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A minibus fits 16 bodies comfortably, but there were upwards of 25 huddled together in our battered van as the seven of us began the 125-mile trek from Lusaka to Kapiri. I look to my left and see a woman holding a flexible cardboard box chockfull of scruffy yellow chicks. “Chicken nuggets,” I joke to my friend, Vishal, who responded with what might have been a laugh. We were fourteen hands, but carried far more than fourteen bags filled with nonperishables, tents and bundles of clothing. If you take a single minibus from Lusaka to Kapiri, you might arrive in four hours. Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, holds about two million people and touts a reliable network of minibuses, cabs and the like. Traveling outside of the urban center hardly promises the use of a single vehicle. We spent eight hours bouncing between three and five forms of transportation in order to reach the rural village an hour outside of Kapiri. For what purpose? A three-day camping trip. We departed Lusaka at six in the morning. The city was still asleep. All you could hear was the unsteady grumbling of the motor and the sifting of dust underneath four threadbare tires. At 2 p.m., we arrived to a small village in Kapiri. The sun was shining bright, as if it were waiting all day to bronze our untrained, pale skin. We dropped our bags onto the firm terrain—our bed for the next two nights—and agreed that it would be smart to erect our tents before the sun retired for the day. As we began unwrapping the tents from their snug, protective casings, I hear Vishal’s voice. “We forgot the poles,” he said. Everyone looked at him, and then we all shared a collective gaze. Admittedly, we brought three tents, but one set of poles. That night, five girls slept in a four-person tent, with little room to do anything but count our individual breaths until we fell asleep. The two boys slept in an abandoned hut nearby, with the company of each other and a handful of wall spiders. In the morning we awoke, the condensation of five respiring beings dripping from above. We set out along the river, encountering local farmers along the way. “Mulishani,” we said, waving. “Hi, how are you.” Our attempts at Bemba, a Bantu language spoken primarily in Northeastern Zambia, were met with a smile and a gentle nod. We traversed the land, looking for nothing in particular. “Watch your step,” Clara warned, referring to the dense brush beside us, a captivating home to the mamba species. After hiking for hours, we returned to the village, our temporary home. The sweat, once dripping down the back of my neck, dried into my sun kissed skin. We tossed a match onto a small heap of coals and began to cook rice. Five minutes’ pass. “Is it done,” Clara inquired as I snagged a bite. “No, but I would eat it like this,” I reply, famished from the hike. Ben had promised to prepare a village chicken from farm to table. After beheading the scrawny fowl, he discovered that we only possessed a small boiling pot. Navigating an unfavorable situation, the remaining six of us decided to solicit help from a local neighboring family. A woman walks over and kindly dismisses Ben from his failed endeavor. She smiles warmly, so as to say “you are welcome here.” Her hands are nimble and she works swiftly. We cannot communicate with her, but smile and nod, repeating the Bemba phrase for thank you, “natotela,” over and over again. When she has finished, we all take a turn at shaking her hand. For no other purpose than to help half a dozen strangers, this woman shared an hour of her evening to prepare us a meal. During our eight-hour commute back to Lusaka, I reflect on what I reaped from this short-lived adventure. I realize, with gratitude, that a seemingly playful trip to the country side held a profound space in my heart, for I not only earned the chance to connect further with my peers but, also with those who call Zambia home.