Projects are coming along!

My apologies for not keeping up on my blog, fellow readers! I had no idea I had such a response but now I promise to you to keep up on my status while in Zambia.
It has been nearly two weeks now in the Meheba Refugee Settlement and alot of excitement has been stirring in the FORGE Compound. All of the ambassadors are developing some truly amazing projects that are about to get started in the community.
I have been working alot with the Meheba Tigers coaches and team as well as the community sports league on helping develop their programs. I got properly trained by local peer educators on Grassroots soccer this week and we have successfully dispersed the equipment we have gotten donated to all of the programs. In the next week I am planning to train the Tigers in Grassroots Soccer and begin our HIV/AIDS awareness campaign by organizing a schedule of visits to the local basic schools. We have also gotten a huge supply of condoms (30,000 to be exact!) from UNFPA which I am setting up for the Tigers to disperse in the settlement.
On the personal side of things, I have been really amazed by the people here in the settlement. I went my first church service last Sunday here and it was truly incredible. People sing with such beautiful harmony and the church gets so full of energy. It was a really amazing experience and I plan to go as much as I can for now on.

So I am sorry this post is so short but I will be sure to say more next time. I hope that everyone is well back home and I will send something out again in a week.

Greetings from Zambia!

What a small world! So after two and a half days of travelling: Boston to Cape Cod, Cape Cod to New York, New York to London, London to Lusaka, Zambia. I finally walk off of the plane and out of the airport to run into a Zambian man(that has no correlation to FORGE) that says, "are you Ben Kneppers?" I say yes and he goes, "hey its me bennie, archies friend!" I couldnt even fathom how far I just travelled to come and run into someone I happened to know through a friend in the middle of Africa!
So I am safely into my second day in Zambia and all is well. We just had an incredible meeting with UNHCR in the Lusaka headquarters and everyone is very excited to get to Meheba tomorrow. We have been staying in the FORGE flat in Lusaka for the past day and a half and it has been very nice. The Zambian people are very friendly and it has been quite an experience feeling the side of being a white male minority while walking around town. People go out of the way to help you alot and it is nice but you want to try to just fit in.I will be travelling to the Meheba Refugee Settlement tomorrow where I will be staying for the next two months. I hope all is well with everyone.