Ruben bloggar frå turar, innland og utland: Week 1 in Zambia!

First few days

The first week is over, and every day has been filled with activities, the first day was mainly a “getting to know each other-day”. We’ve had lectures about development, AIDS, HIV, VCT (volunteer counselling and testing). We have had circuit training or football matches every day at 6AM for about 45 minutes. It’s been hard, but it looks like people have enjoyed it, they are also very sore the following day(s). Which always makes me happyJ

On the second day we went for an observation walk at different schools in the area. Watching deaf people play a soccer game made quite an impression. It’s times like this when you feel really lucky to be 100% healthy. We also saw other kids playing football on a dusty hard ground where it was lots of small rocks. I can’t imagine if I had to play on a ground like that, I would ruin my own legs in every slide tackle I made. In Fresvik, at home, we got a beautiful green pitch all for ourselves, we might be 10-20 people using it, and it’s never busy. Imagine how much these kids would appreciate a pitch like that. It’s just so different from what we are used to.

We continued our walk and got to a school which was built by the Japanese government; it had Japanese flags and infrastructure. It was now run by the people here, so the kids had to pay to go to school. The walk took us about 3 hours, since we stopped at every school (5 different ones) and talked to the employees. We also met some British volunteers who were staying for 6 weeks. Unfortunately we couldn't bring any cameras

Dancing in Africa
On Friday and Saturday we went out to dance, and it’s not like dancing in Norway, that’s for sure! On Friday a group of us, mixed of Africans and Norwegians walked to the student bar/club which is very near. We got there about 8:30-9:00 PM, and the girls started to dance straight away. Us guys are a bit more shy, but it didn’t take long until we were dancing with them. By 9:30 all of us were on the stage dancing in a circle, one or two went in the middle to show some moves at all times. It was such an great experience and it was only like 9-10 o’clock. Here you don’t need to drink/get drunk to through yourself out on the dance floor. We had so much fun, but had to get home by the curfew at 11 PM.

Host family
On Saturday I met my host family! I hadn’t got any information about them before, so I was very excited when they told us Saturday morning that the families was just outside waiting to meet us. I met “Papa”, or my “father” (called David) in the host family, he is a pastor and looks like a really nice bloke. He got 2 daughters and 1 son. The wife works for UN. We talked a bit for about 15 minutes and I got a good impression of David. The host family have had 2 Norwegian volunteers before with great experience, so I’m sure it will go very well. I will be moving in with them next Saturday.
At night we all went for a dinner at a nice restaurant. Afterwards we went to a nightclub. We were about 20-25 of us, and it was about 9-10 o’clock this time as well. We got into the VIP section, but what is fun about that? So pretty soon we were on the dance floor in the main room. All of us dancing, making a circle, showing skills and “skills”. It was epic. We dances and danced, drenched in sweat at times, but who cares? We were having such a blast! At 2 AM we took a taxi home.

To sum up
I’ve got to know a lot of people, both Africans and Norwegians over the first week here in Zambia, we bond very quickly when we are doing so many activities. It’s been so much fun and I will miss them when we separate next week. But we will keep in touch, and I’m planning on visiting those who are in Livingston and other places in Zambia.