Update life and work in Lubango
Dear readers, in the past few weeks my life here in Lubango went on, as normal, had work to do and days flew by. There were moments of joy, for example the nice encounters with team members, work that gives lots of opportunities to expand and the arrival of my car. But there were also moments of sorrow, when for example we heard from a mother of young children had died, due to cancer. Also sad, but from another order, is that some of my SIM team members will leave this week for home assignment.
A week ago I have spoken with my team leader from prevention about my functioning at work. I was thinking about leaving the teaching part to my local colleagues, since my Portuguese comes across less well than that of the local colleagues. My team leader would rather not see this happening, because it may happen more often in the future that we have to split up as a team because of the increase of prevention classes or if someone drops out due to vacation / illness, I am also needed. Hmm ... still good to continue my classes in Portuguese language. So far we have also given the prevention classes two by two in health clinics throughout Lubango. Two of our team gave the information to the nurses and two to the waiting patients, among them are often many mothers with children & pregnant women. And sometimes one of the colleagues translated everything into the local tribal language, depending on the target group.
With the arrival of my car I have been given more freedom to explore the city and also to visit SIM colleagues in the evening, for the evenings were rather quiet. Well you will think haha THE time to learn more Portuguese! Which it is sometimes, but in general my head is too tired to think about this and I am in bed by 9:30 p.m. At the same time, with the arrival of my car, a more "aggressive" driving style has come (gradually..), instead of defensive, as we learn in the Netherlands. So this is the superlative, if you don't teach yourself this, then you can just keep waiting for hours :-) I also hope that I will get two more eyes on the side of my head, because very often a motorbike suddenly pops up left or right from me. They have had few lessons, which leads to risky situations. Driving in the dark is also a challenge, because the street lighting is not always optimal and people think that there are pedestrian crossings everywhere ... which are actually increasingly popping up in the city and also being used more and more, but unfortunately not by everyone. It is therefore nice to have a colleague or friend next to me in the car, during many journeys. It is a very good sign that the provincial government is putting more and more energy into improving the roads in the city; the population is also happy about this. Last week quite large gaps were suddenly closed!
They say here that the winter season has arrived, though I don't notice this during the day, it feels even warmer than in the rainy season. It is true that it is cooler in the evenings and in the early mornings. In July and August at night, it can be close to freezing.
I am going to conclude… by saying that I am looking forward to the coming month, in which it will not only get colder, but in which we also receive, for two weeks, some visitors from Hope For Our Sisters, the organisation who funds the prevention and after-care program.
Beijinhos!
Irene
