Well after a few visa hiccups, our friends from Zambia finally arrived in the wee hours of Friday morning. Patricia, Chibunda, Kafuko, Jimmy and Humphrey survived the 24 hour flight via South Africa and Australia, to the chilly winter evening in Auckland. Sue, Sonia, Laura and myself greeted them, relieved to see their smiling faces walk through the gates....
Friday was a day to acclimatise to this new land they were in, with a walk around the domain, the museum....and a few coffees and cokes to keep tired eyes awake. They came into the ChildFund office in the afternoon to introduce themselves, get to know our fantastic team here in Auckland. After some cake, laughter and sharing, we headed down to the beach for fish'n'chips....however, the chilly southerly changed our direction into the curry restaurant - which was a good move.
Earlier start on Saturday, with much fresher faces today as the jet lag begins to wear off, we head to Papakura Marae for a powhiri for our Zambian guests. Julie and the team at Redhill Primary kindly arranged this for us. It was a moving and spiritual welcome, with Humphrey from ChildFund Zambia saying that it felt very close to home for him. The symbols, the carvings, the ancestry and the spiritual importance all had very close ties to Zambian traditions.
And day 2 in New Zealand even saw a piece on the maori tv news that evening - click on this link
So now the team has dispersed around the country - Kafuko is with Cheryl in Greymouth, Patricia with Bridget (and Dan) in Ohakune, Jimmy in Hamilton with Elzette and Chibunda in Papakura with Julie. And Humphrey is trying to get around to visit them all....
So watch this space - the teachers will take it from here and fill in the blog daily to keep us all up to date with the various adventures around the country.
Sally
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