Day 1 and 2

We arrived in Lusaka dazed and jet-legged yesterday.  We were greeted by Leslie, our professor at the airport, and made our way to the our arranged transport. A group of well-dressed men were conducting a TV interview outside the airport doors - we later found out this was related to the upcoming presidential elections in Zambia.  Zambia's president died in June 2011, and there is currently an interim president in position. He has "called for elections" to be held in September though people are skeptical as to whether the elections will be fair.  It should be very interesting to watch the events unfold over the next few weeks.

The rest of the evening was honestly a blur as I fought to keep my eyes open until we crashed at 7pm :)

Today we visited a neighborhood where my professor lived in the 1990s.  We spoke to a priest a local Catholic church who has worked to raise money to build a surrounding building for youth activities and a church office.  He rents parking spots in the large dirt plot in front of the church to neighbors for a fee in order to pay for the construction.  The building was started in April 2010, and as you can see in the photos is still but a shell.  Most impressive was his energy and enthusiasm to help his community, and most importantly provide a place for unemployed youth to congregate - instead of drinking which is a huge problem here among unemployed men. (The unemployment rate for young men is close to 90%)

Lusaka is a big city with a population of approx 1 million, full of billboards advertising for cellular companies, banks and fast food. Areas of town are segregated into poor tin shacks and gated communities, displaying the growing divide between the poor and the rich, and the ever-shrinking middle class.

Next we visited Kasisi Orphanage, 15 km outside of town, a Catholic orphanage run by two polish nuns.  Started in 1927, Kasisi has been taking care of orphaned kids, due to women dying in childbirth or else one or both parents dying from AIDS.  It is funded by Polish businesses and British Airways, and is the nicest orphanage I have seen which was a great start to the program.  I will let the photos do the explaining... :)  A beautiful safe sanctuary in the middle of a struggling area.We generally just played with the kids, and I had the pleasure of carrying around a little boy who had a toy elephant which he pulled out of his pocket secretly to show me :)

We will be in the city until Friday and I will try to post more, though there are 18 of us and one computer so I am trying not to be a computer-hog.  I am having difficulty uploading photos so stay tuned!

Love you all and talk to you soon!


Emily