Footwear Crisis!

I always knew I was going to get the footwear wrong. This is the road down to Jedone’s house. So we think we have potholes! And this is on a good day, can you imagine if it was raining? I think some of those nice little sandals I brought with me may as well go right back in the case now! Otherwise I will probably break an ankle not to mention ruin the sandals for life!!

The minibus challenge

Second day in Kitwe, it's Saturday and I am actually in the office (yes the one without a proper toilet, so trying not to drink too much water!). The good news is Jedone had the toilet fixed back home so it no longer leaks - and it has a seat! Yippee! The shower is also fixed, but on the basis that it only has cold water I decided to stick to the buckets of hot water.


Getting to work was entertaining. We took the minibus today, although for a while I was convinced we were doing some sort of Guinness book of Records stunt to see how many people we could fit in. Timetables don't exist; the priority is definitely how many you can get in, even if you have to shuttle back and forth to find them. Which is what we appeared to do as we spent about 5 minutes reversing backwards. For what I am not sure, although we did squeeze another person in before we actually started heading forwards and in the right direction again. I guess that could be a new twist to transport making you late for work, 'sorry boss, the mini bus driver couldn't find enough people to fill the bus so he wouldn't take us in to town'. Might be a bit difficult to get off with that one back home but...!

I was right at the back as you can see from this picture, along with several others!

The church is still going full pelt next door - wonder if they have been there all night? Must be worn out with all that shouting and singing! Needless to say I came prepared today and have the iPod on - which works for the more sedate celebrations but it's a bit of a battle between them and Snow Patrol at the moment, with the latter loosing.
 
This is my second attempt at this posting as the inernet went down earlier. Such is life!

Day one in the Office

My first day in the office and I am still here at 6.30 pm (since 8 am).  Admittedly I spent most of the morning doing e-mails and blogs and checking I could still communicate with the outside world.  All is well in that area.    Did a brief financial review with the accountant here Vivian.  She is doing a certificate at the moment and hoping to start CIMA.  She asked me for any tips on studying - determination and discipline was all I could give her, no magic tricks for that one.  Will be starting in earnest on a new cash reconciliaton system on Monday.  Ah the fun to be had!  I also helped them respond to some queries a previous donor had on their funds. Which they thought I did a very good job with, which just goes to show us accountants can blag our way through anything even when we don't know what we are talking about!!  :-) 

The actual office itself is a wee bit smaller than Gogarburn as you can see from the picture below. No Starbucks or Tesco Express here.

But boy is it noisy.  It is joined on to a church which has had some sort of conference on all day.  I did eventually have to ask why they were shouting so much and was told it was a form of praying.  It was definitely very enthusiastic prayng.  My poor head is banging with it all. I think they have all gone in to a frenzy of excited singing and dancing now - perhaps this is the grand finale!

The gifts I brought are all being sorted and catalogued meticulously - poor Moffat one of the co-ordinators drew the short straw on that one.  Though didn't manage to get him in the picture - maybe on Monday.

Thirty three very long hours later!

Yes that was how long it took me door to door to get to Kitwe.  My flight was good and landed on time just before 6.30 am.  I even managed to successfully haul all the boxes, cases and holdalls off the carousel all on my own (those weights at the gym paid off!).  Then the fun started with customs.  Long, boring story short I got to take all my personal stuff with me - unchecked so haven't been done for carrying suspicious looking vitamin pills - but we were told to go back at 8 am for the boxes.   Then we were told to go over to the customs office where we were  told we had to do a full itinery of what was in the boxes - although 7 boxes off used school books seemed to work for them!  We then spent several hours watching lots of people with ID tags wander (slowly) around wth bits of paper, did some arguing over what fees we were to be charged, and then waited, and waited, and waited...!  Eventually 5 hours after I landed the car was loaded -  boxes hadn't even been opened and we just had to pay the minimum in Government fees - success I guess!  Although I was by this time very hot, sweaty and having a seriously bad hair day!!

There then followed some running around Lusaka with Jedone and Gideon which I was fine with until I got left in the hot car on my own for 10 minutes that turned in to at least 30.  But they did take the brand new laptop with them for safety - just left me in the car!  Duh! 

We eventually arrivied in Lusaka at 7.30 pm, with me having left my flat at 10.30 am the previous day.  I was very tired and feeling decidedly grubby and have to admit felt a tad emotional when the hot bath I had been promised was a  plastic tub of boiled water - there is no running hot water.  The toilet currently has no seat and I have to remember that once the cistern is filled I need to turn the water off at the inlet tap otherwise the cistern will overflow - I have fogotten twice already!  You don't even want to know how long it took me to get ready this morning, with water boiling to be done and hair rinsing with a cup only. Will need a 5 am start most days at this rate.  But hey, on the upside the cold shower might be fixed by the time I get back tonight!!!  We have no idea how good we have it until we leave it behind!!

I am now embracing another plumbing crisis as the office toilet has a sign on it 'for urination only' and yes, this one doesn't even flush. I haven't worked up the courage yet to ask about ....well lets not go there on this blog, especially if you are reading it during your lunch hour!! Last time I grumble about the toilets back in Gogarburn!

Must go and do what I am here to do and stop stressing over Kitwe plumbing.  (Although may be shopping for a toilet seat in my lunch break today!).

Love from Zambia! x

BA lounge - London!

Phew!  Made it through the Edinburgh snow down to London.  Typical it has to snow the day I am leaving. Had a small delay due to a technical problem with the plane - given my current run on technical clitches that is no surprise.   

It was the turn of my iPod to get sick now - it sadly passed away some time during the day on Tuesday and was just not for reviving.  Admittedly, I am surprised that did not happen earlier given I did accidently sit it in a full cup of water one night while camping - but no time for that story just now!!  Anyway, as a consequence I was sat outside Argos at 8.50 am this morning!  Poor lad on the till was cut short in his well rehearsed narrative for warranties etc. with me barking at him that I just wanted the iPod, so could he just give it to me!!    Well I did have an entire library to load on to it and was leaving for a flight in 1 1/2 hours!  For those of you who might be interested it actually doesn't take long to load your entire iTunes library on to a new iPod!  And I now have a nice new shiny blue one. :-)

Now all I have to worry about is getting 10 pieces of luggage off at Lusaka - it took 3 trolleys to get it in to Edinburgh airport.  :-(     Think I need to go and avail myself of a nice glass of wine courtesey of BA!!

Next blog will be from Zambia - well at least it had better be!!

Enjoy the weather everyone!

:-)-

Major laptop surgery complete!

Success!  The laptop is mended - or at least it appears to be!  New LCD screen fitted by the Dell engineer and the lines have gone.  Must remember to do thank you note to Dell for prompt service - although off course, if it hadn't been faulty in the first place........!!

So sick laptop mended and sick me mended.

Bags are more or less packed and I'm ready to go!  Well after a good nights sleep - assuming I manage to get to sleep at all.

Won't be in Kitwe until quite late on Thursday so might be Friday before I blog again. Unless off course I don't get through customs with my ridiculous amount of luggage!!

Wish me luck - I'm off!!

Best laid plans - and all that!

Minor set back in the organisation and planning this weekend when both me and the laptop got sick! I seemingly managed to get a bout of food poisoning from a vegetarian pizza off all things.  And there was me worrying about getting sick in Zambia!  Anyway, I'm now 2lbs lighter and well on the mend.  Packing is almost done, just slightly later than planned.  Small crisis in having to forgo my last few trips to the gym though.  :-(

However, more seriously there's the sick laptop!  After 3 weeks of fantastic performance it suddenly developed lines on the screen.  Hopefully it's Dell to the rescue who have promised to send out an engineer to work tomorrow to replace the screen.  I am not even going to think about what will happen if it is not fixed!  I have no contingency plan .... other than throwing a tantrum!!

Then there is the fact they are forecasting snow here on Wednesday.  Shovels at the ready at the airport please guys!

Only two more sleeps until I go!  :-)

Castlepark Primary Irvine - the book packers!

I visited the kids in Mrs Davidson's class at Castlepark in Irvine today.  They were the one's who kindly donated the books and helped pack the boxes to go to Zambia -  and even helped push them out to the car to be loaded up. 

Well done kids!  Watch this space to find out if the books make it to Zambia with me!!  With the kind help of BA they should be on the same flight .  Whether I get them through customs or not without a lot of hassle........... well that could be a whole other story!!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm the one that looks just ever so slighly older with the lighter blue jumber on.  :-)  But hey, all credit to me for trying to colour coordinate with the kids uniform!

And off course thanks to Alex for driving me through and lugging the boxes around!  Any chance you can pop over to Lusaka to help me get the boxes off the carousel then Alex?   A wee return flight is all you need!!  :-)

Travelling Light!

Now those of you who know me well, will know that I have a pathalogical inability to pack light!  After all a girl has to be prepared for every eventuality, but even by my standards this is a step too far!  First there is the holdall and case...

Then there is the boxes of books, all 7 off them...

And all of this will be going round the carousel at Lusaka airport for me to pick up ...stressed me, whatever gave you that impression!!

Aargh!!!!!!

12 Days and counting!

It is now just 12 days until I board that flight to Zambia - and I still have so much to do!!  I am lucky to have managed to source some used school books, but it is proving a challenge to get them to Zambia.  And it's not going to be cheap!  It just seems mad when you get schools in this country throwing books out and you have countries in the 3rd world desperate for them, but it costs you a fortune getting them there!  Hmmm the logic of the modern world!!

Then there's the whole PayPal thing - another challenge.

Stress levels are definitely rising now!