We're back in Lilongwe after four amazing days in Zambia. Tomorrow morning we go to the bank to begin disbursing scholarship funds. We'll be awarding scholarships to 54 students, most for the final two terms of this school year, but some for longer as is the case with a few orphan students at Chilumba Secondary who will have the remaining three years of their secondary education paid for courtesy of some generous donors who requested that their contributions be used this way.
That’s the business end of things. But our past three days have been spent at South Luongwa National Park in Zambia, 600+ square miles of unspoiled African bush, soaking up an amazing assortment of sights, sounds and smells in one of the last remaining wild places left on the continent.
Do you believe those lions? We were twenty feet away. That evening on a night drive, we saw a pride of nine devour a zebra in twenty minutes after which the hyenas moved in to lick the bones clean. As you might guess, that stirred up a mix of feelings.
Besides the pictured animals, we saw zebras, monkeys, baboons, hippos, warthogs, crocodiles, an assortment of the most beautiful birds imaginable, a 1000 year-old baobab tree and much more. It was a powerful experience, one we’ll never forget, the realization of our shared childhood dream of seeing these great animals in the wild.
Tomorrow we head back to our relatively tame existence in Livingstonia, a two-day bus trip away. We’ll spend tomorrow night in Mzuzu and with luck, we’ll be back up on the plateau before night falls on Sunday. Sounds like some full-blown spring happening in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Here, the rains have all but quit, and the nights are getting pleasantly cool, down into the low to mid-50’s.
Wishing you well from Malawi,
Mary and Steve
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