It's a "NEW DAY" for the Cooks: Kenya to Zambia

Ricky and I were up early (1:30am) on Wednesday morning because the airline wanted us checking in 3 hours before departure. They were right, it was a long line, and Ethiopian Air was having to do check-in manually – LOL! After getting our bags checked in and boarding the plane, which was supposed to take off at 5:40am, we sat on the tarmac until 6:30am! We had to travel the LONG route (8 hours total) from Nairobi to Ethiopia to Zimbabwe and finally to Zambia!!! When we arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (over an hour late) we had to change planes. It was chaos getting off that plane and figuring out where our next gate was; then we find out that our plane had already left the gate! A lady took us and we went running through the airport, bypassing the lines of people, jumping on a bus which took us to the plane on the tarmac. They literally closed the door behind us once we got on! Yikes, that was close! Anyway, we figured because WE had to rush, that our bags were probably NOT going to make it.

SCHWARMA (Oh how we missed this from Food Fayre)

We arrived safely in Lusaka, Zambia on Wednesday afternoon. We had a little problem getting in with our work permit since it was a copy and not the original, so we had to pay for the tourist visa until we could get to immigration offices and receive our original documents. And, just as we imagined, our bags didn’t make it. So we had to fill out lost & found reports, and then call back when the next flight was coming in from Addis. Ricky and I took a taxi into town to find accommodations for the next few days. We had one place sorta booked (not confirmed though), so we went there and found a suitable room available at the Zebra Guest House. After checking in we talked with the Wilcoxes and they suggested another place, so we spent one night at Zebra GH and then moved to another place more affordable. Our next couple of days were spent price shopping around Lusaka for things we will need eventually at New Day, plus eating at different restaurants that we had missed. We even went to the movies for less than $8 for both of us!

On Friday, Wes arrived to pick us up, and we had several errands to run, including immigration offices to retrieve our work permits. All was accomplished, and we even went to the airport to retrieve our bags which finally made it from Addis. During the day, Wes noticed the car was not driving adequately, so we decided to meet a mechanic on Saturday morning to evaluate whether the car can make it back to New Day. It was NOT good news…the car needs to stay in the shop for at least a week to get fixed. Thus, our transportation to the orphanage has been changed to a bus ride on Sunday (which was the first available).