25.03.07 Highs and Lows

Hi, and sorry its been so long. I have tried - believe me - but the internet connection here is pretty precarious. Anyway, I'm hoping that this time it will actually work.

Mozambique is now nearly 2 weeks ago. It was an amazing experience and I'm not really sure how to condense it. It took 3 days to drive there, part of which was going through the most amazing electrical storm I've ever seen. When we finally arrived we camped on a beach, at a campsite that had been trashed in the storm, next to a bar that had also been destroyed. Only the pool table was left intact, but all the surrounding walls had fallen down. Needs must, however, and the bar was set up in the dive shop next door. There were 15 of us in total, which included a driver, a cook and a couple of the project managers from African Impact and 11 volunteers. It was incredibly hot - mid 40c during the day. I remember at one point being in a car and thinking it was quite cool then seeing the temp guage said 31c! How strange is that for a Scot!

The work with Unicef/WFP was great to be involved with, and from an objective view it was really interesting to see how aid distribution works on the ground (pretty slowly in this case) and just travelling around with local people to get the outlying villages/islands was fascinating. One day was spent on a truck. On the way out we sat on top of all the food and materials piled on the truck and then on the way back we were on the empty flat bed. Luckily I remembered my factor 40 as otherwise I would have burnt to a crisp. Another night and day was spent on a boat going out to a couple of islands. It was also quite frustrating as at some points hours and days were wasted for really stupid reasons and there wasn't a huge amount we could do about it. The boat trip was a case in point - the boat sat in the harbour for a day, left at 9pm, got stuck on a sandbank for 4 hours, arrived at 5 the following morning, couldn't offload until 8, then it broke down at 9am, didn't get fixed until 11, we didn't get til the next island til 5pm at which point we discovered no-one was expecting us! It was also difficult as English was not widely spoken, and although we sometimes had a translator, quite often they would disappear or just not turn up so we were left to rely on sign language.

It was also amazing to do the drive from Livingstone, across Zim and Mozambique and down the coast road. Zim and Moz are stunningly beautiful countries. The problems are well known, and I don't want to comment from here. On that note, I know there's been trouble in Harare and its been widely reported in the UK. I am so far away from it that I only heard news as someone looked at the BBC website. So don't worry, there's no risk.

I've been here at Antelope Park now for 10 days. There's no getting away from the fact that I don't enjoy the work here nearly as much as Livingstone, and I have struggled to settle down. I hate the fact that we are unable to go into town and are really stuck in this park, and also that the internet is so expensive that it seriously restricts how much I can communicate with the outside world. The other volunteers are largely people I have nothing in common with, but thankfully Anne is here - she's been my roomie since January and we get on brilliantly. Having said that, the work with the lions can be fantastic at times. There are 2 and 3 month old cubs that I spend time with most days. This afternoon I was walking 11 month old cubs - these are big boys. One of them decided to pinch my rucksack and I had absolutely no chance of persuading him to let it go. They are so strong, and they have lots of quite sharp bits. I have managed a bit of riding here, which has been great, and my back has been fine. Anna, can I tell you that I was cantering round in the ring yesterday (we're not allowed to canter in the park) singing an Abba song (as a distraction technique) feeling really good about it coming back to me.

There are lots of other critters here - he park has zebras, giraffes, elephants, loads of different antelopes and two very bad tempered ostriches. There are loads of creepy crawlies and nasty thingies - mostly of the bug type. I got a tick stuck in me for 2 days which was quite unpleasant and grooming the horses mostly consists of tick removal. Yeuch. I am coping with most of the creepy crawlies in the sink, but I did almost slice my leg off when a frog jumped out from the corner of the shower as I was shaving my legs. I am used to it a bit more now and I do check before I go in.

I was chased by one of the ostriches last week. It is quite surreal really. There are moments when I do really enjoy it and think wow (or eek!) but I'm not sure I'll stick it out here for the whole of April. Watch this space.

Best wishes to all.

15.03.07 Back - in body if not in spirit

This is just a quickie to let you all know I'm back from Mozambique, a few shades browner, a few pounds lighter, but safe and well. It was a huge, huge experience - working with Unicef and World Food Programme on food distribution, and building houses for old ladies who had lost everything. I loved it, but it was ... well, very stretching in so many different ways.

The internet here is slow and very very expensive, so I will do a proper update in the next few days after some thought as to how to express myself in shorter form than before, and without sounding like an emotional basket case!!!! I'll try for a couple of photos as well.

I start working with the lion cubs this afternoon. I'm looking forward to it, but its not real life here and I feel a litte ambivalent about it given recent experiences - both Livingstone and Vilanculos. Still, it will be an amazing experience in itself and I will no doubt enjoy it when I get started.

More later. Keep the emails coming.

Miss you all!

Farewell Livingstone, Hello Mozambique???

Those of you who are awake/interested will notice that the next destination has changed. There has been a change of plan but more of that later. Actually, there have been several changes of plan, but I'll summarise. For once!

As I'm a tad short of time, given that this is my last proper day in Livingstone I'm going to do a general admin bit here so skip this para if its boring. Friends and family with the mobile number - it won't work after about 4.30am tomorrow morning (UK time). I won't be contactable for about 2 weeks, but I will be contactable on the Zim house number that Allan has hopefully from 15 March. Also, once I'm back in Zim I am going to get a Zim sim card for my phone if there is sufficient reception to merit it (its US$60 so if reception is dodgy it won't be worth it). I doubt very much I'll be able to email until after 15 March either. In any emergency phone the Zim house number, as I'll be with the people from that project and they should know how to get hold of me, but serious life and death emergencies only until then. If that doesn't work call 002603324072 and ask for Jane.

Also, if you have emailed me, I normally try to email back individually, but I won't be able to do that today - sorry.

I was going to describe my last few days here, but I suspect I should first elaborate on the change of plan. I don't know if you have heard but there was a cyclone that hit the coast of Mozambique last week which has devastated a township where African Impact (the organisation I'm with) has a project similar to this one - its called Vilincoulas, but I'm not sure how you spell it. They knew it was coming and shipped out all their volunteers in advance, and they haven't come back so they have asked for people from the Zambia and Zimbabwe projects to go over and do emergency relief work, partly with UNICEF and partly just on our own. At the moment I should be on my way to Vic Falls airport to fly to Bulawayo and get to the lion project tomorrow, but instead 4 of the volunteers from here will be leaving Livingstone at 5.30 tomorrow morning, going down to Antelope Park to pick up other volunteers from there and then heading off to Mozambique. There will be about 9 or 10 us I think. It will take us about 3 days to get there, we'll be camping on the way, and when we arrive, we'll camp on the beach. What I know so far is that there is masses of clearing work to do, putting up temporary accommodation, food distribution by horseback, and keeping kids out of the way of parents who are trying to do all of these things. Teacher Lynne is not dead yet. There is probably loads more to do but we just won't know until we get there. We are buying supplies today - food mostly, and probably charcoal for cooking on. If anyone wants to make a donation please text me on 0026099173712 in the next 12 hours or so and I'll text you back my bank details and take the money out of the cash point here.

OK, back to my last week in Livingstone. It all started as normal. Monday held lots of marking of homework and the usual English and Maths lessons. My long division is now much improved. On Tuesday we did art. I bought a large piece of card and asked each of the kids to draw around their own hands and write their names inside. It looks fantastic and some of them wrote really cute messages. The best one was "Goodbye Lynne. This hand is going out of Zambia". How good is that!!! On Wednesday we started end of month tests so the wee mites got a bit stressed. I was too as I was trying to arrange a trip for Thursday. The photos have as usual come out in a random order. The last two are from Thursday when I took the kids to the Livingstone water treatment plant (I simply can't get away from it!) as we are studying water contamination and treatment in science. I organised the visit and asked the teacher to hire a bus. You can see what we got instead! It was hysterical packing the kids into it. They sang all the way there and back. The driver took a long route to get there, partly to avoid the worst pot holes in town, and partly to give the kids a ride. Even though it is only a couple of miles from the township where they live, they will probably have not seen this area of Livingstone before. We had a guided tour of the plant, and they got to ask all sorts of daft questions and then I packed them up again. It was quite exhausting herding them all around, and one of them was quite scared when we had to walk along a concrete walkway with no barriers (so was I really) so I had to hold her hand and take baby steps. There weren't many barriers, and they certainly weren't enough to contain 50 11 - 14 year olds so I'm pretty chuffed that I came back with them all safe and dry. They of course loved the whole outing as it was a first for them; it didn't really matter what it was.

Friday was a really tough day. I had to finish off the end of month tests (which Miss M had actually written) until about 10.45. After that they had prepared songs, poems and sketches for me which they did in turn. Lots of the girls sang, some on their own, and others in a group of 5. One of the girls, Mary, has a very striking voice. They also did some poems - these were all standard poems about protection from HIV which was quite strange to hear from such small children. Then there was a group of 7 boys who did a series of sketches. The first one was about 2 men hassling a pregnant woman and a fight broke out; the one after that was about catching a thief and after that I lost the thread of the story. It was classic slapstick - there was lots of punches thrown and rolling about on the floor. They had dressed up and used wet chalk as make-up to paint on beards. I had my camera with me but I just wanted to concentrate on watching them so sorry no photos except the ones in my brain. I really loved it - they had taken the time and effort to think up these things and it felt really special.

Lots of the children had written me little letters to say goodbye, and a few of them gave me presents. I got 7 pairs of earrings and a gorgeous necklace with a heart shaped pendant. These are kids from one of the poorest areas of a poor town. I can't begin to describe how it felt to receive these gifts - honoured, humbled, amazed. Others had done me drawings or gave me the pictures they had made in art class and written messages on them.

Miss M then invited me to say a few words to the class and at that point I really struggled not to cry. I really didn't want to - its sooo unattractive! - but I suspect such displays of emotion are not usual. So I said goodbye, promised I would write and come back to see them in September and then shooed them outside for a group photo, which is the first one you can see. Not all the class were there - Fridays and Mondays tend to have highish absentee rates, but all my favourites were. After the photos there was a mass group hug and I said goodbye to them individually. I said goodbye to all the teachers, and despite the fact they are all child beaters, it was also sad. I had missed my transport home and was about to walk when the brother of one of the teachers passed by and I got a lift 2/3 of the way home.

I look back on my 6 weeks with my class and it really has been one of the most amazing and rewarding things I've done in my life - something I never knew I could do and which has made me feel part of this place, and that I've done something useful and worthwhile. Maybe it has made no difference to most kids; maybe they will forget it. But some of them won't, and seeds will have been planted. Maybe being a teaching assistant is like being an aunt, you get the best bits and can hand them back if they get to be a pain in the butt, but as I ended up teaching solo for about 60% of the time, I'm not sure that is a valid analogy.

All the afternoons this week were spent in the orphanage as I wanted to spend time with the kids there and the community kids. The third and fourth photos are from there on Friday. Masondo is the boy in the yellow football shirt. He's a real toughie, and way behind in his schooling. I read with him sometimes. On Tuesday he grabbed my hand, pulled me down onto a seat and put a text book down on the table and said "I want to read". So we read, and again on Wednesday. He tries so hard, but has such a long way to go. I don't know how old he is; he doesn't either. When the photo was taken he was half strangling me, but it is so nice to have got his confidence and spent time with him. When the little kids are getting a bit much he sometimes comes and shoo's them away - quite protective.

On Thursday, one of the boys came up to me and asked if it was true that I was leaving on Friday. I said that it was. He looked upset and said that he had something for me and if he could see me on Friday. I said of course. I was a bit taken aback as I hadn't spent much time with this boy for a while - for no real reason, I just hadn't seen him for a while. Anyway, on Friday he came to see me just after I arrived, pressed a folded piece of paper into my hand and then said "I have to go, I'm playing football", and he left. Well guys, this was the most gorgeous, lovely note I've ever had in my life, with a necklace of string with a few beads and a shell, which I'm wearing now. I was just flabbergasted. I'm not even sure what I did or said to deserve this. If I hadn't had 20 kids around me demanding crayons and paper I would have just sat down and cried - especially after the morning at school. It sounds as if I'm turning into an emotional wreck - I'm not, but it is hard to convey what an emotional experience this has been. Or maybe not - maybe its bloody obvious to you all, who know me well.

Saying goodbye at the orphanage on Friday was some far degree of awful and a couple of the kids cried. I have to come back here before I come home.

After all that, and not forgetting other volunteers are having a similar time, some steam was let off last night. We had a fantastic meal out at a local bar, there was lots of dancing and drinking, and we ended up at 1am skinny dipping in the pool back at the house. No, there are definitely no photos of that. We were all woken up by one guy who wakes up at 5am every day (force of habit) asking everyone if we wanted tea or coffee in bed. One lady owns a restaurant and she made an omelette type concoction which helped the heads.

After finishing this I'm off to buy a new mobile phone, some supplies for the trip and to see P for ice cream one last time. I would like to have an early night tonight, but I've been told that's not allowed. Oh well, I can sleep on the journey tomorrow.

So this is farewell from Livingstone. I probably won't be able to do another entry for a couple of weeks or so, so I hope you can live without an update for a week or two. I'll make sure I keep my journal up to date and then write it up when I can. The internet is going to be much slower in Zim so there may be no photos for a while either. Oh, and Dinah - I'll text you the date for Cape Town when I get home.

Lots and lots and lots of love. Bye.