Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

I was running around town today, to the bank to deposit money (had to wait in line for at least an hour as they only had two workers down at the bank), to the UN to send off an email, to the post office to check if there was any mail (too bad the mail truck has not come for a few weeks), then to the market to play some pool and pick up milk, eggs, tomatoes and onions. I like to hang out in the market with a friend who runs a stand at which he sells all the necessities. He lets me sit in his back store room while we chat, watch the goings on of the market and I try to learn Bemba (with very little success).

We are planning on calling head office today to discuss the project with our boss, Melissa. Sometimes we feel pretty detached from RTP Toronto as the only contact we have with them is an email once in a while. We are having some problems as the budget that we have is not going to be enough to cover our costs for the next few months. As we have spent so much money covering the costs of the vehicle maintenance, we have had to take that money from other areas of the project like sports equipment and infrastructure. We've been trying to fight with head office to have this money replaced but haven't had much luck so far.

Later on in the day we had a meeting with HODI, the NGO that runs social services within the camp. The project manager is a man named Martin who came to Mporokoso after working in the eastern province of Zambia which is home to Angolan Refugees. About 3 years ago most of these refugees were repatriated to their homes as the 30 year civil war that inflamed the country finally came to an end. We are trying to collaborate more with HODI in some of our projects (mostly in the hopes that they will help finance some of the sports activities within the camp), but they seem to be in some financial troubles. For one, the budget has been cut for the maternal schools, and therefore the schools are going to close, secondly, they haven't received their funding money from UNHCR in some time and as a result, the community workers within the camp haven't been paid in months.

Posted by: Drew Gardiner / 11:59 AM