Sleepless in Livingstone

Let me start with explaining the title ;)

Listen to this:

Well, now you maybe understand why it has been difficult to get enough sleep :D I’ve taken this video in the night to Tuesday at 3:40 a.m. I was fast asleep, when I suddenly was woken up by heavy rain combined with crazy loud thunders. Even though we still are enjoying around 35-40 degrees and a lot of sun down here, rain has started to make the weather more interesting :D Well, I still prefer the sun though, since everybody keeps on telling me that this rain is nothing compared to the rain we are going to have in the rain season. I’m not sure how much I look forward to the rain season :D

Another bit disturbing factor during the nights is all the noise my neighbours make, to scare of the elephants when they come to close ;) However, I have to admit that I kind of like the factor having elephants in the garden :D “It’s just the elephants” :) After considering going out and see the elephants, I always just smile and try to fall a sleep again. However, it’s actually quite dangerous. Last week someone just got killed from an elephant in one of the compounds…So yeah, I should probably stay in bed and just try to go back to sleep instead of going out :D

 Right, back to where I stopped in my last post, the Kicking Aids Out workshop :) The Kicking Aids Out workshop was a great success and the sport captains loved it! It was a huge pleasure for me, seeing the girls/women participating with high motivation and having so much fun, while learning :) The biggest satisfaction was though, to work together with a facilitator who really was driven and good :) However, this meant less work for me. 

So what was my job? Well, basically I just participated in the workshop and did some energizers. Even though it wasn’t that much work for me, it has been a good week :) I really enjoyed spending so much time together with the girls/women and getting to know them better. Especially, when they slowly started open up towards me. They shared some of their stories with me, showed me pictures of their children or just wanted to dance with me :) However, it wasn’t just enjoyment all the time. Their stories are quite tough and even the youngest sport captain (19 years old) has already a three years old child. And you don’t want to know why…I was even more shocked about, what kind of believes they had about HIV and STI’s (sexual transmitted infections) in terms of curing, treatment and symptoms. No wonder that HIV is such a big issue here in Zambia, when they for instance believe that you can go from HIV positive to HIV negative just with taking a shower after having had sex with a HIV positive person. However, the even worse believe is that many men think that sex with a virgin can cure them from HIV. It’s really sad and horrible… So yeah, it was a very needed workshop for the sport captains and also the communities they are going to share their new knowledge with.

Here some pictures from the workshop:

Sandra and Martha playing netball

playing "Mee me"

Mercy cooking lunch

Lunch

Untie the knot

Doreen bringing the scones

Mukendwa (my colleague) eating the scone

Untie the knot

Playing fruit salad

P.S. Fruit salad, untie the knot and "Mee me" are energizer games :)

Thursday I attended two meetings instead of being at the workshop. The first one was together with many other representatives from sport NGO´s (non-governmental organization) in Livingstone. We are all part of the Livingstone Sport and Development Network. Meetings like that are always very interesting but also a bit exhausting, and this is not just because of the "not on time" aspect (I'm quite used to that now :D). No, I just don’t think they have been told that mobile phones actually can be switched of or just be on silence, or even that you actually can wait with replying to a call or message :D T.I.A ;)

The second meeting was in one of the compounds, Mwandi. Right now only children are showing up to the trainings in all the different compounds, so we have to find out, why the women don’t participate in sports anymore. During the next weeks, we (Doreen and me) are going to visit and having meetings with all the women to see what we can change. It was a good meeting :) However, issues like lack of food and the factor that the women in the African culture have to take care of the household, children, food etc., are difficult to change. We’ll see how we can adjust the trainings, so they are able to participate again :)

Here some pictures from the club competition, when Bela was here. 

Climbing up at me

Nice sunglasses :D

I always wanted to try carrying a baby like African women do :)

The weekend was quite calm for me :) Saturday I stayed at home in the compound all the day and spent some time with my family. 

How does that look like?

Look:

Playing with my brothers

Watching Miriam doing the fake hair

Cooking 

Relaxing in the evening

Sleeping in this position, because of the heat

Sunday I just relaxed at the backpackers and visited Mukuni village with the Norwegians in the afternoon. Mukuni Village is a village with 7000 habitants placed a bit out of Livingstone. It was quite interesting to see how the live. However, it was a bit too touristic for me. I prefer seeing the authentic way of living and don’t be bothered with all the souvenir sellers. 

Some pictures of the village:

One community

One of the family houses

The prison

Monday it was back to the office :) It’s always a pleasure sitting in the staff meeting Monday morning, discussing what to do with the sick chicken from the chicken run in Mwandi :D Okay, we are talking about other things as well ;)
Here a taste of, what I have to listen to, when I'm working at the office :D

What is going on this week?

Well, today it’s Independence Day! This means, no work, enjoying how they celebrate it here and having fun with friends :) Juhhuuuu, in few minutes I’m going to see Lina, Johanne, Arnt and Vegard :) They have taken some days off and are playing tourists until Sunday here in Livingstone :) I really look forward to see them again :)

So yeah, the rest of the week is going to be a good combination of work, fun and nice people :)