To my Hornsjo :)

´Halloooo heeeeey my beatuiful people, I m sending a greeting to everybody from this

amazing place :) It is not even one day without a memory on you guys. On a beginnig it

´was for me really difficult to don t see your faces around me (even now it is) but I keep

them in my mind and it makes a light in my eyes everytime when I missed that :)

FIRST REPORT ( ONE MONTH )T H E B E G I N N I N G O F T H E W A Y . . .

Something about ENVIRONMENT where my self is moving

You know, time is running very fast but...it is not everywhere like that. Here, in Zambia,

time doesnt exixst so I cannot even see if its runnig or not. Place where I stay, Mongu

town (western province) is quiet large, it has 44.000 of inhabbitans, but even if its town,

it has very very long way to europian towns which we are used to. Its more like a village

(big village) with a center where you can find some ''normal houses'' as a different kinds

of shops and pubs and things like that which looks quiet funny because the names of the

shops and some easy graphics is not printed but its hand made ( I like that a lot) and

every time when I'm passing that center I feel like between a theater scenes (just these

mountains of rubbish and sometimes dead dogs/ that its not so funny). But if you sights

your steps direction borders of the town you will see absolutely different world. In my

opinion ''true Africa'' !! Hundred and hundred slams everywhere!! People are living just

under some straw porch, almost naked children running around between the chickens

and dogs (if they have), mothers or young girls are cooking or washing clothes in front of

the houses (fathers disappeared how it seems to me, but maybe they ''work''). What is

really amazing, almost every house has minimal one mango tree, and now its starting

mango season so even people who don't have nothing to eat, they have at least their

mango tree. This is one of the most common plant what you can see here, its growing

very well in a sand which its completely EVERYWHERE!!! But also a lot of keshu trees (for

people who want to try eat keshu in Africa one advice: never roast keshu nuts inside of

the house if you don't want to become poison). Actually a lot of plants is growing here

and if you look around, you will see just green because rain season is almost here so its

raining every day, sometimes very heavy rain ( that is something, its like standing under

the waterfall) and sometimes just a little shower but anyway, sun is still shining and

sometimes is little bit too much for me, you know, in these times I'm just waiting for

some cold drops from the sky. People told me, that in a January, Zambezi river (which is

around 25km far away from Mongu) will come almost to the town, around 4km from

here, because this area is very flat, just this town is on a small hill, so in a rain season it

looks more like a sea view. I want to see that already. And in that time, animals what live

in a flood plane are running away from the river, so probably we will see a lot of them in

that time, mostly hippos, zebras and elephants. Imagine :D What is concern to animals,

you cannot see so many here, I mean wild animals, mostly people raise cattle, goats and

chickens. Otherwise here is a lot A LOT of different kind of insects. Beautiful kinds of

butterflies and moths, a lot of kinds of bugs which I never seen before, especially one of

them, my favorite, looks like a big green leave but if you look closer, you can see legs and

eyes and......its just beautiful. Till now I didn't meet something what could be dangerous,

or I think that :D nothing bite me or snitch me (just some dozens of mosquitoes).

Something about people: Most of the people here are very friendly and the reaction

when they see mukua (white people) are sometimes very funny, especially small

children, who are competing between each other who will be the most brave and touch

on you. Adults are mostly just smiling at you or greeting you, of course some of them

just scream on you “give us money” or similar things but it is really rarely. Otherwise

they are are very slow with every every everything, you don't see them walking fast or

running so much, also they speak slower than us. The only thing what is really fast here

is their dance and music ( maybe they save their power for that) which is everywhere

especially on Saturday when they have traditional dances and music, but people are

really singing on every place, on a street at home in a bus on a fields in a churches (music

haven :), amazing!

A! I almost forget my house. Its normal house which I share on a half part with my

neighbors. Its really big for me, a lot of space, bathroom (sometimes we have water as

well), toilet (also water just sometimes), huuuuge corridor (full of nice spiders), kitchen

with microwave cooker and 2 big rooms where in one stay my mate Toshi from Japan.

But you have to clear up that every day because of the sand and that is something, the

space is really large. Electricity we have almost all the time, just on Sunday they cut it of,

maybe for saving energy, I don't know. My office where I work is like 2km faraway from

my home so its nice walk every day:) But the sand is very soft so you feel that you walk

much more than 2km. Around office is a lot of children who are use to visit us there

every day, but mostly they come to visit especially my laptop and my camera.

I think that maybe I should say already something about my work :D

The work, the fun, the . . .

I will try to describe everything what we are doing here, for better overview. Lot of

things :D

OK. DAPP HOPE project structure looks like this:

We are working with 3 ''categories'' of people:

1) Development groups (extreme poor people) - 60groups/every has

20members/1200p.

2) Support groups (people living with HIV/AIDS) - 120groups/ every has

20members/2400p.

3) Youth clubs (usually people from 10 to 22 years old, but sometimes as well as 25-

30)

- 5 youth clubs/every has 20 members/100p.

So together we are working with 3700 of people.

Activities with the groups and others:

The aim of the project is equipped community with the skills to start its own income

generating activities so as to become a self-reliant and also change of attitude and

behavior in the community and reduce stigma and discrimination in order to fight the

spread of HIV/AIDS.

We are giving to people different kinds of workshops like livestock management or

gardening management, after that workshops people receive after some time animals

(goats or chickens) or some seeds (corn, soya beans, moringa seeds). Every group has

one chairperson who is chosen by the members of the group and those persons have

extra workshops called ''training of trainers'' where we give them more information

3 CO - PROJECT LEADERS 2 DIs

10 COMMUNITY MOBILIZERS

PROJECT LEADER

which they can share in their groups, so we can save time to go to every group

separately and organize workshops there. We have 16 areas and every community

mobilizer is responsible for one or two area. I'm use to go with them for livestock

monitoring, so we can see how people take care about the animals, if they have a good

environment (enough of space, fences, porch for lying the eggs, keeping tidy etc.). But

sometimes is problem because some of the people instant of raising just eating and than

they told you, that chicken died or it was stolen.

But some of the people really care and its nice to see how animal population is growing.

So I'm trying to share with them some knowledge what I have from my home or which I

have from other people here. But my main work is giving lessons in a support groups

which are mostly mobilize by one of the community mobilizer, and also community

mobilizer assist to me in a lesson because not all of the people are able to speak English,

most of them speak local language which is called Lozi (I already catch some words, so at

least I can greet them, and you should see the faces if you start to speak in Lozi, they are

very happy for that and they are laughing a lot, so nice :D I'm planing to learn as much

as possible), also people gave me Lozi name because they couldn't pronounce Jitka, so

my new name here is Sybe or Sybeso :D The lessons are mainly focus on positive living

and basic fact about HIV/AIDS. But a lot of time it happen that the lesson is canceled, and

the reasons are easy, it was raining and in a rain people are not so active and they don't

like to get soaked, or they had funeral or wedding, or they had to go to doctor or they

have visitors and etc. etc. many many reasons. But the true reason is that they are just to

comfortable to come. But what I like the most, the meetings are usually under a big tree

what is so beautiful. Usually I'm trying to include some pictures to my lesson because I

see that they get sharpen when they see picture :D like a small children. But I think that

people really listen what I'm telling to them and that make me happy and they like to

discuss about the issues which is very good, but what I have seen women are more shy

than men, men like to speak a lot about everything and they are going to the details,

sometimes very funny. But the most they like issue of condoms, these are discussions for

hours :D But that means that people think about that a lot which is very good. This week

I'm going to exercise with one support group, I guess that I will have great time with

them.

The second group I work with is youth clubs. We have meeting every week, I'm use to

visit 4 youth clubs till now, we have meetings every Tuesday and every Saturday. The

topics of lessons are mainly focus on a problems of HIV/AIDS because its very important

to inform especially young people. On a beginning of every lesson I'm playing with them

some games because they like to play so much and for some of them is that reason to

come next time, and the second, or maybe this is the first reason for some of

them,refreshment, you know, they are still hungry so usually I buy some cookies from

our budget and some juice and after every lesson we are sitting and eating and

..speaking just a little bit because everybody is busy with a food :D But some of them are

very smart and they are really interested about a lessons. On a beginning I made a little

research in between the youth clubs about the things what they like to do the most

and...I found out that they don't have so many activities and usually I see them just

hanging around, but the most of the people likes dance, so I decided to organize dance

competition between the clubs, but there is problem with transportation many and we

need also find some sponsors for that action, so this is my task for January. I wish you see

that faces if I told them about dancing competition :) Next week (before the Christmas)

we are planing to make condom demonstration with one youth club, we will make some

posters, transparent, lief lets and we will go through the town and talk to people about

that issue. Its necessary to make them busy and I think that they will enjoy because its

the first time when they will do something like this. In one youth club we were

demonstrate a tipp-tap and it has very big success between a people because they never

seen that before and everyone wanted to try that. The hygiene situation is here

sometimes really bad.

I have been also in one basic school together with Toshi to give a lesson, basic facts and

world HIV/AIDS situation. We had prepared for children some games and some quizzes

and the headmaster of that school made an appointment with us for a next month.

Also we contacted with a local prison, because the HIV situation is more than terrible

there (65 from 100 of tested people are HIV positive and the rest of them what is 500 is

not tested yet) and I hope that it will be not just one visitation because it is not enough.

And the first of December we participated in a world AIDS day, we just wen to the march

with a people which was great! You know, almost all of the people there were people

with HIV and you should see how the life is circling in their body, some of the healthy

people should take an example from them, they were enjoying every second there, we

went through the town and around, they were singing and dancing and screaming all

the way, so big energy, really. Amazing people. Some of the support groups prepared for

that day dramas, but I couldn't understand because it was in Lozi, but I believe that the

meaning was on a right place :)

Ou, and I almost forget to write about my ''office work'' what is catching of chickens

which we have behind the office, this is the most funny job ever, hunting chickens

together with local children:D We are running after chickens which are supposed to go

to people from support groups, so this activity I carry on almost every day, but you can

really enjoy that, screaming of depressed chickens combine with view on tireless

running small people:)

MY WORKING TIMES...

Few words on the end..

Thank you to everyone who is reading this report and I hope that you have a good time

in Hornsjo and everything is going how it should go. Its difficult to write something on

the end because it seems to me like a parting so I can just say..... I WEAR SHOES!