The feeling of packing up before a trip to the known unknown is great exercise.  Weight and cubic inch restraints artificially limit the number of “needed items” one can have and thus is both less and more stressful.   The experience of my past visit to Macha helped to decrease the number of items to 3 skirts, 3 shirts, 2 different weight sweaters, one pair of earrings, and 2 pairs of shoes for the month.  The rest of my bag was stuffed with medications and supplies that didn’t fit into the box of medical supplies given to me by REMEDY and a couple very kind people.  Once finally packed, I paced through the house trying to clean in the minutes before the scheduled taxi arrived.   Dressed as if I were going for a photo-shoot for the LL Bean catalog, I dashed out of the house carrying my 40lb box of medical supplies, followed by a 40lb bag of my travelling gear and more medical supplies, an a 20lb carry-on bag with “just in case my actual bag gets lost” as the unsympathetic taxi driver watched.  Twenty minutes late and not particularly enthusiastic, my driver deposited me with 10 minutes to ponder the landscape along 101 overlooking Mill Valley.   Several women were dropped off by more exotic automobiles, well dressed and well cared for, eyeing our well-experienced moving box (this will be its fifth and final move) with fleeting curiosity as we awaited the bus.  The 1-hour bus ride to the airport was uneventful, as was the 2-hour wait in the airport, highlighted by a personal search prompted by my otoscope.  

The actual closing of the distance gap started with a prayer-inducing, very turbulent plane ride to Paris.  The highlight, in addition to my survival to landing, was watching a 3 hour movie about the life and death of Gandhi.  Very inspiring and motivational for me to both do great work and read more about Gandhi.   I once again was searched intensely for both explosives and other weapons, after which a nice bag x-ray operator emphatically pointed to the otoscope stashed in my bag, mildly disappointed to see the unimpressive instrument in real life.  After several hours spent reading David Sedaris, I was joined in Paris airport by Mark.  We boarded an almost empty plane to Johannesburg, grateful for several hours of sleep in 3 seats each.   In the Johannesburg airport, we perused stores, ate at a café, re-checked Mark’s luggage and took a bus to an airplane to Livingstone where our adventures would really start.

In Livingstone, the almost open-air airport was equipped to handle maybe 5 flights per day with 2 pleasant and very relaxed visa and passport workers at the counter and only 1 luggage conveyer belt.  With the proper visas and shockingly enough, all of our luggage in tow, we were stopped by a nice man who wanted to know what was in “the box” and our freakishly large travel bags.  I handed him a short list of medications and encouraged him to look into the box, only if he had tape.  Another nice woman worker came, they discussed the box, the list, looked over me and my invitation from Macha Mission hospital and agreed to not open the box since they didn’t have tape and Macha was really far away.  Next we were assailed by taxi driver representatives acting as professional middle-men who introduced us to several potential matches, instructed us how to take out money and told to wait for “our guy Frank.”  After almost an hour of trying to be as relaxed as the locals, we insisted on getting another guy and were quickly shuffled into a cab and whisked toward town.  


The van getting ready for another half-dozen passengers.

In Zambia, virtually every transaction is a team effort.  Almost nothing happens without someone knowing someone who knows someone.  We drove around town stopping by stores, street corners and visiting other people in search of a SIM card for our GSM phone. Finally we found someone who had a stash of SIM cards in his backpack, the official telecom shop being out of stock.  Then we drove around looking for a bus to take us up to Choma.  This was where our cabbie was extremely helpful and brought us by every transportation option on the market.  The coach bus had left and he warned us of the process of getting a shared van, so we went to check the trucks leaving for Lusaka.  Our cabby was pretty irritated when a potential driver of an empty truck asked to charge us 400,000 kwacha (about $80USD) for a trip that was on his way.  Instead, we paid a bargain 100,000 kwacha to stuff ourselves and our belongings in a mini-van bus along with 7 other people, waiting almost 2 hours to sufficiently fill the small van to overcapacity of 17 people, for the bumpiest 190 kilometers of our lives.   In addition to spending half the voyage on the wrong side of the road passing large trucks, the voyage was punctuated by additional stops at the roadside to fill the van with gas, pick up and discharge passengers, have local vendors offer their goods and other stops just to say hi to friends.  We arrived in Choma well cramped but thankful for making it at all.


Negotiating cab fare

The final leg of the voyage from Choma to Macha used to be the most broken down dirt road I have ever seen outside of a BMX dirt jumping course, but has recently been partially leveled and paved by a Chinese company.  We were surrounded and hustled into a taxi who agreed to take us for a “fair price.” Two nice gentlemen put our oversized luggage and a spare tire in the back and we were off to make better time than expected.   Unlike most cabbies in other parts of the world (including our van driver), the young man driving was slow and cautious.  To save fuel, he would frequently turn off the ignition and coast along any level or slight downhill. His driving companion entertained us and asked us many questions.  After a while, the car began to rumble and shake.  Could it have been a loose tie rod?  The answer came in the form of a gunshot sound and this was flat tire number one.  We proceeded at 20km/hr after this, but still flatted the replacement tire only minutes later after getting onto the portion of road that had not yet been paved which resembled a jeep trail.  By this point, the sun had set and we decided to try out our new Zambian phone.  The adventure finally ended when the medical director John and his wife Esther came to our rescue about 1 hour after we called.  Our taxi friends stayed behind to sleep with their downed vehicle, with friends coming from Choma with a spare tire in the morning.


Flat tire numero uno

We arrived in Macha at about 10:00pm very thankful that our journey had, at long last, come to an end.