A trip to Ndola in Zambia's Copper Belt showed that journalists -- and their best opportunities -- share common ground on either side of the AtlanticNdola, Zambia — I have wanted to come to this Copper Belt city since I arrived in Zambia, as I have seen it as the place behind the events that move this nation. That is probably an overstatement, as in reality the far-flung villages, the border towns, the tourist attractions, and certainly Lusaka, the capital, all shape events here.

News of Michelle and Barack Obama's fist bump came to this village on the banks of the Lower Zambezi River, but the villagers stories of death and disaster for want of 20th century commodities are a harder sell.

Before the headmaster of the village school we came to started his story, he asked where we were from.

"America!" he repeated, a smile lighting his worried face, "Barack Obama!"

"Barack Obama!" he repeated later, walking across the village clearing, after he had told his story, and he turned to bump fists with another visitor.

Francis Lungu, an editor for a Zambian current events show, and before that a reporter at a daily paper, knows the frustrations that come with deadline journalism. There was the time, recently, that a source tried to get him breaking news in time for the noon report of his show. But the Internet wasn't working. When that happens he runs out to the Internet cafe nearby.

When Martin is on safari the only news he gets is delivered in paw prints, dung droppings and from vultures buzzing overhead that tell him what animals passed through the night before, what animals may still be lurking, and which lost battles with their predators.

“That is my newspaper when I am in the bush,” he told us. He had been sharing that news with us for the last two days in South Luangwa Park where he was our guide. Over lunch he also gave us his take on politics, corruption and economy in Zambia , which newspaper is the most entertaining, which is the most credible.

I would have looked up Ndubi Mvula, the Zambia Daily Mail's Livingstone bureau chief, in any case. His health reporting had been mentioned to me several times and Livingstone has the highest rate of HIV in the country. The stories there are important, and I looked forward to working with him to tell them in depth. And it's nice to know someone in a nice place. Adding to the fun, though, was that he had just come from my place -- all over the place, covering the most critical American presidential election in either of our memories.

Dr. Vongo clearly gets a kick out thinking people don't expect him to use a power point presentation to tell his story. He also enjoys pointing out that in a recent conference on leadership in the Zambia AIDS epidemic, he was one of the only -- if not the only -- speaker to stay within the 15-minute time limit.

"People think of us as the bad news," he says with a chuckle.

By "us" he means traditional healers -- the herbalists, diviners, spiritual counselors and birth attendants that 80 percent of people seeking health care turn to first in Zambia.

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA — "If you live on a small farm, as I do, your last prayer at night is that an elephant won't find your maize field," Dr. Mannasseh Phiri told an audience of African health journalists today. "It will wipe it out."

Phiri is a quietly compelling speaker and so he had the audience's attention as he went on to describe the feeding habits of elephants.

With small snouts and small mouths, they can only take in a little at a time, so they eat all day long. And as they search for food, they walk quietly; they don't run.

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA — Who is leading the fight against AIDS in Zambia?

That was the question that brought about 100 people together at the Intercontinental Hotel here today. And the answer was -- not nearly enough of the people who should be. That was the question that brought about 100 people together at the Intercontinental Hotel here today. And the answer was -- not nearly enough of the people who should be.

Father Michael Kelly, an Irish-born Jesuit priest and now a Zambian and AIDS expert was there.

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA — I had already spent a jet-lagged weekend here, strolling the dirt footpaths to the center of town and to the local shopping strip before I met the editor of the paper where I will be stationed the next year.

That may be why when I asked him if he thought journalists here would be receptive to the support I hope to offer, I found his answer as credible as I did.

"Yes, they will.

When I started writing about the public health in Palm Beach County, Florida, five years ago, I didn’t imagine that what I learned would lead me to AIDS conferences in Australia and Mexico, to prisons and brothels in the Caribbean, and now, to Zambia where I will spend the next year working with health journalists.