Here is the photo from the marquee where I had the massage and the other one is Joyce and I last night. I look pretty terrible but as it takes so long to upload, I'll click the publish button anyway.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
29.01.07 The 48 hour tourist
Life in Livingstone is mixed. The weeks are hard, and dealing with poverty, illness, entrenched cultural issues and inadequate facilities is quite tough so at the weekends the volunteers take time out, do some of the activities (bungee jumping is not for me - you know that!) and generally try to chill.
On Saturday I decided to have a massage at the Royal Livingstone hotel - partly as my back has been a bit stiff (I'm fine) and also as a wee treat. The Royal Livingstone is something else, and by far the nicest hotel here. After I checked in at the salon reception, my massuese, Bridget, walked me through the gardens away from the centre of the hotel. We walked about 100m; in the gardens there were vervet monkeys - silver coloured with bright blue testicles, and babboons, with zebras grazing around the edge. We came to a white small marquee type tent and walked around the outside to the edge of the river. The tent had 3 sides, and a view over the Zambezi and the edge of Mosi oi Tunya. I had to take a photo, mostly so I could take the time to stop and look. I've tried about a dozen times to upload it onto the blog but you'll just have to use your imagination as its not working. I think it is a view I will never have enough of.
The massage was good - you know how sometimes you worry that you are just going to be uselessly stroked, but it wasn't like that at all. As I was lying there, I could hear thunder grumbling away in the background. After a few minutes there was a huge cracking explosion of a thunder clap right over our heads and the rain came down fast and hard. I so love that smell of wet red earth, and I thought how perfect it would be if a hippo or 2 could magically appear, just to complete the story. I swear almost the instant I had the thought I heard a hippo grunt. I lay there and smiled - it seemed too good to be true, although I think Bridget was wondering what I was smiling at! After the massage ended I sat for a moment or 2 just looking out at the river and the falls but I couldn't see the hippos. I wondered if when I blogged this (I am reliably advised by Martin that it is usable as a verb) I should just pretend that I actually saw the hippos to make a better story, but as I was about to head back and find my friends I saw them rise out of the water and do a classic hippo yawn. I could only stand and watch and try to take it all in, so no photo. Yet another surreal Africa moment, but very different from the others.
The rest of the weekend was quite quiet. At the new house we have a pool, so we chilled there during the day and went for drinks in the evening. So far this week I've been back at the college in the morning and reading at the orphanage in the afternoon. I really like the students at the college, but the so called course leader has done diddly squat work-wise since I've been there, so I've had to tell him yet again I'm not here as his teacher but unqualified assistant. It falls on deaf ears and today he asked me again for money. It turns out that most of the students are not former prostitutes but fee paying individuals with only one or 2 from difficult circumstances who don't pay. Now that the community thinks there is a mzungu teacher there are more students, so they are making more money, but still refuse to buy any course materials or do any work. At the end of the week I'm going to assess with our project co-ordinator whether I should stay there or go back to work at one of the schools and I suspect it will be the latter. The students clearly have figured something is up as today several of them asked me for my contact details. It is, I suppose, not an unusual African experience - things are not what they seem and I'm sure the person who initially got the volunteers involved in this project will be as frustrated as the rest of us when he finds out what's going on.
As well as the project, I also enjoy my daily chats as I wait to be picked up outside Maramba clinic where some of the other volunteers work. There are 2 local guys - Brave and Norman - who also volunteer at the clinic, who usually stop by when they know we are there waiting for the truck to pick us up. Norman is great - he gives me a running commentary on all the people passing by - this one is a shebeen queen and a prostitute, that man hurt himself falling over after drinking too much "illicity" (Norman's word for the illegal brew they make in the villages that is 95% proof), another man is taking firewood up to the shebeen as its used for the illegal brewing. The government and local authorities turn a blind eye to all of this as they don't want to lose the votes of the villagers, but it seems to be a major social problem.
But some things never change - I'm now off to Spar to get some cat food.
On Saturday I decided to have a massage at the Royal Livingstone hotel - partly as my back has been a bit stiff (I'm fine) and also as a wee treat. The Royal Livingstone is something else, and by far the nicest hotel here. After I checked in at the salon reception, my massuese, Bridget, walked me through the gardens away from the centre of the hotel. We walked about 100m; in the gardens there were vervet monkeys - silver coloured with bright blue testicles, and babboons, with zebras grazing around the edge. We came to a white small marquee type tent and walked around the outside to the edge of the river. The tent had 3 sides, and a view over the Zambezi and the edge of Mosi oi Tunya. I had to take a photo, mostly so I could take the time to stop and look. I've tried about a dozen times to upload it onto the blog but you'll just have to use your imagination as its not working. I think it is a view I will never have enough of.
The massage was good - you know how sometimes you worry that you are just going to be uselessly stroked, but it wasn't like that at all. As I was lying there, I could hear thunder grumbling away in the background. After a few minutes there was a huge cracking explosion of a thunder clap right over our heads and the rain came down fast and hard. I so love that smell of wet red earth, and I thought how perfect it would be if a hippo or 2 could magically appear, just to complete the story. I swear almost the instant I had the thought I heard a hippo grunt. I lay there and smiled - it seemed too good to be true, although I think Bridget was wondering what I was smiling at! After the massage ended I sat for a moment or 2 just looking out at the river and the falls but I couldn't see the hippos. I wondered if when I blogged this (I am reliably advised by Martin that it is usable as a verb) I should just pretend that I actually saw the hippos to make a better story, but as I was about to head back and find my friends I saw them rise out of the water and do a classic hippo yawn. I could only stand and watch and try to take it all in, so no photo. Yet another surreal Africa moment, but very different from the others.
The rest of the weekend was quite quiet. At the new house we have a pool, so we chilled there during the day and went for drinks in the evening. So far this week I've been back at the college in the morning and reading at the orphanage in the afternoon. I really like the students at the college, but the so called course leader has done diddly squat work-wise since I've been there, so I've had to tell him yet again I'm not here as his teacher but unqualified assistant. It falls on deaf ears and today he asked me again for money. It turns out that most of the students are not former prostitutes but fee paying individuals with only one or 2 from difficult circumstances who don't pay. Now that the community thinks there is a mzungu teacher there are more students, so they are making more money, but still refuse to buy any course materials or do any work. At the end of the week I'm going to assess with our project co-ordinator whether I should stay there or go back to work at one of the schools and I suspect it will be the latter. The students clearly have figured something is up as today several of them asked me for my contact details. It is, I suppose, not an unusual African experience - things are not what they seem and I'm sure the person who initially got the volunteers involved in this project will be as frustrated as the rest of us when he finds out what's going on.
As well as the project, I also enjoy my daily chats as I wait to be picked up outside Maramba clinic where some of the other volunteers work. There are 2 local guys - Brave and Norman - who also volunteer at the clinic, who usually stop by when they know we are there waiting for the truck to pick us up. Norman is great - he gives me a running commentary on all the people passing by - this one is a shebeen queen and a prostitute, that man hurt himself falling over after drinking too much "illicity" (Norman's word for the illegal brew they make in the villages that is 95% proof), another man is taking firewood up to the shebeen as its used for the illegal brewing. The government and local authorities turn a blind eye to all of this as they don't want to lose the votes of the villagers, but it seems to be a major social problem.
But some things never change - I'm now off to Spar to get some cat food.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
25.01.07 Cooking and Reading
Sorry its been so long since my last entry - its been hard to get to the internet cafe and my last two attempts were thwarted by power cuts. Thanks for the emails and for my letter from Helen! What a fantastic surprise.
Since last week so much has happened. I suspect this will not be a short one, so minimise the window and go and make a cup of tea or print it out for reading on the bus. Its quite therapeutic really - for me anyway!
News #1 is that I have moved into a different volunteer house. Its only about half a mile away from the old one, but its much nicer - an old 1920's colonial house with original teakwood floors, large grounds with a pool, and a lovely verandah to sit on in the evenings. The downside is that there are more mozzies and the floors creak so badly you can't move around quietly in the morning when you get up. The address is c/o Greg Bows, 50 Maambo Way, Livingstone, Zambia. Letters take 3 weeks; some parcels make it, some don't.
Project work has been going well. I'm still teaching at the Tourism College in the mornings. On Thursday 16th, I did a session on HIV awareness, as it has to be done as part of the government edict which ratifies the college. I felt a bit of a fraud really, as if you think about the statistics (as are believed on the ground) 3/4 of my class will already be infected with HIV (local views are 70% infection rate, rather than the 30 - 40% WHO statistics). Given the previous profession of some of them, it may even be higher. They had, of course, heard it all before, but the real issues are cultural. Men won't wear condoms, voodoo medicine men (yes, really) still say that you can cure it by having sex with a virgin - oh, and these are the same medicine men that do tattoos on several people using the same needles and razor blades on multiple people, and it is still thought of as better not to know your status than to risk social isolation of being known to be HIV positive. So, it was pretty awful standing up there and giving this talk.
On Friday morning we had a lot of fun. It was a cookery lesson effectively and this is what the two photos show. We'd been talking about the different things that us odd white people eat for breakfast, so I bought them a Kellog's multipack of cereal, some bread and peanut butter and lots of eggs, and they tried all the cereals, had toast for the first time, and made fried, poached and scrambled eggs, omelette and french toast. The cooking was done on a charcoal brazier - a first for me! They liked best the toxic coloured Strawberry Pops, but at first when they were mixing them with milk, they didn't understand why it wouldn't go into porridge, until I explained that it was meant to stay in little pieces. We then ate everything at the end, and they all liked the french toast. I had a few strange questions - like do we make the bread into toast for hygiene reasons, but it went really well and was good fun. You'll notice the posters for hair products in the background - our rooms are used as a hair salon in the afternoons to help pay the rent.
Since last week so much has happened. I suspect this will not be a short one, so minimise the window and go and make a cup of tea or print it out for reading on the bus. Its quite therapeutic really - for me anyway!
News #1 is that I have moved into a different volunteer house. Its only about half a mile away from the old one, but its much nicer - an old 1920's colonial house with original teakwood floors, large grounds with a pool, and a lovely verandah to sit on in the evenings. The downside is that there are more mozzies and the floors creak so badly you can't move around quietly in the morning when you get up. The address is c/o Greg Bows, 50 Maambo Way, Livingstone, Zambia. Letters take 3 weeks; some parcels make it, some don't.
Project work has been going well. I'm still teaching at the Tourism College in the mornings. On Thursday 16th, I did a session on HIV awareness, as it has to be done as part of the government edict which ratifies the college. I felt a bit of a fraud really, as if you think about the statistics (as are believed on the ground) 3/4 of my class will already be infected with HIV (local views are 70% infection rate, rather than the 30 - 40% WHO statistics). Given the previous profession of some of them, it may even be higher. They had, of course, heard it all before, but the real issues are cultural. Men won't wear condoms, voodoo medicine men (yes, really) still say that you can cure it by having sex with a virgin - oh, and these are the same medicine men that do tattoos on several people using the same needles and razor blades on multiple people, and it is still thought of as better not to know your status than to risk social isolation of being known to be HIV positive. So, it was pretty awful standing up there and giving this talk.
On Friday morning we had a lot of fun. It was a cookery lesson effectively and this is what the two photos show. We'd been talking about the different things that us odd white people eat for breakfast, so I bought them a Kellog's multipack of cereal, some bread and peanut butter and lots of eggs, and they tried all the cereals, had toast for the first time, and made fried, poached and scrambled eggs, omelette and french toast. The cooking was done on a charcoal brazier - a first for me! They liked best the toxic coloured Strawberry Pops, but at first when they were mixing them with milk, they didn't understand why it wouldn't go into porridge, until I explained that it was meant to stay in little pieces. We then ate everything at the end, and they all liked the french toast. I had a few strange questions - like do we make the bread into toast for hygiene reasons, but it went really well and was good fun. You'll notice the posters for hair products in the background - our rooms are used as a hair salon in the afternoons to help pay the rent.
On Saturday morning we went to a local hotel where they got to see the bar, kitchen and restaurant areas and had people explain to them how things work in practice. It was fine until the end when the course leader turned to me and expected me to pay for the bus, which he'd not mentioned to me before. I politely refused as this had already been arranged before my involvement, but it is hard for them not to see us as walking banks, and it is hard for the volunteers not to give a lot, as relatively speaking we are so rich. But I can't fund everything, so I'm going to have to say no, awkward as it is sometimes.
Thursday afternoon was spent farming, and Friday afternoon was off, as some of the other volunteers went on a trip to the Zimbabwe side of Vic Falls (aka Mosi oi Tunya here). I helped Joyce take her class of disabled children to see Mosi oi Tunya - most locals never go - but I didn't see much as it was more spent looking after the kids. There was no point in me going as I'm off to Zim in March and it was USD250. How strange it is to be so careful with money! There were 6 of us who didn't go, and we had a really nice mellow weekend. It was all shattered a bit when one of the girls got ill on Sunday evening. I've spent most of the week so far taking care of her. She has malaria. We had to go to Livingstone General Hospital on Tuesday morning. For family reading this - I am so my father's daughter!!! But I think anyone of us would have been in turns shocked, horrified, frustrated and appalled at what went on there. I'll pass on detailed descriptions of the blood and gore on the floor, but what got me was when there were emergencies brought in, with people literally bleeding to death, the nurses only ambled up the corridor to take a look. When I say ambled, that includes stopping to chat to a couple of people and taking a phone call. No-one really rushed to clean the floor either and there were dozens of people walking through puddles of blood. It was truly gruesome.
The malaria patient is significantly better, so I went back to the college this morning. We did revision about our cooking last week, spent half an hour talking about different types of salad and then, at the students' request, we did a French lesson. It was really good fun and descended in to hysterics when one of the male students said "Madam, if I know a young french woman, how do I tell her I love her?" What is really satisfying though, is that the students are now much more chatty, they ask me questions like this, they respond more when I ask them questions and they seem to be enjoying the class. Since I've started teaching, we have gone from 14 to 22 students, and attendance and timekeeping is improving. I've bought them a new blackboard and when the books arrive, I'll spend some more of the donated money on course materials. I think thought that the best thing I can do for them is to make them more confident about speaking to foreigners and give them some knowledge about why tourists come to Africa, Zambia and Livingstone. And not to use the "m" word - mzungu. I told them that if I did the equivalent at home - e.g. called out "hey, black person" that it was illegal, they looked so shocked. So they don't use it anymore, and maybe they'll tell their friends and it won't be so prevalent. Hmm, I'm dreaming.
I have had quite a few "how on earth did I end up doing this?" moments, especially during the cookery lesson. It has seemed quite surreal at times, and given that I'm making it all up as I go along, it is even more strange. The so called course leader does very little organising, the syllabus is a few paragraphs from a City & Guilds text book on catering services (our course is to last 6 months) and there is no planning. It is a bit frustrating, and combined with the habit of saying what it is they think you want to hear, rather than what the true situation is, but the reality of the situation, as it is with most of the projects, is that whatever the volunteers can do is better than nothing and better than what there might have been otherwise, which is mostly nothing. In some ways, I feel that the expectation is so high, even if only in my own mind, that it is hard to know where to go, but again, the reality is that whatever I'm doing seems to be going down really well. So, I'll just have to keep doing what I'm doing, and keep my fingers crossed.
Yesterday I went back to the orphanage for the first time in ages. The volunteers have set up a reading club in the afternoon and I spent about 2 hours between 4 or 5 kids doing one on one reading sessions. I think that half an hour of individual attention is worth more than a whole day in school for some kids and its very rewarding. We are very short of basic books, so when I'm finished here, I'm going next door to the book shop to get a couple more. It is quite chaotic though as while you are trying to do reading lessons, there are 30 other kids running round screaming, but hey - kids are kids. I'll take my camera to the orphanage soon, but it will cause some degree of chaos so I'm steeling myself for this. Good chaos - in that all the kids will want their photos taken, and look at themselves on the LCD, but chaos nonetheless.
On Monday, I met with the head of the Zambian Human Rights Commission in Livingstone as I was interested to find out what they do. The office only opened 4 months ago, and is currently one woman, her assistant/driver and a cleaner. I met them all! Mabel - the investigator - described to me how local tribal law (there are 72 tribes in Zambia - I can say good morning in 4 of the languages so far) works within the overall legal system. It is now defined in statute what the powers of the chiefs are, but in reality, their power is still enormous. They control allocation of land within their tribal area, and she has one case of a family that was removed from their land at the instruction of the chief so it could be given to a member of his family. For a government organisation, especially one lead by a woman, to challenge this authority is very radical. I'll let you know if there are any developments.
More good news is that the weather is significantly cooler than it has been. There have been some unbelievable storms - I have never seen or heard rain like last night's, but generally it has been 5 - 10 degrees cooler and we are not wilting so badly.
I was worried after the last blog entry that I was focussing on the negative aspects of life here, and again some of the above might seem negative. It is hard not to get frustrated - so much needs to be done to provide even basic health care and education, but Zambia, and the rest of Africa is going to go at its own pace, irrespective of what outsiders want. It is just on a macro level the same issue I experience in my college, in the hospital and everywhere. The way we live life in the UK is not necessarily good and this isn't necessarily bad - I can only observe that it is a fairly major clash of cultures. Mostly it is manageable - but in the hospital, I struggled. One very good thing I've come across is that there are a lot of local volunteers - people who have given up jobs to focus on AIDS awareness education in target communities, or in my college, taking prostitutes off the streets. Although there is a huge amount of work to be done, the fact that there are individuals in the community who are leading the way is crucial to making progress. Most Zambians are incredibly friendly, open and interested and happy to have the volunteers in the community, and it feels a reasonably safe place to be. We don't walk around at night at all, but as taxis are so cheap and we have regular taxi drivers that we use, its safe to go out as well.
All in all, I'm well, happy, settled, and hopefully making a little bit of a difference to some people.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The photos are as follows (not in a sensible order): some kids who were watching the AIDS awareness presentation, me working on the farm, the AIDS presentation, given by Brave - the chap in the blue shirt, who is a local volunteer at one of the clinics we work at (not me), the front of the "college" where I work every morning. It is a programme for "rehabilitating" adults who have poor prospects - they were prostitutes or are disabled or were orphaned and didn't finish school. Then there is my first sunset over the Zambezi river taken on the deck of the Waterfront Hotel.More later. Keep the emails and comments coming - but all you anonymous bods - get names!
Monday, January 15, 2007
15.01.07 The African Way
First of all - thank you thank you for the emails and comments on the blog. Having travelled (soooo long ago) without all this communication I'm amazed at how lovely it is to log on and hear from you. Though anonymous "tidy room mate" there is no hiding! You would be amazed at how neat I'm being, although it has developed that Joyce is allowing me most of the table space.
I've been here just over a week now, and in some ways it seems longer. I'm excited about being able to get stuck into project work now and I have lots of ideas buzzing round my heat-addled brain. It has been so so hot that we have struggled for the last couple of days, and the Doxy (anti malarial) is making me quite sun sensitive, but hopefully that will settle down.
Last week's new volunteers, including me, went to the game park on Thursday. It was interesting but we only saw zebra and giraffe and the McDonalds of the bush here - impala (fast food for lions). Very tame after the Serengeti. The visit to the local village was interesting - more than I thought it would be as our driver from the project is part of the "royal family" of this tribe and he took us there. The village of 7000 people has 4 water taps which were installed by the UN 10 years ago. Before that the women had to walk 8km for water. The traditional houses are round with thatched roofs - the round walls mean that there are no hiding places for snakes and the thatch is cool in summer and warm in winter. The new fashion is now for square houses with tin roofs, so the incidents of snake bites have increased and the houses are stifling in summer and cold in winter. Hey - that's fashion for you. I will add a couple of photos to this post in the next day or so as I've just found out I can.
On Friday I taught a Grade 2 class in the morning - yes taught. I sat in with the teacher for a while and then she asked me to take the English lesson. It was a bit daunting to be honest - 40 or so 8 year old faces looking at me, part expectant, part puzzled. We all got through it successfully and they now have a grasp of the letter "T". The rubber hose was on the table but thankfully was not used. I'm not sure I could bear to see such small children (and they are small) being hit with this. I set them a wee test and walked round while they did it. One child, called Gift, wasn't writing. When I asked him why he said he didn't have a pencil. Another wee girl called Martha was writing with a pencil that had fallen apart so she was holding the bits together while she did the spelling test. Those that did have pencils were sharpening them with double sided razor blades, but they seem quite adept at this. The kids are sweet and enthusiastic and most of them do try so hard. They wear school uniforms at least 3 sizes too big for them so that they grow into them, or they are quite raggy as they are wearing hand me downs. Some of them are well fed and bright, but in the class of 40, I would say there were 3 or 4 of those. The first class lasted from 7am to 10.15, and then the second group come in at 10.15. The same happens in the afternoon, so each child only gets about 2 - 3 hours of schooling a day.
I spent Friday afternoon back at the farm. We were watering the pepper plants and I ended up being covered in mud. There is probably a bit of a clash of cultures going on at this project as when we arrive they all go and sit in the shade and watch us work, which is a bit annoying as the whole idea is that we supplement their resource. It was boiling on Friday and I wasn't too happy about this so we knocked off half an hour early. We had to anyway as the hose being used to bring the water up from the river kept on falling apart. No croc sightings.
I was back at the farm today, and I think they must have sensed something as there was about six people working with us. We were watering okra plants - they are tall and have scratchy leaves - and then cleared some more ground for planting. I'm going back tomorrow I think, but I haven't been to the orphanage for quite a few days now so I took the braids out as they were falling apart. I'm thinking about dreds......
Anyway, this morning was really interesting. I started work at the Livingstone College of Tourism Studies. This is a 6 month programme to teach prostitutes and others who have very poor prospects the skills necessary to work in the hotel industry. More hotels are being built here so there will be jobs coming. My class was 13 people - 10 women and 3 men - aged from 17 to 27. We have a room which is about 1.5m by 3m to sit in with 2 rickety benches and one desk, a very rough blackboard and bare breeze block walls. They looked quite surprised to see me and were not quite sure what to expect - to be honest neither was I. We did a 'break the ice' session which lasted about an hour and then I talked with them about oh, anything and everything. I talked for about an hour with the project leader - a lovely man called David, and the chap who is going to teach them computer skills - Innocent. I kept on asking what he wanted me to teach them, but apart from HIV awareness and personal hygiene, he had nothing specific in mind. So here are my ideas - we are going to have a topic of the week and every Wednesday we will have a discussion group. This is to get them used to talking to foreigners and making small talk and for them to learn a bit about diffent cultures. I am going to teach them to touch type. This evening I'm going to create a picture of the QWERTY keyboard, get it laminated and then give each person one so that they can practice typing exercises at home; there is only one PC at the project and it is not reliable. I'm going to talk to them about food and food hygiene - in fact this week's topic is food and this morning we discussed what they eat and what we eat (don't go there right now). I am going to teach them how to boil, scramble, poach and fry eggs!! And on Saturday we are going to visit a local hotel so that we can see how its done. There will be lots of role play! I want to make it interesting and fun but mostly I want to give them enough confidence and skills to get a job! We also need to look at the internet. They don't know what it is. One girl said "its just a word". I am looking forward to getting to know this group and building a relationship with each of them.
I miss the schools though and I don't want to leave that behind, so I'm thinking of maybe one morning a week to swap with one of the other teachers. We'll have to work out resources as the week progresses, but the plan is that I'll run the tourism course and try to set out a timetable for them.
I think what has concerned me most about all the teaching experiences so far is that there is no attempt to develop in pupils an ability to think. The children don't know how to work out the answers to questions and they are not told. If they can work it out themselves, they will progress. If they can't, they won't. Even the adults in my class today didn't know how to work out answers to questions. When I arrived this morning they were copying recipes from 'Microwave Cooking' to try to understand what we eat. I wonder what they really think! Having said all that, I am getting more into 'the African way'. Things are not going to go as I would like, certainly not as quickly as I would hope, and in this heat I am much more accepting of that. Having said that, the people are generally very open and nice to deal with, and are positive about what we can do. Everyone keeps saying that anything is better than what there was before so it almost doesn't matter what it is.
Day to day life is structured during the week - we all start work between 7 and 8, come back for a break at lunch time to sit out the heat and then work again between 3 and 5. There is much going out, but I'm trying to be careful budget wise as so far I've spent more than I thought I would. We also have to iron everything - I mean everything - as there is a type of fly that lays eggs in warm wet clothes and then the larvae burrow into your skin and, well, the rest is too gross to describe. Some people have become complacent about this, but one girl here has got this and she now has to wait until the inevitable happens. Alien#4 - yeuch.
At the weekend we snuck into one of the nice hotels here and lay by the pool. When I first got here and heard the other volunteers say they did this I was a bit sceptical, but the week's work is quite hard and emotionally demanding, and we all need the down time. On Saturday evening we had a cruise on the Zambezi and saw 3 elephants swimming across the river. It was an incredible sight, but I didn't have my camera with me. On Sunday we went to the amazing Royal Livingstone hotel and watched the sun go down on the river. See Nicky P - I am taking your advice!
Right, I know this is long enough already, and I need a shower and dinner (please no more pasta, I hate the stuff). I can't help it - I type quickly and there is so much to say. I feel like I've covered only half of it. All good things etc.
Love to you all.
I've been here just over a week now, and in some ways it seems longer. I'm excited about being able to get stuck into project work now and I have lots of ideas buzzing round my heat-addled brain. It has been so so hot that we have struggled for the last couple of days, and the Doxy (anti malarial) is making me quite sun sensitive, but hopefully that will settle down.
Last week's new volunteers, including me, went to the game park on Thursday. It was interesting but we only saw zebra and giraffe and the McDonalds of the bush here - impala (fast food for lions). Very tame after the Serengeti. The visit to the local village was interesting - more than I thought it would be as our driver from the project is part of the "royal family" of this tribe and he took us there. The village of 7000 people has 4 water taps which were installed by the UN 10 years ago. Before that the women had to walk 8km for water. The traditional houses are round with thatched roofs - the round walls mean that there are no hiding places for snakes and the thatch is cool in summer and warm in winter. The new fashion is now for square houses with tin roofs, so the incidents of snake bites have increased and the houses are stifling in summer and cold in winter. Hey - that's fashion for you. I will add a couple of photos to this post in the next day or so as I've just found out I can.
On Friday I taught a Grade 2 class in the morning - yes taught. I sat in with the teacher for a while and then she asked me to take the English lesson. It was a bit daunting to be honest - 40 or so 8 year old faces looking at me, part expectant, part puzzled. We all got through it successfully and they now have a grasp of the letter "T". The rubber hose was on the table but thankfully was not used. I'm not sure I could bear to see such small children (and they are small) being hit with this. I set them a wee test and walked round while they did it. One child, called Gift, wasn't writing. When I asked him why he said he didn't have a pencil. Another wee girl called Martha was writing with a pencil that had fallen apart so she was holding the bits together while she did the spelling test. Those that did have pencils were sharpening them with double sided razor blades, but they seem quite adept at this. The kids are sweet and enthusiastic and most of them do try so hard. They wear school uniforms at least 3 sizes too big for them so that they grow into them, or they are quite raggy as they are wearing hand me downs. Some of them are well fed and bright, but in the class of 40, I would say there were 3 or 4 of those. The first class lasted from 7am to 10.15, and then the second group come in at 10.15. The same happens in the afternoon, so each child only gets about 2 - 3 hours of schooling a day.
I spent Friday afternoon back at the farm. We were watering the pepper plants and I ended up being covered in mud. There is probably a bit of a clash of cultures going on at this project as when we arrive they all go and sit in the shade and watch us work, which is a bit annoying as the whole idea is that we supplement their resource. It was boiling on Friday and I wasn't too happy about this so we knocked off half an hour early. We had to anyway as the hose being used to bring the water up from the river kept on falling apart. No croc sightings.
I was back at the farm today, and I think they must have sensed something as there was about six people working with us. We were watering okra plants - they are tall and have scratchy leaves - and then cleared some more ground for planting. I'm going back tomorrow I think, but I haven't been to the orphanage for quite a few days now so I took the braids out as they were falling apart. I'm thinking about dreds......
Anyway, this morning was really interesting. I started work at the Livingstone College of Tourism Studies. This is a 6 month programme to teach prostitutes and others who have very poor prospects the skills necessary to work in the hotel industry. More hotels are being built here so there will be jobs coming. My class was 13 people - 10 women and 3 men - aged from 17 to 27. We have a room which is about 1.5m by 3m to sit in with 2 rickety benches and one desk, a very rough blackboard and bare breeze block walls. They looked quite surprised to see me and were not quite sure what to expect - to be honest neither was I. We did a 'break the ice' session which lasted about an hour and then I talked with them about oh, anything and everything. I talked for about an hour with the project leader - a lovely man called David, and the chap who is going to teach them computer skills - Innocent. I kept on asking what he wanted me to teach them, but apart from HIV awareness and personal hygiene, he had nothing specific in mind. So here are my ideas - we are going to have a topic of the week and every Wednesday we will have a discussion group. This is to get them used to talking to foreigners and making small talk and for them to learn a bit about diffent cultures. I am going to teach them to touch type. This evening I'm going to create a picture of the QWERTY keyboard, get it laminated and then give each person one so that they can practice typing exercises at home; there is only one PC at the project and it is not reliable. I'm going to talk to them about food and food hygiene - in fact this week's topic is food and this morning we discussed what they eat and what we eat (don't go there right now). I am going to teach them how to boil, scramble, poach and fry eggs!! And on Saturday we are going to visit a local hotel so that we can see how its done. There will be lots of role play! I want to make it interesting and fun but mostly I want to give them enough confidence and skills to get a job! We also need to look at the internet. They don't know what it is. One girl said "its just a word". I am looking forward to getting to know this group and building a relationship with each of them.
I miss the schools though and I don't want to leave that behind, so I'm thinking of maybe one morning a week to swap with one of the other teachers. We'll have to work out resources as the week progresses, but the plan is that I'll run the tourism course and try to set out a timetable for them.
I think what has concerned me most about all the teaching experiences so far is that there is no attempt to develop in pupils an ability to think. The children don't know how to work out the answers to questions and they are not told. If they can work it out themselves, they will progress. If they can't, they won't. Even the adults in my class today didn't know how to work out answers to questions. When I arrived this morning they were copying recipes from 'Microwave Cooking' to try to understand what we eat. I wonder what they really think! Having said all that, I am getting more into 'the African way'. Things are not going to go as I would like, certainly not as quickly as I would hope, and in this heat I am much more accepting of that. Having said that, the people are generally very open and nice to deal with, and are positive about what we can do. Everyone keeps saying that anything is better than what there was before so it almost doesn't matter what it is.
Day to day life is structured during the week - we all start work between 7 and 8, come back for a break at lunch time to sit out the heat and then work again between 3 and 5. There is much going out, but I'm trying to be careful budget wise as so far I've spent more than I thought I would. We also have to iron everything - I mean everything - as there is a type of fly that lays eggs in warm wet clothes and then the larvae burrow into your skin and, well, the rest is too gross to describe. Some people have become complacent about this, but one girl here has got this and she now has to wait until the inevitable happens. Alien#4 - yeuch.
At the weekend we snuck into one of the nice hotels here and lay by the pool. When I first got here and heard the other volunteers say they did this I was a bit sceptical, but the week's work is quite hard and emotionally demanding, and we all need the down time. On Saturday evening we had a cruise on the Zambezi and saw 3 elephants swimming across the river. It was an incredible sight, but I didn't have my camera with me. On Sunday we went to the amazing Royal Livingstone hotel and watched the sun go down on the river. See Nicky P - I am taking your advice!
Right, I know this is long enough already, and I need a shower and dinner (please no more pasta, I hate the stuff). I can't help it - I type quickly and there is so much to say. I feel like I've covered only half of it. All good things etc.
Love to you all.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
First Impressions
Its hard to believe I'm actually here and finally doing my first blog entry from Zambia. Having said that, being in an internet cafe staring at a PC is something that could be done anywhere. Anyway, hello to you all from Livingstone.
Today was my first day of a full day's work; this morning I was assisting in a Grade 6 class at the one of the local junior schools and this afternoon I was working at a local farm. More of both of those later.
Getting here was fine, not much to record of note save that I dropped and thought I'd broken my iPod. My flight from Heathrow to Jo'burg was particularly comfy. I told the woman sitting next to me about my fainting episode on my last long haul flight which got me an upgrade. About half an hour later the cabin steward came to get her stuff as apparently she'd fainted too!! Anyway, I got all 3 seats to myself and managed to sleep.
The volunteer house is probably what you'd expect from somewhere in the heat which has had too many students living in it, but its tolerable. There are 3 ginger cats, and there was a dog, but he's gone back home to Zim. My roomie is a girl called Joyce, who's Dutch, and a lawyer thinking of a change of direction - yes really! We get on brilliantly and have a scary amount in common. She's only here for another two weeks on the projects but she's staying in Livingstone for a few more weeks. The rest of them seem like a good bunch, especially 3 girls who arrived on Monday. There is only one that I couldn't see far enough, so that's not bad out of a dozen or so. We're set up in 2 houses so there is much to-ing and fro-ing, particularly at meal times. Which brings me to food. So far I've eaten cornflakes, pasta and mangoes. The mangoes grow everywhere, there are about 10 trees in the garden so when we need some more we ask the gardener or go and get them ourselves. They're fab, but not pretty to eat.
On Monday I went to the orphanage for the first time. Its hard to know where to start. They are having to rebuild parts of it as the roof of the living area (which is about my living room x1 1/2 - or maybe one of the S+W boardrooms x2) for 20 boys so classes haven't started yet this term as the boys are now living in the classrooms. About 230 children come to the school for lessons as it is not a fee-paying school and they don't have to have a uniform. When classes start we only teach in the morning and the afternoon is spent on general play time with them. Yesterday I got them to write their names and numbers on the blackboard but as we only had an inch of chalk it didn't last long. I wish I'd brought out some of the stuff that I've sent, but at least I know how badly it is needed. When we ran out of chalk the kids wanted to braid my hair. Most mzungu (white person) hair is too thin, but mine was great to do.
There is not really much for the children to do, so we organise games, play sports, read and just talk to them. The older boys know about football, I've even found an Arsenal fan! Some previous volunteers have gone in with loads of presents, so some of the kids are a bit grasping, but its not their fault. When my stuff arrives, I'm going to make sure it goes to the schools for use, rather than be grabbed by individual children. That just ends in mayhem.
This morning I went to my first class proper as a teaching assistant, this time at a governnment school that the project also works with. When I got there, my first thought was that compared to the community school the kids looked well and it seemed organised, and that I'd probably choose to work at the community school as the need was greatest there. The next few hours were in a way quite shocking. It was a grade 6 class, which should be for 12 year olds, but there were some kids who had been held back a few years, so went up to 15. There were about 50 kids in the class, with one teacher - which is of course why they need teaching assistants - and when we joined they were reading a story and then had to answer questions on the story. At the end of this exercise, those kids that had not answered a question or read a paragraph were hit hard on the hand with a piece of what looked like hard rubber hose pipe. It clearly hurt a lot. It was about half the class. The teacher made the sing (in local language so I didn't understand what it was about) while she went around the room belting the kids. It was horrible. What it comes down to is that some of these kids can't read and so can't do the work, and for that they are always going to get hit. They were told to go away and learn to read to avoid being hit in the next class. No, I don't know how either, but we are thinking of setting up reading classes. The kids only get half a day's schooling as there are so many children and not enough resources, so we could do classes for when each set of children is not in a formal class.
It was awful to sit and watch this, but we are given strict instructions not to interfere and I understand the logic. We can't change the culture in an individual classroom and we are there to help the kids learn to read so that they can get past this. They were so eager to learn and talk to me. I marked their work from a science class and after I handed back the corrected books, they all re-did the work using the corrections and handed it back in. After that there was a home-economics class which was quite surreal. The teacher set a revision test so I wasn't allowed to help which was just as well as I didn't know the answers. "What are the 3 types of food? Body building, energy and protective!" You can see the logic.
What was quite worrying though is that many of the children seemed to have no idea of how to answer questions - I spent most of my time showing them how to go back to the text and look for the answers. Here they learn by rote, and are not shown how. If they are not bright enough to pick it up (and about a dozen were) then they are left behind.
The second class was interrupted by the deputy head asking the teacher to hand out leaflets. I'll quote from it later as I left it at home, but it was from an evangelical Christian organisation based in Louisiana, promising eternal damnation if you didn't do something totally pointless. It was truly nauseating.
I found all that quite hard to take in the morning so this afternoon I wanted to do something different. I went to work on a local farm which is run by local women volunteers. They raise chickens and grow crops to raise money to fund a home visiting project, going out to the villages and helping where there are terminally ill family members. They try to educate the villagers on preventing the spread of AIDS but until only a few weeks ago they didn't realise it was transmitted by sexual contact. There are a lot of billboards talking about AIDS prevention and encouraging condom use, but it seems there is a long way to go. I also had a look at the health clinics that the project supports and they are busy! I suppose that is a good thing. It was pretty hot today, so hoe-ing and raking in 30 degrees was interspersed with much rest and chat. Yes - my back is ok - I was careful.
Anyway, tomorrow we have a frolic to a game park and a local village as part of getting to know the area, and on Friday I'll be back at the school and orphanage. There is a new project starting up trying to re-educate prostitutes and give them the skills to get jobs in the hotel industry, which is growing here, and I've said I'd like to be involved in that, as its a start up venture and I do believe empowering (sorry!) women is so important in order to achieve real change. I'll let you know what happens, but I'm really keen on taking that forward.
Livingstone itself is one long street in the centre with other roads going off at right angles. There is a Spar supermarket, which is just next to where I am now and it sells about everything you could think of as necessary and a lot that isn't. I haven't explored town much yet but plan to at the weekend. Its been so hot that when we are between projects at lunchtime I've just gone back to the house to hide in the shade. I don't know why, but I didn't think it would be quite as hot as it is. I definitely need another pair of shorts (and not half the crap I have with me).
Anyway, its happy hour at the bar near the internet cafe, so I'm going to head off now so that I have time for a cocktail. Yesterday we had drinks on the Zambezi watching the sunset.
Today was my first day of a full day's work; this morning I was assisting in a Grade 6 class at the one of the local junior schools and this afternoon I was working at a local farm. More of both of those later.
Getting here was fine, not much to record of note save that I dropped and thought I'd broken my iPod. My flight from Heathrow to Jo'burg was particularly comfy. I told the woman sitting next to me about my fainting episode on my last long haul flight which got me an upgrade. About half an hour later the cabin steward came to get her stuff as apparently she'd fainted too!! Anyway, I got all 3 seats to myself and managed to sleep.
The volunteer house is probably what you'd expect from somewhere in the heat which has had too many students living in it, but its tolerable. There are 3 ginger cats, and there was a dog, but he's gone back home to Zim. My roomie is a girl called Joyce, who's Dutch, and a lawyer thinking of a change of direction - yes really! We get on brilliantly and have a scary amount in common. She's only here for another two weeks on the projects but she's staying in Livingstone for a few more weeks. The rest of them seem like a good bunch, especially 3 girls who arrived on Monday. There is only one that I couldn't see far enough, so that's not bad out of a dozen or so. We're set up in 2 houses so there is much to-ing and fro-ing, particularly at meal times. Which brings me to food. So far I've eaten cornflakes, pasta and mangoes. The mangoes grow everywhere, there are about 10 trees in the garden so when we need some more we ask the gardener or go and get them ourselves. They're fab, but not pretty to eat.
On Monday I went to the orphanage for the first time. Its hard to know where to start. They are having to rebuild parts of it as the roof of the living area (which is about my living room x1 1/2 - or maybe one of the S+W boardrooms x2) for 20 boys so classes haven't started yet this term as the boys are now living in the classrooms. About 230 children come to the school for lessons as it is not a fee-paying school and they don't have to have a uniform. When classes start we only teach in the morning and the afternoon is spent on general play time with them. Yesterday I got them to write their names and numbers on the blackboard but as we only had an inch of chalk it didn't last long. I wish I'd brought out some of the stuff that I've sent, but at least I know how badly it is needed. When we ran out of chalk the kids wanted to braid my hair. Most mzungu (white person) hair is too thin, but mine was great to do.
There is not really much for the children to do, so we organise games, play sports, read and just talk to them. The older boys know about football, I've even found an Arsenal fan! Some previous volunteers have gone in with loads of presents, so some of the kids are a bit grasping, but its not their fault. When my stuff arrives, I'm going to make sure it goes to the schools for use, rather than be grabbed by individual children. That just ends in mayhem.
This morning I went to my first class proper as a teaching assistant, this time at a governnment school that the project also works with. When I got there, my first thought was that compared to the community school the kids looked well and it seemed organised, and that I'd probably choose to work at the community school as the need was greatest there. The next few hours were in a way quite shocking. It was a grade 6 class, which should be for 12 year olds, but there were some kids who had been held back a few years, so went up to 15. There were about 50 kids in the class, with one teacher - which is of course why they need teaching assistants - and when we joined they were reading a story and then had to answer questions on the story. At the end of this exercise, those kids that had not answered a question or read a paragraph were hit hard on the hand with a piece of what looked like hard rubber hose pipe. It clearly hurt a lot. It was about half the class. The teacher made the sing (in local language so I didn't understand what it was about) while she went around the room belting the kids. It was horrible. What it comes down to is that some of these kids can't read and so can't do the work, and for that they are always going to get hit. They were told to go away and learn to read to avoid being hit in the next class. No, I don't know how either, but we are thinking of setting up reading classes. The kids only get half a day's schooling as there are so many children and not enough resources, so we could do classes for when each set of children is not in a formal class.
It was awful to sit and watch this, but we are given strict instructions not to interfere and I understand the logic. We can't change the culture in an individual classroom and we are there to help the kids learn to read so that they can get past this. They were so eager to learn and talk to me. I marked their work from a science class and after I handed back the corrected books, they all re-did the work using the corrections and handed it back in. After that there was a home-economics class which was quite surreal. The teacher set a revision test so I wasn't allowed to help which was just as well as I didn't know the answers. "What are the 3 types of food? Body building, energy and protective!" You can see the logic.
What was quite worrying though is that many of the children seemed to have no idea of how to answer questions - I spent most of my time showing them how to go back to the text and look for the answers. Here they learn by rote, and are not shown how. If they are not bright enough to pick it up (and about a dozen were) then they are left behind.
The second class was interrupted by the deputy head asking the teacher to hand out leaflets. I'll quote from it later as I left it at home, but it was from an evangelical Christian organisation based in Louisiana, promising eternal damnation if you didn't do something totally pointless. It was truly nauseating.
I found all that quite hard to take in the morning so this afternoon I wanted to do something different. I went to work on a local farm which is run by local women volunteers. They raise chickens and grow crops to raise money to fund a home visiting project, going out to the villages and helping where there are terminally ill family members. They try to educate the villagers on preventing the spread of AIDS but until only a few weeks ago they didn't realise it was transmitted by sexual contact. There are a lot of billboards talking about AIDS prevention and encouraging condom use, but it seems there is a long way to go. I also had a look at the health clinics that the project supports and they are busy! I suppose that is a good thing. It was pretty hot today, so hoe-ing and raking in 30 degrees was interspersed with much rest and chat. Yes - my back is ok - I was careful.
Anyway, tomorrow we have a frolic to a game park and a local village as part of getting to know the area, and on Friday I'll be back at the school and orphanage. There is a new project starting up trying to re-educate prostitutes and give them the skills to get jobs in the hotel industry, which is growing here, and I've said I'd like to be involved in that, as its a start up venture and I do believe empowering (sorry!) women is so important in order to achieve real change. I'll let you know what happens, but I'm really keen on taking that forward.
Livingstone itself is one long street in the centre with other roads going off at right angles. There is a Spar supermarket, which is just next to where I am now and it sells about everything you could think of as necessary and a lot that isn't. I haven't explored town much yet but plan to at the weekend. Its been so hot that when we are between projects at lunchtime I've just gone back to the house to hide in the shade. I don't know why, but I didn't think it would be quite as hot as it is. I definitely need another pair of shorts (and not half the crap I have with me).
Anyway, its happy hour at the bar near the internet cafe, so I'm going to head off now so that I have time for a cocktail. Yesterday we had drinks on the Zambezi watching the sunset.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
4 Days and Counting
Things I am sure of - I have more music on my iPod than I'll ever listen to (nearly 8GB now!); the cats will learn to love their new meal provider; I won't run out of lip balm; I have some amazing friends who've been lovely beyond words; the windows in my flat need a good clean; I won't have time to clean the windows in my flat before I go; I can't live off wholemeal pitta bread, Philadephia and aduki beans for a week; that I'll miss my family hugely, notwithstanding the rogues gallery photo album I'm taking with me; I will remember to take my vitamin pills every day, as its one tiny thing less to carry; I've no regrets.
Things I'm not sure of - whether the pile of stuff on the floor will really fit into my bag; whether buying compilation and "best of" albums is a valid way of listening to great music; what the buttons on top of my camera do; at what age the lion cubs start looking at you as if you are dinner; should I have walked my boots in more; whether I really need my book of poetry (but it came with me all the way round Asia, I can't leave it now); whether I should have read the lonely planet travel health book about African diseases, especially the bit about the creatures that burrow into your feet and come out your nose or somewhere equally distressing; where I'll be this time next year.
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