Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

Today, we headed to the neighbouring town of Kawambwa (about a 4 hour drive) where the other refugee camp in the region is located. Every month we have meetings with the staff of this camp to discuss what is going on, as both camps are under the regional direction of UNHCR. We ended up driving with Major Harry Chilufya, who is the head of the Red Cross in Mporokoso (and no longer with the military) and what a horrible drive, you can’t even imagine (except maybe people who have treeplanted).

The meeting was pretty boring, though we discussed the Sorghum issue again and everybody agreed to speak in one voice to the refugees, that until further notice there would be no change.

I also had the chance to meet Erin, who is working for Right to Play in the camp in Kawambwa. She is from Toronto and had been working here for over a year. We expected her to be with the new Project Coordinator, Elias, who had been my roommate during training, but we quickly realized he was not there. Apparently, upon his arrival to Lusaka, he immediately decided that he didn’t want to be there and returned to Canada! I was in complete shock as this was somebody I got along really well with and I was looking forward to seeing him… RTP is currently trying to find someone to replace him so if anyone’s interested…

Posted by: Drew Gardiner / 7:30 AM