes while they tracked down enough buses to carry us over to the terminal. By the time we got into the airport, they had closed our flight to JFK and the 3 of us w/o boarding passes couldn't get them. Booooo. So the rest of our group went on and we waited in a very long line to get things sorted out. BA put us up in a hotel and gave us meals....but it was still sort of a bummer. We had meals at this cheesy restaurant in the hotel lobby playing really loud 80s music and then went to sleep. Was nice to take a shower with hot water for the first time in a while, though.

Sunday we had breakfast (obscene amounts of food at these buffets, I tell you!!) at the hotel and went to the airport. Checked in w/o issue and actually had a small upgrade to a slightly nicer type of seat. Watched movies and ate and checked on Joe.....so happy to finally land in NYC. Less happy to discover that none of our bags had made it through......BA is not sure where they are, either. Great. Went to Sage's apartment and spent a lovely evening with some of my best girlfriends. My first meal was sushi....so great. Met up with one of my roommies for this year for a drink. Then we got frozen yogurt at Pinkberry and came home to watch Entourage. NYC is crazy, and I can't sleep so I've been up getting my fill of high-speed internet for the past hour or so. Going to El Paso later today....hooray!