Departure day

Well, today is the day we are leaving on our trip to Zambia.  I suppose I should be packing but I'll get around to that later. 

So, overnight to London Heathrow, then about a 12 hour layover so we'll probably venture into the city, then another overnight to Lusaka Zambia.  No time for sleepy-heads as we unpack and resort our school supplies then head off in the afternoon for tours of the some compounds affiliated with our CWB partners SWAAZ and Zancomb.

OK, what's up with all of the acronyms and funny names.  Over the course of this trip we will introduce you to all of the new terminology.  Today we'll start with the bacics.  For those of you that might not be familiar with Communities Without Borders (CWB) you might like to view their web site at:

http://www.communitieswithoutborders.org/

This site has a great video showcasing the highlights of last year's trip.You will have a better idea of  the activities we will be describing in this blog if you view the video.  (Norm, thanks for all of your hard work putting this video together.)

Lusaka is the capital of Zambia, wikipedia site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusaka

Within the city limits are the squatters compounds where we will be teaching, namely Chawama, Mtendere, Garden, Mandevu, Linda, and N'gombe.  You probably won't find those on a map but I'll annotate a map in a future post.

Here's a brief intro to SWAAZ:

Society for Women and AIDS in Zambia (SWAAZ)

SWAAZ was founded in 1989 to promote grassroots participation in response to the challenges of HIV/AIDS and its related issues. The organization provides capacity building and funds to its 64 branches throughout Zambia, raising awareness among communities on STDs, HIV/AIDS, sex and sexuality, reproductive health and poverty alleviation.

Here the Zancob intro:

In the year 2003 Mrs. Bernadette Sikanyika founded Zambia Nsunga Communities Without Borders (ZANCOB) to support the children of Garden Compound. “Nsunga” is a Nyanja word meaning caring. ZANCOB is unique as it represents the first formally affiliated foreign organization of Communities Without Borders in Massachusetts. ZANCOB is a fully registered non-governmental organization in Zambia.


Enough procrastination ... got my money, got my passport, gotta go ...

tjm