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.