June 28, 2015 – Today was very interesting at the Greenpop Village. I started my day off waking up a 3 o’clock in the morning because of the temperature drop and couldn’t fully fall asleep again. Besides that, we officially woke up to a great breakfast oatmeal, toast, and tea (which a friend used to keep warm this morning). After breakfast, we went into our morning warm circle, which we used to get pumped for the activities of the day. Also, this is where they split us up into groups for activities.
They said we were going to see a charcoal kiln and go to the market to exchange money, and shop a little. On the trip to the charcoal kiln, I was asleep because I didn’t go to sleep the night before. At the kiln, we saw how Zambians make one of their sources of energy for their homes. It’s like this very complicated makeshift oven which they build up like a hill but with dirt and grass. They get the big pieces of wood and put them in, cover it in more sand, then light it. Three weeks later, the resulting charcoal is their source of energy for cooking food.
Meg, who has written an important book on the trees of Southern Africa, showed us a wonderful tree that drops these rattle pods called Scotsmen rattle. We went searching for them and found a few. We also found what Zambians call a monkey orange, which was green rather than orange.
15 min later, we started heading over to the market to exchange money and shop a little. This really made my day because they had Doritos – except they had a really different flavor then they have in the US. They also had Mountain Dew, which made me super happy. We stayed there for 30 minutes and headed back to camp. After dinner at the camp, we hiked to go see the famous Baobab Tree, which was an unforgettable experience.
Delvon Johnson , Eastern High School