I wish I could say that I had been to looking forward to Crusade. That my heart was happy to leave Riverside. That I enjoyed the camping, the food, the showers and the toilet. But I was not looking forward to Crusade. If, you have read my other blog about just starting out on Crusade, you know that we took public transportation in the form of a bus. It feels a bit like deja vue to say the trip should have…. But, it was supposed to take roughly 20 hours at the most this time. Instead, it took us 36 hours just to get to Mpulungu, the town before our final destination. And let me say this year was, by far, more stressful than the last… even if that trip took 52 hours ( Go read that blog here! ) In short, at around 18 hours we hit a man who was trying to die and we were 3 hours, in either direction, away from the nearest town. In Zambia, in the middle of no where, anything can happen. People (white people especially) have been stoned to death for less. Robbed for less. Wo...
The factory looked like the house right before aSuper Bowl party, that my parents have hosted for many years... Empty. Clean. Waiting. The floor, not spotless but swept. Normally messy tables were cleared and the corners full of things organized neatly. The air feels like anticipation. That’s what it felt like before the Zambia Revenue Authority came to the factory... or was supposed to come. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on applying to the ZRA to obtain a Country of Origin Certificate for our 7 types of soap. I thought it would be easy. Just submit a letter and get the certificate… but no. It involves a letter, invoices from all materials required including factory overhead, customs clearances for anything imported, documentation of production, and a cost analysis for every single soap. We first applied for it in the middle of December. The hardest part of it all was collecting the invoices and clearances because, there has been no system for storin...
I felt anxious and nauseous as the red sun descended. I can't explain it; maybe it was the apple I ate without cleaning it, but fear gripped my heart. Tears welled up in my eyes, as the front of the bus collectively gasped. The bus swayed from side to side, and then a sudden impact jolted us. Shouts erupted, we came to a stop and people began to exit. We had struck a man. I wasn't crying, but tears streamed down my face. I was shocked, confused, and terrified. Would these people seek revenge, or would they remain peaceful? All of us "muzungus" chose to stay on the bus. Olivia and Netanya wanted to help, but we advised against it. What if you get blamed, and you don't have licenses here? Later the villagers informed us that two trucks had narrowly missed him earlier that day, and it seemed he wanted to die. We feared we could have caused of his death. I frantically texted Remmy, "What happened? We hit a man, and he's bleeding from his head. What should we...
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