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.