Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

Quite the commotion in the camp these days as 9 American students from Harvard University are giving workshops in the camp. I don’t think the area has ever seen so many white faces! The group is from an organization called FORGE, and will be giving training sessions in things like music, poetry, the environment, reading and peer tutoring, for the next 5 weeks. It was a big shock for them when they first came to the camp as they realized that what looked good on paper back in the States was not necessarily going to work here. For example, they had a library built in the camp without knowing what kind of books to bring. When they showed up with their books, people started asking for other subjects… They also decided to bring a piano into the camp, unfortunately there is nowhere that the piano can be placed where it will be safe (though the piano hasn’t arrived on schedule and nobody really knows where it is)…

They’re also having trouble with communication as none of them speak French and thus have to rely on translators. The problem is some of the words don’t translate into Swahili – the guy giving guitar lessons is having trouble because words like “treble” or “half step” or “bass” don’t have any meaning in Swahili.