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This blog will be an account my life working in a Refugee camp in Northern Zambia called Mwange. For the next year, I will be working for Right to Play, a sport and development organization based out of Toronto. What follows will be a life altering experience. Stay tuned....
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Day 3 Lusaka
March 10th
Lusaka
Today was a day to stock up supplies for our project and home in Mporokoso. We headed to the Grocery store, where I dove for the beer straight off (about 50 cents a bottle). We also picked up some home maintenance supplies, office supplies (books, pens, markers for the workshops we are giving). I also had time to visit the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees where we met with an Jennifer Ashton who is in charge of the Mwange Camp where we will be working. She was extremely sweet and we instantly connected as she knows some of the people I was working with in Geneva. I hope to be in contact with her again.
We also went to the Canadian High Commissioner in Lusaka where I registered myself and went to immigration where I picked up my work permit. This was an interesting experience. Beauracracy works totally different here. It is a very slow process, and I had visited about 5 different offices before I had my permit (probably would have been a lot easier if I’d slipped the officials some $ j/j)!! But I eventually got it and can now officially work in Zambia, but what a process! Nobody has a computer and you never know who is doing what job and how things get done…. Guess I just need to get used to it…
The day ended with a nice supper back at the house and a movie (the girls here had never seen Napolean Dynamite!, they loved it……)
Lusaka
Today was a day to stock up supplies for our project and home in Mporokoso. We headed to the Grocery store, where I dove for the beer straight off (about 50 cents a bottle). We also picked up some home maintenance supplies, office supplies (books, pens, markers for the workshops we are giving). I also had time to visit the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees where we met with an Jennifer Ashton who is in charge of the Mwange Camp where we will be working. She was extremely sweet and we instantly connected as she knows some of the people I was working with in Geneva. I hope to be in contact with her again.
We also went to the Canadian High Commissioner in Lusaka where I registered myself and went to immigration where I picked up my work permit. This was an interesting experience. Beauracracy works totally different here. It is a very slow process, and I had visited about 5 different offices before I had my permit (probably would have been a lot easier if I’d slipped the officials some $ j/j)!! But I eventually got it and can now officially work in Zambia, but what a process! Nobody has a computer and you never know who is doing what job and how things get done…. Guess I just need to get used to it…
The day ended with a nice supper back at the house and a movie (the girls here had never seen Napolean Dynamite!, they loved it……)
