My name is Marcos Garrido and I have been volunteering with KUBUKA since February 2017. After finishing my studies in Law and Business Administration, and inspired by my mother´s example, I went to Cameroon to help in an orphanage in the Batibó region.
After returning from Cameroon I started working as a tax lawyer, but always keeping in mind that idea of cooperation that was already in my head. Two years later I started a masters´ degree in Project Management for Cooperation and a year later I landed in Livingstone, which today is my second home.
My days in Livingstone are never the same, but almost every one of them starts with my morning visit to the Maramba Home Based Care group, or what I call “my little farm”. I take the bicycle, dodge a couple of cars and cover my nose when passing through the makeshift dump that gives access to the neighborhood of Maramba.
Women sweeping their gardens, the clanking of pots, the smell of coal and branches in the fire pits….I´m near my destination! A couple of children screaming to greet me as if I were a rock star and, that´s it!
After making a fool of myself watching how the women of the group, with an average age of 60, dig stronger than me, but with the energy they transmit, I prepare to return to the city. I arrive at the KUBUKA office and although it´s only been two hours, someone has already passed by asking about you. Joyce, our director, is waiting for me to go to the bank and, from Spain, they expect you to answer a couple of emails….the morning is already complete.
It´s time to eat and the day has been so busy that you don´t remember it was your time to cook….pasta, tomato and a lot of salt! No volunteer complains about the food in the KUBUKA house.
The afternoon is calmer. I usually spend them in the office and play computer work; accounting, financial projections and clarifying a couple of issues about…tasks that would feel more monotonous without the local music of our carwash neighbors in the background.
Around 20:00, the always smiling Mr Tembo, our security guard, marks the moment to start clearing up. We leave the office in his hands and set our way home. Once we arrive, we share our day with the rest of the team, noodles (they never fail) and we go to sleep.
“Make plans with the pillow before going to sleep, Zambia will take care, once again, to change your day in its own way”.
