Articles with Africa

Victoria Falls, Baboons and Sunset With Elephants

It was time to say goodbye to Madagascar and the tour group and head across the Mozambique Channel to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to start the next leg of my  journey. Unfortunately, getting to Zimbabwe isn’t as direct as I had hoped. First stop, the Antanarvario airport, which is about 30 minutes from the hotel. Fortunately we were leaving at night, so we wouldn’t have to deal with the chaos of people and traffic. Unfortunately we would have to deal with…

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Sharing a Beach Adventure in Lomé, Togo

As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn’t do much sight seeing in Lomé, Togo as I spent most of my time teaching. However, on the final Saturday I did have an opportunity to go out and see some of the sights. The fun part was that I didn’t go alone. I shared that experience with a high school student from Togo. Many organizations try to help children around the world. One of the ways they do this is…

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Teaching Leaders in the African Country of Togo

I retired from teaching over five years ago. However, teaching is still in my blood. Since retiring I have twice gone to the African country of Malawi to teach in the pastoral training program there. At the end of August this year I went to another African country to teach, Togo. When I told people I was going to Togo, they would typically look a little confused. I would have to explain to them that Togo is in West Africa.…

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Encountering the Indri Lemur in Madagascar’s Rainforest

Our trip through Madagascar continued the next day as we left for Antsirabe. It was another long day on the road. Luckily we stopped in a little town for lunch where we were provided with singing and dancing by the locals. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of opportunities for work outside of Antananarivo, so I assume this was probably considered a good job, especially when they can receive tips from foreigners. After our lunch (I had noodles and…

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Andrea Begins An Amazing African Adventure in Madagascar

Madagascar wasn’t a place that had been on my bucket list, but I sometimes like to take the country less traveled, less traveled and far. Madagascar is so far away that getting there was an adventure in itself. As you can imagine, there are no direct flights to Madagascar. I first had to fly to Istanbul where I had a 12 hour layover. Then I took a flight to Madagascar via Mauritius. Fortunately I was able to do a free…

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Four Sundays in Malawi, Four Unique Churches: Part One

When I visited Malawi in January of 2020, I was only able to visit one church, the one on the school campus. This time I wanted to make it a priority to visit different churches so each of the four Sundays I was there, my friend Bern and I visited a different church. Let me say some things in general about churches in Malawi. First of all as a visitor, the churches always treated me very well. They gave me…

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The Challenges of October in Lilongwe, Malawi

The first time I visited Lilongwe, Malawi was In January of 2020. I enjoyed my visit and had a great experience. This time when I visited Lilongwe, my experience wasn’t so great. It was not the people or the activities I had that made it less enjoyable. It was really aspects of the weather. In January I arrived during the rainy season, and it did rain. However, I am used to rain living in the Seattle area so it didn’t…

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More Nativity Scenes from Around the World

In my first year of blogging, I did a post on nativity scenes from around the world. I shared that I had been collecting nativities as I enjoyed seeing how the birth of Christ was interpreted and represented within various cultures and by various artists. We recognize that while Christ’s birth happened in a certain time and location in history, he came for all mankind. The various cultural interpretations acknowledge that fact. The nativity scene in the cover photo is…

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To Tour or not to Tour, That is the Question

With the pandemic seeming to ease, many people are starting to think again about traveling. While international traveling can be an amazing experience, it can also be intimidating for some people. One option that many people consider is taking a tour. This method has become very popular, and there are many tour companies out there looking to get your business. The question then, is this a good option? I will lay out the pros and cons that I see for…

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Zambia: Travel with a Purpose Part 2

While most teachers take their students on field trips from time to time, imagine taking 16 high school students half way around the world to the third world country of Zambia. This was no ordinary field trip. It was a week long trip to help students experience a third world culture and learn how they could respond. In last week’s post I shared that one of our main tasks in Zambia was doing children’s programs. However, there were other types…

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