Home Sweet Home

It's really nice to be back in Livingstone now after a mammoth trip round Zambia over the last couple of weeks. I guess somewhere doesn't feel like home until you go away!

The trip was really interesting though, and after so much moving around for the NAS it's been an adjustment to be in the same office every single day. After last week's workshop I went to visit a volunteer friend in her rural hospital placement. I was really looking forward to catching up with Lena and seeing a different type of VSO life, but was expecting to come back very grateful that I live in such a nice town. Actually, the rural setting was so lovely I could imagine being happy there, and Lena is really enjoying herself. It was a lot of fun catching up, and making yukka (vodka lemonade) with lemons from the tree in the garden! Being shown round the hospital felt like being in a Comic Relief film, and I couldn't help but be a bit envious of the staff who are making an obvious and instant difference to people's lives. Very different to my attempts to save the world through meetings and HR policies!

From Minga I waited 4 hours for a bus (!) an headed East to Chipata, a large-ish town where lots of VSO volunteers are based. I've joined the Volunteer Committee, a group of volunteers responsible for working with the Programme Office in Lusaka to co-ordinate volunteer lives here, and my first meeting was being held in the Eastern Province. After the delayed journey I didn't get chance to see much of the town but it was lovely to see some other volunteer friends, and the meeting was interesting and refreshingly British in style as it's chaired by my British friends Dan and Helen!

To travel from Chipata to Livingstone is a complete mission, we set off at 7.30 in the morning, got to Lusaka around 2 so I had time to visit the VSO office before dinner and then I got the night bus to Livingstone. Arriving at 3 in the morning and going to work the next day wasn't loads of fun, but I was really looking forward to seeing everyone and had a nice day catching up with colleagues.

Today I'm awake again, and very distressed to be missing what looks like it might be the most exciting election of my lifetime! I'll look forward to reading about it in Guardian weekly in a week's time I guess...