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Travel ready
From time to time, someone will feel the need to add value to human life by enriching other people's lives or their own. In both cases, wildest Africa (Livingstone in the Zambezi Valley) is a good place to do just that. This is what brings me to my favorite orientation theme, PURPOSE. For young people serving as volunteers in YWAM the purpose is just as important as the zeal to do something that will count eternally. Having established the purpose, the plan comes next. PLAN! See you Travel Doctor about prophilactics (that is stuff you need to take to prevent you from falling sick or being sicker than you would be without them. Check out what credit or debit cards will work while you are in this part of Africa. By the way, the Zambezi valley climate is interesting, so find out the range of temperature arround the time of your visit (a 90 degree F day is a normal winter day in Livingstone, Zambia)! Travel light if you plan to carry back souvenirs or else plan to mail them back to yourself. Communicate your travel plan to your hosts early and find out about transit visas, and visitors visas for countries you will cross by road or rail and the ones you will stay in for a longer time. Finally, PLAY! In wildest Africa (Livingstone) we have many reasons to be mad. If an elephant takes up ownership of the only way to town, there is no point being mad at him, just play his game and you will be fine. A friend of mine visiting Maun in Botswana told of how a bull elephant chased them. They played his game (took off!). The secret to long term missionary service in Africa is to play with the Africans. Eat with the people try to understand their humour, share your own (even if you have to explain a joke three times before some one catches it). By the way, plan for lots of "play" (flexibility) in your budget too! In wildest Africa you are likely to be 50% off if an immergency shows up. So, is this all there is to being in Wildest Africa? No, everything works by talking to people. The Bemba proverb from Zambia says, "umumtu omfwa kubantu" meaning, "a person learns or hears from people". By extension, pets, machines, etc cannot teach or tell us as much as we can learn from being with people!
