Apologies....

Hi Everyone!!

I'm soooo sorry it's been such a long time since I managed to update this page. It has not been as easy as I thought to get to the internet - the college system has been down for weeks. But now it's back and I promise not to neglect it so much in the future. Please forgive me!

So....I have completed my first month in placement. Overall, let's say I found it challenging!! Of course everyone is lovely and its a nice environment here. But, as is often the Afrikan way, things take a very long time to get started, and as I'm used to being so busy it took quite some adjustment and I found it frustrating at times. But with a little help from my friends, and a lot of help from the Lord, I'm doing much better now. We've been for a week of extension training and I used the time to take a step back and shift my perspective and expectations. So I've come back to college determined to have a positive attitude towards everything and to make things happen - assertive Claire is well and truly back! It may have only been a week, but so far it's working.

And I'm finding and/or creating lots of things to keep me busy. We had a drama competition on an HIV theme, which went really well and was a great way to have fun and spread our message at the same time :) We're also having a beauty pageant next week - I'm not thrilled about this, especially as we're supposed to be challenging gender stereotypes, but Zambians are obsessed with them and all the colleges have them, so there was nothing I could do! But at least it's also supposed to have an HIV theme, and it seems to be being done in the right spirit. It is Women's Day on Saturday, so we're having a march for that. Then Youth Day next Wednesday too - we're still deciding our programme for that - things always happen at the last minute here, no matter how hard you try to be organised (another thing I'm slowly adjusting to!) - the Ministry of Education sets the theme for colleges to work to, but has'nt released yet. But we still have three working days!

Aggie and Deo left us as planned at the end of February to go to their college in Livingstone. So now I'm here just with Chitalu. That partnership hasn't been quite as easy as I hoped either, but it's fine and I've come to terms with the fact that we probably won't ever be best buddies. As we're just the two of us now, we're not allowed to live in the house together, so it's all change there too. He's moving out and going to the hostels, and I have two female students - Albertina and Patience - living with me. I can't say too much as they've just moved in this afternoon, but they both seem lovely so I'm sure all will be fabulous.

We only have 4 more weeks left in this term, and then we have a nice holiday for April, so time is passing fairly quickly. But I will make concerted efforts to update this more than once before then! Thankyou so much to all of you who are keeping in touch - needless to say I miss you all.

Lots of love and prayers

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