You learn to be adjustable :)

Do you remember that I at the end of my last post was looking forward to the meeting with all the sport captains? I was well prepared and really eager to get some changes done. Well, as usual a change of plans waited for me, when I arrived at the office Thursday morning. ;) Instead of having the monthly meeting with all the sport captains, we had to have a SOCAT meeting. What does that mean? Yep, I didn’t know either and actually no one was able to tell what the letters are standing for :D However, it was clear for most of the people that we had to analyze the organization and all the activities we are running. SAT (Southern Africa Aids and Trust), one of the sponsors, was having a workshop at and with Kwenuha this Monday (1^st of October) to Wednesday (3^rd of October), to see how the organization is doing and where it has to improve. That’s why we had to review our activities and strategic plan ;)

So yeah, here we were. 26 Africans and me, analyzing the organisation and all the activities. Well, since no one knew about this meeting, no one was prepared (e.g. had read the strategic plan) and this means, the meeting finished after 5 hours without a break. It has to been said that the work could have been done in 2 hours :D So yeah, as you maybe can imagine, I was quite exhausted after all the hours and very hungry. My patience had really reached it’s end :D But yeah, it was good work!

Friday it was time for another club competition. Since all the previous competitions had been kind of a disaster because of misunderstandings, I was quite surprised, when after 1 ½ hours waiting time at the sport field, some teams actually showed up! So yeah, I had to change my evening plans, since I instead of knocking off at 16:30 hours, went home at 18:00 hours. However, it was worth it ;) It was a great tournament and the children enjoyed it a lot ;)

Here are some pictures:

This boy just fascinated me! He had so much fun with this damaged ball ;)

The winner team

The team, which lost..

Later that day I went to another Happy hour but this time at the Livingstone Backpackers ;) It was quite fun and I met a lot of new people. You can actually do a happy hour tour, where you start at the Waterfront Hotel (happy hour is from 17:30-18:30), after that it continues at the Livingstone Backpackers (20:00-21:00) and then you can finish at Fezbar. Maybe Bela and I are going to do this tomorrow :) Yeahhhh, tomorrow Bela is coming!!!! I’m so much looking forward to see her! Anyway, let me continue ;)

Saturday it was time for me to go to another Zambian wedding :) Believe it or not but this time I actually was invited :D Who got married? Well, the nephew of my host mums friend :D Haha :D But, I was invited! So Miriam and I went to the wedding together. That was really nice and we had a lot of fun together :)

Mirian and me before the wedding :)

 Well, when we arrived half an hour delayed, we saw this:

Women preparing the tables

Hmmm…wasn’t the wedding supposed to start at 14:30 hours? Yep, it was. BUT they were a bit behind the time! Haha :D after more than 2 hours waiting, the wedding finally started.

The tables, when they were finished

The dancers

Some more dancers :)

The bride and just some women dancing

The food (I'm quite sure that I want another dish at my wedding :D)

I just loved the old lady with the red knitted cap :)

Saturday night it was time for me to have another proper night out in Livingstone (I’ve only had one before) :) It has been a small issue for me to stay out until late, since I live 5 km out of Livingstone, I need a taxi we (my host parents and me) trust or a safe place to stay in town and I don’t have any keys for the front door. However, communication was the key ;) Miriam and I found a taxi we both trust and which operates during the night, and agreed on how I’m doing with the door ;) So I went to town and met the some friends for a night out ;) It was sooo nice just to dance and go crazy on the dance floor :D I loved it! And everything went perfect with coming home late ;)

And what is the perfect place for a relaxing Sunday? Yep, the Zambezi Sun hotel. What were we doing? Basically nothing :) Sunbathing, sleeping, swimming and enjoying life :)

Have a look

The view from my chair

 After the relaxing Sunday it was time for me to experience the African stomach and get sick…I knew the day would come :D So yeah, since Monday I haven’t felt so good, have had a slightly fever, horrible stomach cramps, no appetite and hunger, and just no energy at all. Monday I still went to work the whole day (I really wanted to participate in the workshop with SAT) but when my colleagues saw me Tuesday morning, they told me to go home again. So yeah, the last days I have basically done nothing, apart from resting, sleeping and reading. Luckily, I’m already feeling much better and the doctor couldn’t find anything ;) So tomorrow I’m hopefully back to the normal Vivi again :) I just have to, since Bela is coming!!!! 

That was all from me ;)

Oh wait, I had a nice surprise in my room, when I came home this evening!

Yep, a scorpion!

No worries! It's not alive any longer ;)

You never know what the day will bring :D

Friday evening, before I posted my last post, I went to the happy hour at the Waterfront hotel. It was the perfect ending for a nice but also a bit exhausting week at work :) Will and I enjoyed some few drinks while enjoying the sunset.

The lovely sunset

Will

When I came home that evening, it was back to reality = African lifestyle. We had no power ;) So, what am I doing in the compound, when the power has gone?

Well, besides sitting and waiting for the power to come back, I’m playing with my brothers. Friday it was time for playing super heroes :D

My brothers (Patrick and Jonathan) and Pleasant (he is my neighbor)

 Saturday morning it was again time for me being a tourist :) I went on a horseback riding safari with June and Brigitte. Let me say it like this, it was a nice trip, however, it was a REAL trip for tourists! That was even too much for me :D We started with seeing zebras and giraffes. It was nice but it was on the hotel area, where they feed the animals. Even though it was fine that we came so close to the animals, it didn’t feel like a real safari. And when we finally left the hotel area, we didn’t see any animals at all. Well, I think that’s just how a safari is sometimes. You can’t always be lucky to see animals ;)

Me and my horse

Baby giraffe

Zebras

June and me on our horses in the Zambezi River

In the afternoon it was time for me to attend in my first Zambian wedding. Now you maybe are wondering, who invited me? Well, actually it was kind of myself :D I heard some of my colleagues talking about a wedding, which should be held in one of the buildings, where I work. I told them that I have been told that if I get the chance to join a wedding in Zambia, I should definitely take the opportunity to see how it’s like. That’s what I did :D I asked if I was allowed to join and they said yes :) Since no one had time to join me, I went there alone. Well, I knew one person at the wedding and it was her neighbour who got married ;) Besides the fact that I felt a bit strange about going to a Zambian wedding as the only white person and with just knowing one person, it was GREAT fun and I definitely don’t regret my own invitation to the wedding at all :) A Zambian wedding is just totally different from our weddings at home. There was so much dancing! I loved it :) I took many videos. I couldn’t upload all of them. Here is just a short impression. It’s the “knife boy”. He brings the knife for cutting the cake. I just loved him :D

And yep, I know I’ve my finger on the speaker :D

Some women bringing their gifts for the bride and the groom

Yvonne and me after the wedding

Sunday it was time for me doing some washing and cleaning at home. Well, washing all your clothes with the hand and cleaning the room for dust is almost a ”whole-day-project” here in Africa :D

Here are some impressions from the compound and Livingstone:

Elephant footprints in the garden

grasshopper at the gym

cockroaches having fun at my toilet in the compound

My kitchen

A typical dinner: rice and beans

Jonathan eating breakfast and showing me his new socks (Thanks Siv-Hege;))

My washing in front of the house and Jonathan eating breakfast

Finally done with my washing

Cleaning my room (yep, that is the thing I use for sweeping)

Patrick helping me with cooking

Patrick, Miriam (my host mum), Rebeca and Jonathan

Me cooking fried potatoes

On my way to work

On my way home

Monday it was time for a normal Monday at the office. What does that mean? I was writing some reports, while the others were nursing a sick chicken :D

In my office

In the afternoon I went to the prison to visit my host dad together with my host mum. Well, I don’t know how European prisons look like, but I think they are better than here in Africa. It was nice seeing, however also a bit tough…

The prison entrance

After the prison I decided to buy me a guitar. I’ve always wanted to start playing again and since my evenings are a bit quiet here, I thought now I’ve the time for it ;)

Last week I met a very friendly old man at the golf court with a guitar. I asked him, if he knew a place where I can buy one. So we met and I bought one ;) Agugu Villa (that’s the old man’s name) offered me even to tune the guitar, while I just could do my exercise in the gym (the gym belongs to the golf court). Well, I couldn’t say no to that offer :D

Yesterday and today have been rather quiet days at work. We are doing some club visitations this week, so we can improve the sport department. Or rather, we are supposed to do. Today I arrived at the office at 8 hours. After two hours waiting for going for the club visitation, they told me that they have to do other things and the visit is cancelled. Well okay, I thought. So what was my work today? Yep, nothing! A bit frustrating…but yeah, this is Africa ;)

But the meeting yesterday went quite well ;) Even though it was spiced with a little surprise for me, when we finished :D We all had left our shoes in front of the door, when we entered the room. As I went out after the meeting my shoes somehow had disappeared :D Well, luckily it just was my Zambian tropical’s (flip flops). Apparently, one of the women’s son had mistaken my shoes with his shoes. Or at least they said that. I got a pair of one the women shoes and they promised to bring my shoes to the office during the week, when they had found the boy. Hmmm, we’ll see if they do that :D

So, right now I’m sitting at Jolly Boys Backpackers looking forward to the monthly meeting with all the sports captains tomorrow. We have to make some changes in the sport department, so the work in the sport clubs and at the trainings improves :)

And do you know what? Unfortunately, It just started raining :( Nooooooo!!! You know how much I just love the sun, even though 39 degrees every day is a bit hot :D The first rain is supposed to come in the end of October…but yeah, you never know how things turn out to be in Africa :D

TIA = This is Africa :)

Wow, the time is running so fast and 1 ½ weeks have already gone since I’ve posted the last update.

   Believe it or not, I have actually been quite busy during the last days :D

But let me start from where I stopped the last time ;)

Last week I was quite occupied with finishing my exam paper and attending more club trainings. However, Wednesday showed to be a completely different day. Since we have been told that Nowspar (an organization in Lusaka) is fixing everything with our visa and work permission, I didn’t think of my visa at all. Well, that day I was forced to :D I found out that my visa had expired on the 7^th of September, so I actually had been illegal in Zambia for almost 6 days! Oppps…I was sooooo scared, because the first reaction of every person I talked to was “ohhh, big trouble!” To make a long story short, some papers I was supposed to get and bring to the emigration office, had been sent to the wrong organization, they deleted it and I never received them. I was so relieved that it wasn’t my fault :D

However, the emigration office didn’t care about whose mistake it was…Luckily, the officer must have had a good day, since he, after giving me a big lesson about how bad and wrong it was, extended my visa with another 30 days…Puha :)

After the big shock on the Wednesday I was definitely ready to go to Lusaka and have some fun :) Siv-Hege and I took the night bus from Livingstone to Lusaka at 10:30 p.m. hours. Since the bus driver managed to cut the normally 7 hours bus trip down to 4 ½ hours (yep, he drove like a crazy person), we arrived safely in Lusaka at 3 a.m. After sleeping another 2 hours in the bus, we went to Lusaka Backpackers at 5 o’clock and were ready for the day and the weekend:)

Friday we went shopping, had a lot of good coffee (or at least better coffee than in Livingstone ;)), met Lina, Johanne and Karl-Frederik, ate waffles at the Norwegian Embassy, relaxed at the pool and ended the day with a nice dinner and some drinks :) It was so lovely seeing the others again, exchanging experiences, talk “Norwegian/Danish” and just being together in the group :)

However, the last part changed for me on the Saturday at the Nordic Sports day, where Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland competed against each other in different types of sports.

Saturday morning at 10 a.m. all the “nations” met at the American School in Lusaka. It was quite fast clear that it was going to be a big challenge for Denmark just to come close to win some matches, since Denmark wasn’t as many people as all the other nations at all. We were only 10 (all the other nations were at least 25 people) and the average age in our team was probably around 60 :D and don’t ask for the average fitness level :D…let me say it like this. They were quite happy that a young person like me was able to play all the football matches, all the volley ball matches, do the 400 meter relay, swim 1500 meters and participate in the tug of war :) However, our aim wasn’t to win but have fun :) And the day was definitely great fun! The lovely dinner at the Danish Embassy in the evening and the price for the best Team spirit and sportsmanship made it even perfect :)

Here some pictures:

Lusaka Backpackers

The warm up at the Nordic Sports Day

Volley ball, Norway against Denmark. Denmark won :)

Enjoying a drink before going to the dinner at the Danish Embassy 

Enjoying a drink at the Danish Embassy

Lina, Siv-Hege, Johanne and me enjoying the heat from the bonfire

Sunday morning I was already on my way back to Livingstone again. And guess what? Yep, Siv-Hege and I thought it would be nice to end the perfect weekend with a sunset cruise :D Unfortunately, we arrived a bit too late in Livingstone. So instead, we went to the Royal Livingstone Hotel (I think it is the best and most expensive hotel in Livingstone) for enjoying a drink, while watching the fantastic sunset with the top of the Victoria Falls in the background and hippo yawns in the front :) Well, it was the perfect “plan B” :)

Have a look, how nice it was:

Sunset with the top of the Victoria Falls in the background

Sunset with a monkey eating our snacks ;)

 Then it was time for me going back to my African life :) And well, it has been a real African week spiced with some frustrations and mixed experiences.

While I was in Lusaka, my host dad unhappily got arrested…He is one of the most popular taxi drivers in Livingstone, so you can maybe imagine that some of the many other taxi drivers in Livingstone might get a bit jealous and want him to give space and work for them. Well, the way they do it here, is to place drugs in someone’s car….Yep, that’s quite unfair but fairness is not a word they know here. Furthermore, everything is about money and it’s impossible to know how much corruption there is involved. Since, the police somehow aren’t able to promise that they are going to release him, when my family pays the bail, he is still in prison…fingers crossed, he’ll come out on Monday next week ;)

Monday morning, I got a nice surprise at work as well. When I arrived at the office, I thought it was going to be a day like all the other Mondays at the office. Well no! We were going to have a workshop with 20 girls, who are members in Kwenuha. Well okay, we can do that, I thought. But have we planned anything? NO! What am I supposed to do? Hmmm….I didn’t know! Did someone tell me? Not really…Good :) After having a big question mark in my face, I found out that I was supposed to be responsible for the energizers during the workshop. So, my task was to sit in the workshop room, observe the girls and when I see them getting tired or bored, I had to do something fun with them :) Nice task, I thought :-) However, I think the facilitator might have misunderstood my role a bit, since it ended up with me doing half of the facilitating almost every day. She used to say: I’ll just leave the girls with you. I’ll just quickly go to town and deposit a check. or “I just have to get my glasses from home” and another check had to be deposited again :D Well, in Africa it’s not possible “just quickly” to go to town. Or at least she isn’t able to do it! Two hours was the fastest she managed to do to be back again :D But I also have to say, I have barely met a more lazy person than her :D Sometimes she drove me crazy with her lazyness and furthermore, I think communication must be a foreign word for her :D

On the other hand, I actually have to admit that I enjoyed it quite a lot to facilitate and being the energizer :) The girls just loved the energizers and we had great fun :) However, it’s actually a bit sad that they don’t know about their human rights and that they actually are allowed to say no to sex or to have sex without a condom…what we at home take for granted, they don’t know anything about…that made me think a lot...

Wednesday morning I had new “real” African experience again. I woke up with hundreds of small stitches on both my calves. Hmmm, was it mosquito bites, bed bugs bites or something different? I asked Sister Perpetua (the head of Kwenuha) and she didn’t know either. So, she wanted me to see a doctor. Well, after many hours waiting in the clinic, seeing not so nice impressions and quite an uncomfortable feeling, I finally met the doctor. Well, as I somehow already knew before going there, he wasn’t able to tell me anything I didn’t know ;) (He couldn’t say what kind of stitches they were). However, I found out that they don’t know anything about privacy here in Africa (I was sharing the consulting room with some others) and if I one day have to see a doctor, it’s definitely not going to be in this clinic ;) So now I know that :D

The consulting room

Well, I think I have written enough for this time ;) I don’t want you to feel bored!

This weekend I'm going on a horse back riding safari with June and Brigitte, and I'm going to learn even more about the African culture, at a Zambian wedding I'm going to on Saturday :)  

My first Safari tour :)

Hello again! 

I know, I just posted an update. However, there is no need to worry ;) I’m not going to spam you with more than two updates in one week :D

I just wanted to share the amazing photos from the Safari tour in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park with you :)

We had rented our own car, so in a small Toyota, we drove almost 7 hours through the national park. Even though, it was way too hot in the car and the car maybe not was the best choice for the quite bad roads, we had an amazing tour and managed to see almost every type of animal in the national park :)

Here some impressions:

June, Birgitte, Siv-Hege, a rhino and me

a nice lunch

A Buffalo

A monkey eating a baby monkey...

An Impala

some nice birds

"Pumba"

A rhino

(it's actually quite seldom to see a rhino in the national park. However, we managed to meet a nice ranger, who showed us where they were hiding :) We saw 6 rhinos!!!)

An elephant

A small monkey

A zebra

A giraffe

After relaxing at Siv-Hege's pool today (I was supposed to study :D), I'm ready for the next week and for finishing my exam :) 

I really look forward to Thursday evening, where Siv-Hege and I are taking the night bus to Lusaka. Friday we'll do some shopping, both clothes and rye bread and Saturday it's time for the Nordic Sport Day :-) (The Norwegian, Danish and Swedish embassies are competing against each other and having a nice dinner in the evening). I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I really look forward to see the others from the Idretts Fredskorps group :) juhuuuu!!!