At home and abroad

That’s what Steve and I will be doing Friday morning (9/15): buckling up as we take off on perhaps our most ambitious adventure.

We’re flying off to Africa (via Chicago and Addis Ababa), disembarking in Uganda, which has become one of the few countries to which we’re happy to return. Once again we’ll be visiting the remote village of Nyaka (near where Uganda meets up with the borders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo), to take the pulse of the microfinance project there supported by the Women’s Empowerment organization in San Diego. (For almost 10 years we’ve volunteered to be the liaisons between the villagers and their American patrons.)

We will then make our way to Harare, capital of Zimbabwe (once known to the Western world as Rhodesia.) We’ll be renting a Land Rover and driving it into the country’s beautiful eastern mountains (said to be reminiscent of Scotland), then down into a big-game hunting preserve where, trust me, we will not be shooting any animals ourselves. We will move on to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the biggest and most impressive stone-walled city in sub-Saharan Africa. After sleeping in a tent on the Land Rover’s roof in Hwange National Park, we’ll wind up at the awesome Victoria Falls, spend a couple of nights at an upscale lodge on the Zambezi River in Zambia, then catch a South African Airlines flight to Johannesburg.

Joburg will be our launch pad for exploring a few more of the world’s microstates. This won’t match our tour of the smallest countries in Europe two years ago. But we should end up knowing more than most folks about the mountain kingdom of Lesotho and mellow little eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland.) If all goes well, we’ll be home again Oct. 19, five weeks after taking off.

Preparing for this trip has been a challenge. We’ll have to check a duffel bag to carry sleeping bags and towels and other gear for the Land Rover. A motley zoo of electrical adaptors will be necessary to plug into power in this part of the world.

Of course the power is not always on. We know the grid often fails in Southern Africa. I’ll be writing as much as possible, but it may take me a while to post some of my reports. I’m trusting my readers will understand any such delays.