Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

Today, we met up with some of our coaches to begin planning for ”La Journee de la Francophonie” which is a big event as the camp is French speaking and it is a chance for the refugees to celebrate and have some fun. We are planning a series of events in singing, dancing and poems for the coaches to perform with their fellow refugees. The meeting went well and it looks like the day will be a success.

Then it was off to the most bizarre encounter ever! We went to meet up with the village elders to discuss how Right to Play was working with them. We provided them with some equipment to encourage them to teach the younger people of the camp traditional Congolese games. Well, we had barely gotten two words into these people before they started yelling, ranting and raving about how they needed more stuff (they kept saying cadeaux, cadeaux, cadeaux!!). They were very demanding and wouldn’t translate anything into French for us. It’s sad here sometimes because a lot of the people think that we are there only to provide them with things and not to work with them. We have to constantly turn down requests for money, books, etc. (even marriage proposals!), and in turn explain that we are here to teach.

We got out of that meeting as fast as we could!!

Posted by: Drew Gardiner / 7:23 AM