I’m home, sitting on my couch in Galway on Friday afternoon. It’s weird to be a home and kind of sad not to look out the window and see the beautiful blue skies and distinctive sights of Zambia, but at the same time it’s good to be back. The seven weeks in Zambia is something I’ll never forget, the experiences we had, the people we met and the beauty of the country I’m sure will stick with me forever. I hope to return to Zambia one day as it’s a place the does kind of get under your skin. I look forward to walking down the main street of Kaoma again, to seeing the beauty of the countryside as you drive through, meeting some of the children from the orphanages and experience places I’ve yet to see. It’s a magical place and somewhere I miss already. So last time I posted I was sitting in Amsterdam airport (I haven’t used paragraphs before so I won’t start now) waiting for our flight to Ireland. We boarded the flight without any hassle and for the first time it hit me, there was Makua’s everywhere it was the largest collection of pasty white skin we’d seen in almost 2 months (farmers tan’s by the shed load). The flight to Ireland took about an hour and a half and onboard I was reacquainted with rip off pricing with €2 for a Twix (well I’d paid €8 for McDonalds in Amsterdam, I got a whole steak dinner with beer for less in Zambia, before anyone says it McDonalds’ for breakfast is disgusting but I just needed food to keep me standing). When we touched down in Dublin it was weird looking out and seeing grey sky (why can’t it be beautiful and blue like Zambia). We made our way to baggage claim half expecting an announcement to come over the intercom like “could passenger Mark Morley please report to customer service desk so we can inform him of his bags arrival in Addis Ababa” but fortunately our bags pretty quickly made it onto our trolleys. We then wheeled our trolleys through to the arrivals hall where Dan met his girlfriend and we said our brief goodbyes. The other three of us walked towards the bus car park area, Áine with her brother (who weirdly was a Dan look alike).She departed and after another brief goodbye, Me and Jamie made our way to the Citylink buses me getting the direct one and him getting the one for Loughrea, for the first time in 7 weeks the group was separated. I asked the bus driver how much it cost and when he said €15 I was tempted to say “can you do for ten” but I knew the answer I’d get. So the bus down, I pretty much just slept through it only waking briefly in Dublin city centre and to see the sign saying Oranmore. From the bus station I dragged my 3 suitcases back up the road to Cill Ard and stepped through the front door. My trip to Zambia was over I was home. So that’s the end of my Zambia blog I really can’t believe I kept it going the whole time I was there. In the end it came to 89 pages and almost 44,000 words of a word document. At times it drove me mad to try and find the time to write it but I’m glad I did and as I sit here I have a program open to turn it into a book to keep. It’ll be a great way to remember my trip in the future (sorry about the typos but mostly I couldn't be bothered rereading what I wrote to correct it). So as I said above it really was the most amazing trip and one of the best experiences of my life. I really hope I can return to Zambia one day and the country can remain as magical a place as it was during my visit. It’s hard to sum up a trip like that in one sentence so the only thing I can think of is T.I.A, T.I.Z, That was Africa, That was Zambia. I hope to return!
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