It was so nice to be able to share a snapshot of my little world here with someone from home. If you check my photo albums on facebook I was able to upload photos from his trip a little while back, but I am just now getting to blogging about it. (I hope to add his point of view at some point if he is willing to talk about his perspective briefly)

He came for just shy of three weeks and it was jam-packed and a ton of fun. We started off shortly after his arrival to Livingstone. Although I got to come to see Victoria Falls, aka Mosi-O-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) last August it was such a different experience at the end of rainy season. When we walked across the front of the falls it was literally raining on us, and 9k away in town where we were staying we could see the mist rising over the tree line, which is now totally understandable why it is called “smoke” to me. It is such an impressive place and although I find myself in constant awe of God’s creation here, the magnitude of what I internally experienced both times I have visited the falls is inexplicable. We also did bungi jumping & the gorge swing while in Livingstone…that’s right, I jumped off a bridge, twice…better yet, it’s the bridge that connects the Zambia/Zimbabwe border. It was a blast; Ryan posted photos (thank you) and tagged me in them on facebook if you would like to check that out. And yes, I screamed, so much that I took my own breath away!

We came back to Lusaka in order to fly to Mfuwe and go on safari in South Luangwa National Park. It is so crazy to me that I live a little less 200k from such a collection of wildlife. We were able to go on 5 game drives while we were there, that’s 20 hours of safari time! We got to see so many things, including 3 of the Big Five (Elephant, Lion & Buffalo) Its difficult to see the cats during green season, so we didn’t get to see a Leopard though we did see prints and attempted to track it. The Rhino population is now sadly extinct in South Luangwa, so I would say we were pretty lucky to see 3 out of 5. We stayed at two very nice lodges while we were there and got to learn about the history of the park & the area as well, which was really interesting because the first walking safaris & evening safaris in Sub-Saharan Africa started where we stayed. I tried to do a pretty good job putting captions on my photos in the facebook album from Ryan’s trip so I hope you check those out if you haven’t already.

Aside from the “touristy” aspect of his trip, Ryan came with me to Chadiza to see my village and the district boma (town.) Not only that, he cycled with me the 50k from Chipata to my village with me, which is really a big deal for someone who is on vacation don’t you think? We also biked to my boma one day so that makes for a total of 75k for his trip. He was really fortunate and they were dancing Nyau in my village the weekend he was there so he got some cultural exposure and I was able to take him to Mwala Basic School as well and show him were I do a lot of my work.

After the village we spent some time in Lusaka before he flew out in a little more western setting and it was nice to be able to go out to a nice dinner, hang out at a coffee shop, see a movie, etc. I really enjoyed his visit, it was also really neat to see his reaction to certain things I’ve become very used to, which is why when I have an opportunity I will add his thoughts to this post in order to better supplement it.