Out of Africa

So, Mozambique and South Africa are now just a memory. I left Johannesburg last night and arrived here in London early this morning. Waiting here in the BA Lounge for my flight to Istanbul gives me a few minutes to catch up a bit.

Mozambique was interesting to say the least. So much poverty and so many needs...and yet so very many smiles. Every time we passed the folks there they would smile and wave..and it wasn't just one of those I guess I better wave cuz they did waves. Seems to be the way things are. And the smiles.....all you needed to do was say hi and folks just break into the most beautiful smiles....

But the difficult part is to see the huge needs and feel like you have barely even touche the surface. Things as simple as a good meal or enough clean water to drink...things we don't even give a second thought to are so difficult for most of the people in Mozambique to come by. Every day is a struggle....

I spent two days with our medical/team. One day in the bush and one day in a small village near town. So many of their health problems could be fixed with enough clean drinking water and good food. I had people telling me they drink only two or three cups of water a day....wow!

What a contrast then to the last two days of our trip. The group traveled to Krueger National Park in South Africa for a bit of Safari action. Didn't get to see any Lions but saw Elephants and Hippos, Rhino's, Baboons and a bunch of other neat stuff. Way cooler than seeing them in a zoo. We caught a Giraffe and its baby walking along the road..really beautiful but what amazed me was how quickly they were able to run off the road and into the bush and completely disappear. I mean gone! We were only seconds away from them and by the time we drove to the spot they left the road they had simply vanished...how does a 15 foot Giraffe do that?
I'm off to Istanbul today then back to London Friday.