OPOWO

The end...

Ok. Now I’m official finished with my year as a SCORE-volunteer.
FINISHED!!!In two days I’m back in Norway, something that is more or less crazy in my head right now…!! J

Rundu - Namibia – Southern Africa. 12 months away from home. 12 months working as a sport-volunteer in a community so totally different from what I’m used to from home.. 12 months of.. challenges, fun and lots of work and travels.
And now it’s over…

The last month went away fast as… nothing. I was SO eager to go home a month ago, but suddenly the time had come, and I didn’t feel ready at all. I hate good-buys.. I hate the thought of leaving these people.. I hate the thought of Norway being so far away.. I hate the thought of not being able to see, talk and hang out with my friends here again.. maybe never again.. Who knows?!

I’m posting a few pictures, just to finish it all up.
Again: CRAZY.

For those of you who have actually checked out my blogg this year. Thank you. For those of you who haven’t.. it’s ok. I can see that one.

Hope everybody will have a fabulous summer!! Old friends and new friends!!
Best regards Lena.

mr Mayisela and me.. the picture tells the whole story...

Vumisa is my boss and my friend. He’s been trying his level best the whole year trying to teach me some life-skills.. I guess I needed that, but if he felt like he succeeded I’m not sure of… I’m kind of a hopeless case..Vumisa is the born boss for an organization like SCORE-Namibia> (= work 24/7)

I have no idea how we would have managed this year without him… So. Thank you Vumisa!!! ;)

End of Service.. last workshop

Going home.. how to deal with it..?

What have we gained from this year?

What have the community gained from having us?

It's a fact guys.. i haven't gotten any better.... I still struggle paying attention and trying to be active in these workshops-settings 100% of the time… (I struggle most of the time to be honest)

Going home. The thought freek me out. I don’t want to talk about it... i don't want to think about it.. (Here with Fredrik- the swedish guy.. who doesn't seem to happy about it either....)

How can I leave these people and be happy???

Thank you guys. For a fantastic year being part of your family!!SCORE-NAMIBIA 2006/2007
Terje – Jonatan – Shadrack – Pemyah – Nyasha
THANK YOU!
(Raviv and Sara.. thank you too. I miss u!)

The last month in Rundu

The last month in Rundu was hectic. I decided to move out from my house-mate, and move to my favourite family The Groobelars. My previouse neighbours took me in their arms when I needed it the most.. and I love them and miss them too much!SCORE On the Move came to Rundu for 4 weeks. Boosting my volunteers and my projects! It was great. They even gave me a boost. It was so nice to show someone what I have been doing the last 12 months. And believe it or not: I actually feel I have vontributed with something in Rundu!!! It feels great. THANK YOU SCORE ON THE MOVE!

Two weeks ago I went to Swakobmund to have a preparation-course for the team going to Norway-cup this summer. It was great.. they’re a great bunch of boys going, and I can’t wait to go to Ekebergsletta in the end of July to cheer for the Namibian Team. (Probably called “the SCORE-team”.)

After that it was more or less time for goodbyes… As I said: I hate it. Tears came flowing like nothing. I spend a lot of time with my friends, and it all turned out nice. I’ll hopefully see them again… some day. My streetboys, my Youth Leads, my NAM-VIP’s, my very good friends in the location, my VSO-friends, my friends at SPARKS and all the others.. It’s CRAZY that I’m leaving them…

My beautiful Boer Family.. The Groobelars

The last 3 weeks I stayed with my very best friends isak and Diana and their two noughty but very nice boys Ia and Fredriech. This is the closest I got to a family down here…. (Lily is there, licking Ia’s face.. she’s of course named after me..! You know... lily... Lillistol.. Lillestol.. They thought it would be rude to call their dog Lena... hehe. )

“Sola er god – sola er toppen”

In my Youth Leads Group, we had one rule saying: If you come too late, you’ll have to sing and dance in front of the rest of the group! The last day I had the honour of coming to late... (of course to everybodys joy, since i’ve always been on time(!))
I told them I’d take the anthem, and I started singing this funny, happy-song:

Sola er god

Sola er toppen

Sola er varm og den bruner på kroppen
Sola den skinner hver morgen for meg
Sola i Rundu, er best synes jeg

They loved it!! They thought we had a fantastic national anthem, and after that I could here my lovely youths singing and humming the song again and again… "sola er god.. sola er toppen..."

My last day with my street-boys…

Again.. how can you leave these people and be happy???

Ahiii—ahaaa… himba-village playing with the kids

I promised a picture of my map-reading in Kamanjab

Reading the map is sometimes easier than it look like! It started out fine, but turned out to a disaster.. ;) WIND my friends.. Kamabjab-inthe midle of nowhere had wind. And i did "learning by doing" find out that WIND and MAP do NOT go togeher.. ;) (Thank you Terje for your help.. and sorry Jonatan for.. not being nice to your map...)

WHAT DO YOU DO- STUCK AT A GAS-STATION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?

Yes, that was us. Came to Otjiwarongo at 3 o’clock in the night, and had nowhere to stay. So… we decided to hang out right there.. 5 hours at a gas-station in the middle of the night.. what do you do?

I’ll tell you: We had a deck of card.. the deck of card was actually our crazy Canadian friend Raviv’s.. and of course, being Raviv’s deck of cards the image on the cards were.. nothing but half-naked ladies!!

When we had nothing else to do, we decided to categorize the ladies. We had 6 categories.
1.Celeberties (ex. Britney Spears, Claudia Shiffer, Christina Aguliera ++)
2. Best looking! (those we all agreed upon)
3. Good looking (those we did NOT agree upon.. seriously Jonatan- one of your “best looking” should have been in the horse-category!!)
4. The Horse-category (eighter they were riding a horse, looked like they were riding a horse or simply: looked like a horse!)
5. Worst looking category and
6. Boring girls. (Those we didn’t even bother look at twice.)

So as you can see.. you don’t have more fun then what you create on your own. HA HA.
(I’ll come back with kamanjab.. where we got stuck for a whole day…)

Wonderful MAY-holydays

Long time. I’ll try to make it short. I’ve been on vacation with my friends for three weeks. A lot of travelling, but it was totally worth it!!! We met up with some of the other Norwegian volunteers in Zambia and we had an amazing time together!!After returning to Namibia we took a round-trip here for a few days, to see some of the other well-known communities. Like opowo, Oshakati and the less known and very different Khorixas.
WE, are in this case: JONATAN, TERJE AND ME. (Madeleine is part of WE in Zambia!)

I could go on forever I guess.. but I wont. I know travelling-letters are boring for everyone except from those who were there…I picked out only a few picks… All of them taken with Jonatans Fancy camera. I had 3 weeks of holydays without my camera.. again. IT WAS GREAT.
I have loads of beautiful pictures of cute kids in the African Suroundings.. but I’ll leave it up to my Swedish friend to put these out on his homepage… www.jonatanrosengren.blogspot.com I really recomand this page… there’s a lot of great photos!

My travellin-mates

Ok.. Jonatan looks crazy. But he’s actually nice,,, :)
Terje- is a volunteer in Namibia with me, and he’s growing beird because of lack of racer-blades and because it’s a cooler and a more grown-up image! I LIKE IT!Madeleine is the lost sibling in the Namibia-family. She was placed in South Africa instead.. but we still keep her close to our hearts. Laila on the other hand is not lost in any ways.. she’s hanging in there like no-one. She’ve had Malaria TWIZE. One worse than the other.. She’ve had diarea most of the year, but is still going strong.. LAILA with the nickname: Slow-poison. (for a reason) Anders is not on the picture. But I’ll describe him: Tall, dark, muscular, with a glimt in his eye. Trynefaktor: 7,5 (DET er da virkelig ikkje ille Anders?!)

Victoria falls-- photosession

Madeleines first reaction when she saw our..yellow friends was: “I want a picture with the yellow people!" And there it is. Exctended SCORE-family!! I'm sorry we missed out on the falls... they are there in the back... they just don't show on my pictures!! hehe... Jonatan will definately put out some GREAT pictures of the falls... So be patient...

VICTORIA FALLS---- BUNGIE JUMPING

I had decided NOT to jump. 111m.. jumping out from a bridge is stupidity if you ask me!! On the other hand.. haven’t we all had that feeling when we walk over a bridge? The feeling when you start thinking: “what If I jump now…?!” I have.. No was my chance to do it… And at the same time: the boys was going to jump, no matter what.. and I’m not a chicken, am i? If they were jumping- I was jumping. No question.It was amazing… WOOOOAAAA… Like flying!

Visiting my friend Anders in his village outside Livingstone

Anders and Chiiko. The kids don’t ALWAYS smile here.. Chiiko loved Anders, but I don’t think she liked the camera in her face at this point. And I don’t blame her… mosongos invating their little homestead and cameras all over. Anders on the other hand… :)

Emely was our host out in the village. She had 4 beautiful kids which she raised on her own. Her homestead was so peaceful and quiet, and nothing there told us about poverty and hunger. They had their corn, their chickens (Madeleine cut the neck of our dinner-chicken the first night! Slowly, slowly with a very bad knife…), their cows, their goats and so on. They had to walk far for water, and there were no electricity. One of my favourite places.... :)

This is probably what will be one of the hardest things for me to handle when coming home. I have hundreds of pictures, but these doesn’t tell the real story. Not even close! The mood, the light, the smells, the sounds, the laughter, the tears, the feeling… The pictures can’t describe how it feels like… And I can’t describe it eighter.. I don’t have the words!

Lena in the “making a better ball-mood”

Kids in playing with the better ball-mood