swanky things

the past few weeks have been full of life-planning, thanks to my mom's visit over. the two of us had a really nice trip full of leopard cub spotting, waterfall swims, rock art, and the occasional obnoxious tour guide or sunset cruise. it was certainly a different style of traveling, with it being planned and all, but i can see how people are fans of being shipped around without thinking. there were no nightmare bus rides in the middle of the night with friends ready to punch out old women (mozambique was full of that), so thats a perk.

i've decided to cut my time short in SA and head up to ghana for july and august (then, to my mom's excitement, home for the beginning of september). i've got volunteers coming over this summer which i think coudl be a really fantastic opportunity for ETFL, CBW and buduburam so i would like to make sure i can help us take full advantage of that. plus, after having spent a few months watching how other organizations work, i've got a few more ideas for things that we can do in the camp to make the whole thing smoother and more helpful. hopefully that return will make blogs a bit more interesting to read, and less about my travel.

so, with a busy 2 months in ghana on the horizon i'm off to botswana (because its close), zambia (to volunteer, and make myself feel semi-legitimate) and zimbabwe (because its on my bucket list). somehow my time in SA has become really numbered which is too bad but exciting. i think i'm ready to keep moving. months here have really helped me appreciate what we've got going in buduburam and i am excited to go back there with fresh eyes.

the southern africa tour begins (blindly) tomorrow. today though, i'm spending the day in madikwe game reserve at a friend's super swanky lodge getting my act together with wireless internet. going away traveling is a nice break from the project but i get such a huge to-do list in my head that to actually get online and tick things off is arguably more therapeutic than the time away. its also looking like this will be my final taste of luxury travel before getting back to where i belong as a backpacker bouncing around through botswana, hopefully getting to where we want to be.

wish us luck on this last stint (or stunt). we've done a shit packing job cutting all sorts of necessary things. i cut moisturizer for fear of explosion and already i'm annoyed with that call. what will be worse is when we find out that in fact it does rain in africa and the fly of the tent, that we cut since it was too bulky, would really be helpful. we have raincoats though. and a lonely planet. and hopefully, good senses of humour.