Mosquito Net Distribution

In mid October, I traveled to the Southern Province where World Vision/ RAPIDS was distributing the first shipment of 133,000 mosquito nets. In total, Zambia will receive 300,000+nets from World Vision U.S. Above is a malaria specialist from WV giving a speech at the launch.

There are so many funny, quirky, odd things about these types of events - and I've done many an event launch:

1) Note how the camera man stands RIGHT in the front of the audience, doesn't even care that he's blocking your view.

2) Speeches are long and boring - and read slowly and deliberately (yawn!).

3) All the guests of honor sit at the "head table" where it's important that they each get a glass to drink their bottled water, there needs to be a flower arrangement and, at the events where there is a higher level government official, a young girl needs to present a bouquet of flowers to the guest of honor.

I've been involved with events where we were scrambling at the last minute to find a flower arrangement, or to find glasses....at times, the protocol can be too much and my contrarian personality says "who cares???!!" but our Zambian staff remind me that it HAS to be that way - that's what protocol is all about!! It's a good learning time for me.

These events are meant to bring good PR to World Vision - and involve the government, but for me, the best part is the lives that are changed as a result of receiving the nets... see the next post.