Last day at SOS Childrens Village

some of the mothers 

Mapalo and Alex

Moses

Yesterday  was our last day at the SOS childrens village. I can not believe that three weeks have went by that fast. At first I though that time had almost stopped, things were moving so slow. Today was one of my favorite days at the village. Like any normal day we start off the by playing with the kids on the play ground but after lunch we had plans to reveal ourselves to the kids who we were sponsoring. We normally eat lunch at the grocery store across the street, usually something small but today we were invited by all the mother over for lunch. Before going to lunch we went to the main offices to finalize our sponsorships. This was really exciting. When we got back we ate a tradition lunch where most of the mother (there are “mothers” that run each house, with up to 12 kids) made a dish and we all ate. It was great, I have not been liking the traditional food but everything was so fresh, they actually grow everything right at the village in their own gardens. After lunch we then got to give our gifts to our children we were sponsoring. I don’t think they knew what was really going on but it was a lot of fun. The mothers were very thankfull and when opening the presents, some of the children were too young, they sung and danced. I am sponsoring 3 boys. There are two older boys namded Alex and Moses (ages 6 and 7), and then a little baby who is almost 2 named Mapalo.  Moses was actually not there there today or yesterday, because he went home, or back to when we was before he came to the village, for the holidays. I was sad that I did not get to say good bye but his mom opened his gift for him. I got each boy some clothes, paper and crayons, a few toys, sun glasses, and chocolate and wrapped it in a stocking.  The mother then gave us a gift, which I was not expecting. They gave Bethany and I a Chantanges, which is a piece of clothing women wear as a skirt. We danced and played for a while and then had to say our goodbyes. I was sad leaving these kids, even though we just met them a few weeks ago but I know that I will be in touch with them though letter and pictures and hopefully one day we will be able to meet once again.

well..

So i will say that i am enjoying my time in Zambia, but i can tell that the trip is coming to a end and i am starting to be ready to come back home. No way would i last any longer than the 4 weeks that is planned. I also think it is hard studying abroad with a group of 18 people. I almost fell more of a tourist than actually being part of the culture. I have two more days being at the SOS Childrens Village, one more day of class, and then Livingstone!! I am super excited for that! Walking lions, Victoria falls, Bungee jumping! Yep that right i am going to bungee jump! Check it out!

http://www.victoriafalls.net/bunjee_jumping.htm

Interesting thing about Zambia

1. Lines mean nothing to anyone here. Can clearly be standing in line and people will just cut right in front in you.
2.nothing is fast here. When your order fastfood, they call it take away, it is not fast at all. People even walk slower
3. Trash is everywhere. Even id you wanted to dispose of your garbage there are no garbage cans.
4. You eat most of their food with your hands. When we go to restaurants they run out of forks to give us since it is not normal to use silverware 
5. They drive on the opposite side of the road. Very strange. 
6. They do not exchange us dollars after 2000. They even perfer newer ones than that. They will give you a lower exchange rate. 

7. When shopping at the mall today (manda hill which was very expensive) someone would walk around with you and hold your stuff and like try to get you to buy everything in the store. 

8. Most Zambians have a few cell phones one for each provider. They also dont keep it in vibrate, beacuse almost every lecture or event a cell phone had went off during it. 

Copperbelt

On Thursday we left after class to go to the copper belt which is about 5 hours away from Lusaka. The drive was long and very bumpy. The hotel was not that nice, we actually walked into our hotel room finding a small lizard and a large spider. But the only good part of the hotel was the bed and the pillows. Me and my roommate even made a plan to steal the pillow but we chickend out. Our weekend consisted of visiting cooper plants and going out.

The first night we got there we had dinner at the hotel and then went to this bar. This bar was very low key and a lot better than the other bars we went to back in Lusaka. They were playing american music and it was a younger crowd. The next to night we went to dinner at this restaurant that almost looked like it was out of someones home but with a really cool tiki bar in the back! This was the best food I have had in Zambia. The lady who cooked the food was so nice, and her husband also worked at the plan we went to earlier that day. (every one knows everything in Zambia). We went to this restaurant two days in a row it was that good. Then Kenny our group leader from the University took us to this bar in the middle of no where so we could see this guy (who looked like a girl) dance and walk all over glass and then he ate it.. It was real weird! After a lot of begging to leave we went to Klub Vegas. Some of the people were being lame and went home and only a few of us went to into the club. The whole experience of the club was so much better than the last time. We went back the next day. At the end of the weekend I was glad to be coming back to Lusaka and to our hotel!

Senior Skip Day

So today molly (our girl who is good with the camera) came to SOS childrens village to interview so of the mothers and kids there. We learned that there are thieves who come into the village and still from the children. That the lowest of all lows to steal from these children!

Molly then had to go to her next interview downtown so she got picked up and we just left with her. The German ambassadorwas at the village so not much was going on and we were not needed. So we went to lunch at  Manda Hill which is my favorite! Then after we dropped off molly for her interview we hung out with our driver, Jack!

Jack showed us his home he grew up in and we got to meet his brother. Then we went to his old work, he sold cars, and got to meet some of his friends. Everyone loves meeting us which is nice. He took us to a market and we got to shop a little and then we got ice cream.

At one point me and Bethany (is was just us and jack) said that we feel like rebels that everyone was at their internships and were were out and about the town! So we said it felt like senior skip day! Then after molly was done with her interview we picked her up and we get dropped back of at the hotel. just wait it gets even better...

Then we went to the pool and laid out and i got a massage. I only paid for one hour but she almost went 45 minutes over.. which was awesome, but i missed the bus for a speaker we were going to. But there was not even enough room for everyone to go (we took a the hotel shuttle) so some people were left back. Some people will probably be mad if they find out about my day but o well!

Zambian Food

I did not think i would have a problem with the food but i dont really like it. Everything is served shima, which to me is like thick grits or cream of wheat with no cream. You roll this "stuff" up and eat it with everything while using your hands. We first tried it at KFC and did not like it at all, and now at other places when i try it i still dont like it. Then they will have rice, vegetables, and meat. But the meat will be a whole fish, cow hove, a whole chicken, liver, lamb.... nothing i am very fond of especial when they are still on the bone. I love when we have lunch on our own and we can go to Manda Hill which is a mall and get americanized food! Today we got pizza!

Kasisi Childrens Home

Today we went to kasisi Childrens home which is for orphans who have lost their parents. It was a very religious place ran by Catholic Nuns. Some of the people in my group had things to donate to the children, and then we just hung out with the children. 


It was one of the girls birthday tonight, so at dinner (which was at the hotel) we had a little birthday celebration for her. It was nice. Dr. K wanted us to try all this strange food but i chose not to. With each meal we have we are getting less american and more Zambian... should be interesting since i have became such a picky person!


Tomorrow we have another full day planned!

Zambian Clubs... uhhh

So today we went to a village about 2 hours away. It was annoying that it was so far away but once we go there we saw a radio station and then about about another 30 mins away we saw the houses. It was cool seeing how this village lived. They are supposed to be in the rain season but its not raining yet so they are in need of water so their crops can grow.


For dinner we went to a Irish Pub, which was fun but when i told people what my name was they liked it but was not a fan of the Cheslea Football team. After dinner we went to clubs... that was an experience. it was not very fun. Were were like celebrities... and were the center of  attention (for stealing and getting hit on).


I was not a fan of tonight, i wish it would of went better. But i guess tomorrow will always be better!

The dolphin

Yesterday (December 1) after class we learned some African danced that we are going to perform in out final dinner. That was fun  dancing and sinning. We then went to dinner at a karaoke place. It was so much fun. We are no longer having American food, yesterday was our first day of food that was Zambian so that was interesting. We sort of all shared the dishes so we could try them. We hung out at the restaurant sort of late just hanging out, singing, dancing, and hanging out with the locals. Then when we got back to the hotel we went swimming (the pool does not close). That was a lot of fun. Now I need to finish some of my homework and not worry about the school aspect of the trip until class on Monday… 

The internet is soooo slow so it is very hard to upload anything. i will try to post some pictures soon!

Not a fan of learning...

So I know I am here to learn but to be completely honest I am not feeling the schooling part of the program… I just can not connect to the material and the topics. We are also making a documentary and e-magazine and I got assigned to work on the magazine. I am not too thrilled about that but what ever.. I will just do what I am told to do. This is some of these people majors and what they want to do when they graduate. I guess ii can juts help by writing stories but I hate writing. Like I said I am not feeling the schooling part of the trip but I am going to try to absorb as much information as I can. 

Hello all, I know I have not wrote in a few days but I have been so busy. On Tuesday my first day of my internship we left really early to drop everyone off. . we first had to drop off Sara at another non profit organization working with kids and widows. We went into this village, our van barely fit! But when we finally arrived all the kids were praying outside, it was very touching.  We dropped her, got a little lost but the finally we got dropped off. I am working with a girl named Bethany, so when we got there Bethany and I sat around for a while waiting for the office to figure out what were going to be doing and to sort things out. We learned that SOS children village takes in orphans who don’t have parents (most parents have died from hiv/aids which then mean most of the kids are infected also). They are raised in the village, they have housed for the kids and they are lead by a host mother. This is a lady who is usually older and willing to give up her life to raise these children in need. There are about 18  houses and each house had around 12 kids from the age 0-15. There are houses in the village for older boys to live on their own and off village houses to girls to live. The SOS organization will school the children and prepare them for college and help them pay, or help them start their own business.

After we finally found out what we could do we could they took us to a house and we played with the little kids (all the older kids are still in school taking exam since they are going on what we would call summer break). All the mothers had a meeting so about 20 of the little kids came over to this small house and we basically just watched them. The do not know English well yet but it was weird because we still communicated and had a lot of fun. We then went outside to the middle of the play ground. the kids loved us! They called us mazunga, which means white or lite skinned. Every little kid wanted the attention. I was basically a jungle gym for them. but loved every minute of it.

The kids did not have much, their closes were rugged, and they had small housed but one thing they were not lacking were happy spirits. Even they are living unfortunate lives they are living it to the fullest they possibly can. Like any group of little kids there was the bad trouble maker (of course he was my favorite). It almost forgot I was in Africa with under privilege children and though I was at summer camp or something.
This is what I think I will be doing my whole internship. I am ok with that though. The head lady wants us to put on organized events with the different age groups. So the second day we worked with the older girls for about a hour about self esteem. I typed up some questions and some things I can talk about, but when I went to open the document I could not print it. So we basically were just winging it, but it worked out.
On Thursday (my second day being at the village) it was so great that the kids remembered us, and were excited to see us!

After they day is over and we go to dinner I am done- I have NO ENERGY.

Day 3!!

Once again we woke up early! Like 5:30 early. We had to be ready by 8 so we got breakfast and everything before we headed to the university. Today was our first day of class. For the first hour we talked about media and journalism in Zambia, which was hard for me to relate with. But then we had a guess speaker who was a christian pastor who was talking about how they want to change the nation religion of Zambia to be christian, when there are many other religions in Zambia. That discussion was easier to follow and was actually really interesting!

After that a few of the students gave us a tour of the campus. It was crazy how similar things were compared to Athens. There were about 10 (or less) dorm complexes that the student could live in. One of the complexes was for all boys. I don’t know if anyone has seen the ruins but that’s how they described it before we walked in. All of the Zambian boys were very excited to see the American women. When you walked in it leads you to this court yard part, Word spread that there were American girls and the balconies (everyone had one) that were facing the court yards slowly stared to fill up with the Zambian men. It was like we were celebrities. They were yelling, blowing horns, taking pictures, and were very rambunctious! That was something that I will never forget. We went into one of the rooms and it was very small rooms. But they were just like normal college students, hanging out, playing basketball, you know doing the normal college things. I now think about how much I complain living in my apartment or living situation. I will now be able to remember this experience and know how grateful I am.

Our tour was very long but after we finished to the tour we went to a mall and we had lunch. We were going to KFC to try their local dish. I was not feeling it so me and some other girls got pizza. It was different pizza than I have had before, so I was still trying something new. When we met with the other group at KFC I tried the specialty dish and it was like corn meal/ cream of wheat/ grits that that you clump together like playdough and then dip in gravy. The local Zambian students that came with us said that KFC does not offer the best but it’s a fastfood verson.

After we all got lunch were going to a market. We were told that we’re going to the slumps and to be prepared. So we had no idea what we were getting our self into. I pictured it to be a flea market type thing like we saw the other day but it was like that but 50 times lower quality. There was so much traffic and people everywhere. On the side of the road people were selling food like fish, rice, vegetables, salt, worm looking things, and fruit. Anything that you would want you could get from this market at a very cheap price. When we finally got into the market we were told to not bring our purses and to take off all of our jewelry. It was serious. This is a place for pick pocketing. Of course one again all the Zambians were so happy to see Americans and were always welcoming us to the country. We were told not to buy anything at the market to just look because it was too dangerous to pull out our money.We were literally on a dirt road, just tons of tons of people selling their goods with cars and big carts also trying to go down the aisles, and they were not stopping for anything. The smell of the market was horrible. On every food product that people were trying to sell flies were covering them. Some people had tents but most just sat on the ground. at one point we went through what I considered the music section and they were listening to current day American hip hop, that was fun but of course we needed to move along fast so not much conversation with the locals could go on.


 We were finally allowed to stop to buy something,  we need to wear for one of our dinners and this boy comes up to me. He is telling me how he likes my glasses. I was humoring him, but very aware that he might try to steal them.  He tried so hard to get my glasses. I told him no many times but he hung out with us the whole time we were walking the rest of the market. He was 13, but he was very tall for his age so I don’t know if that was true. I was asking him a million questions to get him of the topic of my glasses. He answered them… I learned he did not go to school because it was too much money, but he someday wants to, he talked about the weather, he told me he was very popular around town. At our end of the conversation he actually told me I talked too much. We walked and talked for about 20 minutes and throughout me asking questions he did not give up about the glasses. So finally when we were at our bus I told him if he gives me his bracelet, I will trade him my sun glasses. I was nervous and made sure the timing was right so he could not ask for more or tell his friends how easy I was to get what he wanted. So we mad the exchange and he went running off… then then I see the local Zambian student who has been with us the whole trip come back with the kid and my sun glasses forcing him to give me back the glasses. I told him that it was ok and we made a deal. The boy was then asking the local Zambian student (his name is Toganna) for money to get bottled water (I could not understand him he was talking another language). He gave him 1000 kwachas which is like not even 50 cents and he went off running. I hope I made his day. I know that he was just targeting me because I was clearly an American but I could not say no.. And I think he knew that also. O well the glasses were cheap and I brought 2 other pairs. I don’t even care if he turns around and sells it, if it makes his day a little better I am ok with it.

The rest of the night was nothing big we went to dinner at a nice restaurant and now I am going to bed. Tomorrow is my first day of interning! I know I am going to fall in love with every little kid!

Today was a lot of fun and it was the first day it was not raining. My cheeks are actually sort of sun kissed. Today was the first day I actually felt I was in Africa. We are spoiled to be in such a nice hotel and I think actually getting out of and seeing the real life of the college students and the market was a lot to take in.

Day 2

So today I woke up very early. I slept fine but for my roommate was not feeling too well. She got sick from something and stayed in bed all day. We had breakfast, which was very nice. Almost like a brunch with everything you wanted even fresh fruit. After breakfast we had free time. Since Sara, my roommate was sick in bed I just unpacked, read some magazines and finally got to get on the internet. We have one free hour per roommate each day, but if you want to pay more for one hour you can pay 9,000 kwacha which is 5050 kwachas to the American dollar. But since we are student we should be about to get unlimited. Our professor is going to work something out tomorrow (Monday) with the hotel. Other than just unpacking waiting around for the next scheduled event it was sort boring. Once we finally left we went to see two of Zambians formal president’s burial sites. On the way to out next stop we saw a wedding and our professor let us get out and take pictures with the bride and groom. I guess in Zambia it is normal to invite yourself to weddings so crashing the newlywed’s pictures was normal.  We then went to the mall (mom this is the one we were looking at at home) but there we just walked around and exchanged our money. After that we went to the University of Zambia to play football, or soccer as we would call it, with some students. I am not a huge fan of soccer but it was fun talking to the local students. We later had a dinner with some of the professors and students of the University of Zambia. This was a very nice welcome. One thing I noticed how everyone was very laid back and easy going. One of the professors actually told us to just go with the flow but I am not a go with the flow type of girl. i have also learned that Zambians are casually late to a lot of things but is ok! They also are very caring, for example the front desk and cleaning service ladies kept checking on Sarah to make sure she was ok. I thought that was very nice of them. In the us I don’t think the hotel would be so involved with someone’s problems. But good news Sara is feeling better now, she thinks It was just from traveling. tomorrow will be our first day of class!!! Yippy! Glad I read the books… 

Day 1

So we are finally in Lusaka, Zambia. I left Cleveland at 8 am got to the Columbus airport at 11ish. Our professor was running late but it was ok since our flight did not leave until 2. SO we went from Columbus to Washington which was only 2 hours. The next flight was the long one to Johannesburg which was about 8 hours. We stopped in Senegal to refuel for about an hour and then we had another 10 hours till we got to Johannesburg. Then finally another 2 hour flight to Lusaka. Once we went to Lusaka we had to go through customs which was sort of long. When we were at the airport we were supposed to be exchanging out money and getting adapters… but we did not get any of that. We took two big buses to our hotel. The drive was not that bad, but they do drive on the other side of the road. That was interesting.

The hotel is very nice. Nothing to complain about, but we were all hungry but everything was closed, and we also don’t have Zambian money. We also learned that we don’t have internet yet. So I am sure my family is freaking out that I did not call yet but there is no way.

Now we are sitting her watching criminal minds. Its 11:55 pm right now and we don’t have anything to do tomorrow until 1pm. This may be our only down time we have all break from the look of our itinerary.

We also just found out we only have internet for one hour a day between me and my roommate but I guess our teacher is going to work something out… we will see.

It does not feel like we are really here! 

SOS Children's Villages

Today i found out where i am going to be interning while in Zambia. Me and one other girl from our group will start next tuesday! 


Check it out!!!
http://www.soscvzambia.org.zm/

Here comes the bride...

So this is just a little leads up before anyone freak out that i ran off to Africa and got married. All the participants going on the trip are required to wear a wedding ring to make sure that it is clear that we are taken and not to even bother. Not saying that all the men are like this but when they see Americans they will ask you to marry them, without even knowing you. They think you are rich and its their ticket into America. So dont be alarmed when you see in the pictures that i am married!

4 days!!!!! really dont even know where to begin with trying to start packing!

Wish me Luck!

Back to CLE

Now that i am back in Cleveland i only have a few final school related things to do for finals and then my next step is to start packing. I am not even worried about being in Africa, i am worried i am going to get there and realize i forgot something! Let the count down begin...