After a majorly long tight trip we made it to Lusaka. Our hotel is beautiful, filled with art work and gardens and it’s the meeting place for Zambia doctors (like doctor without borders) and UN talks and meetings and free trade meetings. I could spend more days in Lusaka.
35 years ago the three of us left from New York City visiting my sister and her children. They happened to get chicken pox the day after we flew to London. We visited friends we met in Tibet with Thea and she was extremely cranky. Then we flew to Dar Es Salaam and met all these International teachers coming into Dar to teach like us. Thea was the hit of the plane and visited and charmed the whole crew. The next day we arrive she breaks out in full fledge chicken pox. No luggage new continent and new country and everything was new. Needless to say it was a very hard transition.
This time was an easy arrival. Nice hotel no children and lots of sleep. No real jet lag either.
Today we met up with my childhood friend Brett who lives here. She was gracious to take us to the elephant. I am going to post in a new post how to donate volunteer or be a member of this incredible orphanage. They get the babies who have lost their moms and families due to poaching or accidents. They feed them infant formula and then when they get over 3 years old they move them to a park and slowly introduce them back to the wild.
It was so sweet brought tears to my eyes. Enjoy the videos and pictures in the next post. It’s a great project to see their process and progress and share with school children about animal conservation. They are very considerate of human interaction with the orphaned elephants. They are the only ones in Africa that keep humans away. Poaching has really slowed down but now it’s habitat fragmentation resulting in human conflicts that is the main problem with a lot of the African wildlife now.
Years ago I went to the Kenyan elephant orphanage and you could touch them and feed them. Here in Zambia , you see them through a net and everyone is really quiet.
Enjoy. Tomorrow is off to South Luangwa. We are staying at the Msandile River Lodge in the main park.
Let’s talk tomorrow