104th Harare Agriculture Show

On the second day here I actually got to go to the annual Agriculture Show, which displays all kinds of businesses of Zimbabwe in a huge and I mean huge fair. We were four Finnish volunteers, one Finnish living in Zimbabwe and three Zimbabwean students for our protection plus the two orphans Munashe and Loveness Chiko. Our favourites were probably all the animals and especially the caramel coloured chicken(You can achieve that colour by spraying food colour on to the eggs!) as well as the horses: There was actually a game of "Reise nach Jerusalem" on horse back - very funny.

This fair is mainly meant for every Zimbabwean to get the chance to get to know his country or show off his own skills. Of course, it is also used for doing a lot of marketing, exchanging contact details and sharing knowledge, e.g. about the way how to keep chicken in your yard. Moreover, this is meant for kids and fun. There are lotteries, a few roller coasters, horse rides and many, many animals, which need to be admired. The only thing we didn't find were cow feet, apparently a real delicacy here. Funnily enough, I didn't mind not eating them ;)

Task Number One - still ongoing and probably will not be finished

The first few days were spent with getting to know the place and even more important learning all the different names and faces. Well, actually I am kind of still learning them; of the 390 kids I probably can connect names and faces of sixty.

By the way except for the faces of the really little ones, the people here look really different from each other but also in a different way than we do. The hair colour or style here rarely offer you any hints, however on the one hand every person here is as unmistakeable in their looks, behaviour and attributes as we are. On the other hand they all still share similar trademarks, which are simply different from us. For instance, these people are far more open, welcoming and maybe also happier than we are. At the same time punctuality or time management in general isn't their biggest strength. So usually one should always differ between English and African time as African time tends to be one hour later or perhaps the described distance of 15 minutes turns with our pace into 5. What I can say about these people is that they are all worth to get to know too and that we can learn a lot from their attitude to life in general. 

"Ruwa" and Shona in general

Let's answer the first obvious question: Why Ruwa? Well, the answer is very simple: It means flower(everybody who knows me, can figure out the rest) in Shona, the main language in Harare, the main capital of Zimbabwe.

Besides the omnipresent English, which actually is at least in Dzivara Sekwa the language in school even in Grade One, there are two main languages in this country: Shona and Ndebele. While Shona is more a Bantu Language, which resembles dialects in Mozambique, Ndebele derives from Zulu, which now probably does sound familiar. Don't worry if you didn't get it immediately, I also needed to be reminded that this is the main ethnicity in South Africa.

Apparently Shona and Ndebele aren't very similar, as one Dzikwa student from here, Clive Jonga, is now studying acting in Bulayawo(the other big city in Zimbabwe) and first he actually had to take a language course in Ndebele so that he could follow his lessons! But he is now in his third year and has adapted very well, yet I believe the reason for that are more his own ambitions and the work ethic Seppo and Oili teach at Dzikwa.

However, since I do live in a Shona region and don't see the point in failing in two languages, I only know a few vocabs in Shona, such as "Mamuka sei?", "Maswera sei?", "Ndirisei?" and "Makadi?", not to forget "Muri rayiti?" and "Uri rayiti?" which pretty much all mean "How are you?" and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg! Otherwise the one word that makes really everybody laugh, is the word "Sekerera" (=Smile) - very useful if you have to take photos of kids =D

So a life full of "sekerera" to you all and "Tonana".

Wo die Welt mich hinverschlagen hat...

Hey my dear ones,

as all of you probably know, I am at the moment in Zimbabwe doing a social voluntary project with Dzikwa Trust, an organisation, which supports orphans and especially orphans, who have lost their parents to Aids. Dzikwa Trust was founded by Oili Wuolle and Seppo Ainamo and at the moment they are responsible for 390 children. If you want to know more, you should check out their website Zim-orvot ry or the facebook page: Zimbabwen Aids-orvot ry/Zimbabwe Aids Orpans Society

Right now I am living at Seppo's and Oili's house, which we all call Pagomo, with their two cute babies(dogs) Mikko(lively) and Esko(lazy). Mikko adores Fetch (usually with tiny sticks so he can't find them anymore) and War of Tag, whereas Esko prefers to spend the whole day on the sofa and be scratched ... until a car drives by, then he jumps into action and beats every dog in the neighbourhood in barking the obviously ill-meaning passers-by into retreat. So you can see, to my eternal surprise I have mutated into an absolute dog lover.

And here my cuties: Esko and Mikko - both doing their favourite things.

At Dzikwa Center in the town area Dzivara Sekwa one then can find Oili's and Seppo's other children, who belong more or less to the homo sapiens race ;)

The kids of Dzikwa range from four to twenty-four years old and each of them has gotten the chance to go to school, because of Oili and Seppo. In addition, they receive a hot meal every day, they can participate in social, cultural and sport activities and they get other kind of opportunities and support such as finding further education possibilities and the really important medical support, which we would believe as guaranteed in the Western world. If you asked any child here, you would always hear and see that all of them are deeply grateful and happy for the chance Dzikwa has given them. Or as the mother of one child said yesterday: "God bless you, Oili and Seppo!"

I am incredibly lucky and happy to be part of this great team running the small and big tasks that make this a well-organized and very helpful NGO.

Also the kids here are lovely and very welcoming so that you pretty easily find yourself part of a game or helping a learning group. That's pretty much what happened in my first picture in this blog. I was about to comfort little Spale (Spalencyia) in the blue dress, when suddenly five little girls were braiding my hair =D

By the way at Dzikwa Center, you can also find two cute dogs waiting, called Dooris and Rex. 

                                    

This game is called "Tag of Hair"-who can do the tightest braid? XD