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!