The team consisted of Marc Horner, Therese McGill a Rotarian in the Kansas City-Plaza Rotary Club, Lindsay Jarquio of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and Engoma Fataki a former Interactor and Rotoractor most recently at Missouri Western University in St Joseph, Missouri. The team left for Malawi on September 30, 2021, and arrived in the capital of Malawi, Lilongwe, on October 2nd midday. They were in Malawi visiting clubs and projects through October 10th when they flew to Lusaka, Zambia for the balance of our visit to D9210. The team left Zambia for a return flight to the United States on October 30th. After a long layover in Washington DC they finally returned to Kansas City the evening of October 31st.
The team flew over 18,000 miles round trip and spent 78 hours in airports and on flights; with masks, landing at 8 different airports. They made 14 different presentations to 25 different Rotary clubs telling them all about D6040 and the cities that we came from. During the trip they had 3 COVID tests in three different countries. They were on the road for better than 1,100 miles visiting 8 different cities in the two countries.
The purpose of this Group Study Exchange was threefold.
- To learn more about the countries and their cultures.
- To visit clubs and projects that our Rotary District 6040 has worked with and funded in the past.
- To develop relationships with clubs in the two countries and investigate more opportunities for partnership on projects in the future.
Our full report to the District was over 16 pages long with lots of details that I will not go into here. We learned a lot, saw a lot, were amazed a lot and made a lot of new friends. If you want to learn more about our trip get your club’s Program Chair to invite us to give a presentation to your club. Reach out to me at mhorner@aol.com
You can also find photos of our trip on Instagram Facebook and Twitter.
Instagram: @rotarydistrict6040gse
Facebook: @RotaryDistrict6040GSETeam
Twitter: @Rotary6040