Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

What a great day! Woke up ridiculously early (well, the rooster wakes me up anyway.) to catch a ride with the Red Cross out to the camp. I spent a couple hours walking around and meeting some of the coaches in the camp.

It was such a different experience as most of the time I am driving around in our vehicle with no real chance to interact with people. Today, as I walked around, people came up to me to say hi, kids followed me around the whole time and I really got a sense of the make up of the camp. I had one of the basketball coaches direct me around as I didn't really know where anything was. I managed to make it to 3 of the schools, including the secondary school where they are in the middle of state Congolese exams.

Though they are living in Zambia, the students follow the Congolese education, and now is exam time. A lot of the students are crunching.

I then proceeded down to the carpenter's house, who has a tiny little shop in the back of his yard. I ordered some new volleyball posts and a backboard. The carpenter is really good and has this business thanks to "Income Generating Activities", taken care of by one of the NGO's, who will provide individuals with money if they have good business ideas. The carpenter is certainly getting a lot of business from Right to Play!

In the afternoon, I was invited to the opening of a secondary school in a nearby village. UNHCR built the school in the Zambian village of Kalabwe as a way of thanking the Zambian people for hosting the refugees. There were quite a few VIP's at the ceremony, including the district commissioner for the Northern Province, an MP and the Chief of the Mporokoso district who came dressed in his traditional robes. Everyone busted out into laughter when the Chief made his speech as he started making ridiculous demands to the UNHCR for letting them build the school on what he called "Land allocated by God for the Chief!!". He went so far to ask them to give him a car!! Traditional Chiefs in Zambia have no real power though are highly respected among the people. This chief was quite the imposing figure: about 6'8", 300 pounds, with a big shiny hat and long flowing, red robes.

I couldn't help but cringe as people started to try to get close to the proceedings of the ceremony and guards started swatting the people with long sticks and kicking them back! Seemed normal to everybody else though.

Posted by: Drew Gardiner / 2:28 PM