Its Saturday lunchtime which is day one of my Zambian experience:
After many fond and some tearful farewells, I finally boarded the aeroplane at 6.30pm yesterday. The flight was awful..! I have never liked flying and yesterdays was no exception. 10 hours hurtling through the sky is not my idea of heaven - it was very bumpy too! Still, needs must and I'm here now :-)
There were 13 VSO's on the plane but I only managed to find 3 before departure. Arrived very promptly at 6.30am after a flight where I got to know a lovely Zambia lady called Doris who told me a little about what I could expect. As predicted by Doris, it was raining when we arrived ....its the wet season for the whole time I am here ...but the rain is warm! The 13 new volunteers were welcomed by Glenda a Lusaka based VSO officer - she took our passports and arranged a swift passage through customs. Onto a waiting coach and we were off to, what is to be our home for the next 6 days, The University of Zambia. A lush green sprawling campus; we are based in the Commonwealth department. We were given a brief introduction to the training we will receive, some cornflakes with nice hot milk and then it was off to our rooms to sleep. I am sharing with Judith a media expert from Leeds - she was a VSO volunteer in Lusaka for over two years around 5 years ago so is able to give me loads of advice (yay!) Not really going to unpack as I'll be moving onto to my placement proper on Thursday but was pleased and delightedwhen I did open my bags to get my special packages from Natalie - an amazing arrary of envelopes, all with messages telling me when to open them ...there is one to open every Friday and a few more for good measure ....what a fabulous girl...!!
Its just after 1pm now, the rain has stopped and I am in sandals and tee-shirt ...its a lovely, fresh, warm day -hope it has stopped snowing at home?!!!!
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Hi Teenie,
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that at last you have dispensed with the eating drinking and partying and are soon to start your charity work proper, I hope you wore with pride your expensive and opulent plastic daffodils on St David’s Day ( and really impressed those Zambians,) Your description of the Bus carrying everything from corn to carpets brought back memories of the state of Two Taffs cab at Convoy time, And your bus driver driving like a maniac may just make you appreciate how it feels to drive alongside you, nice to hear that your settling well into your temporary abode and pleased for you that it seems better equipped than your lovely house in Cwm, No news hear (well anyway nothing I can tell you over your blog) but Spring is in the air (at last) and hopefully we will soon need our own Mozzie Nets in South Wales, be good by for now , Johnnie,xxxxxx