Pictures from along the journey part2

1) In South Luangwa. Unlike in the Lion King, Pumba in real life is very shy. He (She?) is, anyway, leading a happy life with the Pumba family and wants to say hi to everyone.





2) At the night safari, we managed to see these cubs and mother eating a freshly hunted baby impala.



3) Vahiin kay ennen kuin loppuu. Victoria Falls in October. Wouldn't believe that this is one of the seven wonders in the world :)

Pictures from along the journey part1

1) Two generations, on my first visit to Chawama in September with Victor.

2) Victor singing in the studio at Chawama Youth Skills Project. My dream is to record my own song there one day. I've already started writing it. Wish I had more time!

3) Children on a truck in Chawama. Could I take some of them to Finland with me? :)

4) The town centre of Lusaka. Don't be fooled by the towers, Lusaka in general is very flat. High buildings are found only in the centre, otherwise people live and work in one-story buildings.

5) Mrs Nyirongo, me and Mariska went to a wedding in September. These guys were obviously hoping that they would have been invited, too :)
















6) And since we are muzungus, we couldn't avoid drawing attention to ourselves. Here, I suppose we are babbling something about Finnish wedding traditions.
















7) At Sable Road, we had a movie night in September. We organised the seats out in the garden and projected to movie on the wall of Joanna's house. Ate hamburgers and watched Simpsons the Movie.

8) One of my Hotel and catering students, Lumbenji, making pie dough during the Business in Action project.

9) Ladies' Club (that's the business name they chose for themselves) counting the money after the day - smiling :)

10) I took my tailor, Nancy (on the left) to visit my tailoring students in Kanyama on their entrepreneurship lesson.

11) I got my hair braided in October by lovely Mrs Priscar who has her small house at K.Y.P. premises. I was the first muzungu that she braided and she did good work! It took 4 hours and in the end, we were sitting in a dark room after sunset and a power cut while Tuukka was holding a torch to shed some light over my head.















12) In Chipata, I was invited to a Kitchen Party again. I thanked the matron for the invitation but politely refused since "I cannot leave my husband (meaning Tuukka; And no, we are not married)" and so the matron accepted that Tuukka could come to the party as well. Let me tell you, it usually never happens! Kitchen Parties are strictly women's parties. But we had a nice time and sure, there I am dancing for the screaming and clapping audience. Couldn't even hear the drums under that noise. Muzungu dancing is not to be seen every day.















13) In Chipata, on our way to the top of one of the mountains surrounding the town.

14) Still in Chipata, enjoying a fresh paw paw that we bought at the market place. Fruit in Zambia are awsome.

15) In South Luangwa National Park with the giraffe that we were looking for for two days and finally saw about hundred of them during one day.

Bwanji!

Bwanji!

I have my own Zambian family now! I've been staying for a week in Chawama at Velukas. The family consists of Mr and Mrs Veluka and their four children from 4 to 21 years old. Mr Veluka works for an insurance company and Mrs has her stationary shop at the City Market. I couldn't be more fortunate, I'm so in love with this family.

I'm now "alone" here since Mariska left a couple of weeks ago. I've continued teaching, although now my students are fewer since the January intake has their industrial attachements (which means practical training). I'm almost through with the Microsoft Word exams, and have begun to teach Excel to some of the groups. I finished the business communication lessons, so no more waiting for the students bringing their CV's and job applications mailo mailo. Entrepreneurship lessons are going pangono (so and so), the students could be more active, but at least they have learned something, based on the assignments that I've corrected.

In the end of September, I organised a Business in Action project with the January intake Hotel and catering students. During that project, we developed a business idea and business plan and started to manufacture snacks (sausage rolls, meat pies, pulla and so on) and sell them at the K.Y.P. restaurant. The project was a slight success, at least we made some profit which was shared between the students. The students would have wanted to continue and also K.Y.P. management was hoping for continuation. I'm trying to organise a similar project for July intake as well.

The name of the organisation is now changed from KYPT to KYP What a fuss over one letter T, you wouldn't believe! But at least the board finally managed to make the decision so that we can now move on and begin creating the school a strong image. A name is quite essential when talking about image, so without a consistent name marketing the school has been somewhat difficult. I used to use this name issue as an example on my entrepreneurship lessons, and the list of names that the students came up with was long: some thought the name of the school was KYPT, some KYP, some K.Y.P., some Kanyama Youth Programme, Kanyama Youth Programme Trust, even Kanyama Youth Project. I used to comfort the students by telling them that if the management doesn't know the name then how could you :)

Lately, I've been analysing Training Needs Survey and writing a report on it, the idea is to find out the wishes and plans that grade 9 and 12 students have towards their future education and the knowledge that they have on KYP My next assignments will be developing a business plan for a carpentry workshop that is going to be built at KYP and designing a project for improving KYP restaurant business (which is kind of a continuation to the Business in Action project :). I'm full of ideas but the time is not on my side - only 2 months to go! Well, I'll do what I can. If only I could stay for a little bit longer, I would. The idea of returning to Finland in the end of cold January is not too fascinating.

I've really enjoyed my stay in Zambia. I'm already in panic when realising how little time I have left. Somehow having to adjust to a very different culture, environment and climate in a short time has had a huge effect on me. Now Zambia feels like the reality and Finland is a very abstract thing somewhere on the other end of the planet. It doesn't even feel real that someone could travel to Finland. I know this must sound silly :) But for example when Tuukka came here and went back to Finland, it was so unreal that he could actually move between these two worlds. And now he's even coming back in December. Having lived amongst these people for these intensive 4 months, I've somehow adopted the way of thinking, and travelling like that doesn't seem possible. I have no idea how I'm going to survive in Finland again. Am I going to get adapted there as quickly as I did here? I hope not! I don't want to learn all my old habits, I would like to maintain at least some of these new traits that I've found here. I have such mixed feelings about the whole thing.