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First Visit to Germany (Part 1)

On 22nd June, 2019 I travelled to Bonn in Germany for the first time using an Emirates flight at 21 25 from Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka. A few weeks before I travelled I had an operation to remove a cataract in my right eye. The doctor allowed me to travel, advising me to continue using the eye drops I had and also try to see an eye specialist in Germany. The purpose of this trip was to attend a UNESCO-UNEVOC Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Leadership Programme for 2 weeks from 24th June to 5th July. The flight to Bonn was via Dubai, a journey that took 8 hours. On the trip I did some reading, typing, reading, eating and some sleeping. The airline crew lived up to their reputation of great hospitality. Just that being on a big plane and their rule of serving meals to those in first class first, followed by those in business class and followed by those of us in economy class meant that hunger was almost at its peak by the time I got something to eat. 

We landed at Dubai International Airport in the morning at 06 00. It was my first time in this airport. It is huge and I was afraid of getting lost. But thank God for the constantly updated monitors and airport staff to guide us I was able to get to the right boarding gate. Being early morning, I was hungry and needed some food to eat. I bought some very basic breakfast some coffee and a croissant whose price shocked me when I got the notification on my phone on how much it cost in Zambian Kwacha! Having forgotten my wristwatch at home, it was just inevitable that I get a wristwatch. The flight to Frankfurt from Dubai was good and took total of almost 7 hours. Immigration facilities at Frankfurt Intern4th International Airport. To get to Bonn, the city hosting the Programme that I was attending, I had to take a train from Frankfurt and change trains in Seigburg, 10 kilometres from the the former seat of West German government. In the train I sat next to a lady who was working on what appeared to be a school assignment, this reminded me I had a conference paper to work on.

I was assisted by a local on which train to get on Bonn and when we reached in Bonn she helped me get on the correct taxi to my hotel. I was quite humbled and impressed by the hospitality and helpfulness I received. This was a recurring occurrence for me for the next two weeks. During the first week I stayed at Hotel Poppelsdorf. My room was adequate with the basics in place. A comfortable bed, a study desk, a shower with guaranteed hot water, a wardrobe and a balcony with a view of a street and flats across my room. After checking in and having a shower I needed to find something to eat. Thankfully though the time was after 21 00 the sun was still shining in the sky. So I walked down the street and found a restaurant about five minutes away from my hotel. The restaurant had mostly Spanish cuisine. I settled for some rabbit meat with some fried potatoes and vegetables. I enjoyed the meal along with some fruit juice. After a long flight, it was just in order to retire to bed and prepare for the first day of the workshop that I had come to attend.





The first Monday in Bonn began with some nice German breakfast. In case you are wondering what makes up German breakfast, it is bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, cold meats, yoghurt, coffee, fruit tea and cereal (see photo above). To get to the workshop venue, Grace from Kenya and I booked a taxi to the UNEVOC Centre campus. The registration process was smooth and so was the official opening. The leadership programme had a total of 24 participants drawn from Australia, Bolivia, Botswana, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, China, Italy, Canada, Northern Ireland, Finland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Nigeria, Jordan and. Quite a diverse class of participants of global citizens eager to learn leadership skills to move their countries forward in the technical and vocational education and training sector. An introduction to the TVET Leadership Programme was given by highlighting the rationale and the concept of the Programme. The first day of the Programme went on well and ended with a welcoming dinner at the Ocean Paradise. This restaurant was a boat floating on the Rhine River. The dinner afforded us an opportunity to continue the networking that had started earlier on at the workshop venue. It was good to interact with fellow participants and staff from the UNEVOC-UNESCO Centre over some delicious Chinese cuisine.

For the rest of the week the programme during the day was made up of a series of presentations and panel discussions by international TVET experts, a site visit to Cologne where we went to a training institution: Handwerkskammer zu Koln and to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research offices. These visits enabled me to learn first hand about the German Dual System that I had heard so much about.


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