More Adventures in Zambia and Beyond!

Sorry for the lack of blogging, it’s been a busy time for me. Since I last wrote quite a bit has happened. Here are a few items:
• My organization has hired a Zambian to work alongside me and then replace me when I head back to the US at the end of July. He started work mid-April and has jumped right in with some great ideas and initiatives. He has even been encouraging and enthusiastic about setting goals and priorities. This has meant, though, that my to-do list is getting longer instead of shorter!
• My housemates and I moved house, not because we wanted to leave our falling-down colonial with a great garden, but because the landlady wanted to fix it up and try to bring in even more money! After a long search we found an even more too big house to rent, and are looking for more people to share with.
• I went on a great road trip to Botswana and a bit of Namibia with my friend Michele. The pictures here are from that trip (all the Botswana part): Bee-eaters and elephants at Chobe National Park, me trying to pole a mokoro canoe in the Okavango Delta (it was really hard to go straight!), and prehistoric rock art from Tsodilo Hills World Heritage site. One significant event of this journey was that my troublesome car didn’t break down once. Phew!
• I helped organize (but was not the lead organizer – that role has been passed off to two teachers!) another successful intensive teacher IT training course.
• Our organization’s cost sharing grants for 2009 were delivered to all four schools (although one only partially, and three after significant prodding and “tough love”). Now the next step is to give further advice on purchases, encourage helpful monitoring and evaluation, and encourage the implementation of some planned fund-raising initiatives that the schools have said they are going to do.
• Our organization’s bank account was finally made available again after about 14 months of bureaucracy, signature collection, sweat and tears!
• From a plot in the bush outside Lusaka where my friend Kerry is building a house, Michele rescued a nearly starved pup named Scorpion. This pup (now re-named Buster and/or Nigel depending on who you ask) had tick fever and mange and was mostly skin and bones. Now he is full-figured and energetic, and is a star with the kids at the educational project where he and Michele reside! The final picture shows him (sleeping) on a return visit with Michele and Kerry to the site of his rescue.

So, that’s the update. I sure do miss family and friends in the Northwest and am looking forward to returning in August. It’s going to be bittersweet, though, because of the good friends I have made in Lusaka as well. Also, in case you are about to ask, I haven’t sorted out the “next steps” yet, but consulting in IT in Education in Development is one possibility I am considering. Advice is welcome.