My new home(s)

Our room a the Shelter - the left one is our bed.

I have been telling you a lot about my work at the Dzikwa Center, but somehow I haven't yet mentioned how my day around that work looks like. That means this post is about living in Zimbabwe.

Well, somehow it happened that I found two homes at the same time. The one is at Pagomo, where Oili and Seppo live. It's a very nice place.

However, that seemed to good to be true and I didn't feel this was appropriate for volunteering in Africa. For Oili and Seppo it is just right as they simply need the internet for their work and they have to be able to host many different guests, but yeah most of the other Finnish volunteers were living at a different location, so I kind of moved to it, too: 


  Letwin, Joyline and Prisiclla 
          snuggling up:
It is called the Shelter and there the children, who are the over 18 Dzikwa children with too difficult home situations. Plus, at the Shelter live the head of ICT, Nyaradzai, a lovely person and great Shelter Mom, Alouise, the Head of Cultural Activities and a good teacher in nearly all subjects. Then I shouldn't forget Edina, a social worker, who is really committed to Dzikwa, as she has taken over the custody for the two siblings Letwin(a beautiful voice) and Joyline(the baby of the Shelter), who are under 18 and couldn't otherwise be living at the Shelter. Let's continue the introduction of the Shelter People: Blessing and Tonderai are our two boys, who are both in Upper Sixth and close to having their A-Level Exams - that's why I have taught Blessing a few of my tricks for learning, such as getting the blood into your head with a headstand and have been discussing with Tonderai the French Revolution. Not to forget, in the girls room one will also find Rachel, one of the most happy persons in the world, who is at the moment training to become a dentist, Michelle, a great singer and dancer, Bridget and Theresa.

And finally there are we, the volunteers. At the moment it's slightly crowded as we have four Finnish volunteers and me from the "Finnish-German" delegation ;) So there is Satu who came on the same day as me, who is one of the most lovely persons I know and who aspires to become a doctor for children. Then last week Sara and Jenny arrived the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, where they are studying Social Studies. They're also very nice and engaged people. Last, but not least, there is Simon, one of the more rare male volunteers, who also just finished his A-Levels and is mainly involved with the forestry project and the environmental side of Dzikwa Trust.                                                                                                                                 Satu and me - keeping the                                                           Shelter shiny with Cobra Polish  

At the Shelter, we girls share a room, which is pretty nice and has three beds of which one is so big that I can actually share it with Satu. The only problem is missing cupboard space so my stuff mostly stays at Pagomo and I exchange it, when I go to Pagomo to use the Internet there. Skype and Facebook are very much needed, when one is writing the own University Application or ones birthday.