Okay so here we go…Nooooo…to the very last week in Zim..Why?! So the week was quite hectic I joined Daniel at his weekly breakfast club meeting on Wednesday 30.01.19 at the Harare Dawn Rotary Club, I met up with the lovely Andrea-the founder of Kidzcan on Tuesday 29.01.19- I run a motivational speech for all my fellow colleagues on Wednesday again…and I managed to sort out my flight back to London on Thursday…

During my stay we worked, we laughed, we danced, we created memories and ultimately I and Kidzcan became FAMILY and I will never forget such a learning experience.

See you soon 😁

Above you can see some pics from my presentation on Wednesday 30.01.19. Believe me we all had a good time and mainly I managed to draw the attention on ‘work as a team & act now’.

So the second full week in Zimbabwe, Harare, saw the highly anticipated return of Internet – it felt amazing to being woke up by the whistle.. the whistle..the notification whistle I mean!! it really felt good, reassuring.

The week had been very busy at Kidzcan, as we were all catching up emails and I tried to gather as many as information as possible from the finance & non team, to adequately review their systems and make my recommendations for best practice. At the end it was a very productive week, where I also had the honor to take part on Wednesday 23.01.19 to the weekly talk @ Capitalk 100.4 fm with the lovely sister Charity- Clinical and Psicosocial officer at Kidzcan.

During my stay the biggest star in Zimbabwe Oliver Tuku died and to commemorate this tragic loss we all wore either black scarfs or bandanas..Mind the smiles..it’s just nerves…

During the weekend I managed to join Maureen -fundraising officer at Kidzcan- and Daniel to help her celebrating her granddaughter birthday party… and as it happens a butterfly decided to lay on my hand for about 2 hours…I’m growing wings now back in London 🙂

So the first full week in Zimbabwe starts ..umm let’s say with Bang!! Literally!! In fact from the 14.01.19 (Monday) until the end of week there were national protests, Internet shutdown, strikes and so on… that meant that I worked from my Lodge for a few days (Monday to Wednesday) and spent the other 2 working days in the office but for security reasons we only did half day. …Scary…Absolutely not!! I came to Zimbabwe to help Kidzcan and I was determined to carry on, regardless the unrest!! The show must GO ON!!

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Above you can see some pics I took with Gift (on the far left) -finance manager at Kidzcan, Nyarai (right in the middle) -finance assistant at Kidzcan, and Ops of my pc … these were taken the two days we spent at the office on Thursday & Friday ( 17-18/01/19).

So I carried on filming myself even during the weekend…just for you guys some little drops of life in Harare…

Well oh oh ! First weekend in Harare! 12/01 & 13/01/19 and the weather is phenomenal! Great! I met up with Daniel ( the executive director at Kidzcan) who decided to make me try the main staple food- Sadza- and make me listen to some modern up beat local music & simply enjoy beautiful Harare on a warm day in January! Let’s go! @beinghappy@befree

Best Street in Harare

Some local music

Some more local music..enjoy!

So…after breakfast.. I finally arrive to Kidzcan…and the reception, the team everyone is just so friendly..so nice to work with… Extremely nice first day at work!

So..what I quickly discovered that Zimbabwe doesn’t have a currency and really all the prices shown in dollars are actually not Us dollars but instead bond notes or Eco-cash…which is like 1 USD: 3.3-3.5 Bond notes…, but careful if you are going to pay in dollars, real money, they will want to make a margin and can trick you into 1:1 ..which is not the case..and it was not the case for me indeed, thanks to my fantastic team! I changed some of my real money into Eco-cash and I was able to buy lunch, dinner..etc…effectively leave my life!

After lunch, various inductions, the day came to an end and I was back in my lodge, eager to have an actual sleep!!!… I managed to sleep btw…

Well, I get picked from the airport by the super lovely Prince from Kidzcan- a fantastic small local NGO which helps children with cancer in Harare in Zimbabwe- charity where I decided to volunteer for 3 weeks, helping them improving their financial and operational systems and policies.

It was dark..ladies and gentlemen…the first thing I noticed was..no street lighting…OMG!!!!…and it got worst when I arrived to my lodge…totally..crazy…I had to use my torch…it was 2-2:30 AM…I felt tired as I have never been before..but happy to be alive after such a journey…

I checked in, I said Goodnight to Prince, who offered to come and pick me up a few hours later to bring me to work…Fantastic!!…and I tried to sleep…but hey it’s Africa!! and there was a massive Garden, right outside my room! so…oh no!! Cicadas…birds…ummm no sleep…believe me!!! and roosters at 6 am!!! Okay …it’s fine I can do it…it doesn’t matter…that was the spirit! I was there on a mission to help..so who cares if I look like a zombie!!!

Wow, where to start…I’m not sure I can just say that as the title suggests I went to Zimbabwe, specifically Harare, this January and it was a Very Interesting experience, to say the least. Let’s say a roller-coaster of different emotions…

After a Very looooong flight (London to Harare)…one transit..Addis ..two planes..extremely noisy fellow passengers… I finally landed in Harare at such an inconvenient time at 1:30 AM on 10.01.19! My Adventure starts right there at the airport….

How? How? After being a victim of a Spanish inquisition at the immigration desk … Still not sure why, since my visa had been issued in about a sec and I was set to go and take my not-so-heavy bag ..when the officer felt dubious (after stamping my passport already!, and having paid already!) and got asked by about 5 different officials if I was o.k. but nothing else…still wondering if something was wrong?!? a lovely young lady comes and starts asking questions about my work, my reasons for being there…same old stories… after about 20 good minutes..I’m finally free and I can actually get my now Heavy bag….Phew!! That was tiring…Already!???

Thank you so much for passing by and even more if you happen to read my stories.