Sport for all!

Right, where to start. Time is flying and so many things have happened in the last week. I hope you all had a happy Easter holiday and enjoyed the days with friends and family.

For me, this year was a slightly different Easter. As I mentioned in my last post, I went to Kariba Music Festival with friends. It was very nice and we had a fantastic time :) The music was a good mixture of African music and Dj’s, and what do you want more, when you are dancing to good music at the beach under the sky full of stars? It was AMAZING!!!

Here are some impressions from the festival

Vicky, Alyssa and Kate

Me enjoying the sun

The view from my tent

Nice sunset

Enjoying the sunset cruise with live music

(Kate, Alyssa and Brian)

The live band

Lovely ladies

(Kate, Vicky, Alyssa and me)

Nice sunset

Enjoying the music

Sunday afternoon it was time for me to make my way to Harare. The others gave me a lift to the border, from where I had to figure out how the busses go to Harare and when ;) After hiking to the place, where I had to take a minibus to the place where I could find the big busses going to Harare, and sitting and waiting for 4 hours in a very small town, I was finally on my way to Harare :) At 2:30 a.m. I arrived safely in Harare and I got a nice welcome from Johanne, when I went tiptoeing in the dorm.

Harare was nice and relaxed. Johanne and I spent most of the time with relaxing, talking and enjoying life. Monday afternoon we got invited to see a tobacco farm a bit outside of Harare, so we went there. It was very interesting seeing the farm and we had a good time :) 

What is missing?

Johanne, George and me in one of the tobacco drying rooms

The entrance to the slaughter house

Johanne and me in the slaughter house

The following day Lina arrived in Harare and Wednesday early morning the three of us were on the way to the Zimbabwe National Paralympic Games in Gweru. In the beginning the games seemed to be very chaotic and not structured and planned at all :D However, after the chaos in the beginning, I have to say that I’m pretty impressed, how well organised and structured the games were!!! Thumbs up Zimbabwe ;) It was the 6^th time, they were having the Zimbabwe National Paralympic Games and this year, they were hold in Gweru, where Vegard lives and works for the Sports and Recreation Commission Zimbabwe (SRC) (http://www.src.org.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=24). It was very nice seeing where he lives and works, and especially spending time with all the other volunteers again :)

We had a good time with watching wheelchair basket, wheelchair tennis, goal ball (that is a game for blind people) and netball, football and athletics for intellectual challenged and deaf persons. I think I will let the pictures talk :)

A part of a leg

the teams singing the national anthem 

A wheelchair basketball player

Wheelchair basket

Half time

Long jump

Long jump

800 metres run

Excited spectators

Discus

400 metres run for the blind

Goal ball

Goal ball

Football

Becky, Johanne, Lina and me

Happy player

Wheelchair tennis

Lina and me with some wheel chair basketball players

Wheelchair basketball

Happy runner

Arnt, Johanne, Becky, Lina and me with some players 

Friday we ended the nice days in Gweru with having a nice dinner, or rather a meat orgy (we ate 8,5 kg) :D just have a look

The grill

Some of our meat

Lina and me enjoying the ribs

Saturday it was time for me to go back to Livingstone. Again, the bus trip was quite an adventure :D The bus was totally overloaded, so the first three hours Steven (the sports coordinator in Response Network) and me were sitting on the stairs in the front of the bus. Since, the bus was overloaded with about 20 people (all of them sitting/standing in the aisle of the bus) the bus didn’t make it through the police stop :D After spending 45 minutes negotiating with the police, we finally continued and after passing through Bulawayo, we even got seats :) It was good, since we had still another 6 hours to go :D However, the police incident, wasn’t the only one. No, 2 hours before arriving in Vic Falls town, the bus got a flat tyre. T.I.A :) You can’t imagine how happy I was, when I finally reached the compound :)

What is going on in Livingstone this week?

Well, since Kwenuha still is waiting for some funds to arrive, there aren’t so many activities going on at the moment. Instead I’m using the time to visit the sport captains and supervise some trainings. Furthermore, I’m trying to get some work done on my last exam paper. 

Before I’ll finish, I want to share some good news with you :)

My host family is finally completed!!!! Juhhhuuuu!!!! It is so nice that my host mum is back from South Africa (she has been away for over a month) and that we are all together now! In addition to that, my mum is coming for a visit again :) Juhhuuuu!!!! I can’t wait to seeing her on the 4^th of May :)