Livingstone Update
on Postcards from Zambia (Zambia), 15/Aug/2011 13:15, 34 days ago
At HomeI haven’t lived in a small town since I was in primary school and living in Romsey, country Victoria, so I didn’t really think about how confined it can feel to live in small town. Still, I do like Livingstone and over the past month or so, we have managed to find different activities to keep ourselvesentertained.A couple of weeks ago we decided to head out to Livingstone Golf Course early on a Sunday morning, for a“round” of golf. We paid for nine holes, thinking that that would keep us happily entertained for a few hours. Only two and a half hours later and four holes down, we decided we’d had enough. Complete hack job! Fun but I think we’ll stick to running on the golf course in the future.On the golf course at Livingstone Royal Golf and Country ClubTesting out my swing (& check out my cool pink golf bagin the background!!!)Bad swingComplete hackOn a different weekend we brought out the Chinese vinegar we purchased on a recent visit to Lusaka to make pork dumplings. Our kitchen is not really equipped for Chinese cooking, but with our ingredients and“creativity”, our dumplings came out ok and quite tasty.Our attempt at Chinese pork dumplingsNot pretty but they tasted alrightWe have made a couple more visits to Victoria Falls, this time at night, to see the Lunar Rainbow. The rainbow occurs when there is a full moon and is truly amazing. It is difficult to really capture it in words, or photos for that matter, although my best effort is below!Lunar rainbow at Victoria Falls, Livingstone:Difficult to describeand not sure if the photo really does it justice. Truly amazing!!Last weekend we headed out with friends to Nina’s Fishing Camp, a lodge on the banks of the Zambezi River in Western Province, Zambia, a couple of hours beforeSioma campwhere we camped a few months ago. We had an awesome weekend so much so that I have written aseparate postfor that weekend.Cruising on the Zambezi RiverAnd as the hot season approaches, we have started to encounter frequent power cuts. They are a regular feature of life in Livingstone but do get worse as the weather warms up. However, we are now well equipped for these cuts and despite making it difficult to cook dinner (bring on the tuna salad!), having a room filled with candles can be kind of nice.Lights out: Another blackout in Livingstone, but all is ok with ourcandles and puppiesTuna salad for dinnerAt WorkWhat to say about work?!! Perhaps I can say that it continues to be challenging. As I previously mentioned we were fortunate enough to be awarded a partnership with a US aid funded organisation that capacity builds smaller organisations. That process has now begun, starting with an organisational assessment which involved everyone in our organisation from staff to volunteers, the board and beneficiaries. The assessment itself was quite a painful process, but I was happy to see that the areas that I would have identified as needing to be focused on came out as high priorities, e.g. Monitoring and Evaluation of programmes, planning, etc.Our organisation assessment in progress The assessment was definitely a long processFollowing the assessment a series of trainings have started to build the capacity of existing staff within the organisation, so the office has been rather quiet (a recent 2 week“absence” of electricity also contributed :-)). Truth be told, I'm a little bit sceptical on the value of these trainings given that there is a belief in Zambia that people require“refresher” trainings on exactly the same subject only 1-2 years later. My personal belief is that if the trainings were of value in the first place or should I say “valued” by the recipients, then refresher training shouldn't be necessary; perhaps mentoring or re-reading up on the subject, but not re-doing the whole of the training again. But I digress…Anyway, with the trainings and capacity building process in progress, the time required to focus on our existing donor funded programmes and our resource mobilisation effort has diminished, leaving me feeling a tad stressed. I only hope this process is all worth it in the end!Over 10 months in ZambiaThe months, I’m please to say, are passing much faster now and we are fast approaching the one year mark.How clever! Our new braai for camping, on the back of Ruth'sspare tyreOnly a few weeks to go until my Mum and her friend Reegena arrive, and another week after that until we set off on our first and long awaited big drive through Botswana and Namibia. Pretty much all plans are in place as we make last minute purchases for“Ruth” and camping. Now just counting down the weeks and days :-)