My local dialogue

During my time in Zimbabwe I met a lot of beautiful and inspiring people. One day I had a really good conversation with one of the local staffmembers who is about my age, 22 years old. His name is Ashton and he has a wife and a one-year-old son. He rents a room from one of the coördinators on the project I worked, but he is slowly building his own house. It just takes a lot of money and time, but he'll get there. During our conversation we talked a lot about life, the earth and how some things are different but some things are also very similar in our two lifes. A summary of the answers on some interesting questions can be found below.

- Do you consider yourself to be a Global Citizen? Why?

Yes we both do, because we have to take care of the earth and we can't destroy the environment.

- What does Global Citizenship mean to you both?

Seperating your garbage and recycle as much as you can.

- What are the similarities and what are the differences between what both of you do daily/weekly/monthly?

Ashton works every week and gets 1,5 day off per week. When he has his day off, he goes to a small village nearby called Esigodini to visit his family. He also goes to town, Bulawayo, to do shopping with his wife and kid. When he's at home he works in the yard or fixes his car. Sometimes he goes to Botswana to buy bigger stuff like a TV, a car and clothes for his wife, kid, himself and the rest of his family. Basically, I do the same every week: working and if I have some time off, I go shopping or do some chores around the house. The big difference is that Ashton has to take care of his family, while I oly have to take care of myself.

- When you first met did you think you were very similar or very different? How do you feel about that now?

Ashton really likes working with all the volunteers. Even though we have a different skin color and different lives, we all have the same blood and basically try to have a good life. We all do that in our own way but in the end we all try to work, make money, buy food and other stuff to support ourselves and our families.

- What talents/skills do you use to do good things?

Driving is the gift Ashton thinks he got from God. He prayed to God to help him get his license so that he could drive cars. Getting his license wasn’t easy: first theoretical exam, then provisional lessons. At least 33 lessons during the day and 6 lessons at night. Then you have to practice the special maneuvers and after that you can go to VID for the final test. If you pass, you can get your license that same day. Ashton had to try nine times before he passed his exam, that was very expensive, but eventually he passed.

- What kind of skills/competences would you both like to learn still?

Ashton would like to learn more about the animals: their names, what they eat, how you have to take care of them and everything else there is to know about the animals at the project. When he knows everything he would like to work more with the animals, especially the snakes. I would also like to learn more about animals, but I'd also like to continue my study in psychology.

- How would you like to develop these skills/competences?

Ashton can learn things about the animals by asking about them to the boss and his wife and also by asking the other staff members who work with the animals. In contrast, I will do my studies at the University of Leiden.

- What are you proud of? Is that different or the same for you both?

Ashton mainly talked about being proud of having his job and how he is doing his job here. He tries not to complain and work hard to make money for him and his family. He is also proud of how he lives his life with his wife and son. I am very proud to do the voluntering I did in Zimbabwe.

- Which song, movie or book do you like?

Kungfu movies and other action movies is the favorite movie genre of Ashton, I also like them but it's not my favorite genre. Ashton likes it because he would like to do kungfu or karate himself someday, haha! But he always has to work now, so he wouldn’t have time to do it. We both listen to all sorts of music, but Ashton also listens songs in Shauni and Ndebele. What really stood out was that Ashton reads the Bible a lot. He used to read it every day and go to church. But now he works on Sunday so he can’t go to church anymore, but he still reads the Bible two times a week.

I had a really great time talking to Ashton, it was very interesting to learn some more about life in Zimbabwe for someone who is about my age! It was remarkable to find out that our lifes basically aren't that different. We all want to have a good life and to achieve that we have to work and make some money, make wise choices in life and take care of our family and environment.