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. After weeks of learning this country's issues from the inside, hearing his experiences doing the same in my country was a luxury.

Zambia's first Edward R. Murrow Fellow, he spent six weeks in the U.S. -- those leading up to Nov. 4 (both Clinton and Obama, he said, were among the most compelling speakers he'd seen) -- the big day itself (he talked of seeing Jesse Jackson weep in Grant Park) and saw his first snow (a sight, it sounded like, that he took more in his stride than I was able to in my euphoria at seeing my first zebra this weekend). He told us how, back in Zambia on inauguration day, he refused to cover anything that would prevent him from watching the American president's swearing in. And he asked what finally had made Americans ready for that day.

In turn, he told me about covering the first arrest -- and then the second -- of his country's first president. He told the stories with amusement, and with lingering irritation about not getting a byline on the first one — a delightful reminder that we journalists are the same the world over, and so, in the odd schemes they find themselves on both ends of, are politicians.

He was warm and welcoming. He showed us the Golf Club, which bears its history on plaque-covered walls showing the transition from English-named trophy winners to those with Zambian names. He showed us the boat club -- the last spot of public-owned land within bounds of the park holding Victoria Falls. He told how Zambia's highest rates of HIV are found in Livingstone, about the  the role played by tourism and the concerns about stigma hurting the town's growing tourist industry. It is a familiar story that is unique in its particulars to this place.

And he said it was good that I had come, which made me very happy.