Going on a trip into the back country of Africa is not for the faint of heart. After reading The Library Tree by Deborah Cowley, I decided that I would love to take our grandsons, aged 12 and 14, to do volunteer work with The Book Bus, a non profit organization that works for literacy in Zambia. Their mom Hannah would come, too.
The first thing I had to plan is the dates. Since the boys are in school, the only possible time was during their summer holidays. After discussions with The Book Bus managers in London, England, they agreed that we could come in August when students there were still in school and when they offered a summer program in local schools.
Of course, if you go to Africa you will want to go on safari. Based on those dates and the location of where we could do our volunteer work, I then set out to find a safari. Since this trip had to happen on a budget (4 people) I found many safaris that were too expensive. But I also came across one that took place in one of Zambia’s most well known national parks, Kafue National Park. This was a camping safari that was a lot less expensive that staying in fancy lodges. But it also offered an itinerary that would take us from Livingstone in the south, through the national park, back to Lusaka from where we would fly home. Perfect.
The next thing to do was book flights.
I usually use Orbitz for most of our travel booking. The flights were long and not perfect, but we did end up booking the best possible routes. This included a 10 hour layover in Doha, Qatar. While such a layover was not ideal, it did mean an opportunity to see a place we may never visit again.
But we didn’t want to sit in an airport for that long! So I searched on the internet and discovered that Tourism Qatar offers a city tour specifically for those with long layovers! A visa was not required so I booked the tour.
Our personal luggage for a month was one daypack each. Not bad!
After months of planning flights, accommodations, safari and our modes of transportation, it was times to sort out the vaccines. I don’t think that travel to any other part of the world involves as many vaccines as Africa does. At least Zambia was not a Yellow Fever country. But we did require Hepatitus A and B, up to date childhood vaccines, I needed a new tetanus shot. We needed to take Dukarol to prevent cholera and e-coli. Typhoid is endemic in Zambia so we needed oral vaccines for that. And on top of it all we needed to take malaria pills for our entire stay and a few weeks after. Of course, we needed to make sure we had up to date passports, brought face masks and even a Covid test kit just to be safe.
During our planning stages, many people told me I was brave to take the kids to Africa. This genuinely surprised me and I kept thinking that no bravery is needed. But perhaps all the vaccines were the first sign that we did, indeed, have to be brave.
We brought one entire suitcase full of books. Fantastic books for kids in Africa!
As our exciting half-around-the-world trip drew nearer, we started to collect clothing to take and leave behind. I knew that there is much poverty in rural Zambia and that the Book Bus people would be able to distribute any clothing we could bring. We also decided to bring our own clothing and shoes that we could leave behind. We ended up with one big suitcase full of clothes to donate.
Aidan is an avid skateboarder. His sponsors in Canada, Axe & Reel on Salt Spring Island and Vault Skateboards in Nanaimo, donated boards and wheels and other equipment and tools to take so that he could teach and share the fun of skateboarding with kids in Zambia. That took up one big suitcase! I also found several books about skateboarding which would make a nice link between literacy and boarding. I was impressed with the fact that the airlines (Westjet and Qatar Airways) allowed us 2 pieces each of 24 KG! That is quite a bit. of luggage.
When the day arrived that we finally left on our trip, we hauled all of our luggage onto the ferry and to an AirBnB in Richmond, BC and made it to the airport very early the next morning to start our long flights from Vancouver to Los Angelos to Doha to Lusaka! Had I known the hair raising adventures to come, I would have known that bravery was, indeed, needed!
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