Today Chrissy and I had our first real day out in the work site. When we were picked up at 9 this morning we had no idea what we were doing for the day (let alone that we wouldn’t be back until 9 pm tonight). Now, we had only split a small cereal cup of frosted mini wheats for breakfast and each brought a granola bar as a snack. No one felt it was necessary to tell us that lunch would not be part of our daily schedule… to be honest I’m not even sure if Zambians eat lunch because we had yet to see anyone eat.
Anyway, our first stop was at the Sport In Action office, where we were finally able to use to internet and send our parents emails saying we were still alive (yes, mom and dad, I’m sure you appreciated that). After we headed to Arcades, one of the shopping malls in Lusaka. There we finally took out 600,000 Kwacha, soooo rich!! (not – it’s really only worth about $100). But we used out money to get a cell phone (only $12) and some groceries (aka cheerios, water, and toilet paper).
We were dropped off at the soccer field, the site where we will be working. We met Sami and Shedric (??) and Sami immediately decided to call us the Obama girls, which he continued to call us for the rest of the day. The U-17 boys team for Sport In Action was playing a game and we thought it would be cool to take some pictures…until the opposing team had some complaints. Fail. After the game though we met Kizito, our new favorite person in Zambia. He was really interesting and helpful and filled us in on the many details of the organization and how it supports children in the area. One of the best parts was that we understood everything that he said (a first). We then got to help coach the U-12 girls soccer team which was a lot of fun! This was a setting in which I was very comfortable and felt like I was actually useful because I knew what I was talking about. Something I’ve always known but had never experienced first hand was that people can bond over sports even if there’s a language barrier. The coaches and girls were all speaking Nyanja, but because it was all about soccer I understood what was going on and could give my input.
At the end of the session Kizito spoke to the girls at the end and acted as a great leader. He spoke to them about how important it was that they are always on time, and go straight home after practice. He also said “no drinking, no smoking, and no boyfriends.” He asked them why it was important to not have boyfriends and they responded, “because we will get pregnant and get HIV and AIDS.” Chrissy and I had been prepared for this, but it still came as a shock when we heard the 11 and 12 year-olds saying it. It was really nice to hear though, because the adult mentors were able to have such a conversation.
Zambians don’t really run on a normal time schedule like they do at home. In my town, if a soccer practice ran late all of the soccer moms would be spitting fire. But here, the kids get themselves to and from practice, school, etc. So sometimes, practice will run one or two hours late if the coaches feel there is more to work on. So, we stayed on the field until 6:00 for a practice scheduled for 1-3. Keep in mind, at that point we had still only eaten half a mini-box of frosted mini-wheats and a granola bar each. I’m surprised we weren’t swooning all over the field. Luckily, we went straight out for…you guessed it! Pizza! Second night in a row! We met up with two Zambian volunteers and four female volunteers from England. This was all arranged for us and we kind of just wandered around like blind puppies because we never have any idea what’s going on. The girls from England were really nice though, and a couple of them told hilarious stories about their stay so far in Lusaka. It was encouraging to know that in a couple of weeks, we’ll be in their position and actually know what’s going on every day.
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