Mark your calendars!

Mary Jo and I will be presenting "Two Teachers in Africa" on Tuesday, the 26th of October from 7-8 p.m. We will be using the multi-purpose room at Maple Hills.
We have many more pictures and stories to share. We hope to see you there.
Let me know if you need directions. Karen

Africa Trip Presentation

Hello Everyone,
We have tentatively chosen October 26th for our Africa presentation. Our presentation will take place in our Multi Purpose room at Maple Hills Elementary from 7:00 to 8:00p.m. If you need directions please let me know. We can't wait to share more photos and stories about our wonderful trip experience! See you then!

Aug. 10th We Are Home

Hello Everyone,
We've updated the pages made while we were in Zambia. We made it home after an extra long plane ride. We had a wonderful trip and hope you enjoyed coming along through this blog. We plan on having an eveing event at our school to share more pictures and stories. We'll let you know when the time comes. Karen & Mary Jo

Aug 6th Chobe National Park - Botswana

Today we got up early to go to Botswana to visit Chobe National Park. We went through customs and immigration at a river crossing. We started our visit at Chobe Safai Lodge which lays along the banks of the Chobe river. The river meets four countries, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The view from the river boat were amazing. The animals were everywhere. There was a wide variety of birds living along the river including the fish eagle. We saw everything, elephants, buffalo, banded mongoose, crocodiles, baboons and a lot of hippos. After lunch on land, we were driven through part of the park. Our game driver focused on areas close to the rivers edge. We saw a lot of the same animals mentioned above as well as several giraffe and two lions! We were hoping that we would find lions at Chobe as they were the only cat we hadn't seen. You could spend several hours at this park and not see everything there is to see! It was an amazing day!

Aug 5th Elephants, Village and Schools

Hello,
This morning we got up early to drive to an elephant center. The elephants at the center were rescued from Zimbabwe. We were given a little history of how each elephant came to the center and how the babies came to be. We picked Danny, the biggest elephant for our elephant backed safari. Our elephant driver took us on a ride for about an hour. It was an excellent ride! After the ride we were able to spend time with the baby and feed our elephant. Later we stopped at the Simoonga village. We met with a community leader who gave us a history of the traditional village. A local man walked us through the village. We saw homes, gardens, and families. Each family has a plot for their home, kitchen, bathroom, boys house, and any animals they might have. The village has two wells and use a barter system for trading farm animals, vegetables or services. We met a young boy named Robert. He asked us a lot of questions about who we were and where we were from. We were able to visit the school and see the library. We had not planned on this school visit. It was an experience we shall never forget. On our way back to the Tongabezi lodge we stopped at the private school set up by the owners of Tongabezi. The students were getting ready for a national drum and dance competition. They were the national winners last year. We got to see classrooms and talk to teachers. The classes were very small (25 students) compared to the other schools we visited. The school takes in local, rural underprivileged children. The students did an awesome job!

8/4 Update Victoria Falls and Huge Fall!

Hi All,
This morning we had a lovely breakfast by the river. Our guide drove us to Victoria Falls. We walked along a trail on the dry side of the falls. We then rented raincoats for 1 dollar and walked along the we side. It was beautiful. We were supprised by the lack of railing to keep on from falling over the edge! It was quite wet and slippery! After looking at the falls we stopped at the arts and crafts market. If you want to feel pressure to buy something you really need to go this outdoor market! Our guide finally rescued us! We saw quite a few baboons along the way. After our trip to the falls we went to the Victoria Falls Gorge. We can't believe that we did it! We decided to take a big leap! I think the pictures really tell the story! After we were released at the bottom we had to hike out back to the top. That is a lot of steps!