Back from Zambia

G'day

just got back from Zambia - what an amazing experience. I must say, it wasn't all roses. For starters, my living situation was pretty scummy at best. Filthy would be an appropriate word. And I don't know if any of you have heard but there's a major energy crisis is Southern Africa at the mo, which meant large chunks of time with no power. Taking a cold shower is not fun at the best of times, let alone in the dark.

But aside from having an amazing time visiting interns and getting to see Victoria Falls (pictures to come!) I was thoroughly impressed with our training course. "Master Trainers" training course to be exact. Yes, I am now a certified "Master Trainer." I will explain more of that when I really get to know what it means :) We went back and forth between improving the Grassroot Soccer curriculum, team building and exercises in "thinking outside the box", which I loved.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I made it back safe and sound! and here's a little side "small world" story that rivals the one of seeing my ex-Mcgill teamate in the middle of a lake in Taiwan:

I went to see Zambia get annialated 5-1 (vs Cote D'Ivoire I think) last week at a bar in Lusaka. I was sitting next to a friend when I overheard "Canadian" and turned to see her about to intro me to another ex-pat in the crowd. He said "what part of Canada?" to me and I said Halifax. I got a raised eyebrow to the extent that I thought he was one of those snobby Toronto types that forgot Canada had an East Coast but then he said "where'd you go to High School?" I said QE and it turned out he went to St Pats (across the street from QE). I didn't recognize him so I said, " Well I live down the Purcells's Cove Road so I wasn't even supposed to go there". I got 2 raised eyebrows this time and he said he lived on Parkhill Drive (about a 10 minutes walk from where I grew up).

To make a long story short- this guys' name is Nico, he went to school with my brothers and I went to school with his sister Rachel. He's been to my house, met my mom, and I'm pretty sure I can remember him as a little kid. SO BIZARRE. In the middle of Zambia, I meet someone from home. We probably know about 200 people in common.

I'll get those pictures rollin in. Till then ...

In Like a Lamb

Happy New Year!

just in case anyone out there is still reading this :)

I promise to get on the ball soon, however, today won't be the day. Things are slow for the moment in Cape Town. Basically everything shuts down in South Africa from December 15th - Jan 15th as half the population makes a long trek home (usually Western Cape province to Eastern Cape province) to see family. The schools don't get going till next week and even then a lot of kids aren't back yet. The kids who are here aren't settled enough for programs to start.

So that means we get going slowly as well. Grassroot Soccer took advantage of this lull (as it's similar around most of southern africa at least) to hold our Master Training of Trainers course in Zambia. That's where I am headed tomorrow! Some of you may remember me saying I was going to Zam originally and you would be correct. I was only placed in Cape Town in June. So I finally get to see where I would have been - a place that's a little more, well, African.

I probably won't have internet, or if I do it will be reminicent of the days of dial up. In fact, it probably is dial up. So I'll be back on my blog in Feb. No doubt with lots of pretty pictures. I'll try to throw something in here just to make this a little more interesting. Hope everyone's year is off to a great start, more to come soon!

2 of our 4 trainers in Western Cape, Wewe and Lele

taken the same day at a tournament in Cape Flats