Olympic Youth Development Centre - Wednesday 20th April 2011

Today, while each group continued with their great work at each school site, Clint Godfrey, senior lecturer at UCLan was to travel to the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) in Lusaka, to deliver a workshop to Zambian coaches of different sports.

The aim of the session was to let these coaches understand the infrastructure of sport in the UK, and to give them the tools to aid the planning of their own objectives.

The journey to Lusaka was taken on a coach from Kabwe town centre - our local fixer, Shadrick helped Clint and I to get our tickets at the bus station, and we were on our way - a journey of just over two hours to the centre, which is on the northern edge of the capital city.

On entering Lusaka, the huge tower, which mimics an Olympic torch came into view, and we made our way past the security gate into the massive complex, which I have described before. It was much quieter than last week, with no major events taking place, but we could see some football coaching on the astroturf pitch.

The statue at the OYDC to commemorate its
opening on 28 May 2011

The reception area held some mementos of Zambian successes in previous Olympics (incidentally both in the USA), and other Olympic memorabilia, and we met the Centre Director, Clement Chileshe, who explained that while Clint was delivering his workshop, I could work alongside his office staff to look at their communications, and their website in particular.

The session at OYDC ended at about 3:30, and we had expected to be given a lift in to Lusaka, so we could catch a bus back to Kabwe, but we were escorted out the centre to a small market area which was where small minivan buses were parked, and with a bit of help, we got in one, and waited...and waited...and waited.

Typical of the bus which we used to get home -
no bullet holes in this one by the look of it

The place was a hive of activity, with hawkers trying to sell us bubblegum, juice, combs (has anyone seen Clint Godfrey?!), Disney Princess photo albums, and anything that could be shifted. Squeezed into the front passenger seats, looking a a bullethole in the windscreen covered with a sticker of Jesus Christ kind of unnerved us somewhat, but we were where we were, and had no real alternative but to wait on our driver turning up, and he could have been any one of hundreds of men milling around the place.

Along with street hawkers, we had a chance to look around us, in particular, a woman who had crates of chickens she was transporting. She was grabbing them, and feathers were flying; we thought she was about to throttle them in front of us, but she was simply tying their feet together to stop them from flying away. No pictures of any of this, as getting a camera out would have put us into a bit of a sticky situation, so sorry for the lack of pictures today.

We were reassured by the presence of a couple of police cars a hundred yards ahead of us, so knew that we were relatively safe. It turned out that the delay we had was because the national President, Rupiah Banda, was opening a hospital across the road, so we waited on his cavalcade speeding past, and then we were on our merry way.

Now, it only really struck me on the drive back to Kabwe, having finally set off at about 5pm, that the sun sets at 6pm, with total darkness arriving by 6:30. No roadlights meant for an interesting drive for the last hour or so. To be fair, the driver was safe, and never put us in any danger.

The drive home wasn't bad at all, with only a couple of stops to drop off people in the van by the roadside. Arriving in Kabwe at about 7:30, we were met by Shadrick and his taxi friend, as we had phoned ahead to say we were on the way.

Again, the laid back attitude to life in Zambia hit us on the drive through Kabwe to the lodge, when the car ground to a halt, having run out of petrol. The driver simply got out, opened up the boot, got a bottle with petrol in it, emptied it in the tank, and once more, we were on the way home - no worries.

Looking back at his day, Clint was glad that he had managed to build up good links with the OYDC, but felt that there is a different way for students to interact with their tutors in Zambia, and the session was very much a one way street, which he would have preferred to have been more interactive.

The UCLan website has details of the workshop in its news pages.

Back at Mulubila Lodge, it was time for us all to prepare for tomorrow, our final day working in Kabwe.