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Alexa's VSO experienceI'm in Zambia!! August 22 My recent adventuresYesterday I got back from just over a week in Namibia. I'd wanted to go since I arrived in Zambia but the long coach journey there was putting me off! But I decided to go for it and travelled with two other VSOs - Rachel from Lusaka and Pete from Malawi.
The journey there was supposed to take 17 hours on the Intercape bus... it took 25!! We broke down three times - the first just outside of Livingstone! But the worst was in the middle of the Namib desert, in the night (very very cold!), for five hours...until another bus arrived to pick us up!
But we got to Windhoek eventually, and I'm really glad we did. The country is so different to Zambia - it feels so much more developed, and is very westernised. There were pavements, street lights, road signs and LOTS of shops! It wasn't what i was expecting at all. We stayed with another VSO, Isabelle, while in Windhoek - in her gorgeous flat with ensuite bathroom, DSTV, washing machine and swimming pool (very jealous!).
We travelled to the coast - to Swakopmund - which felt very toy-town like and very German! While there, we went on a boat trip to see seals, dolphins and lots of birds, while sipping champagne and trying fresh oysters! Very posh!!! The seals were really funny, they kept jumping up onto the boat and lying in the sun on the seats! The birds were impressive too - mainly the pelicans and flamingoes!
We also went on a three-day trip to Sossusvlei - the sand dunes. They were really impressive, and photos can't do them enough justice. We watched the sunrise and the sunset from the top of the dunes which was stunning. Then trekked across them for 5km to get to Deadvlei - a dead valley! Check out the photos to see how gorgeous it was!!!
Our trip also coincided with Isabelle's birthday, so we were there for a big house party at hers and got to meet lots of her local friends. Good fun, but we spent the next day feeling very delicate!
Thankfully, the bus ride home wasn't anywhere near as bad - we had better seats and it only took about 18 hours!!!
The day I left for Namibia, Shona also left to go home to UK. Before Shona left we took the kids to the Crocodile Park in Livingstone. It was a great day and the kids loved the play area as much as the crocs! Check out the photos - they were all wearing their new clothes and looking especially cute!!!!
Feels strange now not having Shona living in my flat, making me cups of tea in the morning!!! Instead I have a malaria-suffering Sibu lying on my sofa, dosed up on medication and looking very sorry for himself! Which reminds me...i'd better go and check he's ok!
xxx July 24 Shona's visitMy school friend from home - Shona - arrived 9th July to stay with me here in Livingstone for five weeks. And since her arrival i've been so busy catching up, being a tour guide, doing touristy things, partying and working (yes...working for CTYA!!!) Hence my lack of postings for a while.
Shona seems to have fallen for my kids as much as I have so we have been spending a lot of time with them. A few weeks ago we hired a mini bus and took them to the Game Park for a picnic. Unfortunately all we saw in the Game Park were lots of giraffe (very annoying as i'd been a few weeks before and seen EVERYTHING!) but the kids seemed to enjoy it nevertheless. I've never seen Junior behave himself so much - he spent the whole time holding onto the seat in front of him, wide eyed with a massive grin. Bless!!!
I've had a few trips to the clinic with the children recently. The nights have been really cold and i guess where they live isn't very warm so they're prone to illness. I took Betty and Precious to the clinic to find out they had pneumonia and malaria! When the Doctor diagnosed them my eyes filled up...so i took them straight to the market and bought them lots of warm clothes!!!
Enough of my kids..! Last weekend we decided to go to a remote island in the Zambezi for a weekend. It was gorgeous. We were picked up and driven down a 'lane' for about an hour until we reached an upstream bit of the Zambezi, then we got into a dug out canoe and were paddled over to the island. Being within about 5 inches of crocodile and hippo invested water was a bit scary, but we made it safely across. Docking right in the bar where we were given two Mosi beers on the house! From then on it was a case of lazing in the sun, drinking and reading. Very nice. There were only ten of us on the island, but somehow the accommodtion we'd booked was full so they upgraded us to 'large chalet' for the same price. It was a river side chalet with the most comfy bed i've slept in in 9 months!!! We woke up to see the sun shining on the Zambezi. Hmmm.. Very pleasant.
And as i said above, i've also been busy with work recently! We're into the height of a big project on Abstinence and Fidelity sponsored by USAID. But turning up at the office you'd never tell we were busy...things are just the same. It's sooo frustrating! We had a big launch concert at the Centre as part of this project. A local artist came for the event (although turned up 4 hours late) and we had a march (you can't do anything here without marching first...but ours started two hours late!). But the day before there was still so much to do...including getting the hall ready and trying to make the youth centre look like a youth centre. While everyone else just sat around in a 'meeting' me and Shona went to the market, persuaded a carpenter to lend us some tools, bought some nails and mended the pool table and two tennis tables (they've been broken since I arrived - and were apparently not repairable so were just left for rubbish!) but they're now up and stronger than ever. Good old GCSE technology!!! We also decorated the hall best we could with no resources - letters cut out of flip chart paper and material draped around the place!! The concert was ok - but everything was in Zambia time and ran so late that it was ridiculous. Since then the pace hasn't really changed much. We're meant to conduct focus group discussions, radio shows, classroom sessions etc etc - in four months. We are now half way through the project and only two out of 80 classroom sessions have been carried out. And considering schools break up for holiday next week i think next week may be a bit of a panic. I'm meanwhile trying to write reports for USAID to make it sound like we haven't really done sod all. But all USAID are interested in is numbers and reaching people with messages on Abstinence and Fidelity. And as we're doing weekly radio shows on the local radio which has an estimated listenership of 4,500 - i think we'll easily meet the target of reaching 10,000 youths!!! But whether they've understood the message or even really heard it doesn't seem to matter. Hmmmm. Frustrations!!!
Water is a problem again. We've had none since Thursday. Thankfully Shona is fairly adaptable and is happy to go without washing for a week!!! But i'm off to the gym for a shower...
Hope you're all ok and you're surviving the flooding (if you could send out enough water for a bath i'd appreciate it!!!) xxx
July 03 03 JulyZambia is very happy at the moment – it’s a four day weekend! Monday (yesterday) was Heroes Day and today is Union Day. And I only had to participate in one march - on Saturday for National VCT Day (VCT = Voluntary Counselling and Testing for HIV) - so I am also very happy. I started the weekend off with a small party at mine….lots of punch and lots of dancing! Yesterday I gave in and went to Zimbabwe. I’d been reluctant to because of all the problems, but I’m so glad I did. I went with Ronnie and her friend from England and we spent the morning wondering around the town of Victora Falls, then went to the posh hotel for lunch, then spent the afternoon at the Falls. The town was clearly lovely a few years back. The layout, the shops and the architecture were so much better than the Livingstone side. But now it is a bit run down, the shops were a bit emptier and there was a general feeling about the place – comments by shop workers and people in the hotel were the main signs that the country is suffering so much. 1GBP is equivalent to 160,000$ at the moment (although that varies loads between places)! We went to the Victoria Falls hotel for lunch – which overlooks the falls and the Zimbabwe-Zambia bridge. But in my opinion, it was nowhere near as nice as some of the hotels on the Zambia side! Then we went to the falls. The main falls are on the Zim side and the walk along the falls is much longer. And the paths and safety aspects of it are much better than Livingstone. But a lot of the falls were covered by so much of the ‘smoke’ that actually the views are better from the Livingstone side. Maybe I’m just bias…a good day out, but I prefer Livingstone! On Sunday, I went to Livingstone Island which is an island on the top of the Falls. It is from where David Livingstone first saw the falls. It was so nice. You get really close to the edge of the Falls (about half a metre to a shear drop) and had to walk through really strong current water. It was quite scary in places. But the views were amazing and it was all really well organised. We had to take our shoes off for the walk, then at the end we had our feet washed for us, before sitting down for afternoon tea. Very pleasant! Work has picked up a bit, and last week I went with some colleagues to do a workshop in one of the villages – Mukuni village. It was a two day workshop on facilitation skills and briefing potential adult-mentors (about 40 of them) on the messages that they will go on to pass on to the youths in the area (Abstinence and Fidelity). A lot of the workshop was conducted in the local language and it was really interesting hearing some of the stories people told… such as an example as to the potential barriers to spreading the message. A Pasteur told of how a ten year old boy who slept in the same room as the rest of his family (as most people do here) woke up one night to see and hear his parents having sex. He wasn’t sure what was happening but was found by the Pasteur trying what he’d seen on a much younger girl. And from the reactions of the other participants, it is clear that this is not uncommon – mainly because discussing sex here is such a taboo, especially with parents and especially in rural areas. The workshop was really enjoyable and I felt like it was worthwhile. The participants now each have their own goal of spreading the messages to at least ten people each every week. We’ll be going back occasionally to check their progress and ensure it is being conducted effectively. Although quite how effective preaching fidelity will be in a village where the 72 year-old head man has three wives (the youngest of which is about 20) …we will see! June 23 Malime pre school / workshop / 'my' kidsLast week I went out with Rainbow to a pre-school they support out in the villages. About an hours drive from Livingstone. It was so much fun!! There were about 20 kids there, and two teachers - one from Livingstone and one from the village (the headman's third wife(!)). Some of the children were so scared of me...they don't see many white people...and just kept crying! A few got used to me by the end of the day but some just cried when i walked past. The headman's wife has no training in teaching and it was interesting watching her. She had the small children, which included her own child, who she spent most of the time cuddling and feeding. I sat round with them when she was teaching them how to nurse a baby (using cuddly toys and dolls sent from England!). They were practising holding them on their backs and sending them to sleep. That was fine - I could cope with that. But when she decided to show them how to breast feed and pulled their tops down (including the boys?!!!) and then flopped her own boob outand held a cuddly rabbit to it...I decided to go and help with the other class!!!!! Obviously a vital lesson to learn when you're a three year old boy!!
Work has been picking up. CTYA has eventually received funding which we should have got months ago. It is for a project being carried out through Livingstone and parts of Kazungula rural (villages like the one above). The focus of the project is Abstinence and Being Faithful in terms of HIV. (It's funding from the US and we're not allowed to mention condom use....how unrealistic to expect youths in rural areas where there's little else to do to abstain....aargghhh. So frustrating!!!) Anyway. So there's been more meetings than normal and even a few workshops....I've now learnt that the difference between a meeting and a workshop is that people get allowances at a workshop and so are more likely to come!?! Some volunteers rely on the allowances they get from workshops as their only income...but when you work out how much they could get from that compared to working as a waitress etc, it's easy to see why most chose not to get a proper job. Not so good for a sustainable economy though! But anyway, hopefully i'll get a few trips out to the villages with work over the next few months.
And finally 'my' kids! The focus of my life here!!! Last week was half term so I organised for some of the volunteers at work to help me do some lessons with them. It was so much fun. We did lots of singing and dancing, learnt the alphabet and counting, sang the national anthem (a big thing here) and did colouring and cutting and pasting. Most of them picked things up really quickly and you could see a big improvement in a week. It was funny the things they've picked up from school - 'you're making noise' ; 'teacher, I want to wee wee' ; 'teacher I want to fight' ?!!!! (apparently that last one means that someone else is causing trouble and they're supposed to say 'teacher, they're fighting' but they haven't understoond that yet!!)
I've also managed to get Junior into school. He's not allowed in as a sponsor child, but there's no reason why he can't start school as a fee paying child. So hopefully he'll start this week. Very exciting!
Hope everything is good in England xxx June 11 Elephants and police!Last night I was walking home from the pub and an elephant crossed my path. How cool is that?!!
A bit better than my ‘incident’ last week when walking home from the pub! I’d gone to the local pub (about 500m from my house!) to meet another VSO who’d come down for the week. I dragged my mate Sibu along and he walked me home at 11pm. On the walk back we saw two men in front of us suddenly start running and turned round to see what was causing the sudden sprint… a police van was pulling up behind us. I thought nothing of it – just assumed the men running had done something wrong.
But – oh no. The van pulled up alongside us and made us get in. It was carrying about 10 armed Zambian policemen and three white men without uniform, carrying batons. Sibu explained to them that we were just 10m from my house but they didn’t care. I had no idea what was happening and when people were talking it was in the local language so I was completely clueless. But Sibu didn’t seem to be too bothered, so I was ok. But the more we drove round collecting other people, the more concerned I got. So I secretly text my friend Ronnie – asking her to meet me at the police station! But then the police saw me texting (thankfully I’d already pressed send) and told me to turn the phone off…and that being arrested means you lose your freedom. Arrested??? Me?! Why?!!
As the van drove back to the station it collected lots of people who were just wandering along the streets. One person was actually working at the bus stop when two police men jumped out and lifted him up, pulled his hat off of him and threw him into the van. We got back to the station after midnight and thankfully Ronnie was there waiting. But they wouldn’t let her see me….when she asked, they said that the mzungu would have to spend the night in the cell. She asked what for and they said apparently I was loitering?!!! I later discovered you’re not allowed to walk anywhere after 10.30pm, even between pubs. Crazy…! In actual fact, I think it’s probably a main way the police make some money…pulling innocent people in off the streets. But the scariest thing about the whole incident was the white men on board. They were so rough with everyone they took in and were always the ones to initiate stopping to catch people. Apparently they were reserve police – I think they were probably sons of expats, bored and out for a 'good time'. Hmmm.
At the police station I was sat just outside the cells with the others for nearly an hour while they registered people and made a list of peoples belongings. The whole time Sibu was negotiating and doing some serious name dropping (his uncle is the magistrate here which tends to scare most policemen!) Then the main man came and started taking people to the cells. The smell was disgusting. Thankfully, Sibu managed to persuade them to let us go and talk to somebody and we narrowly missed the cell. We had to prove Ronnie (my ‘aunty’!) had come to collect us and had to pay the ‘release fee’ (hmmm) and we were allowed to go. Three hours after leaving the pub!
The other innocent people caught were locked up in the cell for the night. Apparently they’d be there until someone paid for their release – up to three days - and while in the cell they’d receive no food or drink unless family or friends would bring it to them. Just for walking home – or in one case – being at work. Crazy. Certainly shook me up a bit and made me think twice about walking in the dark here – with or without Zambian friends. My sponsor children!Five of ‘my’ children ended up getting into Rainbow as sponsored children….Benson, Abigail, Sheila, Precious and Betty. Despite their ages, four of them went into pre-school and only Benson (the 11yr old boy) went into the primary school (although he wasn’t ready – he was too old to go into pre-school). None of them can speak English which is the thing holding them back. Last Friday I hired a car to take them to school to be assessed and fitted in uniform and I got them each a little school bag with drinking bottle and various things to keep them ‘smart’ at school – shoe polish, toothbrush, soap etc etc.
They started school on Monday and work has been boring without them there to play with all week. Only Junior remains - which is very very sad…but Rainbow only take two children from each family. I took him out on Monday when all his friends were at school to treat him to whatever he wanted in the market. All he said though is biscuits, popcorn and a banana!!! So I just bought him things I liked…a GAP hoody(!), some Nike trainers, a toy car, a school bag and bottle, and a uniform…we’re trying to get him into the government pre school if we can negotiate not paying the fees. What a joke…all primary education here is supposed to be free…yet he can’t go to the little pre school near him because he has to pay 15,000zmk a month for the privilege. Although this is only 2pound a month, it is a large proportion of the family income, and understandably it is not seen as a priority. Anyway – enough about Junior!!
To get to Rainbow school, my five kids have to walk for forty minutes each way – which I was concerned would be the thing that would hold them back. The school day is 7.45 – 4.00 (ow!) but they have been early every day for their first week, and a parent has always been there on time to collect them at the end of the day. Really good news!
On Friday it was the pre-school sports day. Which of course I missed work to go to! It was soooo good to see the kids. As soon as they saw me they all lit up and smiled at me and waved. Seeing them playing with the other children, playing with things they never would have before, looking smart and just joining in and having fun made my eyes fill with tears. It was such a contrast to how I’ve seen them before and it was so good to see them like it.
The various races were interesting! The teachers were more competitive than the kids and a fight nearly broke out between two of them…but the kids seemed oblivious and enjoyed running off in random directions. Precious kept complaining to her teacher she was tired and that she felt like falling down – but she kept going!!
All children got certificates and Sheila seemed particularly proud of hers – despite coming last! Precious was in the winning team and Abigail came third. Very good effort! Afterwards, I took them to the corner shop to get them some drinks and sweets. They were so funny. Before they couldn’t speak any English except to say ‘fine’ when I asked them ‘how are you today’ - and only then if I asked it in a singing voice!?! But on the way to the shop, Betty kept saying ‘Alexa you’re making noise’ and ‘Alexa you’re speaking Nyanja’ – obviously the two phrases the teacher keeps saying to them!!!! (Nyanja is one of the local languages here, and I guess she says it when they should be speaking English!!)
On the Friday when I took them to get fitted for their uniforms and be assessed, we were showing them round the playground when two of them just lifted up their skirts and started going to the toilet!!! I got Sibu to explain to them that they couldn’t do that at school and that there were toilets for them to use. They obviously took that on board…cos as soon as we walked out of the school gates on Sports Day on the way to the shop, two of them lifted up their skirts and started going to the loo!!! They’ve obviously understood that they can’t do it in school, so they just wait until they get out of the gates! I pretended I didn’t see them!!!
They’re soooo gorgeous. I can already see a difference in them in a week – I can’t wait to see what they’ll be like before I leave – I may even be able to have a conversation with them. In English! May 21 My weekendI'm recovering from a fun, but tiring weekend!
Wednesday last week, Sibu and I took the horrible long bus journey to Lusaka. I had to go to the VSO office, get more malaria tablets and go around to a few embassies to try and get some money (for my organisation...not for me!!). Decided the life of a British High Commissioner seems quite nice, so considering a career change (what qualifications would I need?!)
We made a bit of a random, last minute decision to make the most of getting as far as Lusaka, and decided to persuade Evans - one of Sibu's friends - to drive us to Kafue National Park (the biggest in Zambia..the size of Switzerland!). Hannah, Hilary and Rachel (other VSOs) came along and we headed off on Friday afternoon - a few hours later than planned in true Zambian style!
We didn't get too far before it got dark, so when Evans randomly bumped into his cousin in one of the towns we drove through, we decided to spend the night there. Booked into some dodgy hostel then went out to find some dinner. A nice plate of cold nshima in a cafe. Then we hit the local bars for a few beers. I met my 'brother' apparently - someone was convinced his father had children and I was one of them. Hmmm - slightly concerning!
We left early on the Saturday to continue the drive into the park. We arrived at the campsite just before lunch and decided to spend the next few hours relaxing in the bar by the river. Lush. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere (we were pretty much) and it was sooo cool! The lodge had resident warthogs and a hippo called Basil!!! We cooked lunch on some firewood at the campsite, then headed off for an evening/night drive through the park. Unfortunately we didn't see anything other than loads of various antelope and some hippos, but it was great fun. It got so cold once dark though that we were all wrapped up in blankets huddling together...which probably didn't help us with spotting animals!
Spent the evening huddled round the campfire drinking wine, then getting absolutely freezing in our tent. It's a long time since i've felt that cold!! Then early on Sunday we left...starting our 12 hour journey back to Livingstone. It went surprisingly ok, but I was glad to get back to my house. Having not washed for several days I was looking forward to a nice hot bath - but surprise, surprise - I had no water. As someone once said...'it's Africa, deal with it'!! So i went to bed, fell straight to sleep, and didn't wake up for 12 hours!!! |
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