Our home in Lusaka

Our home in Lusaka is the house of our friend Griffin Shanungu, one of Rich's ICF colleagues. It's on the outskirts of town, outside of the hustle and bustle of the city. It's on land where Griffin's father and family have lived for some years, and his parents and sisters live just up the hill. They keep goats, chickens, quail, and turkeys.Griffin has been building this new house over the past couple of years -- in fact, he tells us he was installing the kitchen sink the morning of our arrival and added many other new touches in the lead-up to our arrival (including a hot water heater--lucky us). Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living, dining, kitchen, office. And two cute dogs: Sebastian and Rookie.

Sebastian

Rookie

Theo and Ian are sharing a room with Griffin's 10-year-old son Nachi. Nachi and Theo have been having fun together, playing frisbee and futbol. And the boys taught Nachi to play Ghost in the Graveyard and other tag games.

The garden is beautiful -- many flowering trees and shrubs although it is the dry season now.

(Dry season = winter, and as I type this it doesn't feel all that wintery to me: it's currently 79 and sunny, although it will dip to 53 overnight and it feels quite cool. I've got on long pants, long shirt, and fleece every night. The cement house keeps the cool, which will be great in summer but does make for a brisk night in the dry season.)

Lusaka National Park

Rich, Katie, Ian, Theo, Nachi, and Griffin atop the tower.

We spent a lovely morning at Lusaka National Park yesterday in search of our first African wild animals. The park was set up relatively recently -- only in the last few years -- modeled after Nairobi National Park in Kenya. It offers an opportunity to get more Lusakans, including school kids, into Zambian parks because of the relatively short drive. It also protects some of the last undeveloped land near to the city.


The animals were relocated from other parks in the country. In our couple of hours at the park, we saw impala, eland (we're told this was a lucky site), kudu, wildebeest, zebra (from afar), reedbuck, and bushbuck. The giraffe eluded us on this trip but we'll be back. We did see giraffe footprints and scat right on our road.

Kudu (left -- check out those horns! that is a big kudu) and wildebeest. Photo by Ian.

Impala. Photo by Ian.	Giraffe hoof print. Photo by Ian.
Chewing impala. Photo by Ian.	Big kudu. Photo by Ian.

A special feature of the park is a tall metal observation tower in the picnic area. It was a little dicey to climb up (the metal ladder was a a little shake-y and the ladder rungs at a jaunty angle, though the handrails helped), but we had a great view from the top.

Rich makes his way up the ladder.

Nachi, Theo, and Griffin on their way down.

The view from the top of the tower at Lusaka National Park. Photo by Ian.

Zambia's strong sun is tough on the outdoor signage...