Goodbyes

The goodbye's on the last day became an emotional celebration, starting with, like VVOB tradition, meetings meetings meetings, among which my last meeting that I'd be chairing, and hopefully the conclusions we made from it will be transported into the future.
Then, the team had made a compilation video of pictures, music and goodbye speeches which nearly brought me to tears, but luckily I managed to keep my cool! But it was really good, kept me smiling the whole way through:). For lunch we had some good Pizza Inn, I got some nice presents (though the weather is too cold in Belgium at the moment to be wearing slippers, the earrings and bag have already been put to good use) and then the final hugs and kisses before the car left to drop me off at Harare International Airport. It seemed like yesterday I took the same route in the opposite direction, arriving in Harare.
I tried my last sneaky attempt to not leave (asking passport control if he wants to take my spot, since his suggestion to accompany me didn't seem too appealing) and then through the gates I went.
After a good 17 hour trip, I arrived in the company of Belgium once again, where everything seemed familiar like the three months never happened, except that everyone is happy to see me:). As I get busy on pending uni business, I smile back at my three months, knowing they have been a great experience I will never forget! All thanks to the wonderful people I met.

Last weekend

There was a post saying "First weekend", and now it’s the last one, the very very very last one! How time flies! And the thing with good times, is that they always end on their peak, which could be considered a good thing, but obviously makes it this much more sad!

Friday was a bit of a farewell party, with a few people from work, Maidei who I stay with, and Juliet - the one and only - we went to see the Big 5 show. Big 5: the 5 biggest names in Zimbabwean music: Dhehwa (don’t know him), Solomon Chimbetu (son of), Macheso (most popular guy around), Winky D (the new up and coming international star) and Oliver Mtukudzi (all time legend - and my main attraction). Though Tuku disappointed a bit, singing his new music I didn’t know, it was still a pretty great night! We partied and dances all night long, until we nearly dropped!! :). It was really strange, I was like a white ant in the black sea, and people seemed to be reacting with shock when they saw my face, quite funny! Still a very good night, and not too many annoying people. Just the one guy who wanted to “buy me” for 10$, bidding up to $1000, and eventually settled for getting me a drink and pissing off:). And also the drunk guy who fell asleep right in front of us. Great night to finish off!

Saturday was calmer, I started with some packing.. Sad sad moments.. And just relaxed for most of the day, playing with Tanya, recovering from the party night!

Sunday was time for the first goodbyes, to Juliet and the family.

We started off by going to church, which was very interesting, it was almost like life lessons, started with singing and then a “lecture” on how to make the right decisions in life. Very, very interesting actually. The people there were also very welcoming. I had to introduce myself, and afterwards someone asked “what was your name?”, “Maï”, “Yes”, “no, no, that IS my name” Parents. Permission to change the name PLEASE? This has happened too often! :)

With the goodbyes over the afternoon it really kicked in, I’m leaving with no idea when I’m coming back, a plan needs to be sorted out!!

Monday, just like any other day, is a working day starting with the Monday morning team meeting. Everyone had to answer a question, mine was: what do I plan to achieve in the coming week: “getting used to life in Belgium once again” - bah! Someone else had to answer let someone do something that can benefit the whole team, their answer: cancel/postpone Maï’s ticket! I’m all up for the idea!!

But the reality is: I’ll be back home in just over 36 hours, and filled with stress of “back to school”. But I guess, behind all the sadness of leaving there is also some kind of small, minimalistic part of me that might be slightly looking forward to going back. That’s just me giving myself a pep talk;).

Leaving Tuesday at 17:00

Arriving Wednesday at 10:30.How much sadder is that than when I said "Leaving Brussels".

Mana Pools

I went to Mana Pools for a week and it was AMAZING!! Too good for words, unbelievable all that we saw. One of the best weeks the park has ever known!! It's the only park in Africa (or the world?) where you can freely get out of your vehicle and walk around. Elephants were roaming the park, it was always the big danger, making sure you're aware of where they all are, we had a couple incidents of hiding behind a big tree, and one of the elephant standing right next to the car, tusks over the bonet, with my window open, scary, but amazing.
From day 1 we saw the pack of lions, 6 cubs, 4 females (and two males that weren't always around) and the packs of wild dogs, one of 29 and one of 12. And apparently that's a rare site!
We saw them every day for 8 days (including the extra day we stayed longer coz it was so great!) as the first car (except for one day) and all this before 6:30 am. And I had the luck of being there with a tour guide with the knowledge of what to do and the eyes that could spot anything and I'd be looking for it for half an hour!
We saw the lions stalking the buffalo's, and the buffalo's coming back to chase away the lions, we saw the lions chasing after the wild dogs while the wild dogs chased after an impala. They didn't catch up, but it was impressive to see. To top it off, we manages to catch a beautiful view of the lions chasing and killing a buffalo, and then, as buffalo's are a close social group, the herd came back to chase the lions away, in that attempt they gave us a second kill, killing a little calf. During all this the herd of buffalo's came in our direction at one point so we all had to hide behind a tree, though at no point were they aiming at us. Adrenaline rush. Very impressive to see all this so clearly, and it's a very rare site. Amazing!
The wild dogs were, in general, fairly calm and lazy, but we did see some movement now and again, one time as they tried to chase a warthog that got away. Because they are so lazy we managed to get up and close to them, crawling over on hands and knees, an amazing experience!!! Very cute animals.

The camp we stayed in was at the very end of the whole site, and since it isn't fenced off we had daily and nightly visitors: hippo's, buffalo's, hyena's, elephants, and of course many many monkeys. It was awesome, just having some breakfast next to the elephant who's munching away on some bark. And at night stopping every so often to shine the torch around for anything interesting to see. The main rule is, if you don't disturb them they won't disturb you, and it works quite allright:).

All in all a great week's holiday!
And now, one short week left until it is the end of this amazing experience :(.

Pics to follow at a later stage

-3 weeks

With just over two weeks left, my bachelor degree in the pocket, it's time for another little holiday (in a holiday): one week to Mana Pools!
And then, with pain in the heart the very last week's countdown of my internship will begin..

Finally some sport done!

This week and weekend were very active, I took up my tennis racket and played three times in the one week! And three times in the three months! It was sunny, making it VERY good! Each time we played about 2 hours, very intense, and I was very sore!! Good week that was! A little swim added to that, making it an extremely sporty week and weekend!

Over the weekend I saw Juliet and her WHOLE family, which was very nice, a BBQ in the sun:). As we were driving we had a little experience: bumping into the president! And we really almost did bump into him. The FLOCK of cars were driving SO fast and the motor bike on the front, driving on the wrong lane really did not slow down when he saw we were actually still driving! Luckily Juliet immediately made the connection and we waited on the side of the road for the flying group of cars to pass by. That speed was definitely not safe! It is quite like an ambulance passing (maybe even worse), everyone is expected to move to the side and make the whole road free for the 20 cars (including ambulances) to pass through, and while they pass, you’re not allowed to stare. I’m not sure how that is avoidable, and have no clue how they’d control it! Needless to say I didn’t manage to stop him to pass on some greetings.

Another busy weekend

The weekend that marked the point of exactly one month left before I leave was busy busy once again and I was in a good mood throughout it because I received my first (and probably only) letter of the three month stay, that took two whole months to arrive!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening there was a “Christian Crusade” in Mabelreign that we went to. It was a church service in the form of a concert, so: many people, music, singing and dancing and preaching. It was very interesting, I really enjoyed it! And everyone always joined in with the singing, some slightly louder than others;)

Saturday I made pancakes for everyone - way too many as usual, but they were definitely a success! Just took slightly too long to get ready, as opposed to the usual fear of getting them burnt. But they were very nice!

Over the afternoon I saw Francy and Phillip, who I hadn’t seen since he was a Grade 4 - currently Form 3, all grown up! It was a nice afternoon, just chilling around. On my way home I passed by Juliet for a little chat and with that the day passed by successfully :)

 Sunday morning I had a little picnic with Tanya, she desperately wanted to have a picnic and I was always away at lunch time, so we had a breakfast picnic, with fruit, eggs and sausages, and a meli honey waffle (thanks to Frank :) ). She loved it!! It was great! So at least I made a little girl happy:)

Over the afternoon I moved to Hanne’s place, it was great how the boys loved to see me and when we went for a walk with the dogs at a farm, they both wanted to hold my hand, one on each side:) and I was also allowed to read the bedtime stories! I enjoyed that.. And like practice has taught, we had a BBQ with butternut and steak, never goes wrong!

Monday morning back at work marked the “one month left”, so a wakeup call to make the most of the time remaining! Not that that’s not happening yet!

End of internship part 1: evaluation

This week was the week that the evaluations had to be handed in, and it was done succesfully. During the evaluation chat I was asked to self-evaluate each of the points (eg. motivation, punctuality, completion of tasks, ...) which I did quite honestly, then asked to give myself a mark out of 10. So, for my evaluation from VVOB I got a 7.5/10! Not a bad result now it's waiting for the other half from university on the 15th, and then I will succesfully be a bachelor!
Now for the rest of the month continuing the internship, with the same spirit of making the most of it! And preparing for the Master year :)

And during this last month, the summer is finally coming along! smiles to that!

GZU workshop

Week 1

Day 1

During the week we had a workshop prepared for Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo. Leaving very early Sunday, to arrive in Masvingo after 3, doing shopping for the evening and arriving at the cottage/lodge. Luckily there are cooking facilities, so it’s a fairly cheap and cozy week. Nice cooking every day, and coziness, in a very big group. We already were a big VVOB group - 7 of the 15 were here, but there were also 2 other student doctors from London living in the lodge, and a group of 8 nurses - all men arrived soon after us. It was then a bit of a complication finding a spot for everyone to sleep, and our one man ended up claiming the living room. The low-cost approach has a price.

Day 2

The low-cost approach does not get abandoned with VVOB though, the first trip we had, to get to Masvingo, was in a combi, all squashed up. We decided to quickly step away from that low-cost with a short team meeting in Creamy Inn, with highly overpriced ice creams, but at times, you need to go for the high-cost approach. Unfortunately most of it was more a waste of time than anything else, the woman we had a preparatory meeting with at the university didn’t show up. From 1.30 (meeting at 2) till quarter to 4 we were at the university, and never did we hear back from the lecturer. That makes it all a bit of a waste of day, and a loss of our Sunday. But we will start with good mood, tomorrow is day one of the workshop, starting at 8 (or so is planned) and finishing at 5, with a whole load of activities to fill that whole day up. And we will all be facilitating, me included, quite an exciting moment really. For the rest I will also be responsible for some kind of report/article at the end, with Nennivah.

Day 3

First day of the workshop was a success, though it started with a look of chaotism. The morning was slightly hurried, with 15 people needing to shower, it is not the most useful, but we managed to get out of the house only 15 minutes later than planned - 7am.

At GZU we first had to declare all laptops, the woman needed the numbers at the bottom of the laptop, so we all, one by one had to unpack our goods. BUT we were still quite on time, or rather, everyone else was quite late. But first there was the hassle of having to change rooms, and we would have had to change twice, but since there was a murungu, it was okay for today. Positive discrimination is no better than negative discrimination and though it was helpful I didn’t really like it much. The lecturers showed up slowly, and the students were all (due to bus transfer problems) an hour late, but we started on without them. The participants were very motivated, actively participating. Very nice to see. The facilitation went well, lunch was good, all was successful. I had my very first ever facilitation just after lunch, and apparently I was quite good, but I had an easy part to do:), but I enjoyed it, so very definitely willing to do it again if the occasion arises.

Throughout the whole day, I was given too much attention by everyone, during the introductions when making ‘dates’ to get to know each other one guy mumbled, too bad it’s not real. Another lecturer joked all day about how, since my name is Mai I should become Mai ‘his surname’ since I wouldn’t be changing my name, from then on he referred to me as Mai ‘his surname’. Luckily it was all just one big joke, though that made me the laughing stock. Next time, I’ll say I’m married. He had asked, and I answered “no, but I’m not available”. Apparently that’s not quite enough.

We had a very good day though, and after a hard day’s work we went to reflect on the day’s proceedings at Pizza Inn bought by Chokie, very good reflection time. I’d work till 7 every day if that’s how it worked. As for the ride home, well, the fun and games never stop when there’s good music.

Day 4

When getting into the university I had to sit in the front, I was the free pass in, if they saw there was a white person in the car they wouldn’t ask what we wanted there. Once again some positive discrimination which I didn’t enjoy too much.

Second day of the workshop started slightly less active, less people managed to skip their lectures so we had less people to work with. But overall, the end of day ended up being very productive and a positive experience.

Day 5

The last day was purely for the students and lecturers to practice their own facilitating skills, we arrived at a surprising success. They were all very participative and motivated, and very good at facilitating. So next week’s set of workshops will not be a problem!

This was our last day of the week, so the next morning was a short sleep in and end of workshop, back to Harare!

We ended up leaving Harare quite a bit later than expected, and instead of arriving at 3pm like planned it was more like 6pm. For me this was a bit of a stress, I had my internship report to hand in and my evaluation that had to be done before end of month. As it turns out, though, I might still be in Harare next week, so those things can then be sorted out, luckily.

Weekend

The weekend started with a general low, but over the afternoon we went to the agricultural show, which turned out to be quite nice, after we endured some shoving, pushing and squeezing to get in. There were some music bands and just a lot of people and a lot of stuff to be bought. Tanya also did some horse riding. It was only afterwards that I learnt a couple of years ago people got squashed, resulting in 3 deaths. That will be the last time I wait till the last day to go to a show like this.

Over the evening there was a wedding, the son of one of our colleagues. It was beautiful (we just went to the dinner/afterparty and didn’t stay too long), but we did see them walking in and doing one dance. Really nice dress, the bridesmaids dresses and decorations. Wow, looking fancy! Mai Chikwanda, the mother of the groom was also looking very splendid:) Unfortunately cake cutting time was only at around 9, which everyone thought was too late to wait for - transport is always a very big deal breaker - so without wedding cake we left the wedding after about two hours. But I’m happy we went anyway:)

On Sunday we went to the movies at Eastgate. Nope, they have not changed a single bit in the last 9 years. There was not enough time to go in Eastgate itself so that’ll have to be for another time. The movies available seemed to be of a while ago, Kung-fu panda 2, No strings attached, Pirates of the Carribean and Prom. To come was Hall Pass. Of Harry Potter not a single sign, so very disappointing!! We ended up watching Prom, a Disney movie, not unlike High School Musical. The type of Sunday afternoon movie, which didn’t turn out to be so bad. And 3$ for a movie, I’ve definitely had worse!

Please tell me Harry Potter will still be on by the time I’m back!;)

Back to work

The working week has started again and in the meantime I have passed the halfway mark through my internship, just over 6 weeks left! Time always seems to fly faster. This week’s agenda was (besides many team meetings) some communications tasks that are smoothly moving forward and going well and finalizing of the report from last week’s workshop. The report only needs some finishing touches, proofreading and then it’ll be ready to post on the website!

Tomorrow I have a functional interview, since I have reached the mid of my internship it is time for a short evaluation on the work done, the expectations fulfilled, the work still to be done and the expectations for the last half. Since everything has been going well it shouldn’t be too much to do and can only improve the second half of the time!

In three weeks I will be receiving my results and then I’ll be starting to think about the master and the internship involved with that! Busy busy times!

On other big news of the world: Solomon Mujuru passed away. He was a well-respected man in the Zimbabwean army throughout the past years, standing by Mugabe's side during liberation struggle, and for those with a basic knowledge of Zimbabwe’s current political heads the name will be familiar for another reason. He was also the husband of the current Vice Principal of Zimbabwe (Joyce Mujuru). His farm house burnt down during the night of 15-16 August and he had the unfortunate bad luck of sleeping in the house at that specific time. In other words, the country is currently in shock and mourning over a great man who had a big influence on the country’s history.

All the while Belgium remains without government.

While I’m on the topic of news, I heard something vague about the SADC (Southern African countries) discussing about possibly starting up a union. How I understood it, it seems they will be heading in the direction of Europe: opening up its borders. Whether there were further plans, and when this union would be intended are still unknown to me, though it would be interesting for future travel plans!

Mosi-oa-Tunya - The smoke that thunders

In Vic Falls I was dropped off at the Rest Camp where I’d meet up with Anna (a friend from Form 1) and stay for the rest of the days (Thursday-Sunday). It was right in the center, the best place to be when you’re on a budget and don’t have a car!

We started off with a walk around the little town, and passed by the Kingdom Hotel, a very dark hotel, very very expensive though, with pillars meant to resemble Great Zimbabwe outside and huge “urban hunters” inside, very “typically tourist” and not at all typically Zimbabwean. Just like the groups of acapella bands that come during dinner time, seeing king of the jungle as if it is a traditional song!

Vic Falls Hotel, another expensive one, was more attractive (except for the price, about 250 per night). Very colonial style, people picking up the luggage, open space, and the view of the restaurant looking over the back of the falls and the bridge, quite a beautiful sight. Worth paying for! But obviously our budgets didn’t quite allow for that, so we just walked through there and sat for some pictures. We walked down to the most beautiful viewpoints from which they also do the jumps, gorge swing, flying fox, death ride. The height is incredible, I’d really need a big push to do it, paying 120$ to do it counts more as a hold-back than a push, resulting in us just watching others in fear from the sidelines.

I would have loved going rafting, but apparently it was a bad timing for it, and losing 120$ to it was once again pushing the limits. The US dollar days have pushed up all the prices to extreme heights, but the tourists continue to pay for the beauty of Zimbabwe. Bungee jumping too was that expensive, and it seemed a lot scarier than the beauty part I had always pictured in my mind!

On Friday we had an early wakeup because we’d be joining people from a Trust. Anna will be doing her PhD on elephant cognition and she’ll be doing it with them in Vic Falls. So we got a tour around the new labs they built in the middle of the jungle, we saw the elephants coming back from their rides and saw the tamed cheetah Sylvester that was saved a few years ago but is too tame to go back to the wild. At that time the man giving us a tour received a call that they tracked the waterbuck they had been looking for for a couple days. It was caught in a snare and the snare was still around its neck, so they wanted to capture it and remove the snare. We tagged along as they went to the game park, loaded the taser guns and got the horses ready. Right at the time when they were ready to start the chase someone spotted two poachers running away. Unfortunately the poachers chased the waterbuck away, so the chase for the waterbuck had to stopped till the next morning since the animal needs to cool down when being drugged. Fortunately one of the two poachers was caught and arrested (even though the fine is minimal). So even though that wasn’t as cool as expected, it was nice to see that the Anti-Poaching Unit does have success stories and truly do care for the animals.

Over the afternoon we went for a sunset boat trip with Hanne and family. It was great, we saw hippo’s, elephants and a crocodile, and also a baby giraffe that had died with a snare on its leg, so poaching really is a big issue. We passed through the back of the falls, far enough to see the smoke that thunders up on top of the falls, but not far enough to thunder down the falls! At 6 we watched as the beautiful African sun set making the sky an orangy red and then we got back to the hostel. For dinner we went to a restaurant which was absolutely delicious! I had grilled bream with cream sauce, reminded me of the Mozambique days..

The last full day we had, we made sure we did all there was left to do: see the falls by day time, go shopping in the market and the local shopping center and see the falls by night. But also unexpectedly having great and cheap sadza, and the best chocolate cake I’ve had in years!

The falls were beautiful, you come in and it’s like WOW, didn’t remember them that great! It was perfect time of year, not too much spray but still enough water for the beauty of it. We enjoyed it, walking slowly like real Zimbabweans (after all, we paid Zim price), taking pictures on every stop and just staring out in the distance to appreciate the beauty. It truly is one of the 7 wonders of the natural world! Not as wide as the Iguazu Falls, not as much volume as the Niagara Falls, not as tall as the Angels Falls, but it IS the only falls on the wonders list and IS overall the greatest/biggest waterfall!

In the market Anna traded some things and the competition between the women selling was amazingly great! In the shopping center they were much calmer and we talked to some of the sellers, there was a shop with sculptures of Colleen Madamombe and Dominic Benhura, which cost a fortune, but then again, there are people who own a fortune! It was very interesting talking to the man of the shop, beautiful sculptures there! Unfortunately none of Mike Munyaradzi, which I would have wanted to see.

For lunch we bought sadza and drink, 3$ for us both! Amazing, and it was GOOD. I also immediately became the talk of the town (and the town is small), with my Shona, lucky that comes in handy sometimes! Since we spent so little on lunch we treated ourselves with an overly delicious chocolate cake, in one of the tourist places this time.

Because it was full moon they had a lunar rainbow tour at the falls. We decided to join because it was quite cheap (10$ for locals). Unfortunately getting in was a little harder than expected, they suddenly did not want to accept my letter claiming I was a student on attachment. He needed a Ministry letter, which is totally understandable, but I wasn’t prepared to pay tourist price (40$). After 5 minutes discussing the man at the counter established there was no way I’d be getting in and the other guy who let me in during the day would have to pay the difference of my previous entry fee. Which sucked for us, but we felt even worse for the other man, then suddenly the man changed his mind, after I spoke two words of Shona during my pleas. It didn’t take him half a second to agree I was Zimbabwean due to the Shona. Thanks Selbourne Routledge!!

Luckily we got in, because it was beautiful!! I started with a, well, it’s not that great attitude, but with the light in the right place, seeing a rainbow forming and the black rock contrasting the white ‘smoke’ from the falls was magical, completely different to day time. Definitely worth it! My camera once again let me down with poor quality, so you’ll have to visit it during a full moon week to enjoy the same. Beautiful!

Sunday was time to go home, so with a 13 hour bus and two Chicken Inn stops the holiday ended and the working week started again. But it was a GREAT holiday!! One to not forget!!

More pics of verything on facebook!

Hwange National Park

8 and 9 august is Heroes Day holiday in Zimbabwe, and that means holiday from work. Which means, holiday out of Harare! My destination was Hwange and Vic Falls, a 9-day holiday to fill up every single holiday day available!

We started off with Hwange, very early Saturday morning, with a packed car and Jos on my lap we set off direction Bulawayo-Hwange. Time seemed to fly and before 4 we had already arrived at the lodge. The car was quickly unloaded and we set off for the first game drive. The days consisted of early wake-ups, morning drives, late breakfasts, afternoon drives, evening braais (one of which was my very own) and early nights. And many animals in between! Since I forgot what we saw when I’ll just make a list. Basically: everything! Leopards were the big missing one though. We saw elephants (herds and herds of them), giraffes, we saw them drinking, which was a comical sight and brought up good pics, zebra’s, hippo’s, buffalo, hyena’s (and we heard them a whole lot over the evening - this however does not mean I recognized it’s cry when asked, a cheetah (from a very beautiful angle), a lion (from not a great angle, not very close and not for very long, but I saw it and I’m happy! We also saw lots of antelopes: impala’s on every corner, kudu’s in abundance, a sable, which apparently is slightly rarer, so I’m happy we saw it, a dik-dik (a tiny antelope), waterbucks and a couple other kinds. A serval, which is a little cat/carnivore we also saw. And baboons, in abundance! I’m sure I forgot plenty, if you want a full list, go visit Hwange Main Camp and see for yourself. It was absolutely great, I love camping, especially when it is so well prepared with all the necessary equipment, and the weather is so great! The nights were freezing though, but like I said, prepared people come prepared.

The last night of Hwange we spent in another lodge (Sinamatella), this one was fancier, with a gorgeous view!! Once again it was game drives (with a packed car) and braais! Hanne also tried out some ash cakes, little ‘muffins’ that you wrap in silver paper and put straight on the ashes, they tasted GOOD!! My whole perception of what to do on fire has completely changed after this week! It was great, I absolutely loved it, enjoyed playing with the boys - when they weren’t tired and prickly from the smallest things and their ‘help’ when doing the dishes, cute kids!, learning invaluable life skills from Jeremy (his own words) and the friendliness and generosity from the whole family!

From Hwange we drove through the park and on the road to Vic Falls to continue the holiday.

Silveira House national workshop

Just before start of the holidays we had a national workshop about M&E. This means (two) lecturers from all the colleges (14 of them) came together to reflect, plan and act upon their Monitoring an Evaluation, ways to strengthen learning. This was done in a workshop of three days, with activities set up to lead the participants through the process. The whole VVOB team served as facilitators (leading activities) or joined in as participants. Hanne was writing the report and Nennivah and I were pointed as helpers, because we’d have to finalize the whole thing afterwards as Hanne would be on holiday. To start off we were both more ‘secretaries’, copying out what was on flipcharts, while Hanne typed up the discussions going on and added in highlight all the extra things we’d have to add. Sometimes I’d just start feeling useless so I’d randomly start doing double work, might as well look busy!

On day two Hanne was absent for half the day, so this gave us the responsibility of capturing all that happened. During the discussions I just typed like a crazy person and afterwards put it into a nice text. Hanne seemed content with it when I passed her my part, so now I have a little half page which is all my own in the report! SCORE!

The workshop ended with quite a success, VVOB learnt about where it can improve and the colleges learnt how to continue on with their own questions on how to improve their learning within their colleges.

Because Hanne is on a three week holiday, and the report has not been fully finalized the communications team has been put responsible for it. Among the tasks involve finalizing some things that were missed out on, making creative compositions of little pieces of text (for example, people had to describe Day One as a book title), and adding pictures where needed. Only the last part needs to be done and then it is final! I feel like it’s an accomplishment though I after all did not do much to it.

The workshop took place at Silveira House, which is some kind of conference center with accommodation possibilities, quite a nice place and as far as meals go, we always had choice between rice and sadza, always nice! It was quite a bit out of town, and being with someone who had a car and a possibility of picking others up it meant always leaving extremely early! One time even so early we left half our people behind because they weren’t on time! Motivation that is!
They also have an arts and craft village next to the center where I went to have a look, it is quite impressive how much they had! I only saw the outside - where the big sculptures were, but apparently they also had cloths, earrings and other small art pieces.

In the meantime time has flown by like I could never have imagined, I am halfway the internship, which means my mid-term evaluation desperately needs to be filled in tomorrow, but also that I have two weeks left before getting my final results from here and handing in the internship paper. And then I’ll be a bachelor student!! Let’s all hope the coming month doesn’t go past quite as fast, I’m not ready yet to make the decisions for the master..