Some Pictures

Day 28 (28/06/11) Kaoma

So today was our last full day in Kaoma and it feels a bit weird to be leaving. We are returning for 2 days after Mongu but its goodbye for a while.  I will kind of miss the place (not the solar showers which are mostly cold, have no pressure and you have to sit or flushing the toilet with a bucket of water) but the kids and the atmosphere of being here I will miss. I’ll also miss walking up the main street I n general Kaoma is a really nice place. So today began as yesterday began with a walk to Mulamatila School in the cold (not as cold as yesterday which is apparently the first time in years it’s been frosty and it killed lots of crops). When we arrived there were children there this time. Not just some but loads of them and they all came running towards us shouting “Makua”.  A gang of them surrounded me and once I gave one high five they all wanted to do it. I must have high fived at least 50 kids in about 5 minutes. It felt like being some kind of celebrity, it was weird. The school itself was in poor condition there was no door on the classroom we were in and the walls were full of holes. There was a sports day being held in the High School today and some of the children from other schools had slept in the classrooms in Mulamatila last night. The workshop went well, we had 4 laptops in the room and no electricity only our batteries. During my section one of the buses for the kids started driving away with its door open and kids trying to jump on. Everyone was looking out at it. It was crazy the driver looked crazy and really young and it looked so dangerous what he was doing. He started doing circles in the carpark while kids ran about the bus. Later we say his bus being towed outta a ditch on the main street (surprise, surprise). I used the crazy bus to help explain forces. On the way home tonnes of kids followed us I was expecting us all to spontaneously burst into a Micheal Jackson video “All I wanna say it that they don’t really care about us”. When we got home me and Dan finished the master plan for our Kitchen they will probably never be built, but it’s worth the idea. After dinner of chewy beef with sauce full of bits of bone we headed to town to use the interent (surely the good ineternet open today). And it was open but really slow (thanks to a very loud Japanese guy who just shouted while on using skype, the skpe slowed all the other computers internet down). On the ay home we bought load soft Lovemore bread rolls for supper an tomorrow. When we got home we met Molly and gave her loads of cloths, books, pencils and pens for the kids. She seemed very happy with it all. We also gave her a copy of our 3D drawings, a box of chocolates and an Irish teddy bear. Once we helped Molly bring it all to her jeep we played with the kids for ages. Following that we ate bread and then got on with the horrible job of packing. Our room was a mess it was full of bits from all the school workshops. It took ages so a s a treat we set and watched “A Night at the Roxbury” as a treat afterward before bed. And bed is where I now lie and I shall now proceed to sleep. Goodnight.

Day 27 (27/06/11)

So our second last day in Kaoma began early and cold. We got up about 7.30 and when we went outside it was absolutely freezing (not literally but it did freeze during the night). I put on long trousers and a jumper for the first time during daylight hours since I’ve been in Zambia. We were due to teach 2 more workshops in a school called Mulamatila which was about 10 minutes walk away. We arrived there late (well on time Zambia time) and as we arrived there was an obvious sense of abandonment. There were no children in sight. Eventually we saw the principal who explained that it was a public holiday for the ex-presidents funeral. We had heard about this but we asked him if that would affect his school and he a said it wouldn’t. Typically Zambian lack of information (I don’t want to sound like I’m slagging off the country cause it’s a unbelievable place and the people are so friendly but the lack of information gets annoying).  So we went home and had some bread rolls for breakfast we had no breakfast before we left. Afterwards we drew some drawings and wrote some emails to prepare for going online. We decided to get as much as we could done and leave the internet until later. All the time the ex-presidents funereal was on TV. It was the longest funeral ever it seemed to go on and on with every two-bit politician in Zambia getting their few minutes to speak. Not one of them referred to the fact he was charged with widescale corruption and stealing millions of dollars of state funds (the charges were only dropped cause the current president decided to drop them). Eventually we decided to go to town to use the interenet. Willies, the good interent cafe, hadn’t been open in the last few days so we were hoping it would be open today. As we approached it we saw the women you usually works there leaving (oh crap back to shiternet). To make matters worse there was no bread rolls in Lovemore trading (it’s become our staple diet, a pack of ten bread rolls for kw5000, 2 and a half bread rolls each covered in beautiful blue band margarine, we’ve eaten so many we may turn into one{what a shit saying has that ever happened}). After supper we sat and watched Inglorious Bastards for the evening (just realised how good Mike Myers is in that film, it’s a small part but still really funny). So that was the day, this is the night goodbye.

Day 26 (26/06/11) Kaoma

So Sunday the day where little happens and so it kinda proved apart from the fact that we got lots done. The problem is it was the kinda stuff that is not worth mentioning here. Today was meant to be a day off but it turned out to be a quite productive day on the whole engineering front. Me and Dan designed a Kitchen/ Cooking area that will probably never be built but we drew a 3D picture to, as the Galway harbour master said in a presentation we attended, ”To get the debate going”. There are some pics attached (I hope if the internet isn’t shite) that show we are actually doing some work here. I spent part of today creating 3D pictures of proposed buildings. After that we headed for town to try our luck in Kaoma’s foodless restaurants. Well the God’s, Allah, Mohammad and all the rest of the power rangers must have been smiling on us cause there turned out to be so much chicken it really was heaven. We went to the same place as last week and fortunately the anorexic chickens were nowhere in sight. In its place was the Dawn French chicken. It was so so good. Tar eis an dinear we split up and Jamie and Áine headed home while me and Dan headed for Boystown to do some measuring of a roof tile plant. We took a different path to Boystown through the town centre. We must have said hello to a thousand kids on the way “Makua, how are you”. Once there we did our measuring and asked some questions (one detailed question about biogas got the answer “thank you bye bye”). Dan then played an unusual game of draughts with one of the kids while another kid recorded an entire film on my camera. The kid then showed us his classroom which was missing a window. The kid was about 7 or 8 and on the wall of the classroom was a poster saying “HIV is a disease caused by sexual intercourse” (at that age in Ireland every kid would be giggling at that poster all day). Another poster told them about inheritance from their parents, weird. Nearby there was a soccer match going on with jerseys and a referee (well a guy that stood near the end of the pitch wearing brown leather blowing for every little fowl even tho he was miles away from it). One team had football boots but the other team were barefoot. It was quite bizarre. Also the pitch was like something from the moon. It was the same pitch we had played on with the 250 kids but it looked so weird seeing a proper match on it. After returning home the evening was fairly quite we typed some emails, had some bread rolls and finished watching Downfall (such an upbeat happy film). We also prepared for the 2 classes we have to teach tomorrow. So I better sleep so bye.

Day 25 (25/06/11)

So this is the first post that I’ve written on this trip that will be influenced by the amount of alcohol I’ve consumed and as such I may end up finishing this tomorrow. As I lie here at 11.20 I’m just polishing off my last buideal that I bought in the cool riverside pub earlier. Today is the half way point in our trip Day 25 and we return on Day 50. Also the coverage here is a bit crap at times and Dan seems to be getting a whole days worth of messages at the moment. At this point I should probably return to this morning which, after the usual getting up, started at a small restaurant in town. For once they had a menu and they had what we ordered from it. We ordered 4 full breakfasts which was a plate full of many different unusual things. The plate arrived with one large sausage (now that’s a euphemism, a bit of an in joke, is there anyway talking about getting electricity from Ireland to Holland could possibly be a euphemism) which looked weird but tasted really nice. We had decided to eat out due to a recommendation from the Americans and also the shiteness of the UHT.  The food was nice but the shite gospel choir and ex-president memorial on TV was quite annoying. On the way home we decided to buy our tickets for the bus on Wednesday (we’re fairly sure all will be ok with our Visa’s, fingers crossed). We decided to go with Shalom again as the bus was fairly good. We went to buy the tickets but the guy selling them had a few problems with our names but eventually we got what we wanted. So next Wednesday, Anna, Jimie, Mirko and Din are getting the bus to Mongu. On the way home we also spent some time in 1973 on the shit internet (currently operating at 17 kilobytes per pigeon carrier). Once back in the guesthouse we we’re trying to figure a solution to the water problems here when 3 Dutch guys stopped and asked us what we were doing here. Their accent is just so funny (whass ish shu djusing here).One of the turned out to be the most helpful guy we’ve met in Zambia and he provided so many answers to the water problem. He was a fair bit in the heavy side so much so that I reckon the reason the Netherlands lies below the sea level is because he ate anything above sea level. After he left we heard a load of kids throwing rocks and so went to investigate (sure why not). It turned out there was a really poisonous snake at the door of the guesthouse and the guesthouse manager was trying to kill in with rocks and the kids were helping. The snake was (I think) an Nmut (pronunciation and translation may be out). It was a large green thing a moved so fast. Eventually it fled before they could kill it. Around four we headed to the cool river side bar and had a few beers sitting in the fading sun. It’s a really nice place and so relaxing, thank god we didn’t find it sooner or no work would have been done. Later we had chicken sandwiches for supper and watched half of Downfall and then due to tiredness we hopped into bed at the oh so late hour of 9.30 (what hell raisers we are). So here you find me 2 hours later and I actually finished this post but now I’m tired so good sleep all.

Day 24 (24/06/11) Kaoma

Washing clothes in a basin was my first act of the day (it’s impossible to get them clean) quickly followed by cornflakes and full cream UHT (so disgusting it’s like a cow pissed it out). The guys headed off again today to leave me get some drawing done. They were heading for a science competition called JETS in the high school which was due to start at 8 however they arrived back about nine saying it was delayed by a hour (oh Zambian time). On their way they arranged another 3 workshops in another school for next week. That’s about 1000 kids we’ll have thought in Zambia plus the 100 we thought in Ireland (its crazy I never pictured myself teaching let alone being part of a group that has thought that many Zambian children). Around 11 the others decided to head back to the high school so I decided to go with them to get out of the guesthouse for a bit. We arrived in the school hall an hour and a half late and shock horror it still hadn’t started (its Zambian time). There was a few dj’s blasting our Zambian pop music and we stood near the back. One of the teachers came over and shook our hand and the smell of drink off him would nearly cause any bystander to be drunk. He was the angriest sounding and looking man I’ve ever seen. No matter what he said it sounded like and his facial expression made it look like he was giving out to us (I’d say if any women was crazy enough to marry him, when he was telling them he loved them he’d still look and sound angry). We knew we would have to leave in around an hour for lunch so we stood near the back, however Mr Angry Face kicked a load of kids off a bench so we could sit on it. It was almost 4 hours now since it had been due to start and still nothing was happening. We were apparently waiting for some women in black suite (did anyone check Mr. Manenega’s office). Eventually she arrived and after a rendition of the national anthem and a minutes silence for the ex-president she gave one of the most boring and uninspiring speeches since the dawn of time. When she finished they said they were stopping for break and would reconvene at two. We decided not to return despite Mr. Angry Face shouting at us and telling us to return. The afternoon was quite until me, Áine and Jamie decided to head for a nearby pub to buy a few bottles of beer for watching a film later. The pub turned out to be really really nice so we stayed for one drink. It was the first place in Kaoma that’s made me feel like I was somewhere else. It was outdoor pub set right beside a river it was a really cool looking place. We shall be returning there. In the evening we were just finishing up another starchy plain supper, complaining about someone robbing our butter, when a guy came in to tell us the other group of Irish didn’t want the dinner that was cooked for them so we could have it. Oh great more fish or something else horrible. How wrong was I it turned out to be great big lumps of roast chicken and roast potatoes. It was so good, a meal fit for a king. We decided to save some for tomorrow. In the evening we watched Valkari a film about an assassination attempt on Hitler. It was as a reasonably good film. So that’s our day. Good shut eye time.