Our experience of volunteering with Progressio has been amazing. Progressio is promoting a wonderful cross cultural exchange platform for national volunteers in Zimbabwe and the UK volunteers. The UK volunteers are now able to speak basic Shona. They are now copying us with the traditional dress, e.g. wearing a wrap over. We as national volunteers like to dance, however, the UK volunteers still haven’t got the hang of our style of dance. Though they do give it a try and give us a bit of a laugh too.
As part of our learning sessions, we set about trying to teach them how to dance, when we look at them trying to do what we are doing they don’t seem to get it, not moving their hips to the music and being a bit ridged. The difference is that the UK volunteers are always carrying their heavy bags all the time, who knows why or what’s in them. Like tortoises travelling with their homes.
As said previously, we have been doing learning sessions with our group which I am loving. Both the national and UK volunteers have been contributing and we are learning a lot from each other, we have been teaching them different things about our culture, including how to balance things on their head. They are so far not succeeding in this however with a bit of practice (OK a lot of practice) we’re sure they’ll fit in! It is really nice to know that they want to learn more about us and our lives because we are also interested in their culture and the way they live.
We have become more fluent in English having them around and they have taught us some French too “bonjour, ça va?” We have learnt so much being in this programme we can’t wait to see what the coming weeks bring and we hope to learn so much more.
It’s so easy to make friends with the UK volunteers. It’s amazing mixing and mingling with people of different cultures. Considering UK and national volunteers are different, when it comes to friendship we get along so easily. UK volunteers do not select whom to talk to or not to talk to. Even stepping on a UK volunteers's feet can create a friendship. They like hugging a lot, it’s quite different from what I am used to but to them it symbolises love and it is amazing! In general, they are cheerful and they value friendship and because of that we have learnt to be more sociable.
Written by national ICS volunteers Takudzwa & Colleta
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