"A teacheraffects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

(Henry Adams)

Nathan, Jenny and Ceri survive Liteta

Hey folks, Nathan here blogging on the Liteta lot.

So Jenny, Ceri and myself spent our 2 week rural visit in Liteta. I can't put into words how much this experience affected everyone. Of all the 3 villages ours had the grubbiest sleeping conditions, we were sleeping in what was effectively a mudhut inhabited with huge spiders and a number of lizards and other bugs far away from any of our placements. Whilst the others walked 10 yards to get to their one school, we had to walk 10 km (there and back!!!) to get to our numerous schools. This did not affect our spirits though, we had a cracking time (even with the weight loss, my smell (i apologise for my lack of showering girls) and the size of the spiders).

We encountered a number of fresh problems in this rural placement as I know the others did too. Notably the language barrier was even greater than in Lusaka. We managed to overcome everything though and left after having a fantastic and highly successful time.
All the kids seemed to want to do with me was football, football and football which has done my tan and hair colour the world of good but I did aid in netball and PE also. Whilst Ceri and Jenny spent effectively all their time in the classrooms (except when walking) holding sessions on life skills, sex ed, HIV and AIDS, hygiene etc etc.... and from what I saw they did a phenominal job.

One weekend the girls held a workshop for the zambian peer leaders and I organised a footy and netball tournie for 8 communities, though 11 turned up and it was sooooo hectic, they both were brilliant!! Along with visiting 8 different schools, the tournament, the walking!!! and the workshop we also visited a hospital, vaccination and VCT programs (in which I embarrassingly fainted), the chief of Liteta (who lapped up his Man Utd shirt as a present) the district commissioner, had a traditional african dance, ate Nshima till we dropped, ate bushrats (B U S H R A T S), termites, goat, silly amounts of rice and beans and made friends for the rest of lives in the peer leaders.

It was a very intense period, very early mornings with pretty early nights too as we were sooooo exhausted each day. The relationships were heightened in this period but Ceri, Jenny and I never had any problems with each other at all, helping each other out whenever we could. I tried to get everyone going with banter when the chips were a bit down but that was about the only struggles with our relationships that we had. There was always going to be low times as we were mixing with children with HIV and a far lower standard of living day in day out and this is very hard to take.

We worked so hard over this period and leave hoping we have had a lasting effect on the children, teachers and peer leaders. I believe we have and look forward to hearing what next years PZ lot have to say about Liteta and what the Liteta lot have to say about us :o)

On a side, after this project we spent 2 nights at a government run project that helps street kids in Zambia (along with Isla and Mel). These kids are delightful and literally everything we provided and did with them they saw as such a privelege no matter how trivial we saw it as. There is so much love between the kids and they look after each other so well. It was very sad saying bye bye to them all but I hope we keep in touch and some of us see them again in the future. "There's no rainbow without the rain" - to have the good you have to put up with some bad and these kids are the best representation of that that I have ever seen.
Over and out for now. Nathan. x

A Little Taste of the Rural

Hey everyone - thought I would just send a wee note out there to say that we have all survived the rural experience, and will all be back home in Lusaka by the end of the weekend. As a group of 12, we were split into three different villages, maximum 2.5 hours outside of Lusaka, and stayed there for 2 weeks in total. Mel, Kevin, Kieran and I were in Twickantane, however Kieran exited early due to a dislocated ankle after a football match. I'm sure he will not hesitate to tell anyone about his ox cart ride to the nearby clinic, and the village doctor who snapped it back into place. More about Twickantane though.

It's hard for me to explain the experience out there, but I can without a doubt say it was the best part of my trip so far. We were staying outside the school, with no electricity or flushing toilets, with a well nearby. Back to basics at its best. The three of us were based at Twickantane Basic School, which had three classrooms, and taught grades 1-9. When we got there, we were greeted by the acting head teacher, the football coach, and the chief man of the village, among over 770 kids all eager to participate in PE lessons and shake our hands.

This was the first time any volunteers from Sport in Action were in Twickantane, and the village elders were more than appreciative of our presence. Mel, Kevin and I spent our mornings teaching the grades 7-9 topics such as self-awareness, peer pressure, drug and alcohol abuse and HIV/AIDS lessons. Our classes were full to the brim with over 60 kids in a class with only a couple of desks, and kids came back for more. In the afternoons, we taught PE lessons to the grades 1-6, and then had football and netball sessions with the village teams after school. Our days were packed, with school starting at 730am every morning, and our days ending at 6pm, but neither the kids or us could get enough.

We could really tell the progress we were making throughout our 2 weeks there, as when we first got there, kids would sprint away from us screaming "MUZONGU!" (meaning white person) as many of them had never seen a white person in their life. By the end of the 2 weeks however, we were friends with the students and the teachers; it truly felt like home. We got to try things like bush rat (can't say I was keen...left Mel and Kev to try those), killing our own chickens and goat for our goodbye party on our last night.

Our last night there was a party in the classroom, with music and light provided by a nearby generator, and speeches all around. Although everyone was thanking us for coming, and helping out in the school and on the pitch, I don't think I could impress upon them that we were equally, if not more, thankful to them. Our confidence throughout the week increased, and we really felt like we had accomplished and changed something by the time we left. Every night we could hear the kids singing the songs we had taught them that day, and coming up to us just to talk.

Overall, the village experience was the rawest, most stereotypical African experience we have had yet. I loved being based at one school and really getting to know the kids and the teachers. I pinky promised the village chief, after an 1.5hr run (in which he very clearly beat me), that I would be back next summer, and I have every intention on keeping that promise.

I can't wait for the rest of the group to come back home now, with only one more week to go. I think we're all excited to be back in the UK soon, but none of us want to be leaving.

Lauren x

Meet the Team - Ali Hardie

Initial Thoughts:
I came from a sports coaching background and I’ve been doing it at home and loved it, so this gave me the chance to do this in a different culture. It was exciting to do it in Africa and I spoke to Kyle and Tom from last year. I had no idea that it would not be coaching in organised sessions, similar numbers per week. I had no idea about the traditional singing and dancing routines, but I’ve had to do classroom sessions and I absolutely love it! The answers the kids give are so much fun.

Impressions of Lusaka/Zambia:
Lusaka is really weird. There’s no centre to speak of. Sprawls of communities and schools. Occasionally I click and work out where I am but it’s a real mish mash of groups of communities joined by bus routes. I imagined I’d be in one place, focussed, but I’ve spent so much time going around in buses and sitting in empty fields waiting for random people to turn up.

Impressions of the Value of the Project:
I’ve got a load of different projects but somehow they don’t join up. I get good relationships with kids, but I have different classes once a week and you get to see them, on average, once a fortnight so it’s difficult to keep things going. My understanding is that we coach and make the connection through sport and then you exploit that to take another message. It’s been important to get to know the kids, chat with them and then sometimes something comes out of that. You can sit and listen but you often feel powerless to help them. You find kids from double orphan families and we offer an hour or two of escapism, but not much else. Is that worthwhile?

I’ve personally gained so much from it. I’ve been in the position of having to take classes of 40 to 50 kids unexpectedly, both in the classroom when I’m not comfortable and on the sports field. I’ve worked out now what I can do, confirmed some abilities I didn’t know I had, but I don’t know how much it has helped the kids. There’s always the argument that there are some areas in Scotland that have a similar life expectancy and we might offer something to them instead. The communication issues are minimised, the mentoring would be easier, perhaps. Maybe charity begins at home? Just a thought……

Impressions of the Team:
I’ve been chucked in with a completely different crowd of people and we get on really well now.

I think it’s been relatively easy because we’ve all come in open minded, determined to bond because we’d be sharing experiences with each other, going through similar challenges.

SIA – I think there’s a lot of very good people, proud of their country and committed to improving it. There’s so much good intention, but so much of it is wasted. The peer leaders often aren’t there or sessions are cancelled. It might be important to feed that back to the SIA.

Meet the Team - Jenny Hall

Initial Thoughts:
I sort of fell into it. I wanted to do something with my summer which was a bit different and, at the same time, something a little less academic. It was important for me to look at life through a different aspect, do a bit of travelling. It wouldn’t burn my boats in any way since I’d been lucky with my first year both financially, and academically. I was determined, however, that I wouldn’t do something just for kicks. The PZ project just caught my eye in the memos of the University in that it seemed something different from the usual university business. Even if I wasn’t sporty this gave me the opportunity to meet new people and see a different side to the world. It gave me the opportunity for a sort of belated gap year which wasn’t something I could afford at that time.

Impressions of Lusaka/Zambia:
I didn’t have too many expectations but I was wary of the traditional image of Africa with deserts, bush, thatched huts, large animals etc. However the first impression I had of Lusaka stayed with me, as simply sprawling chaos. It just seemed to be a chaotic jungle of urban environment that didn’t seem to connect with each other in my mind at all. It’s all over the place! Only today I found a modern, expensive shopping precinct (which I find difficult to equate with Africa) right next door to a really poor area that I’ve been working in for five weeks…it’s impossible to tell what’s right behind you. This city is a sharp contrast between very nice estates and poverty stricken areas; fancy suburb estates with a rubbish tip right over the back wall.

Impressions of the Value of the Project:
It’s introduced me to some challenging concepts. It really gets you thinking about things. For example, I was involved with one of the SIA projects – a really caring project which took street children in for rehabilitation. It gave the impression of a real love for the children. However I also saw one of the children being punished for running away and I found that really hard especially since he was, to me, obviously under nourished and very probably ill at the time. I was aware of my own naivety but I know I’d rather be naïve and try than sit and watch it happen. At the time I was really strong in my protests and my anguish at what I thought was a betrayal of what this really good project was meant to stand for and I felt a bit shocked and embarrassed at having to do that. However, I suppose, in retrospect my reaction did work well for it forced the project to justify its actions and assess if they were taking the right approach. The result has been a possible review of how they do things and so I suppose that’s a sort of success. I think they were quite surprised that we took it that way. Nevertheless, all in all, a real culture shock for me.

I’ve loved being here but it also starts you thinking about how important it is to come to Africa. Part of me, to be honest, now says we also have to think about the fact that there’s so many problems at home in inner city rather than here. I worry that we’re in Zambia to get an exotic twist to it…we’re here because, in financial terms, health terms etc., we can be here.

Nevertheless, in certain aspects we are really needed here – passing on our experiences to peer leaders to boost their confidences to give a fresh perspective, fresh ideas, etc. And there are some project schools that really depend on us and have a long lasting effect for our being here – e.g. Cheboyla and Mutendere. However it’s been important to also be honest and note that there’s some really well established teams in some schools which means we can’t do much in them and we have to be careful not to waste our time focusing on them when there’s a better need along the road.

In terms of University backing, there’s a lot to be learned and it’s a great opportunity, but although I think the University should support it – it shouldn’t fund it. It has the staff, and structure, that’s needed to facilitate things, set them up. The university can offer the training, the preparation, but there isn’t a justification for it to fund it – the students should do that for themselves. The University’s priorities have to be back at home.

Impressions of the Team:
PZ It’s a bit like the big brother house. People should be recruited for the specific placements. There’s a load of potential to get brilliant people to do this, so recruitment has to be maximised. It would be good if, in future, we could combine our training with the Wallace group to speed up the focus when we arrive. We will need time to adjust and use our skills when we arrive, but the better prepared for that, the better.

I was lucky with the teachers in my school and I managed to work out a routine without the SIA team coming into consideration. The clash in cultures can mean it take some time for people to maximise their relationship with SIA. SIA are fantastic people with their hearts in the right place, but if you want something done, take it into your own hands and make it happen – that’s my advice. However – and this is important – we need SIA for their local expertise. Without them we couldn’t do what we’re doing now.