food for thought

Newkabanana’s woman’s club gathers every Sunday at 14:00, today we joined the meeting and were asked to give a cooking demonstration. This village is just outside Choma township and a low cost area.

Street Art

It is very fashionable to have a fence in the real Africa, the only good thing about them are the painted advertisements which sometimes are very nice pieces of art. This one is on the route to the big Choma market.

Sweet Home Mochipapa

The next 6 months I will live in this nice, white house in Mochipapa, a high cost area in Choma. The semi-attached houses once belonged to the Choma Milling Company and they are one of the few that do not have a walled fence.

new patterns

Mr. Zulu, mr. Kundigwa en mr. Ngulumbu have arrived this morning in Lusaka to meet me and we had a nice talk about the work they expect me to do, tomorrow I will drive with them to Choma! Moreover Ms Zulu has a sewing machine so I might be able to create some nice shoulderbags from the beautiful fabrics that I have seen here.

(t)raining

This week we have VSO in country training about the different aspects of Zambian Culture, development, gender issues etc. We stay on the campus of the University of Zambia which is absolutely the most green and lush campus I have ever seen, due to all the rain!

Wanna be a millionaire?

My monthly allowance is 2.2 million Kwacha, a text message to Netherlands is about 410 Kwacha and a nice chocolate bar is 11.000 Kwacha. Off course we had to do some shopping after receiving our allowance over February and March in cash..

Braaii

Today we had a bustour in Lusaka and met many other VSO's over a nice Braaii and Mosi's. (beer not the mosquitos) I managed to take this picture from the bus of one of the shanty's in Lusaka. Due to the rain large parts of these dense areas are flooded.

Away we go (screening on BA255)

Lusaka is rainy, but nice warm, it is good to be here but also still a bit strange, cars drive on the left but they use the metric system and they are testing on malaria at the expat shopping centre and next to that they are advising on micro finance. Lusaka consists of as many contradictions as any city in the world. That is what I saw on my first day here. miss u.

SKWIDland

Last 4 days I stayed in SKWIDland! it is a fictional country in which 10 volunteers participated to obtain a lot of understanding about working in a developing country. I have practiced various skills I will definitely use in Zambia. Just 4 more nights left in Den Haag!

10 days to go

Just 10 nights to count down before replacing my home to the much warmer country of Zambia! Time for finally packing the christmas decorations and enjoy the people & things that I will miss most.

links

It all comes together in Vienna; SCUPAD committee, old en new, FLUC, east en west, space invaders (invading the world with streetart), Schraubenfabrik (creative industry) and my articles in "Planning through Projects"exhibited in the museumshop. Imagine this in a backdrop of sepia colors and cobblestone streets with Austrin beers and wiener melanges, enough ingredients for a perfect weekend.

Photography of cities

photos by Bas Princen (Dutch architect and photographer.)

Some of the most lovely photography I've ever seen. I have firstly encountered his photos at the IABR and currently the photos are exhibited in The Hague (Gallery van Kranendonk).