MARY REID BLOGS FROM LIVINGSTONE, AND WE'RE OFFERING A BRILLIANT DISCOUNT!

Zambia - Teaching & Education - Teaching, Orphan Care and Community Development Project, Livingstone

Mar 16, 2011

Mary Reid is a Princeton University graduate and currently enrolled in the Princeton in Africa Fellowship programme as one of our community project coordinators in Livingstone, Zambia

Read on for her heart-warming anecdotes from the projects and people of Livingstone, as well as our amazing discount on all placements booked before the end of April 2011.

"As I left a recent meeting at Mwandi Community School, I paused outside the office door. Mwandi sits where the land swells above its surroundings, west of the town of Livingstone and skirting the edge of Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. The sky was wide open, and I could see the billowing mist from Victoria Falls in the distance.

My first visit to Mwandi had been over six months before. We had just finished the talent show, a big event for all the schools that we work with. I had been at work for maybe two weeks; I was barely more informed than a volunteer! I was to drive some of the schoolchildren and the headmistress, someone I’d never met, back to Mwandi. It’s about 15 minutes away, partially on a horrendously potholed dirt path. The kids sang and chanted the whole way. As I drove toward the setting sun, I was in awe. I remember feeling so charmed and exhilarated – by the foreign language, by the children’s enthusiasm, by the bumpy road, by the sunset, by the Victoria Falls.

As I stood on Mwandi’s porch, I realized that the thrilling new has become the comfortable familiar. I’ve now been out there countless times. I had just left an incredibly productive meeting with the headmistress; she’s no longer a stranger but a reliable partner. But the view is different, and not just because the spray from the Falls has grown larger in the past months. Mwandi has not relocated or changed, but my perspective has. Now I don’t just see the openness and a landmark’s distant mist. I see Nakatindi, another school where I’ve spent hours unloading bricks, reading to children, teaching physical education. I see the area where I spent an afternoon bagging dirt for a garden. I see the spray from the Falls, sure, but now I think – hey, the Zambezi is up, is it too high to raft? That means it’s fishing season soon…

Our meeting was an attempt to start 2011 on the right foot. We reviewed what we’d done at Mwandi in the past and discussed the effectiveness of our volunteers and the structure of their projects. The sports program needed more structure, they said. We agreed to follow the national curriculum more closely in our physical education courses and only to send two volunteers as to not distract other classes. We honed the plan for our reading clubs, following their suggestion of focusing on a handful of kids who need the help the most. We toured their unfinished ablution blocks and discussed the possibility of helping them complete it.

I wouldn’t have even known how to begin that meeting seven months ago; I had no clue how to balance our philosophy and capabilities with the community’s needs and ideas. In the same way that my perspective on the landscape changed, so has my perspective on the projects. I used to see the shell of the empty landscape – the core structure and what the volunteers were meant to do – and now I see the history, the context, the personal details of each project. I can remember what has happened in the past; I can critically examine them; I can populate that empty landscape with thoughts and ideas. I’m no longer giddy with excitement at all the newness, but now I get waves of a different, more fulfilling feeling of satisfaction that I’m learning, helping, and, instead of being a tourist, really living here. "

Read more about volunteering at our community projects in Livingstone, Zambia
Teaching Volunteering - Book before the end of April 2011 and save 15% or GBP 150 / USD270 / E195 on this project
Medical Volunteering
Sports Volunteering