The other side of the World

Thursday morning, 10:30 a.m., offices of World Bicycle Relief, Lusaka, Zambia


My first glimpse of the African sun came about 5 this morning, high above the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking out the left side of the plane, I could see a massive thunderhead building in the east; below us, the soft pillow of clouds obscured a vast landscape -- from the inside of the plane, we could have been about to land anywhere.


I've been on the ground now for nearly 4 hours, and I'm not quite sure where to begin. My thoughts are all jumbled, from lack of sleep and too much coffee. But mostly everything just feels surreal.


Surreal in so many ways. From the moment Dave picked me up at the airport, as we drove the narrow streets of Lusaka, I was suddenly surrounded by reality. But it's a strange reality -- I've spent the past 9 months looking at photos of Zambia every day, photos that have been published and not, and now, for the first time, it's all real. Leah's camera captures this place so well, it's as if I've stepped into one of her frames. Because of that, it's the sounds and smells that define the world around me. It is at once familiar and foreign, and I'm not quite sure how to process it all.

We're going to be out and about this afternoon, hopefully I'll get a chance to update this evening. Later.