WE HAVE ARRIVED!!!!
Well we walked off the plane and it was warm but so nice to finally be here! The airport in Lusaka is a bit run down
but was expected in Africa. We walked to the immigration line, not before taking a few pics outside to show us landing
and how happy were all were =) Immigration went without a hitch but apparently now we had to apply for a visa since
we were there for a mission, so that took a bit. Then it was time to collect all of our bags, holy crap that was rough, ha ha
We had put blue stickers on our bags to identify them all, but 35 bags and 12 of us, we were all running around making sure we had all of them. My personal backpack was the last to come off, I was a bit worried cause that would be just my luck to be the one to lose one, LOL! Well with all of our carts full, we headed out to meet our bus, and that is where we first met Elizabeth, The Hands at Work representative, she was so sweet to meet. She walked us over to the bus but soon we realized that we were going to need 2 buses to carry us and all the bags to Luanshya. So she worked quickly and went and got us another bus as the another one was packed up to the top!! It was a site to see ( I will post my pics when I get home from Canada).
We loaded ourselves up and we were off for our 5 hour drive to Luanshya. It was so amzing to be back in Africa!! Seeing the lanscape again and the people, I truly felt wonderful to be back!! The bus was hard to be on after all the long flights, but we were able to stop half way in Kabwe for lunch so that helped. Kabwe was a busy little city lots of action, but as usual run down, but I think it is just that way here in Africa. We stopped at The Tuskers restaurant and had a nice lunch, I had kebabs yummy after the plane food! It was nice again to sit there and talk and get to know each other more and more. We had a wide range of ages and backgrounds so it was wonderful to have all these different nursing abilities in one group.
Names of the team were Joey-from Seattle area-background in Med/Surg-now works with insurance, Charlie-San Fran-Tele Nurse, Christal-San Fran-Tele, Me-Phoenix/Canada-L&D, Shirley--St Louis-Infection control, Roberta-St Louis-Recovery room, Theresa-St Louis-Nursing Home administration, Camisha-Baltimore-PICU-Army Nurse Active, Kim-Baltimore-ICU, Jaclyn-Baltimore-Tele, Sara-Conn-ER, Carolyn-New Jersey-PEDS-home care
Around 6 pm we get into the Sisters, the old Nunery where we are staying. We are greeted right away by Robyn and Alisha The Hands at Work group. Robyn and her husband started this non profit organization to help 8 countries in 2009 and they work with US and Australia with churches to help out these villages in need. Alisha is from Edmonton area, she has been down here for about 2 years off and on and she is the Organizer for groups like us coming down. She is 25 and feels like Zambia is her home now...she calls herself a ZAMADIAN...LOL!!!
WE get all of our bags into the Sisters and when we see it all spread out, again it is overwhelming. Catherine our cook had prepared a wonderful dinner and we all sit and enjoy it together. The Sisters consisted of 2 rooms of bunk beds for us to stay in, I was able to stay on the bottom bunk, YAY!!! But the beds were so short, I would sit up in bed, and hit my head on the top, HA HA HA. We all had a shower, some had a hot one, most had a cold one, but at least we got clean!!! HA HA HA. We headed off to bed pretty early since we had been travelling for 2 days now...it was a good and well deserved sleep...
Mindi
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