When I left you last time, I
didn’t have any special plans for the week. Hence, I had a plan of starting to
work on my last exam paper. Well, as always things changes a lot down here and
unexpected situations occur. This time it was in a very good way though
:)
Tuesday I was sitting at
Response Network (the organisation Terese and Nyarai are working for http://www.responsenetwork.org)
studying for my exam paper, while Terese and Nyarai were doing preparations
for a peer leader Kicking Aids Out
workshop, they were going to do in a village called Siakasipa (about an hour
drive away from Livingstone) Thursday and Friday last week.
Before I continue, let me
give you an idea of what Kicking Aids Out
is about.
Kicking AIDS Out is an
international network of organizations working together to use sport and
physical activity as a means of raising awareness about HIV and AIDS and
motivating positive behavior change in youth. The Kicking AIDS Out network
believes that sport and physical activity are effective ways of attracting
youth while serving as creative mediums to facilitate and share positive
messages about HIV and AIDS and other critical health issues affecting
youth.
Since I didn’t have much to do at Kwenuha that week, Response Network
invited me to join Terese, Nyarai and Steven (their sports coordinator) for the
workshop. Terese and I were going to be participants, and Nyarai and Steven
would be the facilitators. This great opportunity to become a Kicking Aids Out
peer leader and stay some days in a village, I definitely didn’t want to miss.
Hence, I happily said yes and was on my way to the village Wednesday afternoon,
after having represented Kwenuha at a very good and productive meeting with the Livingstone Sport
and Development Network :)
The village was definitely an experience, again in a good and very
interesting way :) Just the journey to the village was an adventure itself :D Together we all went with the two tents, three madras’s, food (for the workshop and ourselves)
and our personal bags to a pick up point slightly out of Livingstone town. From
there we had to find a new car. Since we were two muzungus (white people), all the drivers set the prizes way too
high. But yeah, we knew the normal prize, so we negotiated. After an hour of negotiating and waiting, we
finally found a driver who was willing to take us the whole way to Siakasipa Basic School, which was
really good :) (we otherwise had to take a minibus and then walk 7km). After approximately an hour we arrived at the Siakasipa Basic School,
where we again waited another hour. We didn't know where they wanted us to put the tents and do the workshop, so we had to wait for the person, who had to show us everything.
Here are some pictures from what we were doing, where we stayed and what
we did:
That's how we went from Livingstone town to the "pick up" place
(I'm sitting next to Terese)
Waiting and negotiating...
Waiting in the shade at Siakasipa Basic School
The ladies' tent
The workshop room (it is a church)
The toilet house
The toilet
Terese and Steven preparing food
The surroundings
The three village girls with rape (Terese is holding it) :)
(Nyarai, Terese and me)
Me getting water
Me carrying 20 L :)
Yes, it was heavy :D but I managed!
Steven finding wood for the campfire
Terese and Nyarai preparing for the workshop
Playing a traditional game
Me facilitating about, why it is good/bad to use sport for development
An activity for talking about life skills
Terese facilitating about HIV/Aids myths
Doing a relay
Icebreaker: "I have the ball, hipepeta"
A funny thing happened Thursday late afternoon, when we were having the
first workshop day. Around 15:30 hours someone said that we had to finish the
programme for that day, even tough we weren’t finished yet. Apparently the
reason for that was a lion, which had attacked a person in a village further
away. Hence, the participants had to leave our workshop to make it home safe.
In the beginning I thought it was just a bad joke, for going home early. But no, they
were serious about it. At that point I started thinking, if it would be safe
for us to sleep another night in the tents :D Well, we did and survived :)
Friday early evening I was back in Livingstone after a nice experience in the village and ready for enjoying a very nice
and relaxing weekend together with friends :)
Braai at rapid nr 7
This week has been really
good and actually quite busy as well :) Response Network invited me for another
Kicking Aids Out workshop, this time in Livingstone and to do the next level. So now I’m actually certified in leader level 1 :) It has been a really nice week at the workshop
with meeting many new people, who are actively involved in sports in Livingstone
and learning to become a good facilitator in Kicking Aids Out. In the next post
I’m going to explain everything a bit more detailed and will show you some
pictures of what we did (I haven't got them yet) :) Right now I have to start packing for my Easter
trip, which starts tomorrow early in the morning.
Together with friends I’m
going to a music festival at Lake Kariba, where we are staying until Sunday :) Sunday I’m proceeding to
Harare (Zimbabwe), where I’ll wait for Lina and Johanne. On the 3rd of
April we are taking the bus down to Gweru, where Vegard is working. He has been
helping with organizing some Paralympics games. So we all thought, this is a
great opportunity to see each other again and spend some time together :) I’m
really looking forward to seeing them all again :)
With these pictures from the Lunar Rainbow Tuesday evening (when it is full moon and high water season, you can see a rainbow in the spray at the Victoria Falls) I want to wish you all some lovely
Easter days!!!
(these were the best shots I managed to get in the dark)
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