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!