Hi! Paul and Jane here. Firstly, apologies to those of you who have looked at our blog only to find nothing there. We have been busy on an ‘in country’ induction week here in Lusaka and it is also fairly difficult to get on line. Anyway, here goes!
We had a frantic three weeks after the Barn Dance in Birdham – packing suitcases, preparing the house for Lizzie and Nick to move in to, having jabs and going on a final four day preparation course with VSO in Birmingham.
Alex, Lizzie and Tori were brilliant with all their help and they took us for a lovely last night meal at Cafe Rouge in Chichester the night before we left.
On Friday 17th Feb we loaded five suitcases in the car and drove to Heathrow with Alex and Tori. We met Lizzie, Farida (Alex’s girlfriend) and Joe (Tori’s boyfriend) and shared a drink together before leaving on the overnight British Airways service to Lusaka, Zambia. The adventure was now really under way!
We arrived at 9am the next morning along with about 20 other volunteers and were greeted by VSO staff who we were very glad to see and were most welcoming. They loaded all of us together with our bags into a coach and whisked us off to the Commonwealth Youth Institute which is based on the campus of The University of Zambia where we would stay for our induction week. The rest of our first day was spent recuperating from the flight and then on Sunday we were given a bus tour of Lusaka.
The city is like many others around the world (I guess) with sharp contrasts between poor and rich areas, full of traffic and lots of people busily walking and cycling in all directions.
On Monday, our classroom training began and this included topics such as HIV / AIDS, culture, history and geography of Zambia and also practical things like opening bank accounts and dealing with administration. We also had a trip to the VSO office in Lusaka and to shops to buy SIM cards for mobile phones.
We had a highlight on Tuesday after receiving an invitation to attend a reception at the Residence of the British High Commissioner. This sounded like a cool way to spend an evening and we all put on our glad rags to arrive as instructed at 6.30pm. We were welcomed by James Thornton and his wife and then enjoyed drinks and a hot buffet in their sumptuous garden on a beautifully warm evening. We all felt very privileged to be there. We all felt we had left off steam at this party and returned back to our rooms in high spirits! One of Mr Thornton’s goals is to visit VSO projects throughout Zambia so we hope to be able to return the favour at some point in the future.
As the week went along we bonded very strongly with the other volunteers in our group of 27 and it was good to exchange ideas with them. They come from Canada, Holland, Kenya, Belgium, China, the Netherlands, Uganda and UK, so there was a very international flavour to the induction.
We have now all met our partners (employers) and the postings are based all over Zambia. We are leaving Lusaka tomorrow and travelling for about 3/4 hours to our new home for two years in a town called Choma, which is situated in the Southern Province between Lusaka and Livingstone. Paul will be working at Chodort Training College training staff, building houses and fundraising, and Jane hopes to be able to work with the local people doing arts and crafts.
