7/1
Today is our one-month anniversary of being here. It’s so crazy to think that we are already half way done! Time has really flown by and it’s sad to think that the next half will go by just as fast. But there are definitely things that we miss – like hot showers, clean non-dusty air, being able to eat tons of fresh fruits and veggies, etc. We know we’ll be sad to leave but also excited to go home when the time comes.
We went into the office this morning because we had to go downtown to the immigration office. We needed to get our visas renewed because they were only good for a month. Mwape told us to meet at the office at 9 and that someone would drive us there, but no the person who was supposed to take was not at the office – shocker. We just sat around and went online and on facebook and did random stuff on our computers to pass the time. We felt really guilty because we were supposed to go to Fountain Of Hope this morning, and as the time slowly passed we realized that we wouldn’t get there until the afternoon. Finally we left for immigration around 11:30. It took about an hour to get there because of the horrible traffic. Once we got there the process was really easy and took about 2 minutes. We literally just had to go upstairs to the office, show a man our passports, and have him stamp them again. A lot less stressful than we were anticipating.
We were dropped off down the street from Fountain so that we could eat before going there. We had our standard lunch, pb&j and a banana. We also bought these drinks called “Energade” from the nearby gas station – they were basically the South African form of Gatorade and were pretty good. At Fountain we met up with Steven, who was coaching a group of girls in Netball. Netball is a really popular sport in Zambia, as well as the UK. Steven was really surprised that we had never played it before, let alone even heard of it. He taught us the rules and then we played a game with the girls. It was really fun but a little confusing because we didn’t know all the rules. Here are the basic rules: it’s similar to basketball with a court and hoops at each end that you need to score in – there are 7 players on the court per team – the positions are similar to lacrosse where certain players can only go in certain areas – when you catch the ball you have to jump in the air or lift up one foot – you are allowed to pivot but can never move once you have the ball – you can only hold the ball for 3 seconds – on defense you have to stand 1 meter away from the player with the ball – you can never touch any player of the opposing team – only 2 players are allowed to score and once they get the ball the game goes into slow motion and you aren’t allowed to defend them. So, as a basketball player some of the rules were really odd and I kept getting mixed up. I mean it’s really hard to have to stand so far away from the player with the ball that defending them is pretty much useless. I realized that as a strategy – don’t defend the player with the ball, just keep the other players from getting the ball. You have to be really quick to play this game because the ball moves really fast. We got a decent workout in.
After playing netball we went to talk to Vasco and Kenny, the two caretakers of the boys at Fountain. A group of kids from Bowdoin was there because they’ll be working at Fountain for the next 6 weeks. Vasco and Kenny were giving them a brief orientation. We joined them in the library, and Vasco and Kenny told their stories of how they got to where they are today. When we first sat down, Vasco was like, "Something really serious has happened...the president of Zambia was just found dead in his bedroom". He was so convincing we totally bought it!! Finally, he started cracking up and we realized he'd completely tricked us. Everyone was laughing for a while because he had us totally convinced. We were going on about how we were totally going to have to get sent home, etc. Womp. Anyway, so he and Kenny told us all about their journey before and after arriving at Fountain of Hope. Let me just say that I had never heard such intense personal accounts. It’s not often that you hear someone tell you about how they killed someone or stabbed someone and paralyzed them. Usually this would make me think horribly of someone or be scared of them, but in this situation I felt hopeful. Here were two men who had terrible childhoods and had done terrible things, but they had grown up and turned their lives around. They went to live at Fountain, finished high school, and realized that they wanted to be better people and give back to the community. Now they are wonderful human beings who devote their time to helping get children off the streets so that they can have better lives. Vasco and Kenny explained that the Zambian government doesn’t have the ability to acquire records of all the street kids, so it’s Vasco and Kenny’s job to document all of this. They have developed close relationships with all the kids and are able to go into the compounds to talk to them. This is not welcome territory for just anyone. We are fortunate enough that Vasco and Kenny are going to take us on a street walk next week so that we can meet some of these children and see how they live. We won’t be allowed to bring any personal belongings like our backpacks, cameras, or cell phones. Mike and Dave got to do this while they were working at Fountain and we were jealous of them, but now it’s our turn. We can’t wait because it’s going to be a real eye opening experience.
We decided to walk all the way home from work today, which took about an hour and a half. As usual we just talked about our day, and pretty much anything else that crossed our minds. It’s a really good de-stressor at the end of a long day. We made a really yummy vegetable soup with broccoli, carrots, peppers, onions, and rice. Then we worked on entering the data from our questionnaires while watching some movies, one of which was Twilight (we hadn’t seen it in a while).
No comments:
Post a Comment