Zambia

Now for a post about Zambia. This was my second time working with Habitat For Humanity (I went to Hungary in 2007) and it was just incredible - pretty tough work but so rewarding, and what an experience!
Please prepare yourself for a seriously long post. Epic post!

Also for any of you who don't know where Zambia is (just in case like) here is a little map.

After a day in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, we made the five hour bus journey to the Ndola where just a couple of miles outside the city, the township of Twapia was located. We were straight to work the day after arriving. The work was pretty hard and even though it was only between 24 and 27 degrees the whole time we were there, while you're working it would often feel way hotter. Not much of a tan was got though unfortunately as we were all constantly coating ourselves in sunscreen. 

This was what the site was like when we arrived. 

The kiln made out of bricks to bake the bricks 

Window Putty Man

Cutting the ribbon at the Closing Ceremony

For the building, our team of twelve students from NUIG was divided into two teams of six and we went to two separate sites (the site in all the pictures above was the site I was on) and we also visited a third site on two occasions. We were quite proud of ourselves with all the work we got done. As you can see we almost finished the whole house in the two weeks we were working on it. 

One highlight of our time in Twapia was the amazing kids that roamed around the township, constantly asking us how we were and what our names were. Their fascination with us meant that they were never far from the site or the houses we were staying in. They also loved getting their photo taken and seeing them displayed on the screen afterwards. 

They went apeshit for the bubbles!

My entourage 

One of the girls being brave

The living conditions in the township were very basic. No running water, plumbing or electricity. We were all even seriously missing chairs by the end of the first week. The toilet facilities were rough to say the least. Ladies who lived in the area cooked our meals for us and a lot of nights after eating the would come in to us and make us all sing and dance - no matter how tired we were, it would always be great craic! In return for them singing and dancing every night we would also have to sing some Irish songs for them, so after trying out pretty much every song we ever learned in primary school, we settled on the English translation of a very catchy Gaeltacht song called Baby Shark, and a shortened ten verse version of Ro Ro the Rattlin' - neither of which I'm sick of despite singing them about twice a night every night for two weeks! 

So that's all I have to tell ye now. I'm sure I think of something else to say and I'll just add it to the post I'll do about Nsobe Game Park (a safari park we went to after all the work was done).

Cheers for reading,

Jane 

Map via google.images.com