Drew's African Odyssey - Mwange Refugee Camp, Zambia

August 12-26: VISIT FROM HOME!!

I’ve just spent the most amazing past two weeks with a visit from my cousin Abbie, my sister Sasha and my brother-in-law Brian. I hadn’t realized just how much I was missing my family until the 3 of them walked through the gates at Lusaka airport. They survived a harrowing 2 days of planes and airport terminals complete with baggage carrier strikes in London, a jet fuel shortage in Harare and more than 40 hours on the plane to come to the middle of Africa in hopes of discovering what life is like on this side of the world (and to see me!). I expected them to be absolutely exhausted when they arrived but it turned out they were high on adrenaline (even with the 10 hour time difference) and were ready to take on Lusaka. The first of many crazy experiences came when we went to change money. The place where we had gone was just closing, but when they heard the amount of money we wanted to change, they quickly opened the door for us. It ended up being quite the sketchy situation where some dude had to run to a couple of different buildings to find our money and all accounting of our money with receipts and computers was thrown out the window. We were smart to count all the money a couple of times before we walked out of the place. Welcome to Zambia…
The next day, it was immediately off to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls. After checking into our hotel, it was immediately time to set off to watch the sun set over the biggest water falls in the world. What an amazing, unforgettable sight. The falls extend for some 4 kilometers and fall over 300 meters. At times during the year, the mist from the falls is so dense that you’re soaked by the time you are through, though at this time of year, the water is low so that one can see right to the bottom of the gorge where the water comes crashing to the ground. The evening was spent with drinks back at our hostel, while I was updated about family and friends back home.
Day 3 was adventure day, originally thought to be filled with river rafting and bungee jumping, we decided to down scale our activities to hiking and a gorge swing (thought to be a little LESS scary). The hike turned out to be one of the best things we did (Brian particularly enjoyed it). A guide took us on a trail out over the top of the falls. We had to wade through some pretty strong currents, across a weir and over some slippery rocks, before arriving at a beautiful grotto right at the tip of the falls called “The Devils Armchair”. We swam, dove, laughed and relaxed on the tip of the falls, overlooking what seemed like the whole of Africa. If we only knew what we would be in for later on in the day…
The ride out to the gorge swing seemed pretty innocent. We met our charming instructor, strapped on our harnesses and joked about being nervous. When we looked out to the swing, it seemed pretty harmless: a cable secured across the length of a 100 meter gorge with another cable extending vertically down and a clasp attached to the end where the “swinger” was secured into place. I was imagining a giant school yard swing were one’s inertia pulls you back and forth. Abbie was chosen to go first and as she received instructions on what to do, we quickly realized that this was nothing like we had planned. They neglected to tell us that there was a 4 second free fall into the gorge before you were caught by the swing. My heart heaved when I saw Abbie take the jump… I started to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea… then Sasha’s turn – hmmmm.. maybe we should go home now… Suddenly, I was next and at the edge of the platform, looking down to my death (or so it felt). I was ready to turn around when I heard the countdown. I couldn’t deny my family, so I jumped. I must say that’s by far the scariest thing I’ve ever done and I won’t be doing it EVER (EVER) again…
From Livingstone, we endured two terribly long bus rides to reach South Luangwa Wildlife Park. This brought us to one of the most comical points in the trip. We ended up arriving at the safari camp where we were booked very late at night. One of the managers met us at the reception and escorted us over to the tents where we were staying. We started to get a bit apprehensive when we heard loud roars and footsteps all around our tents and the manager began to explain that the camp had elephants, hippos, even lions walk through the camp on a regular basis, though he added that we wouldn’t have a problem if we didn’t have food in out tent, especially fruits. I looked down to what I had been carrying and saw the big bag of apples, a box of fruit juice and some granola bars. The manager saw them at the same time and just started shaking his head at me… We quickly went to stash the things in the food lockers. Needless to say, none of us slept very well that night, though we found out in the morning that the roars and footsteps we were hearing were a ways away. I’ll never forget our petrified looks that night as we all huddled in one of the tents while urging Brian to open the tent’s zipper to see what was outside, then running with Sasha to the next tent…
From the safari (yes, we saw every animal that you see in the National Geographic) it was off to Malawi, our destination being the Lake of Malawi to partake in some serious R & R before the fam returned to Canada. It turned out to be a beautiful destination. The beaches of Lake Malawi reminded me of Mediterranean beaches and the water was incredibly warm. We also were fortunate to stay at a cool beach resort that boasted great food, cold beer and a breathtaking view over the lake. I got a chance to spend an afternoon with my sister when we decided to take a day trip to the local village named Dwangwa. This turned into a truly African experience when after getting out onto the highway to look for a lift we hopped into the back of a large truck for the 15 min ride into Dwangwa. Upon arrival, the usual stares came from the people who don’t see many white faces and we were soon approached by an enthusiastic Malawian wanting to tour us around the village. We ended up becoming quite close with this man after a two hour walk around town and by the end we shared a drink with him at the local grocery store and exchanged contact details, promising to send him a photo of the three of us taken earlier in the day. The ride back to the resort was a bit more difficult, with Sasha and I squeezing into the back of a tiny pick up filled with bags of corn, chickens, sugar cane, ducks and bags…. Quite the cultural experience and I was glad Sasha shared it with me…
That night, as with every other night, Brian and I shared some beers while the girls stuck to soft drinks, though this night there would be a change of guard. The barmen had just received a couple of bottles of “local” spirit liquor, called Kichasu. This alcohol is the most foul, strong booze around and not for the faint of heart. Of course Brian had to try a little and I convinced him that it “wasn’t that bad”. The face he made after drinking the Kichasu told me otherwise…

From Lake Malawi it was back to Lusaka for them to get ready to fly back to Canada. We did the obligatory craft markets for statues, painting, carving, chairs and jewelry and went out to some nice restaurants for food. Brian was quite sick when we arrived back to Lusaka, we think from some bad food or water that he had taken, but I managed to get them off safely to the airport in good time to get on the plane. Hopefully the trip back home was smoother then the trip here…

April 29th
After a long refreshing vacation with the family, it was time to get back up to Mporokoso. I hadn’t been looking forward at all to the grueling 16 hour trip as this time I would be doing it by public transport. The first bus left at 3 am and I thought I was smart getting the front seat of the bus with lots of leg room. Little did I know the driver would have his window wide open blowing cold air into my face and the music pumping over a blown stereo. After arriving in Kasama, I was loaded into the back of a small pick up. By the time I arrived in Mporokoso, my ass was numb from sitting on a tire rim for 4 hours and I was covered in red dust from head to toe…
What a relief to be back home though. I was immediately greeted by friends and our dog and my heart leapt when I saw our house again. Our garden was in full harvest, our fence had been repaired and they had finally finished off our insaka. Things were looking up…

Aug. 30th

Up bright and early to start back at work in the camp. It was nice to see some of the refugees that I have become so close with and hear their happiness for my return. It was like I had been gone for years! I got started by going around to all the schools and distributing some sports equipment. I also wanted to meet with coaches and teachers that had participated in the sports workshop that I had given before leaving on vacation. The idea is that these coaches will be working to organize an intramural sports league between schools in basketball, volleyball and netball. As the new school season is supposed to start next Monday, I tried motivating these teachers to start meeting with each other to coordinate matches. They all seemed really encouraged to put in the work, which is a good sign.
I had a good laugh later on in the day, when I met the community services supervisor (Mr. Kasenge) to talk about installing new basketball hoops. I’m excited about these hoops because they are made out of metal with nice rims and solid backboards. All the sports facilities that we’ve built in the camp are made out of wood, so these hoops should last a lot longer. Mr. Kasenge asked me about my holiday and I started to explain to him how I had been all over to Victoria Falls, a wildlife park, Lusaka, Lake Malawi, etc. I saw him looking at me very confusedly and he said “You went to all those places within 2 weeks? How’s that possible? We haven’t set foot outside of this refugee camp since 1999.” I continued looking at him, trying to figure out if he was serious or joking, before we both burst out into laughter. It’s amazing how some of these people, who live in so desperate a situation can still keep a sense of humour and zest for life…

Aug. 31st

I’ve been spending the past few days chatting with Sophie, trying to get a sense of where the program has been heading while I’ve been away. Sophie’s launched some very good initiatives, including organizing for a theatre group from Lusaka to come and spend a week with the refugees teaching them drama. The people here really love animation, especially acting, dancing and singing. It’s a big part of entertainment and amusement in the camp. We have also started to make all the preparation for our project handover to the community. We’ve decided to replace all of the sports poles, baskets and nets with metal infrastructure, we’ve also started to create manuals for each school and all of the coaches that contains all of the things we’ve been teaching. They will use these manuals to facilitate coaching workshops in the future. We’ve also started to tell all of the other NGO’s that we will be leaving and meeting with them to see which elements of the project they can take over. We hope that HODI will support the coaches by including them in events but we are pessimistic as this NGO is extremely overworked and understaffed and has problems supporting even their own staff. We’ve also made arrangements with the Right to Play team in Kawambwa to deliver sports equipment to the coaches here on a bi-monthly basis and to come to Mwange camp while we are still here to meet all the key actors in the camp. We know that our level of commitment and hard work during these last 5 months is going to determine if what we are planning is going to work. That means complete dedication to the task at hand (probably good for me as there will be no time to miss home!!).

Sept 1st

New MONTH!! Had a phone call from the RTP team in Lusaka today. They are thinking about coming up to pay us a visit at the end of the month. It would be so great to have their company up here and for them to see our project. It’s a shame that we visit Lusaka and get to see what they’re up to in their project, but they don’t have any clue about ours…
Forgot to mention that there are 2 new additions to the RTP Zambia team. Kim has joined my buddy Kevin at the other refugee project in Kala and Glenn has joined the Lusaka team (there’s now 3 of them) as the communications coordinator. Kim is from Ontario and has graduated with a Kinesiology degree; she also speaks French, which will be a huge benefit for the team there. She seems like a great girl and is getting along well with Kevin, though we’ll have to see if she can deal with the remoteness of the project. Glenn is in the process of writing the thesis of his master’s degree in International Development Studies. He was hoping to be placed in Afghanistan (the topic of his thesis) and is a bit disappointed that he was given Zambia, but he knows tons about development and seems to work really well with people. We’ll see how he adjusts to living with and working 24 hours a day with two women!!

Sept 2nd

Stayed in town today and got some work done. I walked around town and took care of some errands like paying bills, going to the bank and visiting the welder’s shop. I ran into a man who farms here in Mporokoso but has spent a lot of time living in the UK. For some reason the conversation turned to my dating life and before I knew it the man was proposing that I marry his daughter! I quickly got out of the conversation, making some excuse about being late for an appointment.

Sept 3rd

It’s becoming unbearably hot here. It must be getting up to 35 degrees by noon. I thought that I would eventually become used to the heat, but it’s been making me very drowsy and lazy… The people here are starting to prepare for the rains to return. The brush in the fields that has gathered since the last harvest has been slashed and burned and families are beginning to till their fields. The nights here have been the best time when the heat starts to dissipate and the bright moon shines over the glow of burning fields in all directions. My daily routine remains the same since I got here. Up at the crack of dawn to do some exercise, eat cereal, eggs or bread, sip tea while reading whatever material has been sent to me from Canada lately and then sit down at the computer to write this blog. From there it’s off to the camp or around town to the market, the post office or the bank. The evenings are usually spent at friends’ houses, watching movies or out for a beer. I enjoy the simplistic nature of life here. There’s no such thing as “extra-curricular” activities, personal development, clubs or studies. People here are content with looking after their families, farms and businesses. We take things for granted at home that would never be overlooked here. For example, these days the power is out every night. Life doesn’t stop but goes on as normal. Nobody has a phone, which makes those closest to you even more important. Nobody has any extra money to spare, which makes life constrained to your family, your community and your loved ones. People worry less here.
They’re not concerned with what’s going on in Iraq or the next development intitiative by the UN, they want to know about things that are most important to you… For all these things, I love living in this place…

Sept 4th

I was getting pretty sentimental in the last blog but these power outages are getting really annoying. Come home from a long day wanting a shower, a hot meal and to sit down in front of a movie, only to discover that the power goes out when your eggs are half cooked, your water hasn’t quite boiled and you can’t find out what happened at the end of the movie!!!
Mporokoso exists at “the end of the national grid” which means any interruptions to the power lines ANYWHERE in the system means we don’t get power. Not to mention if any of the major cities (Lusaka and Kitwe) are short power, then our power supply will be redirected so that the cities have power all the time!!

Other than that, today was a great day. Went out to the water falls again. This time accompanied by our driver’s little one year old girl named Joy. She’s the cutest little girl and has become quite fond of Sophie and I. Sophie has been teaching her to swim the past couple of weeks. It’s a shame that Zambia, being a landlocked country, most people don’t have a clue how to swim. Even the little girls Mom won’t go near the water. I was thrilled to take Joy into the water and help her kick her feet and blow bubbles into the water! Though it makes me miss my little one year old nephew at home!! Only a few more months till I see him again!!

Sept 5th

Back to work today. Sophie and I sat down for a long meeting to discuss our schedule for the next few months. We decided to go to Lusaka early next month as last time we went we didn’t get near enough sports equipment for the camp. In November our boss from Canada is coming to visit. This means working hard so that everything that we have been reporting to her on is in place in the camp. We also have a number of workshops to give in teaching refugees more about facilitating their own workshops and project management.

Sept 6th

A Section Leader meeting in the camp today. The talk was about refugees selling or trading their ration cards for either money or food. Normally, if a refugee leaves the camp, they are required to turn in their ration cards and therefore give up their refugee status. This is the only way that we can track how many people are in the camp; who’s staying and who’s leaving. You’ll find that one family has acquired 4 ration cards and that they are just selling the extra food that they get when it is distributed. There was also talk about refugees having friends and family come into the camp without registering them. A few days ago, a refugee was beaten up so badly that he was almost killed. He remains in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The person who beat the man up was a visitor in the camp and nobody really knew who he was. It is very easy for people to take advantage of these people who are in such desperate situations.
When the refugees were given a chance to raise their concerns, it was mostly about the state of the schools. It seems some of the teachers have repatriated back to the Congo and there are too many students and not enough teachers. Not only that, but some of the schools are falling apart: the benches that students sit on are breaking and corroding away, the chalk boards are falling off the walls and some of the brick walls are starting to fall down. Hopefully something can be fixed soon…

Sept 7th

Had a phone meeting with our boss in Toronto today. She confirmed that she’ll be coming to visit our project in late November. She’ll only come for a couple of days, just to see that everything that we have been reporting on is actually happening and to help us prioritize what we’ll be working on for the next few months. There have been a lot of changes at Right to Play head office in the past few months. It used to be that our boss was in charge of our project and others in Thailand, now they have changed it so that our boss is now responsible for all the projects in Southern Africa. That means that not only will she be coming to visit our project, but also the one in Lusaka and Kawambwa and projects in Rwanda and Uganda.

Sept 8th

I’ve been learning more and more about the situation in the Congo. I had been hearing that a lot of the refugees had been going back to their homes, thinking it was safe enough to return. It turns out that those refugees have been leaving the camp but have been stopping at the border before actually crossing into their home country. Most of them are just waiting for elections to take place before actually returning to their homelands. The elections had been scheduled for this year, and then were pushed back to next spring, now it sounds like they are at least a year away from holding them. It seems the current President Kabila (son to the former President who was assassinated by Rwandan Rebel troops 3 years ago) is trying to hold on to power for as long as possible while he grabs what’s left of the Congo’s natural resources. Not to mention that there is nowhere near the infrastructure in place to hold nation wide elections – last report said that there is not even any kind of federal election body existing. There is a large contingent of UN peacekeepers in the North East area of Koivu, who have been losing a battle to set up a regional government in an area dominated by Rwandan and Mai-Mai rebel forces.

Sept 9th

Homesick. Found myself staring at pictures from home for hours on end. My guitar and the stack of DVD’s that my brother in law sent over seem to be little comfort in missing out on my nephew’s first steps and first words. I’m also disappointed to miss my parents move out to Winnipeg and being able to support them in a bit of a stressful time. Not to mention our phone stopped working again and I haven’t been writing letters as I found out that a few that I had sent out had been lost in the Zambian Post… Hopefully things will improve next week when a friend from Lusaka is coming out for a mission here for a week… WHAHHHHH!!!!

Sept 10th

Another working weekend. Today was quite uplifting. We had certificate distribution day for a group of coaches that have attained their level 3 coaching training. The level 3 coaches are those that we are relying upon to continue the program after we are gone, and as such we have become very close to them. I ended up bringing my Polaroid camera along so that they would each have a picture with us from the ceremony. I couldn’t believe the look on their faces when they saw that the picture would be developed right away. They had never seen something like that before in their lives! It’s amazing how life can take such dramatic twists and turns and that the human spirit is the ebb and flow to which the tides of these movements flow…

Sept 11th

A boring Sunday… Spent the morning with my friend Barry. He’d asked if I can teach him how to use the computer, so we’ve set up times on Sunday so that he can learn. He’s planning on going back to school next year to study business, though I’ve told him he needs to know computers in order to be successful. Most people are pretty undereducated here and just graduating from high school is a huge achievement. Barry has a certificate in “purchasing and supply” and would like to continue into a diploma. He’s expressed interest in coming to Canada to study, so I’ve told him I’ll look into it for him if he’s serious…
Received some mail today – always very exciting… Thank you’s go out to Mom (she’s been writing me every week!!), Kate, magazines from dad, another postcard from Claire and a lovely letter from Colleen!! I love you guys… When I get to Lusaka in 3 weeks, I’ll be sending out replies…

Sept 12th

Today it was nice to see that the work on the road out to the camp is almost finished, though it has been a dreadfully slow process. One section of the road that was almost impassible during the rainy season has been fully restored and they have been replacing all of the drainage ducts. It should make things a lot easier when it starts to rain at the end of October. It’s weird being able to accurately predict when the seasons change here. It’s always the same time, whereas in Canada, you never know when the next storm is going to hit…
Work in the camp has been very interesting. With the handover of the program to the community, we are trying to install a sense of ownership of RTP into the refugees. The problem is that white people have been around running the program for the last 3 years, so this is what people identify RTP with. We’ve come up with a plan of trying to be in the camp less and less as January approaches and let the refugees run all of the meetings, workshops, events, and sports matches, but it’s really hard detaching yourself from something when it’s been such a big part of my life for the past 7 months. Definitely for the best though…

Sept 13th

I forgot to write about a wedding that I attended last weekend… Hahah… what a spectacle.
A lady who we trained as a coach last year was being married to a man who works at the local outreach branch of the Red Cross. One of Sophie’s good friends was on the organizing committee, hence the reason I was invited. Everything was going fine when we arrived. A gift had been organized, I put on my finest shirt and pants, even shaved and washed, then took the short walk to the community hall (I think that’s what it was though it looks more like an abandoned warehouse). I could sense disaster as I walked through the door. People scattered about, nothing looking organized and realizing that the MC would be a gentlemen known around town for being quite boisterous but wasn’t going to be speaking any English throughout the whole ceremony!
After the initial entry of the couple, dancing, singing, etc., the electricity died. A huge BOOO went up from the crowd, and then the waiting began. Apparently a generator had been brought in case of an outage, though nobody had thought to check if it actually worked (it didn’t) and a huge group of people ended up sitting on hard chairs, dying of heat in pitch darkness for over an hour. When the lights did come back on, half of the people had left and the other half of the people were sleeping and the party had officially died. It wasn’t until the DJ finally figured out how to work the sound system that people came back to life. I ended up leaving as soon as the customary greeting of the wedding party was out of the way and hurried back home before the evening got any worse. Hope there’s no more weddings scheduled in Mporokoso… phewwww!

Sept. 14th

I’m a few days behind in my blogging, so bear with me while I try to remember the events of the past few days.
We recently got some cats… Funny story. Zambians really don’t like cats, they are seen as bad luck and they associate them with witchcraft (?). After the disappearance of our two cats a couple months ago, we’ve been trying to get another one ever since. As Sophie was coming home the other day, she saw a few pairs of eyes hiding out under some bricks so we figured this would be a good chance to get some cats. The rats/mice in our house have been getting really bad ever since the demise of our cats. It was time for action…
The guards recruited a couple boys to go get them. Wish we knew how vicious and angry the cats were. It became a very difficult task getting the cats back to our place and trapping them in the insaka where they couldn’t escape. After that was achieved, it was up to the guards to keep them from running away… It seemed every time I looked out the window for the next few days, the guards (and some children helpers) were running all over Mporokoso trying to catch these devils. Remains to be seen whether the rat problem will be looked after…

Sept 15th

Out to the camp today to meet with coaches interested in coordinating some workshops on gender equality. Sophie had the idea of working with the community to show them just how strong the gender imbalances are in the camp. It has always been a challenge to involve women and children in our programs. Usually, at the tender age of 6 or 7 a girl is already expected to be looking after children, cooking, fetching water, cleaning and collecting firewood. All cooking is done with charcoal, made out of wood. Most of the women and girls have to travel many kilometers in order to fetch the wood; leaving at 3 or 4 am, to be back to the camp by 10 pm. Not to mention the fact that a lot of them are hurt while cutting down the trees – cut by the axes or having trees fall on them. All of these jobs are strictly seen as women’s work and a man will only do these jobs if the woman is sick or too tired to move. A lot of the women will be doing all this with a baby on their back as well… Anyway, we’re hoping that the gender workshops can help some of the community leaders understand why there are such major inequalities in gender and how reducing some of these inequalities can lead to a better quality of life for everyone.


Sept 16th

Distribution day today. Distribution happens on the 15th and 1st of every month. The refugees’ attitude towards sorghum consumption has dramatically changed as of late with almost 100% of the quantities being taken. In the past months they had only been taking 30 or 40%. This means one of two things, first a market has been found for selling the sorghum. A black market exists in the camp (it is officially against World Food Program policy for refugees to sell their food, but nothing can be done to stop it) where a few people will by up big portions of certain commodities to be sold to the outside population at a great profit. Secondly, it means the strategy of the NGO’s and UN agency has been working, which is trying to sensitize the refugees on how to eat sorghum. They’ve also been telling them that once the stock of sorghum has been consumed that they will be getting maize. I can’t stand eating either sorghum or maize. Glad I’m not a refugee…

Sept 17th

A working Saturday, again… Today we held a celebration lunch for all of the refugees who have been participating in our HIV/AIDS program. This is a very enthusiastic group who absolutely loves working with RTP. The work they’re doing is a fantastic example of empowerment. RTP has been able to give these people the tools to really help their community and at the same time gain a great deal of respect. Whenever a workshop on HIV/AIDS is held by this group, there is always amazing feedback and you can see everybody’s confidence, self esteem and happiness grow.
The lunch was a great success. The participants even sang us a Swahili song to show their enthusiasm for us. The words to the song were “This is only the beginning of our relationship. Sophie and Drew will always remain in our lives!!” I was extremely touched by the notion. Sometimes when you think everything you’re doing is not worth the effort, something like this happen to pick you back up. The celebration ended with me finally getting up to dance to the Congolese Rumba music, amid a mix of laughter, cheers and applause… hah! Wish I could dance…

Sept 18th

Lazy Sunday… Evening spent with drinks and dinner for a friend’s birthday. Billy turned 27. He’s a guy who just lives down street from us and is working for the Office of the President (OP). OP is the like the CIA of the Zambian government. The employees are charged with reporting to the president on suspicious activities, opposition parties and the general population’s stance on the administration. For this reason Billy keeps the details of his job extremely secretive. To this day, I don’t have a clue what he does at work, and I’ve learned not to ask many questions about it. Despite this we remain extremely good friends and he’s somebody that I can relate to, one of the few Zambians with a University degree and very smart to boot…

Sept 20th

Showed up to the camp today only to realize that nobody showed up to our scheduled meeting. That was ok as it gave me a chance to get a few little odds and ends done. I met with the refugee education supervisor who gave me the schedule of exams and vacations for the schools. I also met with a number of coaches responsible for setting up the intramural league which is scheduled to start Oct. 1. They’ve decided that all of the primary schools will compete against each other in basketball, netball and football. I’ve taken the responsibility of setting everything up, though in past years they’ve tried to set up a league and it has never worked, I think this year we’re a lot better organized.

Sept 21st

Another Section Leader meeting today. This time camp leaders were complaining about unpaid salaries. It seems some people from the World Food Program have not paid some of there workers for at least a few months. It’s funny because the representative for WFP who is there is this tiny little Zambian man with a really soft voice, who has all these refugees yelling at him. When it’s his turn to talk, he does a really nice job by averting every question to some other topic or simply not answering the questions. It’s a tough job being responsible for feeding 50,000 refugees in two camps. The meeting also confirmed that the refugees would stop receiving sorghum and would definitely be getting maize. You should have seen the relief on those people’s faces.

Sept 22nd

It turns out that the month of September has been the month for the largest number of refugees repatriating back to the Congo. This month some 800 refugees have gone back. I think it’s probably because this is the last month that people are able to travel before the rain starts. Also, the situation back in the Congo has been steadily improving. With the help of UN missions and peacekeepers, they are getting closer and closer to holding elections. The area of rebel activity in South and North Kivu, on the border of Rwanda has been a lot calmer as of late. Most refugees say that elections have to be held in order for them to consider going back to the Congo, though it’s not an easy route home. Most refugees will endure the 6 or 7 day journey back to their homes by foot with little to drink or eat. This is why the UN would prefer that people wait to return so that they can assist with the repatriation (transport, shelter, food, safety, etc.). The UN says the earliest that they would assist with this would be 2007.

Sept 23rd.

We were sad to hear of a close friend’s wife dying yesterday in Kasama. Robert is the UN Program Assistant at the Head Office in Kawambwa. Looks like his wife had a sudden heart attack and died on the spot… Our prayers are with him and the family.
Bad news again from HODI. Twenty more teachers have resigned their posts because of complaints of salaries, working conditions and number of students in their classrooms. The schools are more overloaded then ever these days. There can be up to 70 children in one classroom.
As for Right to Play, these days we have really been focusing on having the refugees take control of everything. Today we met for the first time with our newly developed “Coach Committee”. The committee will be responsible for organizing all the meetings, workshops and play activities after we are gone. It’s made up of 7 very dedicated coaches – Joseph, Kabete, Daphrose, Justine, Justin, Chelley and David. Today was a bit confusing as we tried to explain all of the things that we hoped they could achieve over the next few months. Already during the week we’ve asked them to hold two meetings, two workshops and begin to sensitize the community about their new roles.

Sept 24th

What a crazy day. Seems like our world was falling apart a little bit. The new cats that we got are completely nuts. They stay in the corner of the room completely petrified only to come stalking the entire house at night. One of them climbed into Sophie’s bed and “did his business” right in her covers. She didn’t realize what had happened until she was in bed, under her covers and smelt something strange. She spent the rest of the night chasing the cats all around the house trying to get them outside. I don’t think she succeeded. The next morning we awoke to have our breakfasts. As Sophie ate her cereal she saw something moving in her milk. Somehow worms had gotten into the milk and were eating her cornflakes. Of course she had to show me the evidence, disgusting as it was, and spent the rest of the day thinking that worms were infesting her stomach. Hopefully it didn’t have anything to do with the cats…

Sept 25th

First rain of the year last night and man, did it come down. The climate is different here than in the rest of the country. Being at a higher elevation, we seem to experience a longer rainy season and a more variable climate. Of course with the rain come problems. The power was quick to shut off after the rains started and tiny little beetles, bugs and insects started to appear. Seems the rains bring them out. There’s one insect in particular, a tiny little black beetle that is attracted to the lights in houses. When you try to kill it, it lets off this horrible stink that infests your house. I’ve decided it’s better to let them fly around the house than to cope with the smell. Never thought such a tiny thing could be so repugnant. Rains have also meant lightning, which has been quite dangerous in the area and even killed some refugee students in the camp last year. No one has lightning arrestors and being at such a high elevation, even houses are at risk… I’m glad we were able to get an arrestor last year.

Sept 26th

Monday… Met with coaches today who will be taking over facilitating our level 3 training. It’s so amazing to see their dedication to the program. They have incredible understanding of the topics and can really motivate others to partake. It’s so much easier and more reliable for locals to be running the workshops. They are of course culturally sensitized to how people can relate to sport and play with children and they can make the material of the workshop coincide with the situation in the camp. Also, the team of 6 of them really knows how to work together and support each other. The other day they were giving a workshop to section leaders on gender. The following evening they joined some of the section leaders for a meal. They explained to me that based on what these people had learned in the gender workshop, they were already started to implement changes. The same section leaders, who were yesterday not allowing their daughters to go play football with the boys, were now accepting that females had just as much a place on the football pitch as the boys. Now they only need to start doing the cooking and cleaning (yeah, right….).

Sept. 27th

It’s been a great pleasure getting to know the wife and child of our driver. Their little daughter, named Joy, is 1 year 9 months. She is so full of energy, every time I go over to their place she is running around the house, making me play with her and causing a ruckus. I’ve been over to their place quite a bit lately to eat N’shima and chat about their lives. They’ve been married just over a year and the husband has one other child with a different lady. It seems I’ve been adopted by the family as I’m now known as “Uncle Dew” to Joy (she has a little trouble with the R’s…)

Sept 28th

It’s so uplifting to see how much Right to Play really influences people’s lives here in the camp. The fact that the people we work with don’t expect anything in return really says something about what we are doing. The reason for this high level of dedication seems to be based on the fact that these people are for the first time seeing the impact of sport and play and what it can do for them and their community. These people have never been able to consistently access sports equipment, infrastructure and training back home in the Congo and some people now count on RTP for their very livelihood. People in the community associate them with RTP. One of our coaches named Leon has been instrumental in setting up the intramural program in schools this year. He really lives for RTP. Today he provided me for with the yearly schedule of games, he organized all the referees, scorekeepers and coaches, he’s gone to all the fields that will be used and made sure they’re ready to go. Come Saturday, when the intramurals begin, we’ll see if his hard work has paid off.

Sept 29th

Wow, was it hot today. Must have been up around 45 degrees. It’s like you can’t move without breaking a sweat.
We’re planning on leaving for Lusaka in 3 days. Exciting because I can finally check my email and chat with friends and family. I’m afraid my email account may be shut down as I haven’t checked it in over a month.
A call to anyone reading this with a big heart. I’m really, really missing reading material – especially magazines. If anyone has recent magazines they want to send over, I would be forever grateful: again the address is:

Drew Gardiner
Right to Play
c/o UNHCR Field Office
Box 470148
Mporokoso, Zambia

Oct 1st

First day of intramurals today and it went off with a bang. Everyone showed up who was supposed to - and more. I decided to referee the basketball game and it was a good thing because some of the rules were being missed. It seems a lot of the players have practiced too much netball and therefore do not dribble the ball, only pass. I kept on yelling, “DRIBBLE, DRIBBLE!!” but my calls went unheard… They also don’t really get the concepts of free throws yet. Every time there was a foul, I had to show them how to line up in the key and which players went where. It got really annoying after awhile.
It was funny to see one of the coaches trying to motivate their players through candy. He sat on the sideline waving candy in front of their faces and threw it onto the court if they scored a basket… weird…
It turned out the team that won were very bad winners. Their fans started mocking the other team and pointing at them and singing songs about losing. These people are extremely competitive and it really came out today. The winning team ended up leaving the court all in a group, singing and dancing as they went. The losing team gathered together to pout and complain. I quickly took control of the situation and made them all line up and shake hands. I hope that smoothed things over a bit and taught both the players and coaches a lesson about sportsmanship.