maandag 27 februari 2012

Ulishani!



How are you? I am fine, how are you? Yes, how are you?
The people are very nice here, but not everyone speaks English so well.
That's why the conversation in the first sentence is a very common one, they don't know more to say than: 'how are you'.
They call us white people 'Muzungu's'  and everywhere people call you that, and smile and wave.


Saturday I arrived in Lusaka, stayed for one night in a backpackers hostel and at Sunday I started my journey to Kabwe.
Being too late for the bus (because you have to be at the station an hour in advance) means that you have to wait for the next bus, which leaves two hours later.
The bus had some problems with the engine and when we then finally left, it stopped every quarter somewhere to do nothing!
But finally in Kabwe everything was fine, my mentor Geoffrey came to pick me up, and because the guest family wasn't arranged I'm now staying with other students until a family is found. 


Tuesday 21-02-2012

I've been to the 'school' in Makululu, 'school' because it are 50 children under a tree.
The Unisport project is providing education for street children who can't afford to go to school.
In the afternoon I went to Unisport Youth Sports Academy, children who play with two balls on an open space. Here is sport provided for the street children. It's really amazing to see how happy those children are.


Wednesday 22-02-2012

First meeting at Bwacha Highschool, mr. Mwanza welcomed me, he is going to arrange my teacher training schedule. Next Tuesday I will go there again to observe the lessons and the teaching styles. He suggested that I would do one hour of teaching on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, but my own idea was that I could do some more hours. Mr. Mwanza is going to check if that's possible, and also if I can do some physical education as well.


Thursday 23-02-2012

Went to the 'school' in Makululu, observed the way things work over there.
Then Geoffrey and I went to visit an optional guest family in the neighborhood.
It was a good house and a friendly lady, but she wants money for it, (that's o.k.) but she doesn't want to say how much.
After 5 o'clock we would go and visit another option, but African style, the family didn't pick up their phone, so we will see at another day, if we can meet with that family.


Friday 24-02-2012

Parents meeting at Makululu. It started at eight. Five mamma's were there.
At 9 o'clock there were 30 people, and Geoffrey started the meeting.
At 10 there were 76 parents who were discussing what they want and expect from the project.
Six of the parents want to teach in the future as well!


Weekend

Going  to Lusaka and do some sightseeing in the city.


zaterdag 11 februari 2012

But, where am I going exactly?

I'll shortly give an introduction about Zambia.
So you all know, 'where' and 'how' and 'what'.


Some basic information:

Offical language: English
Capital city: Lusaka
Population: 13.881.336 (July 2011)
Monetary unit: kwacha
Time difference: + 1
Dialects: more than 43

Religion: 50-75% Christian, 24-49% Islam and Hindu.

Zambia (offcially: Republic of Zambia) is a republic in the south of Central-Africa. The surface is 752.614 km², and that makes Zambia about 25 times larger than Belgium.  




Zambia is completely surrounded by other countries and it's located between Congo, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, NamibiĆ« and Angola.

The city where I will stay is Kabwe and is located 150 kilometre, or 2 hours, to the north from Lusaka. It is the capital city of the district 'central' in Zambia. In 2000 there were living 176.758 people in Kabwe.


These are all facts, next week around this time I will be getting on the plane, and then I'll tell you everything about the non factual Zambia!