Blog Introduction

We hope you enjoy these pictures and videos of our trip to Africa with http://www.motherswithoutborders.org/ - April 8-May 2 2010

May we remember the children and those who care for them throughout the world!

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Betty and I, when we were trying to figure out the name for our blog, had just run accross the following joke that was sent to us - and it seemed quite good timing - as were were frantically preparing to head to Africa!!
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From the diary of a Pre-School Teacher

My five-year old students are learning to read.

                       Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said,
                                              "Look at this! It's a frickin' elephant!"
                               I took a deep breath, then asked...."What did you call it?"
                                    "It's a frickin' elephant! It says so on the picture!"

And so it does...

" A f r i c a n Elephant "

Hooked on phonics! Ain't it wonderful?

Our ZamFam!!

Even though the 15 members of our MWB team were together just about 18 days - all of us became each others 'Zambian Family' - or just "our ZamFam". Even though we each brought our own individualities to the team - these individualities intregrated very well together - making us able to do more as a group. That, along with our common strengths and goals, was able to allow us to be together, 24X7, very well! And of course, our 'mom' and 'dad' - Allison and Shane - fortunately for us, had great 'parenting skills' - which, I am sure, helped us all to 'tow the line'!! (really, they led 'by example'!)


Of course we could not forgot our 'extended ZamFam' - those of the MWB staff that we spent some of most everyday with - Kathy, Josephine, Fred, Webster and Innocent (who some nicknamed 'Guilty'!!). This group picture was taken on the last day we were all together - at Josephines home; unfortunately for us Deb was having to fly back to England the next day - to return back to work.


Just like the pictures of the Zambian children - the smiles in this picture says a whole lot about our ZamFam and our Lusaka experience!! To our ZamFam - here!! here!! and for Webster -"Fresh Air........."!!

A comment on the organization of pictures, videos and comments

blog month of: JUNE - contains all the intro posts -
                         MAY - contains LUSAKA pics/videos/comments
                         APRIL - contains LIVINGSTONE (BOTSWANA) pics/videos/comments 
                         MARCH - contains JOHANNESBURG pics/videos/comments
(NOTE: on the picture 'link' right click and then select 'Open in New Window' - then you will not have to hit the 'back button' to get back to the blog)
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I have been trying to get my arms around the pictures and videos that we brought back! It has been a task!

So I first copied all of the 'raw' pictures and videos to new storage locations so that I could 'edit' them. Which means that I have all of the originals - before comments have been added - let me know if you need a pic without the comment.

I was starting to put a brief comment into the pictures but quickly realized that this was going to take to long - but would be something that I would have to continue to whittle away at over time. I changed my focus to trying to get the pictures/videos generally available to those who are interested in them - especially our 'ZamFam' (those who comprised our 'team' for this adventure!).

So then I decided to group the pictures by subject matter - not a 'day by day' accounting. Some groupings such as 'The Bunkhouse' is comprised of pictures throughout our stay, while others, such as visiting the Bufwano compound, occured on a single day. This 'grouping process' seemed to make sense and seemed farily 'straight forward'. In each group I placed pictures and videos.

During the 'grouping process' I also weeded out the 'oops' and the 'boo-boos'; rototated those that needed rotating (sounds like Les Schwab's!) to change their orientation and renamed all of the videos so that their file name was indicative of the subject - to help when accessing them. I did find, though, that I was maybe not as good at 'filtering' out duplicates and maybe lower quality shots etc. as I seemed to be more frantic to get them available - such as they were.

The next challenge was to determine where and how to place all of these, besides on our own computers/storage devices, and make it easy to access. After some trial and error, and getting educated on various websites (pros/cons) etc (Thanks to Meg!) I came up with a plan.

I have decided, at this point, to place the pictures into KodakGallery for 2 reasons - so that I can get them out to our ZamFam and so I can also put a link into our blog - so that they can be seen via 'slide show' format. Also, with the KodayGallery - you have the ability to 'step' thru the pictures as your own pace - rather then viewing as a slideshow - if you would rather.

The videos, on the other hand I will upload into this blog - and then you can click on them to view.

I will set up each picture group as its own 'blog post' - so that you can skip around if you desire - or easily come back to groups.

Betty and I then have to go thru and copy out pics/videos into another grouping that will be used for about a 45 minute presentation - as we have been invited to talk about our trip in a few different locations (church, work etc).

Once we get that done then I will work to continue to edit pictures; do additional weeding and editing text into the pictures and adding additional comments into the blog - adding more comment to the groupings as well as comments about our trip from our journals - cause even Betty and I will forget some of this content that we were priviledged to be a part of! Enjoy!

AFRICA- traveling to

These are pictures we took flying Thursday April 8 - 5:30AM thru Friday April 9th - about 10:30PM! On the way out we flew from the Portland, OR airport, to Dulles airport in Washington DC, to Dakar, Senagal, Africa (on western coast of Africa - about 1/4 down), to Johannesburg, South Africa to Lusaka Zambia.

PICS: Traveling to Africa