Courtney Barnett: A Take Away Show

Australian accent, a twangy guitar, and a great sense of humor; Avant Gardener is particularly good.

Johnnyswim: NPR Tiny Desk Concert

This band's got great harmonies, energy and stage presence; really enjoyed their live performance on NPR.

Namibia Trip Itinerary

Last month I was lucky enough to take a second trip to Namibia, almost two years to the day after my first. You can read about that trip here if you’re interested in the more poetic descriptions of this beautiful country. This time around I’m taking a pragmatic approach, giving you our day by day itinerary and recommendations in the hopes that it could be useful for planning your own trip to one of the most environmentally impressive destinations in the region.

Flights: Air Namibia from Lusaka to Windhoek (highly recommend flying in as opposed to driving; you’ll be spending enough time in the car as it is)

Car Rental: I’ve used 2 different companies: Advanced Car Hire and Camping Car Hire. Both are reputable companies which gave similar, high quality services, but I would recommend Advance Car Hire based on the size of the vehicle they rent and the quality and organization of the camping supplies they provide. Booking a car should be the one thing you do well in advance, at least one or two months ahead, especially at holiday times.

Money: the Namibian dollar is pegged to the South African rand, and they accept both interchangeably. Everyone I’ve traveled with has been able to withdraw from ATMs, which is probably the easiest way, but not a bad idea to bring some USD to exchange too.

Day 1

Windhoek

Accommodation: Carboard Box Backpackers: well-known hostel with both dorm and room options, a kitchen and a pool. It can fill up with young loud travelers, which you may or may not be into. While I’ve been happy with my experiences in their private rooms, I have heard negative feedback about the dorms. Private rooms cost around 35 USD a night. Here's their other site with some useful info for planning trips.

We arrived on a morning flight and were picked up by the car hire company airport shuttle. We weren’t able to, but I suggest doing the paperwork on the afternoon of arrival or early morning the next day to save time, since it takes a couple hours to get everything explained and signed. Since we didn’t have the car rented until the next day, we used taxis to do some non-perishable grocery shopping in town. It was a good idea to do the majority of shopping that day to save time the next morning. Good wine is very cheap in Namibia (5-10 USD a bottle); stock up!

For dinner we ate at O Portuga, a Portuguese restaurant with a great menu of both game and seafood. Delicious meal, not too expensive, highly recommend it.  After dinner we investigated the local nightlife at Vibe, actually a surprisingly nice club.

Day 2

Windhoek to Sossusvlei

Accommodation: Sesriem Campsite: a NWR run campsite within the gates of the Sossusvlei park. Highly recommend staying here (and making an advance booking) for the sole reason that you can enter the park at 5 am. People staying elsewhere can only enter at 6 am. If you’re planning to hike Dune 45 at sunrise, staying here will make the difference between seeing sunrise from the dune or not.

We got an early start with the car hire place, but still didn’t make it to the grocery store to buy perishables until 11 so we had to hurry. If possible, it’s good to leave Windhoek before 12 so you don’t have to rush to hike Elin Dune at sunset, and also so you have plenty of time to stop in Solitaire on the way, where you can get excellent pies and desserts from Moose's and check out a bunch of old cars half-buried in sand.

At Sesriem we bought our park permit and drove right into Elin Dune, which is not far into the park, basically the first turn on your right (unmarked). You can get a map from the desk. Afterwards we came back to set up camp and broke in our cooking equipment with some tasty cheeseburgers. There’s an industrial sink by the bathrooms for easier dishwashing.

(View from Elin Dune)

Day 3

Sossuvlei to Naukluft Mountains

Accommodation: Agama River Camp: probably the nicest place I’ve stayed in Namibia. It boasts great, roomy sites for the cars, a pool, dogs, and a patio up at the main house offering beautiful views of sunrise and sunset over the Naukluft Mountains.

In the morning we were up very early and going by about 5 am. Dune 45 is named for being 45 km in the park, so it takes about 30 min to get there and another 10 or so to hike up. We made it near the top for sunrise, which is incredible over this stunningly barren plain dotted with magnificently red sand dunes. Afterwards, we had a quick breakfast by the car before driving into the park where the eponymous Sossusvlei dune is located, as well as Deadvlei, the site of the iconic petrified trees. To get there you have to drive on sand. You can either pay to ride in 4x4s or utilize your own vehicle’s capability, just be sure to deflate your tires and put it in 4 low. We got stuck for a bit on this trip, and friends of ours got stuck for over 2 hours, so proceed with some caution.

It was so hot by 10 am we skipped hiking Sossusvlei dune, but we did hike into Deadvlei to see the trees. After beating a retreat to shade, we headed back in the direction of Windhoek for about an hour to reach Agama River Camp. This is a beautifully situated place, right at the foot of the Naukluft Mountains. We decided to spend two nights here on this trip because of the setting and the proximity to full-day hikes nearby. The highlight of this place may be the showers, with earthen floors that retain the sun’s heat and open roofs giving you a fantastic view of sunset.

(Dune sunrise)

 (Deadvlei)

(Sunset at Agama)

Day 4

Naukluft Mountains

Accomodation: Agama River Camp

We got an early start this morning to make it to the Namib-Naufluft Park before it got too hot. It’s a little over an hour away. You drive through Bullsport (really just a lodge and garage on the left side of the road), and at the junction immediately after you take a right. Keep an eye out for the park entrance (an old gate you open for yourself) on your right about 11 km later. Then drive another 11 km to the office where you pay your park fee and receive a map. There are a few hikes here to choose from, we did the Olive Trail which took us about 4 hours and was fairly easy; only moderate elevation climbs and some rock scrambling in the canyon.

It’s a great hike because it offers diverse scenery, from views over the hills and plains to impressive sheer rock walls and acrobatic vegetation within the canyon. There is a section where you pass rock pools by holding onto chains bolted into the walls, but the easy route on the right is not very challenging. We had a fantastic lunch near the end of our trip, with cheese, salami, chicken salad, and of course, olives. As you exit the canyon, look for the 4x4 track which crosses over the dry river bed, you can follow that back to the trail head.

(View from the trail)

Day 5

Naukluft Mountains to Swakopmund

Accommodation: Alte Brucke: Rooms and campsites on the south end of the city. Campsites are designed for car campers, a small patch of grass next to personal high quality bathroom/kitchen area. Amenities are good quality, but the campsite feels densely packed with people, and it’s definitely a family place, quiet before 10 pm.

As we were only a few hours from Swakopmund we got a leisurely start this morning, packing up our car and saying goodbye to the Agama resident dogs. Within about 3.5 hours we rolled into Swakopmund, between white sand dunes and the ocean. We set up at Alte Brucke which may not have been the most exciting campsite of our trip but we didn’t end up spending much time there anyway. We explored the town on foot, a strangely Germanic place with plenty of cafes and beergardens. That night we ate at Napolitana, an Italian place which was decent but not outstanding.

Day 6

Swakopmund

Accomodation: Alte Brucke

This was a big morning for us, up early for skydiving with Ground Rush Adventures. Their shuttle brought us from our place to the office where we signed our lives away, and then we proceeded to their desert airstrip. The plane was tiny, only big enough for about 6 people huddled together in the back, so I ended up being separated from the others and sent up first. The plane climbed and climbed and climbed, as the horizon expanded over the ocean on one side and desert and mountains on the other. At 10,000 feet, when the ground and ocean below were uniform and devoid of any details save the massive mountains and little city, the sliding door on the plane was quickly and abruptly opened and I was suddenly there on the edge. Then I gently slipped out into the air, a feeling I’ll never forget. We quickly reached terminal velocity, and the feeling of falling was gone, replaced with the sense of being suspended in the air by a giant fan. The rush of air was so powerful my face and hands flapped helplessly, and gaping at the giant expanses of blue and red all I could do was laugh and drool. Once the parachute opened, my guide put us into tight, g-force pressing spins, and stalls that made my stomach lift, but the feeling was almost equally as incredible as the free fall. Overall, this was a highlight of the trip and I would certainly do it again, hopefully somewhere just as beautiful.

Once we were back on the ground we went back to town, giddy with adrenaline. We had lunch at Stadtmitte Café, a pseudo-Starbucks with great eggs florentine and low prices. We then got our permit from the NWR office (walking distance away) for the Welwitschia Drive the next day. Our big day ended with drinks on the patio of The Tug restaurant on the pier. For dinner we had an excellent meal at Kucki’s Pub, with great seafood, oysters, and spaetzle for reasonable prices. Make a reservation because it’s the place to be in this quiet town.

(Angus, Sandy and Emily on their way down)

Day 7

Swakopmund to Welwitschia/ Moonscape Drive

Accommodation: Sophia Dale: a very nice campsite run by a friendly German couple (not as crazy as they look on the website) just off the B2, not far from Swakopmund or the Drive.

In the morning we took an ATV tour with Desert Explorers through the dunes, which was very nice despite a persistent fog. We rode in a line on a marked path through the dunes, so it’s not an ecologically disastrous free-for-all. It was fun riding up the sides of dunes, and the views over the desert were really impressive. It’s a cool activity if you’ve got some free hours in Swakopmund, but for $45 I would also consider doing lie-down sandboarding instead. It’s more of an adrenaline rush, though a shorter experience involving lots of dune hiking (check out Alter-Action for that).

In the afternoon we left town to seek out the Welwitschia Drive. It’s named for the 1,500 year old giant welwitschia plant at the end of it, which is pretty cool, but the real highlight is the drive itself which takes you through what looks like a moonscape. It took us a while to figure out if we were on the right road, but once we reached the 4^th road beacon we knew it for sure; the land opened up into smooth canyons and peaks of rocks that really did look like they could be on the moon. There were many great spots to stop for cool views and pictures. We started the drive around 2 pm and it took us about 4 hours to complete, giving us some of the best sunset lighting. We made it to Sophia Dale before it got dark, and cooked some of the fresh fish we’d bought from The Fish Deli in Swakopmund over the fire.

(Not how you ride ATVs)

(Moonscape)

Day 8

Welwitschia / Moonscape Drive to Spitzkoppe

Accommodation: Spitzkoppe Campsites: The most famous, if not only, campsite at Spitzkoppe; definitely the most bare-bones of the trip (just a fire pit, trash can and outhouse) but also the most beautiful.

We drove back into town in the morning then started up the coast towards Henties Bay. Along the way there’s a recent shipwreck just off to the left. It’s now marked with a sign, Shipwreck Zeila, and you should be able to see it from the road, definitely worth a stop.

We turned off the coast and headed inland to Spitzkoppe, an impressive pair of mountains rising up from the scrub with piles of giant, yellow-red rocks at their base. There’s about 20 campsites nestled among the giant rocks that make up the Spitzkoppe formations. It’s a good idea to get there earlier in the day because they seem to fill up. The showers and sink are located near the entrance, but it’s worth it to go further in (to the left) to find a well-placed campsite. The views here at sunrise, sunset and at night are stunningly spectacular. It does get very hot during the day though, so make sure you’ve got lots of water and sunscreen if you plan on hiking any time after 10 am.

We arrived a few hours before sunset and luckily snagged seemingly the only remaining empty campsite, well positioned between the two mountains. That evening we cooked the remaining fish over a fire and enjoyed the moonrise. Good idea to bring some firewood with you, no guarantees the reception will have it.

(Shipwreck Zeila)

 

(Spitzkoppe)

Day 9

Spitzoppe

Accommodation: Spitzkoppe Campsites

Early on this day, in the gentle sun of this morning, we made an ambitious plan to hike up the two main mountains. Upon reaching the first, and realizing the actual size of the boulders, we scaled back our goals a bit. While we enjoyed a short climb up its first level, our companions made a valiant attempt for the top, but were stopped halfway by treacherous rocks, heat, and a dead end. We retreated to the only shade in the area, offered by our raised car tents, for a nice lunch and re-hydration session. After, we explored the rock pools, which are a substantially easier climb. That evening we were treated to a wonderful farewell, a practically cloudless sky boasting an endless infinitude of stars.

(Our truck under a starry sky)

Day 10

Spitzkoppe to Windhoek

Accommodation: Cardboard Box Backpackers

On our final full day in the country we said goodbye to the wilderness and headed back to the capital. On the nice tarred highways it didn't take long, and we were back at the Cardboard Box by the early afternoon and had returned our truck by 4. That evening we ate at Joe’s Beerhouse, a locally famous restaurant specializing in game meat with a fun atmosphere. If you want to check it out I recommend making a reservation the day before, however it is something of a tourist trap and there are plenty of other good restaurants worth trying in Whindhoek, like The Namibia Institute of Culinary Education (NICE), for example.

A very early flight the next morning makes this effectively our last day of the trip. It was a great time; lots of cool activities in beautiful settings with a fun group of people. Namibia is still my favorite trip of all time, and I highly recommend it, especially for anyone already in the region.

Other destinations worth looking into not included in this trip:

- Twyfelfontein: ancient rock carvings, sacred place, beautiful at sunset

- Camping in Damaraland

- Fish River Canyon: supposedly the 2nd largest canyon in the world, open during the dry season

- Etosha Park: largest game park in the country centered around a large salt pan. Best during dry season when the animals come further south

Managing Matero

In February I hit the reset button again at FINCA, this time to enter the final stage of the four-part management development program I entered in August of 2012.

Last time I wrote about work I was preparing to start as manager of the branch I had been working at since February 2013. This would prove to be the most challenging position I’d held so far, at FINCA or elsewhere. I managed Matero branch for 6 months. In that time its staff grew from 29 to 40 and the loan portfolio increased from about 1.5 to 2 million USD. Managing the size of the branch was the biggest challenge; with over 5,000 clients and 25 Loan Officers I needed to become more hands-off and rely heavily on my Supervisors, which wasn’t always easy for me. Being so far removed from most of the client-level action, I learned that putting in place the right structures and processes was going to yield more results (at least in the long term) than trying to personally solve every problem. This was hard to remember each month-end when we had to report our performance. Each month was a cycle of preparation and then the inevitable hectic chaos in the final week as final loans were approved and arrears were collected. It was pretty exhausting.

It wasn’t always like that though. The 6 months were immensely important for both my practical knowledge and personal growth, and I learned a great deal in areas where previously I had little experience. There were also many moments of reward and satisfaction mixed in there. Some of my favorites included the promotions of colleagues I had worked with for a long time, our team building activities after meeting monthly goals, and the customer care day where we hosted clients and staff alike at our branch and recognized our most venerable clients. One village banking group at the event told their story of 12 years of growth and loyalty at FINCA, and it reminded everyone why this work can be so powerful. It was also fulfilling to be in a position to make positive change in that particular branch's universe. Whether it was developing staff, improving the branch experience for the clients, or trying to guide good performance (#2 branch of the year!), each success felt like it made a difference.

(Customer Care Desk at Matero)

(Christmas Raffle presentation)

 (Customer Care Day at Matero- dance troupe in the car park)

  (CC Day at Matero- hosting Head Office staff)

 (CC Day at Matero- VB group recognized for 12 years of loyalty)

(Last Matero teambuilding- goodbye cake and oversized card)

At the end of 6 months I was ready to try a new position and see how else I might fit into the microfinance equation. Still, I know I will sometimes be nostalgic for the branch level, where so much of the success, progress and craziness is happening. I know I'll miss Matero, where I unexpectedly spent a year of my life. My new position, as of February, is Credit Manager for one of FINCA Zambia’s new loan products, Small Enterprise Lending. This product caters to the Zambian entrepreneurs running businesses which are larger and more developed than what MFI’s have traditionally funded. The loans we currently give range between 20 and 60 thousand USD. It’s the new frontier for microfinance, and the same clients are also being targeted by banks through downscaling efforts. These clients represent, along with savings, a future of self-sustaining business for the industry, where the ultimate goal is increasing accessibility and decreasing cost for business people of all sizes who are not currently included in the traditional financial system. 

Jinja Retreat

In February 2012 a group of fellows from my Princeton in Africa class gathered in Nairobi for a retreat. Over two years later I was on my way to attend a second one, this time in Jinja, Uganda. The experience our year was informally organized, but was both productive and fun. We were able to explore the big city and enjoy some leisure time while also mixing in activities to help us process our fellowship experiences up to that point. In fact, the retreat was one of the most memorable experiences of that year, and certainly the most important in connecting my fellowship class. The bonds built during that week had a positive impact on the rest of my experience, and many still persevere to today.

I was excited when the PiAf staff reached out to me last year about helping facilitate the 2014 retreat. First, it was a trip to a country I’d never visited. Second, it was a chance for me to help another group of fellows have as fun and profitable of an experience as we had. My trip had a couple inauspicious starts, with me coming as close as I ever have to missing a flight due to some slow-moving money changers at the airport. Delay notwithstanding, I made the flight and arrived in Entebbe, Uganda in the early morning hours. Entebbe is home to the airport which services the capital Kampala, but it’s over an hour away even with no traffic. Worst I’d seen up to then was Namibia and even that’s less than 45 minutes from the capital. Eventually I got to my hostel where I managed a few hours of sleep before an early morning wake up call to head to Jinja, the town on the Nile where the retreat was taking place.

My travel companions were Stephanie and Agatha, two employees of PiAf and the actual organizers of the retreat. For the first day and a half in Jinja we did last minute shopping, preparation of material, and confirming with all the local businesses we’d be dealing with. While in town I took the opportunity to visit the FINCA branch, where the branch manager knew many of my current colleagues. It was cool to see that a bond exists across subsidiaries. We also took scope of the place where we’d be staying and hosting the activities, Nile River Explorers, a beautiful camp overlooking the Nile from a cliff. The first 24 hours there was a little rocky, with my work phone being stolen the morning we arrived and me having to spend a few hours at the local police station getting a report. However, thanks most likely to serious doggedness on the part of NRE’s manager, I found the phone turned in at reception the next morning. After that second speedbump it was pretty smooth sailing.

(Visiting FINCA Jinja Branch)

(View of the Nile from NRE's patio)

The Fellows started to arrive at NRE that Friday and we opened the retreat over dinner along with Frank, a PiAf founding member and an integral part of every class’s experience. The schedule was far more organized and busy than my year; timing had been calculated very precisely and everything ran pretty much like clockwork (no small feat in a “beach” town). The caliber of the activities and events was very high. Many were ones carried over from my year, other were new. I ran a couple, one on career paths and another one using skits to express challenges in their jobs or experiences, which they did incredibly well. All the sessions were well designed to promote sharing, growth and free expression among the fellows. I was very impressed with their mindset coming into the retreat. They all seemed ready to open up and be honest with each other, and it was great to see how quickly the bonds started forming.

We did manage to squeeze some fun into all that serious personal growth. On Sunday we took a boat trip up the Nile to a tiny island on Lake Victoria, where we enjoyed some swimming and Frisbee and tried not to be freaked out by the alarming number of birds nesting there. There were also excellent group dinners at an Indian restaurant and a pizza place. It’s worth noting that my favorite African beer, Castle Milk Stout, which is so rare in Lusaka it’s only found at one store, was stocked in every bar and restaurant we went to in Jinja. I’m not embarrassed to say it was a pretty big highlight of the trip for me.

("Source" of the Nile, beginning of Lake Victoria)

(Frisbee on Bird Island)

On top of everything else, I was also lucky enough to get to visit with my good friend Rahul at his place in Kampala before leaving. He timed his birthday dinner for that night so I was able to meet his friends and girlfriend, which was excellent. Hard to believe it'd been about 2 years since we'd last seen each other. Things felt just the same, it was only that every aspect of our surroundings had changed. Despite initial fears, spending the night there didn't result in me missing my early morning flight home, and the trip back was uneventful, if roundabout.

In my mind the retreat went really well. The organizers did a fantastic job, and the fellows really held up their end of it by being enthusiastic and invested in every activity that weekend. Personally, I left feeling doubly refreshed by the trip. First, just from being near the water in such a beautiful environment, and second, by being surrounded by people whose stories, challenges and passions reminded me of my own feelings and reasons for being where I am. 

Lessons, Easy and Hard

Life in Zambia presents an often unique set of problems and resolutions, each with their own lessons. In this post I want to talk specifically about lessons involving things lost; sometimes found again, sometimes not.

Robbery is not a common thing here in Zambia, though having dealt with it every few months I can say it’s far more common than any other place I've lived. Many of the incidents had an element of luck to them, some did not. Each had a lesson to be gained from it, though there sure are a lot to learn.

My first experience with robbery here is tied for both the luckiest and stupidest. Having left our gate open as well as our front door I don’t think there could've been a clearer invitation for a passing opportunist. I came home around midnight to pack for an early morning trip to find my computer and camera missing. After waking up my sleeping roommates I started to look around outside when I heard footsteps behind our garage. I turned the corner in time to see someone climbing over the wall into our neighbors’ property. My roommates and I headed him off outside their house, catching him just before he disappeared into the cane fields. Upon capture he immediately confessed that he had hidden all the items in the same cane fields, after making probably 4 or 5 quiet trips into the house full of sleeping people. We were wary of entering the fields alone, but of course there’s no 911 to call here, so my roommate took my car (a minivan at the time) to go pick up police officers from the nearest post. Once we had some backup we trudged in a line through the dense, unnerving cane until we found all the items. At that point, in some bizarre version of a childhood car trip, I loaded the armed police in through the sliding door, put the tied up thief in the trunk, and then returned them to their station.

Lesson learned: close the gate, lock the house. Luck rating: 9/10

Our second theft also occurred at home about a year later. Up in the predawn hours, my roommate and I followed the sound of water to a leaking tap outside. Well, not leaking exactly; gushing. Perplexed, we debated how it could have broken overnight when we suddenly realized, this was the spot where our washing machine had once sat. The tap hadn’t broken; its receptacle had been forcibly removed.

Lesson learned: lock the gate. Luck rating: 8/10 (some months afterwards the police showed up at our house with the stolen machine, something of a small miracle)

Petty theft takes some serious confidence, which I learned some months later. I borrowed a friend’s car on a day mine was being serviced. That evening I came out of the branch to find that the side view mirrors had been stolen. Luckily they had only pried the mirror part from the housing. But they’d done it right outside the front door of a bank. With a security guard. In full view of my office. They must’ve really needed the cash.

Lesson learned: keep the security guard by the cars. Luck rating: 5/10 (replacing the whole mirror apparatus would’ve been very expensive)

This is one I’m going to include even though it’s not a theft per se and it’s going to make me look like an idiot, but it’s a good story. We had been grocery shopping and, in a moment of monumental forgetfulness, I left my iPad in the cart we had been using. We hadn’t even left the mall before I realized, but enough time had passed for probably 50 people to cycle through the supermarket. We ran back and began frantically checking every cart and basket we could see, whether or not they were in use. I looked like a crazy person trotting back and forth down the checkout lines, peering anxiously at people’s grocery selections. Emily, in a more practical move, asked the management to view the CCTV footage. It wasn’t long before we saw our poor, oblivious selves  on the screen abandoning our cart, and a woman grabbing it not 10 seconds later. A minute or two after that in the footage we thought we could see the same woman leaving the store in a hurry, without having bought anything. That seemed to be the end of that; hours of searching at Shoprite and useless trips to police stations left us empty handed. We returned home, defeated. Acting on an afterthought, I went to the “find my iPhone” website and, behold, there was the tiny blinking beacon of my lost tablet. I must have left the internet turned on while looking up measurement conversions. In an adrenaline-fueled rush we dashed out to the car and, following the map on the computer, set off on the hunt. It was all the way across town but we were there in no time, and quickly realized the problem: the map wasn’t detailed enough. There were at least 15 houses around the dot, each subdivided into multiple family apartments; how were we ever going to pinpoint who had taken it? I started the only way I could think of, going door to door, trying to determine who looked like they had just found a computer. After a few houses it was clear this wasn’t going to bear fruit, but we were so close! In a last ditch effort I hit the button which sounded an alarm on the iPad. Not five minutes later a woman called, saying she had found my number by going through my email, and that she had the computer. She asked where she could meet us, to which I was able to reply, just come out of your house. In no time I was reunited with it, as improbable as it had seemed a few hours before. 

Lesson learned: don’t be a forgetful idiot. Luck rating: 15/10

The most recent addition to my robbery portfolio, and certainly the hardest to swallow, occurred just last Thursday. I had gone to withdraw my salary which had been deposited by mistake to my account at another bank rather than at FINCA. Because I only have one free withdrawal a month, I took out the whole thing at once. After leaving, on the way to deposit it at my branch, I stopped to get some food. A few minutes later, when I came back to the car, I found the driver’s side door slightly ajar and the envelope with the cash gone. My heart just sank to the ground; right away I knew that that money was long gone. Still, I stomached the police station to bring an officer back to the scene, where he pointed out to me how my lock had been jimmied and told me it’s a common thing to be followed after making a withdrawal at a bank. He told me these guys are professionals; they were probably in and out in a minute and the chances of retrieving the cash were essentially zero. Again I endured the bureaucracy of the police station to file a report, not because I thought it would help, but because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. In the end, it’s money, and if they were going to follow me and take it anyway, at least I didn’t have to get hurt I guess. Still, I’ll be kicking myself for this one for some time to come.

Lesson(s) learned: be careful with cash, split it up or keep it on you. Always look over your shoulder as you leave the bank. Luck rating: 0/10

Reflection Time

The beginning of the year is an easy and tempting opportunity for self-reflection. When you’re with friends and family for the holidays, ringing in the New Year, or just trying to remember to write the correct date, certain questions seem to come naturally. Where was I this time last year? At that time, where did I see myself now? And of course the big one: where will I be this time next year?

It’s hard to believe it was a year ago that my family came to visit Zambia. Looking back over that time it’s clear that sharing it with them changed some of my own perceptions of living here. Instead of it being something totally separate and foreign from my life in the US, I began to feel like I could merge the two parts. Now, when sharing stories, my family could recognize names and places from their own experience. More than that, Zambia, down to all the mundane details of living here, was now something meaningful and real for them which could connect us across the long distance.

(Victoria Falls 2012)

After the big, exciting holiday last year and my recent visit to the US in August, I was approaching this holiday season resigned to the idea of spending it away from my family. The prospect wasn't very appealing (Lusaka empties out during the holidays) so I decided to approach my bosses anyway just to see what would happen. Both have plenty of experience living abroad and away from their families, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when they were open to the idea. I couldn't have been happier about it.

Having already set the expectation for my absence, my mom and I decided to take advantage of the situation and make it a surprise for the rest of my family. I haven’t had many opportunities in life to pull such an elaborate trick on them so we really went all out with it.  Watching the shock and confusion register on their faces, we were both pretty pleased with the success of our deception.   

Being home for the holidays was even nicer than I’d expected. I was able to catch up with old friends, some I hadn't seen in years, and spend plenty of time with my family. I also had the chance to spend some time with Emily in Boston, which was really a great experience. In the same way as having my family visit Zambia, I felt very lucky to be able to share parts of our pre-Zambia lives with each other. We were even treated to a snowstorm and, let me tell you, after 3 years of no snow you really get nostalgic for it. Thinking last year about what this holiday season would bring I know I couldn't have imagined a better two weeks.

       

 (Gingerbread house construction, serious business)

The remaining question floating out there still can’t be answered neatly. This is the time where I start considering what my options are and where they could take me. As in the past, the process can be overwhelming, but there’s a flip side to that which excites me. While it’s still half a year away, I’m looking forward to where August 2014 and the end of my current contract will lead me.