Holiday, holiday!

Part 1: A Zambian Holiday I am officially on holiday! I’ve spent the last few weeks bumming around southern Namibia checking out a few of the towns including Keetmanshoop, Mariental, Tses, etc. It was really interesting to see some of the towns and villages other volunteers live in. The amenities were drastically different, as in they all have electricity, hot water, and shops in their village. It is reminiscent of west Texas where the desert seems to go on forever. Coming to Zambia though has once again reshaped my perspective of Namibia. I am currently in Livingstone, near Victoria Waterfalls, and this is considered to be a touristy town. I don’t know if it is appropriate to compare in to Swakopmund, because that is Namibia’s touristy town. But here in Zambia, I have found more of what I expected to see in Africa including villages that seem to have a center and don’t sprawl on forever, busier roads, garbage on the streets, all the things you’d expect to find in a developing country. Namibia is so clean compared to Zambia, even Owamboland where I was shocked to find piles of bottles and cans in my village. The difference is there are central piles and garbage is not simply scattered everywhere. Zambia is beautiful though the countryside has gently sloping hills and there are a mixture of huts and modern homes. It is also pretty lush, with lots of greenery. So before I go any further, just to give you all a rundown of the basics: I came to Zambia on the Intercape (a South African bus line that plays Christian media most of the way to Zambia). We got onto the bus at 4:30 pm in Windhoek and off the bus at 3:30 pm in Livingstone. When we got off the bus we were greeted by many, many taxi drivers and one man who claimed that he would walk us for free to our Hostel, which he ended up being legit despite all our skepticism. The hostel which we are staying at reminds me a lot of Saint Exupery in Nice. It is a house type thing with a sunken living room in the center with lots of oversized pillows. There is also hot water and vegetarian food so needless to say I am one happy camper! Since I have arrived here we have checked out the Zambian side of the falls. I learned from my Ruacana Falls experience and double and triple bagged everything so that nothing valuable would get wet. The falls right now are massive because it is the very end of rainy season. We walked along a bridge near the falls and literally could barely see our next step ahead of us because our vision was clouded by the massive amounts of water. It was a lot of fun though playing in the water. I also went kayaking on the Zambezi River. We had to turn off early though because the currents are really strong right now and we didn’t want to get too close to the falls. While kayaking we saw hippos on our 20 mile trek down the river, however we missed the crocodiles, though we are told they were in there with us too. Tomorrow with friends we’ll be going to Botswana for a few safaris, then hitting up town and the craft market before our final hurrah down the river on an evening dinner cruise. At the end of the week a few friends and I will head out to Lusaka before FINALLY heading home to Namibia. This is just a brief update for now, but I’ll update again before I head back to Namibia.