Ruben bloggar frå turar, innland og utland: Last week before the work really starts!

This week has been another quiet week at work, but tomorrow I will do a course at OYDC (Finally!) so I’m excited about that!

On Wednesday it was so quiet that I went to the pool during the afternoon to practise my backflips. I can inform you that I am getting better. The weather was pretty bad on Monday and Tuesday so it was very chilly here in Lusaka for once! Down to 20 degrees is suddenly a low temperature!

On Friday we had waffle-lunch as normal at the Norwegian embassy, Anita and Anja came as well as the Norwegian nurses, who joined us on a better lunch at Pzazz Pzazz after the waffles and coffee. We were 9 of us all together, and it was good to spend some time together.

During the Friday morning I finished the book Anja gave me on Saturday last week, so it’s been a lot of reading while I’ve been here (5^th book I’ve finished). So I passed the book, about Nigeria, on to Anita.

In the evening Pelle, another Norwegian (actually the guy that started with this whole Peace Corse Project) invited me, Anita and Anja for dinner at his house with his family. It was so much fun, and seeing his kids play around in a very different way than the Africans. Hopefully we will have more dinners with him, his American wife and their two kids.

On Satuday I went to the Kabwata Marked around noon and met a bunch of drunk locals at a bar who fought about being my new best friend. Not nice. In the end it was this one guy following me almost all the way home, until I told him to leave (several times). I also bought a Zambian wristband, but before I bought it I asked the seller how much it costs, and I was surprised when he said “15 kwatcha” since that is very expensive. I answered: “Noooo! I want five wristbands for 15 Kwatcha!” and so I did. (K15 is about £2 or 18NOK). Negotiating the price here is pretty easy at times.

In the afternoon I went on something called a Hash run, which is a run in the bush with a bunch of other people (it was about 40 of us). It’s a social thing which is happening all over the world, even in Oslo, but very few people have heard about it. You can read more about HHH on the internet (Hash House Harriers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers). It is SO cool and we met a lot of new people, both foreigners and locals. It cost K20 and then we get cold drinks after the run. I def. recommend it if you want to do something social in a new city.

On Sunday I chilled with the nurses at the pool. It was such a nice day that we all got a bit sunburned (I think we need to practise to put on our sun screen).