Stranded!

Africa may have its act together but the U.S. certainly doesn't. At least where the weather is concerned. We left Jo'burg right on time around 5:30 p.m. January 26 and flew 8 hours to Dakar, Senegal where we were to have an hour lay over. When we touched down the Captain came on and said the Dulles airport had been closed due to snow. We had the choice of trying to take another flight to JFK in a couple of hours or of overnighting (courtesy of South African Airways) in Senegal. After looking at the NY weather forecast we opted to stay the 24 hours in Senegal. So here we are looking out at the beautiful surf, watching the seagulls, enjoying a lovely hotel...and wishing we were home. In the spirit of the adventure, however, we will search our suitcases for the least traveled-looking clothes and sally forth to see Dakar while we wait for airports to reopen on the East Coast.

Our final day in Lusaka was terrific! We visited a well-known widow's project called Chikumbuso in the outskirts of town. Quite an operation! It started with one widow and 7 children and now reaches out to dozens of widows, has a school, a safe house for children, tailoring classes, plastic bag making project and much more. We took lots of notes for possible incorporation of good ideas into our projects. Best of all we met Linda Wilkinson, the founder, who invited us to her home for dinner that night. What an incredible lady! Her husband, Bruce, is the World Vision director for 9 African countries. He was traveling so we didn't get to see him but we had met him on a previous trip when he said, "You need to meet my wife, Linda." Now we know why.