Lunch break from the clinic right now, using free internet at one of the fancy hotels in town. They simply give us the code, assuming we're guests because we're white, ridiculous. I'm mainly just writing this in hopes I can get some pics up from Livingstone. I tried for HOURS yesterday and nothing got uploaded. So...day two...internet fun. Nothing new or interesting to say at the moment, I went to dinner at the house of a BBC reporter last night which was kind of cool. You meet some of the most interesting people here. Today I'm wearing a dress from one of the second hand markets in town, fun to get super cheap new clothes (imported direct from England). Off to try uploading pics. Cross your fingers...you'll know if it works because you'll see pictures! Andrea ... read more

Hi all, Writing now from the clinic, where internet is a bit of a drama-filled subject. Corpmed (the larger private facility which TTAF is within) has internet in most of the rooms, however, they refuse to connect the TTAF computers because they feel TTAF (as a nonprofit) is sucking away the resources of Corpmed. Corpmed has an odd relationship with TTAF in that they let TTAF operate out of their offices and use most of their equipment yet always with a strange reluctance. This has been an odd week for me in that I learned a lot of information that I would rather not know about people that I’m attempting to respect. A Zambian who had lived in the US described America to me as a “land of laws” to which I had to agree. America ... read more

Hello Friends, My mom has been harassing me, informing me that a blog once every couple weeks apparently doesn't count for much. So I thought I would step it up and actually start uploading pictures!!! Exciting, no? Anyhoo...so I'm at my "teaching" job today and am slowly forcing my future nursing student to do lots of math homework and I thought in the times between questions I would come up with a blog entry. My life has become fairly formulaic. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I teach Math and Science and Computers and Knitting. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at the clinic, Saturday morning Yoga, Sunday evening dinner at Tim's. The only things that change from day to day are the people I interact with. I'm always meeting new people and at the clinic you ... read more

So I know...the idea of a blog is that I'm supposed to write in it every once in a while, right? It turns out thats not as easy as it sounds in a country like this. It isn't that people don't have computers, they do, and a lot of them even have internet...its that the internet is sloooow....like 1994 slow. Its a change of pace, everything here is. The first couple of days I was here I had to reteach myself to walk. As I've always thought of walking (in my foolish, American way) its about getting somewhere. But here, its about the journey, what people do here could not possibly be called walking in any sense of the word, people stroll: Slowly, carefully, with meaning. On my first day of walking I felt like the ... read more

I arrived at the Dulles airport to discover, upon passing through security. I'd forgotten the Trader Joe's dark chocolate caramels purchased especially for my trip. I was saddened by my absent mindedness but figured this would not be the end of the world and continued onward. Dulles was oddly empty and in no time I found myself sitting on a very large airplane with three seats to myself on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa. My nearest neighbor was an elderly South African man who, overhearing my conversation with Aunt Becky began to talk about how different Americans are from the people I would be meeting in Zambia. All seemed quite well until he commented, "I hope you don't like luxuries such as chocolate". This, obviously struck a very sensitive nerve in me as the man ... read more