Zim vs. Zam

Last time I promised you to take it a bit easier and believe it or not, I have :) So what have I done this week? 

Well, it has been a good combination of some meetings, office work, field training, Nyanja lessons, some dancing, travelling and a little bit of studying for my exam. The highlight of last week has been my trip to Vic Falls Town in Zimbabwe, where I met Karl-Fredrik and his friends. But let me start with Wednesday :)

Wednesday afternoon I went to one of the sport clubs in Kwenuha for doing the net- and football training with the kids. It was really nice getting out in the field again, instead of being stuck at the office ;) I enjoyed it a lot!

After that I was invited to a birthday braai at rapid 7! My first thought when I arrived…WOW!!! Look at the view :)

This is rapid 7

And the sunset 

 And then try to imagine the sky with millions of stars after the sunset! It was just the most perfect spot for at braai :) And dancing afterwards just made the evening perfect!

Thursday it was time for another meeting with the Livingstone Sport and Development Network. The aim with this network is to bring together all NGO sporting organisations in Livingstone, where we share and benefit from each other’s knowledge and experience. It's a quite new network but I think it's a really good chance for developing sport in Livingstone and Kwenuha can gain a lot of being part of  it :) After my Nyanja lesson and a good workout at the gym later that day, I was ready to go to Zimbabwe Friday morning ;)

I was really looking forward to see Karl-Fredrik and his friends, and even to get a small break from Livingstone. So I started my trip with crossing the bridge and going to Zimbabwe :) Well, I should probably have known that my plans would change a bit, since I'm in Africa :D Just before I reached the emigration office in Zimbabwe, I surprisingly bumped into Karl-Fredrik and his friends, Trond and Christina. They had  just decided that they wanted to do the Devil’s pool, which is on the Zambian side ;) So yeah, I walked back with them and while they were bathing in the pool, I waited for them at the Zambezi Sun Hotel for relaxing and treating myself :)

Enjoying life

When they were done with the swimming, I showed them my home in the compound and Livingstone town. After enjoying a Mosi at Jollyboys, we finally headed to Zimbabwe :)

Enjoying a Mosi at Jollyboys

So, where we staying in Vic Falls Town and what were we doing? 

Well, basically we just treated ourselves and enjoyed life :) I thought we were staying at a backpackers but I quickly found out that had to rethink :D Well, since Trond is working for the Norwegian embassy in Harare and is going to stay in Zimbabwe for the next three years, he and his wife wanted to check out different hotels and Friday night is was time to check out the Victoria Falls Hotel! Which by the way has a quite good reputation :) 

Just have a look at the pictures:

The entrance

The view at the hotel from the bridge

The view at the hotel from the garden

How far is it to Cape Town?

Some pets in the garden

Trond and Karl-Fredrik in the pool

Karl-Fredrik

Me ready for the dinner

The menu card

The cheese :)

(This was one of the best courses :D I'm really on withdrawal right now, since I don't have a fridge or freezer at home, so I can't keep the cheese at home. And those who know me, I LOVE cheese :D)

At the casino after the dinner

The hotel was amazing and the 7-course dinner and champagne breakfast, made my stay to an even better experience. A nice diversion to the African life :D

After the lovely breakfast Saturday morning, Karl-Fredrik, Trond and Christina were driving back to Harare. For me it was time to finally see the Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwean side and to actually being able to make my own judgement of, which side you get the best view at the Victoria Falls from ;) 

Well, I have to admit that the view you get from the Zim side is MUCH better than the view from the Zam side :) And now there is even not that much water!

Just look:

The entrance

I really enjoyed my short trip to Zimbabwe :) Thus in the afternoon I crossed the bridge with new energy for the exam, work and the last two weeks in Livingstone, before I’m heading to Cape Town on the 1st of December ;)

Saturday night we were celebrating Tereses (one of my Norwegian volunteer group, who is living two hours away from Livingstone) birthday with a lovely Indian dinner at the Golden Leaf and some dancing afterwards ;)

Well, my stay here is not just about travelling and enjoying life ;) Hence, I got up early Sunday morning, for cleaning my room, washing my clothes and start working on my exam paper. Believe it or not, but I actually managed to work the whole day on my exam paper, with some breaks though :D

Me working :)

This week started calm with a meeting, writing reports and learning more Nyanja. On the 24^th of November we are holding a fundraising sports tournament, so my job Tuesday and Wednesday has  basically been about heading up and down in town, inviting people, asking for giveaways and donations, and having meetings with the Sports minister and coordinator in Livingstone. Thus, this Saturday either Doreen or me is going to advertise our tournament on TV and during next week on the radio ;) Besides organizing the tournament, I have been working on my exam paper, have had some good workouts at the gym and some nice evenings with my family :)

The charm of Africa

Now we are in the middle of November and the weather is slowly changing. Instead of the sunshine and almost 40 degrees every day, we are now having about 36 degrees, a bit sun, rain, thunderstorms and lightnings. Even though the compound is completely flooded after the showers and the heavy rain on the tin roof is keeping me awake during the nights, it somehow has its charm :) A really nice side effect of the rain, are the mangos :) They are delicious and just everywhere!!! However, the rain also brings along some more visitors at home. Just see, what I found last evening ;)

Yep, it's a snake :)

But it's dead ;)

The compound after the showers

One thing, which also is really charming here in Zambia, is how everybody is supporting the national football team, when they are playing. Yesterday Zambia was playing a friendly game against South Africa and you should have seen and heard, how the compound went crazy with vuvuzelas and celebrations :) I’m really looking forward to the Africa Cup of Nations 2013 in January/February!

What is going on in the next days?

Well, tomorrow I have another day at the office and some more meetings, which are related to the fundraising tournament. And for the weekend I haven’t decided yet;) Maybe going rafting, doing a trip on the river with inflatable kayaks, a cheetah/lion walk, an elephant back safari or just relax at a pool:) Well, I should probably also spend some time on my exam paper…We’ll see :)

13 weeks in Zambia :)

Okay, I think it’s time for me to give you guys an update from what has been going on here in Livingstone :) I’m sorry it took me so long time.

When I stopped my last post, we were celebrating the Independence Day here in Zambia and I was about to meet Johanne and Lina. We started the day with a lovely breakfast at the backpackers and were then ready to explore, how Zambians celebrate their independence day. Well, I have to admit that we were a bit disappointed or that we at least had expected more and wilder celebrations. 

Thus after having seen some of the dances at Vila Ground (a big sports ground in Livingstone), we decided to treat ourselves with a nice lunch at the Waterfront and with relaxing at the pool :) While us girls already were lying at the pool and were working on our tans, Vegard and Arnt arrived :) And then the busy but nice programme had started :)

Lina and Johanne with our lunch

Lina and Johanne in the pool :)

Vegard, Arnt and me at the pool :)

The following days were a good combination of good talks, a lot of fun, a bit work (in my case), a bit of action, lovely dinners and some beers and dancing at Fezbar :)

Here some impressions:

Independence day celebrations

Some traditional dancing

Lina, Arnt, Johanne, Vegard and me enjoying the sunset

Lina and Arnt

Vegard and me

Well, a cosmpolitan

 The sunset drink 

Friday we did a under the spray tour - we were swimming under the spray from the falls! it was amazing :)

Getting ready to swim :)

before jumping into the water

Swimming to the spray

Swimming under the spray

yeahhh, swimming :)

The Zambezi River

Our boat

Me jumping from the rocks

Yeahhhh, we all survived the bungee jumps :)

In the evening we treated ourselves with a sunset drink and a lovely dinner at the Royal Livingstone hotel :) We enjoyed it a lot, especially the Norwegian salmon :)

Lina, Johanne and me

Lina, Arnt, Johanne, Vegard and me with our amazing dinner :)

Saturday it was time for us seeing the falls from the top, so we thought the perfect place for that would be from the Devil’s pool :)

Yeahhh!!!

Happy Scandinavians in the Devil's Pool :)

close to the edge!

At the Devil's Pool

On the way back from the Devil's Pool

And how do you round off some amazing days with good friends and celebrate into Johannes birthday?

Well, you maybe can guess…

Yep, you are right! On a Sunset cruise and with some dancing afterwards :)

Lina and me

Open your eyes Vivi!!!

Happy birthday Johanne!

Sunday it was time for some more relaxing. When the boys had left for going back to Zimbabwe, us girls went to enjoy the sun and the pool at the Zambezi Sun Hotel :) 

Nice African feeling - lying at the pool with Zebras around you :)

Johanne enjoying her birthday

Zebras at the pool

We had some amazing days together and the fact that we are going to see each other in only 27 days in Cape Town (from today), made the goodbye not too difficult :)

Sunday evening I thought that I have to take it a bit more slowly the next week, since that week had been quite busy. Well, that didn’t work out so good :D

Monday I had a busy day at the office planning some tournaments and improvements we have to do in the sports department. After the office work I finally had my first Nyanja lesson :) It was great fun, even though I’ve to admit that it’s going to take me some efforts to learn the language properly :D However, I really want to learn it so the effort is worth it :)

After my language lesson I got invited to a live concert. That Monday the kayak festival had started, so the concerts was part of the festival, which was going on the whole week. Even though I was pretty tired, it was quite difficult to say no to that invitation :) I love live music and miss it a lot! 

It was amazing and definitely worth it, not getting that much sleep :D

Dancing to good music :)

After a rather calm Tuesday, I was ready for the Halloween Party Wednesday evening :) My outfit? Well, have a look:

Can you see what I am? A cheetah :)

Iris being a giraffe

The cheetah hunting the giraffe

Yep, Iris and I got painted :D Even though it took ages to paint the whole body, it was definitely worth it :) We had an amazing night and lot of fun!

Thursday I only had some meetings, work, Nyanja lessons and to catch up some sleep on my programme.

Friday it was time for another club competition. After doing some washing and cleaning the whole morning, I went to the club competition at 14 hours. Well, only one team showed up, so after two hours of waiting, we went home. T.I.A. I guess :D 

The early knock off from work did that I was able to do the happy hour tour :) It started with the amazing sunset at the Waterfront Hotel, followed by the happy hour at Livingstone Backpackers and ended with dancing at Fezbar :) 

Saturday it was time for some relaxing in the sun during the day, since it was time for the final party of the kayak festival in the evening :) Well, I had another good night with dancing!

And what was on the programme for Sunday? Yep, some relaxing in the sun at the Zambezi Sun Hotel :)

Now you maybe think, is Vivian not supposed to work? Well, I am and I do ;) I think I’m just quite good at handle only few hours of sleep :D

But yeah, this week I’m going to take it more calm ;) Right now, there is only work, Nyanja lessons, work outs at the gym, writing my exam paper and one farewell party on the programme :)

So how is my African life going?

Well, I’m now 13 weeks here in Zambia and honestly, I kind of like it here :) Of course, there are still situations where I wish to have good friends and family around me, that the people here just sometimes would think in a bit more European way, I wish to have tap water, a fridge, a freezer, good shower, a real toilet and no power cuts, but somehow everything is just part of the charm :) You kind of get used to all and that everything just takes a bit more time here (for example, I'm still waiting for my bike) :D

However, one thing I don’t think is part of the charm, is the fact that you can’t even trust officers here and that there is a lot of corruption. My host dad is still in prison and I don’t know how many times he already was supposed to appear in court. They keep on adjourning the day! I think it’s really terrible…how are people in Zambia supposed to learn that corruption is a bad thing, when even officers and well educated people do it?!

Furthermore, I’m not a big fan of how most of the men perceive women. Even though some male Zambians are getting better in giving the woman more rights, in most cases the woman doesn’t have anything to say, especially not in a marriage. It’s for instance a woman’s own fault, when the husband cheats on or rapes her, when she refuses to have sex with him. It’s part of the culture that when a Zambian husband wants to have sex, the wife has to obey. Crazy, isn’t it? In addition to that, the role of women in the Zambian culture is also a bit of a challenge, when it for instance comes to sport. Women are often not allowed to do sports and they even don’t have time for it. They are supposed to clean, cook, wash, take care of the children, etc. Even though the man is not working. Sometimes you just feel like being back in time, or at least not as as living in year 2012.

Well, I think that was enough from the negative side ;)

I just wanted to give you some few illustrations of, what kind of aspects sometimes challenge my politeness and understanding. It’s just a bit difficult to understand that they really think and behave like that!

Right, back to the positive :)

Zambians are in general really friendly people and I have never talked to and been greeted from so many different people and strangers :) Furthermore, it’s lovely to see how happy they get, when you try to speak their language or try to dance the way they do :) They laugh a lot and laughing is a good sign here :) That means that they are happy, not that they are laughing at you ;)

In addition to that, I really feel at home in my family :) When I turn into the street where I’m living, all the children are coming running towards me and give me the biggest and warmest hugs :) The neighbours come to visit me and invite me to their places :) Furthermore, my family is really understanding and they show a lot of respect towards me and the culture I’m coming from. For instance they accept that I’m not a big fan of eating Nsima (it’s a cornmeal product and the stable food here in Zambia. It doesn’t taste of anything...) 3 times a day, so I get my oats and fruits in the morning :)

Some impressions from my life:

The amazing sunset

A new "friend" at home - well, it's a toxic scorpion...

My work - waiting for the other teams to arrive

The boys who are keeping me busy at home :) 

(in the middle it's Jonathan, my youngest host brother)

So all in all I’m doing quite fine down here :) However, I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to December, where I’m going to meet all the other volunteers and even see my family again :) And the facts that I’ll meet all of them in Cape Town and have a holiday and it’s going to be my birthday and Christmas, just makes it more amazing and exciting :)

Okay, I think this was all from me right now! I’m sending you all some warm greetings and big hugs :)

P.S.
For those who are able to see it (I can't), here is some entertainment from my work at home in Copenhagen :)
http://www.tv3play.dk/play/286846/?autostart=true