End of the Road

As I travel along my way, I often refer to myself being at the edge of the earth.  While clearly the world is no longer flat in so many ways, it still often feels that I'm about as far away as can be.  I know that sometimes my family feels as if I've dropped off the edge, coming back and forth between being in and out of touch.  I had a small snippet of this when my twin sister traveled to Denmark last summer and suddenly was incommunicado.  It gave me a taste of my own medicine.

My travels often take me to different edges, whether it is being one of the first to venture back in to Mogadishu or driving hour after hour on some of the worst roads around (I will vouch for them getting much worse here in Zim than my first visit two and a half years ago). In this case, one of my field visits brought me to the edge of Mozambique, to literally the end of the road.  As things happen, this is actually the third place that I've been right at the border of Mozambique, yet to have added it to my list of countries.  If I counted countries that I've physically seen, my count of 70 countries would be higher.

At the end of the road was a school with an incredible baobab tree in the courtyard of the school where we are supporting the construction of a block of latrines. Baobab trees hold a special place in my heart, as the village I lived in Ghana, Dorfor Adidome, was named after them.

 

My field visit was to check out the progress on latrine construction, and it was excellent to see the progress being made.  We worked with school to provide supplies that they could not have likely afforded otherwise, and required the schools to contribute in the labor to dig the pits and provide the bricks (which are more easily available locally).  The project we are working on are replacing latrines that were constructed in the early nineties, so they are nearly full and will soon be unusable for students.  In most cases there are around 400 students, so the situation would be pretty dire not to have latrines available.

As I wrap up my six weeks of travel, with a weekend in Harare and a stopover in our London office for two nights, I'll be trying to catch up on sharing photos and tales.  I will back track, as there are plenty of pictures and stories to share.

Cheers,

Miel